He puffed out the smoke in a harsh breath, the delicate sound seeming so loud in the quiet and isolated hallway. For a moment you forgot about your late History paper and the chances of you getting anything lower than an A.

Both of your palms met the fabric of your denim-clad thigh in a light slap, arms sagging and voice raising. “If you and I get caught－!”

“Then leave.”

The deadpan and harsh delivery of his words left you open-mouthed, the disapproving look of your teacher once again flashing in your mind. The corners of your eyes warmed again, stinging more than the way it did earlier.

You’re croaking out an unwanted explanation before you realized it. “I － I might get detention and－,” you sniffled, trying to prevent the tears from flowing because you know how embarrassing that would be, so much so to this mysterious person who you found familiar but not really. “And my parents－.”

A scoff cuts you off. You watched as he killed the ember of the cigarette using his bare fingers, pinching the lit end between his thumb and forefinger before tucking it in one of his front pockets. If it weren’t for the strong stench of the cigarette, no one would suspect that he was smoking here, in front of you, inside campus grounds.

“Of course. Precious little [Name] can’t have bad grades and a bad record.”

He said it as if it was so bad. You wouldn’t normally find offense on jabs like those, but today wasn’t just your day. Your retort died down quickly in your throat though when you realized he said your name. He knew you.

With furrowed brows and quivering lips, you asked, “how do you know me?”

The dark-haired man leaned on the concrete wall, shoving a hand down the pocket of his pants. “Who wouldn’t know the teachers’ favorite student? Straight A, little miss [Name].”

It was your turn to scoff. “Favorite,” you mocked, eyes rolling, “I didn’t know being the favorite meant not considering the fact that I didn’t know the deadline was 5 days ago without anyone else informing me.”

A smirk blossomed on his stupidly handsome face. “For once you didn’t get away with something, huh?”

“Didn’t get away? I didn’t know! I had no idea! It’s not my fault.”

“Hmm.”

“It’s true.”

“If you say so,” he chuckled, pushing himself off the wall and taking two steps back, eyes still on you. He winked, then turned around. The silence in the hallway felt deafening as you stood there, but the quick footsteps of his figure walking back towards you eats up the quiet. “Or on second thought,” he says, tapping a foot on the floor, “I can excuse you to the teacher about your late paper.”

It seemed like the tears of frustration pooling at the sides of your eyes retreated back to your tear glands, ears more than ready to hear out whatever his proposition was.

“If you act as my fake girlfriend for a Christmas dinner with my family, I’ll tell the teacher that I tricked you about the deadline.”

You looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “And that’s going to work?”

“Have you seen me, doll? I’m that boy your teacher refers to as a bad influence.”

“You should not be hanging out with people like him, [Name.]”

Mrs. Nakamura’s disappointed tone does nothing to stop the smile spreading on your face, though you tried to suppress it to not come off as suspicious. You’re nodding your head like you’re agreeing with her, knowing that that will not happen any time soon because you have a Christmas dinner with your boyfriend’s family in less than three weeks.

“Go on then,” your teacher waved her hand, “you aren’t marked as late but remember what I told you. If you keep that boy around you, trouble’s sure to follow.”

The hallway didn’t feel as dark and lonesome as it did earlier. It’s surely not because of the other person walking along with you. You’d like to think that, but a part of you knew you might just be lying. And it was stupid, really. Were you really harboring a crush over him? You. . . don’t even know his name.

“What’s your name?”

A choked laugh was the reply you got. “What? You don’t know me?”

“You’re familiar. I just can’t put a name on you,” you shrugged.

“Touya. Todoroki Touya,” he answered, grimacing. “But call me Dabi. That’s what my friends call me.”

“Are you saying we’re friends?” You grinned, looking up at him. He was tall, okay. So much more taller than you. You barely reached his shoulders.

“Technically, you’re my girlfriend, so no. We are not friends.”

You decided technicalities weren’t so bad when Dabi almost never left your side. The sudden (and quite cliché yet comic) pair you two made didn’t go unnoticed by the teachers. Mrs. Nakamura reminded you every single day about Dabi and his troubles. You aren’t aware what kind of troubles Dabi is associated in yet, but you’d like to think you’ll get there.

