Chapter 5, everybody! As you can see, I'm not dead! *bricked*

Sorry—was busy with another fanfic that hit me hard and primarily with my dissertation—the manuscript's in turnaround, though, so I have some spare time to post! ;v;/

In other news: this chapter was brought to you by the US Mail. Which may explain the time it took to get here *bricked*

Back to brass tacks-hi, this is me, having to look up how much forever stamps cost and how many you can purchase at a time before finally deciding "ah screw it" and fluffing through it. Forever stamps do indeed keep their value no matter what the postage price does, so they're dead-useful, honestly. The post office here is based on the local one I use sometimes, mostly to pick up mail-order chicks. As in baby chickens-have to get up stupid-early to pick them up when they come in, but it's worth it for the baffled expressions on the postal employees. :D

In other news, postmarks are definitely a thing, and it's very rarely that letters get mailed without stamps. And the increase postage by one cent thing has happened more than once and caused many an aggravated groan-we finally just started putting a whole dollar in the mailbox along with whatever letter we're mailing and hope for the best. And yes, when I was little I'd run up and down the wheelchair ramp if no one was using it—still do sometimes. And remembering how to mail letters for this fic I haven't mailed a letter in a hundred years what the bleep. Pretty sure the boys overpaid on the letter though.

Lonnie is an OC, he's a sous chef at a fancy-pants restaurant in the city, he lives with his folks in the Hamada's neighborhood and occasionally swaps recipes with Cass. He also agrees that the Walmart hot wings smell funny.

Thanks for the review guest, and glad you like it! :D I shall strive to continue to please. :D

Big Hero 6 © Disney

Aunt Cass announced the next morning that one of her customers had some extra clothes she was bringing by to see if they fit Obake, and would probably be around in the afternoon. Obake looked less than thrilled about that.

Obake also did little more than pick at breakfast again, Hiro noted, despite Baymax's prodding. Hiro, in the meantime, was busy with a bowl of cereal, still giving the link sausages the evil eye. Seriously, liver and spinach. Ulk.

But if Obake's stomach was churning thinking about the rest of the money, Hiro could certainly understand—he had woken up thinking about the bag hidden in the wall behind the café, was going to be happy as a clam as soon as they got rid of it all.

Aunt Cass had gotten the envelope, he knew—he had heard her last night, gasping in surprise, crying a little…he had felt bad, then. Now though, seeing her puttering around the café, getting it ready, humming as she went…he was starting to feel better about it.

Which meant that immediately after breakfast, he and Obake headed out, Hiro mentioning the arcade.

"Okay, just be back before two—that's when Anne comes with the clothes!" Aunt Cass called. "And take Baymax with you!"

Hiro groaned, flopped against the wall he was sitting against to put his shoes on. He didn't want to take Baymax anywhere—there was always a very real chance he could get lost, or stolen, or damaged, and wouldn't that be just his luck. Plus, Baymax had already proven to be very chatty with Aunt Cass about them—they didn't need him talking about the letter they were getting ready to send.

"Wouldn't you rather him stay here with you?" Hiro tried.

Aunt Cass stuck her head through the door as Baymax waddled through the living room after them. "I'd honestly feel better if he were with you."

"I will strive to be an excellent health care companion," Baymax declared.

Hiro shook his head and went back to tying his shoes, glanced across the small foyer at Obake, in a similar position and activity. Obake looked up—Hiro glanced at Baymax, back at him, trying to think of how he could tell him that Baymax needed to be distracted, that they couldn't get rid of the money with him right there and liable to blab everything to Aunt Cass—

Obake blinked, glanced furtively at Baymax, looked back at Hiro and nodded, almost imperceptibly. Finished tying his shoes and stood, got about halfway up before tumbling over.

Baymax blinked, turned, leaned over Obake. "You have fallen."

Hiro struggled to keep a straight face as he finished tying his shoes, carefully standing and edging for the door. Judging by the way Obake was splayed, one arm dramatically over his forehead, he was going to guess that tumble had been on purpose.

"On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?" Baymax asked, as Hiro eased the door open and slipped through; he glimpsed Obake holding a finger up as he eased the door shut, heard Baymax declare "I will scan you now"—

Run for the broken board, Converses slipping on asphalt still slick from the fog burning off—dug his fingers in, pulled—reached in, hoping he didn't get something nasty like a spider—

Breathe a sigh of relief as his fingers found the straps of the tote bag, tug it out, put it against the wall as he wedged the board back into place. Finish smoothing it out to make sure—hiss at a splinter, pinch it, tug it out, suck on his finger a little to make sure it didn't bleed—pick up the tote bag—

Obake came out, hopped down the steps as Baymax toddled out after him.

