Stay Silent

That host had been right. About the email. The interview went up a few days later and Hiro’s popularity just spiked, if that was even possible. He never once watched the video, nor did he visit the link to see just how many hits it had gotten, but he figured more than a few people must’ve seen it, from the way his inbox just filled. For every email he answered, about five more would just appear to replace them. It was getting hard to keep on top of, between his involvement with the organisation and his work and his social life and everything else. But it kept him busy.

It kept him from feeling like the unpalatable combination of anxiety and guilt that he was.

Takahiro was still talking to him, somehow. Hiro had flagged him so that every one of his emails stayed at the top of his inbox. He always read them first, whenever he got them, no matter how pointless they were. And one day it wasn’t just the usual update on his life, or song recommendation or funny video; it was a plea to meet him in town after school, at the library. He said he needed Hiro’s help with something, and Hiro’s stomach just clenched.

He had to do it, Hiro knew. He had to keep an eye on this kid. At this point, Takahiro could’ve told him to jump and Hiro would’ve asked how high. As much as he didn’t want to, he had to see Takahiro.

He wandered into town once he couldn’t get anymore more work done, taking one of his laptops with him to mess around with, should Takahiro answer his prayers and never show up. But about twenty minutes after the time they’d agreed to meet, a duffel bag dropped to the floor and then Takahiro was taking a seat across from him.

Hiro cautiously peered at the boy over the lid of his laptop. His heart still stuttered unnaturally whenever he looked into Takahiro’s face. It hadn’t quite come out like his own, despite the fact that they had looked almost identical as kids. For one thing, Takahiro had better teeth than he did.

Every time Hiro saw him now he braced himself, like he was just waiting for the boy to walk right up to him and raise a hand and punch his crooked teeth out, or settle him with a glare that could chill him to the bone. But every time Hiro saw him, Takahiro looked… fine. Adjusted. Happy. And Hiro wished he could find solace in that, and could allow himself to relax and swell with the hope that he was OK, but…

It’s hard.

“Hey,” the boy whispered when Hiro didn’t greet him, smiling his gratitude. “Thanks for meeting me here.”

“…Don’t mention it,” Hiro murmured, eyes going back to his screen.

“I hope I didn’t pull you away from something important.”

“You didn’t.”

Takahiro seemed to believe him. The kid leaned down to rummage around in his half-zipped bag, coming back up with a wad of refill and some loose pens. Hiro couldn’t quite see what Takahiro was doing on the table, because his screen blocked his vision, but Hiro could tell from the muted scratching noises that Takahiro was trying out which of his pens still had ink.

“They still make you guys write by hand,” Hiro asked.

“Yep. Well, for essays and stuff.”

“Essays…” Hiro remembered essays. Not fondly, but he remembered them. That took him back. It was hard to believe sometimes that he’d finished up high school about thirteen years ago. It made him feel a hell of a lot older than he really was.

It made their age difference seem a hell of a lot bigger.

“So, uh…” Hiro scrambled for words. “You’re um writing an essay?” He gestured Takahiro’s supplies. “Is that the thing you need help with?”

“Ms Duncan wants us to write about the seminar we went to. About rape sensitivity.”

That surprised Hiro. “Yeah?” He bent the lid of his laptop down a little. The boy didn’t seem thrilled with the task. “But… didn’t you see that seminar over a fortnight ago? Why didn’t your teacher give you the essay sooner?”

“She gave it to us a while ago,” Takahiro admitted, eyes boring down onto the blank refill. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded bit of paper which he smoothed out over the table. It had scarce writing on it, laid out like instructions. “I’ve just… been busy.”

Hiro nodded, although he couldn’t help but wonder if the kid was just lazy. Most of his classmates back then had been lazy.

“So,” he said, after Takahiro had made no further movements, “what do you have to do exactly…?”

“We have to write about a thing we learned at the seminar. Something that stuck out for us.” Takahiro paused for a moment before shrugging, “I thought I could write about you.”

