Say Something

A few hours later on the backstreets of downtown San Fransokyo, and Hiro had already turned sixty dollars into six hundred easy. He had underestimated the genius of Megabot’s design; defeating people and their mediocre robots had been easier than expected. It had been a piece of ca… It had been a cinch. And, provided he knew where and when to play, he could always pretend to be the lost little boy that everyone thought he was to hustle up an extra hundred or so.

After spending some time watching Megabot beat other robots back into their individual parts with their own weapons, Hiro started to remember why he loved this stuff so much. He was good at it. And for the first time in what must’ve been weeks, he started to really feel like he was enjoying something again.

He had been enjoying bot-fighting so much, in fact, that he’d completely forgotten that someone might’ve been out there looking for him. His immediate thought once he’d been grabbed around the waist and hurled away from the cheering crowd of people was that he was being kidnapped – not that he had been found by his brother.

Hiro was only fleetingly happy to see him. He assumed that his brother wasn’t – just from the way he had been dropped back to the ground and shoved towards Tadashi’s moped. “Get on,” his brother commanded in his no-nonsense voice, handing him a helmet. To say he looked mad would’ve been an understatement. “We’re going home right now.”

“You can’t talk to me like that.”

“Like what.”

“Like I’m a little kid. I’m doing great out here, Tadashi – really.” His brother sighed angrily and Hiro cast a furtive glance around before he pulled out almost a thousand dollars cash. He flicked through the notes like they were pages to a book. “Look at how much I scored tonight! Think of how much I could get if I did this every night!”

Tadashi stared at him like he was out of his mind. “You’re never going bot-fighting again.”

Hiro’s good mood faltered. “Wait… what?”

He couldn’t go to SFIT, he couldn’t go bot-fighting… He was starting to think that he couldn’t do anything.

“Look, just – just get on, OK? I’m not discussing this here.” Tadashi straddled his moped and started it up, waiting for Hiro to jump on behind him. He revved the engine impatiently. “Hiro? Get on.”

“But… But, Dashi, I can get more money-“

“Hiro!”

Some warbling ‘ooohs’ started up in the alley behind him. They were starting to attract unwanted attention. Tadashi looked like he was about to jump off the moped again and lunge for his younger brother, but Hiro stepped away from him before he could. “Listen to me,” Hiro cried, “I can earn a lot of money doing this! We’ll have more than enough money to pay for rent and food, and our expensive hobbies, and your school fees. We can leave the bakery!”

Tadashi took off his helmet and slammed it down onto the seat of his moped. He looked like he would’ve really liked to reach over there and drag his brother home by the ear, but Hiro was lucky enough to have half-interested onlookers. Tadashi wasn’t going to cause a scene in front of them. He had no choice but to listen to him.

“I haven’t exactly been making a lot of stuff lately, especially robots… But, it’ll come back to me soon. I’m sure of it. I can become a professional bot-fighter. And you can get your masters or whatever and shape the future, like you’ve always wanted.”

Tadashi started to laugh, hard and sarcastic. He found something funny? “And what about Aunt Cass, huh? What about our family?”

“You’re over eighteen, you don’t need a legal guardian anymore. It’s fine.”

The anger in Tadashi’s expression melted. It gave way to something much worse. He really looked like his feelings had been hurt. “Why are you so horrible?” he asked, and Hiro felt his chest tighten. Tadashi was struggling not to get emotional. “Don’t… Don’t you care about her feelings? Or mine? Don’t you think that I might love living with my Aunt? In case you haven’t noticed, Hiro, I don’t exactly have a lot of living relatives.”

Hiro tried to make light of it. “We’ll get a place in town, real close by. Y-You can see her whenever you like.” Hell, Tadashi could even eat breakfast at her bakery every morning for all he cared – so long as he never had to see her again.

“What’s your problem with her?” Tadashi shouted with frustration. His eyes were getting increasingly shiny. “She has been nothing but kind and supportive and patient with you, and you’re so ungrateful for all that she’s done for you. Why are you so selfish-“

“I did what you asked,” Hiro shouted back. “I worked in that bakery for a solid week…And she never paid me, for the record.”

Hiro could tell that Tadashi was getting tired of this. By now they’d attracted more than a couple of bored lurking teenagers who were listening in on what should’ve been a very private conversation. Tadashi futilely gestured his moped one last time. “Please come home, Hiro? I’m so worried about you. Aunt Cass is worried about you. We want to know what’s going on with you. We want to help.”

Hiro didn’t know what a broken heart felt like, but he imagined that this was as close to it as he’d ever get.

