Obake Itoko Chapter 7: Mess Is Mine, a big hero 6 fanfic

Heyo! Chapter 7, everyone, and the first chapter of the new decade! And hopefully not the last *bricked* I'll stop making that joke eventually, I swear….

First half of the chapter is based on my family's trips to the boardwalk—Grotto's and Thrashers are real restaurants, you ever get the chance you should totally try them. :D Second half was written before the first, mostly because I couldn't stop picturing Hiro saying Lilo's line (if Lilo and Stitch had been made later or Big Hero 6 made earlier, I guarantee you we would have seen a little Baymax in that scene).

According to the series, Fred was 100% banned from the yacht club—which makes sense, considering it appears he drove a boat through it. And the joy of Baymax making statements about sleeping habits…which I wrote at midnight. It's like he's trying to speak to me. :O

And next chapter sees us finally kicking the movie storyline into gear! Stay tuned! :D

The Authverlord, thanks for the review! Glad you've been liking it so far—spelling and grammar mistakes? Where? How did they escape me!? *ahem* Anyway, thank you…and glad you like that little snippet—we'll be getting back to that a little later. :) And probably not, Obake is one of those dudes who worked on his projects all the time and never interacted with anybody—never really envisioned him as much of a social butterfly, to be honest.

Next day was fairly slow and sunny, so Cass closed up early and told the boys they were going to the beach.

It was something, she felt—a change of pace, a treat, a way to get them out of the house and in such a way that she'd be able to keep an eye on them. It wouldn't be anything big—they'd go, eat junk food and wander through stores on the boardwalk and then come home—but she wanted to keep up this run of Hiro getting out of the house.

Maybe this would work out, she mused.

Currently she was standing next to Baymax on the trolley, who was busy blinking and examining everyone, lingering on a kid who was busy poking at his sleek white vinyl until his mother dragged him back to his seat. Sitting in front of her were Hiro and Obake, sandwiched against the end of the bench seat by the sheer number of people currently on the trolley—she should have guessed everyone else would have the same idea. It would certainly explain why the café was dead on a Friday.

But this would be good, she felt—would get some fresh air, continue this streak…hopefully. Hiro was looking withdrawn, sitting there, Obake still with that distant look in his eye. Both of them absent in their own way. Well, maybe getting some sun would help.

They unloaded at a plaza, walked a bit after getting some French fries at Thrashers, read a few walls of T-shirts before finding a vending machine, got a few drinks—which was about when Baymax said something about taking a break.

Hiro looked at him blankly. "We literally just started."

Baymax looked at Obake, who glared at him. "It is not proper health practice to be straining oneself so soon after an injury. Obake: should at least be taking breaks from walking on a regular basis."

Oh—oh. Oh she was such an idiot she had forgotten entirely…it was easy to do with the way he kept following Hiro around everywhere, but….

"It's okay, it's okay," she said, waving a little and herding them over to the beach where a stage and a lot of picnic benches were set up. "We can just—hey, I love this song!"

Neither Hiro nor Obake seemed impressed by the band's cover of the Beach Boys' "California Girls," but Hiro seemed to be a bit more invested in their next song, "Cake by the Ocean," something she had heard on the radio recently.

Obake was resolutely watching the band after glancing at her and noticing her looking at him carefully.

But she could see it, now that she was looking—the careful way he was holding himself, the hint of pain around the eye….

He was in an explosion about a month ago.

What on earth had this poor boy lived through?

She glanced at Baymax, flicked her eyes at Obake, back at him—Baymax looked down, pointed at his chest—flashed a timer at her, labeled minimum recommended rest time.

"Okay," she said. "So while we're here why don't I get us something more substantial, call it lunch? The band's pretty good at least," she added, when they launched into an Elvis song.

"Yeah sure," Hiro said, glancing at her. "Pizza?"

"Maybe Grotto's can be for dinner."

Hiro shrugged, and she could almost see him starting to slide back into that morass he had just eeked out of.

She ruffled his hair, successfully teasing a reaction out of him, kissed him on the head. "And maybe ice cream."

"For breakfast?" Hiro asked.

If that was what it took. "We'll see. Last hug."

