It was 10:00 AM on a warm August morning, and Hiro Hamada was still in bed. He had spent the night staring up at his ceiling, slept for two hours, and woke up feeling worse than before. Today he was staring up at his ceiling again. If he looked anywhere else in his room, something would remind him of Tadashi. To his left was Tadashi's empty bed, in front of him was a poster for Tadashi's favorite band, to his right was Tadashi's favorite jacket that Hiro had stolen long ago, hung on top of Hiro's desk chair. Looking at any of it just reminded the kid that his big brother wasn't here anymore.

It had only been five days since the fire. The funeral was two days ago. Hiro was able to tell the time by the type of food Aunt Cass left for him to not eat. Today it was French toast. It would normally be one of his favorite foods, except there was no Tadashi to spray whipped cream at anymore. A piece of his soul had burned to ash in that fire and Hiro was just an empty shell.

He heard Aunt Cass start making her way up the stairs. He sighed, not wanting to talk. He wanted to be alone. He deserved to be alone, as alone as Tadashi was in that fire trying to find Professor Callaghan. But still, the footsteps kept coming, much to his dismay. He continued to stare at the ceiling when she opened the door.

"Hiro?"

Hiro didn't respond. She sat down at the edge of his bed. He sat up a little to look at her.

"Hiro.. I'm going to meet with your friends at the park. Everything's.... it's all been rough for everyone. We're going to go get some fresh air and see if it helps."

Hiro still didn't respond.

"If you want to come with.. you can. It might be good to talk to someone."

"I don't want to go." Hiro replied, voice flat and apathetic.

"That's fine, too. If you change your mind, call me and I can come get you. Or you can video call us."

Hiro nodded. Cass reached out to hug him, squeezing him perhaps a little too tight. It was like she was worried that he too would disappear. Hiro didn't really return the hug, but didn't refuse it either. It felt okay, even though nothing in his life was okay right now.

He couldn't imagine how his aunt felt. She had to re-open the cafe yesterday. They didn't have enough money saved up to stay closed for longer, not after all the money they had to pay for Tadashi's funeral. But, despite that, she was closing up for a few hours just to comfort Tadashi's friends. Some friend Hiro was, he thought, for not finding it in himself to show up at all.

Cass eventually let go of him. He would think she was completely stoic, if he hadn't heard her sobbing every night, louder than he did. She turned to leave, but before she did, she said something.

"Love you, Hiro."

"Love you too."

And with that, Cass made her way back downstairs. Hiro didn't get out of bed, but he didn't go back to staring at the ceiling either. He grabbed his phone from his nightstand. 30 texts he hadn't replied to, mostly from Fred and Honey Lemon, 8 missed calls, and his lockscreen was a selfie of him and Tadashi. He turned off his phone and put it back.

He heard Cass' car start up and pull out into the street. He still didn't know what to do with himself. He was stuck in this rut where he felt like he deserved to stay like this. Like it was his fault Tadashi was dead, if Hiro had been faster he could've pulled his brother back and saved them both from the fire. There were so many what ifs in his mind. He didn't know if he'd ever get out.

He decided to look out of the window, not wanting to stare at the ceiling anymore but still not ready to face all the things in his and Tadashi's- no, just his, room, that reminded him of Tadashi. The window he was looking out of looked back into the alley behind the cafe. Nobody really went in there, there were just a few trash cans lying around. Empty, shaded by the buildings around it, and narrow. An eyesore, really.

It became a true eyesore when a blast of purple light shone through the window like a star- burning into his eyes and making him recoil. What was that, he thought, and then he heard an ear-piercing scream. He ran back to the window, and gasped. There was a person in the alley, on fire, screaming at the top of their lungs. He was trying to put himself out, doing the stop, drop, and roll technique everyone had been taught in elementary school, but it wasn't working.

Instantly, Hiro forgot all about why he had been stuck in bed and leapt up. He dashed down the stairs, not wasting any time. This was the fastest he had ran since the fire. He couldn't let another person burn. He dashed to the kitchen, grabbing the fire extinguisher and hoping he still knew how to use it. He slammed open the door to the alley and there the person was, on the ground, still on fire and screaming in pain.

Hiro wasted no time in using the extinguisher, coating himself, the person, and the alley in the white smoke from it. The fire died down. Soon, he heard a groan from the person. Hiro was just thankful he hadn't been too late. This time, he thought- no. He had to make sure this person was okay.

The person dragged themself into a sitting position, leaned against the wall. A teenage boy from the looks of it, he couldn't be more than a few years older than Hiro. Definitely thinner and paler, too, almost unhealthily so, with jet black hair covering one of his eyes. The other was an icy, piercing blue. His clothes were partly burnt, especially his red scarf. But he had long sleeves, so Hiro couldn't see any burns on his skin at the moment. Hiro was about to go inside to call 911 when he heard him speak.

"Don't.. don't call anyone."

What.. but he was just on fire.

"What?"

"Don't call 911."

"You were on fire."

He could see a rather distressed look on the other boy's thankfully un-burnt face. And while he would have chalked it up to being just on fire, there was something deeper in there.

"Can't risk it. They'll.. they'll find me."

