Till I'm Gone
Sora Matasuki
Chapter Five
Four months earlier...
Tadashi gripped the steering wheel tensely as he waited for Hiro to finally emerge from the school. It had been ten minutes since the bell had rung and released it's prisoners into the real world, and the sixteen year old was getting antsy.
"C'mon Hiro…" he sighed to himself, tapping his fingers against the hard circle and glaring at nothing. "Of all days to be late, you chose this one?"
The minutes passed slowly for Tadashi, and finally, the bushy mop of messy hair could be seen through the thinning crowd of milling high students. The twelve year old harshly bumped into someone walking the other way and a dark grimace filled the younger Hamada's face. Tadashi did a double take but the dark look had passed and Hiro's face was once again the blank neutral state it had been three months ago. The small highschool genius slipped past two burly seniors that Tadashi didn't know really well and then Hiro was at the curb, yanking open the door and slamming it shut.
Tadashi started the car. "Where were you? Didn't I tell you that Aunt Cass needs the car right after school?" he demanded of his little brother.
"'How was your day, Hiro?' 'Oh it was fine, thanks for asking Tadashi.'" Hiro snarked grumpily. "And if you must know, I was held up."
"Yeah, well don't let it happen again." Tadashi sighed, "And put on your seat belt. I don't want to have you go flying out the windshield."
"Yeah… whatever…" Hiro rolled his eyes but the click of his seatbelt told Tadashi that he'd done it anyways, despite the testy mood. The elder Hamada put the dark into drive and the vehicle rolled slowly into motion as Tadashi made sure to keep out of the way of any errant highschooler.
Hiro's phone buzzed, but Tadashi saw that it was being ignored. Almost a second later, it buzzed again.
After a few minutes of this pattern, Tadashi glanced over at his little brother in confusion. "Aren't you gonna answer those?" The sixteen year old asked, noting that Hiro hadn't even glanced at his phone.
"No." the twelve year old said, looking out at the passing scenery of San Fransokyo, and shoving his phone in his pockets. Tadashi found himself at a loss for what to say.
The rest of the drive home was spent in a heavy silence punctuated by Hiro's phone buzzing agitatedly in his pocket. Hiro never looked at any of the messages.
It would be four more months until Tadashi would understand the significance of this. And he would beat himself up for not noticing the problems while they were going on right under his nose, right up until the very moment he died.
But in this moment, Tadashi remained unaware, and so was not able to stop the events being put into motion. For now, all the sixteen year old knew was that Hiro was in a bad mood, and that made his already strained mood all the more ready to snap.
Tadashi pulled into an empty spot in the parking lot of the cafe and felt his eyebrow twitch as Hiro slammed his door on his way out.
"Hiro! Don't slam my car door!" he called, slipping out of the car.
"Technically, it's Aunt Cass' car! And you do it all the time!" Hiro shot back, a scowl on his face.
Grudgingly, Tadashi acknowledged his little brother's point. "But still..."
Hiro rolled his eyes and shouldered his back more securely. "Whatever, I'm heading in."
There was no cheerful bet, no trying to get out of chores, and no racing to see who would be first to the Cafe doors as Hiro whirled around and stomped away. Tadashi scowled and shook his head, locking the car doors before walking slowly after his little brother.
Already, Hiro had disappeared from view and when Tadashi walked in, one of the waitresses was comforting a sniffing Aunt Cass and the Regulars were staring at where the twelve year old had gone.
"Aunt Cass?" Tadashi tenatively asked, approaching his crying aunt. "What happened?"
"It's that boy! When I told him to not slam the door, he yelled that I wasn't his mother. Tadashi… I know growing up is hard but…" Aunt Cass sniffed again and Tadashi's frown deepened as he pulled Cass into a hug.
"I'll talk to him, Aunt Cass. That's no way he should be talking to you. You've been great to us." Tadashi said, pulling back. Aunt Cass sniffed and wiped away some stray tears.
"Go make yourself a cup of tea." Tadashi suggested a he headed towards the stairs. "I'll come down to help out once I've talked some sense into him! You have that meeting to go to, remember?"
"Oh! Thank you Tadashi!" Aunt Cass called, accepting a mug from one of the waiters who had watched to whole situation and had prepared a mug of tea to help. "Thank you Matthew." she sighed appreciatively.
The waiter known as Matthew nodded and went back to serving tables and getting orders with a quiet, "You're welcome." to his boss.
Hiro knew he would be in deep trouble once Tadashi found out about how he'd blown up at Aunt Cass. And he felt horrible, but that didn't excuse the fact that they didn't notice anything was wrong. And he just - he couldn't - he just felt so - so - so - he didn't even know what he felt!
All he knew was that everyone was out to get him, practically from day one! Mr. Hanndelst always gave him more homework than was necessary, and always picked up on when Hiro was seriously confused. The PE department was screwed up and made them run a mile without consideration for the health of their students, like making sure everyone had stretched significantly enough to make sure no one tore ligaments. They didn't do that. And they pushed everyone so hard, that the bar for getting an A was so stressful, that Hiro had seen some students break down and cry after class in the locker room when it was announced that there would be a certain chain of exercises the next day.
The twelve year old would walk out of that gym class with more aches and bruises than when he got in. Not just from the work out, but from the boys as well. Especially the juniors. They'd shove him against the wall then laugh when he'd try to stand up for himself because - hey what can a shrimp do against tall boys who weigh more?
And they'd always do it when the coaches' backs were turned, so Hiro had no one to vouch for the harassment. And so, Hiro suffered it silently, feeling more and more bruised with every passing PE period.