He was starting to think that he could never be helped. The more he tried to reject Aunt Cass, the more Tadashi seemed to just push her back on him. Even if Hiro did tell his older brother about the abuse, he wondered if he would ever be believed. Tadashi had idolised his Aunt so much – this lady who had rescued him, fed him, given him a home and a future… Those kinds of allegations just weren’t in line with the kind of perfect person he thought she was. He would’ve been far more inclined to think that his little brother was making it up. That it was just a distasteful lie an obstinate kid like Hiro conjured to make moving out seem like a good option.

His older brother was just going about this all wrong. And Hiro really thought he could’ve trusted him, but he wasn’t so sure anymore. He felt alone now more than ever.

Tadashi must’ve taken his silence to be a stubborn refusal to go with him. He threw up his arms helplessly. “…I’m not going to drag you, kicking and screaming, all the way back home.”

It sounded fair. Hiro couldn’t drag his brother away from the bakery, kicking and screaming. “Then don’t,” he said evenly. “Just go.”

Tadashi shook his head ruefully. “I’m not going to leave my little brother out in these parts thislate at night. Bad things could happen to you.”

Hiro almost scoffed. He doubted he could’ve experienced much worse than he already had. “Fine.”

“Fine.”

They appeared to be at some sort of impasse. They continued to just stare at each other awkwardly for a while until Tadashi announced, “I’m starving.”

Hiro had had some stale mystery crackers he’d found in his jacket earlier, but they hadn’t done much to stave off his hunger. He nodded. “Me too.”

Tadashi shrugged wearily. “…Burgers?”

-------

Thank God for open-all-hours burger chains. Even as their short day ticked over to the next, the place was as packed and lively as Aunt Cass’ bakery on a weekday morning. Though, the clientele differed in demographics somewhat. And volume.

Hiro sat in a shiny red booth near the back, chomping his way through a big fish burger. Across from him sat Tadashi, who mostly just stared at his little brother incredulously when he wasn’t trying to steal some fries.

“You never told me how it went,” Hiro said.

“What?”

“Your presentation. To Callaghan. How did it go?”

Tadashi groaned. “Can we please stop doing this? Pretending that everything is fine? Can we address the big elephant in the room here?”

“Is the big elephant you,” Hiro asked. “Dumbo?”

“Oh ha ha.” Tadashi looked like he would’ve smacked him one if he wasn’t in a room full of witnesses. His phone buzzed in his pocket and he whipped it out, scrolling and then texting.

Hiro took a big, loud slurp from his drink. “Who’re you texting?”

“Aunt Cass.” Just hearing her name gave Hiro shooting pangs of guilt and nausea. “It’s past midnight and she wants to know what we’re still doing out.”

Hiro noticed that he was writing out a particularly long text. He tried to sound as nonchalant as possible when he asked, “What’re you telling her?”

Tadashi answered without even glancing up. “That you’re a stubborn, selfish little brat who doesn’t want to go to bed.”

Hiro’s mouth fell open. “Screw you,” he murmured, sliding himself out of the booth with his drink in hand and making his way sadly toward the exit. He pushed open the door and stood on the sidewalk in the cool breeze for a moment, collecting his thoughts, not knowing that his brother was right behind him.

“And where will you go now, genius,” Tadashi asked. “Huh? If you’re not going to come home with me then where will you go?”

“…Can I ask you something?” Hiro spun around to face his brother. “Who would you rather live with? Me, or Aunt Cass?”

Tadashi was surprised at him. “What… Why should I have to make that choice?”

“Just answer the question.”

“This is ridiculous!” Tadashi cried. “I love both of you! You don’t say these things, Hiro! You don’t ask who loves who more or who you’d rather live with – that’s not the point of a family. Families stick together! Which is why you can come off that stupid idea of yours that we could move out.”

Hiro felt his bottom lip start to tremble. It wasn’t a stupid idea. It was the perfect idea. It was his new angle. It had taken him this long to find one; he didn’t want to think about how long it might take him to find another one.

He hadn’t even noticed that Tadashi had taken his drink from him until it had been upended directly over his head. Hiro gasped and tried to shake melted ice and soft drink out of his hair, but he could already feel his head and clothes get sticky. And the cold night air wasn’t helping him recover from the sharp, cold shock of it either. It was a painfully accurate portrayal of how he was feeling right now: like someone he loved and trusted had just poured a drink all over him.

“Oh no,” Tadashi said, poorly feigning surprise, “you’re wet and the weather’s cold – better get you home and into some warm, dry clothes before you get hypothermia. Come on, get on the moped. If you don’t go right now then I’m calling Aunt Cass out here.”

Hiro grudgingly climbed onto the vehicle behind Tadashi and put his arms around him, digging in his nails where he could. It didn’t matter anymore. As far as he was concerned, Aunt Cass and Tadashi were in cahoots, and they were both as bad as each other.