((Also posted on my AO3 under starsandstreams))
I was inspired to write this when I saw this ( wienzard93. tumblr post/ 119274648759/ spring) artwork by the incredibly talented wienzard93 :)
It turned out a bit sadder than I had initially planned, but enjoy!
"Hiro, what is this pink... snow?"
Hiro turned around, the brush still entangled in in his messy hair, to see Baymax looking out of the window. As he saw the pink petals gently float down to the ground, he felt his heart drop along with them.
"They're... they're little flowers, Baymax, sakura. Seems like it's the season again."
"They are very beautiful."
"Yeah," Hiro sighed. "They're pretty awesome."
Baymax turned and waddled toward him, much clumsier without his battle armor. "I have detected that your neurotransmitter levels are decreasing. I apologize if I said something to upset you."
Hiro looked up at his robot and offered him a weak smile. "It's nothing buddy, I just remembered some stuff."
"Is it something about Tadashi?" Baymax knew his young patient too well.
The boy didn't respond, walking past Baymax to sit on the edge of his bed, morning ritual forgotten as he stared at the rice paper divide hiding Tadashi's half of the room from view. The all-too-familiar stab of pain in his heart, which had gradually dimmed down to an ache, came up again and Hiro closed his eyes, leaning against Baymax who had walked up beside him.
8 years earlier
Tadashi woke up to the squeaking of his bedframe and his mattress sinking in random places. As he looked down, he saw his baby brother desperately trying to climb onto his bed while still holding a death grip on his blanket and stuffed panda.
"C'mon kiddo, I got you." The older boy smiled down at him before reaching over and helping him up.
Hiro immediately clung to Tadashi's tshirt, tiny hands curling into fists around the soft material. Tadashi was taken aback, it wasn't unusual that Hiro wanted to sleep on his bed, but the kid would normally then proceed to take over much more space than seemed possible for his small size. In fact, Hiro hadn't hung on to him this tight since he finally realized what it meant by his parents never coming back, and spent days begging his nii-san not to leave him, too.
"You okay Hiro?"
"What if they don't like me, Dashi?"
It was spring break, and the school board had just decided that Hiro was too smart to continue in grade 5, and was to transfer to middle school for the rest of the semester.
Tadashi sighed deeply. He knew changing schools so often was torture for anyone, let along a frightened 7 year old boy being tossed into a school full of much older kids. "I'm sure they'll like you buddy. What's not to like?"
"That's what you said about the upper grades of elementary," Hiro muttered so softly into Tadashi's tshirt that he wouldn't have had been heard if not for the dead silence of the night.
Overwhelming guilt left Tadashi quiet for a while as he chewed his lip trying to come up with another reassurance that wouldn't be hypocritical. "Well I'll be in the same school, so it won't be so bad, right?"
But it was.
Tadashi was still two grades above Hiro and between completely different classes and baseball practice, the first time he saw Hiro on the first day was when he was called to the guidance counselor's office. When he got there he was greeted by the somber faces of the counselor and principal, and by Hiro who immediately clutched onto his pants, a crying and whimpering mess.
The classes were still easy for him, but the rest of school life not so. The principal suggested moving him further up to Tadashi's grade so he would be able to watch over him, but by then Hiro had become completely inconsolable and was begging to be sent back to his age-appropriate grade regardless of how useless the classes may be for him.
Glancing out of the window, Tadashi smiled slightly at the pink blossoms blooming on trees and fluttering down toward the ground. He asked if he and Hiro could leave school early, a request the teachers gladly granted, and took his little brother to the park where they would often spend much of their summer.
Hiro had stopped crying by the time they got there, instead hiccuping occasionally as he took in the beautiful trees around him. Tadashi sat him down on a bench directly underneath one of the bigger trees and wiped away the last remaining tears from his little face.
"Hiro, you see all these pretty flowers? They're called sakura, and they only bloom around this time every year."
Hiro's eyes widened as he looked around him, taking in what Tadashi was saying. "What about the rest of the year?"
"Well, after the season ends, all the flowers fall off and it gets kinda dirty for a while," he crushed a fallen petal with his shoe to illustrate his point. "But you know about decomposition and the nutrient cycle and all right? So it all goes back to help the tree grow the next year's flowers."
Hiro looked from the pink flowers of the trees, to the browning mush beside the bench and the soil under the tree. He then blinked up at Tadashi, understanding the science behind it but knowing that his nii-san probably had a deeper meaning to the story.
Tadashi brushed his brother's messy bangs away from his face. "What I'm trying to say is that nothing lasts forever, Hiro. Neither the good stuff nor the bad. The pretty flowers turn into the ugly mush, but the mush soon turns back into the flowers. Do you follow what I'm saying?"
"Life is just like the sakura," Tadashi continued as Hiro nodded. "Nothing will last forever. I know school really sucks right now, but the way you're skipping grades, you might be done with it even before me. And then you can do whatever you wanna do."
"So if I get through this quickly I can start building my own robots full time and I never have to see those people again?"
"Mmhmm, exactly."
Hiro's eyes brightened momentarily before frowning again. "But you won't be like that, right Dashi? You will stay with me forever?"
"I'll stay with you as long as you want me to, buddy."
"I want you to stay forever!"
"Okay then," Tadashi enveloped Hiro in a warm hug and pressed a kiss on the top of his head. "Forever."
Forever. Most people would say it was merely a childish concept, that nothing actually lasts that long. But Hiro fully believed in it, even as he grew older. Not for material things, no he knew that parts fail and softwares need constant updates and technologies can become obsolete in the blink of an eye. The rational part of him also knew that people didn't last forever, his own parents being a glaring example. But when it came to Tadashi, his older brother and his whole life for the better part of fourteen years, Hiro had been willing to let the rational part of him go. To believe that if there was one thing that would last forever, it would be the two of them against the world.
Until 9 months ago.
He didn't realize how long he had spent relieving those memories while wrapped in Baymax's arms until the robot gently informed him that he would be getting late for class, and whether Hiro would like him to inform the team that he wasn't going to come to school that day.
"It's okay, buddy," he got up and rubbed his eyes lightly. "Gotta get going then."
He turned back to his robot who was looking on patiently, waiting to be deactivated for the duration of the day. "Actually, do you mind coming with me to school today? I might need some... assistance in the lab."
Hiro finally entered his lab a few hours later, having reached school too late to head over there before class. As he activated Baymax and hung Tadashi's cap on lamp above his desk, he caught his reflection on the computer monitor.
A single pink blossom had fallen on him sometime when he was outside, and was now softly resting on his bangs. Hiro felt the sides of his mouth turn up slightly despite the tears building up in his eyes, and he plucked the flower out of his hair, placing it on the brim of Tadashi's cap.
Baymax waddled up to him, sensing that his patient was feeling sad again, and placed a balloon-like hand on his shoulder. "Tadashi is here."
Hiro nodded, turning back to the books that littered the lab and picking up the one Professor Sullivan had assigned for reading. It had taken him some time, and it was still impossibly hard to accept, but he had slowly started to understand what everybody had been telling him.
Tadashi is here. Not in the way that Hiro would have liked, but he knew his brother would nonetheless always be there when he needed it the most.
Forever.
There we go! Hope you guys liked it :) Please comment what you think, it really means a lot to me, not to mention tells me how to improve as a writer ^^
Much love! xoxo