Chapter 1: The Moment the Music Stops
The bass line of ‘Party 4 You’ wasn’t just heard, it was felt, a physical thrum deep in the chest that synchronized with the frantic strobe of colored lights. Sophia squeezed through a wall of heat and moving bodies, the sequins on her top catching fleeting glints of neon. Someone’s elbow brushed her ribs, a stranger’s laughter fizzed in her ear, and the whole penthouse smelled of sweat, cheap perfume, and the unmistakable tang of spiked punch.
“Sophia! Over here!”
Mina’s pink arm shot up from a plush sectional, a beacon in the chaos. Sophia carved a path toward her, offering tight smiles to half-remembered faces from the hero course. She felt their glances—not unkind, just assessing—and automatically smoothed a hand over her stomach where her jeans felt just a little too tight.
“You made it!” Mina squealed, pulling her down onto the couch. Denki was slumped on the other side, his head lolling back as he dribbled something from a red cup onto his shirt. “Look who finally decided to grace us with her presence!”
“Traffic was a nightmare,” Sophia lied, accepting the cup Mina thrust into her hand. It was fruity and strong. “You know how it is. Where’s… everyone?”
She tried to make it sound casual, a blanket question. Her eyes, however, were already scanning the room, flitting over dancing clusters, the kitchen crowded with people doing shots, the hall leading to the balcony.
“Kirishima and Sero are by the speakers arguing about the playlist,” Mina said, rolling her eyes. “I think Iida left an hour ago—cited a violation of noise ordinances for the building. Honestly, a total buzzkill.” She leaned in, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “They’re outside. On the balcony. Been out there awhile.”
Sophia’s throat went dry. She took a long swallow from her cup. The alcohol burned a pleasant, numbing path down to her gut. “Oh.”
“Yeah, ‘oh.’” Mina’s expression softened. “You okay?”
“I’m fantastic,” Sophia said, and the brightness in her own voice almost convinced her. “Why wouldn’t I be? It’s a party.” She stood up, the need to move, to prove her own nonchalance, suddenly overwhelming. “I’m gonna get some air.”
“Sophia—”
But she was already turning, weaving back into the thrum of the crowd. The music shifted, the beat dropping into something slower, heavier. Bodies pressed closer. She kept her eyes forward, a fixed smile on her face, until she reached the glass doors leading to the wide, wrap-around balcony.
The cool night air was a shock, slicing through the penthouse’s muggy heat. It was quieter out here, the city’s endless hum a bass note beneath the muffled music. A few small groups were scattered around, chatting low, cigarettes glowing like tiny fireflies in the dark.
And then she saw them.
At the far corner, silhouetted against the breathtaking sprawl of the city’s electric tapestry, were two figures. The taller one had his back to her, his posture a familiar, aggressive line of shoulders and spine. Spiky blonde hair. Katsuki.
He had Izuku pressed against the railing, one hand cradling the back of Izuku’s neck, the other braced on the steel beside his head. They were fused together, motionless for a heartbeat, and then Izuku’s arms came up to wrap around Katsuki’s shoulders, pulling him closer. The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was all fierce, desperate angles, a conversation of hungry mouths under the sodium glow.
Sophia stopped dead.
The cup slipped from her fingers. It hit the concrete with a dull thud, the remaining liquid darkening the stone in an abstract splash. The sound was tiny, swallowed by the city and the music, but to her it was a gunshot.
Time didn’t slow down. It fractured. One moment she was moving, breathing, living. The next, she was a statue of warm brown skin and vibrant curls, her dark eyes wide, absorbing the scene like a physical blow. Her heart wasn’t breaking; it was simply ceasing to function, a frozen, heavy stone in her chest. All the air left her lungs in a quiet, startled rush.
Don’t stare. Don’t stare. Move.
Her legs refused the command. She was pinned there, a spectator to her own private ruin. She remembered the feel of those same hands, rougher then, fumbling in the dark of a different party three years ago. The harsh, muffled sound of his voice the next morning: “Forget it happened. It was nothing.” She remembered Izuku’s soft, apologetic smile last year, his green eyes kind. “You’re amazing, Sophia. You’re my best friend. I just… don’t see you that way.”
