Chapter Text
Dabi gets the call on a Saturday morning in late spring.
“We have an interesting proposition,” Kurogiri says down the phone with enough inflection that Dabi’s suspicions are immediately raised. He says it with the same urgent gravitas that he tends to use regardless of subject matter, but something distinctly curious works its way through the words; something, as he says, interesting.
“What?” Dabi garbles through a mouthful of pillow. His mouth tastes like something crawled in it, died, resurrected, put up a fight sliding down his oesophagus, and died again somewhere in his stomach. His body is a hollow shell. He really needs to stop fucking drinking.
“I need you to come to the League Records HQ. Immediately.”
Because Dabi doesn’t answer to anyone, he doesn’t do that. Instead, he hangs up, rolls over, and falls asleep with the sun beaming light across his bed from the gaps in his half-broken blinds.
Kurogiri calls him again half an hour later.
“Dabi, I mean it.”
“I’m on my way,” Dabi grumbles, staring up at his bedroom ceiling. If he squints, the cracks running through the plaster disappear, blurring into a smoothed-over illusion. He slings an arm over his forehead, the weight soothing against his creeping headache. “I’m literally around the corner. I’m crossing the street with the ugly coffee shop on it.”
“No, you’re not,” Kurogiri says with an amount of patience that is sure to garner him sainthood when he finally moves on from the living world. “I’m location tracking you.”
Dabi sighs, long and hard. Fucking Kurogiri. Dabi’s not that much of a liability; he only goes missing every once in a while, and it isn’t any of Kurogiri’s business where he is, anyway. He keeps turning off his location services, but Kurogiri somehow always manages to switch them back on without him noticing.
He sighs again, for good measure, directly into the microphone on his phone. He hopes it crackles in his manager’s ear.
“Tell me what this is about first,” he says. He struggles into sitting and winces when a sunbeam lances directly into his eyes. He scrubs at his face, runs a hand through his hair. His fingers catch on the tangles.
“I can’t do that over the phone. This is supremely confidential. I had to sign an NDA just to be able to pass this information onto you.”
Dabi’s mouth twists. There has to be celebrity politics involved, then. Dabi hates fucking NDAs. Nothing is ever that important or exclusive that it needs to be hidden in twenty pages of small print.
“You’re really selling it to me,” he tells Kurogiri, and hopes his eye roll travels down the phone line. Regardless, he starts rooting around in the folds of his duvet; he’s convinced he took off last night’s shirt in bed, when the tequila made it seem the most logical course of action, so it has to be buried somewhere around here.
He finds it, holds it up to his face for a perfunctory sniff. It smells like smoke and stale sweat, but that’s practically Dabi’s signature scent at this point in his life.
He knows he has to cut it out. The bars and the late nights and the hours spent running away from himself at a sticky table in a dark room. His hangover pulses through him with every heartbeat, his hands shaking as he hauls himself out of bed.
He hopes Toga and Bubaigawara are no better off. They instigated it; Dabi was going to have a clean night for once. He was, really. He’s been in the studio all week, and that much extended time with Shigaraki while he puts Dabi’s songs through excruciating production methods is enough to make him not want to interact with another single human ever again.
Toga and Bubaigawara, however, are very convincing. Therefore, Dabi has a hangover and Kurogiri is on the end of the line still prattling on about uninteresting legalities while he struggles to get into his day-old shirt.
“I’ll be twenty minutes,” he interrupts Kurogiri mid-sentence, hanging up before he receives confirmation. Kurogiri can sit tight and wait for him. Dabi doesn’t rush for anyone.
He’s unsteady when he finally stands, but his body seems to remember what the act of walking involves even though his brain is about three steps behind. He trips over one of his guitars on the way to the bathroom, and it slides from the wall to the floor with a dull, echoing thump. He leaves it there, the echo of the strings following him through the apartment as he pieces himself into the semblance of a functioning person.
Dabi’s no stranger to hauling his shit together when he’s got the hangover shakes, as often as it tends to happen, but he thinks he’s on a terrible comedown this morning. Last night was as uneventful as ever, the same dive bar, the same drinks, the same petty arguments as usual. He can’t help the slow curl of anxiety settled in his chest, though, one that squeezes tight.
Kurogiri isn’t one to call so out of the blue. Kurogiri likes schedules. Kurogiri emails Dabi colour-coded spreadsheets at the beginning of every week so he knows exactly where he’s supposed to be at all times. Maybe it’s coddling, or distrust, or something else bad for Dabi’s independent wellbeing, but it’s the only way he doesn’t go completely off the fucking rails.
He walks the feeling off anyway, donning his sunglasses with as much slow grace as he can when he steps into the street and wants to throw up at the brightness of it.
League Records only occupies a floor of one of the huge skyrises uptown. Musutafu is small, for a city; it’s steeped in hills, so the corporate buildings at its centre smudge the rolling green horizon, rising indomitable above the suburbs. The walk takes twenty minutes; Dabi takes thirty, just because he can.
The building elevator only stops at Floor 10 and above. Dabi has to haul himself up to Floor 9 on foot, wishing he’d died in his sleep instead of being subjected to the gruelling effort of step after step, headache rattling around his skull with every floor he reaches.
When Dabi enters League Records’ biggest meeting room, it smells like coffee. Good coffee, the kind that Dabi still can’t really afford but Kurogiri always buys.
That’s the first thing he notices. The second thing he notices is that Kurogiri isn’t alone; he’s caught in conversation with a woman, looking far too put-together for Dabi’s liking in a tailored pantsuit, a stack of papers on the long conference table in front of her.
The floor-to-ceiling windows flood the meeting room with yellow spring light. Musutafu stretches out below them, the view free from skyscrapers as tall as this one. They have the monopoly on big ugly buildings, so they can watch all of the peasants going about their lives below from their cushy office. Dabi doesn’t swing by often, but when he does he likes to take a moment to watch the city move and resent it.
Kurogiri slides a steaming takeaway cup across the table as Dabi lopes over. He cuts straight to the chase.