"Hey," Hiro greeted, shouldering the tote bag as he ran up to them. "Have a nice trip?"

Obake shrugged as Baymax blinked at the steps, blinked up at them.

"Obake, is uninjured by the: fall," Baymax declared.

"Well that's good," Hiro said, watching Baymax for a moment before running after Obake and stopping him.

"Okay, listen," Hiro said quietly, glancing back at Baymax working his way down the steps before looking back to Obake. "I don't like having Baymax as a babysitter either, but we can't lose him, okay? He's my brother's robotics project—if we lose him…." He didn't know. He'd probably have a breakdown—one more thing of Tadashi, gone. It was something he didn't think he could handle.

Obake shrugged again, looked around as Baymax came even with them.

"I recommend: low-stress activity today," Baymax said, blinking at them.

"Um, right," Hiro said. "Well, we were just going to mail something and then go to the arcade—real low-stress stuff. You know, if you wanted to stay here, that's be fine—what we're doing is probably really boring."

"I am a robot—I cannot be bored."

"Uh…it'd be better for our health if you stayed here?"

Baymax blinked at him. "I fail to see how I can be an effective health-care companion that way."

"You could be with Aunt Cass?"

"We have already covered her health-care necessities. She has informed me that by my being with you, her mental health is: improved. Therefore, staying with you benefits all parties."

Hiro looked at Obake, shrugged helplessly. Obake rolled his eye, looked around before pointing at a post box across the street.

"Jaywalking can be hazardous to your health," Baymax said, as Hiro started for it. "Pedestrians should cross at designated crosswalks."

Hiro sighed, sagging, waved at Obake to follow him; they crossed at the crosswalk after looking both ways, Baymax pushing the little button for good measure.

A problem occurred to Hiro as he pulled the letter to SFIT out.

"We're going to need stamps—they won't mail this otherwise," Hiro pointed out. "And come to think of it, wouldn't there be a postmark? I'd feel better if it was from a neighborhood besides ours."

"Who is this letter for?" Baymax asked, head tipped.

"Uh!" Hiro noised, pulling the letter close to his chest. "Um, it's…a surprise. Like…a good Samaritan, but anonymous? It's…really important that no one knows we're mailing this—Aunt Cass included. It would spoil it?" he tried, hoping his grimace wasn't too obvious.

Baymax blinked, looked at Obake, back to him. "Will mailing this letter anonymously improve your mental health?"

In that he'd be rid of some of the money, yeah. "Absolutely."

Baymax blinked again, nodded. "Then I will not discuss the letter with anyone. Aunt Cass included."

Hiro breathed a sigh of relief. "Wow, I—I did not think it would be that—okay," Hiro said, holding the letter out and pacing. "So we need to go to the post office—pretty sure we can get stamps and get rid of this there—just a question of where—"

Finger snaps made him look up at Obake, who stuck his hand out; Hiro hesitated before taking it, following Obake as he tugged him along.

"You know, I kind of question this," Hiro said, indicating their hands. "It's not like we know each other that well."

"Some people derive comfort from physical contact," Baymax posed, a finger up as he toddled behind them.

"Really." Hiro eyed Obake. "You know, if you just said something—I'm perfectly capable of following you around without getting lost."

"Obake has suffered a recent trauma, affecting several parts of his body," Baymax said, earning him a glare from Obake. "His trachea has also suffered injury."

Hiro looked at Obake appraisingly, considering. "I'm going to guess your head was included in that list too, right?" he asked cheekily, earning himself a glare and a yank. Hiro followed, thought for a bit before posing his next statement.

"But you can talk," he pointed out, watching Obake for any expression that would give away his current thoughts. "I heard you talk, that first day. And—this is why you're not eating anything, isn't it? It hurts for you to eat right now."

Obake scowled at him, tried to tug his hand free—Hiro held on.

"What?" Hiro asked him. "Some people derive comfort from physical contact."

Obake flopped his arm down, looked skywards for strength.

"Hey, Hiro! Good to see you out and about again!"

"Hi, Lonnie," Hiro greeted, half-waving the hand still holding the SFIT letter. "How's things?"

"Good, good," the darker-skinned man said, nodding as he put a bucket down. "Getting ready to wash my car—what are you up to?"

"We're looking for the post office—going to buy some stamps."

"And your friends are?"

"Um…this is Obake," Hiro said, pointing the letter at the other kid. "And this is Baymax—he's a…personal health-care companion."