Now they were a single, perfect shape against the skyline. A matched set.
A raw, shuddering breath finally ripped its way up from her diaphragm. It was enough to unlock her joints. She took a stumbling step backward, then another, her heels scraping on the concrete. She turned blindly, fumbling for the door handle, her vision blurring at the edges. She needed to be gone, to be anywhere else.
She burst back into the roar of the party, the sudden wall of sound and heat feeling like an assault. She bumped into someone, muttered an apology she didn’t mean, and made a beeline for the apartment’s entrance, ignoring Mina’s shouted question from across the room.
The hallway outside the penthouse was mercifully silent and empty, just cool, sterile air and expensive carpet. She leaned against the wall, pressing her palms flat against the plaster, trying to anchor herself. The image was seared onto the back of her eyelids. The possessive arch of his back. The way Izuku’s fingers had tangled in his hair.
“Damn.”
The voice, low and familiar, came from her left. Sophia’s head jerked up.
Ochako Uraraka stood a few feet away, having just exited the bathroom. Her cheeks were flushed from the party, but her brown eyes were sharp and clear, and they held a look of immediate, pained understanding. She’d seen Sophia’s face. She’d probably seen where Sophia had just come from.
“Ochako,” Sophia breathed, the name barely audible.
Ochako didn’t offer empty comfort. She just nodded slowly, her gaze flicking toward the penthouse door and then back to Sophia’s stricken face. “He never could make things easy, could he?” she said, and it wasn’t clear which ‘he’ she meant. She shifted her weight, her expression turning grim. “Listen, Sophia… about that night with Bakugou in junior year. There’s something you should know. It wasn’t just some random hookup.”
Ochako’s words hung in the sterile hallway air, a promise of a secret, a key to a door Sophia had long ago sealed shut. Sophia stared at her friend’s concerned face, at the earnest set of her mouth, and felt… nothing. A hollow, echoing void where curiosity or pain should have been.
She sighed. It was a soft, defeated sound, lost under the distant thump of bass from the penthouse. Knowing Ochako was just being sweet like always. She didn’t believe there was anything there nor that there ever was. Especially after seeing what she just had. The two most important, most oblivious guys in her life, locked in a world that had no door for her. What could Ochako possibly say that would change the shape of that silhouette against the sky? Nothing. It would just be more words to pick apart later, in the dark, alone.
"Doubted they’d even care if she left either," she murmured, more to herself than to Ochako. "Or that she had even showed up."
She pushed off the wall, the movement fueled by a sudden, profound exhaustion. "Thanks, Ochako. Really. But I think I’m just gonna… go. I’ve got an early shift tomorrow."
"Sophia, wait—"
But she was already moving down the hall toward the elevator bank, her steps quick and final. The click of her heels on the marble was a decisive period at the end of a sentence she never wanted to read again. She heard the penthouse door open again, a burst of music and laughter, but didn’t turn. It could have been anyone. It was everyone but her.
She pressed the call button. The elevator doors slid open immediately, mercifully empty. As they closed, cutting off the sight of Ochako’s worried figure in the hallway, the last thing she saw was the reflection of herself in the polished brass: her dark eyes wide and strangely dry, her vibrant curls a stark contrast to the flat emptiness in her own expression. The party, the city, the whole night fell away into a muffled hum, and then into silence.
The party, the city, the whole night fell away into a muffled hum, and then into silence.
The elevator descended. Sophia watched the numbers flicker downward, a cool mental distraction. Twenty-four. Twenty-three. Her reflection in the doors was a ghost. When the car jolted to a stop in the lobby, the polished brass shook, and her image wavered, breaking apart before reforming. She stepped out into the vast, empty marble space. The security guard gave her a nod. His radio crackled with static. The sound was violently alive in the stillness.
Outside, the city air was a damp blanket. A taxi idled at the curb, the driver looking at her expectantly. She walked past it. The idea of being trapped in another small, silent space, with a stranger waiting for a destination she’d have to verbalize, was impossible.
