Don't Own.

After the events of You're Okay

Red Ripped Folders

The bell rang, piercing through the silent air of the lecture hall. He smiled as he packed up his things; finally able to work on an idea he had for his project. The idea he thought up when he got into his first class and had bouncing around his mind all day, he was finally getting to work on it.

Of course, his last lecture on just about every day ended in a hall way furthest from his lab, and of course, the last lecture he had on the day he had his best idea, was on the other side of the campus; curse having to take general study classes as well as his major.

He grumbled when he stumbled with his bag, dropping everything in it. He rolled his eyes as he knelt to pick everything up, folders and papers were scattered in a small circle just in his reach.

He heard some snickering coming up behind him, but he ignored it, hoping it was just a few students laughing at the fact that he had a clumsy moment. He had some issues with a few of his classmates, they weren't very happy that a fourteen year old was smarter than them, even though he hardly raised his hand to answer a question in class – the teacher just automatically assuming he knew the answer and would call on him.

"Way to go, nerd." Someone said behind him, coming closer.

Hiro just rolled his brown eyes, trying to pick up his things. He reached for a folder that had notes on Baymax, but a shoe suddenly appeared, holding the paper product to the floor.

Hiro's shoulders deflated a bit before he looked up, noticing three people in front of him, the three students he normally had a problem with on a bi-daily basis. "What?" The fourteen year old sharply asked, clearly not in the mood to deal with three jealous colleagues.

"You just love showing off, don't you?" The 20 year old, Josh, who was stepping on his folder, sneered.

The youngest Hamada sighed. "I don't have time for this." He mumbled, he tried to pull the folder out from underneath the Nike shoe.

The second male, Ryan, leaned against the wall in front of the young teen crouched on the ground. "If you already know everything, why are you wasting your time here, being a know-it-all."

The teen raised an eyebrow. Were they really going for the petty jabs at his intelligence?

"Seriously, why are you even here?" The third guy, Logan, who was normally the quietest of the three, questioned, a condescending tone to his voice.

Why was Hiro here? Tadashi. His older brother pushed him to get into the school, always telling the young high school graduate that Hiro could change the world if he just used his mind. Hiro was in this school to make his brother proud, prove to Tadashi just what the elder knew all along.

But Hiro didn't respond to the three students around him. Instead the fourteen year old gave a hard yank to the folder, while ripping half of the folder cover, the notes in the pockets were safely intact, notes that his brother personally wrote.

Josh was having none of that. They wanted an answer from the know-it-all, and they were going to get it. He reached down and swiped the torn folder from the unsuspecting teen.

"Hey!" Hiro hopped up from the ground.

The older boy childishly held the material above his head. "You'll get it back when you answer us."

"Answer what? You didn't ask anything that required an answer. Why I'm going here is my own personal business." Hiro snapped his eyes locked onto the folder. He attempted to reach for it, but that just ended with him being laughed at.

Somehow, Logan had Hiro pinned against the walls while Josh and Ryan went through the folder.

Ryan scoffed. "Isn't this your brother's notes?" The older male remembered sitting next to the other Hamada, remembered seeing him scribbling things down on the margins of classwork and scraps of paper. He recognized the handwriting.

The male pinning Hiro laughed. "Isn't your brother dead?"

Blood ran cold in Hiro, and he froze, his gaze automatically falling to the floor.

"Okay, I think that's enough." A familiar voice said from the side of the group. The voice was normally very chilled, but this time, it had an edge to it.

Hiro looked up just in time to see the folder being ripped form Josh's hand. And for a fleeting second, Hiro thought he'd lose the notes holder, until he recognized the hand now holding it.

"Seriously, don't you have other things you should be doing other than terrorizing people?" Another familiar, albeit deeper than the first, voice came from the other side of the group.

Fred stood there, now holding the folder, and Wasabi coming up next to him.

But Hiro didn't smile. He was too caught up in the fact that these three unsympathetic bullies were basically mocking his brother, his brother who wasn't here anymore, his brother who would probably still be here if it weren't for certain events that Hiro was involved in hadn't happened.

Suddenly the red folder he had been trying to get back was in his eyesight, being handed to him. "Here you go, little man." Fred gave him a smile as Hiro clutched on to the ripped folder.

"Why don't you three run along and do something constructive." He heard Wasabi tell the three guys.

"Thanks." Hiro muttered, grabbing his bag, making sure it was zipped up before he slung the strap over his shoulder.