“Dabi, this is Coleope. She’s a representative for Hawks’ management.”
Hand hovering over the cup, Dabi pauses. He looks at the woman over the tops of his sunglasses, hoping his stare unsettles her. “Hawks?”
“No, it’s Coleope,” she says, mouth twitching like she’s said something funny.
“Ha, ha,” he replies, droll and uninterested.
He slumps down into one of the spinning chairs at the long table, letting the momentum take him in a lazy circle motion. When he’s back to facing the table, he puts one booted foot on the impossibly polished surface, followed quickly by the other one.
He finally pushes his sunglasses up to the top of his head. He takes a sip of coffee, wills the liquid to give him the strength he needs to face whatever’s about to happen to him. He doesn’t like the way Coleope is looking at him, something calculated in her eyes. He offers her a mocking wave, and she finally breaks her stare, looking instead to the papers on the table in front of her.
“So,” he drawls. “What’s cookin’ behind the scenes?”
“Dabi,” Coleope says. She neatens up the stack of paper in front of her with a prim little tap on the table. It echoes through the room; Kurogiri is silent at the head of the table. Her eyes flicker to the top sheet, and when they return to Dabi he senses he’s already in trouble. “What do you know about PR relationships?”
Dabi has one foot in a hangover. Dabi is in last night’s clothes. Dabi has been running entirely on fumes since he rolled out of bed and is therefore struggling to do basic human tasks like focus his eyes properly.
Dabi, however, is not stupid. He figures it out pretty quick – there’s only so many reasons why a representative of one of the biggest musicians in the world could be sitting in this meeting room, asking him what he knows about fake relationships.
“Nope,” he says. He pushes to standing. “No, thank you. Absolutely not. No way in fucking hell. Whatever you’re about to suggest – over my dead fucking body.”
“Dabi, sit down.”
Dabi continues to stand. He puts his hands on his waist and stares Coleope down. He turns his head to the side and stares Kurogiri down. He’s waiting for someone to laugh. No one does, so he takes one for the team and laughs at what has to be the worst prank of the century.
His laugh comes out scratchy, and he has to cough afterwards. He’s still met with silence.
“I can see you may have put two and two together,” Coleope condescends.
“You fucking think?”
“Let me explain further.”
“Kurogiri,” Dabi says, a little desperately.
“Let her explain further.”
Coleope slides a sheet of paper across the table. The only thing on it is a printed picture of Hawks, a generic red carpet photo that looks like it came off the first page of Google images.
“Who’s that?” Dabi asks, affecting ignorance. Never mind the fact that he was complaining about Hawks in the recording studio the other day, lamenting to Shigaraki that Hawks’ squeaky-clean pop production is sucking the life out of authentic music as they know it. He could’ve been talking about anyone. He’s not stingy with his relentless bitching.
“You know who Hawks is,” Kurogiri says.
Dabi hums. “I’m not sure I do.”
“Better learn quick, then,” Coleope says, unsympathetic. She pushes the rest of her pile of paper over to Dabi.
Dabi stares down at the text on the top sheet.
NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT (NDA)
This Non-Disclosure Agreement (or “Agreement”) has been entered into on the date of 1st May 2XXX and is by and between:
Party Disclosing Information: Hawks (via The Commission) (“Disclosing Party”)
Signature: ______________
Party Receiving Information: Dabi (via League Records) (“Receiving Party”)
Signature: ______________
He doesn’t have the energy to force a laugh again. Kurogiri’s stupid expensive coffee bribe is going down like poison.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I’ll need you to sign the top sheet before we proceed any further.”
“And I’m not signing shit until I know what I’m selling myself into.”
Coleope stares him down. Her eyes are so dark Dabi can practically see himself reflected in them.
He sneers at her. She doesn’t twitch.
“You’re not selling yourself into anything.” She must have taken lessons in patience from Kurogiri. “This first NDA isn’t binding you to anything. It’s just to ensure that anything we discuss in this room today won’t end up on social media tomorrow if you don’t agree to your end of the deal.”
“So there’s more to sign?”
“Oh, yes,” she says cheerily. Dabi doesn’t trust her, the way her smile sharpens at the corners. “Much more. Come on, then. Sign it, will you? I have a two o’clock I can’t be late for.”
Grumbling, Dabi snatches the pen that Kurogiri holds out to him. He scribbles his signature with such force that the pen nib threatens to pierce the paper; he expects that if he lifts the page, he’ll see the imprint indented on the page below.
“Perfect. Now – let me ask you again, Dabi. What do you know about PR relationships?”
“Do you want the real answer or the joke answer?”
“Let’s hear the joke answer.”
Dabi drains the cup of coffee, the cardboard bending in his grip when he slams it down on the table. “I know that PR relationships are probably about to make my life very difficult.”
“Ha, ha,” Coleope says in a precise mockery of Dabi’s laugh from earlier. “Now give me the real answer.”
Kurogiri has trained Dabi well; a prerequisite for him signing to League Records was that he had to engage in more than just the music, as much as he vehemently resents it. He recites like he’s reading from a textbook, remembering what Kurogiri has drilled into him: “PR relationships are a way for two people of certain levels of fame to get publicity for individual projects by pretending to date.”
“Very good,” Coleope says, like Dabi’s five. “Now that we’ve established that, you know why you’re here. We need you to enter into a fake relationship with Hawks.”
Dabi snorts. “No.”
“Dabi,” Kurogiri says warningly.
“What’s in it for me?” He stares Coleope down, waiting for her façade to crumble. She has to be insane, coming to him like this. He has a goddamn reputation, and nowhere in his public persona is there space for someone as blindingly clean-cut as Hawks.
“He’s one of the most famous musicians in the world – if not the most famous. You get to reap the benefits of his fame. Everyone is going to know your name after this emerges. I’ve been informed you’re releasing your debut album shortly, and while your marketing efforts may be admirable, nothing is going to be as effective as having the eyes of the world on you, through Hawks.”
Dabi doesn’t trust it, and he resents the fact that she’s needling at the one pain point that’s been following him as he’s been finishing up this goddamn album. “And what’s in it for him?”
