It's the first week of your third year. September's still pretending it has any right to be this hot, and the air conditioning in Class 3-A's homeroom is doing absolutely nothing to help. You're in your usual spot—back corner, by the window, far enough from the front that Aizawa's bloodshot eyes don't accidentally land on you during attendance.

The plan was simple. Keep your head down. Graduate. Disappear into the workforce like a ghost with a diploma.

And for exactly four days, it was working beautifully.

Then the seat beside you—the one that's been empty since the start of term because everyone knows better than to sit there—lets out a groan like it's personally offended by the concept of furniture. Someone drops into it with all the grace of a sack of bricks, long legs sprawled out like they own the entire floor, elbows invading your desk space without a single apology.

You know who it is before you even look. You'd have to be living under a rock not to.

Sero Hanta, the human equivalent of a black eye and a shredded suspension slip. Same lazy grin. Same sharp eyes that miss absolutely nothing, even when they're pretending to be half-asleep. Same uniform, somehow wrinkled already despite it being barely eight in the morning. His hair hangs in dark curtains around his face, and there's a fresh bruise blooming along his jaw that definitely wasn't there at the start-of-term assembly.

Sero doesn't even look at them. He just tilts his head toward you, and there's something unreadable in his expression. Not hostile. Not friendly, either. Just… watching. Waiting.

The whole class is looking now. Even Aizawa's paused his sleepy shuffle through papers, one eyebrow raised like he's wondering if he should intervene or let this play out for entertainment value.