When you agreed to pretend to be his girlfriend, you didn’t think it would be this kind of long-term thing. You thought that maybe he’ll leave you alone after that day and just hit you up again on the day of the dinner, but you were so wrong.

You’ve never liked being wrong as much as you did about him.

“Stop fussing, my mom’s going to love you.”

He’s said that for the fourth time now. You’re making him more antsy than you are with your bouncing leg and deep sighs every ten seconds.

“And your dad?” You glare at him, wiping your clammy hands on your jeans and bouncing your leg again. He rolls his eyes as an answer.

In the short, three weeks you’ve gotten to know Dabi, you learned a lot about him. One, he hates his father passionately. Two, the teachers don’t really like him (but that sounds so mean when worded like that so you like to think he just isn’t the favorite student.) Three, he’s allergic to fish. Four, he pays attention to every single thing you say. Five, he’s actually the eldest out of the four Todoroki children and lastly, (this is more about you than him) maybe you let your little crush fester more than you planned.

You’ve had to berate yourself multiple times that he is not your boyfriend. You and Dabi are not in a real relationship. This is all a product of your grades being saved and an arrangement to fill up an empty seat at his family’s dinner for Christmas.

“What if your sister doesn’t like me,” you say meekly, “or your brother. And your other brother.”

Dabi shifts on the bench you both are sitting on to face you properly, placing a warm hand over your sweaty ones. “Stop it. They’re going to love you.”

It’s your turn to roll your eyes but really, you’re just having a hard time making your brain function properly to process a reply when his hands are there, on top of yours, warm and soothing. It makes your heart do a little happy dance inside your chest that you know it should not be doing, but you can’t help it.

You’re way too deep into this hell, and you don’t know how you’ll take it when he cuts you off after you both benefit from this arrangement you have.

When Dabi pulls you up to stand up before he walks you home, you try to remember how his hands felt against yours.

“You look nice.”

Nice. You had to rummage through your closet for this halter dress, the most decent thing you can find that can fit for a Christmas dinner. It’s 6 PM on the 24th of December and even though this isn’t how you expected to spend the night before Christmas, here you are anyway.

“You look nice too,” you compliment, taking in how Dabi is wearing an actual pair of decent slacks and a button up. A nervous laugh bubbles out of your throat. “You said it was a simple dinner date so I was kind of expecting you to just show up in one of your old, ragged jeans, you know?!”

He quirks his head to the left, the sides of his lips turned up. Dabi offers you his hand as you descend the few steps from your apartment door. “It was,” he says, “but my mom made me wear this when I said I’ll bring a girl over.”

“Haven’t you brought a girl over before?”

A mischievous smile spreads over Dabi’s face, a thumb pressing a gentle pressure on the back of your hand. “No. You’re special because you’re the first one.”

Great. It’s not like you’re not nervous enough about meeting the Todorokis. He just has to tell you you’re the first girl his family will meet. What makes it worse is that you aren’t really Dabi’s girlfriend. It seems a little selfish on both of your parts to let the rest of his family get to know you and then you’ll never see them again because, well, this arrangement can’t last forever, can it?

“And you have a car?” You gasp, eye zeroing in on the sleek, black vehicle parked across the street where you both are heading. “You have a car?”

He chuckles, shaking his head side to side. “This is my dad’s, actually.” He says it again with an eye roll, opening up the passenger door for you. “He only made me use it to impress you.”

“Like I’m not impressed enough?” You huff out a laugh, palms gliding over the dashboard.

“Impressed by what?”

You, you’d like to answer, but for the sake of your sad excuse of a relationship, you keep your mouth shut.

“Things.”

The ride to their place was filled with back and forth banter from you and Dabi. He’s tried to calm you down when a new wave of nervousness surged within you but as you stand in front of their door with hands sweating an entire Pacific ocean, it’s obvious his attempt didn’t work.

