Speed Dating
by L.C. Li

::-::

i. fast

She liked to go fast. She did figures in her head, wrote in shorthand, and paid for ad-free services. She graduated high school early and participated in extreme sports on the side.

Gogo was in the fast lane, all the time. And nothing could stop that.

::-::

ii. slow

He liked to go slow. He was meticulous, steady, persistent. He spent ten tests just to find the breaking force of duct tape before he started the egg drop project in their physics class. And don't even get Gogo started on how long he took with the straws.

Tadashi took his time. He went slow, but far.

He was the tortoise, she was the hare.

::-::

iii. plan

Dud number 12. Calibration, not quite correct. The center of gravity was slightly off. Gogo snarled, snapping the disc into its rightful place—the trash bin.

"Miscalculation?" Tadashi asked absently, stooped over his dusty old notebook. Sketching. Always sketching. She didn't know how he could bear it, sketching without building. Planning, planning endlessly, as if planning would prevent all problems and planning would solve the issues of the world.

"Slightly." Gogo ran through the figures, in her head. "Urgh. Didn't factor in the—"

"—coefficient of friction?" Tadashi raised an eyebrow, a slight smirk pulling at his lips. She hated it when he did that—equal parts charm and aggravation. "You might be a physics genius, but if you don't write anything down, you're bound to forget something."

"Shut it, Leadfingers," she snapped. He knew she didn't meet it. She was deep in midterms and low on coffee.

"Technically it's graphite." Tadashi waggled his silver-stained digits in her direction. For a second, Gogo felt the sudden, striking urge to thread her fingers through them.

Her heart bounced in her chest and she slapped the blush out of her cheeks. Stupid. What was she even thinking about?

"Did you just hit yourself?"

"I'm thinking, Leadfingers."

"Graphite."

"I'm not talking about your pencil."

He chuckled and returned to his sketching. She fixed her eyes on the discs in the rubbish bin, stifling the smile that threatened to creep up her lips.

::-::

iv. help

She burst into the lab with three essays, a matchbox, and her lunch under one arm, and a cat, a model of the Golden Gate Bridge, and a soldering iron beneath the other.

Immediately, Tadashi was there. The others were too, of course, but they were honed in on their own experiments and their own observations; Tadashi was there without hesitation, instantly, taking the cat and the model off her hands and propping them against her table.

"Thanks," she mumbled, "but I didn't need any help."

"I helped because I wanted to," Tadashi said easily, eyes smiling. "Nothing more."

He sauntered back to his desk, whipping out the pencil from behind his ear, and started sketching. Again.

What a bewildering individual.

Bewildering, but beautiful.

She slapped herself.

"Did you just—"

"Don't, Leadfingers."

::-::

v. turn

She went to the skate park every morning, 4 AM sharp. That's when no one was there. That's when she had total freedom.

She brought her trusty pair of roller skates, Bertha and Grine, and her beaten, worn hoverboard that was her showcase project. And there, she danced with the sky and the lightening stars, relishing the wind in her hair and the wrenching tug of speed in her intestines.

"Some fancy footwork you got there."

To her credit, Gogo managed to stick her landing through her shock. Shock that a certain young man had just entered the skate park on a bright blue bicycle, and was now wheeling around its perimeter with a smile far too cheery for four in the morning.

"What are you doing here?" Gogo blurted, instinctively covering her bashfulness with annoyance.

"Good morning to you too," Tadashi said. He pulled off his baseball cap, skidding to a halt before her. His hair was damp, tossed from an early morning shower, and something, soap, shampoo, cologne, whatever, smelled heavenly. Gogo swore inside, keeping her eyes fixed on her hoverboard.

"No one comes to the park at this hour," she hissed.

"You're not a no one," Tadashi said—did he just wink?—and off he was, bolting up and down the ramps and flipping on his blue bicycle.

Gogo immediately strapped on her roller skates and pulled up beside him. "Give me a straight answer, Pretty Boy," she said.

He glanced at her from his periphery. "You didn't call me Leadfingers."

"I—" Stupid. "Yes I did."

"You just called me Pretty Boy."

"You're dodging the question, Leadfingers. Again."

He turned rapidly, pulling to a sudden stop. She immediately dropped sideways, but her momentum was too much; she slammed right against his chest, almost knocking him off of his bike.

