When Death Won't Take You

7: She shouldn't be smiling

Hiro sat up, rubbing his eyes. The room had gotten darker and he was laying in his brother's bed. The covers had gotten mussed and wrinkled where Hiro had slept on them, so Hiro got off the bed and pulled them carefully back into their neat, smooth position, just like Tadashi had always kept them.

Hiro looked around the room, and his eyes caught on the picture he had been looking at previously. He still didn't know who that girl was who had come to his house. 

"It doesn't matter, really," Hiro muttered to himself, covering the painting with his hand and beginning to turn away. Before he could turn away, however, a detail of the picture he had never noticed caught his eye. 

Peeking through a gap in his fingers was a smiling face.

"That's her," Hiro said with disbelief. He removed his hand and looked again at the face. "Why is she smiling?"

Hiro sat back down on Tadashi's bed.

"Tadashi looks like he's at a funeral...so why's she smiling? Does she not care about whatever person Tadashi's so sad about?" Hiro frowned. "Why was she asking about Tadashi if she doesn't even care about the people he loves? Does she even care about anyone?" 

Hiro slammed his fist onto Tadashi's nightstand as Aunt Cass walked into his room.

"Hiro, you okay?" Aunt Cass asked. She was holding a plate of chicken wings in one hand and had a white apron on.

Hiro let himself fall backwards onto his brother's bed, messing up the sheets again. "M'okay Aunt Cass."

"Well, if you're sure..." Aunt Cass said, then sat beside Hiro on the bed and set the plate down on the nightstand. "I brought you dinner. You were asleep when I called you down so I thought I might as well. You've been sleeping a lot lately...are you sure you're fine? I'm pretty sure sleeping a lot can be a bad sign..."

"I'm fine, Aunt Cass," Hiro said, sitting back up and looking at his aunt.

"Okay then, I'll just head on downstairs to clean up the cafe," Aunt Cass said as she left the room.

Hiro began to turn back to the picture, when Aunt Cass stuck her head back in the room and added, "Just call me if you need anything."

Hiro rolled his eyes. "I told you. I'm fine."

"Okay," Aunt Cass called out as she finally left the room for good.

Hiro turned to the picture and looked again at the smiling girl in the background.

"Who are you?" He muttered.

He started tracing the shape of the girl with a finger, following the curves of her shoulders down to...where was the rest of her body?

"What?" Hiro said, confused. The girl in the picture had a head, shoulders, and part of her chest, but her body was cut off there. 

Hiro leaned further in toward the picture until his eyes were so close the whole thing got blurry, but the girl was far enough in the background you couldn't see where her legs might have gone. Hiro glanced around the room. Everything in Tadashi's room was neatly put away, but in his room, Hiro spotted a magnifying lens he had been using to construct one of the smaller parts of a robot he was making. 

Hiro dashed into his room, skidding a little on the wood floor, and snatched the lens. He held it up to the picture of Tadashi, and suddenly everything became clear.

"That's not a girl in the background, it's a picture of a girl!" He started pacing, "And since this looks like a funeral...usually the pictures at the funeral are there as memories of whoever died. So..." Hiro stopped short halfway through his room. "Is she dead?"

☺

"This is crazy," Hiro said to himself. He was standing at the door he had previously shut on the girl. "If I saw her, she can't be dead, so either I'm very confused, or I was hallucinating earlier. Except why would I hallucinate to see someone I've never even seen before, somebody who died long ago? I never knew her. Never mind, I'm just going to open this door."

Hiro threw open the door before he started hesitating again. There was no one there. 

Hiro paused, and disappointment flashed on his face. "What was I expecting anyway, her to just be standing there waiting for me to open the door? It's been a a whole night for god's sake!"

Hiro sighed, closed the door, and walked back up to his room. He collapsed onto his bed and put his head in his hands.

"I need to find her...to ask her...I need to know more..." Hiro said dismally.