“Calm down,” Dabi says, forehead scrunched as he watches you fiddle with the skirt of your dress. You’ve been standing there for about two minutes now and if your goal is to make your nervousness rub off on him, then you’re doing a pretty good job.

“Is my hair okay?” You fuss over some more, smoothing out the unruly strands that weren’t even there. “Is my face－?”

Dabi grabs your hands in his, calloused fingers wrapping around yours. The words die in your throat as you look up at him with wide eyes, mind blanking out at the warmth on your palm.

“You look beautiful, okay? If you touch your hair or smooth your skirt one more ti－.”

“I knew I heard you guys!”

An enthusiastic voice of a girl almost the same height as you rings through your ears and you look over to see his sister, Fuyumi, white and red hair parted in the middle and over her shoulders. You’ve seen her in some pictures in Dabi’s phone because you’re in that stage where you can just casually unlock and go through Dabi’s phone. (You haven’t seen anything unusual yet, just some candid pictures of you that you have no idea how he took. Bless your poor heart after you discovered that album dedicated just for you.)

Fuyumi places her hands on her hips, smiling brightly at you. “I thought Touya was just lying about you to escape the marriage arranged for him but turns out he isn’t.” She opens the door wider for you and Dabi. “Come in. Mom’s been waiting for you.”

The Todoroki household is neat. Minimalist. You aren’t sure if it’s spacious or it’s an illusion due to the lack of decorations inside. Fuyumi immediately hugs you after you and Dabi are completely inside, and she leads you away to meet Natsuo and Shouto. The sight of Natsuo startles you at first. He looks exactly like how you envisioned Dabi to be if he didn’t have scars. And seriously, what’s up with this family having scars? You noticed a dark crimson circling Shouto’s right eye.

Mrs. Todoroki is the most welcoming of them all, if not as much as Fuyumi. Her hand immediately went to your hair, patting softly and smiling delicately at you.

“I never imagined the day would come when Touya finally brings home a girl,” she whispers. The sight of her eyes getting glassy is enough to make your own gloss over, though it’s for an entirely different reason. How cruel can you and Dabi be to pretend and lie like this in front of his mom?

“Oh, please don’t cry! Did I make you cry?” She laughs tearfully, squeezing your shoulder. You choke out a laugh at her reaction, shaking your head no.

“I leave her alone for five minutes and you already made her cry?” Comes Dabi’s voice at the entryway of the kitchen, his tall frame blocking the path. He walks over to where you and Rei are standing, placing a warm hand on the small of your back. “What did mom say to make you cry?”

Rei sniffles and you dab a finger under your eyes, trying to keep your tears at bay. “Nothing,” you reply, unconsciously leaning back on his chest as you keep your emotions in check. In front of you, Rei has a fond look in her eyes as she watches Dabi tuck a strand of hair behind your ears and your wobbly smile directed at her son.

Your little moment is ruined when the front door shuts close with a loud rattle. Dabi tenses behind and you crane your neck enough to see across the living room a tall and broad man with bright red hair.

“That’s your father,” Mrs. Todoroki sighs.

The food is good but the dinner is awkward. Todoroki Enji made sure that either you nor Dabi will be able to sit through tonight peacefully.

“I’m surprised you managed to stick around my son this long,” Enji rumbles, looking at you briefly before going back to his meal. Four months. That’s what you and Dabi came up with for your pretend relationship. You’ve been dating for four months and you both knew each other after getting paired up for a History project. It’s not much of a lie since you did meet because of History.

“I’m surprised Dabi managed to stick around me this long,” you reply nervously, trying to make light of the situation. It seems you only made it worse when Enji’s sharp eyes bote onto yours.

“Dabi?” He inquires, head tilting to the side. The rest of the Todorokis are quiet except him. “You call him that?”

You nod, stomach churning. Any time now and you might just throw up. “You call him by that name, huh?” He chuckles hollowly, shaking his head. “Imagine my surprise when I saw you here, much less as Touya’s infamous girlfriend. If I didn’t know better, he just hired you as a fake girlfriend to run away from tradition.”

