"Hey, you're GoGo."
She blows her bubblegum, turns to face the source of the noise. It's a tall guy in baseball cap, well-built, with some sort of cardigan.
"Yeah." She turns back to her bike. Please go away. She needs to get these wheels right, and a guy standing near her being annoying is not going to help her do that. Even if he is kind of cute. Actually, especially if he's kind of cute.
She swears as her hands slips.
"Hey, are you – "
"Fine." GoGo doesn't turn to look at him as she shakes her hand for a moment, before turning back to glare at the bike.
"You sure? Because – "
She nearly throws down the wrench in frustration as she twists her head around to look at him, popping her bubble gum: "Is there something you need? Because I'm kind of busy."
"Oh." He raises a hand to the back of his neck, and his face turns sheepish. "Sorry."
"Yeah." She fixes her attention back onto her bike.
She only vaguely notices him walking away.
...
When she runs into him again, it's because Honey Lemon has dragged her out to meet 'this really amazing guy who's building this super-cool robot! And I swear that I'm not trying to set you up or anything!'.
"Honey," GoGo says, as Honey Lemon drags her through the campus, "I'm busy."
"No, you're not," she replies automatically. "You finished all your assignments for the week and you promised you wouldn't touch your bike until Thursday!"
"Yeah, I'm kinda thinking of going back on my promise."
"Don't you dare! C'mon, GoGo! Tadashi's a really great guy! I promise I'm not trying to set you guys up. I just, you know, think that you should extend your social circle beyond Wasabi and Fred and me!"
"I like my social circle the way it is," GoGo informs her. "And if I had my way, Fred would never have made it through."
"You wanted to knee him in the groin," Honey Lemon recalls, laughing.
GoGo pops her bubblegum and grins slightly. "I did."
When they finally get to the coffee shop where Honey Lemon's friend Tadashi is waiting, GoGo notices Baseball-Cap-Guy sitting in a booth, a cup of coffee in his hands. She is not impressed.
She's even less impressed when Honey Lemon slides into the seat opposite and tells GoGo excitedly that this is Tadashi Hamada. It has to be him, doesn't it?
His face lights up when he sees her. "Hey, GoGo."
"How do you even know my name, anyway?" she wants to know as she slides in next to Honey Lemon.
He looks at her with that sheepish smile, just like the first time he talked to her. "I asked around. You're kind of noticeable."
She raises an eyebrow and pops her bubble gum.
He buys her coffee.
...
It's like she can't get rid of him. He's always there.
Tadashi Hamada is always hanging around the lab by her bike, goddammit. She knows he's got his own project to work on – he's working on some nursing bot, and he spends hours in his workroom trying to make sure Baymax doesn't go berserk on him. But when he's not in there or in class or studying, he's hanging around her workstation.
At first, he talks a lot. He finds out that as long as he doesn't try and make her talk, she won't chase him away. So he makes coffee and he leans against the counter and he talks to her, telling her about the Lucky Cat Café and his Aunt Cass and his brother Hiro.
She'll never admit it, but she thinks it's sweet, how much he cares for Hiro.
He ends up leaving her coffee and a small bag of cookies on the table before he leaves, every time. The first time he does it, he scrawls a note, saying, you look like you could use some food, and a lot of caffeine.
The first time he does it, she storms into his workroom, dumps it on his table, and tells him she can take care of herself, thank you very much.
He ends up leaving it again, and again, and again. And usually, he loves a scrawled note that sounds much too happy for its own good.
Smile a little more!
I read somewhere that you shouldn't overwork. Well, actually, logically, that makes sense.
I heard that you love double chocolate chip cookies.
Favourite kind of coffee?
Please tell me you're at least getting in five hours of sleep a day.
What do you think of balloons? I think they're happy.
She decides to give up on making him see sense.
She's not really sure why, but she ends up keeping his scrawled notes.
...
"Hey, GoGo, how was that last paper?"
"Hey, GoGo, you wanna get that assignment done together?"
"Hey, GoGo, feel like getting some coffee?"
"Hey, GoGo, how's your bike?"
"Hey, GoGo, you want some pizza?"
She's not very sure how he does it, exactly, but somehow she finds herself talking more when Tadashi Hamada is leaning against the table, asking her questions about herself. Sometimes she works at her bike, and he asks her a question, and she'll end up answering without really thinking. Sometimes she'll even step back from her bike, tilt her head and pop her bubblegum as she considers how to answer.
"Do you like vanilla?"
"No. Give me chocolate any day."
"Vanilla's not that bad."
"Oh, yeah. Wonderful."
"You're being sarcastic."
"Not bad, Hamada."
"It really isn't that bad!"
"It's pure evil."
Their conversations get a little stupid, at times. A lot of the times, they're pointless, really. GoGo Tomago doesn't participate in pointless and stupid conversations. They're a waste of time.
But she finds that she doesn't mind them. Not really.
...
Some nights, she finds herself ending up in his workroom. It's her who brings in the coffee and sometimes take-out, sitting on the table with her legs swinging as he works on Baymax.