"Who's they?"

It took a bit for the mystery boy to answer. Just a few seconds delay, but odd. He hoped the smoke hadn't done anything to his lungs or throat.

"... My parents. I just ran off, please, if they find me at a hospital they'll just take me back."

There was a tear coming from the one eye that Hiro could see. Hiro was inclined to believe the stranger. Even though child abuse wasn't common to see in 2043, it wasn't completely unheard of, as far as Hiro knew. Hiro understood the stakes anyhow. He had been injured at bot fights before and had always taken care of it himself, or with Tadashi's begrudging assistance. He knew that people would ask questions at hospitals.

"Okay.. what's your name?"

"... Beck. My name's Beck."

No last name. And with the pause, maybe not even a real first name. Understandable, given the circumstances. Hiro was no stranger to pseudonyms, though he'd never used any in Good Luck Alley. Nor had he seen this Beck kid there either. Hiro still wasn't even sure about how he would go about helping someone that had just been on fire.. but Tadashi's last words were 'someone has to help'. If he didn't help Beck, then who?

"I'm Hiro. You think you can stand?"

Beck responded by grabbing onto the ledge of a nearby windowsill and hauling himself up with a grunt. He could stand just fine. Hiro saw the main burns were on his forearms, what parts of them weren't covered by sleeves, anyhow. His hands looked relatively fine, a little red, but no real damage. His arms were worse, bright red and starting to develop blisters.

"What happened to you?"

"My.. phone. It exploded."

"Krei tech?"

"... Yeah."

"Bummer, but hey. You're probably.. not the first guy who's had that happen."

"Possibly."

"Anyhow, let's get inside. My aunt Cass might have questions if she sees you before she comes home."

Hiro was still high on all the adrenaline. The crushing weight of his brother's absence didn't matter so much when there was someone who needed help. Tadashi would be proud of him- wait no, stop thinking about him we don't need to go there.

"Good plan. I'll be out of your hair before she gets home."

"Then where will you go?"

"No clue, honestly. Not even really sure where I am. I...wasn't really looking at the signs when I was blindly running."

The two walked back into the cafe. Beck moved pretty quickly for a guy who had been on fire not even ten minutes ago. Well, if the burns were on his arms, his legs were probably fine, Hiro thought. Hiro was certainly not a doctor. He knew robots and just about nothing else. As they walked in, Hiro noticed Beck looking around the cafe. All the cat decor seemed to be familiar to Beck, by the looks of it.

"Whoa. I haven't seen this place before." Hiro heard Beck say to himself.

"You're at the Lucky Cat Cafe. Aunt Cass' pride and joy."

Hiro said, with the first bit of happiness in his voice since the fire. Maybe things were looking up, he thought. The more pessimistic part of his brain likened it to the stage of radiation sickness where it seems to get better before getting much worse. He was still hurting, but he had a responsibility now that was covering up just a little bit of that pain.

Beck seemed taken aback by Hiro saying his aunt's name. Hiro didn't know what that was all about, and honestly he didn't know if he wanted to ask. Beck seemed to have a whole set of problems that Hiro had absolutely no idea about. Hiro had his back turned to Beck, who was looking at the nearby calendar. It seemed to be a normal enough activity to Hiro, so he paid it no mind.

Quickly, they made their way upstairs, out of the cafe. Hiro was sure that Beck didn't want anyone seeing him in the window, if people were looking for him. He wondered why he was even doing this, how would he explain this to Aunt Cass? She would just think he's another bot fighter, but if Beck was a bot fighter, Hiro would've fought him by now. And something told him that Beck would win. He had that smart and cunning look, even if the guy was currently injured and looked more than a little mentally shaken up.

"Lemme grab the first aid kit and then we can go upstairs to my room. It'll be easier to hide from my aunt up there if she comes back early."

Beck nodded in agreement. Hiro wondered what the other boy was thinking right now. Probably damn, this hurts, but you never knew. Maybe he was planning world domination via blowing up everyone's phones and he got lit up from a test gone wrong. Unlikely, to be fair. More likely he was a kid born into a bad situation who just wasn't having a very good day today.

Hiro could understand that. He hadn't had the best run of things either. Money was always tight, his mother and father were dead, Tadashi- no, don't think about Tadashi, and he already had a criminal record at 14. Hiro went into the bathroom and started looking for the first aid kit. It had antiseptic and bandages, both of which Hiro had a vague idea of how to use. He supposed he'd wing it and hope Beck was a secret medical genius. Unlikely, if he was, he wouldn't need Hiro's help, but Hiro could hope for the best, couldn't he? Hiro was, for the first time in a very long while, out of his element.

After a few minutes of looking, he found the first aid kit. That really should be easier to find, Hiro thought, before he grabbed it and left the bathroom. Beck was still waiting. Hiro had been on the wrong end of hot equipment before (hot glue guns just didn't get along well with him), he knew burns hurt a lot, but Beck didn't seem to be showing that pain now. If Hiro had been the one on fire, he'd probably still be crying. But he didn't have the greatest pain tolerance anyhow.

"Let's hope I remember my first aid class from last year." Hiro said as they both made their way upstairs.