Deep breath as she walked away, glancing back at them before going to the nearest food vendor…yes, they'd see. They'd get through this. The rest of the world still spun and went on, even as their life had crashed to a halt. They could hop back on.

Hopefully.

It was really too cheerful and sunny out here.

That wasn't a fair assessment, and Hiro knew it—he just couldn't shake that feeling. It wasn't fair that the rest of the world kept spinning when his had slammed to a painful halt. It shouldn't be sunny and cheerful outside when it was dank and gloomy inside.

Visiting the boardwalk didn't help, because it was the sort of thing they did as a family—and all it did was make it very pointedly obvious that Tadashi wasn't here anymore.

And made it very pointedly obvious that he was dealing with an enigma instead.

Okay, so maybe having to take a break wasn't such a random thing, he knew from yesterday that Obake had apparently gotten into something—except he didn't know what. No wait, scratch that, he did know what, the adoption lady had said he was in an explosion about a month ago. Which had just added to the intrigue at first, coupled with the handful of minutes at the adoption agency—but now, having several days to reflect on things…he really should have expected that this kid would be a troublemaker. Should have totally not been surprised that he tried to take off, or dragged him to bot-fighting, or knew precisely how to move a thousand dollars without it tracing back to him (the last two envelopes had been addressed, stamped, and slipped into a postbox on the way over). This kid could be so much trouble, especially with his expression now—that studiously blank expression, like he'd rather be anywhere but here but knew that looking as such would be impolite. Compare and contrast his expression during the bot-fight tourney—his very, very concerning expression—

"HEADS UP!"

Hiro barely had enough time to react when a volleyball beaned him in the back of the head—was just barely able to keep his face from slamming into the table, nearly skinned his hands for his trouble.

"AOOWH!" he ground out, scrubbing the back of his head—look up at the sound of wff-wff-wff—"No wait Baymax no—"

"I was alerted to the need for assistance when you said 'ow,'" Baymax said, now even with him. "I will scan you now."

Hiro made a face at Obake, who had caught the volleyball when it bounced off Hiro's head—Obake glanced behind Hiro, scowling—

"Yo dudes sorry about that was totally—HIRO!" the surfer-dude beach bum that had run over started, rapped Hiro on the shoulders as his expression went from dude so sorry to DUDE! "Hiro, my man! Where've you been my dude we've been way worried about you is that Baymax Baymax my man my bot my bud how've you been?"

Hiro blinked at surfer-dude-beach-bum, realized he recognized him. "Fred! Ah, what are you…."

"Ah right yeah—see, what it is is, I'm not allowed in the yacht club anymore, because reasons, so Mom lets me hang on the beach instead while she's there," Fred said, stuffing a hand into his board shorts as he gestured with the other. "Which is cool, pretty sure everyone wins there—except maybe Mom because she has to deal with Binky, but whatevs. How've you been anyway? Wasabi said he saw you…like, yesterday, I think—you okay?"

Hiro had no idea how to process anything that Fred had just said, from Fred being banned from a yacht club (maybe understandable) to whatever a Binky was (Hiro was pretty sure it wasn't the character from Arthur)—was cut off from answering by Baymax plopping a hand on his head.

"There is a: minor contusion, from the: volleyball," Baymax said. "A: cold compress, will help to reduce the swelling."

"Ah man, totally sorry about that that was my bad—hey, you didn't see where that ball went, did you—"

Which was about the time Obake had apparently decided he had enough—flung the volleyball at Fred's head, knocking him down with a blurted "OW!"

"Wha—hey!" Hiro barked, glaring at Obake. "That was totally uncalled for!"

Obake shrugged, adopting that studiously bland expression again.

Baymax, meanwhile, had given Fred his healthcare-companion spiel and scanned him.

"You have a: minor contusion, from the: volleyball," Baymax said.

"Yeah no I got it," Fred said, scrambling up and after the volleyball. "Dudes! Gonna tap out—ball!" Flung the ball away at a group of people, came back—stopped flat when Baymax put a hand on his face. "Dude, don't high-five the face."

"A: cold compress, will help to reduce the swelling."

"You know what actually this does feel good give me a minute."

Hiro scowled, tried to get Baymax's hand off his head—wasn't succeeding. "Ugh, Baymax…."

