Mind Boggled

Chapter 25

Third person pov

Harper wasn't too sure how she managed to do it. Tsukauchi and Sansa liked her enough, but their ability to listen and take her words into account really lacked outside of legal situations. She told them not to do something using her own common sense alone, and the two idiots would go and do it anyway, inevitably fucking something up. Just this morning she'd told them not to use the broken coffee machine. They'd assured her they wouldn't just before going and-- that's right, you guessed it-- using the damn thing. Harper had always wondered what it was like to use a fire extinguisher. Now, she could finally say she knew.

That was besides the point. When she'd asked if they could patrol about Hosu today, they'd miraculously said yes! They even went through with it and actually drove there. Even they seemed surprised at their own compliance. Last time Harper had asked to go somewhere, they'd ended up in a candle store instead of at a scheduled interrogation at another office. Harper was so done with these two men it was hard to process all her fucks she no longer gave. How had they not been fired? Harper had more brain cells than the pair of them combined. 

Still, Sansa was growing on her. He still thought Harper was the bastard child of Tsukauchi and her own mother, but that was besides the point. They were bonding. She wasn't sure how to feel about it, to be honest. Outside her family and some of her family's close friends, she'd never had any close relationships with adults. Harper actually tended to dislike them, because most were assholes, creeps, or both. It was weird to enjoy the presence of anyone other than those she'd known her whole life. Especially the presence of cops.

"Weather's nice." Tsukauchi noted as Sansa very loudly slurped his slushy. The sign welcoming them into Hosu passed leisurely as traffic crawled along. "I wonder why Harper wanted to come here of all places. I can't tell if it has something to do with what happened to Ingenium, or the fact that this place has a higher crime rate. Even if we do see anyone breaking the law, I don't know how I feel about sticking them in the back with Harper. The criminals here are shady as hell."

"It's kind of stuffy." Sansa noted, ears twitching. "Tsukauchi stole the last strawberry jelly-filled donut, and I am determined to rain on his parade. Nice weather, you say? I don't think so."

Harper snorted to herself at his sorry attempt to put a damper on her fake dad's day, her head leaning casually against the window. She gazed intently at the back of Tsukauchi's headrest as her quirk searched through the city, the dial on her headband turned up only slightly to help widen her already broad range. It had been a long time since she'd tried to stretch it far. It always hurt, and sometimes she'd end up so worn out that she fell asleep for a full twenty-four hours or so. Her parents had been forced to take her to the hospital once, when she was ten. It had been well worth it at the time, and it still was looking back. That had certainly been a day.

For as hideous as the cat ears on her head were, they definitely did their job. Stretching her quirk was like stretching out a rubber band. The further you pulled it, the more it would hurt when it finally snapped back. Harper could tell the gaudy support item was lengthening her metaphorical rubber band, making it able to reach further. It was more useful than she cared to admit. As she searched desperately for a sign of the Hero Killer, Iida, or both if she was lucky, she couldn't help but huff.

Iida worried her to no end. The guy didn't want to share the burden of his issues with anyone else. Harper could of course understand that. She sure as shit didn't go around telling people about her personal problems these days. The difference was the fact that she could manage her problems, and had been. Hell, she'd even confided in her parents in the past. Even if it was just to let them know, so they could support her while she dealt with it. His depression was crushing him. When they'd parted ways, his anger had too.