i started writing this after visiting the hiroshima peace memorial museum, and finished writing as a request from queenlyreality

disclaimer: i don't own the copyrighted material within

Tadashi remembers his grandparents as being happy, being fulfilled with their lives in San Fransokyo. They had their struggles—struggles that Tadashi only recognizes after their deaths, all of the bandages wrapped around his ojiisan's legs that never came off, all of the dusty baby pictures in the attic of aunts and uncles who died before they could walk—and they had their troubles, of this Tadashi knows from history class, but they were happy. They died before Hiro was born but were always happy to spoil Tadashi

they would've loved Hiro to bits, bright eyed flyaway boy with their son's determination and their daughter in law's mischief

and Tadashi remembers them fondly. But one memory sticks out against the others, of one day Tadashi eyeing his ojiisan's bandaged ankle and his obaasan sitting Tadashi down for a Talk. They came from Japan, not like the settlers who rebuilt San Fransokyo but from the country, she begins, from the south, from a city wiped from the face of the earth in a flash. They met in the ashes, fell in love in the flames, and came to this land to raise a family in the light and the love. Because love is the most important thing in the world, she says, it goes beyond country borders, beyond bloodlines, even beyond life and death. But so does pain, and you will be hurt so much by love. One day you will love someone so much that you'll understand this, and understand that both pain and love have an important place in your heart.

Tadashi is young when he nods, and he is young when his grandparents die, his parents die, when love and pain take up permanent residence in his heart. And Tadashi supposes that he is young still, when the auditorium goes up in flames and Hiro is inside he's inside he's in the fire and Tadashi's heart is going up in smoke. He looks around for his friends for Aunt Cass for someone to help and wonders if this is what obaasan meant, looking for loved ones in a place that no longer exists.

Then the building explodes, and Tadashi can't hear himself yell because there's someone walking out of the shattered glass and billowing fire. They're short, holding their arms out like a toddler reaching for a hug, and it's Hiro it's Hiro Hiro's alive! Tadashi runs to meet him but firemen push him back, why? Why is Aunt Cass sobbing screams that curdle the blood pumping so fast through Tadashi's veins? Hiro's surrounded by the firemen and the smoke rising off his body is blue green, why blue green what happened

Tadashi pushes away from block arms so he can witness close up the skin peeling off Hiro's flesh, hanging from bones like strips of prayer paper and dripping fat. Hiro opens a scalded mouth to beg for water, onegai niisan, and Tadashi finally understands.

On his sixth birthday, Tadashi received a conch shell as a present from his grandparents, still wrapped in bubble wrap as it was from a faraway island that his obaasan's family was descended from. The box had shredded red tissue paper curling around the raised mound of golden bubble wrap, the glimmer of the conch shell just visible enough for Tadashi's child hands to reach out towards.

Tadashi looks at Hiro lying gasping in the hospital bed, and where the gauze does not cover the wounds, Hiro's skin looks just like that present. Shredded red tissue paper flesh where the burns don't run as deep, sickly gold bubble wrap pustules erupting from the raw red and oozing the stench of melted skin, and just a hint of pearly white bone close enough for Tadashi to see and weep over. Just yesterday Hiro had soft baby skin, it was. just. there. and the pictures of hibakusha in Tadashi's history textbooks were all in black and white, why the technicolor horror?

And Hiro is awake, there aren't enough pain killers in the world to dull that pain without putting Hiro in a coma, and Hiro can't have that simple pleasure. When the auditorium erupted, or so the doctors say, Hiro was doused in a science experiment's chemicals that reacted badly to the flames

badly, reacted badly, Tadashi locks himself in a bathroom and shames the mirrors screaming just how badly that reaction must have been for his brother's skin to melt off

and are still present in Hiro's body. Until the chemicals leech away, they cannot risk putting Hiro in any more danger

danger, any more danger, the explosion turned Hiro's skin into sloppy chicken skin strips how can he be in any more danger than now, Tadashi screams his throat raw

Aunt Cass nods where Tadashi rages. Hiro gasps, the hole where his lips used to be open shut and always wheezing for water, water please. He can't have too much water, his body will give out and die just like the Hamadas and Takachihos that Tadashi never got to meet in the ashes of the city that no longer is. Ice chips, Tadashi presses ice chips to the white mass of Hiro's tongue and stares when a bubble wrap pustule tears itself open and seeps vile gold liquid to sting against Hiro's bones. Hiro sobs without sobbing, as he has no eyelids nor tears to complete the task, and asks for more water, the IV isn't enough please more water

and Tadashi asks Aunt Cass why, why, why

and Aunt Cass shakes her head once twice three times to the heart monitor beeps growing more fragile each hour.