"Okay I'm back and—what happened?" Aunt Cass asked, taking in the scene.

"Yo Aunt Cass, how's it hanging?" Fred asked, voice muffled by Baymax's hand—gave a thumbs-up in her general direction.

"There were incidents with volleyballs," Baymax told her.

"Yeah that was my bad," Fred said, pushing Baymax's hand off his face. "Ooh, Ping's Noodle Cart! They make like, the best noodles—have you tried their secret noodle soup?"

"One of the things I ordered," Aunt Cass said, putting the bags down on the table. "Are you guys all right?"

"I'm fine, Baymax is overreacting," Hiro protested.

"I am acting within my healthcare protocols," Baymax told him.

"Baymax…."

"Nah, it's cool," Fred said, looking at Obake. "So who's super-scary quiet dude with the mean serve?"

Hiro was vaguely tempted to not answer and see what sort of name Fred would come up with, had the hope of Obake being saddled with a lame name dashed when Aunt Cass said "This is Obake. He's…new."

"Well nice to meet you my new dude, I'm Fred and I'd rather not have any more sports equipment to the face, alright?"

Obake ignored Fred's proffered fist, instead focusing on a little container of what smelled like kimchi.

"Dude," Fred said. "Don't leave me hanging, bro."

"He doesn't talk," Hiro said.

"Ah, cool cool, I guess I get that—like a vow of silence thing."

Obake looked like it was taking a lot of effort to keep that bland expression now, wasn't quite succeeding if the line between his eyebrows was any indication.

It was enough to prompt Hiro's next question, even if it was a knee-jerk reaction. "Hey Fred—want to sit with us?"

"Dude that'd be AWESOME yes," Fred said, immediately plopping down—Hiro snickered at Obake's deepening grief. "Only like, can I beg some—oh yes thank you," he said upon Aunt Cass shoving a full paper plate in front of him.

"I ordered Dragon Warrior size," she said by way of explanation, divvying out a few more plates for Hiro and Obake. "Go nuts."

"Will totally do."

Hiro and Obake still didn't eat much after the moment of silence, although Hiro was able to fluff by a bit with Fred eating his fair share—at least until Baymax called him out on it. Darn healthcare robot.

But they were able to pretend that things were almost normal—Fred was weirdly skilled at avoiding painful topics (basically anything directly related to Tadashi), kept everyone regaled with his various comic book theories and why the early 2000s had THE most criminally underrated Disney movies EVER we TOTALLY deserved a sequel to Atlantis and Treasure Planet—Hiro copied Obake's studiously blank expression then, trying very hard not to absorb too much on the topic; Tadashi had dedicated a few years of his life to sending letters to Disney about those movies.

Obake seemed to notice this, tipped his head at Hiro—Hiro shook his head minutely. Not now. Please, not now. And then kick him under the table when he shot a glare at Fred.

The take-out had long since vanished and the band playing swapped out with another when a well-dressed lady came over.

"And then they made him their chief," Fred was telling a riveted Aunt Cass—glanced up when the lady stopped at their table. "Hey, Madre! Yacht thing over already?"

"I stood as much as I was able," the lady said, before looking at Aunt Cass. "Hello—I hope Fredrick wasn't giving you any trouble."

"What? Oh no, he's fine, he was just telling us about this story he read."

"Totally awesome, I'll send you a link. Anywho, this is my friend Hiro, and this is his aunt Cass—and that's Baymax and Obake, Baymax is the big marshmallow guy."

"Hello," Baymax greeted, waving and looking Fred's mom (wow wasn't expecting that) up and down. "You are in good health."

"Well that's good to know, thank you. Are you ready to go, Fredrick?"

"Sure sure—be seeing you guys!" Fred said, waving and shooting finger-guns at them as he left with his mom, who waved politely. "Great seeing you out and about, Hiro!"

"Bye, Fred," Hiro said, waving. "Wow. I…was not expecting Fred's mom to…actually, I don't know what I expected." Come to think of it, just expecting Fred to have sprang fully-formed out of the Californian surfer-dude stereotype was kind of thin. Was also probably time to discard the college experiment that developed a mind of his own theory too.