“He gets to come out in a way that suits his image. If we show him in a stable, committed relationship, he is less likely to be completely ostracised by the general public.”
Dabi stares at the piece of paper Coleope slid over earlier. Reduced to a 2D image, Hawks’ glimmer has been condensed to nothing, and all Dabi sees is a vain, vapid twenty-something posing in a suit that probably costs more than Dabi’s rent for the year.
“Don’t people normally agree to enter PR relationships to cover up the fact that they’re gay?” he asks. Quite honestly, discovering that Hawks is gay is the least shocking part of this whole exchange. Dabi always thought there was something off about him, that his ladykiller reputation was disingenuous.
“Well, yes,” Coleope says. “However, Hawks has never cared about what other people normally do.”
“Why not just put out a statement?”
“This is the compromise we’ve agreed on based on the circumstances. Hawks has a very carefully curated public image. He’s a man of the people, to put it colloquially. He’s not the type to get caught up in the details of something.”
Dabi doesn’t point out the irony of ‘carefully curated public image’ and ‘not the type to get caught up in the details.’
“Tell me your reservations,” Coleope says instead of continuing with her blind reassurances. ”Lay them out for me and I’ll try and help assuage them.”
“Well, for one, I don’t make music for tween girls,” Dabi sneers.
“Neither does Hawks.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“I have statistics,” Coleope says. She slides over another sheet of paper. Dabi doesn’t know where she’s pulling them all from, and isn’t sure he wants to know. “Roughly thirty-five percent of his audience is girls in the twelve to seventeen range. However, thirty percent are girls between eighteen to thirty, and the remaining thirty-five percent are men. I’ve seen your fan statistics too, Dabi. They’re not much different. Now, what else?”
“Well, look at him,” Dabi says, stabbing at the piece of paper with Hawks’ red carpet picture on it. “And look at me.” He points the same finger at himself.
“I don’t see the problem,” Coleope says.
“Oh, you don’t?” Dabi mocks. If he were to guess Hawks’ type, he wouldn’t say it was people like him, undernourished and hungering in the dark. Hawks is his complete antithesis; light hair, tan skin, healthy glow that Dabi very much lacks. No one’s going to believe that the two of them could have fallen for each other. Hawks isn’t Dabi’s type, anyway; too squeaky-clean, too sanitised and fake-charming.
“You’re a very handsome young man, Dabi,” Kurogiri says diplomatically, finally speaking up again.
“Oh, shut up.”
“We also think you two would create an interesting narrative,” Coleope adds. “Sweetheart falls for the so-called ‘bad boy’”—she creates air quotations around the phrase as she speaks it—“is an age-old story. People are going to eat it up, trust me.”
“I take it I’m the sweetheart,” Dabi says. He doesn’t dare smile when she looks him in the eye.
“If that’s what you’d like to believe,” Coleope replies. Her smile, on the other hand, hasn’t left her face, maintaining the same shape, the same professional distance. “You two don’t have to worry about a thing, though. Our PR team is going to do all of the work. With help from Kurogiri, of course.”
Again with the politics. Dabi wasn’t put on this planet to be marketed to people like a product. He doesn’t care if that’s how Hawks wants to waste his precious years, but he’s so far beyond caring about being sellable that the idea of him partaking is laughable.
“Listen,” Dabi says. “I just want to make music. That’s all I want to do. I don’t care if I’m famous or not. I don’t care if I’m a millionaire or not. All of this just sounds like unwanted work, too much effort, and a scheme that’s going to stop me from doing the one fucking thing I want to do.”
He thinks he’s won when Coleope sits back in her chair, her eyes narrowing like he’s a puzzle she can’t figure out, until Kurogiri speaks again.
“We don’t have any money left,” Kurogiri says.
Dabi pauses. “What?”
“Our funds have been diminishing for a while now. The budget I allocated for your album – congratulations on being nearly finished, by the way, Shigaraki was in contact – is all I have for you. I don’t mean to dramatise the situation we’re in, but I’m honestly at an impasse. If you don’t get the exposure you need with the release and don’t sell enough copies then there’s not going to be a press circuit, there’s not going to be a tour, and there aren’t going to be further albums at the record company as it stands.”
Kurogiri is unphased by the growing tension emanating from Dabi as he speaks, the way Dabi’s shoulders curl inwards, eyebrows dipping into an indignant frown. Kurogiri’s never been phased by it, Dabi’s propensity to look like he’s fantasising murder, but Dabi half wishes he was phased by it now.
“And you’re only telling me this now?”
“I sensed,” Kurogiri says delicately, “that I might need this trump card at some point in the future. Not only will you get the exposure you need, but The Commission will generously invest the funds needed to support you, Toga, and Bubaigawara through the next year, at least, if you agree to this stunt.”
“Kurogiri,” Dabi says, with utmost betrayal. Kurogiri looks on impassively.
“Boss man said it right,” Coleope says cheerily. “Now, let’s get into it. You and Hawks are going to pretend to be in a committed relationship for just under a year – until the end of next April – although there is potential to extend the partnership if there is need for it. You will be required to either make a public appearance or a social media post about each other at least once a week – I’m aware that your brand isn’t social focused, so adjustments have been noted in the contract we’ve written up. If you are planning on continuing or forming any genuine relationships on the side, I highly recommend you don’t, but if you do just don’t get caught.”
Dabi hates this. He says he hates a lot of things, but he truly, genuinely hates this. This wasn’t on the cards for him. He doesn’t want to be tied down to some air-headed guy while he sorts out his shit, doesn’t want the distraction at such a crucial point in his career.
Dabi also hates that Kurogiri is pulling out the sob story on him. Dabi owes a lot to Kurogiri, not just in terms of his career. Kurogiri is practically his de facto father at this point, which makes things kind of weird, and also means Dabi can’t just storm out despite the fact that, as he might have mentioned before, he hates this.
