Wow am I late with this.
Ayako frowned at his text message, beeping from her phone the moment she came home.
'Please come to the cafe. Need you.'
She glanced at the kitchen clock, noting that it was barely the afternoon and she would have time to sneak in later when her mother came back; backpedaling, she slipped out of the house once again, closing the door and walking briskly down the stairs.
The way to the cafe was so familiar now that she could do this while sleepwalking, passing by the busy streets and afternoon traffic, subdued green building of Tadashi's home rising up in the front. She crossed the street and ambled over to the cafe, the place moderately patroned since it was already the afternoon and most people would be returning back to work or, in a student's case, heading home after completing their assignments.
She passed by a lot of people who had headphones in their ears, bent over a book or papers, some of them spending time by clicking on their various devices.
Spotting Cass behind the register, she made her way over there.
"Hi, 'Yako," she said, grinning brightly as a way to greet her. "How are you?"
"I'm fine, thanks," she replied, returning the smile. Ever since Tadashi's accident, Cass had considerably warmed up to her (not that their relationship was strained in any way before), transforming from a more formal 'hi, have you seen Tadashi around?' to 'how was your day? Would you like a doughnut? It's on the house' type of way.
"Tadashi messaged me this afternoon and asked me to come by. Have you seen him?"
Cass' face fell and she nodded tersely, gesturing to the lab door. "Take care, he's been acting a little bit...out of it ever since the..."
The older woman trailed off, but Ayako didn't need her complete words to understand what she meant.
Mutely, she nodded in agreement. "Thanks."
Without another word, she swiveled around and headed to the lab door, walking down the dim corridor and emerging into the Hamada's garage slash work place.
Tadashi was pacing in the middle, looking deep in thought. His home clothes were crinkled, and even from this distance, she could see that he hadn't shaved, skin on his jawline dark and scraggly. Ayako knew that the college had given Tadashi a few days off, reasoning that he was in no way fit to return to school after such a shock. He looked up when she entered, expression barely rippling.
"'Yako." She frowned at the way how he said her name, deadened and hollow like cold bland oatmeal on a rainy morning.
"'Dashi, what's wrong?" Ayako made her way over to him and watched as he took a step back. Confused, she followed him, only to be kept at an arms length away.
Tadashi made a sort of strangled sound at the back of his throat. "Please, I just called you here because I-I needed your calm a-and now, I'm rethinking it, I'm-"
His attitude was really starting to freak her out and she swallowed a lump of apprehension seizing her throat.
"Tadashi, I can't understand, what-"
He took a deep, steady breath, stabilizing himself. "I just wanted you here. Please." He extended his hand towards the sofa, suddenly forlorn. "If you would."
She didn't understand his motives but ran along with it, heading over to the sofa and sitting down. Tadashi followed suit and, to her utter surprise, dropped his head into his hands, digging the heels of his palm to his eyes.
Ayako didn't hesitate to wrap her arms around him, drawing him against her chest as she stroked his hair, stiff and stuck to his scalp with grease.
His shoulders were shaking with suppressed shudders and he didn't seem to mind her comfort.
"It's my fault," he breathed.
"Hmm?"
Tadashi pulled back from her warm embrace, leveling her with a morose look. "It's all my fault. Callaghan's dead because of me."
Sudden compassion filled her chest like a flash flood as she took in his state; lower lip quivering slightly, eyes downcast, eyebrows knitted together in depressed confusion.
"It's not," she replied, shaking her head. "It's not your fault-"
"But it is!" He insisted angrily, the hundred and eighty degree shift in his demeanor leaving her confused. "It's all my fault and I have to live with that." Tadashi's voice was steadily increasing with each word spewing out. "It's my fault that he's dead."
The realization struck her hard like a bolt of lightning.
Survivor's guilt.
"'Dashi, it not your fault, okay?" She said, and when he didn't look at her, she resorted to lift his face up gently with her fingers, eyes contrasting and hard as steel. "Accidents happen and what happened with Callaghan-"
"I could've saved him!" Tadashi exclaimed, breaking her grip and stare with one bat of his hand. He was pushing her away now, emotionally spacing a distance between them. "I could've saved him if I had ran in there!"
Despite knowing that he was in a fragile state, she couldn't help sucking in a sharp gasp, thrown off by his words.
"'Dashi, if you did go in there...there wouldn't be any you here today."
When he didn't reply and merely turn his face away, she decided to bring in the big guns.
"If you had ran in there, we would be having memorials for the both of you. We would be up there, sitting through a funeral, watching you being buried. Hiro would be alone. Your friends would wonder what they could've done to save you. I would be alone."
She didn't mean for her voice to break, numbed by the intense emotions coursing through her. "Death doesn't happen to you, 'Dashi. Well of course it does, you die - but that's not my point. It happens to everyone around you. Everyone would be left wondering how they could've changed it. And it was never your fault. Ever."
Tadashi turned back to face her, tears threatening to spill. "I miss him," he whispered in a quaking voice. "College just isn't the same, I-I...I always expect him to come and teach classes like normal a-and he doesn't, and-"
His voice petered out and she wrapped her arms around him again, solidifying the truth that she would always be there for him, no matter what. His head was a firm weight on her chest, his arms holding onto her as if she was the only lifeline during a brutal storm.
"Ssh, it's okay, it's okay." Tears were flooding her eyes too and she kept them at bay, concentrating on her boyfriend's well being.
Tadashi sniffed a few times and her heart went out to him. She knew what it was like losing a mentor and a father figure, still feeling the sting of her father's previous estrangement.
"I'm sorry I yelled at you," he said, sounding like a wounded puppy. "I didn't mean it. Not that I wasn't grateful, but-"
"It's okay," she said simply, burying her face in his dark locks, rubbing soothing circles on his back as his grip tightened around her waist. "It's okay."
