The fluorescent lights hummed their usual monotonous drone, flickering just enough to be annoying but not enough for maintenance to give a damn. Jason Chen slumped in his seat—third row, second from the left, same spot he'd claimed since the semester started—and tried not to let his eyes glaze over completely as Professor Morrison droned on about market segmentation strategies.
God, just... shut UP already.
"—and as we can see from the 2023 consumer behavior analysis, the demographic shifts in purchasing power among millennials and Gen Z cohorts have fundamentally altered the landscape of—"
Jason's pen tapped against his notebook in an irregular rhythm, the only thing keeping him tethered to consciousness. The clock on the wall—one of those ancient analog ones that belonged in a museum—read 2:47 PM. Thirteen more minutes. Thirteen more EXCRUCIATING minutes before he could get the hell out of here, grab some shitty campus coffee, and finally—FINALLY—read chapter 430 of My Hero Academia.
The final chapter.
The END.
His phone buzzed silently in his pocket. He knew without checking it was probably Marcus blowing up the group chat again, but Professor Morrison had a sixth sense for phone usage and Jason really couldn't afford another participation grade dock. He was already skating by with a B-minus in Business Strategy, and his parents—practical, pragmatic, perpetually disappointed—had made it crystal clear that anything below a B wasn't going to cut it.
"You're paying thirty thousand a year for this education, Jason. Thirty. Thousand." His mom's voice echoed in his head, that particular blend of concern and accusation that Asian parents had perfected into an art form.
Yeah, yeah. He got it.
But right now, with Morrison's voice fading into white noise and the afternoon sun slanting through the grimy windows, all Jason could think about was Deku. Bakugo. The final confrontation. What Horikoshi had in store for the ending everyone had been theorizing about for MONTHS.
His leg bounced under the desk, restless energy coursing through him despite the exhaustion that came from pulling an all-nighter to finish an English Lit essay on postmodern narrative structures. Double majoring in English and Business was his compromise—his parents wanted practical, he wanted passion, so he'd split the difference and ended up with twice the workload and half the satisfaction.
Worth it though, he thought, remembering the rush of analyzing Fitzgerald's prose at 3 AM, caffeinated out of his mind and feeling like he'd discovered something profound about the green light symbolism that his professor would definitely call "derivative" in her feedback.
"Mr. Chen."
Jason's head snapped up. Morrison was staring at him, one eyebrow raised, the expression of a man who'd dealt with checked-out students for twenty-odd years and had the patience of a saint worn down to saintly tolerance at best.
"Yes, sir?"
"Perhaps you'd like to share with the class your thoughts on how behavioral economics influences consumer decision-making in saturated markets?"
Fuck.
Jason's mind scrambled, pulling together fragments of the lecture he'd mostly ignored. "Uh... well, behavioral economics suggests that consumers don't always act rationally, right? Like, cognitive biases—anchoring, loss aversion—they affect purchasing decisions even in markets with multiple competing options. So companies use that, manipulate the framing to make their product seem like the logical choice even when it's not necessarily the best value."
Morrison's expression didn't change, but he gave a small nod. "Adequate. Pay attention, Mr. Chen."
"Yes, sir."
The snickers from his classmates were barely suppressed. Jason felt heat creep up his neck but kept his expression neutral. Whatever. Twelve more minutes.
His phone buzzed again. Then again. Marcus was definitely losing his shit about something.
The minutes crawled by like they were wading through molasses, each second stretching into eternity, until finally—FINALLY—the clock hit 3:00 PM and Morrison dismissed them with a reminder about the midterm next week that Jason would definitely stress about later but absolutely refused to think about now.
He grabbed his backpack—a battered North Face thing that had survived three years of abuse—and headed for the door, weaving through the crush of students who moved with the urgency of people suddenly freed from captivity.
His phone was already in his hand before he hit the hallway.
Marcus: BRO
Marcus: BRO BRO BRO
Marcus: ARE YOU OUT YET
Marcus: CHAPTER 430 JUST DROPPED
Marcus: IM LITERALLY SHAKING
Devin: marcus chill lmao
Marcus: I CANNOT CHILL
Marcus: THIS IS THE END
Marcus: THE EEEEEND
Sophia: you guys are so dramatic its a manga
Marcus: SOPHIA
Marcus: SOPHIA PLEASE
Marcus: THIS IS HISTORY
Jason couldn't help the grin that split his face as he typed one-handed, navigating the crowded hallway toward the exit.
Jason: just got out, morrisons a dick as usual
Jason: heading to grab coffee then im reading it
Marcus: COFFEE??? COFFEE?????
