"Ugh.." Tadashi groaned as he sat up in his bed.
It had been days since he had gotten any sleep, and he still had to work on Baymax, his inflatable robot nurse. He felt cranky, was out of coffee, and he uttered the word that left him feeling how much he had to do. "Monday," he said through chapped lips.
He took one of aunt Cass' baked goods and made his way to school. On his way, he ran into GoGo, Wasabi, HoneyLemon, and Fred. They began to make small talk when Tadashi noticed another boy walk by. He was smaller, but not short or stubby, just a bit couldn't have been a day older than fifteen, but the way his emerald eyes met Tadashi's dark brown ones, tadashi felt like he was being looked down on by someone with great power. There was nothing significant about the way he looked at him, just a glance. He walked with a slight limp because of the prosthetic leg he was sporting, but it was almost nonexistent. And try as he might, tadashi couldn't help but pull a friendly smile, or at least what he tried to pull with cheeks turning so red, one could compare them to the color of the San fransokyo bridge, where Tadashi was born and raised. Shit. he was aware he was blushing so he quickly turned away, but through the corner of his eye, he saw the freckle-stained face return a smile, strangely reminding him of the smile Hiro would rarely crack when he was happy. Who is that kid? Tadashi thought.
"Oh, he's a new student, Henry Haddock." Fred replied.
"Where from?" Tadashi choked out, realizing he said that out loud.
"Who knows, but who cares? I heard he's majoring in robotics, like us." Wasabi chimed in.
"He joined two weeks ago, he's only fifteen!" Honeylemon squealed.
"Really? Wow." Tadashi said this, but his shoulders drooped at the thought of Hiro. Tadashi had been making less progress on Baymax since Hiro di- passed away. It would've been hell to go through the rest of his time at the university, that is, if it weren't for his friends, those who never failed to bring a smile to his face, even in his darkest times. It had been a month since Hiro passed, and it was not sitting well with Tadashi. For that month, Tadashi's brain was a cocktail mix full of depression, anxiety, stress, and guilt. The guilt that kept consuming him, knowing that he failed Hiro as a big brother.
"You thinking about him again?" Honeylemon said, her voice much softer than before.
Tadashi couldn't help but shed a tear. He turned away, but was hugged by four pairs of arms that were his friends.
"We're gonna help you get through this, buddy." Fred said softly.
"Thanks, you guys are the best." Tadashi said, feeling slightly better.
As they made their way to the nerd lab, as Hiro had always called it, everyone began to tell each other the progress they had made over the week.
"The discs need a bit of tweaking here and there, but I think I almost have what I've been working for." Gogo said, snapping her gum while looking at the others.
"I've made the lasers so they don't need a receiving end to function properly." Wasabi said
"Whoa, so you mean you could have it as a chainsaw or something?" Fred said cheerfully.
"You're the last person I would give a plasma-fueled-laser chainsaw to, Fred." Wasabi said, with a slight giggle behind his breath.
"I'm working out some bugs with Baymax, adding extra health procedures, making him so he's safe to be around people." Tadashi said, "don't want him hurting anyone."
"Dude, he's a walking marshmallow, how's he supposed to hurt someone?" Gogo asked skeptically.
"I don't know," Tadashi said with a sigh, "I just don't want what happened to Hiro to happen to anyone else."
"Oh!" Honeylemon chirped, "You guys need to see what I've done."
Everyone followed Honeylemon to her work area, where there were now multiple terrariums with lab rats inside.
"Aw, can I keep one?" Fred enthusiastically asked
"Not now Fred,they're for testing!" Honeylemon snapped.
Fred's shoulders drooped, and Honeylemon realized his feelings got hurt.
"But maybe after I'm done experimenting, you can have one." She said, trying to be cheerful.
"So guys, check this out-" she began.
Everyone huddled in except for Tadashi, making it impossibly hard to see. Tadashi took a few steps backwards, but ended up tripping over a large, black object and falling. As he struggled to get up, he realized he had stepped over a cat, which turned and hissed at him. The sleek, black cat with impossibly green eyes locked on Tadashi's brown ones walked even closer to him until it was interrupted by a sharp cry.
"Toothless,no!" A voice said.
Tadashi turned towards the voice as the cat scurried towards it. The cat happily hopped up into its caretakers arms as he said "I told you not to wander around, bud."
The cat hopped up past his shoulders and into the large backpack he was sporting. Tadashi had only now looked up at his face and realized it was Henry, the one he saw on his way to school. Tadashi's cheeks turned bright red, so he had to turn and cough to make the blush go down. He tried to stand up, but saw a hand reach out for him. Quickly taking it and standing up, Tadashi realized it was Henry's hand he took.
"I-I'm really sorry about that," Henry stuttered, "You probably think I'm some random kid who can't control his cat." As Henry spoke, he began to blush as well. "I'm Henry, I came here two weeks ago, I wouldn't expect you to know me. A-are you smiling?" He asked.
"No, not at all," Tadashi lied, "I'm Tadashi, Tadashi Hamada. Are you majoring here?" Tadashi asked, already knowing the answer.
"Yup!" Henry chirped.
God, he was way too much like Hiro, it was scary.
"Have you met these guys?" Tadashi said, gesturing to his friends.
