Wasabi pulled his straw to his lips clumsily as he read GoGo's text to himself, slurping iced coffee with cream while some teenagers at the table next to him raved about what they found on social media sites. He squinted at the words and looked up to the news station displayed on the miniature television in the corner of the café. Hiro had sent a text earlier that he wanted to meet up at Cass's café and here he was, watching the only news station that wasn't talking about the apartment fire on the south Minami mile, waiting for a friend who hadn't even shown up, reading a text from the only person he was certain to be on his side about the three month old fight state bluntly, yet cryptically, that his suspicions were wrong.
He flipped his phone so that it was face down on the table and leaned back in the chair, resting his thumb on his chin and his index finger on his temple. He trusted GoGo's judgement but there was so little evidence that he, or even the police, knew of about the fire's unusual origins, he felt entitled to a sense of disbelief. Fred had nearly killed the people he was supposed to be saving before. In that monster suit, sometimes Wasabi wondered if Fred had the capacity to remember he wasn't actually a monster from one of his action films.
Looking up, Wasabi saw Hiro come through the front doors with Baymax deactivated and stuffed inside a massive red suitcase that was almost too big for the kid to carry. Low profile. At least, as low profile as Baymax could be made to be. Wasabi nodded to him and Hiro took his seat, hoisting the suitcase up and onto the table with a weight that almost tipped Wasabi's drink.
"It's not often you want to see us anymore," Wasabi mentioned, taking his coffee off the table and holding it in his palm as if it were a saucer. As odd as he looked, Hiro knew it was to prevent any tragic loss of Aunt Cass's sweet nectar of coffee.
"I didn't want to pick sides," Hiro shrugged, drumming his fingers once on the suitcase. "It was too difficult for me to do what you guys were doing. I never had friends much before you all and…"
Wasabi looked down at the table in silence.
"…I don't know," Hiro sighed. "I didn't want to have to lose any of you and I thought I could be friends with all of you still, even if you don't want to be friends with each other."
"It wasn't that I didn't want to be friends, Hiro," Wasabi picked up his phone and started texting GoGo to meet them. "I care about Fred. I worry about him a lot. He's spontaneous and goofy and, yeah, that's fun and good when he's making jokes but, in the end, he's going to get himself or other people killed. When we started this thing, we didn't think about the amount of responsibility it brought along with it. We weren't put in the position we were just to be taxed with finding the Phantom. I know that was the original intent but we are meant for greater things."
Hiro chewed his lip and looked at Cass at the counter, too busy serving customers that lined out the front door to notice her nephew had come in. He turned his gaze to Baymax in sleep mode in the portable case that Tadashi had built for him before…
"I know the fire means a lot to you, Hiro," Wasabi said somberly. "It probably hits really close to home for you."
"Nobody was killed," Hiro said, his mind flashing back to images of that fateful day.
There was a long pause before Hiro started talking again.
He took a deep breath and shut his eyes. "Nobody was killed this time but I worry about what will happen if..."
"It's not Fred," Wasabi shook his head. "Or, at least, GoGo says so."
"You're still with her, then?" Hiro smiled.
Wasabi started to turn pink under his dark skin, eyes widening. He looked to the door, worried that the woman in question might come in at any moment while talking about her. That superstition of 'speak of the devil and he will appear' swept over Wasabi in a wink and he gulped. It wasn't like they weren't together. After all, they saw each other every single day while out doing their heroic responsible thing. It's just…
"Well…" Wasabi fumbled, "…technically?"
"No," came a voice from the door and Hiro looked over his shoulder. GoGo was wearing her boots with the disc roller blades tucked away in a bag strung tight to her back. She held a hand on her hip and narrowed her eyes at Wasabi for a long moment before stepping in and taking a chair. She spun the chair one hundred and eighty degrees and sat leaning against the chair's back. She blew a bubble and popped it in her teeth. "No, we're not together."
"Why don't you think Fred was the cause of the fire?" Wasabi asked, simultaneously getting an answer out of her confidence on the subject as well as trying to avoid her confidence on the subject previous. The last thing he wanted to talk about was how he asked her to date with him once Kreitech was over and their lives were narrowly lost. One of those moments of exhilaration after a near death experience brought him to decide not to be single anymore and the first girl there was GoGo. After about two months together, GoGo broke up with him for being too stingy and slow in the relationship. She wanted more exhilaration. Wasabi only had it that once.
GoGo looked to Hiro and Wasabi before staring straight ahead to focus on how she felt about the whole thing. Fred was the reason for the split of Big Hero 6 but, at the same time, she sided with Wasabi on the matter. If she had done what Hiro did, and stayed out of it, Big Hero 6 might still be a tightly knit group and Fred could be…
"Fred's dead."
