'Bzzt bzzt bzzt.'
"Mmm…shuddup…." At first, it seemed as if whomever had spoken had done so from the bed, though it was obvious to anyone looking that there wasn't anyone on the bed, just a jumble of blankets and pillows on a bare mattress. But after the fourteenth or fifteenth 'bzzt' from the phone sitting on the nightstand beside the bed, a hand rose from the heap, and started slapping ineffectually around the surface of the end table, trying in vain to shut off the alarm. "Shuuush, it's too early," the voice groaned, eventually able to knock the phone to the floor, silencing it for now. The hand quickly retreated into the warmth of the blankets, and the entire mountain shifted as the occupant of the makeshift nest shifted beneath it.
'Bzzt bzzt bzzt.'
"God damn it." As the snooze alarm began to sound not five minutes later, the man under all those blankets rose, albeit reluctantly. Leaning down off the mattress, he fished around for the device, before clicking the alarm off, and glancing at the screen. '12:30' it read on the screen that was all too bright for his tired eyes. Squinting, he finally sat up properly, and stretched his back. Tossing the phone aside, he stood, and made his way to the opposite side of the room. Snatching a shirt that was not yet dirty enough to be tossed onto the floor from where it was slung over the back of his desk chair, he lazily pulled it over her head, and winced slightly, as it caught on his ear piercings. Pulling his head all the way through, his mop of black hair fell back into his eyes, sticking up every which way from sleeping on it.
"Good afternoon," came the calming voice of Baymax who, upon hearing Hiro stumble out of bed, had inflated from his charging station, and made his way over.
"Hey buddy," Hiro yawned, his eyes squeezing shut as he did so. He scratched his back languidly under his tshirt, before collapsing into his desk chair, and spinning to face his android friend. "What's up?"
"Sticking to a consistent sleep schedule is imperative for long-term health and wellness," Baymax said, acknowledging Hiro's late start to the day. "Even on weekends, you should wake up at the same time every day, as well as go to bed early enough to ensure at least eight full hours of sleep."
"Yeah, yeah," Hiro said, laughing and waving the suggestion off, "that's what you always say."
"And you always seem to ignore me," Baymax quipped back, though his unaffected tone made it seem more like an honest assessment of the truth, rather than a wry comeback. Hiro rolled his eyes, though Baymax couldn't see, and pulled his desk keyboard closer to him. Popping open a few windows, he flipped through Facebook, twitter, even Instagram, chuckling at Honey Lemon's newest selfie with Fred and Wasabi. The girl seemed addicted to taking pictures.
It was a Sunday, and even someone like Hiro, who always had something to be working on, wasn't keen on jumping into new projects on lazy days like these, especially the day after an Expo. They always seemed to sap his energy, and he figured, what better day to kick back and recharge than a Sunday? Closing out his social media outlets which, let's be honest, he was terrible at, he drummed his fingertips on the desk, wondering exactly how to start his recharging.
"12:30 isn't too late to eat breakfast, right?" he asked, not really needing or wanting an answer; of course any time was a good time for cereal. Grabbing his phone, he nodded his head at Baymax to follow, and the two made their way down the stairs to the Kitchen. Cass was nowhere in sight, obviously down at the Café, preparing for the after-church rush. Hiro knew the nice thing to do would be to go down and help, but…get real. Like he was going to give up leisure time for work if he didn't have to. Pouring himself a bowl that was much too large to be a cereal bowl of some god-awful movie-monster-themed sugar cereal and filling it with entirely too much milk, he flopped down with his calorie-laden 'breakfast' on the couch, and with the 'on' button on the TV remote.
"Each meal of a three-meal nutrition plan for a 21 year old male should only contain roughly 730 calories," Baymax pointed out, which was thusly ignored by Hiro. "I estimate that this meal contains no less than 1100 calories."
"This counts as breakfast and lunch," Hiro said with his mouth full, not looking up. "Besides, look at the box; it contains seven key nutrients." He said this rather sarcastically, grinning to himself. "And hey, a growing boy needs all these nutrients."
"These claims are highly misleading," Baymax said, nearly dismayed in his tone, as he scanned the front and back of the cereal box. "And I highly doubt you are still growing. You are six feet one inch tall. Neither your father, nor Tadashi were taller than six feet, two inches."
