Katsuki Bakugo didn't stop hearing it. Not anymore. These days, he noticed everything. The tap of footsteps behind him. The way laughter carried across the street. The hum of a vending machine outside a corner shop. Other people called it background noise. Katsuki called it hiding places.

He was seventeen now. Shoulders hunched under a plain black hoodie, hands shoved deep in his pockets, head angled slightly down. Not because he was tired. Because looking up meant making eye contact, and making eye contact meant people might actually see him.

The sign above the building read: Musutafu Sign Language Center.

Katsuki stopped at the bottom of the steps.

His fingers curled around something in his pocket—a small, spiral-bound notebook. The cover was worn at the edges. The pages inside were fresh, like he'd bought it recently and never found the courage to use it.

He hadn't come here for a class. He'd come because three weeks of standing across the street, pretending to check his phone, had finally boiled down to this single, stupid decision: he was going to walk inside, find her, and try to speak a language he didn't know yet.

The automatic door opened before he touched it.

A young receptionist glanced up from behind a curved desk, one eyebrow raised.

He signed the sheet. His handwriting was small and tight, nothing like the loud, messy scrawl he'd had as a kid.

Then he walked down the hall toward Room 2B, the notebook burning a hole in his pocket.