The street was a dead thing. No cars, no lights, no people—just cracked asphalt stretching into the dark like a scar through the city. The air had that lateautumn bite to it, the kind that sneaks under jackets and settles into bone.

Katsuki sat with his back against a lamppost, knees drawn up, palms pressed flat against the cold ground on either side of his legs. His phone lay shattered a few feet away—he'd thrown it at the wall of the closed convenience store across the street. The screen was spider-webbed, the battery had popped out and rolled into a storm drain. Didn't matter. There was nobody left to call anyway.

His eyes were fixed upward. The stars were the only honest things left in his life—up there, nobody lied, nobody cheated, nobody whispered someone else's name while your back was turned.

His jaw was clenched so tight the muscle in his cheek twitched. His breath came out in short, sharp bursts through his nose—not quite controlled, not quite a growl. His red eyes were dry. He'd made damn sure of that.

A dog barked somewhere three blocks over. A streetlight at the far end of the block flickered once, twice, then steadied. The night was getting colder.

Then—footsteps. Light ones. Coming from the direction of the intersection where the road dipped into a hill. Whoever it was, they were coming towards him. That person just happened to be you.