Her feet hit the pavement. First, it was a fast walk, her heels clacking a frantic, uneven rhythm. The sequins on her top threw back the garish light of neon signs and streetlamps. A group of guys on the corner called out something. The words were shapeless, just another noise absorbed into the city’s roar. She didn’t look. She just walked faster.
The image wouldn’t leave. It played on a loop, more vivid than the actual street in front of her. Bakugou’s hand, so large against the back of Izuku’s neck. The possessive tilt of his head. Izuku’s surrender, his fingers gripping blonde spikes like he was holding on for life. It was an intimacy that was fierce and complete. It left no room. It was a door shutting finally, with a sound she felt in her bones.
Her breath began to hitch. The fast walk broke into a jog. Her purse bounced against her hip. One of her heels caught on a crack in the sidewalk and she stumbled, wrenching her ankle. A sharp curse tore from her lips, swallowed by the night. She stopped, bent over, and ripped the stupid, beautiful shoes off. The cold concrete was gritty and shocking under her soles.
She ran.
The city became a blur of streaked light and shadow. The wind dried the thin film of sweat on her skin, chilling her. She ran past late-night ramen shops steaming up their windows, past convenience stores humming with fluorescent light, past couples stumbling home wrapped around each other. Her curls whipped her face. Each slap of her bare feet on the pavement was a punctuation mark. Done. Done. Done.
She didn’t feel the burn in her lungs or the protest in her muscles. She only felt the frantic need to outrun the picture in her mind, to outrun the hollow, scraped-clean feeling in her chest. A part of her brain, cold and logical, whispered that this was dramatic. That she was being pathetic. The thought just made her run harder, as if she could escape that voice, too.
She cut through a narrow park, the grass wet and cold between her toes. The darkness there was almost total, a brief respite from the accusing lights. She slowed for a moment, gulping air that tasted of damp earth and regret. Under a lone lamppost, an older woman was gently urging a sleepy toddler into a stroller. The child fussed, reaching up. The woman smiled, a tired, infinite sort of love in her expression, and gathered the kid close.
Sophia looked away. The simple tenderness was a different kind of assault. She gathered the cheap shoes in her hand and ran again, leaving the quiet pocket of the park for the relentless avenue.
Her apartment building appeared, a bland brick rectangle. She fumbled with her keys at the outer door, her hands trembling. The lobby was dim, smelling of lemon-scented cleaner and old carpet. Up the stairs—the elevator was too much—taking them two at a time until she reached her door.
Inside. Lock it. The deadbolt slid home with a heavy, final thunk.
Silence.
Real silence, not the muffled kind from the elevator. It pressed in on her eardrums. Her own breathing was ragged and loud. She stood in the tiny, dark entryway, her back against the cool wood of the door, and slid down until she was sitting on the floor. The shoes dropped from her hand with a clatter.
The adrenaline bled away, leaving a profound, aching exhaustion. She was home. And there was nothing here to stop the thoughts, nothing to crowd out the memory. It flooded in, Technicolor and cruel. The kiss. Their merged silhouette. Ochako’s pitying face. The three years of stupid, secret hope curdled in her stomach, sour and shameful.
She pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. The sequins on her top dug into her skin. She was still beautiful, still vibrant Sophia with her Hawaiian, Black, and Filipino heritage coloring her warm skin, her head full of life. But here, in the dark, she felt invisible. Erased.
A tremor started deep inside, a vibration that grew until her shoulders shook. She pressed her forehead hard into her knees. The first sob was a rough, broken thing, tearing out of her throat. Then there was no stopping them. They racked her frame, silent and violent, her body wringing itself out onto the dark floor of the apartment she’d run all the way home to.
They racked her frame, silent and violent, her body wringing itself out onto the dark floor of the apartment she’d run all the way home to.
She didn’t know how long she sat there. The shaking subsided, leaving a thick, cottony numbness in its wake. The only light came from a streetlamp filtering through the blinds, painting striped shadows across the cluttered living room. A takeout container sat on the coffee table from two nights ago. A textbook lay sprawled on the couch, left open in mid-study. The ordinary debris of her life looked foreign, like evidence from someone else’s crime scene.
