CH 6: More Similar Than Not
Hiro watched wide eyed as some guy picked a fight with one of the bot fighters with the worst reputation.
"What'd you say punk?" The tall albino man spat in a Russian accent.
"Exactly what you heard." The younger looking guy answered with a sly grin.
The younger Hamada felt like warning that guy to not mess around with the other dude but the kid looked like he wasn't one to take orders.
"This guy giving you trouble Mo?" another tough looking guy asked his friend as he stepped up and sized the smaller guy.
"What are you here to stand up for your bitch?"
Without as much as a warning the second guy swung at the boy's jaw and hit him dead on. Immediately a circle of interested people gathered around the guy on the floor as they howled and hooted for the spectacle to go on. Hiro joined to watch the match that everyone knew already had a winner. The boy's black hair draped his slick dark eyes as he shook his jaw with his right hand.
"Nice." The boy stood and smiled at the man he'd initially been speaking to.
"You sure are lucky to have him all to yourself."
Hiro's eyebrows rose in shock and instantly the crowd began to roar as they watched Mo beat the weaker kid to the ground. He balled up as the two guys kicked him in the stomach. Suddenly the blond guy lifted the boy and started serving him one blow after the other. The younger Hamada was petrified as he watched and began wondering how the guy was taking so many hits.
"Ah man, he's killing him." Some redhead besides Hiro exclaimed as he shook his hands anxiously. Hiro looked back to the fight; it was true. The guy's left eye was purple and swollen, his mouth was a bloody mess and he could barely stand. From that far away Hiro could notice that he was having trouble breathing and started getting really scared when the thought that the other guys could kill him popped up in his brain.
"Kade!" A voice familiar to Hiro shrilled in the midst of the commotion.
As the owner of the voice ran into the circle and pleaded for the men to stop pounding the boy Hiro reached for his phone and dialed his brother's number.
Over at the silent lab Tadashi sat typing away at his laptop. He looked over to the cell phone set besides his coffee cup and read the caller ID.
"What's up?" The boy answered a bit curious as to why his brother would be calling him.
"Can you come over to that one backstreet over at Greenswards?"
"You mean the one with the bot fights?" Tadashi asked sarcastically as he stood nonetheless and grabbed his jacket.
"Yeah, that one."
"Unbelievable." The guy shook his head as he searched for his keys on his desk.
"You know you got some nerve asking me to pick you up there."
"Trust me, you're gonna want to see what's here." Hiro answered solemnly and Tadashi became more serious as well.
"What's going on Hiro?" The older brother asked fearfully.
"It's better if you see it for yourself." The boy finished and hung up.
"Hiro!" The older Hamada called out in the noisy ally as he frantically searched for his brother.
"Over here." Hiro answered back as he shook his arms in the air and his brother located him quickly.
"Hiro, are you okay? Why'd you call me?" Tadashi asked one thing after the other as he scanned Hiro with his eyes for anything that might answer his questions.
"I'm fine. That guy on the other hand..." Hiro looked to brother then back to the boy who'd been dragged to a corner and was being tended to by Catherine.
"Is that...Catherine?" Tadashi squinted to make sure.
"That's what I was going to ask you." Hiro answered with a meaningful look. Tadashi didn't answer and just headed over to his girlfriend instead.
"Catherine?" The boy called out to her and she turned instantaneously. He eyes were perplexed with fear and apprehension.
"What are you doing here?" She barked at her boyfriend and Tadashi stopped dead in his tracks. He thought about how he could ask her the same but noticed that she was too rattled to be confronted.
"Is he alright?" Tadashi continued over to his girlfriend's brother whose face had been wiped on Catherine's shirt causing the white material to be completely stained by the vivid crimson liquid.
"He's having trouble breathing." The girl answers with a crackle in her voice and Tadashi nods.
"Let's take him to the university's hospital." The boy says and Catherine's eyes grow wide.
"No! We can't take him there." She shakes her head violently.
"Why not?"
"We just can't!" The girl states with a dark tone.
"Fine. Then how about we let Baymax take care of him?" Tadashi looked into the girl's eyes as they eased their expression and she just barely nodded. The two of them lugged Kade into Catherine's car and Tadashi and Hiro climbed up on the bike.
"You should have seen her running in there; she literally begged for those guys to let him go." Hiro commented as they whizzed through the nighttime streets. Tadashi remained listening as he was a bit embarrassed by the whole situation.
"She was cleaning his bloody face with her shirt and kept holding onto him like he was actually dying. She must really love her brother." Hiro stated what he'd seen.
"She says she hates him." Tadashi said with a questioning voice.
"Maybe she was just kidding when she said it because she looked like she was about to faint when she saw him that way." Hiro tried to answer his brother but only confused him further. Hiro chuckled as they reached their destination.
"What is it?" The older brother asked as he stopped in front of the Lucky Cat café and Hiro got off the bike.
"You know at first I didn't really get why you two were dating; I never saw anything in common though you two are cute together I guess. But tonight when I saw the way she acted with her brother...it was like I was seeing you. Maybe you two are pretty similar after all." Hiro smiled as his brother listened dumbfounded by his kid brother's unexpected depth.