"Hey, I'm still waiting on that last inch!" Hiro stabbed his spoon towards Baymax, before taking another bite. "Anyway, who knows? I feel like I could get taller."
"Perhaps height is not the direction you will grow in, eating like this." At that, Hiro turned around, his eyes wide but full of amusement at that statement.
"Excuse me?" he asked, nearly choking, "did you just sass me?"
"I am a robot. 'Sassy' is not in my programming."
"You did! Ha!" Hiro shook his head, snickering still. "That's just fantastic! A robot that sasses you! Did Tadashi write that into your programming? Cuz I know I didn't!"
"Tadashi wrote my core programming, yes." Hiro held up the remote, flickering between channels quickly, trying to find a good one to finish his breakfast in front of.
"I bet he put that in there just to mess with me," he said, spoon hanging out the side of his mouth. "That would be just like him, to call me fat from beyond the grave." He finally settled on cartoons, really solidifying to anyone watching the scene that despite his age, Hiro had not seemingly grown by a single minute since childhood.
'Bzzt bzzt bzzt!'
"Eighty seven."
'Bzzt bzzt bzzt!'
"Eighty eight…"
'Bzzt bzzt bzzt!'
"Shit." Jun let his knees drop to the carpet as he glanced up at the nightstand. His phone was buzzing on top of it, doing it's best to try and screw up his count. Rising to his feet, he ran his hands through his hair, pushing it back out of his eyes and reached for the device, shutting it off. Like always, he'd beaten his 6 am alarm. Once silenced, he tossed it back onto his unmade bed and resumed his pushup count, now slightly disgruntled at having to take a 'break' so close to the end.
"Eighty nine," he continued, dipping low enough for his nose to nearly brush the carpet, before pushing back up and away. "Ninety." It was easy work to finish up the 100 count warm up, and stretching out his back, he made his way over to the closet, picking a shirt at random and pulling it on. Throwing on a pair of sweats and tennishoes, he ignored the several text messages that had just appeared in his phone's inbox as he shoved it into his pocket, and locked up his apartment behind him.
His morning run seemed to fly by that day. Up Gold ave, cut across Chesspeak blv, down State st until you hit Bloomington, then take a right. Since it was a Sunday, he took the scenic route around the bay, though his attention was obviously not on the scenery. As Jun ran, he tried to let his mind go blank, as he usually did, but he kept wandering back to the events of the last night. He knew it wouldn't help anything to worry, but he couldn't help but over analyze everything that had happened. Especially since so much was riding on this endeavor turning out perfectly. Had he come on too strong? Or maybe not strong enough? Had he potentially scared the kid away? Maybe he shouldn't have tried to get Hiro alone, maybe he should have stayed to speak longer. Maybe he shouldn't have been so elusive in the beginning? Maybe…maybe…maybe…
Before he knew it, he found himself on the street leading back to his apartment building. He had to check his run tracking app to make sure he had indeed finished his whole run, and in a daze, made his way back home. It hadn't felt like three miles. He didn't even feel winded.
Jun wasn't the type to eat breakfast, especially not when coffee was such an easy replacement. He'd poured himself a cup after a quick shower, and still shaking water droplets from his dark hair, he sat down on the couch, and finally decided to check those messages.
'Boss wants to see you.' The first one was from one of Jun's subordinates, and he winced at what it said. Boss wanting to see you was never a good thing.
'The account's been liquidated' read another, though this one wasn't as dour.
'Good,' Jun texted back, setting his mug down on the end table beside the dark green couch that dominated the main floorspace of his apartment. 'Now don't fuck up the transfer.'
The third text was an automated message; Jun was late on his utilities payment. He snorted in amusement at this, and quickly switched over to an internet tab. Pulling up his bank's mobile site, he punched in the company's login and password, and selecting one of the more well-stocked accounts, scheduled a payment. Maybe it wasn't exactly the type of thing he should have been using that money for but, hey, who was going to begrudge him $128.72? In an account of hundreds of thousands? And these were just the 'legitimate' accounts; not like the company didn't have millions in their offshore investments. One electric and water bill payment wouldn't even register to the higher ups.
Besides, Jun had been doing it for months.