With a grunt that was mostly air, she pushed herself up. Her feet were filthy, grime etched into the lines of her skin. She walked to the bathroom, flicked on the light, and winced at the sudden assault. Her reflection was a disaster. Mascara was smeared in grim gray shadows under her eyes. Her lipstick was gone, bitten off. Her vibrant curls were a wild, knotted halo from the run.
She turned on the tap, cold water shocking her wrists. She splashed her face, the water mixing with the salt on her skin. She scrubbed, hard, until her cheeks burned pink. The face that emerged from the towel was younger, bare, and tired. Her dark eyes held a flat emptiness.
She peeled off the sequined top, the jeans that had felt too tight all night. They fell into a glittery heap on the floor. She pulled on an old, soft t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. The familiar cotton was a kind of armor.
Her phone, forgotten in her clutch purse, buzzed against the floor in the entryway. The sound was a vibration in her teeth. She walked over, extracted it, and stood holding the cool glass slab.
The screen was a constellation of notifications. A missed call from Mina. Three texts.
Mina (12:47 AM): where did you go?
Mina (12:59 AM): ochako said u looked upset. talk to me.
Mina (1:15 AM): call me tomorrow. love you.
She swallowed. A good friend. She’d have to reply eventually. Not now.
Her thumb moved on its own, tapping the contacts icon. The list scrolled. Mom. Dad. Mina. Ochako. Work.
There.
Deku 💚
The heart was a relic, a stupid, juvenile artifact from first year. She’d never changed it. A tiny, hopeful monument she’d walked past every day without really seeing.
Below it.
Bakugou.
No emoji. Just the name. Saved after the licensing exam, a practical necessity for a study group that never materialized. The memory of getting it was hazy. He’d rattled it off, not looking at her, and she’d punched it in with trembling fingers, feeling like she’d stolen something.
Her breath felt thin. She opened Deku’s contact first. His cheerful profile picture smiled up at her—a selfie from their internship, sunlight in his green hair. She tapped ‘edit’.
Her finger hovered over the little heart. A single tap. It vanished.
That was it. No fanfare. The digital love was just… gone. The contact read Deku. Just a name. Just a person.
She stared at it. She thought of his laughter, his endless muttering, the way he’d lean in to listen to her, his freckled face so earnest. She thought of the balcony. His hands in blonde hair. Her thumb moved down and pressed ‘delete contact’. A confirmation box popped up.
Delete this contact?
She pressed ‘delete’.
It was easier than she’d thought it would be. It was like cutting a single string. The world didn’t end. The phone didn’t combust.
She went to Bakugou’s contact next. No picture. Just the number. She remembered the exact cadence of his voice saying it, bored and impatient. She remembered a different voice, husky and close, in a dark room years ago, saying things that meant nothing. She remembered the sharp, clean rejection the next morning that had felt like a surgical incision. She remembered the silhouette against the city.
She didn’t edit. She didn’t spare a second thought. She tapped ‘delete’.
Delete this contact?
Yes.
Gone.
Two taps. Four taps total. A few seconds of pressure on a glass screen. Three years of tangled, hopeful, painful static silenced into a blank space in a digital list.
She let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. It wasn’t a relief. It wasn’t a triumph. It was a nullification. A silent administrative task.
She walked to the kitchen, filled a glass with water, and drank it all. The apartment was profoundly quiet. She looked at her phone again, the screen now dark, reflecting a sliver of her own face.
She placed it on the counter, screen down.
For the first time since she’d left the party, her mind was quiet. Not peaceful. But quiet. The loop had broken. The chasing was over. There was nothing left to chase.
She turned off the kitchen light and walked toward her bedroom in the dark. The streetlamp stripes followed her across the floor. She didn’t look back at the phone. She didn’t wonder if it would buzz again. She just moved forward, step by step, into the emptiness she had made for herself. It was hers now. And it was clean.
And it was clean.
