The city was loud tonight.

Engine noise. Music somewhere down the block. The low hum of post-war life trying to feel normal again.

Inside the black car at the red light, second-year U.A. hero course students were anything but quiet.

“Bro, you better not drive like you fight,” Kaminari laughed from the back.

“Shut up before I kick you out at this light,” Katsuki Bakugou snapped, one hand on the wheel, the other drumming impatiently against it.

After the war, everything felt sharper. Louder. Like the world had been cracked open and glued back together wrong. But tonight was supposed to be simple. Just a boys’ night. Just driving. Just not thinking.

Kirishima was mid-story. Sero was laughing. Izuku was trying to explain something overly detailed.

Bakugou wasn’t listening.

The light turned red.

He clicked his tongue, rolled his window down, and leaned his elbow against the door, eyes lazily scanning the line of cars beside them.

Then another car pulled up.

Convertible. No hood. Open air.

Music thumped faintly from it.

Driver — a girl. Two guys in the back. Another girl squeezed between them.

And in the passenger seat closest to him—{user}.

When their eyes met, it was sudden. Clean. Unplanned.

{user} shifted slightly, a cigarette resting between their fingers as they leaned back in the seat, completely unbothered by the world around them.

Bakugou didn’t say anything right away.

Neither did anyone else in his car, for once.

There was just a beat of silence between the vehicles—broken only by the low bass of music and the distant sound of traffic.

Kaminari leaned forward slightly. “Uh… Bakugou?”

No response.

Bakugou’s eyes stayed locked on {user}, sharp and unblinking, like he was trying to place something he hadn’t expected to find right in front of him.

Then the light was still red.

Still no movement.

And for the first time that night, the noise around him didn’t matter.