A companion piece to You're Okay (no that story is not done), but this takes place a few years before that story.

Don't own BH6

(-)

Anxiety Attack

It was freshmen year for the eleven year old, Hiro Hamada. His brother, Tadashi, was a senior, who had 'graduated' a semester early. While the pre-teen envied the elder for already being done with school, he was still thankful that his older brother had practically reigned the school when he had attended, so the younger didn't have to worry about anyone picking on him; Tadashi still had friends who were there and would text the older Hamada in a heartbeat if someone so much as looked his younger brother side-ways.

Tadashi wasn't violent, oh no he was the most docile creature to ever walk the surface of the earth, it's just no one wanted to mess with him. Everyone had seen his science projects, attempts at experiments that while didn't work out in his favor, still showed that he wasn't afraid to toss things together just to see what happened; most of the time, those outcomes were a mess.

So the eleven year old was able to walk the halls without much caution taken.

Hiro didn't know what brought it on, or what it even was. It was his first day back to school after spring break, not a very stressful day, the calmness and quietness of the teachers and students rivaled that of the first day of the school year. He couldn't understand why he felt so nervous and on edge. He wasn't even doing anything, just sitting at a table in his last period study hall, when he noticed the feeling.

Sure, the young Hamada had a lot on his mind, mostly worry for his older brother, but other than that, Hiro's mind was blank.

Tadashi had gotten in a little car accident a few days prior, nothing too major, just a driver speeding more than a handful of miles over the limit and slammed into the passenger side of Tadashi's car. Thankfully no one was in the passenger seat, and all Tadashi got was a fractured forearm and a sprained wrist from when he pressed his hand on the door to keep from hitting it when the car jarred.

Hiro had been the one who answered the phone when Tadashi had called from the hospital, needing a ride home.

"Hiro," Tadashi's voice sounded frustrated. "Please just get Aunt Cass."

The eleven year old was just teasing when he kept saying "No, not until you say where you are." In all respect, Hiro had been worried, the elder just had to run an errand that shouldn't have take as long as Tadashi had been gone. And the younger didn't like the tiredness that was suddenly heard in his older brother's voice.

He heard Tadashi sigh. "I'm at the hospital. Please get Aunt Cass."

"What?!" Hiro jumped and pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at it like he would if the elder of the two were standing right in front of him. "Why? Are you okay?"

"Hiro." The voice on the other end of the line took a warning tone. "Aunt Cass."

"Hold on." Hiro put the phone on one of the living room end tables and raced down into the café. "Aunt Cass!" He called when he reached the café's kitchen. "Aunt Cass!"

She came around the corner, entering the small space from the pantry. "Hiro? What's-"

"Tadashi's on the phone." Hiro pointed in the general direction of where he had left the phone.

"Where is he?" She asked, not liking the worried expression on her youngest nephew's face.

He didn't want to tell her, especially since he didn't know the whole story. "I think that's for him to say." He grabbed her arm and started to pull her along, making his way back upstairs.

"Alright, alright, I'm coming." She followed suit.

Hiro stood in the kitchen as he watched his aunt pick up the phone from where he left it.

"Tadashi?" She asked as he put the receiver up to her ear. "I promise not freak out." She sat on the arm of the couch. "Yes, yes, I promise. Pinky swear." She was quiet for a minute while he talked. Hiro watched her expression change from slight concern to parental worry. "You're where?! What happened? Are you all right? . . . I know I promised not freak out, but you're my baby, I'm allowed to break that promise." She ran a hand through her hair as she hopped up from the arm of the couch in favor of pacing around the small living room. "Honey, there's no need to be sorry, it was an accident, wasn't even your fault. I'm sure the insurance will pay for most of it."

Hiro's eyes widened as he began to connect the dots.

"It's fine, it's fine." Cass continued. "We'll get you another car."

That statement confirmed what Hiro was thinking.

"I'll be there in a few minutes, honey." Cass hung up the phone and looked at Hiro. "He's fine." She gave a slightly forced smile that the elven year old saw right through. "I'm gonna go pick him up, do you want to come too?"

Hiro shook his head. Hospitals scared him.

