AN: Special thanks to dawnraindrop for being my beta! Go check her stuffs out!
"Goodbye!"
That was it.
That was what started it all.
At least for GoGo Tomago, it was.
She noticed him before: talking with Honey, laughing with Fred, or eating lunch with Wasabi. The rather tall, lean, baseball cap-wearing Japanese man.
Never spoke to him, never even spared him more than a glance. Never needed to, in her opinion. Why waste the time? She had things to do, places to be. She didn't have time to stop for a 'chat'. Not even after Honey Lemon gave her the whole lecture about socializing. She didn't have time to take it slow and get to know people. They were a distraction, something she didn't really need.
But after that day, she slowed down a bit.
It was the usual for her, go to her classes and after that work on her bike. Today she only had one class so that left a good bit of time for her bike and she could not have been happier. There was just a little something that was off with the bike and she couldn't place it just yet.
Was it the magnets? Was it the metal? Did it have to do with the structure? She didn't know, but she was going to find out.
After 5 hours and 3 cups of coffee, the only progress she made was to color the bike. She was frustrated. What was wrong with it? Why wasn't it working? The young woman growled under her breath, careful not to be too loud. She knew the gang was around in here somewhere and if she was any louder, one of them would be over here. She didn't want to take her anger out on them.
The small Korean woman walked over to her work desk with her feet dragging a little. Quickly pulling the pencil from behind her ear, she began to jot down what wasn't working with her bike.
Wheels aren't connecting correctly to the bike – keep popping off
Handles are loose
Pedals aren't turning as smoothly as needed
The seat—
She was stopped by a loud, blaring ring from her phone. Instantly she realized something-or more accurately, remembered. Her eyes widened and her breath hitched as she dropped the pencil and dove for her bag.
She needed to go and she needed to go now.
Her parents are going to be in front of her apartment in 10 minutes waiting for her to go out to dinner, and if she's not there, her mother will be filling in a missing persons report.
Shouting out a quick 'bye!' as she raced out the door, she certainly wasn't expecting to hear anything back.
Especially not from him.
After a night of touring the city with her visiting family, job-filled mornings, and classes taking up her afternoon, GoGo somewhat hesitantly entered the lab. Her week wasn't going well, she's had a grand total of 10 hours of sleep within the pass 3 days and she was running on caffeine and caffeine alone. She could hardly remember her own name but she could most definitely remember seeing a certain San Fransokyo Ninja's baseball cap more than on a couple occasions. Still, she wore an emotionless mask on her face and waltzed up to her work station with confidence, ignoring the ache of her feet and the heaviness of her eyelids.
She was halfway through writing out a new method to try for her wheels when she heard him. It was a faint clearing of the throat, signaling that he was there. Her head whipped around so fast the world was spinning for a few good seconds before her eyes landed in him.
He wasn't much different than what she thought, and the woman gave herself a little thumbs up on her observation skills. "May I help you?" It came out a bit sarcastic and harsh but that's who she was–even more so when she's going on not a lot of sleep and Red Bull.
The young man merely chuckled in response at the sound of her voice, making her feel a bit agitated. "Yes, actually. I know you're busy at the moment but I figured after waiting for you to take a break for an hour and seeing that you're still going at it, I don't think I'll still be here when you're done." There was a kind smile on his face that she didn't notice because she was caught up in her own thoughts. Had she really been here for that long? Didn't feel like it. "Anywho, I wanted to introduce myself. I'm Tadashi, Tadashi Hamada." he extended his hand after taking a few steps forward and she took it, shaking it rather firmly for the tiny girl that she was.
She was about to introduce herself as well but before she could, he cut her off. "You're GoGo, I already know. I've been waiting to officially meet you since the day you chucked your wheel half way across the room and set the 3D printer off; great throw, by the way." He laughed a bit as he spoke and she could feel her lips turning into a small smirk but before they could quite get there, something he said caught her attention.
'When I threw my wheel across the lab?' She thought back a bit... That was about 3 months ago. She remembered because she had to pay to fix the printer and it was certainly not cheap.
The man, Tadashi, chuckled awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck, his ears turning a pink Honey would have loved. "Yeah, it's been a while... I know. I was waiting for you to take time to come talk, but I should have listened to the others when they said you didn't take breaks often." She smiled to herself; to others it would have not looked any different from her previous facial expression but she was smiling, if only a bit. Only one thought was crossing her mind...
'This is going to be fun.'
The days continued to come at her full force and she took them head on. She did end up taking a few breaks, whether at Tadashi's persistence or to to the sheer amount of tiredness in her. Soon, however, the days began to slow down. Neither due to finals, nor to the changing of the leaves, but to the questions Tadashi began to ask.
"Do you like coffee? My Aunt owns a café, you should stop by some time!"
"Is chocolate chip okay? I don't know what you like, but I wanted to get you breakfast. You go so fast sometimes I don't think you eat."
"Wanna go for a walk? It's a nice day!"
And finally, the one that made them all,
"Are you busy Friday night?"
The wrong time.
At the wrong time did things get back to being fast. She liked fast, it was in her blood practically. It was her drug she couldn't get enough of. And yet, on that day, she hated it.
"Tadashi, no!"
Goodbye.
It's how they started.
And it's how they ended.