She doesn't say much. She usually just sits there, and rests her head against the wall, and listens as he talks aloud about Baymax, about changes he needs to make, about ways to improve Baymax. It's a good way to take a break, she figures.
And he doesn't mind. She thinks he maybe actually likes her company.
One night, he's close to giving up.
"What am I gonna do, GoGo?" he wants to know as he leans against the wall next to the desk, next to her. He looks tired, completely exhausted, and there are dark circles under his eyes. "Nothing is going right."
"Hey. Woman up, Hamada." She puts the coffee down, turns to face him, and pops her bubblegum in his face. "You know you can do this. You told me yourself, you're not giving up on Baymax. You know he's going to help a lot of people. Don't give up on him before anything even gets done."
Somehow, her hand finds its way to his shoulder, forcing him to look up at her.
He smiles at her. "Yeah. Yeah, I did say that."
"And you are not giving up on this marshmallow," GoGo tells him, firmly. "But what you need right now is sleep."
"Sleep sounds good," Tadashi murmurs.
"C'mon, Hamada." She slides off the table and props him up, and not for the first time, she wishes she weren't so damn short. She gets him out of the workroom, plops him down onto the sofa outside. "Come on, it's late. You can just sleep here, I guess."
He nods, tiredly. "Are you – are you gonna stay here?"
GoGo hesitates, glances around the lab. "I guess so." She can't very well leave Tadashi alone here, can she?
"Where are you gonna sleep?"
The next morning, Wasabi ventures into the lab to find Tadashi curled up on the sofa with GoGo next to him, one around slung over her and around her waist, the other arm acting as a pillow for her head. He notices that Tadashi's taken off his jacket and has draped it around GoGo, and she's pulling it closer to her as she curls up into Tadashi, her back facing him.
Wasabi decides it's much too cute a picture to wake them up.
...
"Why do you everything you do so quickly?" Tadashi wants to know.
GoGo shrugs, pops her bubble gum. "Get things done faster. Can't stand getting things done slowly."
"Don't you think some things in life should be taken slowly?"
He's sitting next to her, and GoGo isn't even facing him, but she can feel his eyes boring into her.
"Yeah?" she asks.
He nods, fervently. "Yeah. Things that are important and precious. That, you know, time should be taken over."
GoGo turns to look at him then, his face inches from her own, and she smiles. "You tell me."
She gets up and walks away, but she leaves her coffee cup behind.
The next evening, he shows up at her place with a bunch of flowers and a stammer, and he asks her if she'd like to go for dinner with him.
She says, "Okay."
...
They take his scooter, because he won't tell her the place and he refuses to take her bike.
GoGo doesn't mind. Not so much. It minds being able to spend more time with Tadashi. And she figures maybe that's not such a bad idea.
Not that she'll ever admit it, of course.
...
When she kisses him for the first time, after a late night working on her bike and he stays up with her so that she won't be alone, she tells herself she is not in love with Tadashi Hamada. She tells herself that even as he kisses her back, even as everything feels good and right and real and everything fits just so.
Of course she isn't. They're just good friends.
Good friends tangled up in coffee and double chocolate chip cookies and late night rides on his scooter and hours in the lab and smiles and laughs and the pop of bubble gum and just being together and hand-holding and kisses that are soft and sweet and real.
Of course she's not in love with Tadashi Hamada.
She just likes him a little more than she likes most people.
...
Before Tadashi, the world was a lot noisier, and in a bad way. It was noisy, and it was slow, and it was frustrating.
With Tadashi, the world's just as noisy, but it's a good noise. And she figures it's not so bad to go slow every once in a while.
...
She doesn't see him until it's too late.
The flames are roaring, bright orange and red and burning, and she –
She watches him run in, and everything is far too noisy and far too slow much too slow –
And her world shatters.
...
The world turns quiet.
She wishes there was more noise.
The world's spinning too fast.
She wishes it would slow down.
...
It's weeks later when she runs into the hospital, and everything is much too noisy and loud and everyone is moving much too slowly and she needs a little more quiet and a little more speed because her head is still whirling.
Hiro is the one who lets her into the room.
He's badly burnt, swathed in bandages, scars down the side of his face, down his neck, over his arms – his arm. He's missing his left arm, and she wants to cry and scream and punch something.
Then his eyes flutter open.
"Hey." He manages a smile. "You're GoGo."
Suddenly she turns furious.
"If you ever pull a stunt like that again, I swear, so help me – "
"I missed you," he says, softly, and that's all it takes for her to break and for the world to become normal again and for everything to be right, and GoGo collapses onto the chair and her hand finds Tadashi's and his smile is warm and his eyes are bright.
She doesn't have to say anything. He just squeezes her hand, gently, and she squeezes his back, and everything is right.
He tells her he'd like some coffee.
She tells him to shut up and she squeezes his hand again and she leans over and kisses him softly, slowly.
Maybe she was wrong.
She's pretty sure she's in love with Tadashi Hamada.