"No, but a lot of people know my name, it's scary." Henry replied.
"Been there, you get used to it though." Tadashi assured him, "Hey guys! It's the new kid!" He called to his friends
Everyone left Honeylemon's work area and gathered around Henry.
"Everyone, meet Henry!" Tadashi began, "Henry, meet Gogo, Wasabi, Honeylemon, and Fred."
"Welcome to the club!" Fred said, handing Henry a soda.
Henry reluctantly took a sip and smiled back.
"What's wrong? Do you not like soda?" Fred asked curiously.
"No no no, don't get me wrong, I like soda it's just that-HIC" Henry's cheeks went red and he tried to hide his face with his hands.
"You okay dude?" Gogo asked.
"IM TOTALLY FINE!-HIC" Henry blurted out, his cheeks getting impossibly redder,"I-HIC, just have a problem-HIC with hiccups...-HIC."
"Well, Hiccup," Fred began as Henry looked at him with confusion, "do you want to see what these guys have been working on?"
Henry let out a confused "Sure?" than staring at Tadashi.
"Nicknames, you'll get used to it." Tadashi said.
"So I'm Hiccup?" he replied.
"Could be worse." Wasabi chimed in.
"Hiccup..." Henry said as he followed them to Gogo's work area.
Tadashi parted ways with them and headed over to Honeylemon's workshop.
"Hey Honeylemon! I didn't see what you were working on" Tadashi said.
"Okay!" Honeylemon chirped.
She walked over to where she had a file cabinet full of crates, each containing various vials. She then took out a white pellet the size of a dime and showed it to him.
"What's it do?" He asked.
Honeylemon walked over to one of the terrariums and gestured for Tadashi to come here. He had seen Honeylemon do a lot of stuff with these kinds of chemicals, but nothing involving animals. The rats inside seemed to be fighting like cats and dogs. Honeylemon took out and change their water bowl while dropping a pellet inside. The pellet immediately dissolved into the water without leaving a trace. She finally turned back around to speak with him after placing the water bowl back inside.
"It's a new chemical I've been working on, odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in any liquid, and-oh,watch!" Said Honeylemon.
One of the rats sipped some water and began wandering around the terrarium. It looked pretty normal for a few seconds, but then it started flailing around, running in circles, and eventually collapsing onto the terrarium floor with its eyes open.
"Did it just die?" Tadashi asked.
"No, it's just in a trance, it should wear off in a few minutes. Here's how it works, the chemicals inside this tamper with the nervous system, rendering most of the muscles disconnected, aside from the heart and internal organs. You'd be awake, just not aware of your surroundings or have any ability to make decisions, let alone good ones."
"So I'd feel disconnected from the neck down, but still have the same decision making skills?" Tadashi joked.
"Yes, but what it'll do is it will look to anything around it to make decisions for it, and all the while in a trance. Watch." Honeylemon replied while pointing at the terrarium.
The other rat walked up to the entranced one and started sniffing at it. The entranced rat locked eyes with the other and then fell into a seemingly normal sleep.
"So what happens now?" Tadashi asked.
"It'll wake up and do a game of 'follow the leader', since they can't do anything else, kind of like these guys over here." Honeylemon said pointing to another terrarium where the rats were doing.
"Well that was cool, see you later then!" Tadashi said as he made his way over to Baymax.
There was really no more building that needed to be done, so Tadashi sat down and began to download the last of his health procedures.
"Almost there buddy." Tadashi said.
As he said this, he heard a slight creak of the door to his secluded area. He turned around to see Hiccup standing by the door.
"Oh hey, hiccup!" Tadashi said anxiously.
"So what have you been working on?" Hiccup asked.
Tadashi turned and looked at the download progress, and seeing it was almost complete, he said "One minute!"
He dug through his desk and found a roll of duct tape. When he looked up, his computer said 'download complete', so he stood up and walked over to hiccup, duct tape in hand.
"Duct tape?" Hiccup asked looking confused.
Tadashi rolled up his own sleeve, ripped of a piece of duct tape, placed it on his forearm, and ripped it off.
Biting back a scream, he plainly said "Ow."
On cue, the inflatable nurse popped up and made his way to Tadashi.
"Hello Tadashi, I was alerted to respond when you said 'ow.'" Said Baymax.
"This is Baymax, he's a healthcare robot I've been working on for quite some time." Tadashi said
"He's incredible!" Hiccup said.
"You have a slight epidermal abrasion on your left forearm."Baymax continued.
"Can you help me with that?" Tadashi stuck out his arm while Baymax sprayed it.
"So, what are you going to do?" Tadashi asked hiccup.
"I'm not sure, but you guys are a huge inspiration, thanks!" Hiccup said, running off to his new space.
"Your blood pressure and heartbeat are elevated. This indicates you are happy" Baymax said.
"Yup! Thanks buddy, I'm satisfied with my care." Tadashi said.
Spending the day with hiccup was wonderful, Tadashi wanted to spend more time with him, but he wasn't sure how fast it would go. He eyed Honeylemon's desk, remembering what he could always do, but knowing he didn't want to do anything like that when they had just met.
That night,Tadashi felt like things would get way better, and for the record, this was the best Monday he ever had.
Chapter 2 will be out soon! Don't hate me, I'm still new!