“And where is the bird?” Dabi asks. He makes a show of looking around the room, despite the fact that there’s nowhere to hide and it’s clearly only the three of them in there. “Is he hiding under the desk? Is he too shy to show his face? Afraid to meet his new boyfriend?”
Coleope shrugs. “We couldn’t find time in his schedule for the four of us to meet. However, that’s where your next mission – so to speak – comes in. I hope you’re not busy on Monday night.”
“I have plans,” Dabi lies.
“Not anymore, you don’t,” Coleope says. “Hawks is attending a charity gala and afterparty on Monday night. There will be lots of very famous and important people there, which is why we have to first show you off to them. You will be going as Hawks’ date. You will stay by his side, have a couple of drinks, and look pretty. Nothing else.
“Now, at some point during the evening, we’re going to fake a paparazzi shot. You and Hawks are going to leave through a back exit, as if you’re trying not to get caught. A photographer that we’ve stationed by the exit will take a photo of the two of you, preferably caught in an act that unavoidably makes it look like you’re together. The picture will ‘leak’ to the presses the next day, at which point Hawks will hold his hands up, admit that you’ve been together for some time now, and your fake relationship is set into motion. Ta-dah.”
What a terrible fucking idea. Dabi may have mentioned that he hates this. If it wasn’t clear; he fucking hates this.
“So, you’re telling me,” Dabi says, “you want us to fuck in the alleyway.”
“I am not telling you that,” Coleope smiles, the sweetness set with a bite. “Hold hands, kiss him on the cheek, grab his ass – I don’t care. Do what you want, as long as it’s believable. Can you do that?”
“I’m not a child,” Dabi says. “I can follow basic instructions.”
“You’d be surprised how many clients don’t know how to do that. God, the amount of PR nightmares I’ve had to deal with.” Her gaze goes distant, briefly, before she manages to snap herself back to reality. “Just behave nicely and we won’t have any problems here.”
Dabi bares his teeth at her.
“I need you to sign here, here, here, here, and here,” Coleope says, flicking through the pages and indicating where Dabi needs to aggressively leave his signature again. “And then I must be off to my next appointment. I’ve included my email and personal telephone on the back page if you have further questions. Kurogiri will also have the information you need, but for now – Monday night. Don’t let us down.”
Dabi combs through the contract. Hawks’ signature marks each page, and Dabi quietly commits it to memory in case he needs to forge it in future. Old habits die hard.
He draws the reading out, leisurely flicking through each clause, sometimes reading them twice over. He’s not really reading, because he’s half-blind with headache, but he just wants to draw it out for the inconvenience.
In the end, Dabi is left with a copy of an NDA and a contract bearing his signature, Hawks’ signature, and Kurogiri’s signature as witness. He stares at it on the trudging walk home. He stares at it as he wrestles the key into the old lock of his apartment door. He stares at it as he slumps down onto his ratty couch, knocking an empty can over in his distraction.
He traces over the loops of Hawks’ signature, trying to imagine the man beyond the camera, beyond the microphone, beyond the screen.
He can’t do it. Hawks is an untouchable concept, a person-shaped product instead of human. And now he’s Dabi’s boyfriend. Legally. Officially. Dabi doesn’t debate the merits of being sweethearts with someone he’s never even spoken to. It’ll fuck with his head too much.
The signature stares back at him from the page, as if to say: what are you looking at me for?
Well, fuck. Looks like he’s got a date on Monday.
CONSENSUAL RELATIONSHIP AGREEMENT
This contract signifies the agreement between Hawks and Dabi (the “Parties”) and outlines the applicable terms of a consensual fabricated relationship. This contract sets out the particulars of the terms and conditions surrounding the relationship.
We understand and agree as follows:
- The relationship is welcome and consensual by both Parties.
- The Parties will be contractually tied to their public relationship for 364 days, from 1st May 2XXX to 30th April 2XXX.
- If the Parties are successful, they may be presented with a contract addendum to extend their public relationship.
- The Parties will engage with each other in public, even if they choose to neglect their relationship privately.
- The Parties will engage in public displays of affection when under public scrutiny.
- The Parties will share photos and anecdotes of each other on social media channels alongside other projects unless stated otherwise.
- For Party One: one Instagram post or Tweet per week.
- For Party Two: one Instagram post or Tweet per month.
- The Parties will not engage in behaviour that harms the public perception of their relationship unless stated otherwise.
- This agreement is confidential and not intended to exceed the privacy of the Parties. To ensure appropriate authenticity, the Parties will not disclose the nature of this relationship to anybody outside of:
- The Commission.
- League Records Management.
- League Records Management will be offered monthly compensation for entering into this agreement with The Commission, sum disclosed elsewhere. League Records Management will be in charge of distribution of funds towards the appropriate Party.
- Any dispute arising from the consensual relationship will be resolved through the Parties, but upon failure to do so Managements will become involved.
- Termination of this contract before the proposed end date will only be possible under extreme circumstances, which will be assessed upon a case by case basis.
- If either party plans to terminate the consensual relationship, they must inform their respective Managements and give notice of one month.
Signed by Party One
Print Name: HAWKS
Date: 29th April 2XXX
Signed by Party Two
Print Name: DABI
Date: 1st May 2XXX
Hawks (Singer)
For other uses, see Hawk (disambiguation) and Hawks (disambiguation).
Hawks (born December 28, 2XXX) is a Japanese singer. He signed a recording contract with The Commission as a child and debuted at age 14, exploding onto the scene with a fresh, bombastic sound and a naturally charming demeanour. Born in Fukuoka, Japan, Hawks moved to Musutafu, Japan after signing his record deal with The Commission, which is where he currently resides. He has released 5 critically acclaimed albums and won over 200 awards for his musical work.
[IMAGE: A red carpet photo of Hawks, from the shoulders up. His hair is swept back. He’s wearing a dark suit jacket.]
Life and Career ▾
Artistry ▾
Public Image ▾
Impact ▾
Accolades and Achievements ▾
Discography ▾
Tours ▾
See Also ▾
Footnotes ▾
References ▾
When Dabi rocks up to the opulent hotel hosting the remnants of Monday night’s charity gala, the only thing he can think, semi-bitterly, is rich fucking bastards.