"Good luck with the dude." The younger Hamada waved to Tadashi as he entered their home.
"Thanks." Tadashi answered in a low voice and sped off to his lab.
Back in the lab Catherine was fidgeting while waiting for Tadashi. She'd set a makeshift bed for her brother in a secluded space away from her boyfriend's more used area and finished cleaning Kade's face. The boy was still conscious but could barely muster up the strength to say a word. His open wounds and busted lip stung as the cold air touched them. His vision was blurry because of his swollen eye but he could make out his sister sitting on the floor besides him. The smell of alcohol invaded his memory and the girl's younger face with that same worried expression as she stared at him lying on the floor of his room. This scenery wasn't too different from the first time it happened.
"Please don't kill him!" The boy heard the words resound in the confusion of the crowded setting they were in. His little sister's figure was standing in front of a group of five or so teenage boys holding sticks that they'd used on him.
"You know this asshole?" One of the boys asked Catherine and she lowered the hands she hand stretched out in a sign of peace.
"He's my brother." The girl answered and a roar of laughter broke out.
"Saved by your little sister, huh, loser? We'll let you go this time but if you diss our bots again we won't stop until you're a bloody pulp, no matter how much she pleads" The teenager warned as he pointed to Catherine then walked away followed by his gang.
"Cathy?" Kade cringed as he asked for his sister. He'd never seen her so scared before. It made him feel guilty to be the reason why she had that sad expression on but at the same time it was the first time he'd truly felt loved; like her most honest feelings came out when she was put in a situation where she didn't have any control over.
"Kade! Are you okay?" The small girl's heartbeat raced as she kneeled next to her brother on the dirt floor.
"Why'd you follow me, Catherine?" The boy sat up and faced his sister.
"I was..." Before she could complete her sentence a tiny gasp was heard as Catherine took in her brothers beaten up face for the first time.
"Kade, we have to get you to the hospital." The girl started to lift her brother by the shoulder and he got up but disagreed.
"No, if we go to the hospital they'll call mom and dad."
"But...Kade you're really beat up." Catherine tittered as she tried to look back to her brother's bloody face.
"Can't you just help me out at home?" The boy questioned and his sister nodded reluctantly.
In the end she tended to all his wounds even though she could barely see through her tear-flooded eyes. Her small hands grasped onto Kade's shirt as she lay in his bed with him and hiccupped to sleep. It made the boy think about how sensitive his little sister was to cry over him doing something as stupid as picking a fight. That was the last time Catherine would cry for him though, so as trivial as it seemed Kade still treasured the memory.
The door of lab opens and Tadashi walks in with an expression which was a mix of worry and awkwardness.
"Is-Is he doing okay?" The boy said while walking in but keeping his distance.
"Yeah, Baymax helping him out and I was just finishing up."
"Oh, okay."
"Tadashi, take me somewhere." Catherine said with pleading eyes and though Tadashi had no idea where to take her he agreed.
Taking her hand he led her out of the lab he'd just entered and walked out of the building. Somehow Catherine's silence always seemed to speak the loudest to Tadashi. He walked with her farther and farther until they were merely wondering around the university they spent their days in. The two found themselves walking into the observatory they'd never really took time to go to. Catherine looked into the telescope and Tadashi stood quietly besides her. The girl was always that way; tightlipped. Catherine wasn't one to tell you about her day much less about her feelings; whatever she did had previously and solitarily been decided by her. No one had ever interfered with that mindset. Tadashi understood it. He even shared it sometimes though he was significantly less selfish than his pair.
"You can really see a lot with this." Catherine commented emptily as she moved away from the telescope and looked to her boyfriend who had a pretty solemn expression on.
"What's up?" The girl smiled lightly to Tadashi.
"I just wish that for once you would open up." As Tadashi said this Catherine's fake smile trickled down to a scowl.
"Fine, Tadashi, I get it." She cut him off from rambling and sighed.
"You clearly don't hate your brother that much."
"Yeah...and maybe I even love him, but..." She stuttered and ultimately stopped talking.
"You can tell me." The boy assured his girlfriend and took her into a hug.
"You know how sometimes there's a big pile...and people keep adding more and more to that pile and it actually holds up but if you pull one small thing out of that pile it comes crumbling down?" Catherine's eyes shined and her voice trembled ever so slightly.
"Well, Tadashi, I'm that pile okay so please don't try to get anything out of me."
Tadashi was silent all together and his hold on the girl eased up.
"Sorry Catherine but I'm not going to let you be that. Because you know that the pile can't keep itself up forever...but don't worry because I'm patient." The boy gently kissed her lips as she was still taken aback by his words. The waiting game the two were playing at had just been taken up a notch and neither of them was about to give in. She kissed him back passionately. Internally she was overwhelmed by happiness but her expression was as staid as always.
"It's not just about patience, Tadashi."
The boy gave a yellow smile; he didn't know what she meant at all. But he soon would.
When the couple had returned to the room Kade was no longer there and all that they found was a piece of paper over the blanket he'd folded.
"Thanks Cathy." Tadashi read out loud as Catherine held the paper.