Everyone was being weird, and it was beginning to unsettle you.
Himiko was super grinny, even more so than usual whenever you were in the same room as her, her eyes sparkling with complete adoration and love as she looks at you.
Spinner was nearly the same, always smiling at you and trying to be more playful with you than usual, hanging over your shoulder when you're trying to play your game and pointing out things in-game. As much as it was nice to have his attention, it still did make your face go all hot and made you feel all uncomfortable.
So you started hiding away when you played your games.
Your Uncle Jin had started to avoid you as much as possible. That hurt a lot. Especially when you would manage to catch him and talk to him a little bit, only for him to randomly clap his hands over his mouth and dart off away from you again.
When you asked Dabi about it, he brushed it off by saying that Jin 'wasn't wired right' and that you knew it, but even with how strange Uncle Jin could be, he never avoided you before.
And Dabi and Tomura were being weird themselves. You kept catching them having hushed conversations around the house, and if you tried to approach them, they'd really obviously change their entire body language, moving away from each other and exchanging a look you didn't understand or particularly like before encouraging you to go and study, play or draw.
Shooing you away from them.
And that hurt even more than how Jin was being.
Atsuhiro, Kurogiri and Zero all were behaving normally, though, so you tried to hang around them as much as possible.
But they weren't your favourites.
Atsuhiro uses a lot of words you didn't really know or understand, and tells you stories you don't understand too and Kurogiri is pretty boring, not really speaking when spoken to unless he's telling you off.
But Zero was always nice to be around.
*â¢*
"Uncle Zero?"
"Yes, little Star?" Is the immediate response, Zero turning his head to reveal his scarred face.
"Can you come and draw with me?" You ask, holding Cloud to your chest with the full intention of bringing him into your room for company too.
"Of course." Zero replies, getting out of his chair opposite Tomura, leaving him to look at the scattering of papers alone.
He'd been doing that a lot recently, reading lots of papers and signing a lot of things, sometimes with Dabi or sometimes with Zero supervising and other times he would do it completely alone.
You learned quickly not to interrupt him while he was looking at the papers, and you weren't allowed to even peek at what they said.
"What are we drawing, Star?" Zero asks as he follows you up the stairs.
"Whatever you like." You reply breezily. You just wanted the company. "I'm gonna draw Zelda."
"The princess from your game." Zero states, as if he was explaining it to himself.
"Yeah." You say, and then add: "She's pretty and everybody loves her."
"Just like you then, Star." Zero says evenly, smiling and tilting his head at you.
Your face heats up and you open your bedroom door without another word, placing Cloud onto the bed before climbing onto your bed yourself as Zero gets your sketchbook and pencils, sitting cross legged at the end of the bed and waiting for you to open the book to two clean pages.
When you do, Zero passes you a pencil and takes one for himself.
He'd been getting a little better at drawing things without you telling him what to draw. A lot of the time he seemed to be drawing himself, but with no scars and longer eyelashes.
He does the same today, happy to just draw alongside you in the quiet, always smiling and peaceful-looking when he's with you.
"Are you drawing yourself again?" You ask curiously when he starts sketching out the long hair.
"This isn't me." He replies.
"Who is it then?" You ask curiously.
"Chiyo." He says, as if the answer is obvious.
"Who's that?" You ask, furrowing your brow slightly.
He pauses for a second, the pencil stopping on the page for a moment as his eyebrows pull together ever so slightly too, his smile fading a little.
"I... don't know." He replies, confused.
You watch as his face goes blank momentarily and then the soft smile returns and he continues his drawing.
You watch him for a few moments, Cloud filling the empty space with his purrs..
"Why are you all being weird?"
"Hm?" He asks, looking up at you with his mismatched eyes.
"Why are you all being weird? Himiko keeps looking at me funny, Spinner keeps talking to me a lot more than usual, Uncle Jin keeps avoiding me and even Tomura and Dabi are being weird..." You explain. "And now you're being weird, too."
"I'm sorry, Star." Zero apologises straight away.
"But why are you all being weird?" You repeat.
Zero pauses, his smile dropping faintly. "I don't know what you mean."
He winces a bit just before you reply.
"I just told you what I mean!"
There's an even longer pause from Zero this time, and you can't help but stare him down as you wait for a reply.
Eventually he tilts his head to one side slightly again, his silver hair moving to the side, revealing one of the scars running along his cheek fully.
"Would you like a snack?" He asks, getting up from your bed.
"Why are you avoiding me?" You ask, your voice cracking a bit.
Zero stops immediately, his smile dropping into a more neutral expression.
"I'm..." He begins, and then stops. "Everything is okay, Star."
"It doesn't feel like it." You say, your lip wobbling.
Within seconds, his strong arms are wrapped around you, and his face is pressed against the top of your head. You wrap your arms around him, too, cherishing the reassurance you hadn't known you were in such desperate need of.
Cloud meows and tries climbing onto your lap, too.
"I'll get you some chocolate." He promises as he pulls away from you.
"I don't want chocolate, I want everyone to be normal again." You reply, scratching your face.
"Stop that." Zero chastises gently, swatting your hand away without directly touching you. "Carry on drawing. I'll be back in a few minutes."
You watch as he leaves the room, your heart sinking as you're unable to shake the feeling that he was lying to you and avoiding you, too.
You'd been getting sadder and sadder the more your favourite people began to back away from you, and you were worried now that they were all beginning to realise that there was something wrong about you that made people not love you for long.
After all, mom had, so why would these strangers love you forever like they claimed?
