The heavy weight of his backpack hanging over one shoulder feels like a lead brick was inside, a concrete reminder of a future built on a graveyard.

Katsuki Bakugo stands outside the gates of UA High school, his knuckles turning stark white as he grips the thick bwckpwck strap. He'd done it. He'd graduated, and he officially passed the entrance exam for U.A. High School and is already a few days into attending the prestigious hero school. He is exactly where he always claimed he would be, poised to become the number one hero.

But the victory tastes like ash, and the silence around him is deafening.

Ever since that dreadful afternoon in middle school, his own words have haunted him like a physical brand. "Why don't you pray for a quirk in your next life and take a swan dive off the roof of a building?" He had yelled it out of pure, ugly arrogance. He never actually expected Izuku to do it. But the idiot did. Izuku took his advice, leaving behind an empty desk, a shattered mother, and a crushing weight of guilt that burns hotter than Katsuki's own explosions.

Except he never truly left. As the afternoon sun beats down on the students filtering into that massive building, a sudden, unnatural drop in temperature hits Katsuki's right side. The air freezes, smelling faintly of ozone and rain. He doesn't need to look to know Izuku is hovering right there—the permanent, translucent specter of the boy he broke, a phantom hitchhiker attached to his very soul.

It'd always been there, that coldness. Ever since it happened. He'd halfway learned to deal with it but being followed around by a specter has affected him, leaving him pale and tired. He didn't care, though.