"Sounds good to me!" Hiro exclaimed, following his brother over to the table.
As Tadashi's setting the dishes out somehow, somehow he's reminded of his afternoons working in the cafe and he can't help but wonder aloud, "What do you suppose Aunt Cass is doing right now?"
"Eh, probably being bored out of her skull without us," Hiro answers with a slight smile.
"We do keep her life interesting," Tadashi laughs, opening up the pizza box and helping himself to a slice (after what he'd gone through with the delivery person, he'd earned it!)
"She hasn't had a boring day in a long time!" Hiro agreed, grabbing a slice for himself.
"Yeah…" Tadashi shakes his head before adding, "I mean, seriously, what do you think she'd have done if she were here and I'd come home looking like this?" He gestures to himself and his obviously feminine appearance.
"I think she'd laugh and think it was some elaborate prank," Hiro decided after a minute of contemplation.
"She probably would," Tadashi agrees.
"I mean, come on, this does seem a little crazy!" Hiro laughs.
"You think this only seems a little crazy?" Tadashi give him a disbelieving look. "You're talking to the guy who just got his gender swapped-I'd say it's more like completely insane!"
"Oh, stop being a drama queen!" Hiro teased. "It's not totally unrealistic to be turned into a girl! I mean, it happens in soap operas all the time."
"Wait, since when do you watch soap operas?" Tadashi asks, raising a curiously amused eyebrow.
"Not me, Aunt Cass," Hiro explained. "Don't you hear her complain about them over breakfast?"
"Um... not so much," Tadashi answers with a slightly sheepish grin. "Honestly, I'm usually pretty dead in the mornings after staying up late studying."
Hiro rolled his eyes and replied, "Ok fine, but she does. All. The. Time. I don't even watch half these shows but I know the plot about as well as she does!"
"Wow, maybe it's a good thing I'm half-asleep," Tadashi laughs, although secretly he makes a mental note to make sure that his otouto never finds out about all the J dramas that he has downloaded on his laptop.
"Maybe I should start taking pages out of your book," Hiro adds laughing.
"Well, I wouldn't recommend killing yourself studying to do it, but yeah, sometimes a little sleep deprivation can actually be useful," Tadashi agrees with a slight smirk.
"Anything's better than spending another morning listening to Aunt Cass complain about Mrs. Smith cheating on Mr. Smith again," Hiro grumbled.
"Ugh, you'd think she'd at least try to set a better example," Tadashi groans slightly. He didn't want to ping on his aunt, but seriously, what sort of message was she sending to the two of them by watching such trashy shows?
Hiro laughed and said, "She could at least pick up a parenting book."
"Well, I guess that's what I'm here for," Tadashi answers, not fully thinking his response through before he let it slip out.
"You always did a lot of the parenting stuff," Hiro agreed. A part of him wanted to say more, but the other didn't want to freak Tadashi out by saying he was more of a parent than Aunt Cass.
"I-I just hope that I didn't do too much of it," Tadashi responds, blushing slightly.
Hiro grinned and replied, "Why, would that be a bad thing?"
"I dunno." Tadashi shrugs, feeling slightly uncomfortable and hating that it probably sounded like he was upset with Hiro, which he wasn't. He was just... scared. He looks up to meet eyes with his little brother. "You were the one on the receiving end of it-what did you think?" he finally answers, deciding to put the onus on his otouto.
"I'd say you've done a good job," Hiro replied, shrugging. "Aunt Cass was always so busy... It was nice to have someone looking out for me when she couldn't."
"Well, it's what any older brother would do," Tadashi replies with a smile, mentally adding, And what any dad would do...
"You're a great brother..." Hiro replied, ducking his head.
"And your an amazing mu-otouto," Tadashi replies, wincing as he almost makes the same slip-up as earlier. Gosh, why couldn't he get a handle on this? It wasn't safe for either of them, and he needed to find some way to stop it. The question was, how?
"So, um, I think we were talking about trying to find some sort of way to change me back?" he quickly says, getting up out of his chair and starting to head in the direction of the door.
Hiro frowned slightly, confused as to why Tadashi was freaking out so suddenly. Sighing, he reluctantly stood and followed him, worried he'd angered his niisan and hoping he wouldn't do it again.
"Well... maybe we could build something that could change your DNA?" he suggested in a small voice. Why did he keep making his brother angry at him?
Tadashi freezes as he hears the change in his otouto's voice. Oh gosh no, he had done it again! Why did he keep doing this? Okay, that was it-this had officially gone far enough. He couldn't keep hurting his brother like this. So, painful as it was, he made the decision to do something which he hoped would be best for both of them-he took every parental or fatherly instinct that he had towards Hiro, wrapped it into a tight little ball, and shoved it waaaay, way down inside of him. Then he locked it behind a protective door and threw the key away into a far corner of his subconscious where he hoped he'd never find it again.
As he came back to the present, he shook his head slightly, his memory of what had happened then and every time before slowly draining away. He cocks his head slightly, wondering why his younger brother looks so sad. "Hey, you okay?" he asks, feeling slightly concerned. For two seconds he wonders if he should hug him, but then stops himself. Why would he hug him? That would just be weird! So instead he settles for ruffling his hair and giving him a caring but slightly confused smile.
Hiro tried to force himself to smile and said, "Yea...I'm ok. What do you think?"
