It did not take Dabi long to find the insurance that he needed against the winged boy-wonder. With the help of the internet and old fashion tailing, he found himself a cute purple haired bargaining chip.
Dabi doesn't trust heroes, especially the type that reach out to villains with a cheap speech about how they sympathize with his people. Hawks is the bastard type with everything handed to them on a silver platter. With a flashy Quirk like his, he was destined for heroic greatness. So, in order for Dabi to ensure the boy-wonder remains obedient to their cause, he needs insurance. And that is when Dabi began tailing Asami Hatsuse.
Name: Asami Hatsuse. Age: 22 years old. Height: 165cm (5'4"). Weight: 54kg (120lbs). Hair: Dark purple. Eyes: Lavender. Quirk: Fluid Manipulation. Occupation: Public Relations Director for the Endeavor Hero Agency.
It troubles Dabi how easy it is to break into the private records and get the valuable private information of someone who is blindly compliant in the record keeping the government enforces on their citizens.
Thanks to Asami's law abiding ways, he knows everything about her. Her records show that at the age of eighteen, she was one of the first employees to be hired at Hawk's hero agency. She worked under him for two years until she unexpectedly quit, and joined Endeavor's Hero Agency with high recommendations from the Hawks Hero Agency, including the boy-wonder himself.
It doesn't take any brain power for Dabi to piece together what happened and read between the lines. It's clear they were caught fucking each other and she was forced out—whether or not by Hawks himself doesn't matter to Dabi. Nonetheless, she moved to Endeavor and has been working there for the past two years.
Watching her, Dabi comes to the realization that humans are routine creatures. Since she lives on the seventh floor of a Highrise, Dabi has been keeping tabs on her from an adjacent building that gives him access into her home with the help of some high-grade binoculars.
It never ceases to amaze Dabi how naïve people living on the higher floors can be, thinking that no one can see into their home. With her curtains fully drawn, he has a clear view of her entire one bedroom apartment.
Every day for the past week she wakes up at the ungodly hour of four in the morning. The first thing she does when she wakes up is make her bed, which Dabi just finds to be pointless since she's just going to crawl back into it at the end of the day.
Next, she gets dressed in workout clothes and takes the stairs down to a park that encircles the business district that she lives in. She then goes for an hour run. Dabi foolishly tried to keep up with her on the first day he was tailing her, but his smoke riddled lungs didn't let him get too far.
She's definitely one of those psychopaths that pretends running gives them an enjoyable high and probably doesn't shut up about it.
After her run she punishes herself even further by taking the stairs to the seventh floor of her apartment. She must be afraid of elevators. From there she cooks herself breakfast, and from what he can see, it's the same boring preprepared healthy shit daily.
Once she is finished with her breakfast and dishes, Dabi gets to watch as she takes off her clothes in the full view of her big open windows for him to enjoy. This is his favorite part of her day. Then she showers, and unfortunately there are no windows in her bathroom.
Once she is finished showering, she gets dressed and puts on makeup. He notices that every day she paints her nails a different color to match her outfit. He finds that to be a waste of time, and wonders how she has the patience to paint her nails daily.
After she is dressed, she takes the stairs and walks to the Endeavor Hero Agency where she arrives twenty minutes early every morning.
She makes it so damn easy to tail her, that Dabi finds himself bored of watching her, because every day is the damn same. Beyond the little strip tease she gives him; she lives such a painfully mundane life that he considers making Twice do these damn reconnaissance missions on her. But his selfish desires to watch her slip out of her clothes keeps him from bringing along the double personality villain.
Dabi sits outside of the Endeavor Hero Agency on a bench across the street where he waits for her every day for the past week. He cannot get a good view of her through the windows on the surrounding buildings, so there is no point to try and see what she does in there all day. So, from eight in the morning to somewhere around five or six in the afternoon, she stays in there and wastes the better part of her day doing god knows what for the shittiest hero on the planet.
She is clearly a workaholic because after returning home, she does nothing but work off her laptop and watch the news where they discuss the rankings and encounters of the top Pro Heroes.
She better be paid hourly for this shit, because this is slavery if she's not, then again, he wouldn't put it past that flaming asshole to expect this amount of dedication in a salaried role.
Dabi leans his head back on the bench that he has fastened for himself for the day, spreading his legs to take over the majority of the bench while his arms spread out over the backrest. He looks up at the clear sky, taking in a breath as he closes his eyes and basks in the sun.
There aren't many hero agencies around here, since competing with Endeavor would be suicide to one's career, so he is not bothered much for loitering, and if anyone tries, he's happy to give them a taste of his blue flames.
After a few hours, Dabi groans as he wakes himself up, cracking his sore neck from the awkward position he fell asleep in. He looks at his watch to see that she should be finishing up with work any minute and grunts as he thinks about the boring ass night that he has in store for him soon.
It has been a week and he has no concreate evidence that she and Hawks are—or were an item. He needs to know without a doubt that if he kidnaps her and holds her for ransom, boy wonder is going to be prisoner to his every whim, and that doesn't work if he doesn't give a shit about her.
He gets up when he sees her exiting the agency and he begins tailing her from a distance. He's so caught in the monotony of her life, that he practically misses when she turns down a street that she normally does not.
He perks up when he sees this with a fluttering in his heart at something finally new happening. He notices that she is not heading in the direction of her home, and he wonders if she is heading to Boy-wonder's.
The idea that she might have noticed him tailing her and she is leading him into a trap crosses his mind. His heart races at the idea and it brings a smile of excitement to his face. Will Endeavor meet with her to face the creep that's been following her? He doubts that piece of shit would give a damn about her wellbeing, but he can only hope.