He was tired. Tired of this but even with his great intellect, he didn't know what to do or how to stop it. A part of him kept saying that he just needed to tell someone about what was going on but that part was smothered by the rest of him that agreed with what everyone around him was saying. He was weird. He was strange. He was tiny, he was too young, he was socially unprepared, he was a wimp. And that all culminated to one thing:
Hiro Hamada was a freak.
So if all of this was true, why did it hurt so much? Why did it feel like his heart was slowly being ripped to pieces over and over with no end in sight? Why was he always lashing out now, and finding it so hard to even smile?
Why did laughing hurt, when before… before he could laugh and feel so free that if he had wings, he could have flown away on a summer breeze? But now the summer winds had gone and brought in the chill of cold winter, and Hiro was left without even a jacket. With a whimper, the boy curled into a ball in the darkness of his half of the room facing the wall and feeling miserable and alone.
"Hiro?"
The younger Hamada stiffened as the light turned on with a click of the light switch and tensed even further as the bed dipped with the heavy presence of his older brother. Yet, despite that, Hiro didn't want to turn around to face Tadashi's disapproval. He clenched his eyes shut and felt hot tears leak down his face despite his instructing his body not to.
"Hiro, c'mon what's wrong? Why did you yell at Aunt Cass?" Tadashi asked, sounding concerned. Hiro said nothing, hoping that the older Hamada would just give up and leave already. He wanted to be alone (No! Don't leave me! Stay and hug me like you did when we were younger! I can't trust myself to be alone… I don't… I don't want to be alone… Tadashi, help me…).
"C'mon you bonehead, I know you're not asleep so cut it out already." Tadashi was sounding angry now. Hiro really didn't want to face Tadashi if he was angry… A sniffle escaped his notice and Hiro felt his chest freeze.
"...Hiro?" Tadashi was back to sounding worried again. Hiro decided that that was worse than Tadashi sounding angry but he just couldn't bring himself to look at his older brother.
"Tadashi… please just leave me alone…" Hiro found himself whispering. His heart protested what his mind was making him say. He wanted Tadashi to ignore his words and hug him until he just broke down and cried, telling Tadashi everything. He wanted that to happen but there was a process. It was a stupid process and Hiro hated himself for even doing it. But he had to see if Tadashi could really see through him like he used to.
"No. You and I are going to have a talk." Tadashi said firmly.
Hiro wanted to sit up and yell. "Just leave me alone Tadashi." Wait! No, that wasn't what he wanted to say! Stay! Read behind the lines Tasashi I know you're smart! His heart screamed.
Too bad his heart and head weren't talking to eachother.
"Fine. Since you're so dead set on being alone, I guess I'll chew you out later. Have fun with your pity party, bonehead." Tadashi said, and a coldness filled Hiro's chest as the weight disappeared from the bed. Hiro hadn't realized how comforting that dip had been until it was gone. The coldness spread out from his chest and creeped down into his stomach as the door slammed shut.
A trembling sob escaped his lips to which he slapped his hands over his mouth to muffle the ones that came after. Hiro thought he'd curled up as far as he could, but that turned out to an underestimation of his body's flexibility. With each muffled sob, Hiro curled tighter and tighter in on himself until his head was tucked firmly between his knees. Eventually, Hiro fell asleep like that, curled in fetal position.
No one knew, but that moment had planted a dark filthy seed. That seed, if left to flourish in the depths of the fertile darkness of Hiro's stressed and tired mind, would eventually grow into a dangerous, mind choking weed.
Tadashi had missed his chance to pluck the sprouting weed before it grew too dangerous and spurred Hiro into rash actions, but perhaps another would be able to halt the insideous weed known as depression…
AN: Not a lot of showing what Hiro's going through school wise, just a showing of his emotional state. Hope you enjoyed this!
Anyways! So, I saw the movie on Friday, and I loved it! And, best of all, I found support for my headcannon (meaning, this fic once it's finished is totally in the bounds for cannon! THANK YOU LINES WITH DOUBLE MEANINGS!)! Now, I know how to end this fic when the time comes and it's gonna be mean~ :3
Also, I went to see it again yesterday with a friend and simply laughed at all the parts I cried at (because let's face it I cried like four times when I watched it on Friday so I had no more tears to cry at) and laughed as my friend cried at the end. Mel punched me in the shoulder for it but it was worth it. AND to make my fangirl heart explode even more, I'm seeing it a third time with a bigger group of friends on the 11th since we have school off that day. You can say that I'm obsessed and totally be right. BUT It'S SO GOOD EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH IT. And just... San Fransokyo... I just... can I hop dimensions and just visit that place? Please? It's so gorgeous. Talk about scenery porn. I mean seriously, they went all out. And I love them for it.
Okay. Okay. Rant about the movie over. Now onto thanks! Big thank you's go to: TreasuredSanctum, Highcrest Tomoko, Snowflake, BlueD, Blue Torpedo, Chibi Atariel Tsukai, Anonymity is crucial, , DreamweaverAki, courtara, Wheee, Guest, Guest(#2 I'll presume?), and Spamano Love Child for their lovely reviewing! You guys nearly made me go into shock because I have never gotten this many reviews in such a little ammount of chapters. So thank you very much, I am totally blown away and in AWE at how everyone is enjoying a story that just started out as a headcannon! Thanks everyone, you're making my stay in the BH6 Fandom a really awesome one! Let's all create wonderful works together and build this fandom up to be really great!
With love,
Sora M.