"About...?" Tadashi asks, blinking in an innocent but lost manner before giving an embarrassed laugh. "I'm sorry, I think I blacked out there for a second, I have, like, no memory of the last couple of minutes."
"A machine that could alter your DNA..." Hiro mumbled. "What, are you ignoring me now?"
"No, seriously!" Tadashi shakes his head, his eyes going slightly wide with worry as he tries but fails to recall the last few minutes. "I literally cannot remember anything of the conversation that we just had! Oh gosh, do you think the genderswap's starting to mess with my memory?"
Hiro burst out laughing at his brother's freak out, realizing that his niisan's earlier attitude was probably a result of his recent mood swings. "You were probably thinking too hard and overloaded your brain," he tells the older boy, smirking slightly and feeling much better about the whole situation.
"Yeah, probably," Tadashi agrees with a slight sigh before giving his brother a lopsided smile. He still has a niggling feeling that something's wrong, like a quiet voice inside of him is trying to tell him something, but he pushes it away for the moment and continues, "Okay, so you said something about a DNA altering machine? I'm totally down with that. Let's do this!"
"Come on!" Hiro exclaimed, dragging his elder sibling down to the garage. Before they could get started, though, the young genius froze. What if Tadashi's DNA actually hadn't been altered at all? Trying to mess with his genetic code, only to find out that he'd done irreversible damage, would be a disaster! These thoughts running through his mind, he looked back at his older brother and said, "Maybe the first thing we should do is see if your DNA changed as well..."
"Good idea," Tadashi agrees with a nod. "I mean, we don't want to go altering my genetic structure only for me to get switched back by whatever originally caused this and I end up getting stuck permanently as a girl, right?"
"Right!" Hiro agreed. After some brief consultation, the younger Hamada got to work on building a scanner that would be able to look at Tadashi's DNA, allowing them to figure out what exactly was going on. Once it was finished he asked, "Ready?"
"Let's do this," Tadashi agrees with a firm nod, trying to act braver than he felt. What exactly were they going to find? Well, it was probably better to get this over with than to drag it out any longer.
Hiro grinned and scanned his niisan's body, quickly scrolling through the information that popped up on the screen as it appeared. "Just as I suspected!" he cheered few moments later. "Congratulations, it's a girl!"
"Geeze, you couldn't have had more tact about it?" Tadashi groans, facepalming and wishing that his little brother didn't always spout the first thing that came to mind.
"What? Saying, 'Congratulations, you now have two x chromosomes!' is so boring. This was far more interesting!" Hiro shoots back.
"'Interesting' is definitely the term for it," Tadashi deadpans, trying not to let on just how freaked out all of this is making him feel. It was bad enough when he knew that he just looked like a girl-the fact that his entire DNA had actually been altered to that of the opposite sex was making it all a little too real.
"Don't worry, bro, we will get you back to normal in no time!" Hiro exclaimed, trying to sound more confident than he felt. This was going to be his hardest project yet, but he'd work nonstop for the rest of his life if it would help his brother.
"I appreciate that," Tadashi says, giving his otouto a grateful smile. "Do you have any actual ideas as to how to do that?"
"Well, we need to figure out how to make something that can alter DNA," Hiro began slowly, thinking out loud. "We should start small, see if we can do simple things like eye color then move on..." He trailed off, his mind in a whirlwind.
"Whoa, hey, we're not going to go changing my eye color!" Tadashi protests. "I like my eyes the way they are, thank you very much!"
"We would change it back!" Hiro exclaimed, rolling his eyes. "I just want to test that it works properly before doing something big, like changing your gender!"
"Um, maybe we could do something a little less worrisome-like my hair?" Tadashi suggests weakly. "I mean, we can always dye it if something went wrong there."
"Ok fine, whatever. Just something other than gender or anything vital to your survival," Hiro sighed, starting to work on something that would, hopefully, do just that.
"Anything I can do to help?" Tadashi asks after trying but not succeeding to keep from restlessly squirming for the better part of five minutes. He doesn't want to interrupt his brother's work, but he hates feeling completely useless.
"Yea, actually a second pair of eyes looking over my math would be perfect," Hiro said, handing his notes to his niisan.
"Great!" The older boy readily accepts the papers and looks them over, making one or two small adjustments before handing them back to Hiro. "Yeah, looks good," he agrees, feeling extremely impressed. "You did a really great job on it," he continues, ruffling his otouto's hair slightly. "Hey, maybe you have a future in the field of genetic engineering!"
"Thanks Dashi…" Hiro said, his cheeks turning bright red with embarrassment, before asking, "You really think so? I honestly haven't really thought about what I want to do... It just seems way to early, y'know?"
"I get that," Tadashi agrees with a slight nod, slightly reprimanding himself for sounding like one of those teachers that his brother's always complaining about. "I mean, as much as I do worry about what you're going to do in the future since you're getting ready to graduate from high school, I still have to remember that you're only thirteen-you're just barely a teenager!" he continues, almost thinking aloud at this point. "Trying to make you figure out what you're going to do with your life right now, when most people don't even have a clue about that even when they're in college, is too much pressure for you to be under. You need to be able to enjoy being young while you can. That other stuff will come sooner than you think, and I'd hate to think that I or anyone else was trying to pressure you into anything before it's the right time. God has a good way of bringing us to where we need to be in the proper time, and no one, not your teachers, not any nosy adults, not even me, has the right to try to interfere with that."