She doesn't seem on edge and her shoulders are loose, so Dabi figures that she finally decided to do something worthwhile with her life instead of coming to the realization that she's being followed for the past week.
Damn, people can be so fucking oblivious, he shakes his head.
Eventually they reach a restaurant where she speaks with the waiter about meeting a friend for dinner, but he doesn't catch much of the exchange. The waiter gestures her to a table and to Dabi's delight, she is seated outside.
She takes a seat at a table where a white-haired woman with glasses sits reading the menu. Dabi leans against a nearby wall and digs his hands in his pockets looking uninterested as he lowers his head and perks up his ears to their conversation.
"Fuyumi!" he hears Asami shriek. "It's so good to see you!"
Dabi tenses, bringing his turquoise eyes up as he peers at the girls through his lashes. He glances back at her white hair again, only this time he notices the red streaks peeking through the snowy hair.
Fuyumi is a common name, he tells himself as his heart races.
"Asami!" she returns with the same excitement, lifting from her chair and hugging the girl. They both sit down and smile at one another as they sit across from each other. "So, how's work been going? My dad says that you have been putting in a lot of work with the Billboard Charts coming up. I think he's actually impressed."
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck!
You've got to be fucking kidding me!
Dabi's heart races, and if he were not planted against the wall of this building, he would have staggered back and fallen on his ass.
Outta all the fucking girls in Japan for you to be friends with it had to be fucking her?
His hands shake as he takes his phone out of his pocket. He attempts to dial Twice's number to get him out here, but the buttons of the phone melt at the rising heat emanating from Dabi's hands.
He growls as he tosses the burner to the ground and shatters it on impact. He takes in a deep breath and tries to regulate his temperature. He needs to calm himself. That is not his life anymore. He left them. They died when he did.
He takes in a deep breath, attempting to relax himself and get his attention back on what they are discussing. If nothing turns up then he is going to hand her off to Twice and wipe his hands of this girl. Twice can waste his time with her while Dabi goes back to incinerating people to ash.
He halfheartedly listens in on their conversation about shit that he truly doesn't care about, since the conversation does not revolve around Hawks or Endeavor and he groans to himself as he leans back uninterestedly.
He pulls out a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket, taking a stick and placing it between his lips. He returns the carton in his breast pocket and lazily lights it with his Quirk. He sucks in the nicotine, allowing the smoke to dance against his mouth for a moment before blowing out the cloud in front of his face. His nerves begin relaxing and his shoulders drop as he lowers his head once more to the ground to pay attention with his hearing only, periodically taking a drag here and there.
After a long conversation about her students, Fuyumi finally asks the question that he has been waiting for. "So, are you… are you and Hawks still…" she blushes sheepishly as she tries to approach the subject with some tact but fails miserably.
Asami sighs and Dabi lifts his head ever so slightly to watch her expressions through his lashes. Her shoulders are tight and tense and despite the smile plastered on her face, she is anything but happy at the rising subject.
She thinks for a long moment, and Dabi figures that she will not respond to the question but she finally does, "I guess," she says with an awkward shrug of her shoulders as she nervously wipes her palms on her thighs under the table.
Fuyumi tilts her head to the side at Asami's strange response and she nervously chuckles. Asami glances around the surrounding area and Dabi's heart skips a beat when her eyes land on his for a split second.
"I don't know, Yumi," she begins with slight dread in her tone. "We see each other on his terms, he's been quoted in interviews that he's single, and I get that it's all about the image the commission wants to sell, but it still doesn't feel good," she says solemnly as the white-haired girl frowns at her friend.
"I feel silly wanting more, but it's been three years since we first…" she stops, realizing that she is ruining the mood of their dinner and shakes the serious tone she's developed. She presses a forced laugh and shakes her head as strands of purple hair fling weightlessly in front of her face. "Sorry, I didn't mean to get like that."
Dabi frowns looking at the girl and seeing the hurt clearly lacing her eyes. He has his answer on their relationship, but it is not what he wants to hear. He needs to know that the winged douchebag cares about her more than an occasional slam piece for his insurance plan to have any merit to it.
"Asami, you need to tell him how you feel," she begins delicately. "Demand him to come over, and give him a piece of your mind," she continues sternly with a firm nod. "You tell him that if he doesn't want to make you his girl, then you will find a man who will."
Dabi can't help but smile at her advice, finding a strange solace with the information that she has a strong sense of self-worth. "Not that you are property and belong to a man," she doubles back and Dabi chuckles.
He quickly recovers, clearing his throat and taking a drag to mask the fact that he laughed and felt lighthearted for a moment. "Give me your phone, I'm texting him now," she demands sternly.
"Fuyumi," she goes to scold her, but the snowy girl snatches the phone from the table before she can say another word. "Fuyumi! Give it back!" she begs the girl with wide fearful eyes as her heart drops, but she does not listen and quickly sends out the text. Asami snatches the phone from her, looking in dismay to see the text was sent. "'You're coming over tonight. No excuses,'" she reads with annoyance in her tone. "Because that's not desperate at all."
"Well, I was going to send a winking face, but you took the phone away," Fuyumi adds and Asami rolls her eyes. Her phone chimes and Fuyumi's eyes widen with excitement, "well?"
Asami looks down at the text response with shock in her eyes, not expecting his response. "He said 'yes ma'am'," she giggles and Fuyumi claps happily.
Dabi smiles to himself, about fucking time.