"Hiro Hamada, honestly!" Cass set her hands on her hips in that oh-so-authoritative way as she took in the sight before her; her nephew, passed out with one leg drapped over the back of the couch, his mouth open as he snored slightly, a bowl of milk that once contained way too much cereal still sitting on his stomach with the spoon dangling halfway out. Baymax sat on the armchair beside the couch, curiously clicking through the channels with the remote. Cass sighed, rolling her eyes at the pair, and walked over. Plucking the bowl off his stomach, she went to set it in the sink. "Honestly, 2 pm and you're napping after sleeping in all morning," she huffed. Hiro stirred in his sleep slightly, mumbling something incoherent, before settling back down.
"I have tried to inform him of the proper way to regulate his sleep schedule," Baymax remarked. "But for some reason he continues to disregard my advice."
"Yours and mine both, pal," Cass said, making her way back to the staircase; she couldn't leave the café for long. She glanced one more time at the boy everyone called a genius, but watching him lazing around the house like this, it was easy to forget he spent his free time engineering and crime fighting.
"Buzz me up." Jun smiled slightly as the poor lobby receptionist gave a start to his sudden appearance. She looked him up and down rather flustered, before flicking her bangs out of her face, trying to regain composure.
"Which floor?" she asked, but Jun just rolled his eyes at this.
"You know which floor," he said, none-too-kindly. The woman was young, not any older than Jun he thought. With an older woman, that manner of speaking would likely get him nowhere, but he was pleased to see his general demeanor seemed to do the trick, intimidating the clueless little girl enough to buzz him right up to the penthouse offices. Making his way to the elevator, he stepped in and immediately pressed the 'shut doors' button, to keep anyone else from trying to catch a ride up with him. He wasn't very fond of company.
Jun didn't particularly like dressing up. He did so when he needed to, which was unfortunately often, today being one of those cases. Meeting with the Boss was no laughing matter, and wasn't something to take lightly; when you met with the Boss, you made a point to look sharp. He wasn't going to tolerate any less in his place of business.
'MY place of business,' Jun thought bitterly, stepping out of the elevator when the doors slid back open. His shoes clicked softly on the polished marbled floor as he walked directly past Boss' secretary's desk.
"Excuse me," she called…no, demanded, really. Jun halted, his hands in the pockets of his slacks, and turned slightly to glance back at her. He said nothing, but the pointed look he gave her was all the recognition she needed before she continued. "Mr. Albricht doesn't have any appointments this morning; I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave."
"I'm the reason he's cleared his morning schedule, sweetheart," Jun said, smiling rather bitterly at her. "Guess I got myself in trouble, again."
"Well, wait," she said, standing as Jun continued past her, towards Boss' back office. "You can't just-"
"Whoops," Jun said, placing his hand on one of the silver handles of the large double doors, turning it. "Looks like I can." He looked back at her and winked, before slipping into the office, and shutting the door behind him.
As Hiro made his fourth revolution in the swivel chair, Baymax cocked his head to one side, puzzled at why anyone would want to willingly induce dizziness in themselves.
"Excessive spinning can cause a disruption of the normal workings of the inner ear," Baymax said, watching as Hiro put his foot down, halting him mid-rotation. "Causing dizziness, nauseousness, and a temporary loss of equilibrium."
"It seems that anything fun comes with a pretty long list of side effects," Hiro observed, relenting, and pushing his chair back towards the desk. The two of them had migrated down to the garage, still avoiding Aunt Cass and any real work for the time being. He shoved the sleeves of his sweater up past his elbows, and proceeded to continue coding the project he was working on.
"If that is the case, it is only because your idea of 'fun' is rather dangerous," Baymax said. His cameras tracked the lines of code rapidly appearing across the screen, before glancing down to watch Hiro's fingers fly across the keyboard.
"Dangerous and fun are pretty much just synonyms, buddy," He replied, pausing, and fishing around in his sweater pockets for his phone; he forgot that he needed to text Fred today to remind him to-
As he yanked his phone from his pocket, a piece of paper fluttered out. It caught his eye as it landed face-up on the ground, and when he bent to pick it up, he finally recognized it; it was that business card. Scoffing, he tossed it onto the desk beside him, not meaning to pay it any more mind. That Jun guy had been sort of off-putting anyway. Hiro couldn't quite put his finger on what it was about the guy that he didn't like, but, he knew there had to be a good reason for his gut to be telling him to forget about that guy. His gut wasn't often wrong.
But…about fifteen more lines of code in, his eyes briefly flickered to the silver lettering on the card. He tried to get himself to concentrate back on his project, but again he found his eyes wandering. And before he knew it, his hand was picking it up. And his eyes were scanning the name and information. And his fingers were typing that name into Google. Damn it.