Marcus: BRO PRIORITIES
Jason: i need caffeine man im running on 2 hours of sleep
Marcus: sacrifice your health for DEKU
Devin: jason dont listen to him
Devin: you wanna meet up at grounds before you head home?
Jason pushed through the heavy double doors into the late September afternoon. The campus was alive with that particular energy of a Friday, students sprawled on the quad's brown grass, music drifting from open dorm windows, the smell of weed mixing with food truck tacos and autumn leaves.
He breathed it in, feeling some of the classroom tension bleed away.
Jason: yeah gimme 10, usual spot
Grounds & Rounds was the coffee shop every broke college student ended up at eventually, a cramped space that smelled perpetually of burnt espresso and served drinks that ranged from "pretty decent" to "is this actually coffee or punishment?" But it was cheap, close, and the wifi was decent enough for streaming.
Marcus and Devin were already there when Jason arrived, crammed into their usual corner booth with its cracked vinyl seats and table that wobbled no matter how many napkins you shoved under the leg. Marcus looked exactly like someone who'd been refreshing manga sites every thirty seconds—wild-eyed, his dark hair sticking up at odd angles, wearing a faded All Might hoodie that had seen better days.
Devin, by contrast, looked like he'd just rolled out of a photo shoot—somehow managing to make a basic white t-shirt and jeans look effortlessly stylish, his locs tied back neatly, scrolling through his phone with the casual disinterest of someone who enjoyed anime but didn't base his entire personality on it.
"FINALLY," Marcus said, loud enough to draw looks from the other patrons. "Dude, what took you so long?"
"It's been literally ten minutes, calm down." Jason dropped his backpack and headed to the counter. "You guys want anything?"
"Already got mine," Devin said, gesturing to his iced americano.
"I'm too anxious to drink anything, I might throw up," Marcus said seriously.
"You're insane," Jason said, but he was smiling as he ordered his usual—medium dark roast, black, because he'd learned to stomach it without sugar freshman year and now adding anything felt like weakness.
When he returned to the booth, Marcus had his laptop out, the browser pulled up to the manga site, cursor hovering over the chapter link like it was a detonator.
"We doing this?" Marcus asked, his voice pitched with genuine emotion.
"Man, I'm reading it at home," Jason said, taking a sip of his coffee and immediately burning his tongue. "I want to savor it, not read it on your crusty-ass screen in a coffee shop."
"Crusty? Bro, I just cleaned this—"
"There's literally a fingerprint smudge right there."
"That's ARTISTIC AMBIANCE."
Devin snorted. "Jason's right though. Final chapter deserves the proper atmosphere. I'm gonna read it tonight with the lights dimmed, volume up, the full experience."
"You guys are both wrong, the hype is NOW, the moment is NOW—"
"The moment can wait until I'm not surrounded by people ordering pumpkin spice lattes," Jason said. He leaned back, cradling his coffee, feeling the warmth seep into his palms. "But real talk, what do you think happens? Deku gets One For All back? Stays quirkless? Becomes a teacher?"
"If Horikoshi makes him permanently quirkless I'm gonna riot," Marcus said immediately. "Like, thematically, okay, I GET it, anyone can be a hero, full circle back to chapter one, whatever. But emotionally? My boy DESERVES his power back."
"I don't know," Devin said thoughtfully. "I think there's something powerful about him accepting that his time as the greatest hero is over. Passing the torch, you know? Growth isn't always about getting back what you lost."
"That's beautiful and I hate it," Marcus said.
Jason listened to them debate, throwing in his own theories, and felt that particular warmth that came from being with people who got it. Who understood why this mattered, why a story about teenage superheroes could mean something, could make you feel something real.
His phone buzzed—a notification from his landlord about rent being due next week. The warmth evaporated instantly.
Right. Reality.
"Yo, you good?" Devin asked, noticing his expression.
"Yeah, just... rent shit. I'm short like two hundred bucks and my shift got cut this week." Jason rubbed his face. "I'll figure it out. Might pick up some extra tutoring gigs or something."
"You could always sell feet pics," Marcus suggested helpfully.
"I'm not selling feet pics."
"Your loss. The market's booming apparently."
"Marcus, what the fuck—"
"I'M JUST SAYING, economic opportunity—"
They talked for another twenty minutes, the conversation drifting from manga to Marcus's disastrous Tinder date last weekend (apparently asking someone if they'd ever considered cosplaying was NOT good first-date conversation), to Devin's photography project that was due Monday, to Jason's growing dread about the English Lit midterm.
