Chapter four

The rider stood there. It was a good thing he had left his helmet on, otherwise Ichiro, the friendly and seemingly intelligent middle-aged mechanic, would have noticed how utterly taken aback he was. Ichiro continued to shake the rider's hand, eventually saying, "It's nice to meet you, Kyo. So did you do the work on this bike?"

The rider took off his helmet and immediately put on his sunglasses, merely saying "yeah" in response to Ichiro's question. As Ichiro looked up at the man for the first time, he thought he had done well in navigating the situation. The man didn't look like the scum of the earth, and he certainly didn't appear to be from the army. Thank God for that. Indeed, he looked like a handsome, albeit, rough and melancholy, young man, probably no more than 23 years old, or so Ichiro thought.

The rider kept looking at the bike through his sunglasses not knowing what to say. Ichiro had not disappointed the rider; he was as wise as he seemed. Instead of creating awkwardness that could have led to a great many bad outcomes, he had given the rider a sense of personal space and anonymity by creating an identity for him. This way he wouldn't have to lie, he could just play along.

'Stranger things have happened, besides, 'Kyo' isn't such a bad name,' was his thought on the matter. He wondered how the man had picked a name so quickly, and one that wasn't stupid or silly on top of it.

The mechanic had already returned to inspecting the bike. "It sure is a beauty. I'll tell you what," the man said, moving his hands which had been perched on his hips in order to cross his arms over his chest, "why don't you stay here and fix it up. I have tools if you need any, and you look like you could use the rest. And maybe a few bandages." It was then that Kyo realized that the man was staring at his beat-up right side, which was conveniently facing towards Ichiro. Kyo look down at his torn-up jeans. He hadn't realized in the dark, but he had gotten a little cut up and it looked like some blood and other bodily fluids (by which I mean pus and other nasty things, nor urine or anything like that...) had begun to seep through the jean material.

"I live alone in this house, and as you can see, its big enough to satisfy a large family's needs, so you can have your choice of rooms to sleep in. We have food here aplenty, too, all locally grown of course, not that there's much choice these days. You can stay as long as you like, all I ask is that you help out around the shop as long as you're here and clean up after yourself. You obviously know enough about engines to help a mechanic, and I would love the help and the company. God knows I keep this town's everything running."

Kyo took in a deep breath. He didn't not trust Ichiro, but he was suspicious. Especially while he could tell that the rest of the bloody town behind him was drilling their eyes into his back, probably anticipating the moment he would get on his bike and get the hell out of their God forsaken little town. 'Well too fucking bad for them' thought Kyo. He was just too tired, sore, and hungry. His nerves were obviously shot, too, as he had revealed to the world earlier by being startled merely by a man standing patiently in a driveway. He needed to rest. Besides, he'd seen worse threats than whatever this little town could muster up, and he was still standing after all. He picked up his medium sized black duffle bag he had tied down to the back of the ducati that was actually a second seat. Not that it was ever used.

"I'll take that as a deal then." Said Ichiro, in a surprisingly not too annoying voice. Kyo found himself wondering if this wouldn't be that miserable of an experience after all, following Ichiro through the door in the back of the garage that opened into the house.