Tradition. Right. Dabi has mentioned to you once that his parents were arranged. He’s told you how he knows his father doesn’t really love his mom. You know about the abuse and the way he treats his family.

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong because what Dabi－,” you pause, turning briefly to look at him, “Touya. What Touya and I have is pretty much real.”

Enji scoffs, a large, heavy palm slapping on the smooth surface of their mahogany table. “Tell me that again when you’re still here a year from now.”

“Sure,” you smile, cheeks aching with how forced it is. It baffles you how Dabi’s father has all the authority in this household －how no one dares to object or talk back.

Todoroki Enji decides to surprise when deep chuckles start escaping his lips. “You,” he points a finger at you, “I like you. You’re brave. Not a single person in this household can face me like that. You’re too good for that boy,” he nods over Dabi’s direction. From your peripheral, you can see just how tight Dabi’s hands are clenched, and you reach over to place one over his.

“Actually, he’s too good for me,” you quip back. You have no idea where this sudden surge of confidence is coming from, but that doesn’t matter. You need to say what you have to say. You wouldn’t be seeing this family ever again after this anyways. “Touya is actually a good man. He’s more than what meets the eye. Maybe you’ll know that if you paid enough attention to him － and all your children, honestly.”

There’s no taking back what you just spewed out. Too stunned, you aren’t aware of the smug smirk and raised eyebrows Dabi is sporting. You don’t see the way Natsuo is trying to fight off his smile. Mrs. Todoroki and Fuyumi have a hand in their faces and Shouto, for the first time since you arrived, looks at you wholly and quite in awe. With your blood rushing in your ears and heart beating erratically, you open your mouth to excuse yourself, but Dabi beats you to it.

“Now if you would just excuse us.” And he’s tugging on your hand. You whisper out a quiet “I’m sorry,” when you pass by Rei, and you’re out of the front door.

“So,” you grin, hugging the mug of hot chocolate to your chest with your feet tucked beneath you. “On a scale of one to ten, how good was I at ruining your family’s dinner?”

After that whole dinner fiasco, you both just decided to go home to your apartment. Dabi is currently sprawled over the other end of your couch, his feet perched on the coffee table (you told him three times already to put it down) and three of his shirt buttons are undone. He’s got his own cup of hot chocolate on his hand, the other playing with the frills of your throw pillow.

“An eleven,” he grins back at you. He leans over and places his mug on the table. “That took guts.”

You nod. “It did. It just didn’t sit right with me how he talked about you like that, like － I remember you telling me how he used to be all over you as a child, but after Shouto was born, he neglected all of you. He isn’t － That’s not － What kind of father does that?” You sigh, groaning when you remember Rei and the rest of his siblings had to witness that.

“That is so embarrassing. I’m pretty sure your mom hates me now.”

“Trust me,” Dabi chuckles, sitting upright and moving closer to you, “she does not. You should have seen Natsu. He was about to lose it.”

“Still,” you press, throwing him a dirty look. “Who talks like that to their boyfriend’s dad on the first meeting?”

Dabi stares at you, turquoise eyes brighter than ever. “So I’m your boyfriend now?”

You’re pretty sure your heart just skipped a beat at that. “I mean, t-technically. Right? That was － That was what we － That was what we were pretending to be.”

Reality dawns on you again. This is all pretend. No matter how warm Rei and his sibling welcomed you, no matter how much Rei adored you, you’ll never see them again. This is a one time thing － something beneficial for the two of you. And as much as it breaks your heart that you got attached to Dabi that fast, you try to hide your sadness by saying, “at least I won’t see them again, so technically, talking back to your dad is fine.”

“Do you want to though?”

“I － What?”

Dabi leans closer. “Do you want to stop pretending?”

You don’t answer. You can’t answer. “Is this a trick question?”

He goes closer. The tips of his hair are grazing your forehead. Even this close, Dabi seems to be looming over you. “I wouldn’t mind making it real.”

“I really don’t want to see your father again,” you whisper. Dabi barely closes the gap between the two of you, nose touching yours.

“We can arrange that.”