Panic jolted through him then. “What? Why,” Hiro demanded. He made an effort to look less terrified and more bewildered, but he– Calm down. “Why would you want to write about me?”

“I mean like, male victims with female abusers.”

“…Oh.” Hiro relaxed. He felt a bit embarrassed. Of course that was what Takahiro had meant. What else would he have been talking about? He was talking about that night you–

Don’t.

Water – he needed water. He took out his gross old bottle from his bag and had a long drink. He should’ve been keeping that water right next to him. He should’ve poured it all over his goddamn head.

He straightened up his screen, shifting his gaze back to it, where it should’ve been. “Yeah, you could… write about that,” he murmured. What are you doing here, some part of him groaned exasperated but he forced himself to treat it as white noise. He didn’t hear it. “So, uh… how long does it have to be?” He cleared his throat. “Your… essay?”

“Like… 800 words.”

“Not long then,” Hiro nodded. “Wh… What’s it worth?”

“It’s one credit. It’s not really graded. It’s more like a pass or fail kind of thing.”

Hiro kept nodding and kept asking questions. He couldn’t think of anything else to say or do. “Did your whole class go to the seminar?”

“Most of us. Some didn’t.” Takahiro sighed and leaned back in his chair. “You had to get parental permission, you know… Since there was gonna be a lot of talk about sex and rape and all that stuff.”

“All that stuff,” Hiro repeated quietly. “When’s it due?” All that stuff.

“Tomorrow morning.”

Hiro flashed Takahiro a disapproving look, and he felt so old doing it, because he could remember his brother doing the exact same thing to him when he left assignments to the last minute. No matter how mundane and pointless and easy they were. “You should probably get writing it then.”

Takahiro groaned a little. Then he asked, in a small and beseeching voice, “Can you write it for me?”

Hiro felt shivers. He wished Takahiro wouldn’t do that. It made him uncomfortable. More than words could even begin to express.

“Please?”

OK, Stop. “Look, Taka-kun,” Hiro sighed into his hands. “Why don’t you… Why don’t you write something out and I’ll look over it and tell you whether it’s crap or not. OK?”

“…OK.” Hiro glanced up to see him reach into his bag and pull out a music player. He slipped one earbud into his ear, scrolling through endless playlists, and then music was blasting quietly from it. Hiro had to resist the urge to tell him that he was going to ruin his ears. “I’m just gonna wing it,” Takahiro murmured.

Hiro sighed wearily. “Whatever gets it done.”

Takahiro started putting pen to paper, and Hiro began skimming emails, trying to answer as many as he could. But he was slow, he was stilted; he was finding it just a little bit hard to promote self-worth in the others when he couldn’t even see the worth in himself. And it was hard to concentrate. It wasn’t even fifteen minutes later and it had already become obvious to Hiro that the kid wasn’t lazy so much as he was distractible. He got distracted by his own music, by passing library-goers, by nearby bookshelves, by his own hands. It was… kind of ridiculous. Almost twenty minutes had passed and Hiro was sure that Takahiro hadn’t made a start on his essay beyond writing out his name and the date.

Now he was fooling around with his uniform tie. Hiro had to intervene.

“Taka-kun,” Hiro said, catching the boy’s attention and directing it quietly back to the paper. He could feel a pained sort of smile cross his face. “Just… Just write anything. It’s a pass or fail, right, so no one cares. Something’s better than nothing.”

Takahiro stared right back at him for a few seconds. There was a blank look in his eye, like he was having trouble remaining present. He blinked. “Sorry,” he apologised, slowly leaning down to rest his head on the table. “I was just… thinking…”

Hiro groaned inwardly. He didn’t want to ask. But he had to. “Thinking about what?”

Takahiro didn’t answer immediately. He kept Hiro nervous and waiting for a good minute or so before he pulled himself back up to stare at Hiro, and there was something like remorse shining in his eyes. “Hiro, I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before… when you meet up with me and brought your brother with you.”