There wasn't a whole lot of relevant search results, it seemed. It confused Hiro as he scrolled through the results; if this was a wealthy, successful investor, shouldn't there be more information on him out there? His stomach churned nervously. 'Check his Wikipedia page,' he thought to himself, bringing up the website, and plunking in Jun's name and company, 'Kurosawa Insights'. He felt somewhat relieved when a page did pop up, and the picture on the page matched the face from Hiro's memory of the previous night.
'Kurosawa Insights,' the first paragraph began, 'is a privately owned Japanifornian investment-brokerage firm headquartered in San Fransokyo. Its founder, President and current CEO is Jun L. Kurosawa. KI has 14 branch offices around the country, with headquarters and three branch offices based in San Fransokyo.' Scrolling further, he skimmed over the 'history' section, his eye catching on one paragraph in particular:
'While KI's initial investments proved both lucrative and typical, starting in 2016, CEO Kurosawa began taking the company offline, shifting stocks from the public to private sector, and closed the company off to outside trading and marketing deals. The company went dark for two years, though tax records show that no major layoffs occurred in this time frame, and payroll continued normally among the employees of the firm. Then, without a formal announcement, the company resumed investment strategies in Dec of 2018. With the company replanted in the private sector, Kurosawa began increasing charitable donations as well as start-up investments, with the most notable investment being his 8 million backing of Yamasota Ministries in SacramentOkayama.' The name of the company, Yamasota Ministries, was highlighted blue, and Hiro clicked it, redirecting to their Wikipedia page in another window. A picture of a small building adorned the front of the page, alongside another picture of who Hiro assumed was the founder of the company, Igari Yamasota.
"Hey, Baymax," Hiro called, taking Baymax's attention away from the moth that was fluttering around the overhead light in the garage workshop. "C'mere a minute, I want you to download and cross reference any information of this Yamasota guy and his company; make sure it's legit." Baymax approached the computer and, setting a hand on the top, gained a sort of far-away look on his face.
"Download complete," Baymax said, and began to sift through the information he'd retrieved. "Yamasota Ministries," he began to recite, "a SacramentOkayama-based foreign aid missionary group. Specializing in mission work and disaster relief aid, it was funded in 2019 by a rather unknown investment banker, and remains funded to this day by various charity groups and wealthy beneficiaries. There are 14,129 hits when searched across the web."
"14000?" Hiro asked, glancing back at his screen. "Okay, so that checks out…let's see what we can dig up on this Kurosawa guy." He exited out of that tab, clicking back over to the KI page, and navigated through hyperlink to Jun's page. "Now let's see if we can't cross reference this guy and his company, and see why I wasn't getting any hits with a simple google search." With Baymax's help, Hiro made his way easily into Google's main algorithm program, and inputting the information, sifted through the raw data it spit out.
The raw search did little to quell his curiosity, though. There was strangely just not that much information to be found about Jun's company, save for the Wikipedia page, a few articles that mentioned Kurosawa Insights, an online newspaper headline from 2016 announcing KI's disappearance, and a few other unrelated things. Taking another look at the business card, it didn't even contain a website name, but Jun's name, and two phone numbers, one a text-only number.
"What a way to run a company," Hiro huffed, clicking back over to Jun's page, and scrolling through it. "If you're looking for investments, this is NOT the way to do it." He scrolled down to the 'Achievements' tab under his personal page, and skimmed there, his eyebrows raising slightly at what he found.
'Having been nominated for and won the Japanifornia Better Banking Lifetime Achievement award in 2020, CEO Jun Kurosawa declined to attend the annual award banquet, citing a desire for anonymity. Later asked as to why one of the most successful upstart Banking firms in Japanifornia would decline the award, Kurosawa was quoted as saying "Why would I want an award for having money? That's not something you should be congratulated for. Money is the least of my concerns." Kurosawa later redacted his comments, apologizing for 'such an unprofessional outburst at the media'.'
Sitting back, Hiro attempted to digest everything he'd just read. This Jun guy seemed to him at first glance to be rather seedy; not unlike Krei. But what was written here seemed to paint a slightly different picture. They guy obviously liked funding charities and 'good causes'. He wasn't your typical ego-inflated business man; so then, why had Hiro gotten such a bad feeling from him? And there was still the matter of why there was no website for one of the supposedly highest ranked private sector investment companies in the nation, and why someone so successful had hardly any hits on the internet?
