Tadashi Hamada didn't date much in his youth. There was always something preoccupying his time, be it caring for his little brother, helping his Aunt in the family cafe, or dedicating his time to school work. Girls were a fascinating but distant thing to him that he simply didn't have time to explore; except for Olivia Harrison.
16 and confident, Olivia was a dark haired girl with honeyed eyes who loved participating in cross country running and excelled in advanced math classes. Her family had moved from England just a few months before meeting Tadashi, and he found it interesting how quickly she learned to adopt the areas dialect, turning her accent on and off at will. She all but forced herself into Tadashi's life, and before he realized what had happened, he was speaking to her every night before bed either through phone call or text message.
Their dates normally consisted of doing homework at one of their houses, but occasionally she was able to drag him away from everything long enough to go to a movie or jog through the park. She gave him a kiss in front of the lake his Aunt loved to take their picnics, and he never stood a chance.
Tadashi was wrapped around her little finger, the only priority coming before her being his family. They stayed as a happy couple for a good year and half, somehow learning to balance their relationship with their responsibilities; and though they didn't see each other terribly often, they made it work.
They had sex after a year of being together; she was his first, he was her second. They took every precaution to stay safe, and with gentle guidance Tadashi learned what exactly worked and didn't work when making love. 3 months into being sexually active, there was a pregnancy scare.
He wasn't sure how it happened; they were always so careful. There was always the possibility of a broken condom though, and Olivia admitted to missing taking her birth control by a day or so. They waited three long weeks, and just as it seemed their worst fears were confirmed, Olivia's cycle began.
That was, unfortunately, the breaking point of their relationship. The possibility of a child had forced the couple to look at their relationship in terms of durability, and Olivia realized that while she wanted to travel the world after high school, Tadashi would always stay where his family was. She wanted to eventually go back to England to settle down; he would likely always stay in San Fransokyo…
…and as much as she cared for him, there was a small part of her that whispered she wasn't ready to be with only one man for the rest of her life.
So she arranged a meeting with him at the park, and he knew as soon as he saw the look of torment on her face what was going to happen. She gave him a long, tight hug, and cried into his chest as she apologized over and over again, claiming that hurting him was the last thing she wanted, but felt she had to do this.
He tried to talk her out of it at first. Promises he couldn't keep kept falling out of his mouth, but she called his bluff every time and when she refused to look him in the eye anymore, he knew he had lost her.
So he did the only thing he could; Tadashi gave her one last hug, one last kiss on the head, and offered to pay for her taxi home. She didn't accept his money, but she did sit next to him while they waited for her taxi to arrive. She, in turn, offered for Tadashi to share the taxi with her, but he declined.
He took an hour walk back to the cafe, and gave a quiet and dignified explanation to his Aunt when she prodded him for what happened. She gave him a big hug and told him something that he never quite forgot.
"…all I can say is pain like that is fast, and it's rare. Oh Tadashi…you've got so much going for you, going right. I know it doesn't feel like it now, but this will all just be a bittersweet memory someday; you'll see."
He nodded even though he didn't agree, but of course Aunt Cass had been right. He may have cried in the shower that night, and the pain might have lingered for awhile, but it wasn't long before the gap she had left was filled with his family and college applications. He received his acceptance to the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology, and Olivia Harrison was the farthest thing from his mind.
Still, he remembered her, time to time. It was like Cass had said; the memory was sweet, but bitter.
The pain was fast through, and it was rare, hardly even acknowledged before his brother would cause mischief that Tadashi would have to solve, or his Aunt would call for his help handling the afternoon rush, or his student orientation details arrived in the mail.
In those moments he remembered that he had so much going to him, going right; and it was exactly where he wanted to be.