He can hear the chatter from outside. Expensive looking bystanders in even more expensive looking clothes linger out front, smoking and laughing together and bathing in the occasional flash of a photographer’s camera.
The concept of high-profile, high-money events isn’t alien to Dabi. He didn’t grow up as isolated as he tries to seem. He knows the glimmer; he was raised in it and bathed in it.
It’s also hard to avoid it when you’re trying to pick the locks of the music industry’s shut-tight barriers. Dabi just wants to make music, but Kurogiri has always been there to explain things to him in perfunctory terms, talking him through why he’s schmoozing with particular investors or why he’s suffering through dull meetings at luxury restaurants.
The money game culminates here; the people who have it are inside, and the people who want it are wide-eyed pawing at their trouser legs, begging for just a scrap of unlimited wealth.
Dabi isn’t a well-off musician, but he’s clawed himself up enough to get by. He’s earned his way enough to do it full-time, signed under Kurogiri’s watchful eye, instead of wasting his days serving coffee at Atsuhiro’s pathetic attempts at a café.
He’s underground. He’s hipster-adjacent. He has his small cult following that come to all of his local gigs, swarm to his social media channels despite his lack of posting, and generally remind him that, yeah, he is hot shit. He’s finally worked long enough to put together a full album, instead of just scraping loose songs onto EPs, and the build-up has been both excruciatingly slow and worrisomely fast.
Kurogiri’s right, as much as Dabi wants to admit it. He needs more exposure if he wants this album to do well. And he wants this album to do well so he can make more, so he can ride the wave of interest and revel in the fact that he makes people feel seen and they see him in return. He really doesn’t want to go back to making fucking coffees to get by.
Dabi gives his name at the door. The security guard looks at him with a certain derision that tells Dabi he doesn’t belong here. Dabi just brushes past him, unconcerned with what he’s thinking.
He emerges into a glittering ballroom with high ceilings, decked out in silver and gold, austentatious enough to be tacky. It’s packed full of people in their finest clothes, people with jewels glittering at their throats and ears and wrists. It sickens him, but he needs to accept that this is the kind of place he’s throwing himself into.
He’s dressy enough to fit in, but dishevelled enough to let people know that he isn’t one of them. He’s not polished. He doesn’t have that same lustre that everyone else in the room seems to emit. Instead, he carefully straddles the line between my manager spent a not-insignificant amount of money on this dress shirt and but I didn’t bother ironing it.
Dabi skirts the room, snagging a flute of champagne off a passing waiter’s tray. He throws it back like a shot, barely feels the bubbles catch in his throat. It’s the swift kick he needs, something that takes him from sheer dread to mild anticipation, the warmth spreading through him fast and thankful.
There’s a lot of important-looking people here that Dabi couldn’t care less about. He’s not phased by famous faces. Everywhere he looks, he just sees automatons trying too hard, the weight of their longing to fit in drawing at their fake laughs, the corners of their eyes. Instead, he skulks in a corner, scanning the faces that pass, ignoring the double-takes directed his way. He’s only here for one person, and he only has to wait a little longer before the swathes of people part and he sees him.
The first thing Dabi thinks is that Hawks is smaller in person.
He knows he could find that information anywhere; he could search Hawks’ name and know his height (1.72cm, or a respectable 5’8), his shoe size (25.5), the hospital he was born in (Saiseikai Fukuoka General Hospital), how many inches his waist is (32), and his blood type (B).
A single perfunctory glance at Hawks’ Wikipedia can tell him any of this. It’s another thing to see him, very much real and breathing and alive, and think he seems bigger on billboards.
Dabi can’t judge. He’s not the tallest guy around. He’s taller than Hawks, though, and that’s all that matters to him.
The second thing he thinks is that Hawks’ good looks can’t just be credited to Photoshop. Still not Dabi’s type, but attractive. Objectively. Unfortunately.
Hawks is caught in conversation with a group of starry-eyed people, hair glistening under the low lights and a slightly brittle smile plastered to his face. He’s in a deep red suit perfectly tailored to his body, tight in all the right places, and even though most of the people talking to him are taller, he commands their attention in a way that sets him right on an invisible plinth, his loyal followers planted at his feet, ready to kiss his arches.
Dabi takes a moment to look Hawks up and down, examining the planes of his body like he might a corpse on a table, impersonal, detached.
He breathes deep, leaves his empty champagne flute on a cloth-covered table, and saunters up behind Hawks with as much casual coolness as he can muster.
Hovering a hand over Hawks’ back, close enough to feel the heat of his body, Dabi leans in to speak into his ear.
“Hey, baby.” He keeps his voice low and husky, playing into the farce. Hawks stiffens minutely against the feeling of Dabi’s breath in his ear. He relaxes almost immediately, turning to him with a smile that is wider and faker than before.
They meet eye to eye, gold to blue, and Dabi almost feels like the wind is knocked out of him with how the amber of Hawks’ eyes puddle into glowing specks in the light. The glitter of the ballroom is kind to some.
“You made it,” Hawks replies, equally as suggestive. He leans in and presses his cheek to Dabi’s in the echo of a kiss, and the smell of his cologne fills the space between them, something expensive and heady. His stubble scratches at Dabi’s cheek as their faces touch.
“You’re late,” Hawks says as he leans back, teasing enough to be flirtatious. He presses a hand to Dabi’s chest, smoothing over the slightly crumpled fabric of his dress shirt. There’s glitter smudged into his eyelids, the shimmer catching the light as he looks at Dabi through his eyelashes.
Dabi raises an eyebrow. If Hawks wants to lean into this game, Dabi’s going to knock it out of the fucking ballpark.
“Well, I had to make sure I looked good enough to be your arm candy for the evening.”
Hawks looks him up and down, purposeful and slow. Dabi can’t stop staring at his face. It’s like watching a painting come to life; very uncanny and very fucking surreal. This is one of the most famous faces in the world, and the corners of its mouth are twitching at something Dabi said.