"Heading off to the lab?" His laid-back friend asked as Wasabi joined the two.

Hiro was, but not anymore. Now he just wanted to be alone and cry over his brother again, like he did almost everyday. "No. I'm going home." He started to walk away. "Thanks you guys." He remembered to say before he was out of earshot of the two older men.

"Anytime." The taller male sadly said as they watched the late best friend's brother walk away. Him and Fred shared a look.

"We can check on him later." Fred tried to smile, but he himself was hurt that those three guys were poking fun at a tragic event, especially in front of the victim's little brother.

Wasabi nodded, giving one last look in the direction Hiro walked off in before heading towards the lab.

(-)

Hiro trudged into the café and was immediately greeted by smiling faces and the delicious smell of various pastries that seemed to harmonize.

"You're home early." Cass commented when she saw him. At first she smiled, surprised to see him home before dinner, but the smile dropped when she saw his expression. "What happened?" she quietly asked when he walked around the counter to get to the stairs leading up to the living space. She was about to question about the ripped up, red folder in his grip.

"Nothing." He muttered as he passed by, clutching the papers even tighter in his hands.

She didn't say anything else, just watched him disappear around the corner.

When the fourteen year old made it to his room he dropped his bag on the floor. On his way to curl up on his bed, he stopped and looked toward Tadashi's corner. The tears that had been trying to fall from his eyes since his run in with his classmates finally fell as he looked at the uninhabited corner of the room. He took a few steps toward the open rice paper partition, and peeked around.

He glanced down to the folder in his hands. "Sorry this got ripped up today." He quietly apologized, hoping that if Tadashi was there with him, he'd understand. "The notes are fine though, I checked them on the way home. It's just the folder that's ripped."

He turned away from Tadashi's side and made his way over to his desk. He pulled open the numerous drawers looking for something he could never seem to find when he needs it – the roll of packing tape. Why is it when he doesn't need it, he'll run into it multiple times a day, but when he does need it, it magically disappears? "Come one." He grumped to himself. "I just saw you."

Of course, the last drawer he checks he finds it.

It took him a few minutes, wouldn't have been as long as it had been, if he had gotten the tape on right the first time he applied the strips, but that didn't work out.

Hiro gave a small smile when he was finished, tracing a finger over 'Baymax', following the curves Tadashi's writing made. He wasn't throwing this folder away, even if it was ripped up, until not even tape would hold the paper product together. "Good as new." He finally flopped down on his bed and immediately burrowed under his blankets.

"Isn't your brother dead?"

That questioned and the laughing that surrounded it, echoed in his mind. Why would someone mock someone's death? Why would someone mock his brother's death? Why would someone mock Tadashi's death?

He sniffled as he shoved his face into his pillow. Once again, thoughts of how things could have been if Hiro had just done one thing differently, had he just held onto his brother just a little bit tighter, had he not created the Microbots.

When he started crying, he reached over to his desk next to his bed and grabbed the folder again, holding it close to him like he had all the way home, just trying to feel closer to his brother. He tried to sob quietly, and he thought he was until he heard his aunt walk in.

"Sweetie, what's wrong?" She asked, sitting on the edge of his bed, hand messing with the hair that stuck out of his blanket cocoon.

He didn't answer at first, just taking the comfort of her sitting there to calm him down a little bit, quieting down so it was just tears again. He pulled the folder out from under him and showed her.

"What happened?" She lightly grazed her fingers over the clear tape covered rip.

He shifted so his blanket wasn't wrapped around his face. "Dropped my bag in the hallway, my stuff spilled out and these guys-"

Cass frowned. "The same ones who've been bothering you since the first day?"

He nodded slowly. "One of them stepped on it, and it ripped when I finally got it out from under him, but he took it from me, and one of the others mocked Tadashi." He finished quickly, sniffling again, the waterworks starting back up. Hiro pulled his brother's folder back to him.

Her face softened, a haunted look in her eyes thought. "Oh, honey." She simply said.

He sat up. "Why would someone do that?" He suddenly asked. "That's disrespectful and rude!" His breath hitched when he finished talking. He felt himself being pulled towards his aunt. "We're they ever taught to not say stuff like that?" He continued to rant, just trying to keep himself talking so he wouldn't cry again.

Cass sighed, placing her head on top of his. "I don't know, honey." She muttered to him quietly. Oh how she wished she had a time machine right now. "I don't know."