Say Something

Now was a good chance to leave. The pale morning sky was starting to light up the room, even through thick curtains. Aunt Cass was still sleeping.

Silently, inch by inch, Hiro edged himself out from underneath her limp arm. He got to his feet and slowly crawled back into his clothes. He was shaking as the tension he’d held in his taut muscles all night started to ease up. It had been tiring – painful, even. But he hadn’t moved, not once. He’d stayed awake and alert all through the night. While she slept it off.

The next obstacle was the door. It was a door that had been known to squeak and get jammed on occasion, but he didn’t care anymore. His heart was thumping enough as it was. He couldn’t stand to stay even one more minute in her bedroom. He just braced himself and hoped she was deep enough in sleep not to notice him open the door, slip outside, and close it again.

He paused, but there were no sounds of movement on her end. If she had heard him leave, then she wasn’t coming after him.

Hiro walked around the house aimlessly. He had so wanted to believe that everything would be OK again once he’d just left that room. But he was out of the room now, and nothing had changed. He didn’t feel any less like one sharp move would explode his surroundings. He didn’t feel any less like he’d swallowed something big enough to get lodged in his throat. He didn’t feel like he was in control of his own body again - even though hours had passed since he’d lost all control.

He was back in his bedroom, with the door closed, but it didn’t feel like his bedroom to him. He honestly didn’t feel like he’d made a single move out of her bed. Like he was still trapped in there.

He wondered for a moment if he was going to feel like that forever.

-------

Eventually the sun came up, and Hiro heard the sounds of Tadashi bounding up the stairs. He almost quite literally burst through their bedroom door, startling Hiro, and he chucked aside his bag to throw up his arms. He looked scarily wired. “Hiro!” he cried, grinning like a maniac. “Wow, you’re up already! I haven’t slept in over twenty-four hours! Yeah!”

Hiro started to feel distressed. Even seeing Tadashi wasn’t making him feel any less awful. When he looked at his brother, he didn’t feel the same calm and normality that he usually did. He just… felt resentment and guilt. It was hard just to look him in the eye. He turned back to his computer and tried to ignore his brother’s drunken, sleep-deprived antics, but Tadashi was making it difficult. He talked about his friends’ shenanigans excitedly, interrupting each story and going back to finish another one – he was all over the place. He couldn’t even form coherent sentences half of the time. He still sounded so drunk.

Hiro threw an irked glance over his shoulder and saw that Tadashi could barely hold onto something without dropping it three seconds later. It took him over a minute just to change shirts. Hiro could even smell the booze off him as his older brother walked up to give him a lopsided noogie.

He smelled just like Aunt Cass had last night. And suddenly, it was so clear to Hiro. Everything bad that had happened to him was because Tadashi wasn’t around anymore.

Everything bad that had happened to him was Tadashi’s fault.

“Get away from me!” Hiro shouted, grabbing Tadashi’s arm and throwing it behind him. Tadashi lost his balance for a moment, but he staggered back laughing. He still thought his little brother was joking. He wrapped his arms around Hiro’s waist, seizing him from his chair and lifting him up into the air. Hiro screamed so loud and fast that Tadashi dropped him.

“What the…?” Tadashi stared, uncomprehending, as Hiro picked himself up and stomped over to his side of the room. He slammed the divider closed so hard that it almost broke it. “Hiro, be careful with that! What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Just go to sleep,” Hiro yelled. He noticed his brother’s shadow reaching for the partition and he wrestled with him to keep it closed.

“Hiro, stop – stop!” Tadashi managed to get the partition open with sheer strength, but his reflexes were slow. Hiro ducked out underneath him. “Wha-?” He looked around wildly until he found his younger brother again, just reaching for the door. “Hey – wait!” He slammed his full weight loudly onto the door before it could be opened.

“And you thought I wasn’t being careful,” Hiro remarked snidely.

“Hiro, what’s wrong,” Tadashi begged.

“You’re an unbelievable asshole, Tadashi.”

“Why, why?” He was shaking his head, astonished. He could see now that his younger brother was completely serious in his accusations. “Tell me what’s going on with you.”

“You want to know what’s going on with me?”

“Yes.”

“Knock, knock?”

Hiro felt his stomach drop through the floor. No. Not now.

Tadashi pulled himself away from the opening door to reveal Aunt Cass, dressed only in her pink robe, her hair a tousled mess. Like she’d just woken up. “I heard a lot of banging – you boys aren’t breaking anything up here, are you?” Her eyes were wide with worry as she looked between the two of them. “What on earth are you yelling at each other for?”

“It’s nothing,” Hiro blurted before Tadashi could say anything. There was a frantic edge to his voice. He looked her in the eye and desperately tried to convince her, “we’re fine. Everything’s fine.”

“Then why are you picking fights with me?” Tadashi accused. “Every time I try to talk to you, you hit me, or, or you yell at me!”

“Hiro,” Aunt Cass exclaimed quietly, and Hiro could feel himself crumbling. He felt like he was falling apart all over again.

