STRINGS // KATSUKI BAKUGO [2]

Chapter 38 // Aftermath

You awakened with a groan slipping past your lips, a dull ache shooting across your entire body.

You opened your eyes, squinting to accommodate the brightness of the lights decorating the ceiling.

You ripped off the oxygen mask covering your mouth and nose and tossed it aside, coughing at the feeling of fresh air.

Dizzily, you looked around, eyes widening at the sight of a familiar person at your beside. However, who it was didn't shock you. It was their appearance.

There sat Aizawa, and his expression was calm and content enough though his head rested awkwardly on his own shoulder. However, what wasn't the slightest bit calming was the black patch over his right eye and the stub where the rest of his right leg used to be.

"Aizawa..." you muttered, shifting to swing your feet over the edge of the mattress.

Had he endured all of this simply to keep Shigaraki from using Decay on his students, on you?

"Aizawa," you repeated his name, this time a bit louder, but he didn't wake up. You reached out a hand, gently shoving his shoulder. "Aizawa, wake up."

The man muttered something inaudible to you as his eyes slowly fluttered open. His blinked, rubbing his neck with a small groan.

"That's what happens when you sleep sitting up in a hospital chair," you joked, but you still remained saddened by his condition.

"You're awake," Aizawa observed, leaning forward in his chair. "This is how many times now you've been laid up in the hospital?"

"You're one to talk," you scoffed, your teasing tone falling short as you reached out to brush your finger across the eye patch shielding his right eye or rather what remained of it.

"It's worse than it looks," Aizawa said, taking your wandering hand to hold in his.

"Really?" you questioned. "Losing a leg and an eye seems terrible no matter what way you look at it."

"I'm still standing," he shrugged.

"Are you really though?" you replied, gesturing toward the space his right leg used to be.

"That was a low blow," he said, shaking his head with an amused, crooked smile.

You looked around, eyes eventually falling upon the window, which gave you a few of the blue sky and bustling city.

"Is it the next day?" you asked.

"Three days later actually," he replied, and you sighed tiredly.

"Who's still here?" you wondered aloud, curious as to how many of your classmates and heroes were bedridden.

"Basically everyone," Aizawa exhaled, leaning back in his seat. "Midoriya is still knocked out, Todoroki's bandaged up, and Bakugo's recovering. Endeavor has a collapsed lung, and there's a bunch of other heroes laid up. This fight was a brutal one."

Your face collapsed, and your frowned deepened. You pressed a hand to your forehead and sighed.

This battle took out of lot of people, killed some even, and it wasn't even the end. The League of Villains was still out there, and they were recovering, waiting, planning. There'd be another war.

You wished your mother was here. You wanted to curl up in her arms, find comfort in the familiarity, her earthy scent. You wished you could just be a toddler again, go back to when you thought losing a tooth was the most tragic event you could endure.

You brought your legs into your chest, wrapping your arms around them as you tucked your face into the space between your knees.

"[L/N], you did a good job," you heard Aizawa say as his calloused hand met your shoulder, "but I have a question to ask you."

"Hm?" you sounded, your face still hidden between your scrunched up legs.

"Your, uh, your mom didn't show up at any of the evacuee stations," he began slowly, and a small tear slipped through the crease of your right eye, "yet you showed up with Bakugo. Did you not find your mom?"

You shook your head weakly, simultaneously lifting it from its hiding place as a river of tears began to flow from your eyes.

"She's, um, she's...s-she's dead," you choked out, "has been. Shigaraki used Decay on her. Her ashes were beneath the floorboards, seeped through. That's what my dad meant. All that work, all that time spent, it meant...it meant nothing."

"Hey."

You were shocked by the sudden aggressiveness in Aizawa's voice, but it wasn't directed toward you. It was directed toward your words.

"I don't ever want to hear you say that anything you've done is for nothing, okay?" he said, his grasp becoming firmer on your shoulder. "You've saved thousands of people, some of whom are your own classmates, some of whom are heroes. Everything you've done has been for something, and what happened to your mom was not your fault. There was nothing you could've done. There comes a point where you can't save everyone, and, sometimes, those people end up being the most important. I know it's hard, and I know it hurts, but it's something you learn to live with, but you can't do that if you're constantly blaming yourself, alright? Never say anything you've ever done was for nothing because that's the point where it becomes true, where you're starting to show your lost faith. I don't ever want to see you lose faith, and you never have, so don't start now."

You were sobbing like a little kid now, like a damn child, but you were okay with that. You deserved to be a child. You were a child. You had a right to cry like one.

"Okay..." you whispered, not trusting your voice at a louder volume. "Can I..." you needed, craved more than verbal comfort, "...have a hug?"

Aizawa didn't verbally reply, instead choosing to beckon you into his arms with a wave of his hands.

You carefully lowered yourself to your feet before crawling into the man's lap, curling yourself into a fetal position as you leaned your head against his shoulder. His arms wrapped around your body, his own hands interlocking once they were completely circled around you.

You stayed there, enveloped in his warmth and musk for minutes. Who knows? Maybe it turned into hours, but you didn't care.

[EDITED]