Recovery

Hiro was laying on his bed, playing a loud game on his phone while Tadashi was working silently at his desk with headphones on. They both sat in the comfortable environment of the Hamada sibling’s room, playing around and getting up to get something every once-in-a-while. Tadashi’s phone suddenly starts to vibrate, the loud pinging grabs both of their attention as Tadashi goes to open it. He eyes his phone for a couple of minutes, texting every so often as he scrolls on it.

“Hey, Hiro?” Tadashi takes one ear out of his headphones, looking down at his phone that is silently vibrating constantly. Hiro looks up to him boredly, eyeing him, before looking back down to his video game.

“What’s up?”

“The group wants us to hang out with them, I think we’re going to the movies? They’re still planning it.” Tadashi says, still scrolling around and typing.

“I’m fine with going, I just gotta finish this level.” Hiro responds, eyebrows starting to crinkle while focusing on his game. Tadashi chuckles a little, before typing some more on his phone. He finishes up, turning it off before getting back to his homework.

--

“Hiro-oooo, let’s go already! We’re already five minutes late!” Tadashi hurries, nagging Hiro who’s still concentrating on the game on his phone, groaning from his annoying and awfully bratty brother.

“I’m almost done! Give me like, five more minutes! I swear! It’s not like we’re gonna miss anything!” Hiro responds, eyebrows furrowing at his screen while Tadashi dramatically rolls his eyes in annoyance. Tadashi was very tedious about his time and was never late, usually. He’d been late only once, and that was to his own graduation at high school after hearing that Hiro had broken his arm while attempting to hit the baseball being thrown to him by the abnormally athletic eleven year old in his class. Somehow, he managed to twist his body and land on his arm wrong from the impact of the ball. That’s why Hiro never played sports after that.

To Tadashi, time was very important to him. Especially since his own brother never takes time into consideration for his own daring actions like bot-fighting, he always organised his weeks ahead of time and always had something to do, either hanging out with friends or studying at the library to finish an assignment. He always had something to do- even in the summer which included tutoring and other miscellaneous jobs that got him some extra cash, even an internship once during his junior year in high school- because he never took time for granted.

It might’ve stemmed from the constant comparisons to his gifted, genius brother who had already accomplished all the things he’s done in only four, having already graduated high school when he was thirteen. Or maybe because his only pet peeve is other people wasting other people’s time, but it is always connected to his parent’s death. Maybe, he would’ve been able to save them if he had just built Baymax earlier. Maybe, he would’ve been able to finish high school earlier if he had just put more effort into school earlier. Maybe, he would’ve solved all of his life issues if he had just done everything earlier.

Tadashi definitely had some pent-up rage for himself when it came to his potential as someone who had a gifted brother and as someone who was an exceptional student at SFIT. What if’s would race through his brain everyday, almost eating him up when he was too sad to get rid of them by distracting himself. He never showed it to people, unless it was when his friends had caught him having an anxiety attack in the bathrooms before his final exams, but he played that off easily as nerves got to him. Even though they were worriedly suspicious, they passed it off as they had their own exams to worry about.

He also had an overworked aunt and younger brother to care and worry about, he couldn’t let his stupid brain distract himself from his duties as an adult nephew, older brother and a smart and handsome guy studying under a famous professor. He had too much of an image to let go of, he couldn’t let anything slip from it.

--

“Hey! It’s those two!” Honey Lemon yells, waving aggressively at them, the whole group turning towards the Hamada brothers as they run up to catch up to them. The two were out of breath from racing each other, obviously, Tadashi had won -not like a surprise, he had way too much height on Hiro, but Hiro never liked to chicken out of challenges and it boosted his ego every time he did win them- but they both arrived with red and sweaty faces. The group chuckled at their childish games when they started to argue.

“Stop! Of course I won! I was literally ahead of you the entire time!” Hiro defended, making exaggerated hand movements to express his stance. Tadashi dramatically rolled his eyes, pretending to not listen to Hiro.

“No, of course I won! I’m literally like seven inches taller than you, I’m bound to win anyway.” Tadashi argued, copying Hiro’s actions as the “tension” between the two got more fierce. The group was enjoying the spontaneous dramatic acting happening, it was almost normal now as they all started hanging out more and more.

“Okay, guys! Stop arguing about your stupid games and let’s actually go watch the movie we initially planned fifteen minutes ago!” Go Go abruptly spoke, leading the group into the dark and big building.

“I’m sharing food with Wasabi because he’s the only one who knows what hygiene is, unlike some of you.” Go Go announces, Wasabi nodding in confirmation with a smirk on his face, covering his boosted ego about his cleanliness.

“I’m obviously gonna have my own extra large popcorn, sorry Honey Lemon, but this bad boy has been craving popcorn all morning, and I’ll definitely eat it all!” Fred exclaimed, followed by dramatic hunger motions that made everyone chuckle a bit, except for Hiro.

Hiro had a rough morning with food, the breakfast was taunting him from the dinner table and made him feel gross and sick. He was worried about the movie theatre food that would definitely make him feel sick, but he tried getting over it with a few techniques his brother showed him a couple weeks ago, like doing origami to distract his thoughts and hands from overthinking. It helped him, but his worries definitely came back once he heard about the movie theatre hangout.

“I’ll probably share it with Hiro.” Tadashi says, but the look plastered on Hiro’s face had instantly made him regret saying that.

“Uh, give me a sec’,” Tadashi mumbles, grabbing Hiro to the corner that no one was at. “Are you doing okay?” Tadashi asked, Hiro’s eyes looking down to his hands as he fidgeted with them.

“I’m okay, it’s just.. the food, you know? It’s stressing me out a bit.” He replied, still looking down as he half-whispered it.

“That’s fine, just tell me if you ever need help, okay? I’ll be there, don’t worry about the food. You don’t need to eat anything you don’t want to.” Tadashi reassured, some of Hiro’s anxiety was washing away but the pressure in his chest was still there, numbly hanging around on the surface of Hiro’s skin. They both walked back to the group who looked worried at them, but still had the same smiles on their faces from before.

“Are you both good?” Wasabi whispered to Tadashi.

“Yeah, we’re good, anyways, let’s get on with this movie!” Tadashi beamed with excitement, leading the group to the ticket machine as they all cheered and laughed together.