Flat 36 [Bakugo & Reader & Kirishima]

Chapter 8

A/N: Sorry for the late update. Work kicked my ass this week.

Y/N POV

I held my left wrist, rubbing the black mark with my thumb, trying to figure out how to start this. I glanced at the little girl as Alicia whispered to her. The little girl nodded and ran into another room. Then Alicia turned back to me. God this sucked.

"Where do I start?" I sighed.

"The black marks..." Bakugo said. "Let's start there."

Phyne looked at him then back to me. No getting out of it I guess.

"When you kill a member of Kain's entourage a mark appears around your extremities. Kind of like a morbid eye for an eye thing."

"So you..."

"Yea."

"You...killed them, knowing the consequences...because he threatened these two?" Phyne asked incredulously.

"Yea."

"Don't lie to me girl. You're smarter than that."

I pursed my lips.

"There's no point in saving them if Kain would just hunt them down again. Plus...Kain and I...have a bit of history."

Alicia cleared her throat, raising a guilty hand.

"That's...sort of...my fault I think," Alicia said. "She worked at our current company because of us and-"

"It wasn't either of our faults. If I blame anyone, it's the company." I interrupted. "But at least the pay was good."

"Explain." Phyne said, her eyes narrowing.

"When I first moved into the Miles Tower, the crazy shit was getting to me. I couldn't hold a regular job down because of the stress and if I tried to get a therapist I would've been institutionalized. Full stop." I said, eyeing the dumpling plate.

Phyne rolled her eyes and shoved the plate closer to me. I popped another dumpling in my mouth and drank some water.

"I really tried. I used to work in an office, and couldn't bring myself to care about data when my life was in danger. I tried customer service, but couldn't bring myself to apologize to customers because I couldn't bring myself to pretend to feel empathy or feel any fear of the manager's threats. I am still banned from the Nando's on 4th street."

"Wait, but the manager there is so nice?" Alicia butted in with wide eyes.

"He's nice because I put the fear of God into him," I said. "Not on purpose he just chose a terrible day to chew me out." I sighed. "Then I was a mover for a while until a monster used that as a dinner bell and ate most of the crew. The one guy who lived and I don't keep in touch. And I couldn't break the lease because it was damn expensive to do so and I chose that place because it was so cheap."

I reached for another dumpling.

"I eventually stumbled on the company Alicia and I currently work for. I wasn't initially going to take it but....Alicia stopped me and dumped the craziest shit I've ever heard on me."

A girl with a brown pixie cut, a single dangling earring and an irritated look put down a hard cider in front of me.

'Can I talk to you? You can just pretend it's a story if you want. I'll even buy you a drink just let me vent." Her voice rushed out as her earring twinkled in the streetlight.

'Sure. Get me another one of these though."

"I was so fucking relieved that someone else was dealing with crazy shit too. It was....affirming. Like I haven't lost my grip on reality." I said.