Waiting for Me in the Downpour Outside

Tadashi awoke to a steady beeping and a gentle whirring. When he opened his eyes, all he could see was a bright white, and he had to close them again to keep from hurting himself. What happened? He remembered the showcase, watching his brother nervously push the bin full of micro bots toward the presentation stage as their friends shot comments right through his attempts at a tough guy façade. After that...the confrontation with Professor Callahagn and Alistair Krei, then Aunt Cass bringing the gang to the café for free food.

He remembered talking with Hiro, the usual brotherly teasing mixed with the prideful victory of the moment, then things got a bit hazy. There was something about the presentation building...something terribly wrong, but Tadashi just couldn't grasp what it was. Just as he was getting somewhere again, his eye was pulled open by a nurse and a light brighter than the room was shined into it.

"Ah! What the-" Tadashi startled at how dry his throat felt, but he was pretty sure he'd scared the nurse even more just by the fact he was awake. The male nurse had stumbled back several paces and run out the door to locate a doctor.

Now that he'd been forced to open his eyes more, he could tell for sure that he was in a hospital room, staring out a shaded window where there was a bit of rain starting to come down. Tadashi didn't feel particularly bad, just a bit sore in places, but that meant...just how long had he been here? Where were his friends, his family?

Suddenly distressed, Tadashi tore the breathing mask off his nose and pulled the needle out of his arm. He knew enough about medical procedures to tell that they were just waiting for him to wake up before discharging him, so he simply stood up from the bed and peeked out the door of his room. Seeing that it was deserted for the most part, probably near the afternoon and thus between shifts, the college student walked easily out of the room and down the hall in the direction that the signs pointed toward the waiting area, and further toward the exit. Seeing the darkening skies and the ever-worsening downpour outside, he grabbed one of the spare parkas that were kept by the door.

Now covered in a clear parka that barely covered his elbows and only tightened around his neck and face, he checked to be sure he was wearing a hospital gown that wasn't open anywhere (he'd been too distressed to care before, but he wasn't going to get arrested for indecent exposure after just leaving the hospital). Confident he was well covered, he walked out the door, ignoring the shouts that seemed to follow him as the doctors realized he wasn't still in his room.

He recognized the hospital's location, and so began his journey home on foot. The skies seemed to decide to open up just as he was approaching his neighborhood, and it was pure luck on his part that he spotted the dark figure hovering by the Hamada family grave as he passed the graveyard.

Curious, he approached slowly so as to determine who was crouching - no, kneeling - in front of his parents' grave, but when he recognized the hoodie and the general height, not to mention the damned cargo shorts, Tadashi was at a bit of a loss.

"Hiro?"

Said boy practically whipped around on the spot, his arms flailing out a bit as his eyes landed on his older brother, looking for all the world like he was torn between absolute grief, hope, and a tad bit of horror.

Before either brother could say anything further, however, several doctors rounded the corner and started shouting at him - not using his name, he noted - and asking what he could possibly be thinking, leaving the hospital on his own. He turned his head to observe them for only a moment before turning back to his brother, and it was then that he spotted the name on the grave that Hiro had been kneeling in front of him.

Tadashi Hamada.