You look at the scissors that were half-hanging out of your pencil case as you pet Cloud who's getting all up in your space and purring loudly, vaguely remembering the girls night you'd had with Himiko and HakuchÅ, and how Himiko said that HakuchÅ cut herself to make herself feel better.
Then you remember that Dabi had said if you ever thought about that, that you needed to talk to him about it.
So you ditch your drawing, hopping off your bed and wandering over to Tomura and Dabi's room.
You knock on the door, knowing they were both in there going over paperwork that you'd accidentally interrupted earlier.
There's some rustling before you hear footsteps approaching the door, Dabi opening the door a crack.
"Hey darlin'." He greets lazily, and then his white eyebrows pull together in concern when he sees your face. "Wha's the matter?"
You hold your arms out, and he immediately hauls you up into his arms even though he struggles carrying you again now.
"Baby girl." He says sadly. carrying you over to their bed and sitting down so that you're on his lap, hugging him close with your face buried in the crook of his neck.
"I'm sad." You tell him.
"Why, hon?" He asks, a warm hand going to the back of your head.
"Everyone's being weird with me." You reply. "Uncle Jin is avoiding me and it's hurting my feelings, and you and 'Mura are working so much and not really spending time with me anymore."
"Star..." Dabi sighs, leaning his staple-laden cheek against your head.
The bed dips next to you, and you feel gentle cold fingers tucking your hair behind your ear, revealing Tomura's face in your peripheral vision.
"Don't you want me anymore?" You ask Dabi quietly, not wanting Tomura to hear just in case it's because they're getting married that Dabi doesn't want you anymore.
"This again?" Dabi asks, half-teasingly. "Told ya, princess. You're stuck with me for life!"
He jabs your side with a metal finger playfully, making you whine unhappily.
"People get less for murder." Tomura jokes dryly.
"You agreed to marry me." Dabi shoots back at the same time you say: "I don't want you to kill anyone else."
"We love you hon." Dabi reassures you, rubbing his cheek against your head and rocking you from side to side slowly. "The paperwork is important, I promise, but we're nearly done with it now."
"Why is it so important?" You ask, albeit a little poutily.
"You'll see soon enough." Tomura replies before Dabi can.
Dabi kisses your head quickly. "It's all good, darlin'. Nothin' you need ta worry yourself about."
"Can we talk in secret?" You whisper to Dabi.
His arms tighten around you, and you don't hear him say anything to Tomura, but you feel your pa get up from next to you, and hear the click of the door as he leaves the room to let you talk to Dabi alone.
You peel yourself from Dabi, looking into his piercing blue eyes.
"I was really sad." You tell him.
"That sucks, Starshine." He sympathises. "I want you to be happy. M' sorry I've been so busy lately."
"You're not going to get rid of me because you're marrying Tomura, are you?" You ask.
"Course not." He sighs. "Gonna keep you forever."
"Why are Uncle Jin, Himiko and Spinner being weird with me?" You ask, loosening your arms around him.
"Toga and Spinner seem fine ta me, hon." Dabi shrugs. "Jin's wired wrong. You know that. Probably just having a loud time in his head."
"But he's been avoiding me." You insist. "He never does that, even if his head is loud!"
"I got nothin', princess." Dabi says, a little too flippantly. "Give him some time."
You huff, flopping your head against his scarred shoulder again.
Dabi rubs your back with his prosthetic arm reassuringly, not making any complaints about you still being on his lap and in his personal space.
"Thanks for trustin' your old man to be here for you while you're sad." He says after a while, kissing your head again.
"I remembered you said to come to you when I'm sad instead of hurting myself." You tell him, and he tenses.
"You were thinkin' about that?" He asks, his voice barely carrying.
"Not really, just about what Himiko said." You reply casually.
"Fuckin' told Tomura she was bad news." He mutters in a way that tells you you're probably not meant to hear what he's saying.
"Well, f' ya ever did that, it'd break my heart, princess. So I'm glad you came to me. I love ya." He says, rubbing his thumb back and forth over the back of your head. "You'll see soon enough."
"Promise?" You ask.
"On my ma's soul." He vows. "You're my baby girl. That ain't ever gonna change."
You nod against his chest, trying your hardest to ignore the niggling doubt that still lives in the back of your head. They really all were being strange, but your family has never been normal, so maybe you were just overthinking it.
"I was drawing Princess Zelda with Uncle Zero." You inform him, moving away a little again so that you can look at him.
"Very nice." Dabi grins, his staples pulling uncomfortably either side of his mouth. "Nerd."
"Stop!" You frown, despite knowing that he's just joking.
"Where's Zero at now, hon?" He asks, moving your hair out of your face like Tomura had earlier.
"He said he was going to get me chocolate." You reply, swatting at his hands and making him grin again.
"Well, better go get on that 'fore he eats it all himself, eh?" Dabi teases. "An' when me and Tomura are done with this paperwork, we'll go see the duckies and maybe, if you're lucky, we'll go for dinner. Sound good?"
You nod eagerly. Doing anything with them after having over a week of barely seeing them sounded like heaven.
"Attagirl." He praises as you get off his lap. "I'll come an' find you when I'm done here, 'kay? Four."
"Four!" You agree, kissing one of the staples on his cheek before darting off back to your room.
Zero is waiting there, staring blankly at his own drawing until you appear in his line of sight and he looks back up, smiling softly like usual.
"Are you ready to continue?" He asks, patting the bed. "I'm excited to see your drawing finished."