Tadashi sneaks Baymax into the hospital, because he has to do something something please for his baby brother who is in so. much. pain. Aunt Cass knows and placates the nurses who are hesitant to let anything anyone into Hiro's room without prior clearance

just let him, Aunt Cass's voice is so soft so tired, we don't have much time left

and Baymax inflates in front of Hiro's all-seeing eyes. Hiro's mouth hole twitches for more water, and as Tadashi applies the ice chips Baymax's all-seeing eyes do their own sightless gaze. "The patient," Baymax's voice begins, then trails off because Tadashi knows but he doesn't want to know he can't accept this that Hiro is

Hiro is

Hiro is

Hiro is going to be fine.

Baymax gives Tadashi more ice chips and states, "I recommend some distractions for the patient, to improve their mental state. Perhaps some music, or moderate television, or stories from you and the patient's guardian?"

Tadashi smiles, ignores the crickle crackle of Hiro's gauze, and Aunt Cass returns to find Tadashi telling Hiro why Wasabi got his name. Hiro's mouth hole twitches for water and in the ghost of a smile, and Aunt Cass sits down next to Baymax so she can rest her cheek against his heated chest.

Tadashi talks, and talks, and talks until Hiro's eyes are glassy in all-seeing sleep and the nurses turn off the lights and Aunt Cass asks, "Tadashi—"

Tadashi violently ignores her and stalks off to the bathroom to gaze into the mirror and remember the flash of the auditorium just before it exploded, so bright so light is this what ojiisan and obaasan saw before the city became nothingness, before the meaning of love changed to the meaning of pain.

Tadashi doesn't go to school anymore, not even for the memorial of Prof. Callaghan because it hurts too much when his baby brother is gasping for water and his mentor is ash scattered to the sky. He rarely goes home either, because he has too many stories to tell Hiro before

before the nurses turn off the lights and Hiro's ravaged body demands sleep. And there are so many ice chips to give, so much pus to wipe away, so many precious heart monitor beeps that set the tempo for Tadashi's existence. In each space between, Tadashi dies, and in each affirmative yes, Tadashi lives

he lives because Hiro is alive still alive, his otouto hasn't left Tadashi to live alone in a world of unfriendly angles and too many rules made for Mae Hamada's son to break. Takeo Hamada's son is strong, he'll live and Tadashi will do everything to save him, to repair what the fire took away

Aunt Cass is so quiet, she watches Tadashi with those all-seeing eyes and what do those not-Mae eyes see, what ghosts linger in the backdrop of Baymax's chest light and the hospital equipment? Sometimes she cries, noiselessly and dignified and so dissimilar to the loud fretful woman tugging on Tadashi's ear back home

then again, Aunt Cass didn't cry at Tadashi's parents' grandparents' distant relatives' funerals now did she

and it sets Tadashi off. It's mania, always talking or crying or both and he feels his body grinding down to ash and bleach flashes on concrete but he can't stop burning because Hiro is burning everything's on fire and he's looking for loved ones in the ashes but all he's finding is pain in the fire.

His friends keep him connected to the outside world, and once twice three times he bawls into Honey's sweater because she smells like citrus body lotion instead of sickly death. She whispers that it's ok Tadashi amigo mi amor it's ok but it's not ok, Hiro is

Hiro is—!

Tadashi crickle cracks like unhappy gauze and his friends stand guard against curious bystanders, witnesses to the untold horror of a family wiped from the face of the earth.

It's only when Hiro begs for death that Tadashi truly understands his obaasan's words, so long ago.

"Please," Hiro wheezes and his swollen white tongue scraps red flakes from his inner cheeks, "please."

Tadashi can't do this anymore, he falls to his knees and grabs onto the bedsheets because if he clasps Hiro's hands they will crumble into charcoal. His heart bleeds, so much pain for the one he loves the absolute most, if Hiro dies then Tadashi will too there is no doubt about this. Aunt Cass walks in and Tadashi holds his arms out like a toddler reaching for a hug, please help me I can't do this Hiro is

Hiro is going. to. die

and Tadashi can do nothing

Aunt Cass holds him tight as he falls apart, eyes wide and all-seeing and sightless because there is only fire, only smoke, only death. "Please" Hiro begs over and over, begging for water begging to die, and Tadashi's soul is raw, is oozing red flake flesh that will never heal past the erupting gold pustules, he is his grandparents collecting bleached bones from the basement of Shima Hospital where relatives were vaporized in a flash.

