Chapter Two

Eddie leaned over the low dining table and placed a quick kiss on his landlady's cheek. Chiyo was a small woman, about his size, with sharp eyes and a stern mouth. She preferred drab cotton yukata over regular street clothes and kept her gray hair in a tight bun, cutting quite the imposing figure and consequently suffering no trouble from her tenants in the upstairs bedrooms.

"You be good," she told Eddie as he headed out the door. He simply grinned in response.

Han was waiting for him around the corner with the Silvia. The little mechanic never did figure out how the older man found his home address, but Eddie couldn't complain. It saved him a three-mile hike to work. Han had taken it upon himself to be his personal chauffeur; the veteran drifter knew a lot of sick people on the streets who would be more than willing to jump a little boy with a face as pretty as Eddie's.

He didn't do it out of sentiment—at least that's what Han told himself. He was just being an upright citizen. Albeit one who also happened to drive cars in an illegal manner and who stole from the yakuza, but Takashi barely made the bad boy cut, so it hardly mattered. And besides, two negatives make a positive, two lefts make a right, and the whole shebang. Han was basically on the side of angels.

Eddie found said man leaning against the driver side door tossing roasted peanuts into his mouth when he crossed the street.

"Need a ride?"

Burgers, being an American phenomenon, were overpriced and under seasoned in a place like Tokyo, Japan. If he wanted to be clever, Han would say they lacked the fine taste of staunch patriotism and the smoky flavor of liberty, but Eddie was too busy inhaling the non-Westernized beef and accompanying democracy-free bun to truly appreciate Han's wit. The little mechanic had even managed to get a smudge of ketchup—the red of the Grand Old Flag, Han mused—on the bridge of his glasses.

"Hey, I don't know CPR or the Heimlich maneuver or whatever, so if you choke, you're on your own."

Eddie rolled his eyes, caught sight of the ketchup smear mid-roll in a move that made his eyes cross in a way that Han tried desperately not to think of as adorable because the poor kid was already dreadfully cute enough, and swiped the condiment bit off with a dainty fingertip. All the while, the boy's small mouth never stopped working on the disappointingly heart-healthy red meat despite Han's warning.

He was hungry all of the time. That fact was one of the first things Han quickly learned about his new companion. It made him proud and concerned at the same time: proud because the only person he knew who could out eat him had a bear paw tattoo; concerned because with the size of the portions he ate, Eddie should have had the physicality of a linebacker and the ability to bench press two rhinos if he so chose.

Instead, Han wasn't even sure the little mechanic could hold his own in a fight against Reiko and her earring-pulling techniques. Eddie didn't wear earrings, thankfully, but his thin wrists would probably snap clean in half if so much as picked up a wrench one size too big.

Han lost sleep thinking about how skinny Eddie was some nights. Because he was an upright citizen, of course. No way the boy wonder ate regularly with the way t-shirts swarmed his scrawny shoulders and jeans folded over themselves around his legs when he walked. Wasn't there food in his kitchen? The boy wasn't homeless—with Earl's help, Han had tracked down where he lived, and Eddie was too clean to have lied about living on the streets. So why didn't his parents care about their son's frailty? Or was he living on his own? Maybe he couldn't afford to buy groceries. But wasn't there a minimum age to be an emancipated minor? Eddie looked twelve years old. He was way too young, right?

"Hey, how old are you?"

Two fries—not nearly salty enough like the ringing bells of equality—dangled from the little mechanic's chapped bottom lip when he looked up at Han. Three more were already in his greasy hands, unwillingly waiting to be consumed.

The boy shook his head, long bangs fluttering over a pair of furrowed brows. What?

That was another fact Han learned early on: Eddie didn't talk. At all. Not for a lack of things to say—the older man had never been sassed by a nose twitch before he met the boy—but simply because he didn't want to. And with Twinkie and his steady babbling stream of nonsense back at the garage, the comfortable silence around the little mechanic was . . . nice. Almost . . . accepting.

Anyway.

"How old are you?" Han repeated.

A protruding clavicle poked out from under the loose collar of his shirt when Eddie shrugged.

The hell does that mean?

As nice as the whole mute thing was, Han also had an equal amount of appreciation for straightforward answers. Eddie, seemingly oblivious to Han's mild irritation, continued throwing tasteless food into his mouth.

"If you don't tell me, I'm just gonna have to believe you're a twelve-year-old boy."

Han got a snort and a small spray of half-chewed potato bits for his resigned remark but no real answer.

He sighed. "Fine, have it your way, kid."

And when the older man reached down for a cholesterol-friendly fry, his fingers hit the hard porcelain face of his plate.

Damn mechanic had stolen all of his food.

At the next race, Han found the boy wonder at the edge of the crowd sitting on the hood of someone's bright yellow Altima, looking hungry and tired. Takashi wasn't racing that night, but the sheer number of runs Morimoto had done likely brought the boy to his exhausted state. Takashi probably also dragged him to the garage straight from school and worked him through dinner. The DK could be a slave driver when he felt like it.

It took Eddie several moments to register Han's figure in front of him and several more bleary blinks to acknowledge the older man with a small smile. Han simply held out his opened bag of shrimp chips.

"Long day?"

The boy nodded, sticking his child-sized hand into the bag. He must have been too tired to be properly hungry and take more than just three chips.

Han frowned. "How much longer you gonna be here?"

A shrug.

"Want me to sneak you out?"

Eddie wasn't stupid. He knew Han was a man with a lot of pull, and he knew he was just an amateur to Tokyo's underground scene. He knew Han's interest and his concern were unusual, to say the least, and he knew people watched them with a weary caution. Takashi did in particular, the nagging worry of being replaced buzzing just out of his reach, but the little mechanic also knew when it came down to the real deal, nobody could touch Han and his American friends—his family.

By some odd, in-law, twice removed extension, Eddie was now a part of that family. Han had, for whatever reason, decided to take the boy under his wing.

"What d'ya say?" The older man took a seat on the hood beside him, making sure to keep the chip bag within easy reach between them. "Wanna bounce?"

Eddie shook his head. He really, really, terribly wanted to go home and sleep until the second coming of Christ, but he wanted to keep his job more.

Han sighed and made himself comfortable. "Alright."

They sat on that obnoxiously colored hood, lazily sharing the bag of chips and watching the outskirt fringes of the crowd stumble and laugh a little too loudly. The boy's head kept dipping in sleepiness, the frequency of each dip increasing until his head was bobbing like a buoy in a lightning storm. Han had just made the decision to throw the little mechanic over his shoulder and haul him home when—

"Han!"

Flowery perfume and glittery dresses and grabby, manicured hands swarmed the pair.

"Han, we missed you!"

"Where have you been?"

The man at the center of attention chuckled and slid an arm around the closest waist. "I've been around. Missed you ladies, too."

They cooed and pawed at him some more before they noticed Eddie.

"Aww, who's this?"

"He's so cute!"

"Is this your little brother?"

"No." Han smirked at the alarm quickly growing on the boy's face. He was awake now.