Author's Notes, I have an inconsistent update time but rest assured I will update this story when I can.

Fun fact, learning a new language is a major pain in the neck. Especially if you have no foundation to learn the language and you have nothing but a dictionary to help you for the most part. As such, Markus spent the better part of the next nine weeks learning everything he can to speak Japanese and practiced speaking with the fellow homeless until they stated his Japanese was passable enough, but stated he was still likely to run into issues further on. Which mean for Markus, he had to devote even more time to learning the language.

Also, he learned the name of the sort of leader of these fine homeless folks he's been hanging out with, a guy by the name of Kira, who was apparently a big-time company worker of some kind until his company suffered a scandal and he was picked as the scapegoat. Kira was upset about it, especially since his wife left him, but he made peace with it later; still, Markus made a note about the company that Kira got fired from for future references.

But right now, Markus was not only trying to learn Japanese, but also deal with the fact that he has made no actual progress on finding a way home at all. For some reason, when he went to check on his Teleport Gun after everyone else was asleep, to his absolute dismay, the Teleport Gun did not survive the initial travel as the insides were basically melted. Meaning even if the Teleport Gun could be used to get him back home, that was a moot point since it was destroyed for all intents and purposes.

That fact alone nearly caused Markus to have a Panic Attack as he felt his heart rate speeding up and noises started to fade out from his ears as he was forced to comprehend this disaster. Boone, Veronica, Cass, Raul, Lily, Arcade, Ed-E, Rex, and countless other friends and acquaintances he made, are all but cut off from him…he was never going back home ever again. Markus did not hesitate to admit, he almost came close to breaking down and bawling his eyes out right then and there.

But he didn't, sad fact was that crying changed literally nothing about his situation, he had to adapt as best as he could and he couldn't afford to show any signs of weakness as he was right now. Especially since he was still homeless and had nothing but what he brought with him when he used that Teleport Gun, and aside from a Med Kit, which contained useful medicine and drugs like Mentats, which he used to boost his understanding of Japanese faster, he didn't have anything close to a working ID of any kind. Which he learned from Kira, was deadly important as not only is everything digital these days, and wasn't that a kick to the groin, an ID is needed just to get out of here or find a job of some kind.

Markus shook his head, all of that info was important but ultimately not relevant at the moment, especially since he still had a lot to learn about this world and the current time. And already he was in for a shock when he learned instead of being somewhere else in the late 2200s, he was somehow in the early 2010s. Already he could tell there was a number of things that didn't line up with his world, such as the lack of cold fusion tech that was commercially available along with the fact that people here use something called touch screen and something called smart phones.

Markus didn't get how advanced this world was until he decided to go dumpster diving and found an abandoned extremely advanced looking computer of some kind, and he nearly had a heart attack when he learned it was called a laptop and this was extremely common. Just breaking the damn thing apart to figure out the components was already a challenge as everything seemed flawlessly integrated and sealed together. It took all of his Science and Repair Skills to figure out how the thing worked and how it operated, it also provided some a needed distraction when he learned he couldn't go back home again.

Then he got out of his thoughts when Kira spoke up and said his name, turning his attention to the older Japanese gentleman. "Hey Markus, we got some more scavenging to do." Kira called out to him. "We need your tech expertise to figure out if any of the junk we scavenge can be salvaged in some way and then sell those bits to pawn shops for money." Kira said as he explained to him what they were doing as Markus nodded.

"Got it Boss, I will take a look see at the junk we can get." He said as Kira nodded and he then walked off to meet up with other willing Homeless to travel. Markus when he first got here, was greeted with open arms after a rough intro, but now that he could converse to some extent, he became part of the group. And when Kira learned that Markus had tech expertise, and he saw him jury rigged an old boombox radio of some kind with scrap and junk, that's when Kira believed Markus is of immense value to him and the others.