She recoiled, but he instinctively wrapped his arms around her waist, lowering his head until his nose was right at the crook of her neck, breathing deeply, as if he'd been waiting for a moment like this. The alluring scent of a simple, earthy spice flooded her senses, and as his jacket hitched up to cover her throbbing face from the bitter air, she felt the overwhelming urge to stay like this, stay like this forever—but that was stupid of her to think that, stupid, stupid, get away—

She shoved him, harder than she meant to, and he careened backward, crashing to the ground—his bike with him.

"Ow."

She quickly surveyed him, but at seeing that he was largely unharmed, she was unrepentant. "What was that?" she said, curling her arms around herself. It wasn't as warm as he was. Stupid.

"What was what?" Tadashi staggered to his feet, checking over his bike. "Technically, you're the one who crashed into me."

She struggled to think past her racing heart (because of the exercise, of course) and churning gut (maybe she'd eaten too much breakfast). "You didn't have to... have to..." Hug? Embrace? She'd sooner shoot herself before she said those words. "...force yourself on me." Urgh. That sounded terrible.

Tadashi stepped back, his eyes blank. "I... I did?"

He hadn't even known. It'd just been her imagination. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"No. I mean, yes, but no."

His face dropped, as if he was devastated. Not the overdone, puppy-eyes sort of devastated; an actual physical manifestation of utter humiliation and horror. "I'm so sorry, Ethel."

A spike of something runs through her veins. Disgust? "Don't—don't call me Ethel."

He winced. She cursed inwardly.

"I'm really messing things up, aren't I?" he muttered.

No, you're perfect. Urgh, stupid.

"I'm sorry. I'll just leave."

"Don't."

She blurted it as he was uprighting his bike. He stared at her, head tilted in confusion.

"I'm sorry. Didn't mean to make things a big deal. You're fine, honest." She propped out her hand. "Cool?"

He eagerly took it, sending a thrill up her arm. "Cool."

"Right. Ready to skate?"

He smiled. "Nah. I'm headed out."

She felt a flare of indignation—something she didn't really understand. "Then why'd you come?"

His smile widened, but there was a mysterious tint to his eyes that she couldn't read.

"I just wanted to hang out with my friend."

Something about his voice made Gogo want to stop him, to ask for clarification. But she didn't. She only watched as he wheeled his bike away until his form was enveloped in the morning gloom.

::-::

vi. name

He started calling her Gogo, like everyone else.

She hadn't realized that before then, he'd refrained from calling her by name. He'd always gestured to her, or tapped her on the shoulder, or smiled at her without a word. She'd gotten used to it. Changing that was like waking up to a green sky.

"Hey, Gogo, could you pass me the magnifier?"

"How's some pizza sound, Gogo?"

"Why don't Gogo and I take care of that feature?"

She grew to hate it. She hadn't really cared, when Fred called her Gogo or Wasabi called her Gogo or Honey Lemon called her Gogo. But Tadashi... something was different about Tadashi, and when Tadashi called her Gogo, she felt far, distant, like an obscure president who no one remembered in history class.

She wanted him to call her Ethel.

She'd never wanted that before.

::-::

vii. comfort

Dud number 85. She frisbeed the disc into the rubbish bin, frustration curling up her toes to her knees to the tips of her fingers.

Nothing right. Nothing. Too bulky, too large, too cumbersome. She needed it to be lighter, faster, stronger.

The lab was empty tonight. Of course, it would be. Third day, finals week, fall semester. No one in their right mind would stick around to fling around some old gadgets when there were theories to be studied and papers to be written.

Hence why Gogo was in the lab.

She kicked at the crumpled papers beneath the table. Calculations. Tadashi's way, not her way. She tried them, and she tried them again, and still, the discs wouldn't work.

She collapsed into her chair, staring idly at the ceiling, as if it would provide her the answer.

Dysfunctional discs. Tadashi Hamada. Both seemed to elude her beyond her ability to solve.

"Gogo?"

Speak of the devil, she thought wryly. She lifted her head, propped her feet on the table, and greeted Tadashi with a loud, unhurried pop of her bubblegum.

Tadashi was leaning against the doorway, a large box of something plushy and white in his hands, surveying her with a mixture of surprise and amusement. The dim lighting spreads across his features, making his cheeks seem rosy and... soft. Almost made her want to touch them.

Urgh, stupid.

"What brings you here?" Gogo said idly, spinning a pencil between her fingers, pointedly ignoring Tadashi Hamada's rosy, soft cheeks.

"Finished up a little early. Thought I'd work on Baymax." He unloaded the box on another lab table, extracting the large, elastic material with a flourish.