Tadashi stared at him, waiting for an answer, but none was forthcoming. He sighed. “I don’t know, Aunt Cass, he’s been acting so weird lately…”

Tadashi had turned so that he was on their Aunt’s side now; two against one. They shook their heads and shared their concerns for his recent violent behaviour and they looked down at him with forlorn apprehension. He felt like they were ganging up on him, criticising him for acting out the feelings he couldn’t confess. He felt suffocated. He just wanted to open up his mouth and scream.

But he didn’t scream. Instead he burst into tears.

Before Hiro could even think to run, Tadashi had already swept him up into his arms and cradled him. He didn’t want to be cradled, even if he was crying like a baby, but he just didn’t have the energy to fight him. He didn’t have the energy to prove them wrong about him anymore.

“Poor Hiro,” Tadashi murmured, more to Aunt Cass than to his brother. “I want to know why he’s so upset…”

“He’s tired,” Aunt Cass said. “I don’t think he slept very well last night…”

Hiro raised his ugly crying face to stare at them both. Tadashi looked so worried.

But he didn’t look nearly as worried as Aunt Cass did.

-------

When Hiro next woke up, it was in his brother’s arms, on his brother’s bed. The room was dark. He pulled himself up and looked out the window to see that the sky was already a deep blue, the city lights already bright and pulsing. They must’ve slept through the entire day.

Hiro shrugged off his brother and swung his legs over the bed to the floor. He rubbed at his eyes where some of his tears had dried many hours ago now. He really needed a shower. He was still wearing the same clothes from yesterday. The same clothes that had spent the previous night lying on Aunt Cass’ floor.

He leaned over his knees and held his head in his hands. He’d already had a good cry today but it hadn’t done him any good; he still could’ve cried. He was afraid to start in case he’d never stop. Everything was so bleak now. Nothing felt good or comforting anymore. He couldn’t even do the thing he loved most in the world: using his big brain to create new and wonderful inventions. Not only did he feel taken advantage of, he felt robbed of his future. Was this just supposed to be his life from now on?

Contrary to what his brother always said, sometimes there were problems that just couldn’t be thought a way out of.

No. Look for a different angle.

After an extensive and scorching shower, Hiro sat himself at his computer. He didn’t know what he was doing or what he was looking for. He clicked around, he followed links, he checked his usual sites, but nothing piqued his interest. Until he saw some ads for local bot-fighting arenas. And then inspiration hit him like a bolt of lightning.

That was it! That was how he was going to get himself and his stupid brother out of this place. He rummaged through his drawers and the piles of junk on his desk until he found a little robot he’d put together just before he’d graduated. Megabot, he thought he called him back then. He dug up the controller – somehow miraculously not waking up his brother in the process – and hoped like hell that it all still worked and he didn’t need to do any major tinkering. And to his complete and utter satisfaction, it did work. It was ready and raring to kick all the other shiny metal asses out there.

It was the perfect plan. His brother didn’t have to drop out of the institute just to support them and their soon-to-be independence; Hiro would support them with the money he hustled from bot-fighting. Everything would work out. Everything would be OK again.

He grabbed what cash he had and stuffed it in his hoodie on his way out. He tried to run straight past the kitchen when he heard Aunt Cass call his name.

He willed himself to just ignore her and keep going, to kick-start his new future without her, but it was no use. He was just like her puppet.

“Hiro.” She approached him, gentle and hesitant. There was still so much worry in her eyes. “How are you feeling, sweetie? Better? Wh-Where do you think you’re going?”

“Out,” he said brusquely.

“At this hour? Oh, honey, I don’t know about that…” She turned her back for a second before coming back with a plate of food. “You haven’t had anything to eat all day. Here.” She tried to give him the plate but he wouldn’t take it from her, and she faltered. “You have to eat something, Hiro. You’re a growing boy after all…”

“I don’t want it,” he said slowly, one word at a time. She raised her eyebrows at him and suddenly his meek attempt at sticking up for himself felt like disobedience and ungratefulness. He felt awful in completely new and unexpected ways.

“Hiro,” she whispered, and there were tears in her eyes. Hiro wanted to take joy in her sorrow but all he could feel now was guilt. It was incredible – the way she could make him feel like he was hurting her. “I thought you loved me, Hiro…”

Silent tears rolled down her face. Her mouth quivered. It wasn’t fair, he thought. It wasn’t fair that she was doing this to him. “I-I do love you, Aunt Cass,” he started, wiping a sleeve across his face. He wasn’t going to let her see him cry again, not right now. Not at this crucial moment. “B-But… I… I don’t…”

“Mmm, something smells good!”

The words caught in Hiro’s throat. He looked back to see Tadashi merrily descending the stairs. And as soon he knew Aunt Cass had shifted her attention to his brother as well, he turned and bolted for the exit.

“Hiro, wait!”

Even as Aunt Cass screamed for him to come back and Tadashi threw himself after him, he didn’t dare stop and face them now. He was chased all the way out into the street. Tadashi may have been fast, but clearly Hiro was a lot faster.

He was going to those bot-fights. He was going to change his future. No one could stop him.