Markus quickly got up and grabbed a trench coat of some kind he picked up from the local good will store. Markus wouldn't lie, wearing only some basic clothes made him feel naked, but his only other attire was his Courier Duster and that stood out way too much and the symbol on the back would be an easy identifying target on him. But as usual, compromises have to be made, and he was lucky enough to get a solid looking coat to wear at the very least.

Anyways…back to what needed to be done, which was going scavenging for useful junk, Kira was already ready to go with gloves on in case he needs to deal with some nasty stuff as well as four others. While it was possible to bring more people into scavenging, it's not practical as there were other matters that needed to be dealt with, especially if you want your own private community of Homeless to endure. Especially if you didn't want said community of sorts to degrade into nothing but anarchy.

You need to think about logistics in terms of food, water, junk, or any kind of necessary resources to have, once you have shelter, you need the basic essentials to surviving so food and water was need. After that's done, you could, in theory, declare this all to be needed to survive as a community, but when aggression starts to rise or tensions build up, you need a way to safely deal with those issues. Hence why you need creature comforts and entertainment, like books, magazines, or anything that can be used to keep people calm or let them deal with their built-up tension or aggression in more productive way.

Anyways…Markus started following Kira and the others to the trash dump where people tend to throw out stuff that are broken, useless, or too old for them to care. But to people like Markus and Kira, they were nothing but diamonds in the rough. Once they got to the dump Kira took attention and turned to their group. "Alright everyone, you know what to, look at any piece of useful or still working tech, if you find anything useful like clothes, rags, recently expired food, and so on, pack it up. If you find anything tech related that may be functional or can be repaired if given a few makeshift repairs, then give it to Markus." Kira said as all of them nodded and started trash diving.

Markus started his own search for hidden goodies among the trash, specifically he wanted to learn more about the technology of this world. While it was certainly a given that the weapon's technology of his world is more advanced, what with Plasma, Laser, Gauss, and other type of weapons that were available. He can also see that the world he was in is also advanced in many other ways besides killing, case in point, the laptop that he picked up earlier and was figuring out. And that was apparently an older model of laptop and dubbed too blocky and bulky to be carried around.

Hell, if he was lucky enough, he could possibly pick up some discarded models of those smart phones he heard so much about. Those things really caught his interest as apparently, they were a min-computer, phone, game station, camera, flashlight, and had a whole bunch of other functions built in. He never even heard of a Pipboy that could play games…well that wasn't exactly true as he heard mentions of a highly advanced Pipboy known as the Pipboy 4000 existed somewhere and is apparently the most advanced model of Pipboy created pre-war.

Still, Markus continued his dumpster diving and he found a collection of useful junk that he could work with to either restore or jury-rig something to restore it. Like for example, he found a blender, toaster, some flashlights, a handheld radio, an RC toy car, a camera, and a couple of old outdated cellphones. Not exactly what he was looking for, but the cellphones certainly fit with exactly what he was trying to understand, and besides the cellphones were also a type of technology he has never seen before, as well as being the predecessor to the smart phones that he wanted to get his hands on.

Markus nodded as he could fit what he could reasonably and still have room in his bag for extra stuff turned to the others, and they were able to find some useful junk as well. Several of them found kitchen cooking tools, like a still functional can opener that was only a little bit rusty, but could be cleaned up easily. Another item that they found was an old school style film projector that was thrown out because it was outdated or something, but Kira knew that there were apparently a lot of vintage techies that would love to study that kind of stuff. And Kira himself found a bunch of old alarm clocks, which were becoming obsolete due to phones apparently having alarm functions.

"Alright then!" Kira said happily as they looked at their salvage. "Seems we got a good haul today, excellent work everyone! We'll return back to our place and let Markus take a look at whatever fixable things we got and sell them off at the local pawn shop!" Kira declared as everyone nodded and then headed back to their place.

Markus, as he walked back to his new home for the time being thought about his current standing and he couldn't help but frown thoughtfully. While he did know the basics of cooking as everyone back home had to be self sufficient to a degree, the problem was that, his wilderness cooking skills came from an actual wilderness filled to the brim with creatures and animals. Being in a more civilized location meant that there was no game to hunt down to eat or cook, add in the fact he didn't know how to cook certain animals and the likes, meant he could accidentally poison someone by complete accident.

