I'm Not Giving Up On You [Tadashi Hamada X OC] [COMPLETED]

Odd Truths

Tadashi's POV

"HIRO HAMADA, COME DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!" I thunder as I hear my younger brother rush up the stairs to our shared room, and leap up the stairs three at a time to catch him and push myself against the door he's slammed shut and shoved things against to keep me out. I eventually get through and leap on Hiro on his bed to pummel him; he yells out beneath me and manages to yank himself out of the bed and shoot downstairs. I roar at him to come back and run to the stairs and jump them multiple steps at a time and land in the sitting room, where Hiro is hiding behind Aunt Cass shaking. Serves him right.

I storm up to Cass and she puts her hands on my shoulders to stop me before I kill my brother.
"Okay, okay! Now what's Hiro done?"
I point at my brother with a scowl, "I was writing notes at the kitchen table earlier and he," and he cowers, "was messing around with robot parts, and then when I left them at the table I came back and the papers were all in the bin RIPPED TO SHREDS!" I shout the last words and lunge for Hiro again. This time I grab his shirt collar and his skinny body thrashes against my grip, "I'm thirteen, if you kill me you'll be in even bigger trouble than if I were eighteen like you!"
"Why were my papers ripped up?!" I persist childishly, "You know I don't know anything about Natural Science and I need those notes!"

"I'm sorry Tadashi, okay? I came down after playing with the parts and saw the paper, and the wind must've turned them over and made them look blank or something cuz I started sketching robot plans on them, but then they didn't turn out right so I ripped them up and put them in the bin-"

"You IDIOT!" I roar, and stamp upstairs. I open the door and dramatically fling myself upon my bed like a damn Disney Princess.

I'm doomed: I don't know anything about this type of science, I lied to Cherry, and I don't have enough time to re-teach myself!
I hear Cass scolding Hiro downstairs, but all I'm despairing over is that in half an hour I have to face Cherry and tell her truthfully that I know nothing about anything she needs.

She's gonna kill me.

And I was getting along so well with her - she had just told me that she was the same age as me.

(●-●)

Thirty minutes later I arrive at the empty cafe with an armful of books and a glum expression. Sitting at a table in the middle of the empty cafe, Cherry pores over the notes I gave her last time - that I got off the Internet - and taps her pen against the table.
I don't want to call it because I might be wrong, but I think she does it absent-mindedly. Might.

She hears me stepping and looks up, and though her mask is on as always I think I detect the corners of her lips twitching as I get closer.
Oh Beyonce, this is gonna be hard for me.

"Hi Tadashi," she says, and I slip into the booth then freeze. Did she say 'hi' instead of 'hello'? Is something different?
Oblivious to my discomfort she continues, "So I thought as today you're teaching me about biotic and abiotic components we could somehow link that to-"

"Can you just, erm, stop please?" I ask awkwardly, and she does.
I begin, already feeling remorseful:
"I'm really, so sorry Cherry, but I haven't actually been teaching you anything, Cherry. I've just been copying down notes from the Internet and repeating them to you, and I wasn't planning on telling you until today when my little brother ruined my notes because I thought..."
I trail off because I'm clocking the look on her face and it's very still and very scary.
Am I going to die?

She's silent. I can hear the cogs in her head churning as she sits with her eyes situated at the bullshit notes I gave her last week.
Eventually she moves her pale eyes - paler than they were before I started talking - to look at me. I meet them, terrified of her response.
She takes a deep breath, then says quietly so I have to lean over the counter to hear it properly:

"Okay."

She looks at me, and I blink several times in quick succession.
I'm sorry, what?
This is Cherry Riegan, whose whole life seems to revolve around science topics for a reason she hasn't told anyone. She didn't even talk to me until she found out I could 'teach' her. She just said it's 'okay' that I lied to her.

Without thinking I blurt out, "Are you okay?!" then prematurely wince at the onslaught, but she just nods her head slowly. She links her hands together and takes a deep breath, and I have absolutely no idea what's happening.

"Tadashi," she begins in a chillingly calm voice, "I'm not pleased with what you just said, but at this point I have to take anything. And, I don't mind as much as I really should because... because..."
She pauses, takes a quiet breath, and says something so quietly I have to lean forward to hear her.

Cherry's POV

I'm almost scared. My breath is catching in my throat as I lean in even closer, sealing one last deep breath in before I say what I feel guilty to admit:

"I... like being around you."

That's all. That's all I say. But inside my head alarm bells are going off - I shouldn't have said this, I need to get him out of my life, not into it, and he's not gonna like me back anyway which isn't the point anyway so I might as well have never said it, never thought it, scratch that I never thought it in the first place, I never-

I lean back and regard his shocked face for a second before slipping off the chair and heading to the door. I don't even care that my notes are still there right now, I don't care that the cafe isn't closed - I just need to get out of this overwhelming failure and back to my small familiar dingy apartment and be alone with my books and my dog and-

"Hey, stop!" I feel a hand on my shoulder and I shrug him off and keep going until he runs around me and places himself between me and the door. He narrows the distance between us as he watches my eyes lower.
He almost whispers, "You... like me?"

"NO I SAID I LIKED BEING AROUND YOU!" I shout in his face indignantly and uncharacteristically childishly, but from his face he knows that I know that's not true.

I can't handle this.
I can't do this.
I need to leave. Now.

Suddenly inspiration strikes. I lean into Tadashi and press my lips to his, distracting him but also accidentally distracting myself in the process.

Holy shit these were some soft lips!

I open my eyes slightly and see Tadashi's eyes shut too, his surprisingly long brown lashes fanned out with an earnest look on his face. He's not trying to open my mouth at all - why did he have to be a gentleman and make me like him more?

I snap out of it at the thought of like, and glancing to the side to figure out my escape I quick as lightning detach my lips and run around him and out the door.

I run and run until I see an alleyway and duck into it, leaning for support on the brick wall. I shouldn't have done that - but if I didn't how else would I have gotten out of that?
Oh, why did I have to tell him I liked him? Why did I have to admit that to myself? Why do I do anything I shouldn't?

I slump against the wall for a few more minutes, then checking nobody is following I start walking in the direction of my apartment.

I needed to do something to stop him from coming into my work. I tried my best.

I need to stop being attracted to him.

I sigh in anger and frustration. What is this, a cheesy romance novel?