"She seemed nice," Aunt Cass said. "And I really need to look up some of those stories Fred was talking about." Gather up everything—"Are we ready to hit the boardwalk again?"

They were able to get a bit farther before Baymax stopped them again—ate ice cream as they sat on a bench, started up again; spent the next break in a bookstore, Hiro looking over the new young adult books as Aunt Cass asked about some of the stories Fred recommended to her and Obake sat cross-legged against a shelf, reading.

Hiro also tried very hard to ignore the sound of air leaving a balloon, followed by the wff-wff-wff that was a deflated Baymax coming over to them.

They had a couple of bags after that, Baymax offering to take them (no one refused, especially after Hiro recalled that Baymax could lift a thousand pounds), looked at a few more stores to comment on various knickknacks. They did make it to Grotto's, ended up bringing home nearly a whole pizza, Hiro trying very hard not to fall asleep on the trolley ride back home.

Aunt Cass poking him awake told him he hadn't succeeded.

"Well that was fun, right?" she asked, as Hiro yawned and pushed himself off from Baymax's side. Hiro glanced at Obake briefly, already knowing he wouldn't answer or even respond.

"Yeah," Hiro said, trying hard to inject some enthusiasm into it and keep it from sounding so brittle. "Yeah, that was great—we should do it again sometime."

Aunt Cass smiled, and Hiro was of the opinion that he should be getting an Oscar for this performance. Just—fake it for her.

At least for a little while.

Obake was more than willing to wash the sand and salt air off of him, reflected that he probably couldn't scrub hard enough to get the inaneness that was Fred out of his mind. Oi.

Dressed in new old clothes again, swapped out with Hiro—tromped downstairs with the vague plan of finding his hoodie he liked his hoodie darnit was that too much to ask? Eventually found the clothesbasket sitting next to a folding closet, found his hoodie folded up on top—tugged it back on immediately. Ah, now that was more like it.

Pace back through the house as he shuffled his pocket-sized belongings back into his hoodie pockets, slip by Aunt Cass as she worked in the kitchen—prep work for the café, it looked like—please be prep-work for the café, if he ate as much as she apparently thought he ate he'd be the size of the guy that had been operating that noodle cart.

Slip back up the steps, pause to examine the pictures hanging on the walls. Hmm…standard cutesy family fare, quite a few pictures dedicated to the cat. Huff, start to continue up to the bedroom—paused at one larger photo, one showing a whole family.

Obake considered the picture—he recognized Cass, and the toddler might have been Hiro. The rest he wasn't sure about.

"That was us before."

He blinked, turned to see Hiro staring at the picture as well, eyes distant. "It was raining, and they went for a drive," he continued, tone heavy with something—sadness, maybe, for something that never was. "I was too young to remember anything. About them, about their deaths." Small sad quirk of his mouth. "Aunt Cass said she started feeding me ice cream for breakfast to get me eating afterwards."

Obake blinked at him, looked back at the picture.

"What about you?"

Jerk—look back at Hiro, at the question he had asked.

"I hear you cry at night, sometimes," he continued, fidgeting a little. "And…well, you don't…you don't end up where you were, if you…I mean…."

He knew what he meant, and he didn't need sympathy or empathy or whatever it was Hiro was angling for—he didn't need that shadow in Hiro's eyes getting buddies.

He needed to get his mind off of things.

Grab Hiro, haul him up the steps, to the bedroom—resolutely ignore the dead brother's side of the room, the white robot going "Hello"—planted Hiro in front of the toy shelves. That had been the plan, right?

Hiro blinked, looked the shelves over…looked at him. "I thought you weren't into toys."

Obake shrugged; he wasn't, but getting Hiro out of that funk was the priority here. Hiro was no use to him constantly thinking of those people.

"Hmm," Hiro noised, looking back at the shelves—picked a toy off the shelf. "I don't know…."

Oh no you don't—grab a different toy, an articulating robot, stick its arm out and poke it against the toy experimentally.

Hiro looked amused. "You know, you look totally uncomfortable right now."

Obake made a face at him that hopefully telegraphed how much he didn't want to be doing this right now. I'm doing this for you, you ingrate—you have potential, but you're of no use to me lost in that funk of yours.