Baymax gave a little circular wave. "Hello." Looked Lonnie up and down. "You are in: good health."

"That's good to know. Y'know, I didn't think kids your age mailed letters anymore—don't you all do e-mails and texts and things like that?"

"Well, sometimes we like to try something old, see what it's like," Hiro said, shrugging. "Except I don't think any of us actually knows where the post office is."

"Haha, I see how that's a problem—down this road, take a left, next right, it'll be on the left," Lonnie said, pointing down the street. "And buy the forever stamps—one thing I don't miss about snail mail dying out is them raising the postage by one cent every time you try to mail something."

"Thanks, Lonnie," Hiro said, maneuvering around him and waving as they headed down the street.

"No problem—you take care! And Hiro," he added, making Hiro pause. "I'm sorry about Tadashi."

Hiro froze, feeling ice water cascading down from head to toe—almost normal, and then that happened.

"Y-yeah," Hiro managed to get out finally, looking away. "Me too."

They continued on, Obake taking point when it became clear Hiro wasn't all there anymore.

A poke on the shoulder made him look back up, spot Obake giving him a look.

"Sorry," Hiro said, looking away again. "It's just…it still hurts."

"Physically, you are uninjured," Baymax observed.

"Yeah, I know. Different kind of pain."

Silence for a moment.

"I have been downloading information on treating: emotional loss," Baymax offered. "One common treatment is reaching out to friends and family. Would you like me to contact your network?"

"What? No!" Hiro yelped, spinning around and practically jumping on Baymax when he saw the network of faces spreading across his chest. "No I—not right now, okay!?" Not when they still had roughly seven hundred and fifty dollars in a tote bag that they had gotten from bot-fighting.

Baymax blinked at him. "Shall I set a reminder?"

"Yes, fine, whatever," Hiro said, running his free hand through his hair—oh, that had been close…he really didn't want to see Tadashi's friends, didn't need the sympathy constantly sending him into a tailspin. He didn't want that sympathy, didn't deserve that sympathy—

It was his fault Tadashi was dead.

He shook his head, turned and headed down the street. "Look, just—forget it. I'm fine." Got ready to cross the street—

Obake stopped him.

"What?" Hiro demanded.

In response, Obake pointed right, down the street.

"The post office is: one left, one right, on the left," Baymax supplied.

"Oh, right," Hiro muttered. Follow the sidewalk, looking for the post office…noticed Obake keeping pace, stopped when he poked his shoulder. "What?"

Obake offered his hand again.

Hiro stared at the offered hand, looked up to examine Obake's expression. "I thought you decided you'd rather not."

Obake shrugged.

Hiro considered another moment, accepted the hand and the little tug that sent them going again.

"Some people derive comfort from physical contact," Baymax repeated.

Hiro had to fight to keep his expression neutral. "Yeah, thanks."

Obake squeezed his hand a little but otherwise didn't react.

Honestly, that might have been just what he needed.

The post office was situated on a corner, across from a convenience store and at the beginning of a street full of small businesses that looked like they had seen better days but were still sturdily hanging on. The superstore chains might have been encroaching on the city and sitting pretty on the highways, but most people in the city proper found it easier to continue making use of the local stores. Besides, the hot wings at Walmart smelled funny.

Baymax was once again tripped up at the steps; blinked at the steps, the easier wheelchair ramp, the steps again, before deciding on the steps.

Hiro, for the fun of it and because it wasn't currently being used, ran up the wheelchair ramp, meeting Obake at the top of the little steps.

"Oh come on, seriously?" he asked the other kid. "The straight boring route?"

"Wheelchair ramps are for those who cannot take normal steps," Baymax said.

"And if there was someone who needed it I would have used the normal steps." Come on, Tadashi liked ramp-racing too—"…Let's just go get the stamps."

The post office smelled vaguely chlorinated, which never made any sense to Hiro—he glanced at the walls of PO boxes, the door the employees used to go to work and occasionally hand packages out of, before going to the glass door that led into the post office proper, where you could buy stamps and send out deliveries.

Baymax made himself useful by holding the door open for the various people trickling in and out to check their post boxes, since he'd be taking up a lot of space otherwise—Hiro and Obake took a few moments while they waited to entertain themselves, reading the posts on the bulletin board and poking through the stamp examples, swapping positions so they didn't lose their spot in line.

The lady working the counter seemed a little surprised to see them when it was their turn.

"We'd like to buy some forever stamps, please?" Hiro asked, drawing on his natural I'm cute and therefore innocent look.