Hiro felt something crawl through him, like a poison. No. “Th-That’s OK,” he tried to say, but Takahiro went on.

“I’ve always been a real quiet, like… avoidant person. I’ve never really spoken up when I should’ve, or… I-It wasn’t fair to you,” he insisted, burying his face in his hands, and Hiro had to lean closer just to hear him, because he had to hear him, and he wished Takahiro wasn’t so quiet, not now of all times, “I should’ve said something when I had the chance… Maybe we should talk to your brother again. Then we could, like… I don’t know. Get your aunt in prison, where she belongs. For what she did to us.”

Hiro breathed. He slowly closed the lid on his laptop. He stared at the top of Takahiro’s head, where it was still hiding in his hands, almost like he was being bowed to. He tried to remain as calm as humanly possible. Human. That’s a laugh.

It was for everyone else.

“Just forget about it,” Hiro murmured.

Takahiro was still for a few moments before he brought his hands away from his face. He looked… confused. “What?”

Hiro wanted to look away – to turn far, far away, but he forced himself to keep his eyes on Takahiro. He didn’t want to see him, not now, not while he was saying all of these horrible things, but he couldn’t look away. He had to stare hard into the boy’s gentle, bewildered gaze and be convincing.

“I… I was wrong. I don’t think… Cass ever did anything like that, to you…” He swallowed. “I think I got carried away before. I think maybe we… I let my personal experiences bias me, and it got in the way of my judgment. She never did anything bad to you. I’m sorry if I ever made you think that she did.”

His eyes were starting to water with the effort. He allowed them a moment’s respite as he they dropped to the space between him and Takahiro. The boy wasn’t moving. He wasn’t… reacting. Not in any way Hiro could discern.

If Hiro hadn’t felt like much of a monster before then he certainly did now.

“But…” Takahiro had a voice like he didn’t understand, and it made Hiro’s heart ache. “But I thought… So…” He had a voice like he didn’t know what to think anymore. “So what about… that dream that I told you about? Wasn’t that a…? Didn’t someone…?”

Hiro tried not to think of it as lying. He hoped it would be easier that way. He could’ve been telling the truth after all.

And just not have known it.

“Sometimes,” Hiro murmured, and he was careful to be quiet now. Careful to keep his voice steady. “We can have these things called… f-false memories.”

“False memories?”

“Yeah.”

Takahiro took out his earbud. His music buzzed from it, the small sounds rolling off and ramping up in predictable rock melodies. But he didn’t turn it off.

“I…” He seemed lost for words. “But… Isn’t it possible that… I just can’t remember them? Maybe I repressed them – those memories. That’s a thing that happens, right? Or, maybe I was too young to understand, and… I just didn’t… I don’t know.” He stared hard at the table. One hand went to rub at his temple. “I-I didn’t encode it properly? Or something?”

“Taka,” Hiro whispered, reaching out to him a little. Takahiro’s hand was right there, so easy to hold, but he wouldn’t touch him. He fixed him with a sympathetic look. “Even if Cass did… I mean, there’s no… It happened a long time ago. There’s no proof. So…” He took a deep breath, fighting back the shiver. “S-Sometimes these things just… aren’t worth it. Just forget about it.”

That was it. He was out. He couldn’t say anything more. He lowered his eyes back to the screen, staring at it, not seeing anything beyond the fuzzy blur of white. His eyes were on the screen but his focus was still on Takahiro, to see how he would react now, to see what he’d do next. But…

Takahiro didn’t do anything. He just sat there, stunned into a silence that unnerved Hiro to his very core. What have I done?

Takahiro’s hands shakily returned to his tie once more. He tightened it and loosened it and tightened it again and loosened it again. Like it was an enormous source of discomfort.

Hiro’s phone buzzed in his pocket, startling him. Tremendously grateful for the distraction, he flashed Takahiro an excusatory half-smile and made a dash for the old disused stairwell, where he could afford himself some privacy. He didn’t even bother to check who it was; he just picked up and hoped that it was someone he could have a proper conversation with, while Takahiro had time to process everything.

