Ethel enters the "Nerd Lab" with a bag of cookie crumbs from her morning "breakfast". She gazes at the clock on the wall, replying 7:05. She sighs, knowing that nobody, not even Tadashi Hamada would come early. It's not even early.
"Well," she said to herself, almost uttering. "At least he comes at 7:40-ish."
She walks towards her corner of the room, seeing the box filled with anti-magnetic wheels. It almost seems like as if the wheels were refusing to at least attract to her bike. She slumps onto her chair and leans her head on her hand, with the support of her elbow on the table.
CLASH!
She nearly jumps off of her chair once she heard that. She stands up alerted. She looks around the room, only to see everything hold still as if nothing happened. She walks out of the room and entered another lab room. She suddenly saw a familiar boy fly across the room and crash into the desk slumps against one of the legs. She almost gasps as she watches him stand up. He was Tadashi Hamada.
She leaned against the doorframe, trying to figure out what words to spurt out, but she hesitated when she saw a purple bruise on his wrist. "Oh my god." she finally said glaring at his wrist. "What in the world are you doing?"
Tadashi was startled when he heard her voice from the doorframe. "Uh, stuff," he pants with a quivering tone.
He was obviously hurt. He must've been doing this for hours. Maybe even overnight.
"I just saw you flying." she said with a demanding tone as she walked up to him. "And I know this is not an attempt to become Batman." He chuckled. "What are you up to?" She crossed her arms as she stammers for a moment.
Then he sighs. "Have you met Baymax?"
She glares at him. "Don't change the subject!"
"I'm not!"
She looks around. "Baymax is…that's a weird name first of all." She shook her head to not change the subject. "Um, Baymax is here?"
"Yup," he chirps finally smiling after he notices Ethel's expression finally relaxes.
"Well…is he a guy or a chick?" she says slowly.
Tadashi's eyes focuses on the wall as he hummed. Then he smiled at a funny thought as he turned back to Ethel with a comforting expression. "You decide."
Her face flushes. "What?" she said with her eyes widening.
Tadashi laughs. "No, no, that's-that's not what I meant."
He gestured her to fallow him to the back of the room. "Baymax is not a real person."
Ethel blinks. "He's your imaginary friend. That explains so much about you."
"What?"
"I'm kidding. So who…or what, is Baymax?"
He gestures his hand to the little red robot. "This is Baymax."
Ethel felt embarrassed because she thought he was referring to a human being as Baymax. "Oh. This is Baymax. Your invention, right?"
"Mm-hmm."
"Wow," she simply replied, not impressed. "That's…so small." She kneels down in front of the robot. "This is so weak."
Tadashi frowns. "You're wrong." He kneels next to Ethel. "Actually, there's a bigger robot inside this thing." He smiles sheepishly. "He's actually the reason why I was here all night. And…" He covers his face. His words were muffled in the next sentence he said. "He was actually the reason why I was flying across the room." Ethel rolls her eyes. "You're not telling he slapped you, right?" His hands fell to his laps. "No I-I am. That's exactly what happened."
Her eyebrows furrowed as she looked at the red box-like invention. "Miscalculation?"
He nodded. "Yep, a malfunction."
She noticed bags forming underneath his eyes. "You poor thing." she murmured. Then her eyes widen as she quickly stood up. She was so shocked, she did not knew those words would ever come out of her mouth. It was as if it came out on their own, The Asian student arched his eyebrows as he stood up. "What was that? I didn't get that last part."
Her face flushed, cheek to ear, her face was pink. Tadashi lets a smile slide into this situation. "Wow, I didn't know you can change into colors." he teased. She stammered as she touched her cheeks, which were very hot. Tadashi chuckles anyways as Ethel socks him in the arm.
"Get some sleep Nerd, you're gonna need it."