AN: Slightly new content.
4
"And one by one the nights between our separated cities are joined to the night that unites us."
Pablo Neruda
Z
The lights of the city fell behind us as Han took us towards the outskirts of town. The road started to get steeper, and before I knew it we were shooting up the side of the mountain just outside the city. The way he calmly and smoothly handled the corners without even acknowledging I was in the car was strangely comforting to me; he was a nice change from DK's usual goons that were constantly fluffing their own egos as they over aggressively attacked the corners because they thought it would show off their driving skills. Really, it made them sloppy; Han had yet to make a move that lacked precision, no matter what the speed.
Just as I was getting completely relaxed around him, he got to the last curve. He pulled off to the side where the road overlooked the city and killed the engine. I should have known the silence was too good to be true.
"How old are you?" He asked quietly. I raised an eyebrow. I hadn't really expected him to start with that; most people wanted to know why I was running drugs and working on cars instead of doing something feminine. Good old fashion Yakuza sexism.
"Sixteen." His stupidly attractive dark eyes started boring into the side of my head as I looked for somewhere to look besides him.
" How-?" I cut him off. I wasn't in the mood for questions, so I might as well go ahead and tell him everything.
"My dad used to street race, boost cars, run drugs, and he was the best. He retired but his brother didn't and got himself in trouble with a Yakuza loan shark over a massive gambling debt. My dad made a deal with the devil to save his sorry ass and died before he carried out his part." It all tumbled out forcefully. I sighed heavily.
"I was approached by one of Kamata's guys at the funeral and he told me about the deal. He told me he would take me to Tokyo after it was over one way or the other." I paused and swallowed. "I tried to run, because that's what I do-what I'm good at; running away from problems. I realized he'd dropped something into my coffee a little later while later."
"I was almost gone." I continued after a pause. "I made it to the house and had a bag packed when they caught up with me. I briefly remember trying to break some guy's neck, and swinging a tire iron, but next thing I know I'm face first on a car window in Tokyo with part of a sleeve in my mouth."
I was feeling the first tears starting to slip at the end. I snuck a look at Han to see if he was freaked out at my melt down. Instead he was chuckling at the image of me taking on some big mafia hit men.
"You're the second person I have unloaded all that on today. If I keep this up, everyone in Tokyo's going to know." I said as I feeble half attempted at a lighter conversation topic.
"Who was the first?"
"Twinkie" He turned to look at me with a smile.
"Shoulda known. He wanted to know all about you after that race." I felt the corners of my mouth pull up. It was then that I remembered that a low profile was the best option for someone in my situation and nosy friend might be worse than no friend. I pursed my lips to hide the fact that they held a tiny smile.
"Is he always that friendly?" I forced my face back to neutral and asked disdainfully.
"He's worse in the mornings." He reached to wipe a stray tear that hadn't fallen yet. I had to admit that it felt good to have a little bit of contact like that from another person; I hadn't voluntarily let someone that close to me the entire time I had been in Japan. There was a comfortable silence as we both took a second to process everything that had been said. A few more tears started slipping when my thoughts centered on my dad and how much I missed him.
"Why hasn't anyone tried to stop this?" The silence was broken by his whispered question.
"My family is made up of people like my dad. I was either told that they couldn't get me back, or that they were going to try to find me. Either way, I never heard from them again past the first email. I made one phone call from a pay phone when I was sure they weren't tracking me to my brother back home. He accused me of following in my dad's footsteps." Finally deciding I'd broken down enough in front of him, I wiped the last tears away with the heel of my hand and sniffed as quietly as possible.
"What's kept you from catching the first train out?" He asked in a slightly arrogant way. I felt a slight jolt of anger in my chest. It wasn't that easy. How could he not understand that?
"I don't have a choice! It's not as simple as-" I began indignantly.
"Life's simple kid. You always have a choice; you just make your's and you don't look back. You don't get anywhere in this life letting fear lead you." A glint of light caught his face as he leaned closer to me.
"There might always be a choice, but there's also always a consequence."
Z
The next day was as dark and gloomy as my mood was the night before. Big grey clouds threatened rain above my head as I threaded my way through the crowd with a grocery bags firmly tucked at my side. With it being rush hour, there was absolutely no point in driving. The cars were bumper to bumper and hadn't moved much since I'd left the store. The sidewalks were just as crowded with people in school uniforms and business suits trying to get home.
