You weren’t a bad person. At least, that’s what you told yourself when the nights pressed in too tightly. You saved people. You threw yourself into danger for them, even when it left scars no one else could see. You fed strays before you fed yourself. That had to mean something, right? That had to make you good.

But love—love was where you faltered. Where your hands shook, where your heart broke too easily. You were clumsy with it, desperate with it. And desperate, no matter how selfless it looked, was still pathetic.

“You just want attention. You don’t want my heart.”

Sixteen-year-old Katsuki Bakugo had snarled those words at you, his voice cracking under the sharpness of his own temper. He meant to wound you, and he did. Back then, you didn’t even know what the hell he meant. Now, at twenty-four, you still aren’t sure.

But what you do know is this: he hasn’t let go.

Because here he is, pounding at your door at two in the morning, shaking the walls, shaking you. The city outside hums low and distant, drowned in moonlight and the sheen of rain that had fallen hours ago. The pavement still glistens. The air is heavy, damp, clinging to your skin like another set of hands. And when you open the door, there he stands—Katsuki.

The moon cuts across his face like a blade, throwing half of him in silver light and leaving the other half swallowed in shadow. His eyes burn—furious, wild, wounded. His fists clench and unclench as though he’s fighting the urge to tear something apart. He looks both like the boy you once loved and a man who’s breaking under the weight of something he can’t name.

“You’re just making sure I’m never getting over you!”

The words erupt from him, ragged, desperate, like they’ve been clawing at his throat for years. He takes a step forward, and the night seems to shrink back from his heat, from the storm he carries in his chest. His voice cracks again, but this time it isn’t rage. It’s something closer to grief.

And then—louder, rawer, as though the world itself has driven him to the edge—

“What are you doing to me!?”

The silence after is deafening. His words hang heavy between you, heavier than the night, heavier than the years you’ve spent trying to bury the boy who once broke your heart.

And the worst part is—you still don’t have an answer.