"Thanks," Hiro whispered, feeling immensely grateful. "I guess I just don't feel like college is for me, you know? Everyone kind of thinks and I need to start my life now and... and I really don't want to just yet. Thanks for understanding, bro."
Tadashi feels a slight twinge at that. Honestly, he's always dreamed of having Hiro come to SFIT with him-the Hamada bros always did everything together. But this isn't the time or the place for a speech about the importance of a higher education. The important thing is that Hiro's happy with his life right now, and he'll do whatever it takes sure that things stay that way. "Not a problem," the elder boy finally says, ruffling his sibling's hair. "You just take your time, and when you're ready, I'm sure you're going to do things that are going to blow everyone away."
Hiro slumped in relief before saying, "Hey, not just me! We will blow the universe away! You and me, right?"
"You and me," Tadashi agrees, putting his hand up for a fist bump. Honestly, he realizes, even if his otouto never went to college, it would be okay. The two of them would always be together and be there to keep each other safe and strong, and nothing in the world could ever change that.
Hiro grinned and returned the fist bump. He didn't know what life would bring him, but as long as he had his niisan with him he knew they could get through anything.
"So, how close are we to testing this thing out?" Tadashi asks with a slight smile, trying to keep this situation from getting too emotional for his ototuo's taste and turning his attention back to the creation that his little brother's been working on.
"Soon, hopefully," Hiro replied, continuing to tinker with his device. It was going to be a large remote with a display and several controls to set what he wanted it to do. "I just need to finish a few things," he continues, the tip of his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration.
"Right." Tadashi nods, trying to be patient. Honestly, the sooner he can get back to normal, the better for everyone. Plus, if they can get him fixed, then they can get Honey Lemon back to normal and-
Oh gosh. His whole face turns red as he realizes something that he hadn't thought of before. There's a very good chance that if they can get this to work, he's actually going to have to bring Honey Lemon back here to the house! And the way Hiro had been acting earlier, chances were that the younger Hamada was totally going to let something slip about how bad of a crush Tadashi had on her. It may not have been such a major issue in the grand scheme of things, but especially to someone in such a heightened emotional state, this was seriously not good...
After a few more minutes of tinkering Hiro triumphantly held up the finished remote and said, "Alright, ready to test this out?"
"Let's go for it!" Tadashi agrees, forcing himself to push his fears aside. Getting back to normal was more important than being embarrassed. Besides, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing if Honey Lemon knew how he really felt about her...?
Well, he could think about that later. Right now he and his younger brother had an invention to test!
"Ok, so I'm going to try changing your hair to a lighter color…Um, how about blond?" Hiro mumbled, entering the command into the controller and pointing it at his brother. Taking a breath to calm himself, the younger boy fired it. The effect was instant, but instead of turning his niisan's hair blond, it turned pink. "Uh-oh..."
Tadashi's about to protest about the blond hair-personally, he would have preferred something to his original hair color, like brown-but it's too late. His otouto's already pulled the trigger. "Well, at least blond's not too bad," he tries to console himself. But then he hears Hiro's "uh oh" and instantly feels panic again. "Hiro, what did you do?" he asks, too scared to check for himself.
"Ummm... on the plus side, your hair changed color..." Hiro mumbled. "The minus is, well... yourhairispink." He quickly muttered the last part, wincing and half hoping that his brother hadn't heard him.
"It's...what?" Tadashi can't even process what his little brother says for a full thirty seconds, and then he lets out a terrified shriek as he looks down and sees that his hair is, indeed, a bright shade of metallic pink. "HIRO, WHAT THE HECK DID YOU DO TO ME?!"
"Um, in my defense you said I should test it on you!" Hiro exclaimed
"I did but-nng, I didn't mean do this!" Tadashi shoots back, gesturing to his strawberry colored locks.
"Aw, come on it doesn't look that bad..." Hiro says, trying to make light of the situation.
"I'm not talking to you!" Tadashi turns his back on his younger brother, fuming slightly.
"B-b-but Dashi" Hiro whimpered, pouting.
Tadashi lets out a long and exasperated sigh, but he honestly can't stay mad at his otouto for very long. "All right, fine, I'm not really that mad," he finally admits, turning back to look at the younger Hamada. "But, seriously, why would you do something like this? It's bad enough that I'm stuck as a girl-did you have to make me look like I just fell out of an anime too?"
"It wasn't supposed to turn pink!" Hiro countered.
"Wait, so you didn't purposefully do this?" Tadashi asks, raising a confused eyebrow.
"No!" Hiro exclaimed. "This is not good! What did I do wrong? And why pink of all colors...?" He trailed off to begin angrily pacing.
"Whoa, hey, calm down!" Tadashi instantly feels terrible for getting upset with Hiro and making him feel bad. "Look, this isn't your fault," he quickly continues. "Believe me, I checked you math and it was absolutely perfect. I'm starting to think that whatever caused this genderbend in the first place is messing with us because it doesn't want me to get changed back-or, at least not yet."
"But pink!" Hiro exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. "This makes no sense! How could something not 'want' you to change back? There is an explanation for this, and I will find it!"
Tadashi shakes his head slightly. He always had been better at just accepting things as they were than Hiro, who liked to keep going even when he'd hit a brick wall. Both positions could be considered strengths or weaknesses, and he guessed that he and Hiro balanced each other out' so that's all that mattered in the end.