Hiro's expression screwed into a different layer of amusement, mouth scrunching up like he was trying to keep in a laugh. "Uh, yeah, let's try something else," he said, grabbing a few more toys. "You seem to like destroying things with battlebots—let's see how you handle having to make something."

Hiro's comment made a bit more sense when he pulled out a cardboard box full of old cereal boxes and other assorted cardboard recyclables—maybe less so when he stacked several boxes on top of each other and put the round green toy on top.

"Aaah oh no the cybugs have taken the tower!" Hiro said, pitching his voice to sound more panicked—and getting it reedy-sounding, in Obake's opinion. Pick up one of the humanoid toys. "We're going to have to take the tower back! Who's with me?"

Obake considered the setup, picked up the robot, pushed it against the tower until it fell over.

"Uh, yeah, wow, you really suck at this," Hiro said, scoffing a little as he looked at the mess. When he spotted Obake's frustrated gesture: "Come on, it's—it's playing, like role-playing? I shouldn't have to explain this concept to you. Come on, let's try again," he said, stacking the boxes.

Obake huffed, glanced away—glared at the robot watching them, glare deepening when it raised a finger. "Playing is an important part of childhood development."

"See? He gets it," Hiro said, pointing. "Okay, so, maybe backstory this time—this is a cybug, it eats stuff and gets stronger from it, and it's taken the tower where…um…ooh—where the switch for the beacon that destroys the cybug is. This is Samus," he continued, picking up the toy from earlier. "She eats bugs like that for breakfast, because she goes from planet to planet killing them, but she can't just go after it because…um…hold this," he said, shoving the toy at Obake before scurrying back to the shelves. Obake watched, mildly confused, as Hiro grabbed several toys off the shelves before sliding back over, dumping the toys on the floor before arranging them around the cardboard tower.

"Okay," Hiro said. "So where was I? Right." Take the Samus toy back. "So usually she goes all over killing bugs like these, but there's all these other guys…um, working motivation is they're evil—I think we have a Ripley toy I don't know where it is though—so there's all these guys, so she needs help, and that's where you come in with that guy…I don't remember which Transformer that is just pick a name—and since they're also spacefaring, it makes sense that there'd be a team-up—someone in charge needs to get on that that'd be a cool movie—anyway. We take the tower back without destroying it," he said sternly, narrowing his eyes when Obake lifted the robot. "Because if the tower's destroyed then there's no way to kill the cybugs." Look the situation over, point at the robot Obake was feeling very silly holding. "That one can be Bumblebee—he got his vocal mechanics damaged so he doesn't talk. Usually he communicates through radio broadcasts, but for the sake of moving this along I'll let you slide."

Goody.

What followed was about five hours of following Hiro's prompts and nodding along to the running story he pitched—or maybe it was five minutes, he didn't know, it felt like forever before Hiro plucked the cybug off the tower and replaced it with Samus.

"Wow," Hiro drawled, sitting back on his haunches and giving him a look. "You absolutely hated that, didn't you?"

Obake kept his expression neutral as he quickly ran through the pros and cons of the responses to that.

Hiro pointed at him with the cybug in his hand. "You really suck at this, I want you to know this." At Obake's huff: "Well fine, let's see you do better."

Hmmm…hunch down, tap his chin, considering…role-playing, you say?

Maybe he could use this as a test to see just how clever Hiro was—and just how worth it he was.

Hence why he was dismantling the tower, emptying the cardboard box of the rest of the refuse, arranging it in such a way that it formed a maze, situated the villainous monsters throughout it—got a few more from the shelves, plus some items from the table before sitting back down and finishing up.

When he was done, he handed the Samus toy to Hiro.

"Hmm," Hiro noised, looking it over. "I am guessing that I'm working through a maze. What's my motivation?"

Obake quickly scribbled out the bare bones on the notepad he had gotten from the desk: Daedalus' Labyrinth, you're after his database at the end, the monsters want to stop you.

"So it's Percy Jackson stuff," Hiro said, looking his writing over. "Okay, so Samus' laser cannon is powered by Greek fire."

Obake had absolutely no idea who Percy Jackson was—a movie director, maybe—he just much rather envisioned the total of Daedalus' concepts in something a bit more modern than a dusty old tome.