He was gasping a little, but he didn’t care. “Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Tadashi,” Hiro breathed. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been so glad to hear from his brother.

He hadn’t run that far or even very fast to the stairwell, but his heart was pounding. He patted at his chest in a futile attempt to calm it down. “Hey bro,” he forced some enthusiasm into his shaky voice. “H-How’s it going?” Distract me.

Tadashi told him how it was going. He talked about Mei, about the Baymax series, about his friends and colleagues, about the weather too, probably. But after a while, not even timely intermittent hums could hide the fact from his brother that Hiro wasn’t really paying any attention to him. It was so hard to pay attention to anything right now – anything besides the distant screaming in his head.

Tadashi said, out of the blue, “I saw your interview,” and Hiro needed his brother to repeat that for him. “I said, I saw your interview. The one on YouTube.”

“Oh.” Hiro squirmed. His stomach churned. “You did?”

“I did. I actually follow that channel; it’s pretty popular.” Hiro wouldn’t have known. He still couldn’t even remember the host’s name, and it was just another reason to feel like a piece of shit. “You never told me you had an interview.”

“Well, no, uh…” Hiro didn’t know what to say. “It just sorta… sprung up on me, I guess.”

“It got a lot of views.”

“Wow.”

“A lot of nice comments.”

“Cool.”

“Some… not-so-nice ones… But that’s the same with anything, though, isn’t it? Half of them are probably just trolls. You shouldn’t let them get to you.”

The conversation lapsed. Hiro just couldn’t find the words to speak, but Tadashi must’ve read his brother’s silence as worry, because he started to say, real soft and consoling, “Don’t worry about it, Hiro. You did a great job.”

“Huh?”

“…I said, you did you a great job. You seem really passionate about this. You seem to be helping a lot of people, and… It makes me proud.”

Hiro put his back to the concrete wall and slowly slid down it. The floor was just as cold and dusty. He knew he should’ve been feeling happy, and he did, but he still wanted to lash out and punch the wall and break his hand. Why was his brother only supportive now? Just a few weeks ago, when he had needed it most, Tadashi told him to stop being so involved, and now…

Hiro didn’t say anything, prompting Tadashi to ask, “Hiro? Did you hear me?”

“Yeah, I heard you,” Hiro said.

“You seem distracted. Is this a bad time? I can always call back–“

“No, don’t,” Hiro pleaded. “Sorry – I’m just tired, but not that much. Keep talking to me.”

“Uh… OK.” Tadashi didn’t question it. It was what Hiro needed from him. “You know, it actually… It kind of worries me when I realise just how uh… famous you seem to have gotten all of a sudden.”

“I’m not famous,” Hiro denied. “Don’t say I’m famous. I’m not like you. I don’t get stopped in the street by fans or anything.”

The second the words had left his mouth, he knew it wasn’t true. Because he had been stopped in the street once. Sort of. If a stinking back alley counted as a street. If violent, contemptuous thugs counted as fans.

“Well, OK but… It just worries me sometimes that maybe someone is going to make the connection between us, and… Because I am immensely, embarrassingly proud of you, I tell everyone about my amazing little brother Hiro, the robotics engineer, and… That seems to be the way you present yourself, too…”

“I use a fake name if people ask. I’m Hiro Takachiho. The only people who know are my closest friends and…”

“Takahiro?”

Hiro slid along the floor until his back was in a corner. That was where he belonged. “No one else though,” he assured. “But maybe you could… stop bragging about how amazing I am. I know it’s gonna be hard but…”

Tadashi chuckled. “Oh, it’s not as hard as you think it is… Speaking of Takahiro, you’re not still seeing him, are you?”

Tadashi had worded it like that would’ve been a bad thing. Probably because it is.

“Nope,” Hiro lied in a squeak, shaking his head no even though he had no need to. “Why?”