Markus felt so lost in this new world, there was so much that he had to learn and unlearn so much of this world's laws and his own habits. Apparently, Japan had a very strict gun control law, and walking around armed was considered an offense, which meant that openly carrying any kind of gun was going to get him in trouble. And that's not even getting into the whole issue about the ID, Passport, Birth Certificate, Social Security, etc. that Markus clearly had no idea on what it meant or how it worked at all.

Markus felt his mind was going to explode from the sheer number of details and laws he had to look up and understand how they worked. Which also had the side effect of showcasing how difficult it was to live in a civilized world, which might also explain why they nuked everything when he thought about it. Of course, that was just his sheer annoyance at the situation he found himself exploding, because fuuuuuccccccck. He had none of his hard hitting and favorite weapons to bring about and weapon's maintenance was not only therapeutic but also kept him feeling secured.

He almost wanted to shed tears at the loss of his vast arsenal of weapons, his miniguns, assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles, submachine guns, plasma guns, laser guns, rocket launchers, gauss guns, and more; all of it now unavailable to him save for what he had on his person. Shaking his head of his weaponless status at the moment, Markus soon realized that they were almost back at the hideout. "Welcome back everyone!" One of the other Homeless folks greeted cheerfully. "We made a nice haul for food, we got thrown out fast food, some expired lunchboxes, stale bread, and even some water bottles that we refilled with water again!" The Homeless "Cook" said to the happy group.

"Excellent work!" Kira said happily. "We brought back a nice amount of salvage with us as well, should be enough to get us some nice change and spare money for ourselves." Kira explained as the group all joined up and soon Markus was given access to the salvage and immediately started putting his mind to work. "You know the drill, leaving anything remotely tech related in Markus's care." Kira said as the group nodded and deposited the tech related stuff by Markus's temporary workbench.

"Thanks Kira, I will turn these junks into working components or get ready to be sold as soon as possible." Markus called out as Kira nodded and dropped a lunch box by his workbench as he started taking apart the film projector and started working on figuring out what was wrong with it. As much as Markus may have to complain about his new lot in life as he was homeless, weaponless, moneyless, best friendless, and more; but he was certainly not looking poor when it came to finding good people. Such a thought put a smile on Markus's face as he swore to pay back the debt that he owed these people and spent the rest of the day working away and eating until he decided to sleep again.

The very next day when Markus woke up, he woke up earlier than normal which was around eight for him on a daily basis but for some reason he woke up at seven today. He didn't know why he woke up an hour earlier than normal, considering the amount of time he put into last night into fixing salvageable and sellable goods. He shrugged, as he was already awake, he might as well start the day and grabbed some breakfast from the leftover from last night and he looked at himself in the mirror and couldn't help but sigh.

Being Homeless person for over a month does hell on one's ability to keep clean, thank goodness there were such things as public restrooms, but he looked worse than he did when he first arrived. He also had started to grow a beard on his person since he did not have a razor on his person, and razors that were thrown out were not safe to use or they were electronic these days. Electric razors, what a novel concept to him now that he thought about it.

Fuck, now he was thinking about hygiene again…he also probably needed some fresh air at this point as well now that he thought about it. Maybe he should go out for a walk, wouldn't do him any harm to get some fresh non sewer smelling air and perhaps see the sights in more properly now that he wasn't running on survival mode. He couldn't keep it up together this whole time and he was also pretty sure it was slowly tearing into his mind as well.

With his decision made, Markus left badly written Japanese on a piece of carboard scrap next to where the others were sleeping, specifically Kira, so they knew where he would be going. After trying to make himself look as presentable as possible, even if his clothes smelt like crap, he at least looked kind of nice…maybe?

