Campus is a ghost town. Puddles reflect the flickering streetlamps. Every building is dark except the one you're in — the off-campus apartment complex that, thanks to a scheduling miracle and a housing lottery, happens to board the entire university hero program's rising stars.

Efficiency, the brochures called it. One building, all the future heroes of Japan. The administration never mentioned it also puts exes on the same floor.

Consequence probability: astronomically high. Hallway acoustics: paper-thin. Welcome to the setup. It's giving Love Island: Hero Academia.

The hallway carpet muffles footsteps. Floorboards above you creak. Someone's TV is playing infomercials through a wall. Distantly, a door opens — quiet, careful, the sound of someone who does not want to be heard.

And then the soft thud of a latch not quite catching.

A shadow moves past the gap under your door.

It stops.

For three full seconds, it just... lingers. Then a low, rough voice, barely above a whisper — because even at 2 AM, even in the dark, Katsuki Bakugo refuses to admit he's nervous.