“No reason,” Tadashi said, quick and offhand. “Just… wondering. Umm…” He sighed. “Actually, can I ask you something?”

As long as it’s not about Takahiro. “Sure.”

“Feel free not to answer if it’s too, uh, distressing, or anything like that, but uh… I was just curious… In the interview and the seminars, why don’t you talk about… uh… y’know…”

Tadashi was nervous about something. He was clearly trying to lead Hiro somewhere, but Hiro couldn’t even begin to imagine where. He knew his brother was being careful, and he would’ve appreciated it on any other day, but just not today. “Just say it,” he mumbled. Tadashi was going to have to spit it out sometime, and either it would hurt or it wouldn’t.

“Why don’t you talk about… the woman at the party? When you were eighteen. The one who…”

Raped me. “Hurt me?”

“Yes…”

Hiro exhaled and rubbed the heel of his palm into his eyes. He knew the reasons why he didn’t talk about it; he’d gone over them enough times over the years, during every bad night he’d been forced to lay awake and think about the things he’d much rather just forget about. The things that almost ruined him.

“I’m sorry,” Tadashi said after a brief pause, before Hiro had a chance to answer, “I shouldn’t have asked that – you don’t have to talk about it.”

“No, it’s OK,” Hiro insisted. He found himself staring up at old, inoffensive fire extinguisher. “Umm… I guess I just… Well, in the seminars anyway, they already have survivors who… had their drinks spiked, and… They already have people covering alcohol and parties and staying safe and all that, so… yeah. Also I… still… kind of blame myself.”

He hadn’t meant to say it like that. It hadn’t sounded nearly as bad in his head, but before he could even take it back, Tadashi was already urgently protesting him, “Hiro, NO – it’s not your fault, you’re not to blame–“

“No, I mean,” he spoke over his brother’s distressed cries, “I don’t… I don’t really blame that lady. I mean,” he cut his brother off before he could protest again – God, he was so terrible with words right now. “What I mean is… I still… I hold a lot of people accountable for what happened to me. That includes her, and me, and my flat mates, and Cass, and…”

Hiro didn’t want to say it – not after the guilt trip he’d subjected his brother to the other week. But he didn’t have to.

“And me,” Tadashi finished.

Hiro sighed. “I was… in a really shit place back then,” he murmured. “It was different with Cass, when… when I was still living with her. She abused me and no one else was involved and none of it was my fault. It was so clear-cut compared to…” He sighed again. His heart felt so heavy all of a sudden. He kicked a pebble down a flight of slights and sadly watched it bounce. “It’s complicated.”

“Yeah.”

“People wouldn’t get it.”

“…Hiro?”

“Hm?”

“Have you considered… going back to therapy?”

“What’s the point,” Hiro murmured, finding another pebble and throwing it after its predecessor. “It’s expensive anyway.”

“Hiro, if money is the issue then I’d be more than willing to pay for you.”

But it wasn’t the money. There were so many other issues at play now. It had actually crossed Hiro’s mind; the night after he’d meet Takahiro again, he seriously thought about calling his old therapist. But after hours of nervous back-and-forth deliberation, he’d ended up abandoning the idea. For all that he needed help and support, he just couldn’t get the words mandatory reporting laws out of his head.

It would’ve been just a little bit torturously unfair. If he had to go to prison before his own abuser did.

In that instant Hiro knew exactly why he’d never shared the trauma of his eighteenth year with anyone. Because Takahiro had been so unbearably, inextricably caught up in all of it. And then, in that context, the possibility of his own abusive behaviour started to…

Don’t think about it.

“Hiro?”

“Look, I don’t need money. I just don’t need therapy.”

“But Hiro–“

“I don’t need it, Tadashi.”

“You sound so upset.”

Hiro made an effort to sound less upset, even though he was. Even though he could feel his vision blur with tears. “If I do then it’s probably because I only got a grand total of three hours’ sleep last night. I’m not upset.”