I felt stressed being in the crowds. Without meaning to, people were bumping me and getting extremely close. I wasn't really surprised when one elderly man trying to balance a cup of tea and his brief case as he answered his phone accidentally collided with my shoulder and sent my groceries flying.
I dropped to my knees and frantically started scooping the contents of my supper into the bag before they got trampled
"I'm so sorry." He exclaimed rapidly in Japanese. I could barely understand what he was saying. He bent down to help me pick it up, but another man stepped in and dismissed him with a very curt nod. He was sharply dressed in a well-tailored gray suit with a hand full of rings. When he reached to snag a wayward tomato that was about to be smushed I noticed the edge of a wave peeking out of his sleeve.
"Hey yo, shorty! You need help getting home?" A voice yelled out above the crowd. I glanced up to see Twinkie jogging over with a backpack. I wasn't sure what he was doing over here, but I knew it wasn't his section of town.
"This gentleman got it. Thank you though." I said quickly as finished stuffing everything back in the bags.
Without waiting for a response, I grabbed the Yakuza's wrist to haul myself up and left without saying another word. I peeked back once to the man wordlessly stare down Twinkie before he followed after me.
I was hoping to hide it, but I could tell by the look on his face Twinkie knew I was a hell of a lot more than one of DK's followers.
Z
"Ellie. Ellie? Ellie!" A masculine voice pulled me out of a deep sleep. When my bleary vision started to clear a little I was staring at the undercarriage of my newest win. I pushed myself out from under the car to see Han looking down at me with a grin and a bag of gummy worms in his hand. His hair was haloed out around his face in weird way because the way he leaned over me.
"Rough night?" His grin got wider. It occurred to me somewhere in my deeply tired brain that he probably thought I was hung over.
"I stole six cars then ran eight duffel bags of coke and money, and whatever else. What do you think?" I muttered sleepily as I rubbed my eyes. His grin deflated a little as he grabbed my arm and started to haul me to my feet.
"Come on. I brought lunch." He waved the bag of gummy worms under my nose and pulled me towards the couch.
"You shouldn't support my sugar addiction." I joked at him as curled up against the arm of the couch with a yawn.
The day after he saw me being stalked by a Yakuza, the ever-so-fearless Twinkie dragged me into his garage and introduced me to his crew. I had to admit, I loved Han's garage more than I did my own. It was huge, filled with drifting cars that could wipe the floor with most of the competitors in the Underground, and the people there were the closest to friends I could get in Tokyo.
I began spending so much time with them, I was pretty much known as part of Han's crew. It felt good to be around people who knew the truth and didn't throw it in my face, or try to use me to get with the gangster guys like the weird chicks. Probably a good thing considering the number of hearts they'd break if they left their usual entourage of models.
During the month that had passed since I met Twinkie, he had really grown on me. He was always a reliable source of information about other people, but when I made it clear I wanted to remain unnoticed, he tried to keep my name out of the Underground's rumor mill. He was fun, happy, and carefree; I desperately needed someone like that around me after everything that had happened in my life in such a short time.
It turned out that I also needed someone like Han. Since he had a better understanding of the situation I was in, he was nice to talk to when things weren't going well. He had also been trying to get me gain back the weight I had lost in my time in Tokyo from food poisoning, stress, and being too busy to stop and eat. This led to me spending a lot of evenings eating take out with Earl, Reiko, and Twinkie at a table in his loft. When I had the time, of course.
The number of jobs I had done for Kamata had picked up considerably after he decided I was reliable. My phone started ringing at all hours of the day as opposed to just during the night. At first I thought that if he was making me do day runs than I was getting a few of the nights off to finally get some rest, but I quickly realized that he was only going to let me get enough sleep to stay sharp behind the wheel. I also wondered if this was because he wanted more control over me because I had left his nephew's group for Han's, or if he had always had that much work planned for me.
"If you don't start eating, I'm going to finish the bag." He rattled the plastic in my direction. I grabbed a handful. "I don't get why you're so tired lately. You were up for almost three straight days last week and you were perkier than this."