"Well, I'm not going to stand in your way, and I super appreciate your trying to help me," he finally responds with a slight smile, "but, if it makes you feel any better, I guess I've always sort of wondered what it would be like to have a totally crazy hair color. So technically, you just unintentionally helped me fulfill a bucket list item!"
"No it doesn't!" Hiro shouted before pausing. "Er, well, maybe.? No...yes? Wait, you wanted...? Ugh, never mind!It shouldn't have done that!" he finally snapped, angrily opening the remote to work on it some more.
"Hey, don't stress yourself out," Tadashi says, coming over and starting to massage his little bro's shoulders. "You're taking this waaaaay too seriously, and I don't want you getting yourself all worked up where you end up hurting yourself." He can't help but rub his own wrist, knowing exactly where stress had taken him too many times in the past.
"I have never not been able to build something before! ' .Work?" Hiro cried, collapsing into a chair. "I'm a complete failure!"
"You are not a failure!" Tadashi quickly reassures him-he never quite knows what to do whenever his brother gets like this, but he hates seeing him so unhappy. "Seriously, I think we're just dealing with powers outside of our control, and sometimes we just have to let things go when there's nothing more we can do about them," he continues consolingly. "You remember that bedtime prayer we always used to do-'God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference'? As much as I know you're a total boss in the 'courage to change things' department, I think we're going to have to have the wisdom to go with that first part right now."
"But I can change this!" Hiro exclaimed. "This is science, and science is what I do best! How can I call myself a genius if I can't fix this?!"
"Hiro, we don't know that this is science," Tadashi reminds him calmly, trying to soothe away his little brother's passion by starting to play with his raven locks. "Honestly, this whole thing has seemed more like magic than anything from point one, and, honestly, neither of us know anything about that except for from all the times that we've had obsessively long Disney movie marathons."
"How could this be magical? I'm pretty sure magic is not real!" Hiro exclaimed, involuntarily relaxing slightly when he felt his brother comb through his hair.
"Well...considering some of the things I've been through recently, I'm beginning to rethink what we've always believed about magic," Tadashi says with a slight smile, continuing to gently massage Hiro's scalp.
"What things?" Hiro asked, feeling himself melt as Tadashi continued to massage him. That felt really good... but he needed to focus.
"Let's just say that I ran into an old friend of mine, and he's really into that sort of stuff," Tadashi answers with a chuckle. Honestly, his buddy Fred would be having an absolute field day with this if he knew about it—in fact, he'd probably be jealous that he wasn't the one who'd been genderbent! The fanboy would probably go off and find some mystical spirit to gender swap him, just so he could get in on the "fun"—
Suddenly an idea hits the elder Hamada and his eyes go wide. "Oh my gosh, Hiro, I know exactly who might know what's going on!" he cries.
"What? Who?" Hiro asked in confusion. "I thought that we'd already established the coffee shop woman didn't do this."
"Well, yeah, I'm pretty sure about that," Tadashi agrees, growing slightly excited as the idea continues to work its way through his head. "But there's a guy I go to college with-well, technically he's the school mascot and he actually goes to SF State, but that's a nuance—Anyways, he knows everything there is to know about this sort of thing. Seriously, he could write a book on all things superhero and supernatural, and if there's anyone who'd know what all could cause a genderbend like this, it's be him!"
"Well... I'm not sure where that will get us, but it can't hurt to try right?" Hiro says after giving the idea a moment's consideration.
"Right!" Tadashi agrees, nodding his head firmly. "And the good news is, I know that he's going to a comic convention near here tomorrow and we could totally meet up with him there without having to worry about anyone recognizing me!"
"A comic convention?" Hiro asked, face scrunched up in disgust. "So I have to be surrounded by nerds all day?"
"Oh, come on, it won't be that bad!" Tadashi responds, trying to sound convincing.
"Ugh..." Hiro makes a sound of disgust. Talk about boring! Maybe conventions were his brother's thing, but to him they were just a gathering of people who were slight off their rockers, enough so to be playing dress up well beyond the years when they should be allowed to do so. Wait a second… Actually, maybe he could take advantage of that and find a way to have a little fun at this nerd gathering after all! "All right, I'll go with you," he tells his older brother, grinning mischievously. "But only if you dress up!"
"Deal!" Tadashi answer is immediate—he didn't even have to think twice about it. He almost always cosplayed at conventions, so the fact that his little brother had just given him the go-ahead to do so just made things all the easier. But then his eyes go slightly wide as a thought hits him. "Whoa, wait a minute-there's a slight problem here," he tells his otouto in a worried voice. "In case you didn't notice, I'm sort of a girl right now, and I don't exactly happen to have any costumes meant for college-aged females lying around the house. Where am I supposed to get one on short notice?"
Hiro just smirked and replied, "You're going to have to figure that out on your own."
"Oh great..." Tadashi does a quick facepalm before looking back up at his little brother. "Well, it looks like we're either going to be raiding Aunt Cass' closet," he says, trying to sound far more chipper about this than he truly feels.
"Uh, that should be a 'you', not a 'we'," Hiro responds with a grin, internally laughing at the thought of his older brother wearing their aunt's clothes. "I know nothing about comics and anime, so it's up to you to find something that'll work."
"Right..." Tadashi shakes his head slightly. Of course his brother wasn't going to be of any help. Why had he ever thought otherwise? "Okay, you keep working on your ideas for how to change me back, and I'll go see what I can find," he tells his younger sibling, starting to head back towards the house. Now, more than ever, he seriously hoped that Hiro would find some scientific cure to the genderbend so that he wouldn't actually have to go through with this.