~~O~~O~~
She messaged him with a vague text a few days after his breakdown.
'Meet you in the Tech Institute at nine.'
He was already back home, mind halfway reading one of his assigned coursework program handbooks while the other kept steady watch on Hiro as he completed his Physics homework. Reading it, he felt a frown tug on his lips. He felt apprehensive at returning back to S.F.I.T when it wasn't class time. Tadashi had been getting increasingly good at avoiding the front door of the still destroyed showcase hall, his eyes having been trained to skim over it so that the hurt wouldn't have a chance to manifest in his chest, residual guilt still swimming in his soul.
He sighed and picked up his fallen blazer, dusting the material before calling out a "heading back to the Institute," to Hiro. His younger brother merely nodded and went back to his work, brainstorming over his work.
"Why? Left your work in the lab again?"
"Actually, 'Yako wants to meet up."
This caught the teen's attention. He looked up. "Really? Why?"
Tadashi shrugged, heading for the stairs. "Beats me. Tell Aunt Cass I'm at the Institute if she asks."
"Okay, and Tadashi?"
He stopped when he heard the hesitance in his little brother's tone. Hiro gave him a probing look, twirling a pencil between calloused fingers. "Are you okay, I mean, what with everything that happened."
They hadn't explicitly talked about the fire, the both of them preferring to close up and not talk about it. Guess they were starting now.
"I don't know," Tadashi said in all honesty. "I really don't know."
"Just...just know that I'm here for you, okay? You're not alone." Hiro struggled with the words and Tadashi knew that it must have taken the young teen courage to spill that out. Both the Hamada brothers were not good with articulating emotions unless it was absolutely necessary.
Sparing his little brother a soft smile, he nodded. "Thanks, bro."
"Now go, I don't want you to miss your date," he teased.
Tadashi chuckled and shrugged on his blazer. "Whatever, little bro."
He went down to the garage where he kept the scooter and sped off, using a route he knew so well that he could easily trace it on a piece of blank paper.
Evening had come and gone, leaving the sky a dark inky black. Mystified, he wondered what his girlfriend could've wanted that she had asked him to meet her at this time.
Tadashi parked the scooter in front of the university, the security guard barely even looking up from the newspaper he had been reading, waving him through with a lazy flick of his hand. Sometimes, he wondered why they even needed security when the guards just let anybody in.
He met her in the car park, Ayako wearing a black tank top, this time with a dark wash denim jeans. In her hands, she held a bouquet of flowers and in the other, some candles.
Frowning at the items, he asked, "what's this for?"
"Callaghan," she replied simply, missing the shock rippling on his features.
"Nuh uh, I'm not returning back there."
Ayako sighed. "I knew you would say that. Which is why I'm here to make you an offer."
"An...An offer?" He asked, stupefied.
"Yes, an offer," she said, and turned around, walking towards the direction of the hall. He sped up his strides to keep up with her.
To say he was confused was an understatement. "'Yako, why-"
She stopped a few meters shy away from the ashen building, near the steps where he could see similar mementos of condolences laid out; flowers of every kind, some of them wilted a dry brown, candles that were burned to their ends.
"For closure," she said and gazed at him in compassion. "I know you don't want to face this, but it will help."
He opened his mouth to retort but she cut him off before he could continue.
"I'll be the one doing all the placing and arranging, you don't have to do anything. That is, if you want to join me."
"But you don't even know Callaghan," he argued.
She shrugged. "True, but that doesn't mean I can't give him the respect he deserves as an amazing teacher."
Her words were starting to take an effect on him, shaking his resolution.
She turned back around, bracing one knee on the ground as she laid the bouquet on the steps, placing the candle next to it. The other one was in her pocket, for Tadashi should he ever agree.
Her hands were fumbling with the lighter, the flame flickering in the breeze. The fire wouldn't catch even after the second attempt and she refrained from exhaling out a curse. She didn't want to put her hand too close to the flames, breath hitching as the tiny light flickered, reminding her of the time when the same flames were surrounding S.F.I.T's showcase hall.
Steady hands took the lighter from her fumbling ones and she turned to find Tadashi kneeling beside her, cupping his palm around the flame as he brought it to the candle's wick. The fire caught and he wordlessly handed the candle back to her. She placed it on the stone steps, glad that the cool wax didn't slip out of her grasp.
He sighed. "Okay, maybe you're right."
She suppressed a triumphant smirk and handed him the last candle. He lighted it up and placed it beside hers, twin flames flickering in the gathered darkness.
The light from the candles illuminated their faces and she chanced a glance at him, noticing that Tadashi had fallen quiet, gaze stuck on the picture of Callaghan.
His professor had the sort of look you would expect from a mentor; kind, fatherly, the type to nurture and build someone's confidence up.
She reached over and grasped his hand, squeezing lightly, ignoring the strain in her knee as she gazed at the picture too, hushed into silence by the somber atmosphere.
"Thank you," he whispered, voice rough and catching. She gazed at him with a small smile, one that he returned, the flames casting shadows over his chiseled features, the piercing brown eyes.
"You're welcome," she said simply and they fell silent once more.
A/N: I hope I managed to capture the PTSD properly although it would only be starting. And I am so, so sorry for the late update. My exams are not exactly over, but I couldn't stay away from this story.
*re-edited because I forgot to respond to some guest reviews.
lizzy: He tells Hiro that Ayako is not his girlfriend because he doesn't want him to start teasing. Although it will come back to bite his arse one day.
collegegirl: To an extent, I will be showing the effect of the fire on some of the characters, although I haven't written those parts yet oops.
annonymous: Thank you so much for your sweet review! It really made my day.
Leave a review! They warm me up like cookies and milk :)