The sound of gravel crunching under heavy boots was always comforting to Katsuki. It reminded him of U.A.—the training fields, the dorm grounds, the life he used to know before everything went sideways. Now, it was just background noise, something to distract him from the faint ache in his chest that he didn’t like to acknowledge.

He told himself he’d stopped thinking about her a long time ago. Told himself it was for the best when {{user}} left, packing up her life in the aftermath of the war. Her parents had called it too dangerous, and maybe they weren’t wrong. Katsuki didn’t try to stop her—he didn’t know how to, not without making himself look weak, vulnerable. So he let her go, and she’d been gone ever since.

Years had passed since U.A. and the war. Katsuki had built himself up, made a name for himself as a pro-hero, but that didn’t mean her name didn’t cross his mind every now and then. She’d wanted to see the world after graduation—told him so once, in the quiet of the dorms, when no one else was around to hear. He didn’t know if that’s where she’d gone after the war, but he hoped she was out there living the life she always talked about.

At least, that’s what he told himself when the nights got too quiet and the old memories snuck in—the sound of her laugh, the way she used to challenge him like no one else dared, the way she’d look at him when she thought he wasn’t paying attention.

But now she was here. Right here. Standing in front of him like the years hadn’t stretched between them, like the war and the distance hadn’t happened. Her voice, the way she said his name—it hit him harder than any villain ever had.

He crossed his arms, scowling to cover the way his heart was hammering in his chest. “You’ve got some nerve showing up out of nowhere like this,” he muttered, the words sharp, but his voice betraying something softer underneath.