She chuckled. "Alright. We should be back in about a half hour, an hour at the most."

Over those next few days, Hiro couldn't help but mentally freak out every once in a while whenever he thought about the fact that had Tadashi of had just a slightly smaller car and had the other car that hit Tadashi had been going just a few miles faster, his older brother might not had made it home that night. Hiro became clingy again, like he was when he was younger, would hesitate whenever Tadashi would have to do something that Hiro couldn't follow him to or be in the immediate vicinity.

Hiro had never given much thought to the fact that in the blink of an eye, a person could be taken from him. Of course he knew that could happen, while he doesn't remember his parents, he does know that they were just out and about doing a normal thing when they were taken from the two brothers years and years ago. Hiro's not stupid, he also knows that humans are fragile creatures and things happen.

But it startled him to know that Tadashi had just gone out to take a short tour of the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology, like he had twenty times before, and that it was literally five miles down the road and around a corner, and somewhere between there and the café, Tadashi had been hurt.

"I'm not that hurt, bonehead." Tadashi had attempted to calm his little brother down multiple times.

But he still had been hurt. And those 'what-if' scenarios running through the eleven year old's mind every time Hiro looked at his brother, his breathing would pick up and his heart would race right along side of visions of that speeding car.

His breath caught in his throat when he was brought out of his thoughts when someone dropped a book on the floor close to him. He jumped in his chair at the sudden sound that echoed through the mostly empty cafeteria.

He put a hand to his chest as he tried to keep his breathing quiet and slow.

This had happened before, for years. When his mind would conjure up situations to a past event, where things could have been much worse than they were, and then the poor boy would feel like he couldn't breathe.

And that alone scared him. He didn't know what it was, why it was happening to him. He had an allergic reaction once, to peanuts, and he had felt his throat close up then too, and that's honestly what he felt like was happening every time something like this occurred.

But he hadn't ate anything with peanuts, or anything made in the same factory; he's very careful about where his food comes from now after one too many reactions to things made in the same factory.

He just about flew out of his chair when the bell went off. He grabbed his backpack and shot towards the door, having already had gone to his locker for his end of the day stuff before his study hall. He was one of the first out the door and he practically ran out the gate towards the park, a short cut home.

But he had to stop running when he reached the pond a fourth of the way into the park. He couldn't breathe and his legs felt like they were trying to drag lead that was tied to his feet. He dropped his bag by a bench that was underneath some flowering trees and dropped himself on the wooded seat. He was trembling more so than leaves in a windstorm.

Hiro leaned back and closed his eyes for a few moments. He purposely held his breath for as long as he could, before he exhaled slowly and repeated.

He didn't know how long he sat there, going over the breathing sequence, but it was obviously long enough for his brother to come looking for him.

"There you are." The voice startled Hiro something awful. The boy jumped from his seat and fell to the ground.

"You can't do that to people!" Hiro snapped when Tadashi started laughing.

The elder sat next to where the younger was sitting. "You do realize it's almost three o'clock, yeah?"

Hiro stood up and dusted his pants off before taking back his seat. "I do now." He mumbled.

"Have you been here the entire time?" Tadashi asked, he moved so he was leaning forward slightly, his bright green cast caught the light from the sun.

Hiro nodded his head, looking away from his brother.

A hand suddenly assaulted the fluffy mass that was Hiro's hair. "Then answer your phone next time, knucklehead."

The younger batted the hand away. "Didn't even hear it, sorry." He mumbled.

"Well, come on, we better get going."

(-)

Hiro finally sat down to look up what he was feeling earlier. He had times where he felt like that before, and he didn't know what it was, but was too afraid to Google it. He pulled up a medical website and clicked on their 'symptom checker', he filled in a few questions and clicked a few things that he had been feeling and the first thing to pop up was 'Anxiety'.

He clicked on the link that took him to an explanation of what that was.

And it all stared clicking in his mind. He was always nervous, had times where he would tremble and his heart would pound in his chest like it was trying to break free from him. It all made sense now. He would over think things, situations that were long ago over and out of his control and then these feelings would start if he spent too long in his mind.

It all made sense.