The silence lasted exactly seven minutes.
Then, a sharp, rhythmic buzzing began against the countertop. The phone skittered an inch, a angry metal beetle. Sophia watched it from the bedroom doorway. The light from the screen bled out around the edges, staining the dim kitchen. It was an violation.
She should let it die. She would let it die.
It buzzed again. And again. Insistent. A demand. Her feet were moving before her mind consented, carrying her back to that stupid glowing rectangle. She didn’t flip it over. She just stared at the halo of light.
It could be Mina. It could be her mom. It could be work, some emergency at the clinic. It wasn’t them. She knew it wasn’t them. The pattern was all wrong—short, persistent bursts. A fighter’s jab.
With a snarl that ripped from her throat, she grabbed the phone. The name on the screen wasn’t ‘Bakugou’ anymore. It was just a number. A string of digits that she knew by heart, that felt like a punch to the sternum.
She accepted the call and pressed it to her ear. She said nothing.
The line hissed with ambient noise. Distant traffic, wind. He was outside. Then his voice, grating and low, no greeting. “Where the hell did you go?”
The sound of it, so familiar and so infuriating, sent a bolt of pure, undiluted rage straight through her numbness. “What do you want, Bakugou?”
“You looked like you saw a ghost and bailed. Mina’s fucking whining. It’s annoying.” His tone was all rough edges, but underneath it was a thread of something else. Not concern. Curiosity. An itch.
Sophia let out a short, bitter laugh. “Yeah. Must have been a ghost. Forget it. I’m home.”
A pause. She could hear his breathing. “You left your shit. Some sparkly clutch. Ochako has it.”
“Throw it away.”
“Tch. Whatever.” Another pause, longer this time. The background noise faded, like he’d moved. “That shit… with Deku.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Don’t.”
“I saw you watching.”
The words were blunt, stripped bare. There was no apology in them. Just a statement of fact. An accusation. He’d known she was there. He’d let her see. The fury boiled hotter, mixing with a shame so deep it felt like drowning.
“Congratulations,” she spat, her voice trembling. “You got what you wanted. You both did. Now leave me the fuck alone.”
“It’s not…” He growled, a frustrated, animal sound. “Fuck. Just… stay there.”
The call went dead.
She stood frozen, the dial tone bleating in her ear. Stay there. An order. Like she was some stray dog. The anger crystallized into something hard and sharp and decisive. He didn’t get to do this. He didn’t get to blow up her peace, hook into her again with his confusing, brutal gravity.
She wasn’t going to stay there.
She moved on autopilot, driven by a new, clear purpose. She yanked the sweatpants off, pulled on a pair of tight black leggings and a clean hoodie. She stuffed her wallet and keys into the pocket. She didn’t look in the mirror.
The hallway was empty. The stairs were a silent downward spiral. The lobby was still watched by the same security guard, who raised an eyebrow as she blew past.
She didn’t run this time. She walked with a fast, sharp clip, her bare feet in sneakers eating up the pavement. She knew where she was going. It wasn’t far. A twenty-four hour convenience store, then two blocks down, a bar called The Gritty Nail. It was a dive, the kind of place where the lights were permanently dim and the patrons didn’t ask questions.
She bought the cheapest, tallest can of beer from the convenience store cooler. She cracked it open on the street outside The Gritty Nail, took three long, gagging gulps, and tossed the half-full can into a gutter. The alcohol was a utility, a fuel.
Inside the bar, the air was thick with old smoke and spilled ammonia. A few hard-looking people glanced up from their drinks. She ignored them, marching straight to the scarred wooden bar.
“Tequila. Don’t bother with the glass.”
The bartender, a woman with tattoos knitting up her arms, didn’t blink. She slid a bottle and a shot glass across the wood. Sophia poured, tossed it back. The burn was brilliant and clarifying. She poured another.
“Rough night, sister?” A man sidled up next to her. He was older, with a weathered face and eyes that lingered too low on her body.
“The roughest,” she said, turning to face him fully. She looked him dead in the eyes as she downed the second shot. “You buying the next one or just talking?”