They say hindsight is 20/20.

I say my life is a drama and apparently I must be at the mercy of some fangirl's writing because there is no fucking way this should have happened to me.

My house was fire.

I had been coming home from work; it had been nine days since the SFIT accident. Tadashi had been discharged, but Hiro had yet to wake up. Both Tadashi and Cass haven't exactly left the hospital and I took it upon myself to make sure the cafe was running. So it was ten at night and I was on my way home…

Only to arrive to find out my house was on fire.

This bears repeating.

My. House. Was. On. Fire.

My tiny 500 square foot apartment was on fire.

What did I do to deserve this?!

xXxXx

"Ma'am?"

Haruka barely registered the kindly EMT addressing her. Instead, she stared, jaw slackened, at the burning building. "My house," she dimly said.

The EMT wrapped a shock blanket around her, lowering to the ground to take a seat. "Did you live in this apartment building, ma'am?"

Haruka nodded faintly. Her grip on her bag tightened as her head spun. Boom! Just like that, she had once again lost everything. What merger things she had bought for herself, the blanket Cass had given her for Christmas, the alarm clock the Hamada brothers build her for her birthday, everything gone in a puff of smoke. Once more she had been reduced to nothing but the clothes on her back.

Hysteria bubbled inside of her. The only difference between this and her original arrival was that she still had her purse. Which meant she still had identification because finding someone to hack into a government database to forge her birthday certificate and a driver's license was something she didn't want to visit again. Thank god she managed to finally open a bank account a year ago or all of her savings would be up in smoke too.

Oh god.

Haruka welded her eyes shut, trying to stop the tears. She couldn't deal with this. Her house was on fire. Honest to god on fire. She was going to develop a phobia of fire at this rate.

"Do you have anywhere to stay tonight?" the EMT asked.

Haruka shook her head, feeling isolated and alone. What family did she have? She was alone in a universe that wasn't hers and there was no way she was going to go back to imposing on the Hamadas. Her list of friends didn't exactly extend past the Hamada family and her co-workers. Haruka arrived with nothing in this universe and to save what little money she made (what money didn't go to bills and basic necessities like enough clothes to last the week, even a toothbrush!) she was working constantly. Haruka loved Cass; she honestly did, but given that Haruka started off with practically nothing, minimum wage wasn't exactly enough to live off of.

Oh god. What was she going to do?!

"-name is Haruka? Thank you. She's in a state of shock, ma'am. Said she had nowhere to go. The fire is still going pretty strong. The entire building has been compromised. They don't know what started it yet. No one was too badly injured. We managed to rescue everyone. Yes ma'am. Thank you ma'am."

Haruka began to recognize that the EMT had taken her cellphone and was talking to someone. Much later, she was engulfed in a warm hug and was led away from the scene by someone.

"Haruka, it's Cass. You'll come home with me tonight, okay?"

Numbly nodding, Haruka compiled without much of a fight. She found herself ushered into Cass's bed, wrapped in a fluffy blanket and proceeded to pass out the minute her head hit the pillow.

Maybe when she woke up tomorrow this would be nothing but a bad dream.

Can't make it too easy for Haruka. :P