Tadashi still reacted as though he were. “Are you at home? I can come over right away. We could talk more.”

Talk…

Hiro thought about it. He thought about whispering into the phone, just then, so quiet, like he didn’t even want to be heard, “Tadashi, I think I did something terrible…”He thought about asking what exactly did his brother know about that night, a long time ago? Did he think that anything had happened? Did he hear Hiro let himself in? Did he hear Takahiro stir? How were they positioned when they were found? What made him start yelling? He doesn’t remember and he needs to remember and Takahiro doesn’t remember and he needs to remember–

DON’T THINK ABOUT IT.

“Hiro, I’ll come over.”

“No, Tadashi,” Hiro cried. “I’m fine. Forget about me. Really.” Forget about me.

“Mei and I were going to have dinner tonight, but I’m sure she’d understand if I–“

“Don’t blow off the love of your life, you moron.”

“Well, how about next Friday? I’ll drop by after–“

“Fine, whatever.”

There was that sigh. Like Hiro was being difficult and it was hard for his brother to be patient with him. Some self-loathing part of Hiro thought, Good.

“OK, well… Just be sure to get a lot of contact with your friends–”

“Sure.”

“–and with your partner.” Tadashi paused. “How is he, by the way?”

“Who.”

“Morgan.”

“Ughhh,” Hiro groaned into his hand. He hadn’t really stopped feeling awful about that one, either. All he got from Morgan now was cold, unfriendly glances whenever they passed each other at work. He didn’t even say hi. “We broke up, who cares.”

“Oh, Hiro,” Tadashi exclaimed miserably. “I’m sorry to hear that. How are you holding up?”

Terribly. “Fine.”

“Hmm. Well… Maybe,” Tadashi tried to be cheerful, “you’ll find yourself in another relationship soon–”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Tadashi sighed in frustration as he was cut off yet again. He sounded fed up, and it still hurt, even though Hiro knew it was his own fault. “You don’t have to keep talking to me if you don’t want to, Hiro. Don’t let me keep you.”

Hiro could hear someone thudding away on the stairs a few flights above him. He thought now might’ve been a good time to stand up and brush himself off. He pulled the phone away from his ear for a second, just to glance at the time, and his heart pounded to see that he’d been talking to his brother for over half an hour. He’d left Takahiro alone for over half an hour.

“Hey listen,” Hiro started, reaching for the door to the library floor, preparing to throw it open and run, “I gotta go now, but I’ll see you later.”

“OK. Well, I’ll see you next Fri–“

“Yeah, bye.”

He ended the call and sprinted back into the library, his momentum fuelled by stabs of fear. He came back to an empty table and Hiro spun around, fooled into thinking maybe he hadn’t gone far enough in yet, but he couldn’t see Takahiro anywhere. He searched the whole floor and he couldn’t see Takahiro anywhere.

It was uncomfortably reminiscent of the time Hiro had lost Takahiro in downtown San Fransokyo. Only this time he couldn’t scream for him.

He returned to what he’d thoughtwas the table they had been seated at, and Hiro noticed in his panic that he’d overlooked the bit of lined paper lying there. He picked it up with trembling fingers. It was the essay Takahiro had started – his name and the date written in blue across the top. He hadn’t started the essay. He hadn’t written one single damn word of it, and the edges where Hiro clutched the paper crunched in the silence of the library.

He had written something though: I left your stuff at the front desk. Sorry.

Hiro hurried down to the front desk on the ground floor. He leaned over the counter and hesitantly asked an older man if a high school student had left a green bag with a small laptop with them, and the older man seemed to know exactly what he was talking about. He brought it out instantaneously, and Hiro breathed a sigh of relief to have it back.

He walked out of the library. It was already late enough in the afternoon that it was getting dark. Hiro knew that the kid had probably left a while ago, but he still scanned the street for him, hoping that… He didn’t know. He just started his way back home.

He hoped Takahiro was OK.