Tadashi Hamada's death and its repercussions weighed on each of his friends. The main four could offer no more than the customary condolences. Nami Takamoto, affectionately named Suzhi by Tadashi for her dislike of sushi, watched and listened to their apologies and felt disgust building in her throat.
"Ma'am, how are you and Hiro coping? Is there anything we can do to help with the café or around the house?" Suzhi, soft-spoken on her best days, silenced her friends without raising her voice above a whisper.
Cass stared at the young woman as if she just realized Suzhi stood beside Honey. "You've been with their study groups."
Suzhi offered Cass a small smile and a nod. "Whenever they need a new angle, I'm always willing to help. Of course, as an English graduate of San Fransokyo University, I'm not much help with technology."
"Yes, English always gives—gave—Tadashi trouble. Hiro's the same way." Cass flinched, forcing the correct tense about her oldest nephew.
Stepping forward, Suzhi held her hand out to Cass. Only when the older woman accepted her hand did Suzhi speak. "You've lost an important part of your family, ma'am, and I sympathize as best I can. Take all the time you need. Let yourself have those small mistakes until you can speak the truth without flinching."
Honey nodded, stepping up beside Suzhi. "She's right. We all need to come to terms with our…new reality."
Retreating from the sudden influx of her friends' sympathy for Cass, Suzhi glanced toward the shadowed stairs. She noticed when Hiro's sneakers disappeared as he returned to his room. Unsure if she was pushing her boundaries, Suzhi glanced at Cass surrounded by her friends, before deciding that Hiro needed her more.
Mochi, the Hamada family pet, met her at the top of landing, mewing at her ankles. She lifted him into her arms, smiling when he nudged her chin with his nose. "Do you think Hiro will be angry?" The cat jumped out of her arms and strolled down the hallway, stopping in front of the door at the very end.
Suzhi knocked first, expecting the silence she received. "Hiro, I need to speak with you so I'm coming in." She pressed her weight against the door as she opened it, pleading with herself to find the strength for what she needed to tell her friend's younger brother.
Hiro glared at her from where he sat on the edge of his bed. "The wake's downstairs."
Allowing Mochi into the room before she closed the door, Suzhi nodded in reply and let her chin fall. Her brunette bangs covered her face, giving her the momentary peace that she needed to find. Lifting her eyes, she met Hiro's, noticing the pain and emptiness lingering just beneath his anger.
"It is, yes, but even as we remember those we've lost, we can't forget those left behind." Suzhi glanced around before motioning to the computer chair beside Hiro's bed. "May I?"
Hiro's surprise made him nod more than anything. Suzhi walked across the room before settling in the chair, her back rigid and her brown eyes transfixed on the now uncomfortable Hiro.
"How many condolences and reassurances have you had to put up with so far?" Suzhi's lips quirked into a wry smile when Hiro voiced his disgust. "Yes, you get a lot of those when you lose a loved one."
"None of them really know. Except maybe Aunt Cass." Hiro closed his eyes and drew his knees up to his chest. "That's why I'm not down there. I don't want to hear it anymore."
Suzhi nodded, smoothing the wrinkles out of her black dress pants. "You'll hear those condolences for a long time and be expected to receive them with an understanding smile. It's impossible to just live the rest of your life in your room unless you plan for it to be a short run."
Hiro's head jerked up, his glare once again situated on the woman. Suzhi lifted her hands in a placating manner, her eyes saying she didn't mean to offend him. The boy grunted and rested his cheek against his knee. "I can at least stay up here for a few weeks."
"And that's your right to do so, Hiro." Suzhi's tone coaxed Hiro to watch her from the corner of his eye. "Yet when you finally do come out and start exploring all the hobbies and interests you used to love, remember that you have people who love you and want to help however they can."
Once again, Hiro hardened and scowled at Suzhi. "What do you know, huh? I never knew my parents when I was kid. Tadashi and Aunt Cass are the only family I have and now half of that family is gone!" Hiro surged to his feet, his hands clenched by his sides. "And everyone just expects that a few apologies and saying "He's in a better place now" is going to make everything okay again? Because that's not how it works! None of this should be happening."
Suzhi allowed Hiro to rant, watching him, not with pity, but with sorrow and understanding. He wilted beneath her gaze, sinking back to his sitting position on the bed.
"I know it hurts, because I actually lost my first loved one when I was around your age. I was just shy of turning fourteen when my mother died." Suzhi blinked, lifting her gaze to the other side of the room. Her heart jolted at the sight of Tadashi's cap on the other bed. She forced herself to swallow around the painful lump forming in her throat.
"Of course my mother didn't pass like your brother. I almost wish she had the opportunity to spend her last moments doing what she loved best or truly believed in rather than the death she was given." Suzhi flicked her eyes back to Hiro's rapt gaze, blinking back tears. "Otherwise she died as much as Tadashi did—much too soon and right in front of me."