“I hear crinkled dress shirts are all the rage these days,” Hawks replies evenly.
“Oh, I know you love it.”
“Means I don’t have to worry so much when it ends up on my floor,” Hawks says, paired with a wink. Cheeky bastard. Dabi resists the urge to roll his eyes, but it’s a hard-won battle.
Hawks turns away and Dabi slips a hand around his waist, the gesture automatic and as smooth as he can allow, palm settling just above the juncture of his hip. Through his trousers, Hawks’ body feels strong, the muscle solid under the curve of Dabi’s fingers. Hawks leans back into Dabi’s chest, smiling winningly at the onlookers who have quickly gone from demurely reverent to flat-out gawking.
“Sorry about the interruption,” Hawks says, sunny as before. “This is my boyfriend, Dabi.”
The introduction is met with a slightly stunned silence, before the gathered group awkwardly greets him. Dabi stares them down. Their gazes skitter away when they meet his eyes. He hopes they’ll be uncomfortable enough to leave, but they linger like a bad smell, still gravitating around his fake-boyfriend in the hopes of a lick of attention.
“Well, if you’ll excuse us,” Hawks says. He pats Dabi’s chest, a little too hard to be loving. A warning. “We have to do the rounds, you know how it is.”
“What are the rounds?” Dabi mutters to Hawks when they peel away from the group. He grabs his next champagne flute as they shift through the crowd; they part like water around Hawks, and through a sip Dabi can’t help but be a little impressed at the power Hawks wields.
“Oh, I just wander around, look demurely lost, and wait for someone to talk to me,” Hawks replies through his teeth, smile unmoving. “Usually takes about three, two, one—”
“Hawks!” A woman calls from behind them. “How lovely to see you! Tell me, how have you been getting on since the Vogue photoshoot last month?”
“Ah, swimmingly,” Hawks replies, and they both titter like he’s said something funny. The joke goes over Dabi’s head. “Have you met my boyfriend, Dabi? Dabi, this is—”
And it goes on, and on, and fucking on. He should’ve realised that standing there and looking pretty really was going to be the extent of his duties, but he thought maybe Coleope had been joking about it when she’d detailed his role for the evening. While Hawks plays nice with some of the city’s upper echelons, Dabi just stands there, stares down expensive-looking strangers, and tries not to let the excruciating small talk melt his brain down into rotting mulch.
Dabi dutifully keeps his arm around Hawks all the while. He’s on his best fucking behaviour, and him not opening his mouth is going to be the only way to keep things smooth sailing.
Hawks talks to actors and musicians and philanthropists. He talks to models and artists and people with indeterminate career titles who look like they’re only famous for being attractive. With each visitor Hawks remains steadfastly friendly, that smile never slipping but never growing. Now that he’s deciphered it as completely and utterly fake, Dabi watches to see if it cracks. As far as he can tell, there’s not a genuine smile in sight the whole time Hawks is talking to others, even though everyone seems inordinately pleased to see him.
Because good boyfriends should be seen and not heard, Dabi just lingers, stares, and nurses drink after drink. Everyone who approaches them seems genuinely put-off by him, and Dabi can’t tamp down the savage satisfaction that blisters through him when they shy away after making eye contact.
“Behave,” Hawks whispers to him, between eager visitors. He takes Dabi’s current half-empty drink glass and drains it, fast and eager like he’s rehydrating after a marathon. His throat bobs, and he wipes the side of his mouth with the back of his hand after he’s emptied Dabi’s glass.
“I am behaving,” Dabi mutters in return, electing to not kill Hawks for touching something of his. “I didn’t say one horrible thing about that woman’s hideous fucking haircut.”
A strangled, whimpering noise slips out from Hawks’ mouth. He clears his throat. “You’re an angel. Also, that woman founded one of the biggest fashion lines currently active in the industry.”
“Yikes,” Dabi whispers, and then the entertainment parade picks up the pace again.
Dabi checks out. He doesn’t need to be here. If he pulls off the moody and sullen vibe then no one will expect anything of him.
He’s nothing but a piece to be looked at, standing in Hawks’ shadow, and the people who dare to glance his way look away fast, like they can’t stand to not be focused on Hawks for more than five seconds at a time.
A millennium later, Hawks turns towards him again, hair brushing against Dabi’s temple. Dabi gets another whiff of his cologne, but it’s underlaid with the faintest hint of sweat. Good. So he’s human after all.
Hawks leans in to murmur in his ear. “I just got a text. Photographer’s set up outside, round the back door. Wanna get out of here?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” Dabi mutters. He thinks the warmth from the alcohol might be going to his face. Not that anyone can tell, under all the scar tissue and the ink, but God forbid anyone look at him and see flush.
He allows Hawks to lead them out of the hotel ballroom, into a hallway that’s much greyer and cooler than the stifling party sphere, hot with bodies and falsities. The hallway turns into another, and then they’re winding their way through a series of identical halls devoid of people. Despite the lack of people, Dabi laces his fingers through Hawks’ anyway, in case they do stumble across someone and need to reach for an excuse as to why they’re skulking in the back of the hotel. He’s not entirely stupid.
The sound of the ballroom gradually peters out the further they go, chatter fading until they’re walking in heavy silence. Hawks’ footsteps seem to sink right into the carpet, no noise coming from where his shiny dress shoes meet the floor. It’s disconcerting. Dabi’s ears ring in the quiet.
They come to a stop in front of a fire door. Hawks pulls his phone out of his pocket, something sleek and new-looking, glancing at a series of text messages.
“After you,” he says, sardonically sweeping into a bow, hand gesturing towards the door. Dabi, unsettled by the silence, is glad to go first, hoping the clatter will set him back on the right axis.
Dabi shoulders open the fire door and steps into a loading bay, the late spring night hitting him directly in the sinuses. It smells heady and slightly rotten, the scent of a city wilting in the heat. Hawks follows behind him, nose wrinkling as the smell hits him too.
