because I got reactionary to a few comments about my stream of consciousness style

but mostly because i'm evil

Hiro looks up at Yama, and when the other man s-m-i-l-e-s, Hiro wishes for Tadashi.

Instead he gets tall men, strong armed men with tough burning hands yanking him forward into the dark and he screams niisan anyway just to catch the attention of anyone to help

no one does, not when he's pissed off Yama and has to pay the price.

They force him into a car trunk and bash Hiro's skull with his own Megabot. The trunk interior stinks of sweat and beer, and Hiro swallows a chunk of his cheek down past his sobs because oh god no, he's in a trunk and where's his phone, where's Tadashi? There's no escape latch in the trunk and he can't see in the steamy darkness, why is it so hot in here he can't breathe and the music playing bursts angry bass in the shallow of his torn cheek and Hiro's afraid.

He doesn't like cars when he can't see in them, it's too much like the baby days when his mother and father would round curves even faster than Aunt Cass and then the rain and the semi truck and the crash so much metal crushing upwards like the terror pressing down on his lungs. Hiro spits out applesauce textured blood and screams for Tadashi, wasting more air and he's stupid he needs to calm down and think, use his big brain.

His phone is stark cold against his thigh and Hiro calls Tadashi, he can't tell where the dial tone begins and the wheels bounding over potholes ends and it's all pain searing down his jaw to lock up his voice. Tadashi's voicemail is full and the phone slips from numb fingers to clatter like marbles, Hiro used to play marbles before the accident because marbles look too much like his mother's spilling pearls.

Hiro's nose presses into the ragged cloth bottom and it smells like feet, like ass, like he's not the first kid to be locked in here after beating Yama at his own game and piss their pants in terror. The trunk swings along the pin curve of a country rode and Hiro screams, inhaling terror and expelling terror and hyperventilating feels like a stroke when you can't even call out your brother's name in the dark. Maybe his brain will collapse out his nose before Yama's men smash it out, will Aunt Cass be able to pick out his body in the morgue? Hiro cries because he's fourteen about about to die, please no he doesn't want to die he wants to go home and tell his brother sorry for being so ungrateful.

He hyperventilates and strangles his screams for five small eternities and then there's a rush of painful cold air down his throat and men laughing at the red snot dribbling down his shirt. Hiro wishes he knew their names so he can tell his parents who killed him, but all he has to go on is Big Nose and Ham Hands and Scarface, so original and so terrifying when those hands are tearing at his arms and wrenching them up so he's face down in the earth. Dew bleeds onto his tongue and it's freezing, his cheeks burn five alarms and he doesn't want to die, please just leave him alone.

"Up and at 'em kid," Scarface wrenches Hiro up by his hair and laughs above his cries, "we're goin' for a swim," and the air doesn't smell like the salt ocean, it's clean and cold and muddy. The lake district up north, where Hiro's father took Hiro and Tadashi on a rowboat when Hiro was just a baby. Hiro doesn't remember their laughter when he went overboard, not even the memory of that clear water, but he likes the picture in Aunt Cass's room, imagining himself with TadashiFatherTadashiFather's cheekbones

where is Tadashi? Hiro needs his big brother to come save him, stupid little flyaway otouto who bit down more than he could swallow.

They march him to the lake, water lapping up Hiro's calves, and he's a San Fransokyo boy he knows how to swim ok ok he can do this he'll go for a swim please just leave him be, and Ham Hands laughs, wrapping an arm around his hips and hoisting him upwards. They go on a flatboat, the engine smooth under the water and Hiro watches the shore disappear into the dark. More hands, tearing strips from his shirt to tie around his hands and feet, and Big Nose has his phone, Scarface has a plastic tub, and

that smells like quick cement, why?

"You've got one call kid," Hiro's phone is smushed against his bitten cheek and Hiro sneezes out blood, "make it count."

Hiro calls Tadashi.

"Tadashi please pick up! Please, please pick up, I'm in s-so much trouble!" Hiro cries and the men are laughing, he doesn't even care by this point because he's fourteen and alone. "I made this guy mad—I was bot fighting, I'm so so sorry—and they t-told me I have one call before they—" oh god no, please! Hiro's feet are shoved into the tub and quick cement, the icy cold sludge hardening instantly and gouging Hiro's legs when he tries to kick away "They're putting me in a cement tub, I think they're g-gonna throw me in the lake! Tadashi please! Please pick up, call 911 and come here and help me please!" All the way up to his knees, and Hiro's voice sharpens high higher highest until he's just a baby tipping over the edge of a rowboat, "Niisan tasukete, please! I w-wanna go h-home! I'm so sorry, so s-sorry!"

The arm tightens around his waist when the cement hardens, Hiro's skin splitting and slipping up to his thighs, and Hiro gags on the stench of blood and lake water. The men laugh, and Hiro screams as Ham Hands yanks him up hair to rip his knees in half and offer Hiro to the water "Oh god—no! N-No! Tadashi they're—NIISAN PLEASE HELP ME!"

Someone takes his phone just as Hiro's tossed into the water. The splash is muted against his ears because he sinks fast, down deep into the cold

so cold, so dark, Hiro struggles to free himself but just wastes more of his precious air and where is the surface where did it go

still sinking down, so cold that he's on fire and doesn't dare cry in case he burns his face and no one will recognize him

Hiro can't breathe can't think only Tadashi, Tadashi please where are you he can't breathe!

Hiro hits the bottom of the lake and the impact jars his breath from his lungs

the water is cold down his throat into his body a wicked violation

he reaches up to try and flyaway to the surface but he remains

so cold he fails it burns he's fourteen and drowning

it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts

tadashi please niisan please

save me save me save me

i want to go home

where are you

Tadashi?

it's cold

it's

!

lol