Once inside, he makes his way up through the house and to the second floor where his aunt's room is. Honestly, he'd hardly ever been inside it, so he's somewhat afraid to go in, as if afraid that somehow his aunt will materialize and demand to know what he's doing breaking into her private sanctum. But, taking a deep breath and forcing the image from his mind, he pushes the door open and tiptoes inside.
Honestly, it wasn't anything out of the ordinary-it was decorated in a nice traditional cherry blossom theme, with lots of pictures of him, Hiro, and, of course, Mochi hung on the walls. Still, he moves cautiously through the room, as if still afraid that someone might catch him. About halfway to the closet, a sort of "swishing" noise startles him and he almost jumps a full foot in the air. But then he feels something warm and fuzzy rubbing up against his ankles and he looks down with relief to find Mochi standing there, looking innocently up at him as if he hadn't just almost given him a heart attack.
"Hey boy." Tadashi kneels down next to the cat, reaching over to scratch the extremely furry feline under his chin. Honestly, he has no idea why the cat is being so friendly to him since he probably looks like a complete and total stranger but, seeing the slightly bemused look in the cat's eyes, he somehow gets the picture that Mochi does actually recognize him and is at least somewhat sympathetic to his plight. "Well buddy, think you can help me out with this one?" he asks, knowing that he should probably feel weird about talking to the cat but, after spending years living in the same house with him, he knows that the feline is actually pretty good with helping people out with their problems. "I'm supposed to find some sort of girly costume to wear to a convention tomorrow. Any idea where I can get one of those?"
Mochi blinks up at him with an expression that Tadashi swears is a grin and then, with a meow which obviously means, "Follow me", heads over to the closet, nudging the door open with his muzzle. The elder Hamada follows him inside and flips the lights on, and the cat wastes no time in heading directly to the back of the closet where he starts nosing at something hidden behind a curtain of clothes.
"What do you have there?" Tadashi asks, kneeling down on the floor to investigate. What he finds is a large cardboard box labeled "Cassidy Hamada Cosplays."
"Whoa!" The boy can't help but grin as he pulls the crate out into the middle of the closet and opens it up. So these were the infamous cosplays his aunt had worn back when she was in college and had been an avid convention goer herself! He'd heard stories about them from his dad, but no matter times he and Hiro had cajoled and pleaded with her to model one for them, she absolutely refused to even so much as show them a picture. He'd assumed that she'd thrown them out years ago, but apparently she'd still hung onto them. She'd probably never expected one of her nephews to resurrect them, but it looked like that was exactly what was going to happen.
"Thanks Mochi," he says, reaching down and scratching the cat behind the ears, eliciting a happy purr of contentment. "You're a lifesaver!"
Lifting the box up, he starts back out into the main part of the house and down the stairs to the garage. Mochi, apparently not wanting to miss the coming drama, follows along at his heels. Tadashi decides to let him come along-he could honestly use the moral support right now.
"All right!" the elder Hamada announces a minute later, using his foot to push the door to the garage open and looking around for Hiro. "I think I've got exactly what you're looking for, but you're going to have to help me go through all this stuff!"
While the older boy had been gone, Hiro had been angrily muttering to himself, tinkering with the remote but failing to find what had gone wrong and caused his niisan's hair to change like it did. What was he missing? Was his brother right and something supernatural was at work? Initially it had seemed ridiculous, but maybe there was something weird at play...
No, he would not push the blame for his mistake onto something else. He just needed to look for a new angle. When Tadashi entered the garage, though, he let out a sigh, deciding maybe it was a good idea to take a break. "What's that?" he asks, unable to withhold his curiousity.
"A box of Aunt Cass' old cosplays," the elder Hamada answers, setting the box down and opening the flaps. "Wow..." His eyes go wide as he gets his first glimpse of the contents and, almost reverently, starts lifting the articles of clothing which shine in a rainbow of colors and fabric types. This was a nerd's gold mine! Honestly, it would almost be worth it to stay a girl permanently just to be able to take advantage of all of this!
"I thought she threw these away," Hiro whispered, staring in shock at the outfits. He honestly couldn't picture his aunt wearing any of these things. He glanced over to gauge his elder sibling's reaction and was surprised to see just how excited he looked about all of this. "Uh, bro?" the younger boy says, wrinkling his brow in concern. "I think you're enjoying this a little too much..."
"No, no I'm not," Tadashi lies, trying to quickly hide his eagerness. It was probably best if Hiro didn't know just how much he was actually starting to look forward to this—the last thing he needs is for his bro to think that he's completely losing it. So that he can't see his facial expression, he quickly starts digging through the box and pairing up pieces to form the outfits from several famous anime characters. By the time that he's finished, there's a good five fully accessorized costumes, complete with wigs and footwear, lying on the floor of the garage. "Well, what do you think?" he asks, standing up and putting his hands on his hips as he surveys the choices. "Any of them look like something you can see me in?"
Hiro, who'd been stewing in the odd idea that maybe his brother could actually be a cross-dresser, burst out laughing when he saw the costume choices. "Oh man... you'd honestly look ridiculous in any of these!" he answers, glad that his previous suspicions were completely unfounded. There was no way that his niisan could ever put on women's clothes and have anyone take him seriously!