In the meantime, he quite enjoyed moving the walls around on Hiro, exposing him to more monsters, multiple at once, occasionally opening up one of the sides to justify introducing more.

"Okay, now we're getting into that Maze Runner movie," Hiro groused at one point—ah me, the entertainment world moved on without him—

But eventually, Hiro plunked down the Samus toy at the end with a satisfied aha! Grinned up at him. "Okay, my turn."

Obake gestured. Fine by me.

Hiro scrambled—produced another box of cardboard, pulled a stack of books off a bookshelf—Obake tipped his head to scan the spines as Hiro arranged everything. Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Okay, so maybe he had some reading to do.

For now though, Hiro had announced a new trial—exclaimed with delight when he pulled out a plastic container of outdated dinosaurs, said they had crash-landed on a planet occupied by dinosaurs "And wait I got it—the cybug ate Ripley, so now he's like a mutant cybug like the end of the movie—" Kept producing new means to expand the little toy realm, Obake starting to get into it as they alternated back and forth, scurrying past the robot blinking and watching them—

Hiro jumped up on the bed when it was Obake's turn next, clutching the Samus toy and watching him as he pulled out all the stops, emptied all the shelves, worked on the desk next, the closet—ooh, this one had a remote!

Finish up, step back—gestured at his creation, quite proud of himself.

"Wow," Hiro noised. "San Fransokyo."

Yes indeed.

And with that set up, he plunked down the Kentucky Kaiju toy he had found, pulled out the remote, and set to making the toy destroy the model city.

Hiro watched for a while without comment before looking at him. "So maybe no more Monster drinks for you."

Obake made a face at him—snapped his attention around when he heard the robot greet "Aunt Cass"—

"Why are you two still up?" she asked, before registering the state of the room. "What happened here?"

"Cybugs," Hiro supplied. "Recently kaiju."

Cass apparently had to take a few moments to process this. "Okay…so next the clean-up crew happens—tomorrow, you two get to bed now."

Hiro groaned, flopping backwards. "Tomorrow's Saturday!"

"And you'll have to get up early to clean this mess!"

"Not that early."

"Eight to ten hours is the beneficial amount of time for sleep," the robot posed, lighting up a digital readout on its chest. "It is: 11:30 PM now. Disrupting circadian rhythms is also negatively impactful to your health."

"What happened to earlier, about play being beneficial to our health?"

"Sleep: is also beneficial to your health."

"The healthcare robot has spoken," Cass said, pointing at the beds. "Now bed."

Hiro groaned again, but burrowed under the covers, gave a small smile when Cass picked her way over to kiss him, returned the hug she gave him. Obake put the remote aside, waved her off when she looked over at him, crawled under his own covers to stare at the ceiling once she turned the light off.

"So I'm guessing you aren't going to try running off tonight with everything on the floor here," Hiro sounded after a few minutes. When Obake sat up to glare at him: "Yes I brought it up it's still a thing. Mwahaha, I tricked you into trapping yourself, I am the final winner here tonight in this game."

Obake huffed, flopped back down in his bed, listened to Hiro chortle to himself—

Knew by the way Hiro drifted off that his mind had gone back to those old ghosts again.

Drat it all, he needed a way to stop this—Hiro was sharp when he wasn't thinking of those lost to him, was entertaining, diverting—this persisting skein of sadness coating him just wouldn't do. He needed a way to cut through it, drag Hiro out of his morass so they could have some actual fun—not this play business, real fun.

He wasn't going to get that right away, he could see that. He needed something he could really sink into, that would thoroughly distract this other boy. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe he could convince him into another bot-fight, spin a song and dance about how helpful the money from the last one was and how easy it was to move the cash—that was obvious enough now, he thought.

He blinked when he realized his new plan would have him staying here a bit longer.

Well…he could live with that. Take it easy for a bit longer, let his poor aching ribs heal—this was infinitely better than laying in some hospital bed anyway. And then—and then, when he succeeded…they would be brilliant together, he decided. Hiro had the potential to be much more useful than Yosei had ever been, and he had the sneaking suspicion he could foster loyalty from this boy.

It was just a matter of playing the long game at this point.