Normal stuff. College stuff. The mundane reality of being nineteen and broke and tired and still somehow finding reasons to laugh.
Eventually, Jason glanced at his phone. 4:37 PM.
"Alright, I gotta head out," he said, draining the last of his coffee. "Gotta catch the bus before rush hour hits."
"Read the chapter and text us IMMEDIATELY," Marcus demanded.
"I will, I will."
"Like, the SECOND you finish."
"Marcus, I got it."
"I'm serious, Jason. Don't make me come to your apartment."
"You don't even know where I live."
"I'LL FIND YOU."
Devin rolled his eyes. "Have a good weekend, man. Don't stress too much about the money thing. It'll work out."
"Yeah. Thanks, Dev."
Jason shouldered his backpack and headed out into the cooling afternoon. The sun was already starting its descent, painting everything in that golden hour light that made even the shitty parts of town look almost beautiful. He walked the three blocks to the bus stop, earbuds in, shuffling his playlist until he landed on something instrumental—lo-fi hip-hop beats that were probably playing in a thousand other college students' ears right now.
The bus was late, of course, because public transportation in this city operated on vibes rather than schedules. Jason waited with a cluster of other people—an elderly woman with a wheeled shopping cart, a guy in a construction vest covered in dust, a teenage girl who couldn't have been more than fifteen, staring at her phone with the intensity of someone whose entire social life existed in a group chat.
When the bus finally arrived, Jason found a seat near the back, pressed against the window, and watched the city roll by. Strip malls and apartment complexes, auto shops and gas stations, the occasional splash of color from a mural or graffiti tag. Not quite suburbs, not quite urban, just that weird in-between space where rent was almost affordable if you didn't mind the occasional sound of sirens at 2 AM.
His stop was near a intersection dominated by a massive shopping complex—Target, Best Buy, Chipotle, the usual suspects. Jason got off, the bus hissing as it pulled away, and started the ten-minute walk to his apartment.
The complex was called Riverside Gardens, which was optimistic considering there was no river and the only garden was a patch of dying grass someone had given up maintaining. But it was cheap, relatively clean, and his unit had decent water pressure, which felt like luxury some days.
He took the stairs two at a time to the third floor, already mentally planning his evening. Change into comfortable clothes, make some instant ramen because cooking was beyond him right now, settle into his desk chair, pull up the chapter, and just... experience it.
The key stuck in the lock—it always did—but eventually gave way. Jason pushed open the door to his apartment, a studio that was basically just one room with a kitchen nook and a bathroom the size of a closet. Clothes were scattered across the floor, textbooks stacked haphazardly on the desk, a poster of the MHA movie on the wall alongside album art from various artists he'd been into over the years.
Home. Messy, cramped, somehow always smelling faintly of old takeout, but home.
He dropped his backpack, toed off his shoes, and was halfway through changing into sweatpants when his phone rang.
Mom.
Jason stared at the screen, debating whether to answer. Love-guilt won out over exhaustion.
"Hey, Mom."
"Jason! I haven't heard from you in three days, I was starting to worry." Her voice was bright, concerned, with that undercurrent of reproach that came from culturally ingrained parenting tactics.
"I'm fine, just busy with midterms and stuff."
"Are you eating enough? You sound tired."
"I'm eating, I'm sleeping, everything's good."
"Your father wants to know how your Business classes are going. He said you haven't answered his emails."
Because his emails are basically just thinly veiled lectures about career paths.
"They're going fine. I got a B-plus on my last Strategic Management project."
"That's good, that's good. And English?"
Here was the conversational minefield. His parents tolerated his English major because he'd agreed to the Business double major, but they made their opinions clear through strategic sighs and comments about "marketable skills."
"Also good. Just finished an essay on Fitzgerald."
"That's nice, sweetie. You know, your father's friend's son is working at Goldman Sachs now, he graduated with a Business degree, very successful—"
"Mom, I gotta go, I have a lot of reading to do for class."
"Oh! Okay, okay. Call us this weekend, alright? We miss you."
The guilt twisted in his chest. "I will. Love you."
"Love you too. Eat vegetables!"
The call ended. Jason stood in his apartment, phone in hand, feeling that particular exhaustion that came from family conversations—the weight of expectations, the unspoken disappointments, the love that somehow felt like pressure.
Later, he told himself. Deal with all that later.
Right now, he had a date with the ending of a story he'd been following for years.
Jason made his ramen—chicken flavor, the fancy kind that was like fifty cents more but actually had a vegetable packet—and settled at his desk. His laptop came to life with a whir, the fan already protesting. He pulled up the manga site, created some ambiance by turning on his desk lamp and dimming the overhead light, and pulled up the chapter.
Chapter 430. The final chapter. The end of MY HERO ACADEMIA.
His heart was actually pounding as he moved the cursor to click.
"Here we go," he muttered to himself.
And then—
A notification on his phone. The landlord again, this time actually calling. Jason groaned, glancing between the screen and his phone. He could ignore it, but the anxiety about rent was already gnawing at him, and maybe if he just answered quickly, explained he'd have the money by Wednesday—
He answered. "Hello?"
"Mr. Chen, hi, it's Robert from property management. I wanted to follow up about the rent payment—"
Jason stood, pacing the small space as he launched into explanations and promises, his eyes drifting to the laptop screen where the first page of the chapter sat, unread, WAITING—
"—I understand, but we do need payment by Monday at the latest, or we'll have to start the late fee process—"
"I understand, I'll have it by Monday, I promise—"
The conversation stretched on for fifteen agonizing minutes before Robert finally accepted his assurances and hung up. Jason stood there, phone in hand, feeling the weight of adult responsibilities crushing the simple joy of wanting to read a manga chapter.
Fuck it.
He needed air. Needed to clear his head before diving into the chapter, or he wouldn't be able to focus. He'd just take a quick walk, maybe grab some actual food from the convenience store down the street, come back with a clear mind and proper snacks.
Jason grabbed his wallet and keys, shoved his feet into his sneakers, and headed out.
The evening had settled into that transitional space between day and night, the sky painted in purples and deep blues, streetlights flickering on one by one. The air was crisp, almost cold, carrying the scent of fallen leaves and someone's distant barbecue.
He walked with his hands in his hoodie pockets, his mind already drifting back to theories about the chapter. Would Deku end up with Ochaco? Would we see the next generation of heroes? Would there be a time skip showing everyone as pro heroes?
The convenience store was at the corner, a bright fluorescent beacon in the gathering dark. Jason was halfway through the crosswalk, mentally debating between chips or candy, when he heard it.
The engine. Too loud, too fast, the sound wrong in a way that made his hindbrain scream DANGER before his conscious mind caught up.
He turned his head.
Headlights. Blinding, massive, coming from the right where there shouldn't be anything because he'd checked, he'd LOOKED, but the truck had run the red light going at least sixty in a thirty-five zone, the driver probably on their phone or drunk or just not paying attention—
Time did that thing it does in moments of crisis, stretching and compressing simultaneously. Jason saw everything with crystal clarity—the truck's grille, the way the headlights caught the street sign, a crack in the asphalt—while also feeling like it happened too fast to process, too fast to react, too fast to do ANYTHING except think—
This is so fucking stupid—
Impact.
Pain, white-hot and absolute, his body ragdolling, the world spinning into incomprehensible angles and sounds—metal crunching, someone screaming, the wet slap of his body hitting pavement—
I didn't even read the fucking chapter—
And then nothing.
Not darkness, not light, not peace or pain or fear.
Just... nothing.
The end of everything.
The end of Jason Chen, nineteen years old, college student, son, friend, someone who'd never published that novel he'd been drafting since sophomore year, never asked out the girl from his Victorian Literature class, never figured out what he actually wanted to do with his life beyond surviving it.
The end.
Except—
Not quite.
Because somewhere in that nothing, in that void between existence and non-existence, something stirred. A pull. A tug. A sense of motion without movement, of time passing without seconds, of consciousness fragmenting and reforming into something NEW, something OTHER, something—
—DIFFERENT.
The nothing gave way to... sensation. Warmth. Constriction. Sound, muffled but growing clearer—voices speaking in syllables that felt familiar but wrong, like a song played in a different key.
What the—
Weight. Pressure. The feeling of a body that was simultaneously his and not his, too small, proportions wrong, everything WRONG—
And then—
Light. Blinding, overwhelming, too much after the nothing, and Jason—no, not Jason anymore, someone else, something else—tried to scream but the sound came out weak, thin, the cry of—
No. No, no, no—
"Congratulations," a voice said in Japanese, the words filtering through his confusion like he'd always understood them, like they were native. "It's a boy."
A boy.
A BABY.
What the FUCK—
But consciousness was already slipping, the exhaustion of being BORN too much for whatever remained of Jason's nineteen-year-old mind crammed into an infant's body, and as he faded into sleep, his last coherent thought was:
I didn't get to read the chapter.