"Aw, c'mon, they're not that bad," Tadashi chuckles, playing along with Hiro's reaction. "Seriously, though, I want you to be the one to pick," he gently urges. "You're putting me up to this and you're going to have to take your own medicine, but I'll at least let you pick the one you'd be least embarrassed being seen with me in tomorrow."
Hiro, feeling somewhat annoyed at how his own joke was backfiring on him, rolled his eyes and finally grumbled, "Fine." After a quick survey, he picked up the costume with the least amount of bows and crazy colors. "Here, this one," he says. "It's the least girl—but even it is still too ridiculously girly..."
"Oh, perfect!" Tadashi's eyes light up as he takes in the Japanese school girl uniform and a mischievous grin crosses his face. "Since my hair's pink, I won't have to even wear the wig. But I have to say, I never thought you'd see me as a cat girl." He playfully nudges his brother and gestures to the partially hidden ears and tails that he's pretty sure Hiro missed in the first viewing.
"Cat ears?" Hiro groaned. "Suddenly this this is getting worse and worse..."
"Oh come on, tell me it's not adorable," Tadashi laughs, trying not to enjoy his brother's discomfort too much.
"No, you're my big brother you can never be 'adorable'," Hiro grumbled, glaring at his niisan.
Tadashi playfully sticks his tongue out at him. "Indulge me just this once. Seriously, I'm stuck as a girl-I might as well take advantage of it, right?"
"I think your brain is starting to work like a girls," Hiro informed him, feeling vaguely concerned. His niisan had never been this into this kind of thing before. "We really need to get you changed back, like, now."
"Okay little bro, you apparently haven't been paying attention if you didn't realize that I was majorly into cosplay while I was still a guy," Tadashi says with a slight smirk, brushing aside his otouto's worries. "Seriously, have you not seen me going to conventions before? I'm probably the most decked-out nerd to have hit the SF con circuit-well, after Fred, that. That guy is hard to beat-he's got his own Kaiju monster suit collection!"
"This is getting very weird..." Hiro mumbled, running his fingers through his hair and making it stick up even more than usual. "I'm starting to wish I was at school—school, Tadashi! This is how weirded out I am!"
"You know that you're only encouraging me at this point, right?" Tadashi says with a slight snicker. "Seriously, if cosplaying can help me get you to go to school, I will do it every day until you graduate just to make sure that you to get your education!"
Hiro groaned and put his head in his hands. "Why me? Why did I have to get stuck with such a weird brother?"
"Hey..." Tadashi gives him his best hurt puppy look. "Now you're just being mean!"
"The truth hurts bro," Hiro replied, shrugging his shoulders.
"And you thought that I was being horrible about the whole actor thing," Tadashi pretend-pouts.
"Because that was just cruel," Hiro countered, also putting on a pout.
"So is this!" Tadashi points out, folding his arms over his chest and trying to look just as pitiful. Then, realizing just how ridiculous this is getting, he suddenly can't take it any longer and bursts out laughing.
Hiro tried to keep a straight face, but when his brother started laughing he couldn't do it and burst out laughing as well. When the younger Hamada starts in, the elder completely loses it, and he actually ends up collapsing on the floor he because he is laughing so hard. That in turn makes the younger laugh even harder, and soon the two of them are in a complete state of hysterics.
"Oh my gosh, we are such dorks!" Tadashi finally manages to get out after about a full five minutes of uncontrollable giggling.
"You started it!" Hiro gasped through his laughter. His sides ached, but he could care less. It had been way too long since he'd laughed so much.
"Yeah, I did," Tadashi agrees with a slight grin, supporting himself on one elbow. As his laughter starts to die away, though, he goes slightly serious. "Look, Hiro, about all of this..." he finally says, sitting up and carefully tucking his legs underneath him since he is, after all, wearing a skirt, "I don't want to do anything that you're not okay with or that seriously weirds you out. So if you're honestly uncomfortable with me going to the convention in cosplay, I don't need to do it. I'd never want to do anything that would hurt our relationship, and I hope that you know that."
Hiro stared at his brother, surprised slightly by his words. Didn't his brother really want to go dressed up? On the one hand, a part of him was tempted to accept-the whole cosplay thing was a little weird to him. On the other hand, his niisan really wanted to do this, and how could he not let his brother do something that he really wanted to do?
"How about we see how it looks on you?" the younger boy compromised. "Then we'll decide."
"Deal," Tadashi agrees with a relieved smile, glad that his brother's willing to meet him halfway on this. "So, what, do you want me to go change now?"
"Might as well," Hiro replied shrugging. It was probably best to get this over with.
"Are you sure?" Tadashi asks, not wanting to appear too eager like before. "Because if you're not-"
"Just put on the costume nerd!" Hiro teased.
"All right then..." Tadashi gathers up the costume pieces and heads back into the house to change. To be honest, part of him ends up being glad that Hiro had chosen the simplest costume because it's difficult enough trying to just figure out how to get the school uniform on, let alone some super complicated and flowy gown. On the plus side, the tail just snaps into place and the ears are attached to a cleverly hidden headband so they slide on fairly easily, so that part's simple enough. And finally, because he's never one to go halfway on a costume, he finds some hair elastics in a drawer and ties his now long and extremely pink hair into two pigtails and fluffs them out as best he can to create the sort of volume seen on most anime girls. Taking a deep breath, he looks himself over in the mirror. Surprisingly enough, he's actually managed to pull it off fairly well. Of course, his biggest obstacle is getting his little brother to approve of it, so he heads back down to the garage. Just outside the door, he hesitates slightly. Honestly, he always feels a little bit nervous whenever showing anyone his latest cosplays, even someone who was used to them like Aunt Cass or Fred, and Hiro had apparently never even seen him in a guy's costume, let alone a girly one! How was he going to be able to live with himself if his otouto completely and utterly hated it? Well, there was only one way to find out, he finally realizes with a sigh and so, taking a deep breath, he pushes the door open and walks inside, nervously folding his hands behind his back as he presents himself for inspection. "W-well?" he asks nervously, feeling a slight blush creep into his cheeks. "What do you think?"