"Baymax." She tried to sound clueless, as if she hadn't snuck peeks at his sketches (planning, always planning) at every chance she got.

"Yeah. Healthcare robot." Tadashi opened up the material, affixing metallic bone structure to its innards. "He'll be incredibly strong. Knowledgable. Adaptable. He'll have a heart of gold." A flicker of sadness crossed his eyes, but it was quickly replaced by a small smile. "And he'll be a favorite with the kids! Huggable design and all."

Something dawned on Gogo as she watched him scurry around the lab, picking out magnets and wires and processing chips from every nook and cranny. "Tadashi."

He froze, as if unused to hearing his name.

"He'll be great for car accidents, won't he," Gogo said quietly.

Silence.

"He will," Tadashi finally said, and resumed his work.

Gogo stood—slowly, for the first time in a long time—and slid to Tadashi's side, placing a hand lightly on his shoulder. He glanced at her, lips quirking into the facsimile of a smile.

"When'd you get the idea?" she asked.

"You know when," he said.

She tightened her grip on his shoulder, reassuringly. She knew. There wasn't another option.

His parents' death.

Gogo retracted her hand, intent on returning to her desk, but Tadashi quickly touched her wrist, looking up into her face. She met his gaze, shaking off the spark that ran up her arm.

"Thanks, Gogo," Tadashi said.

"Ethel," she corrected. And smiled. "Not a problem, Pretty Boy."

He smiled back. Warmth spread through her veins.

::-::

viii. date

He asked her to coffee the next week, when school was out and exams had simmered down and they technically had no reason to see each other until everyone reunited in the lab the next semester.

They talked about random things and came up with overly complicated electromagnetic theories and skated around town faster than they probably should have. He called her Ethel and gave her butterflies and twenty-six warm smiles. She saw his love for his little brother, his tenderness to an elderly man crossing the street, and his compassion for a stray cat that he eventually took home and named Mochi—and she realized that somehow, between calling him Leadfingers and sharing tepid coffee, she might've just fallen for Tadashi Hamada.

::-::

ix. blossom

Spring loomed ahead and everyone returned to the lab. On the surface, it seemed like nothing had changed—Honey Lemon burst into the lab in all her explosive optimism, Wasabi nearly blew a capillary at find his toolbox completely rearranged, and Fred lounged in the back as usual, touching things that he probably shouldn't be touching.

But Ethel found herself stealing glances at Tadashi, and Tadashi stealing glances back, and they would start laughing without knowing why and blushing without knowing why.

Or maybe they did know why. She didn't give too much thought to him brushing his hand up her spine or just slightly closing his fingers over hers as he leaned into inspect her latest wheel.

(It was dud number 99, but that didn't really matter.)

::-::

x. question

Preparations for the showcase were in full-swing when he took her aside, his hand lingering on her arm a little more than what may have been the social norm.

"I want you to see something," he said, barely containing his undercurrent of energy. He led her to the back of the lab, away from prying eyes and unpredictable experiments, to a simple red box in the corner of the room.

And he introduced her to Baymax: the medical companion, the big plan, a piece of Tadashi himself. He showed her the collapsibility, the organic voice chip, the adaptable processing, the simple dismissal. She rejoiced with him, marveled at his creative idea, kissed him on the cheek before she could stop herself.

He stared at her for a moment with dark eyes, then suddenly slipped an arm around her waist, pulling her to his chest.

"Ethel," he whispered against her ear, "I need to wait after the showcase, because my brother—he needs our help, he needs my time, but after that, I want to ask you a question, I mean, if that's okay with you—"

"Duh." She slid back, smiling at him.

His eyes lit up and he slowly traced her jawline with his thumb, sending electric shivers down her spine. "You should smile more often," he said.

"I have been, Pretty Boy."

He kissed her on the forehead with gentle restraint. "I want you to be happy, Ethel."

"I'm already happy." She relished the moment of warmth before he pulled away, his hand lingering on her back. "Now, let's watch Hiro knock 'em dead."

::-::

xi. fast

But sometimes, life has other plans.

Tadashi was too fast. He sped into the showcase, eyes peeled for Callaghan, seemingly unaware of the flames that licked at his shoes and the broiling pressure in the building.

::-::

xii. slow

Ethel was too slow. She saw him run, saw his brother grasp at him like he was the only thing left—she sprinted up the steps, pushing her body to its limit, her hand reaching out to a figure vanishing right before her eyes.

::-::

xiii. coffin

She resolved to never be slow again.