Taking a look at himself, Markus saw just how dirty his current outfit was and aside from the trench coat, which clashed with the rest of his outfit but was useful in carrying stuff. He looked like a fashion disaster, and with practical ease, Markus headed for the big box of clothes they picked up from charity, donations, or were thrown out for one reason or another. Digging through the clothes, he had to dig through some ill-fitting clothes and more clothes for the opposite gender and started picking up clothes and bits that looked like it could suit him.

Markus picked up an outfit composed of a pair of dark jeans, a belt, a black shirt, a dark windbreaker jacket of some kind, a pair of boots and his lucky shades. Looking far more presentable now, Markus nodded at himself and quickly went up top to the surface where he soon saw the place through his filtered shades taking in the sight of the city now fully and truly. And not for the first time in his life, Markus was left in awe as he walked down the streets of Tokyo taking in the sights of this city.

Markus took in the sights of just how clean and plentiful everything seems to be, with how peaceful the place looks that nobody walks around armed. There were also plenty of vehicles that were actually being used and not being left around like garbage and seeing moving vehicles in such numbers were actually humbling knowing now this is was a taste of how much the Great War set back humanity as a while, at least in America. He honestly did not know how other countries faired in the aftermath of the Great War, and considering the fact that it was between the United States of America against the People's Republic of China, there surely had to be several other nations doing well on their own.

As Markus continued to walk and contemplate his world's history, he heard someone calling out to him. "Ah mister! Please wait!" It as a female voice, that much was for sure, and normally while he would be cautious about listening to a stranger, the voice was familiar and in Chinese, so he turned to see the young teenage girl that he helped over a month ago when he first arrived.

"Ah, you're that girl I helped out a while ago." Markus said as he swapped to Chinese as the girl looked happy. "Well, it's nice to see you're doing well, surprised you called out to me, all things considered." He said with a light chuckle and a small smile on his face. Well this wasn't the second time he spotted her, after he got settled in, he decided to check up on the girl and saw trouble heading her way, so he secretly pushed that trouble back before making himself scarce.

"Well. I did want to thank you for helping me out." The girl replied back to him as she finally stopped before him. "That and my father wanted to thank you as well." She said as Markus blinked in surprise. "Those thugs were bothering not just me but a lot of people where I'm from because we're Chinese Immigrants and they liked picking on us and the police doesn't help us out since we're foreigners." She explained as she deflated a bit at the end.

Markus frowned as he heard that bit. "That's horrible, you shouldn't be treated poorly just because you're not local." Markus replied as the girl nodded sadly a bit at that. He had seen far too many bad things happen between people that come from different places, case in point, the tension between the NCR and Kings escalated to a shootout that costed the Kings some members and caused the NCR's Missionary Aid to Freeside to die. Damn Pacer for screwing things up over something as stupid as pride, the Followers wouldn't have as much trouble had he not beaten up the NCR Diplomat sent to talk to them.

"It is what it is." The girl shrugged before she remembered something as she clapped her hands together. "Ah that's right! I almost forgot, but we never really introduced ourselves to each other." She said with a more pleasant smile on her face as she then placed a hand over her chest as she made her intro. "My name is Chang Kai-Ming, or Kai-Ming Chang in Western order." Kai-Ming introduced herself.

"Neat name you got there, lady." Markus nodded as Kai-Ming looked pleased. "Name's Markus, Markus Redgrave." He said as he offered a hand to her and she eagerly shook it. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you supposed to be in school or on you way to school right about now?" He asked curiously, as one thing he did learn from Kira about Japan is that students go to school about six out of seven days a week unlike more western schools. Markus's experience with pre-war school was what he went through in that one experiment in the Big Empty, and he couldn't help but shudder at such an odious concept.

Kai-Ming shook her head. "No, today's the only day of the week that we don't go to school, I decided to go out for an early morning walk and then found you." Kai-Ming said before she smiled. "Now that I've found you, I can bring to the Chinese District, and have you meet my father!" She said excitedly. "He wanted to meet you." She said with a pleading look on her face.

Markus blinked, on one hand, