Mind Boggled

Chapter 70

The guilt that had gnawed at her has lessened the more she thinks about it. Because Kirishima was right. Shit does happen. Shit happens all the fucking time, and if she's going to blame anyone, it shouldn't be herself. She shouldn't do that to herself-- can't survive doing that to herself. Not again. This should instead be something she strives to make sure never happens again. Only... it won't ever happen again, she supposes. There was only one Kirishima. Her closest friend and most trusted ally. Someone she'd grown to love, and she hadn't even managed to tell him until the very end. Harper feels like a coward for that. She thinks that almost hurts worse than anything else.

"Harper, are you okay?" Her mother's voice warbles dangerously, warning of another onslaught of tears. Harper grits her teeth and hates herself for putting them through that again. Harper reminds herself, not for the first time, that they've already lost a child. That they don't need to lose another. She'd promised she'd never risk herself like that again, and yet... here she is. "She's stopped crying, but I... she's so deep in thought, and I worry she isn't processing."

"Where's Kurogiri?" Harper asks instead. She's already asked about Bakugo and Dabi respectively, as well as Sero and Stain. The latter pair had been promptly taken away, but Dabi had sustained severe burns to his hands and arms after sending a blast of fire big enough to level an entire block at All For One. Got him good, too, from what Harper hears. Bakugo is still asleep and in the ICU. He lost a lot of blood and the risk for infection still poses a threat. The amputation from Shigaraki wasn't clean or sanitary by any means. Harper feels sick thinking about it. She wants to be there when he wakes up but isn't sure her face is going to be the first thing he wants to see.

"I...I'm not sure." Her dad admits, pushing himself to sit up. "Do you want me to go find him?"

"I need to see him." Harper murmurs. Half because she knows he doesn't have any emotion right now and she needs to change that before something wrong, but half because she has something to say to him. She has a lot of somethings to say to a lot of people, actually. After Kirishima, she can't... Harper has never been an emotional person, but what would she have done if she hadn't been able to talk to Kirishima before... before...

Life is too short, which is a cliché way of putting it, but it's damn true. Especially in a field as dangerous as this. If she has things to say, she should say them. She knows so much about the people around her. She hears everything, but sometimes she forgets they can't hear her back. Kirishima had told her to open up. Harper had to listen. She had to listen-- she couldn't not listen. She'd sink. She was sinking and she was afraid of what was going to happen to her if she let herself spiral in such a way.

Eric's death had broken her at a young age. It had made her avoidant to opening up. She'd pushed away a friend who needed her as a result and she regretted it everyday. Inasa had been struggling just as much as she was at the time, and he understood better than anyone what had happened. Yet she'd distanced herself despite his efforts to support her. Even now she seldom ever talked to him, sending the odd birthday and Christmas card and getting a cheerful one in return. 

Would things have been different if she'd let him in? If she'd let him continue as her best friend? Harper doesn't know, but she has a feeling her current situation is giving her a chance to figure that out. Harper can't close herself off from the people she does still have. To do that to them would be cruel, and Kirishima would certainly be pissed.

"I'll go find him right away!" Akiara jumped up as tears welled up into her daughters eyes, the teen's body once again going rigid as her thoughts spiraled. She'd been having up and downs since it happened. They'd tried to get her to sleep to no avail. She'd insisted on rigorously interrogating everyone she could about who else had gotten hurt, her fear that someone else could've died without her knowing evident.