Hiro looked over the costume he was in. He tried not to, but he couldn't stop the laugh that burst out of his mouth. Seeing the look on his brothers face, he explained between laughs, "I-I'm sorry, i-it's just that…you're my brother—he he!—and you're wearing a dress! All I can think about is you as a guy wearing this and it's hilarious!" He doubled over with mirth at the ridiculousness of the situation.
Tadashi tries to weakly smile at his brother's reaction, completely understanding why hit otouto would think this was hilarious. He probably would have been cracking up all over the place had he been in his position. Still, he couldn't help feeling somewhat like a deflated balloon and his shoulders sag. So much for this idea, he thinks grimly. It isn't so much that Hiro's laughing at the costume-it's more so that cosplaying is actually a fairly important part of his life, something that he really enjoys, but now he's afraid that he'll never be honestly able to share it with his younger sibling, who at this point probably just thinks of it as nothing more than some big joke.
Hiro noticed how his brother continued to deflate, so he quickly pulled himself together realizing he had to fix this and fast. He forced himself to see his niisan as a woman and not as a man. He could do this—if this was something his older sibling enjoyed, he was going to be as supportive of him as he could. "Listen bro, I... Okay, this is a little weird seeing you as a girl and judging an outfit for you as a girl but... ignoring the fact that you are my brother, you look really good in that." And it was true. Thanks to his brother's now pink hair, the outfit worked. He just needed to not think about the fact that a boy was wearing it. "And I'm being completely honest here," he adds when he sees that his niisan still didn't quite seem to believe him.
"Really?" Tadashi finally gives him a tiny smile. If his otouto thought that he actually looked okay in the costume (once getting past the whole brother-turned-into-a-girl thing), then maybe things really weren't so bad.
"Yea," Hiro reassured him. "I just need to get used to the idea that for now you are a girl and for some totally uncool reason you still are better looking than me."
"Oh my gosh, Hiro..." Tadashi feels his heart break just a tiny bit for his little brother. "Is that what all of this is about? Are the kids at school making fun of you because of how you look?"
"No... yes... maybe?" Hiro mumbled. "I don't know. Everyone sees me as an awkward kid and well... everyone thinks you look good and keep wondering when I'll grow into my looks like you did..."
Tadashi gives his otouto a half-smile and then opens his arms to him. "C'mere. I think you and I need to have a little talk, brother to brother."
Hiro rolled his eyes, but allowed himself to be pulled into his brothers arms.
"First things first, I want you to know that no matter what anyone says, I think you look absolutely perfect," Tadashi says, softly stroking his younger sibling's hair (mainly just because he can.) "Maybe I'm just biased as your brother, but honestly, I can't see anything wrong with you. Secondly, as for 'growing into your looks', it may make you feel better to know that pretty much everyone in this family was a late bloomer-Grandpa, Dad, even Aunt Cass. I only hit my growth spurt in my Junior year of high school, and before that I was every bit as much a skinny twig as any other nerd in the school-possibly more so because I was tall for my age and didn't have anything to fill me out. And third, believe me, having girls after you isn't everything it's cracked up to be. If anything, it's about as uncomfortable as having that pizza delivery guy hit on me earlier tonight, only probably worse because you have to find a way to kindly turn down honestly nice girls that you're just not that interested in. But if you're still worried about it, I promise that soon enough I'm going to have to be using a stick to knock off all of the girls who are following you home-you may not have noticed, but even now, the times I've come to pick you up after school, I've seen more than a number of girls giving you second glances when you walk past." He pauses to let all of this settle in before asking, "So, do you feel any better now that we've had this talk?"
"Thanks, Dashi," Hiro mumbled, blushing like mad. "Honestly, I do feel a little better now."
"Good, because I don't ever want anything to be keeping my little bro down," Tadashi responds, grinning and hugging his younger sibling closer. "So if there's ever anything you need to talk about, you just let me know, okay?"
"Really? Anything?" Hiro asked, feeling that maybe he owed it to his niisan to tell him about the bot fights.
"Sure," Tadashi agrees, wondering what his little brother might have on his mind, only to be startled by the sudden sound of his cell phone ringing. Releasing his sibling, he scrambles around, trying to locate it, finally locating it lying on one of the work tables. Checking the caller ID, he sees that it's Aunt Cass, and, not wanting her to start worrying, he quickly picks up, putting it on speaker phone so that Hiro can hear the conversation too.
"Hey Aunt Cass!" he greets her with his usual cheerful enthusiasm. But he's completely unprepared for her response.
"Tadashi, is that you?" his aunt asks, sounding slightly caught off guard. "Your voice sounds funny. Is something wrong?"
The young man's jaw drops open. Stupid, how could he have forgotten that his voice had changed when he got turned into a girl?! "Help me!" he mouths to Hiro, looking desperately to his little brother for assistance.