"This is weirding me out," Hiro finally said, reaching out to put the computer screen to sleep. Standing and stretching, he turned to leave and try to see if he could swipe anything from the café without Cass noticing him, when he paused. He quickly reached back and snatched the business card off the desk, and shoved it back in his pocket. He was done thinking about this, he told himself. I'll never look at this stupid little card again, he thought. But….he wanted to keep it safe. Just in case.
"I have to say I'm impressed, Kurosawa." Jun watched the Boss take a drag from his cigarette and blow the smoke out sideways. He stood opposite the large desk in the corner, his back to the windows that dominated the western wall of the top floor office. Boss sat behind said desk, leaning back in his chair and regarding Jun with a certain amused stare. Holding the cigarette between his lips, he leaned forward, sifting through a few papers that sat on the desk's surface, to withdraw a file folder. "You didn't do this all yourself, did you?"
"I may as well have," he said, almost more to himself than to Boss, but the later laughed anyway, his deep voice sounding like crunching gravel as he did so. "I have more than a few friends who can easily wip up a few fake articles and pages."
"But wiping the slate clean," Boss continued, raising a bushy eyebrow at the younger man. "Your name doesn't come up with anything anymore. That takes some work."
"Not really," Jun said, looking away. Receiving praise from the Boss was…uncomfortable for him, to say the very least. He didn't much care for this man, but he certainly didn't want the alternative. That was an experience he'd rather not repeat. His tongue errantly pressed against the back of his teeth as he thought this, the gap where he was still missing one obvious and poignant. "Just time. And money. Both of which I wasn't pressed on."
"Speaking of money," Boss said, leaning forward and setting his elbows on the dark, polished wood. "I hear the liquidation of the Ferguson account was successful?" Jun nodded once. "Good. And I trust the transfer is in capable hands?"
"It's in my hands, so…yes." Boss chuckled slightly, blowing out more foul smelling smoke, and stood. Only standing could you fully appreciate just how massive Boss was; Jun was tall by most standards, yet he always ended up feel four feet tall standing next to Boss. But it wasn't even necessarily his height that gave him his imposing aura. Perhaps it was only Jun who felt this way, given his…history with the Boss. But the way Boss had circled around Jun to walk past him and stand in front of the massive windows at the other side of the office made him feel a bit like a piece of meat being circled by a vulcher.
"I like you, Jun," Boss said, motioning for the younger man to follow him over and stand beside him.
"You do?" he asked, trying to be purposefully wry, though a small part of him was honestly surprised.
"Sure I do!" His forehead wrinkled slightly, emphasizing his receding hairline. His slick black hair was going gray at his temples, and if he wasn't clean-shaven, Jun knew his beard would be coming in gray as well. "'Course I do! I practically raised you, kid!" He smiled down at Jun, but even his smile seemed predatory. It was more like he was baring his teeth before striking than smiling. "Which is why I would hate what would happen to you if this whole scheme of your falls through."
"I'm sure." Jun's mind went back to the missing tooth. "But you don't need to waste your concern on me, Sir. Everything's going according to plan."
"That's good, that's good." Boss shoved his hands into the pockets of the perfectly tailored jacket he wore. "'Cuz we need the Hamada kid taken care of. Him and those other 'heros' of his have already busted scores of my men."
"It's all under control, Boss. I can hand-"
"Listen to me, Jun." Boss' oversized hand shot out then, cutting Jun's sentence off as he grabbed his chin, yanking his face around to look the Boss dead in the eye. "This is already your second chance. I don't give second chances. But for you, I was persuaded to make an exception." He paused, eyes narrowing. "Don't make me regret that decision." Letting Jun go, the younger men took a few steps back, indignation and anger clearly scrawled across his face. The two of them locked eyes, trying to stare the other down in the office that had once belonged to Jun's father. In the office that should have belonged to Jun.
"You won't," he spat, turning on his heel, and shoving the double doors open. He ignored the laughter he heard from inside the office as he made his way back out past the pissed off secretary, into the elevator, down through the lobby, and out to the valet. He barked at the poor boy to get his car, and soon, he found himself weaving through traffic. Not necessarily to get home; just to get out of the city. To take a drive to clear his head. God knew he needed it.