Dabi sighs, heavy. He’s really itching for a smoke, but the sooner they get this over with the sooner he can go home, shuck off these ill-fitting clothes, and not speak to anyone for the rest of the night. The conversations in the room were so dull that all of Dabi’s energy has disappeared, drained from him by petty gossip on award show merits and who might be fucking who.
“I’m Hawks, by the way.”
Dabi looks behind him, face dipping into a frown. He didn’t notice anyone else out here, but trust his evening counterpart to sniff out someone else to bombard with his personality.
When he turns, Hawks isn’t talking to anyone else. He’s looking right at Dabi, hand held out in the expectation of a handshake, formal and foreign.
Dabi looks from his face, to his hand, and back to his face.
“What are you doing?” he asks, the exhaustion seeping through the derision.
“We haven’t been formally introduced,” Hawks says, like that explains why he’s asking for a handshake after Dabi’s practically been surgically attached to his waist for the past few hours. “I apologise for not making it to the meeting over the weekend. I’m looking forward to working with you.”
It’s too practised. Hawks is saying all the right words, is polite without a fault, and Dabi doesn’t trust it.
“Knock it off,” Dabi says, because he’s not going to put up a façade when he doesn’t need to. He’s going to immediately set expectations low; he keeps business and pleasure far, far separated.
“It’s rude not to tell people your name,” Hawks says. He lowers his hand anyway, slipping it into the pocket of his trousers. It’s an effortlessly cool look. Dabi resents him for it.
“Who told you that, your mother?”
Hawks laughs, and it’s a sound that rings with irony. “Something like that.”
“Don’t talk to me about propriety,” Dabi says, “when you can’t even introduce yourself by your real name.”
“Hm,” Hawks says. He almost looks surprised, until it melds into something more contemplative. “I could say the same for you, Dabi.”
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” Dabi drawls. He has no intention of revealing something as personal as his name to a veritable stranger, albeit one he’s trapped in a contract with for the foreseeable future, but he suspects he might get the same treatment in return.
Despite how much of Hawks’ personal information is splashed all over the internet, he’s shrouded in a single, glaring mystery: nobody knows his fucking name.
Dabi fell down a social media rabbit hole last night trying to get to the bottom of it, because no way does the guy who frequently gets his bare ass out in photoshoots have no record of his name anywhere. He came across a particularly gruelling cluster of Reddit threads voicing all of the conspiracies that might have led to Hawks wiping his real identity off the planet, but no actual answer as to why.
Hawks is a golden example of the extent of privacy violation that comes with immense celebrity, so how does nobody know? He even introduced himself just now as Hawks; whatever name he’s harbouring, he clearly doesn’t mix it with work.
Not that Dabi can blame him. He has secrets of his own. A name can hold more weight than someone wants, he understands better than anyone.
“I’ll pass,” Hawks says, through a tight smile. Dabi hopes he caught him off guard. “How about this photo, then? I’m thinking we should kiss.”
“At least buy me dinner first.”
Hawks rolls his eyes, but the gesture is imbued with more good grace than Dabi could ever pull off. “Should’ve guessed you’d have an attitude problem.”
Dabi kicks at the ground, playing coy. “Aw, you can tell?”
Hawks doesn’t respond, but he crosses the space between them in a few quick steps. He takes Dabi’s face in his hands. His palms are warm and dry, unsuspectingly gentle at his jawline.
“Hello,” he says, smiling winningly. “Photographer’s towards the right side of the loading bay, hiding behind a van. He’ll be able to get a good shot from here.”
When Dabi strains to listen, he can hear the faintest click of a lens from somewhere behind him. He ignores the sound, doesn’t want to investigate what sort of godless pervert is being paid to spy on them right now.
Dabi almost has to cross his eyes to focus on Hawks’ face, with how close he is. He brings his hands up to hold Hawks’ hips, palms slipping beneath the tails of his suit jacket. “Does that move usually work for you?”
“I don’t usually need moves,” Hawks says. “You’re a special case.”
Dabi doesn’t dignify that with a response. He leans in, presses his lips to Hawks’, holds for a few seconds, and moves back again. It’s entirely unnoteworthy.
“That was so dry,” Hawks says. He bats his eyelashes at Dabi. “Are you a virgin?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
Dabi swats Hawks’ hands away from his face and reverses their positions, reaching up to hold Hawks’ cheeks. He doesn’t care for gentleness. He presses Hawks backwards until he’s cornered against the wall beside the fire door, head tilted against the brick.
Hawks just stares at him expectantly, so Dabi leans in again.
He nudges at his mouth, drawing back every so often, just when Hawks is about to sink into the kiss. Hawks makes an irritated grumbling noise in the back of his throat and pulls at the collar of Dabi’s shirt, tugging him forward enough that Dabi has to steady himself on the wall behind him with one hand. He tilts Hawks’ head with the other, stubble sliding under his palm, until their mouths press together at a better angle.
With his eyes closed, he can almost pretend that he’s kissing just another stranger in an alleyway behind a bar. He can almost pretend, until the expensive threads of Hawks’ suit brush against his arms, and the sharply distinctive smell of his cologne worms its way between them again.
Hawks keeps running his hands over Dabi’s chest and shoulders, pushing further into the kiss. It’s immensely distracting, so Dabi slides his hand round to the back of Hawks’ head and tugs at his hair in warning.
Hawks groans, and the sound is so unexpected that Dabi pulls back, trying to get more air to his brain before he forgets himself.
“Why’d you stop?” Hawks breathes, eyes fluttering open. His chest is heaving, filling with fast breaths. He’s very attractive. Objectively.
Dabi doesn’t ask if he thinks they’ve got a good shot. He doesn’t say that they’ve probably done enough for the night. He doesn’t pull away, straighten his already-rumpled shirt, and get the hell out.
Instead, he leans back in again.
“I’m going to stick my tongue in your mouth,” he says, breath coasting over Hawks’ cheek. Might as well warn him.
“Oh, I should’ve known you were a romantic.” Hawks smiles at him lazily.
“Do you ever shut up?”