"What did you do?" Hiro's broken whisper wavered through the air. His white knuckles strained under the grip he had on his arms.
Suzhi let loose a bark of mirthless laughter. "Exactly what you're doing. I shut myself away during the wake, refused any and everyone's help, and then locked myself in my own world."
Hiro deflated at her words, burying his face against his knees though Suzhi caught the first hint of tears in his eyes.
"I'm not telling you this to make you feel worse, Hiro." Suzhi leaned forward, resting her hand on the bedspread a few inches from Hiro's arm linked beneath his legs. "I'm telling you this so that you know each person's grief and way of mourning is different. I didn't know until many years later that I fell into a deep depression when I heard the confirmation that my mother was dead. That depression lasted two long years even as I went through the motions of living."
Her fingers trailed the designs on Hiro's bedspread, a vacant look in her eyes as she stared out the window to the cloudy sky beyond. "Do you know what finally brought me out of that depression, though, Hiro?" She noticed him shake his head in her peripheral vision. "I met your brother in my sophomore year of high school."
Hiro flinched, his head lifting just enough so that Suzhi saw his eyes gleaming at her from the shadows beneath his hair. She nodded, sadness tinging her smile. "Yes, Tadashi helped me overcome my depression along with Wasabi, Go Go, and the others. But he was the first. He noticed what so many others hadn't—that, though I smiled, nothing gave me real joy; that I enjoyed my classes but never went above the call of an average grade.
"Tadashi noticed," Suzhi cleared her throat, forcing the forming lump loose once more, "and he made it his mission to help. When I told him I felt like I was responsible for my mother's death, he scolded me for thinking I had any control over that situation. He said you were only thirteen." Suzhi mimicked Tadashi's voice, earning a startled and broken chuckle from Hiro. "And it's true." She laughed herself, still quiet and respectful for the boy's mourning. "You can't control anything when you're that young. You couldn't have stopped him, Hiro, no matter how much you try to persuade yourself otherwise. Neither are you at fault, though."
Suzhi stood after a few moments of silence, pretending she didn't notice the stutter in Hiro's shoulders as he tried not to cry. "I just wanted to let you know, Hiro, that you aren't alone in your grief. Mourn alone for however long you need, but remember that you have people waiting for you when you're ready." She moved around his bed toward the door. "And that one of them knows at least a little of what you're feeling."
A small hand caught Suzhi's wrist, stopping her mid-stride. She glanced down at Hiro, silent as she waited for him to find his courage. A few moments passed before he squeezed her wrist and let go with a whispered "Thank you."
Taking heart from his initiating contact, Suzhi reached down and squeezed his shoulder in return. "We'll be around whenever you're ready to talk, Hiro."
Suzhi shooed Mochi from Hiro's room before shutting the door behind her. She attempted to brush the cat hair from her clothes with little success, scowling at the purring cat as she slipped back downstairs.
Cass had moved on to speak with friends of the family, but Suzhi's own friends still stood where she had left them. They crowded around her as soon as they caught sight of her.
"Why didn't you drag him down here, Su? He could use some comforting." Go Go crossed her arms, glaring at the ground by Wasabi's foot.
"Go Go, that's not how we go about mourning a loved one," Honey Lemon reprimanded the other girl. "Hiro needs understanding and love right now—"
"But does he even want any of that? I'm sure that's all he's been getting since Tadashi…Well, some people's understanding and love isn't good for everyone." Wasabi fidgeted with his tie, surveying the room filled with black-clad mourners.
"He'll talk when he's ready." Fred, more somber than any of the group had ever seen him, linked his hands in front of his stomach and lowered his head.
"You're all technically right," Suzhi reassured them. "But Hiro has to take all of those steps on his own."
She closed her eyes, her thoughts flashing through the memories of her mother's traumatic death, of the funeral that did nothing to ease her personal loss, and finally of meeting a grinning, sheepish Tadashi covered with soot and fire extinguisher foam during high school Chemistry. Suzhi smiled at the memory, tears springing to her eyes though this time she didn't hold them back.
"All we have to do is be here when he comes back."
~ Fin ~
A/N: I've read where a few people didn't understand why Hiro mourned Tadashi the way he did. Suzhi's experience (and yes, she is my OC) in the above story is based off my personal experience at the age of thirteen of my own mother's death. I empathize and relate to Hiro, even at 23-years-old, because I see myself in him. I locked myself away, I didn't want any help, I always swore I was fine and didn't need anything, and I lost myself to my writing and music just as Hiro does to finding Tadashi's killer. But I did need help, just as Hiro did, and I didn't find it until two years after she died. Hiro is luckier, by far, than I was. But I love that Disney has addressed the death of a loved one and the resulting mourning in so powerful and true a way.