"I've been having nightmares." I said as I stretched on my side over the arm of the couch. I let my fingertips brush over the cleanly swept concrete floor. "I'm always running from something. I never know what. It always ends with headlights." I started to stretch my legs and managed to knock a book off my coffee table. Han grabbed it and started flipping. I snatched the gummy worms from beside his leg while he was distracted. The man ate munchies like he had a tape worm, and I knew he wasn't joking about finishing the bag for me.
"It's entirely in Spanish." He said with amusement as he flipped until he found the most worn page book marked by a ripped out, creased car magazine article.
"I am Latina." I quipped as I chewed. It came out a little bit muffled.
"You boost cars, run drugs for the Yakuza, and read Puerto Rican poetry. You're one complicated kid." He chuckled as he ran his fingers over the abused page of my favorite poem.
"Chilean. Pablo Neruda was the poet laureate of Chili." He gave me a weird look as he started laughing harder. "Give me that." I snatched the book and sat cross legged beside him. I read it slowly and clearly in Spanish, before translating it to English the second time through.
"Exile is round is shape. A circle, a ring. Your feet go in circles you cross land. And it's not your land. Light wakes you up, and it's not your light. Night comes down, but your stars are missing. You discover brothers, but they're not of your blood." My voice trailed off at the end. I chewed on my lip as I thought of my family members in Puerto Rico and my goofy friends back in Arizona.
"You really are home sick aren't you kid?" He asked. I frowned and slowly closed the book.
"Of course. I used to read this all the time after I left Puerto Rico. It always makes me think of home." I responded.
"You've always got a home with us." He drawled casually after a long awkward silence.
"Tokyo might not be so bad then." I said quietly with a little smile. Han brushed the hair out my eyes. My face burned bright red and I felt my eyes get huge. All he did was smile.
Z
After hours of hard work after Han brought me my highly nutritious lunch, I was almost done with my newest prize- a 370 Z that was almost completely stock. I spared a glance at the clock to find that it was near midnight and groaned. I really needed some sleep.
I was tightening the last bolt when my phone rang. I snorted in annoyance and fumbled to get it from its place in my back pocket without removing my head from under the hood.
"Hello." I answered politely when I finally got the little bugger open. I was mentally cursing the person on the other end with a fiery passion for interrupting my work, but snapping at the local mob boss just wasn't a good idea.
"Miss Gonzalez. You're needed in an hour. Same place as before." A gravelly, smoker's voice demanded before line went dead with a click.
Cursing, I dropped to my knees, put my face down, and hit the front bumper with my fist. What more did he want from me? I was at the end of my rope; too exhausted to spend another night running across Japan.
The music coming from my iPod speakers skipped, signaling an email coming in off the neighbor's wifi. Grudgingly, I drug myself off the floor and grabbed my iPod off its dock. Of my three new emails, two were from friends back home. They both featured a picture of a familiar cream Monte Carlo and a red Viper races through a half built neighborhood. One even included a video that I didn't have time to watch.
What has that boy done now? I thought to myself as I checked the last email. It was from Ms. Boswell.
I don't know where you are, or why you suddenly decided to vanish, or if you're even still out there, but I need help. I just sent Sean to Tokyo with his dad because he was racing. He'll be there on the seventh. Wherever you are, keep my boy out of trouble.
I felt a strange emptiness as reread her words and then told the emails to show as unread.
Sean was like my second brother. His friendship with Brent and his love of cars made him a permanent fixture in our house. He had always been there for me and I had always been there for him, even after we moved to different states. That was until I called him after I got taken to Tokyo. The phone called ended with a lot of name calling a warning to not call again until I could stop pathologically lying to cover my cowardice. I knew he was lashing out because he was angry about Brent and dad, but that still hurt me to the core.
I had lost so much in so little time; I didn't think I could handle a conversation like that face to face. He was all I had left, and he had shut me out.
I dropped my iPod back on its stand and turned back to my now finished Z, trying to pretend that I wasn't crying.
AN: In case you didn't see my note on chapter one.
I am completely redoing Complications. I'm offering you a choice on who lives in that one: Han or Ellie. You know I can't do happy, so it has to be just one of them.