I've shipped Gosabi since before the show started, and I definitely still ship it after season one. I also think that Wasabi probably has anxiety and possibly OCD, he's clearly obsessed with order, so I wanted to try writing a Wasabi who feels trapped in his own mind. I hope I don't come across as insensitive in this story. I hope you enjoy!
Sometimes his apartment felt like a prison cell. When everything was meticulously in its place he'd lay on his bed and stare up at the ceiling, wondering what was wrong with him. Why wasn't he enough? Wasabi couldn't get anything done until everything was perfect, and he'd get so anxious if he knew something was out of place. He did his best to be fearless in battle as he defended San Fransokyo, but even hidden behind armor and upgrades, his brain would be running 100 mph getting sidetracked by every smudge and stain. Every day that he fought alongside Big Hero 6 he wondered if today was the day his toxic brain would put his friends in danger. That's why he worked hard to suppress his obsessions because he knew that if he let his need for control control him, people would end up getting hurt.
And there was one person he didn't want getting hurt more than anything. One person who he would do anything to protect. GoGo meant the world to him, and it really felt like something was beginning between them. If he was ever going to build on the crush that had developed, he had to crush the anxiety that governed him. She was so different, so chaotic. She chased perfection in her work the way he chased perfection in his environment. Both wanted nothing more than to be better than they already were. Both were chasing expectations they could never live up to.
But now, he had this other expectation for himself, protect GoGo. She was tough and brave and strong. For the most part, she could handle her own. More often than not it was her reaching out through the danger and saving him. But sometimes things got out of hand, and as strong as she was, she couldn't always be strong alone. He would always be there to look out for her when desperate times called for desperate measures. Because of her, he was learning how to be braver. Because of her, he was learning to put aside his fears for the wellbeing of others. Because of her, he was learning that saving the world wasn't always safe. You couldn't always follow every traffic law. It scared him sometimes, having to break away from what he was always familiar with, but that was the exact mindset he was trying to fight.
His comfort zone wasn't even comfortable anymore. His comfort zone was suffocating. He was drowning in his need for cleanliness and precision. Though it was imperceptible, his work was suffering. No one saw how much he was struggling. No one noticed that he was getting so close to detonating. He was so afraid of people getting hurt because of him, he was almost afraid to even be around his friends. They wouldn't be the first people he'd pushed away because of his stress. He'd even ended romantic relationships because he couldn't navigate his anxiety. He was so scared about that happening with Big Hero 6. Every morning, when he woke up in his pleasantly pristine prison and realized he was being pulled into a world he would never be able to control, he considered staying there. He considered staying home and forcing this one small part of his life to be perfect instead of meeting his friends and facing the imperfect. And when he inevitably showed up for breakfast at the Lucky Cat Cafe he would talk and laugh and none of them knew how close he was to self-destructing.
They weren't the first people who didn't see him struggle. His family had never even tried to see what he was dealing with. It was enough for them that he made good grades and went to a good school. They didn't look past his intelligence to see if there were a few cracks under the surface. They saw only half, and only the half that they wanted to see. When he had self-destructed in the past, when things had gone wrong, they assumed he was going to fix himself the way he fixed everything else. Straighten his mind the way he could straighten his room. The way they looked at him expectantly, he could practically hear the accusation.
"Why aren't you smart enough to fix yourself?" It was better that they didn't know he was broken. If they knew, they would look at him with the same expectations he put on himself. The expectations to be better than he already was. Everyone already looked at him with so many expectations, to be smart, to be good, to be a hero. He couldn't even look at himself without seeing how short he fell. So it was better that no one knew. That no one saw.
Except she somehow knew, somehow, against all odds she saw the cracks beneath the surface, and she reached over the fear to save him. Maybe no one else, though they were all brilliant in their own way, noticed that she'd look at him a little longer. There was this secret glance that they acknowledged, just to let him know that she saw him. She understood that sometimes his biggest nemesis wasn't Obake or Momakase but his own mind. Because with the others, he was one of six and didn't have to struggle alone. But when he fought his thoughts and emotions he was all alone. All alone, except now she saw him and was always there to remind him that he didn't have to be strong alone either. That they could save each other.