"Your blood pressure and hormone levels indicate you are experiencing irritability, mood swings."
Tap tap tap tap.
Hiro played with the zipper on his bean bag chair, lifting the metal rectangle and letting it fall quietly back onto the fabric.
He had lost track of the days, drifting in and out of sleep without recognition of the passing of time.
There was a blank awareness of his aunt coming in, speaking worriedly or pretending nothing was wrong. The smells changed.
Sometime he ate whatever food she delivered, but more often did not.
It was so quiet.
The hole in his chest was dripping, carved out under his ribs, painfully writhing in on itself. (It's not real, just in your head.)
He was faintly surprised every time he changed clothes, that his skin bore no sign of the damage done to his heart. Still, the shadows around his hipbones grew, cheeks paler than they used to be. That, at least, was a change.
Hiro breathed out, his attention falling away from the zipper, slight movement slowing to a halt.
There was ice crackling behind his teeth, every word feeling cold and dead and empty. Half the time it felt like he was watching the world from afar, the strings attaching his mind to his body slowly degrading.
Even his limbs felt heavy, the willpower needed to turn his head seemed excruciating.
Waking up was the worst, hours spent staring at the ceiling or his pillows, carefully avoiding the screen that separating his area from his brother's.
The world continued to move, but it had no significance. The life had gone out of it.
The webpage of his underground robot battle map lay untouched, the sight of it reminding him of Tadashi's scolding, of his voice.
The robots meant nothing to him now. Just cold pieces of metal and paint.
It was easier in the dark, when he could ignore the indifferent bustle of the city beyond his drawn blinds, pretend that the clutter around his room didn't remind him of everything he lost. Pretend he didn't feel like dying.
In this way, days passed.
Weeks passed.
Maybe months.
School started in the month after the explosion, and it was three weeks after that when the inflatable robot activated itself.
"I have concluded you are…"
Depressed
Dissasociated
"Entering puberty."