moments with you.

7. First meeting

7.

The first time GoGo meets Tadashi Hamada, they both turn up at the wrong venue for a lecture.

He walks into the classroom just in time to see her slouched against the wall, arms crossed, chewing gum, blowing bubbles after every five chews and seething with frustration. It's been twenty minutes and no one has made an appearance. GoGo stares ahead of her fixedly, too grumpy to notice the student that walks in. It's her first day in San Fransyoko Institute of Technology, and GoGo is neither interested nor willing to "make friends" like her stepmother has instructed. Coupled along with her lack of sleep, and the fact that the student's staring at her like he's never seen someone with a purple streak in her hair before, GoGo decides that yes, she's in a very bad mood.

"How long have you been standing there?" The student decides to be the first to break the silence. GoGo eyes him contemplatively for a while before sighing.

"Twenty minutes."

"I see."

An awkward silence fills the air, but GoGo's never been one for socialising. She's pretty used to people treating her as if she's a contagious disease or a dangerous animal ready to strike, so it doesn't really bother her when the student regards her with a slightly perplexed look.

"Has it.. Has it ever occurred to you that we might be in the wrong classroom?"

"…"

GoGo swears the silence that follows is a lot more excruciating than the any other she has withstood. But even as she tries to come up with a fathomable answer that would not reveal her ignorance, she suddenly finds the said student standing in front of her. He's bending down (GoGo feels somewhat irked at the vast height difference between them), and she finally takes a proper look of him. He's wearing a black baseball cap with a red-and-gold San Fransokyo Ninja lettering on it, under a mass of tousled hair, and he has the warmest brown eyes that GoGo has ever seen. GoGo's about to comment on his lacking perception of personal space, but the student cuts her off before she so much as opens her mouth. 

"Looks like we're both in the wrong venue for Professor Callaghan's lecture, so we might as well look for the right classroom together," He suggests brightly

GoGo doesn't quite know how she's gotten dragged into this, but the student marches out without looking back and, seeing as she's as good as lost if she were to stay, GoGo ends up following.

…

The student's name is Tadashi Hamada, and he's the smiliest person GoGo has met by far.

She doesn't mean it in a complimentary way- the way he seems to always smile already acts as a foil to GoGo's stoic self. But there is something relieving in having company while searching for the right lecture hall; GoGo's pretty sure she would have ended up everywhere but at the venue if she were to venture off on her own.

"What's your name?"

"Leiko Tanaka. Call me Ethel." GoGo almost chuckles at the surprised expression on Tadashi's face, but keeps her amusement at bay. She's almost enjoying his bemused expression, but given how he's been relatively helpful so far, she sighs and delivers a brief explanation.

"I got renamed when my Dad moved here from Japan." She grunts in a bored manner. No need to tell him more than he needed to know- which included being mother-less for a brief period of time after her parents had called for a divorce, a situation she would have decidedly preferred over after having her name forcefully changed from Leiko Tanaka to Ethel when her Western-styled stepmother came into the picture.

"I see," Tadashi replies. They trail off into silence, but GoGo thinks it's strangely not as awkward as it was before.

…