I'm Still Here (Hiro x Reader)

Chapter Nine

| Your POV |

It only takes a week for your parents to unground you. They felt that you accepted your punishment in the best way. You never complained once. You did your extra chores and helped out in every way you could.

The night your parents told you that you were free to go, you go out to the Lucky Cat Cafe. When you step inside the restaurant, you see that it's empty, other than a figure standing at the front. She is counting money from her register. She glances up.

"I was just about to close up shop," she says, tucking a strand of her short brown hair behind her ear. "We don't have much left."

"Oh. I wasn't. . . here for coffee or anything. . ." you say awkwardly.

"Oh?" She raises her eyebrows. "Th-"

"Aunt Cass?" A voice calls out. You recognize it immediately. Hiro. "Aunt Cass, I was wondering if-" He sees you and blushes. "___."

"I assume you found who you were looking for, then," Aunt Cass says kindly. She walks to the back of the cafe, pausing to ruffle Hiro's hair. "I'm closing up shop, Hiro. You and your friend can help yourself to whatever."

"Awesome," Hiro says. He gestures for you to follow him to the counter, where he takes a couple of donuts and fills a paper cup with mini muffins. He shoves a cookie in his mouth and says, "Help yourself, ___."

"Thanks, but I'm good," You say.

"Are you sure?" A voice says from behind you. You look up and see Hiro's older brother, Tadashi. "Aunt Cass's cooking is the best around." He snatches the scone that Hiro was about to take a bite of. Hiro glares at him as he takes a huge bite off of it.

You smile. "Okay." You take a blueberry muffin.

Hiro elbows you and jerks his head towards the door. "Come on," he says with a mouthful of muffin, "I've got something to show you."

"It was nice to meet you!" She says as you walk outside. Hiro leads you to the garage, where you see a lot if equipment.

"Wow," you say, glancing around the room. "Hiro Hamada, you are the biggest nerd in the history of nerds."

"I will take that as a compliment," he says. "So, what's been up? I thought you were grounded for life or something."

"Well, I'm not. What do you want to show me? Do you have a brand new robot to fight with? Because I'm telling you now, chances of me actually coming with you are slight."

"No, that's all behind me," he says.

You raise your eyebrows. "Really? I thought that you were pretty serious about it."

"Not anymore. Tadashi took me to his nerd school and showed me around. I met all of his friends and they're not lame like I thought they'd be. They're seriously awesome. And I met Robert Callaghan!" He stares at you, his eyes wide with excitement. He frowns when you don't respond. "You don't know who that is?" You shake your head. "He's a professor. A seriously brilliant, awesome, amazing professor! So I'm going to try to get in."

"I'm impressed," you say. "How are you getting in?"

"With these," he grabs a disk off of his desk and holds it out in front of you.

You stare down at the object. It looks like a minature body of Megabot. "What is it?"

"A microbot," he explains, his eyes wide with excitement. "All you have to do is think about what you want to build, and they'll do it!"

"There's only one here," you say. "How many do you want to build?"

"Enough to fill these trashcans," he says tiredly, pointing to the line of blue bins against the wall. He nods to himself. "I have a lot of work to do."

"Yeah," you say, "it's a good thing I'm here, then, huh?"

Hiro gives you another grin and says, "Yeah. I'll show you how you can help."