Aunt Cass helps Tadashi cope. Of course she does, she's his aunt the one who raised him from the ashes of his parents' car accident, but she's as valuable as Kannon to Tadashi because without her he'd be at the bottom of the bay.

She tells him about her family, at night when Tadashi's curled against her middle and bleeding saline from his all-seeing eyes. First her cat died, then her best friend, then cousins aunts uncles grandparents and finally her in laws and her sister. She knows death, she knows just how much love hurts and Tadashi can't figure out she's still standing tall enough to remember to have their neighbors feed Mochi.

"The pain never truly goes away," she cards her fingers through his hair like his mother used to, "because it's the shadow of how much you loved them."

Tadashi loves Hiro, Hiro is his friend his brother his hopes and dreams his inspiration his world his

his child, Hiro has a father but he also has Tadashi and maybe Hiro doesn't feel that way but Tadashi will do anything for Hiro because Hiro is his boy.

Even let him die.

Once upon a childhood memory, Tadashi's obaasan told Tadashi about love. She, who buried all but one of her children after the flash poisoned her womb and had only bleached bones to account for mother father brothers sisters aunts uncles cousins; she, whose husband shared the exact same fate and the exact same lost; she, who lived a full life a happy life despite all that pain.

She told Tadashi that love is the most important thing in the world, it goes beyond country borders, beyond bloodlines, even beyond life and death. But so does pain, and you will be hurt so much by love.

Aunt Cass tells him the same, his friends tell him the same history tells him the same, and he's so afraid, so very terrified of the years to come.

Tadashi clings to his aunt his second mother and cries, because he loves Hiro more than anything else, and it hurts so much, and he'll have to carry this until he dies.

They keeps the lights gentle, they play Hiro's favorite songs, and they take him off life support. Only IVs, only ice chips, only the water that Hiro is so desperate for. Hiro's mouth hole openly smiles with its flayed red flake flesh and cracking white tongue, Tadashi rests against Baymax and Aunt Cass as she sings along to the music and dares to hold Hiro's hand, to touch the bone conch shell hiding underneath the bubble wrap.

Hiro's skin is tacky, but there are no more nerve endings to blister over, and Hiro's fingers spasm in a mutual hand hold. Tadashi weeps and says I love you over and over in English in Japanese in whatever language he can remember, and Hiro sighs that he loves his idiot older brother, can he please pass the water. Tadashi pours the liquid in, Hiro relaxes

and Hiro dies.

It's so different than the flash of the auditorium, than the flash of the bomb, but Tadashi supposes that it's just his childhood bleeding to the surface, Tadashi young enough to cry like a lost child in the ashes of what was once his life; young enough to want to die, and young enough still keep moving forward.

weeks later prof. callaghan returns from the dead and he kills krei and he set the fire

tadashi gazes up at him with all-seeing eyes gone sightless with all the pain and love he does not yet understand as aunt cass or his grandparents do but close enough, and lets him go without a fight

prof. callaghan learns to fear the flash of fire, he hears abigail screaming her rage into the light as her body turns to ice to glass to ash to a melted boy's bones because he researches into what happened to the second fatality of the fire and hiro was. so. young. younger than his abigail this is not what he planned this is not what he wanted

he begs, gasping for peace at hiro's memorial stone but only receives the fallout of his revenge, tongue turning to ash and his skin itching with the promise of hibakusha dreams.

"The surviving victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are called hibakusha), a Japanese word that literally translates as "explosion-affected people"

Kannon: Kannon-sama, the Bodhisattva of mercy and compassion

No rampage!Tadashi here, since he's settled with his grief in a different way. Callaghan lives to see Hiro and Abigail dead, and he will have to come to terms with his own actions in the fallout of the ash, the fire, so much blood.

I came up with the idea of Hiro and Tadashi's grandparents (Yuichi Hamada and Kikue Hamada nee Takachiho) being survivors of the Hiroshima bombing after visiting the peace memorial as part of my study abroad term. Kikue's family in particular worked at the Shima Hospital, which was the hypocenter of the bomb; only bleached bones were left behind. Yuichi and Kikue met in the ruins, fell in love, then moved to San Fransokyo for health reasons and to escape prejudice. Out of Kikue's six children, only Takeo lived past infancy due to the bomb's effects on both Kikue and Yuichi's fertility. So lonely they were, when Takeo married Mae, they adopted Cass into the Hamadas; they lived happily until cancer took them both before Hiro was born.

It would at least halfway explain why Aunt Cass seems to be the only surviving family member Hiro/Tadashi has left; I also wanted to add it in because the peace memorial left such an impact on me.

Hope you liked it queenlyreality, took me forever to get the story flowing lmao