She blinked at him, apparently still not expecting this. "…For a school project?"

"Uh, no—for mailing letters?"

She seemed to agree with Lonnie about kids these days and letters, but was at least humoring them. "Okay then…how many?"

That started a bit of a discussion, since he didn't want to buy stamps individually but certainly wasn't about to buy a book of them—they settled on twenty-five, which Hiro felt was more than enough; he figured he could slip the rest in a drawer somewhere for Aunt Cass to use. Hopefully she'd just think she'd bought them before and shrug it off.

The next little snag was the bit about paying for them.

Hiro patted his pockets, starting to panic a little—Obake rolled his eye, walked around to the tote bag, stuffed his hand in, dug around—dumped a handful of coins on the counter.

"Uh, right—thanks," Hiro muttered, counting out the cost and separating the coins as he did so. A couple of people behind them in line checked their watches, but he didn't think he had taken all that long. Put a couple of pennies in the Take-a-Penny tin, scrape the rest of the change back into his hand as the lady rung them up, deposit it in the bag before accepting the stamps and receipt, thanking her, and all but dashing out the door, Obake on his heels.

"We're done, Baymax," Hiro said, walking out the door the robot was still holding open.

"That is good," Baymax said, blinking at them.

"Yeah," Hiro agreed, taking a deep breath once they were out in the sun—air was starting to warm up a little, wind from the bay still giving a chill, not a cloud in sight. Sky so crisp and blue it almost hurt to look at.

He looked back down at the poke to his shoulder.

"What?" he asked Obake.

In response, Obake grinned—

Shot down the ramp while he was still processing things.

"Hey!" Hiro barked, running after him.

"Please take care not to fall," Baymax said, again taking the steps.

"Okay, so…maybe three? Just to be safe."

They were currently sitting on the curb in front of the post office, next to the nearby post box, Hiro with the letter on his lap and the stamps in his hand, Obake currently holding the tote bag. He looked to the other kid for confirmation, got a shrug in response.

"Well you're no help," Hiro muttered, before scraping at the corner of the stamps to peel them off. He had vague memories of learning how to mail letters in grade school, but like Lonnie and the post office lady thought, Hiro hadn't sent a physical letter in years—still pretty sure he knew where the stamps went though.

There was a weird little pleasure in making sure they lined up perfectly with the edges of the envelope, and then with each other—three stamps, precisely and evenly spaced, him with his tongue between his teeth as he placed them and smoothed them out, pushing down a little to be absolutely certain.

"Okay," he said, holding the envelope up, stamps secure. "Now…we just mail it."

Obake nodded, they stood—he held the post box open, looked at Hiro expectantly.

Hiro hesitated a little, fingering the letter—once he put it in there, that was it, he was committed to this—this sham. The letter for Aunt Cass had been different, somehow—maybe because Obake had been the one to put it in the box. If he did this….If he did this he was agreeing with the letter, agreeing with the fact that using Tadashi to get rid of bot-fighting money was okay.

But if he didn't—even with getting rid of this letter, that was still five hundred some dollars in his bag, more than he could account for if he were caught with it. He wanted to be rid of the evidence, wanted to wash his hands of it all—bot-fighting had been fun, yes, had succeeded in getting his mind off of things…but he wasn't certain the guilt was worth it.

Obake was starting to look impatient now, reached forward to grab the letter—

Hiro stuffed his hands forward, into the cool blackness of the post box—hesitated another second before letting go.

As soon as it was out of his hands, as soon as he heard it thump down on the other letters inside, he felt a rush of relief—it was questionable, questionable if it was the right thing to do still, but now it was done—there was no getting that money back, it was gone. He heaved a sigh of relief, hands thumping against his sides, ignoring the look Obake was giving him as he let the post box bang shut.

"Okay," Hiro sighed. "Okay, I'm good. Now what?"

"Your plans for the day involved: the post office, and the arcade," Baymax said. "You also need to be back at the café before two PM."

"Right," Hiro said, clapping his hands—stuffing one into the tote bag when something occurred to him. "Hey, just how much loose change is in here, anyway?" Run his fingers through the round disks at the bottom—answer: quite a bit.

He looked at Obake. "I…am going to say the loose change is ours, right?"

Obake smiled, in a way that made Hiro think See? You're learning! Well…it didn't really make sense to dump a ton of coins on anyone…maybe if they found one of those coin machines.

But until then….

Hiro pointed at Obake. "Bet you anything I can wipe the floor with you on Sugar Rush."

Obake looked like he was willing to take that bet.