The first year of college was terrifying. It was a time of complete change. You couldn’t rely on your parents anymore, and you had more responsibility than you knew what to do with. Luckily you had made a lot of quality friends that helped you through it all. On your first day you met a girl named Honey Lemon who showed you around and told you everything about SFIT. For a long time you were afraid to talk to her because she had her own group of friends, but her forceful enthusiasm gradually broke down your walls until you were eagerly going over to her station to talk and ask for help. Gradually you also got to know the rest of her friends who soon became your friends. You sat with them during lunch and went to their study sessions.
You thought you would never make friends during college. Long ago you had decided that you would just put your head down and get as much work done as you could. Now though, you couldn’t imagine surviving without them.
“Hey Y/N.” You look up from the motherboard you’re working on and see Tadashi standing in the doorway of your personal lab. “I’m making a lunch run to the Bear Claw restaurant. Do you want anything?”
“I actually haven’t ever been there. What do they have there?”
“Sandwiches mostly. There’s actually a lot. Why don’t you come along so you can choose.”
You set your tools back on your desk and stand up. “You driving your Aunt’s truck? Because I’m not riding on that scooter in this rain.”
Tadashi’s face deadpans. “I hate that word.”
“What? Scooter? That’s what it is isn’t it?” The reaction has you chuckling in between your words.
“Yeah,” the man sighs. “But that sounds so lame.” Your laughing increases and before long he’s laughing along with you.
“That’s true,” you eventually wheeze. You straighten up and take a few timid breaths to see if another laughing fit would attack.
“Come on. I drove the truck so you don’t have to suffer the embarrassment of riding on my ‘scooter.’”
You let out a short laugh and clean up your desk quickly. “I’m not the one who would be embarrassed. You’re the one who’s embarrassed.”
He rolls his eyes at you, but the smile on his face mirrors your own. It only takes the two of you ten minutes to get to the restaurant. After a few minutes of looking at the menu you figure out what you think you would like and the large order for everyone else is placed.
You and Tadashi sit at an empty table at the front of the shop to wait for the food to be ready. You look out the large windows at the cars and trolleys that pass by like a stream of fish. It would’ve been a nice view if it wasn’t pouring rain and thundering every ten seconds.
“Y/N .” You look over at Tadashi with an eyebrow raised. “Do you mind if I ask you something?”
The question instantly sets your nerves on edge, but you nod.
“What is that device in your arm?”
“What this thing?” You turn your arm over so that Tadashi can see it better. “It’s an electronic injector device for my carpal tunnel syndrome. If my carpal tunnel becomes inflamed enough to trigger the device it injects anti-inflammatory drugs directly onto the muscle to stop it from hurting almost instantly. Way better than waiting an hour or two for the normal anti-inflammatory drugs to kick in.”
“That is… really cool, but that also kinda sucks?” You laugh because you know the dilemma that is going on inside your friend’s head. He loved robotic stuff like this especially because it was medical, but he didn’t want it to sound like he thought little of the ailment that you were inflicted with.
“Nah it’s pretty cool. A really handy thing to have. I got it at the end of high school when the condition got bad enough that I couldn’t use my hands much.” You lean closer to him so that he can see the smaller details of the centipede shape of the device that lay under your skin. “It has to be so long and spread out because it holds quite a bit of the medicine and if it was shorter the capsules would make my skin bulge and that’s not attractive or practical and these smaller wires here are what carry the electrical current so that everything is released at once without any capsules being released early causing things to be uneven. I have to go and have small surgeries to get the battery replaced every year or year and a half.”
“Can I get a closer look?” you smile and nod and let him take your arm so that he can look at it closely. The gentleness of his touch almost makes you shiver but you catch yourself just in time. “This is really amazing. How come this isn’t a common thing now? I’ve never seen anything like it.”
You pull your arm away and shrug. “I’m not sure. Probably because it was a rough prototype when I got it and it’s not refined enough to be in production. Or maybe it’s really expensive. I never gotten the details.”
“How have I never noticed this before?”
“Well for one I don’t go around flinging my arms at people and I’m normally wearing bracelets or a watch so people don’t notice as much.”
“You don’t like people asking about it?”
You shrug before elaborating. “It’s not that I don’t like people asking about it but when I first got it and had to explain it to people for the first time most of them just gave me dumb, blank looks and it got irritating really fast. But that’s not an issue with you so I don’t mind if you ask me questions.”
The smile that Tadashi gives you makes your heart flutter, but before your cheeks can turn red your receipt number is called and you hurry to grab the bags of food.
Back at SFIT you dole out the food and sit down to enjoy with the rest of the group to enjoy the sandwich. While you’re gathering your trash to throw it away and get back to your work, Tadashi asks you to stop by his lab whenever you get the chance. Fred and Honey Lemon simultaneously say “Aww…” causing Tadashi to roll his eyes and you to whack Fred’s shoulder.
Once you’re back in your lab, you quickly get sucked back into your work and seemingly before you blink there’s only an hour left before your curfew
“Crap!” you mutter to yourself, quickly stuffing your tools into your bags and stacking the papers of your research. You rush into Tadashi’s lab with your bag slung over your shoulder. “I wanted to get here earlier, but I totally forgot.” You rush to get the sentence out in replacement of a greeting.
Tadashi peaks around Baymax to see you standing just inside the doorway. “Don’t worry about it. I wanted to see if you would let me look at your carpal tunnel device some more. I was hoping to program Baymax with the information you knew about it.”
“Sure! How far are you from getting Baymax running. The last time I saw him operating he was repeating every third word five times.”
“Hopefully he’ll be working by the end of the month. I still can’t get his scanners to synchronize with the rest of his processors so that’s what I’m working on for now.” He slides a chair over to you which you sit in and then push yourself closer to his desk. He mimics your movements and pushes his own chair closer to yours. He opens up a blank document on his computer and starts typing. For the next hour he examines your implants and asks questions. Most of the time you can answer them with ease, but sometimes you can only answer with a shrug.
Finally Tadashi sits back in his chair, letting go of your arm. “All right I’ve kept you imprisoned in my lab for long enough.”
You snicker. “I would love to stay longer, but the parents are strict on my curfew.”
“We could go out to lunch together tomorrow. Spend more time together without having to order everyone else’s food.”
“Tadashi Hamada are you asking me out on a date?” You flash him a smile, because you know that’s exactly what he’s asking.
“Only if you want me too.”
“Of course I want you to ask me out on a date. Literally anyone who doesn’t is crazy.” The enthusiasm you say this makes Tadashi laugh from deep in his chest.
“I’m glad you say that because I was nervous you would say no. I’ll visit your lab tomorrow and we can figure out where you want to go.”
“Sounds great. I’ll see you tomorrow!”
It takes a great deal of control to stop yourself from jumping through the halls with joy. However, as soon as you get out of the building you jump around celebrating the accomplishment. You’d thought that your implants were an annoyance when people asked about them, but now they had gotten you a date with easily the cutest guy of SFIT.