"Aunt Cass! Tadashi is just working on his girl voice!" Hiro steps in, smoothly providing the perfect pretext for him. "Isn't it good? He's trying to get a lot of practice in, so he's going to keep talking like this ok?"
Tadashi seriously has to fight the urge to pummel his little brother, but, honestly, he's going to have to go with it.
"Really?" Aunt Cass actually doesn't sound terribly surprised, but then again, she's lived with them for the past ten years and she's heard weirder excuses before. At this point, she's usually just curiously amused. "Tadashi, what on Earth would possess you to-"
"It's for a cosplay, Aunt Cass," Tadashi answers, feeling extremely embarrassed but honestly not able to think of a better excuse off the top of his head.
"Wait, you're crossplaying?!"
"Um...yes?" Tadashi winces, waiting for her to tell him off or say something about him being a horrible role model. But instead she starts laughing.
"Oh my goodness, I remember the first time I did that! Your father was spitting mad about it, I can tell you that, but as long as you're just doing it in fun, I don't see why not. Hiro, you're going to have to take lots of pictures so I can see them when I get home!"
"I'll see what I can do," Hiro assured. "Isn't his voice really good?"
"It is-I could almost swear that he really was a girl!" Aunt Cass laughs.
"He's gotten good," Hiro agreed, smirking.
Tadashi shoots his brother a death glare, but tries to keep his voice cheerful as he asks, "So, um, Aunt Cass, how's the conference?"
"It's great!" his aunt answers. "You won't believe all the free food that they have here-it's sooo nice getting to eat something that I didn't have to prepare for once!"
"They're fattening you guys up for winter!" Hiro exclaimed, laughing.
"If they are, then they can keep on doing it because I am so not complaining!" Aunt Cass laughs. "But enough about me-how are you two doing? You haven't gotten yourselves into any major messes while I've been gone, have you?"
"Uh..." Tadashi looks over at Hiro, not sure how to answer that one.
"Nothing major," Hiro assured. "Just Tadashi and I enjoying spending time together. This nerd wants to take me to a convention tomorrow."
"Oh, how exciting!" Aunt Cass practically squeals. "Hiro, this is your first convention, isn't it? You're going to have so much fun!"
"I'm sure he will," Tadashi agrees, ruffling his brother's hair and grinning.
"We'll see, as long as this nerd doesn't get too nerdy on me," Hiro teased.
"Well, I can't guarantee that," Tadashi says with a slight smirk. "As Aunt Cass knows, I always cosplay in character."
"Oh man, I may catch the nerd!" Hiro teased, grinning like mad.
"One can only hope," Tadashi replies, glad that his otouto actually seems to be enjoying this.
"It's the only way to cosplay," Aunt Cass agrees, sounding like she entirely approves of the idea. "Well, it seems like the two of you are doing just fine, so I'll let you go for now. You have a good night's sleep, and have a fun time at the convention-well, not too much fun, but you know what I mean."
"Will do," Tadashi promises with a smile.
After Aunt Cass had hung up Hiro apologized, "Sorry I kind of panicked and couldn't think of anything else to say..."
"No, actually that worked out really well," Tadashi reassures him with a grin. "Nice save on your part!"
"Good," Hiro sighed in relief. "Glad I didn't completely mess that up. But it was pretty good." He pasted on a proud-looking smile and puffed out his chest.
"It was," Tadashi agrees, willing to let his little brother have his moment in the spot light. After all, what were big brothers for if not to help build the confidence of their younger siblings?
Hiro's grinned widened as he beamed up at Tadashi. He definitely was the coolest brother ever.
Tadashi smiles back down at Hiro, and then suddenly feels a yawn escape him. "Oh my gosh, how late is it?" He asks looking over at the wall clock.
Hiro glanced up the clock and said through a rather large yawn, "It's only two a.m—itz still early..."
"Oh my gosh, two a.m.?!" Tadashi cries. "Hiro, we need to get to bed pronto-the convention starts at 9 a.m. and we're going to have to get there at least an hour early if we don't want to wait in ridiculously long lines!"
"Ok, ok," the younger boy acquiesces. He was honestly used to staying up so late—most bot fights started late and didn't end until the wee hours of the morning—but it was probably best no to tell his niisan about that at the moment.
"Ready to head up?" Tadashi asks, putting an arm around his younger sibling's shoulders.
Hiro nodded his head and started up the stairs, followed closely by his brother.
Once in the room, Tadashi starts rummaging through his drawers, trying to find anything that would work for him to wear to bed. Fortunately, night time clothes are allowed to be fairly loose, so he finally settles on an old t shirt and a pair of pajama pants-honestly what he usually wore to be on a regular basis, anyways. Hurrying into the bathroom, he gets changed and then heads back out into the main room. Fortunately, some fore sight told him to tie his hair back into one elastic if he didn't want to deal with major bed head in the morning-as bad as the Hamadas had it on a regular basis, he didn't even want to think about what it would look like with hair that was a good foot and a half longer! "I will be sooo glad when we've finally figured out how to turn me back," he sighs as he collapses onto his own bed.
"Yea," Hiro agreed, getting into his own pajamas. "I really don't want to have to start calling you 'sis'."
"And I really don't want you to have to," Tadashi agrees with a slight laugh, reaching over to flip off his bedside lamp. "Good night, Hiro."