“Depends if someone’s sticking their tongue in my mouth,” Hawks says, so Dabi tilts his head back, presses him further into the wall, and does just that.
Hawks goes far more easily than Dabi expected him to. He keeps making breathy, anticipatory noises, and when Dabi finally coaxes his mouth open with his tongue, he flat-out moans. Dabi resists the urge to snipe at him for being noisy. Instead, he tugs at Hawks’ hair, and when Hawks’ mouth opens further, he kisses him deeper, caught between Dabi’s body and the wall.
Hawks’ fingers have found refuge further down, running over Dabi’s lower back and occasionally dipping under his waistband, constantly moving, setting Dabi on edge. He’s doing something interesting with his tongue that feels stupidly nice, and when he bites down gently on Dabi’s lower lip, Dabi can’t help the way his body jerks in response.
Dabi shifts and wedges a knee between Hawks’ legs. His other hand leaves Hawks’ face to join the other pressed to the wall. He’s boxing Hawks in on three sides, and with a wall at his back, Hawks has nowhere to go. Hawks grips the back of his shirt, fabric bunched tight in his fists, and presses himself further into Dabi’s body.
Hawks’ hips stutter, and Dabi can feel that he’s half-hard when he pushes himself against Dabi’s leg. Dabi just lets him, continues to kiss him in a way that he hopes looks as filthy as it feels. If he’s whoring himself out to be splashed on the news front pages tomorrow, he’d better look good doing it.
Dabi pulls away when Hawks doesn’t give any indication that he’s going to stop anytime soon. He removes his hands from the wall, slides his palms down to hold Hawks’ upper arms, the grip probably tighter than it needs to be. He takes a step back.
Dabi’s chin drops to his chest as he tries to catch his breath. He can’t quite look Hawks in the eye.
“D’you think that’s convincing?” Hawks asks, voice rough. Dabi chances a look up again.
Hawks’ mouth is slick with spit. There’s a grim satisfaction in debauching the music industry’s golden boy so thoroughly, but Dabi is also intensely put off by it. He might liken it to pissing on a statue; there’s a slight thrill to it, but it’s ultimately dirty work.
“It better be,” Dabi replies. He clears his throat. Any more proximity and he’s going to start burning up. He takes another slightly unsteady step back, head fuzzy. Hawks is carrying himself like he wasn’t just grinding on Dabi’s leg thirty seconds ago, even though there’s something dazed and gleaming in his eyes. Dabi pointedly doesn’t look at his crotch; Hawks doesn’t seem the slightest bit bothered that his trousers are still tented, like he doesn’t get caught up in anything so earthly as bodily functions.
“In which case, pleasure doing business with you,” Hawks says. He looks over Dabi’s shoulder, in the direction where he’d pointed out the photographer before, and is apparently pleased by what he sees. “Put ‘em here.”
Dabi stares at Hawks’ raised palm. “I’m not high-fiving you.”
Hawks shrugs it off. “That’s cool. You’ve done enough.” He adjusts his suit jacket, pulling the lapels back to the centre. It still looks messy, but Dabi thinks it might not be fixable. Maybe Hawks doesn’t want it to be fixable. People are certainly going to be talking already, about Hawks’ evening shadow, the man smudging his glamour.
“One sec,” Hawks says, when Dabi starts to turn away. He pulls his phone out of his pocket again and unlocks it. He holds it out to Dabi, the screen open on a new contact form. “I need your number. Actually, give me your phone as well, I’ll put mine in yours.”
Dabi hands over his own phone. Hawks raises an eyebrow at how battered it is, but doesn’t say anything. He taps away, the blue light washing over the planes of his face. It illuminates him in the dim light of the loading bay.
“Here,” Hawks says, face still awash in the glow. He clicks the screen shut and passes it back to Dabi, shadow overcoming him again. Dabi exchanges it for Hawks’ phone, his number now ensconced in his contacts. There really is no backing out now.
“Coleope told me they’ll sell the photos tonight, so this’ll go public first thing tomorrow.” Hawks is all business now, talking fast and neutral as he recites what he’s heard. He pats Dabi on the shoulder, and the action somehow feels more clunky and foreign than his tongue in Dabi’s mouth. “Better buckle in.”
Dabi snorts and shrugs him off. “How bad can it be?”
Hawks’ eyes gleam with a twisted mirth. “Come by my place tomorrow, yeah? I put my address under my contact information. I think we should talk some things through.”
“We’re both here now,” Dabi points out, who would prefer to keep his exposure to Hawks to a minimum. One back alley makeout session is enough for the week.
“Yes, but I need to get back inside because I still have to network.”
“Do you really?”
“It never stops,” Hawks says serenely. Dabi suspects his serenity is easily thrown together. Hawks smoothes a hand down his suit jacket, putting the last touch into place. “I’d invite you in with me, but you look like you’d rather walk into incoming traffic than spend another minute in there.”
“You’re more perceptive than people give you credit for,” Dabi leers.
“Not really,” Hawks says, with a wry smile, already turning to go. He shoots Dabi a look over his shoulder. “I’m just a dumb blond.”
Dabi watches him leave with a see you tomorrow thrown over his shoulder, skirting around the back wall to presumably come back into the building through the front. He’s right that Dabi has had enough, perceptive enough to pick up on it.
It still stinks out here. The night has tipped over from pleasant warmth to slightly-too-cold, and Dabi shivers in just his shirt.
He rolls his sleeves down, does a couple more buttons up to shield him from the chill. He sets off in the opposite direction Hawks went, crossing through back streets until the hotel’s opulent neighbourhood makes way for slightly more run down houses, dirtier streets and darker nooks between shopfronts.
The memory of Hawks’ mouth lingers as he shoulders his way back to his apartment, the night thick and slow around him. Just a body, just a job to do at the end of the day. Dabi shrugs it off and trudges home, ears still ringing faintly with the bustle of the ballroom.
A year of playing the loving fool for a stranger. Dabi suspects that he’s going to become very well-practised in kissing Hawks, and decides that he hates the idea.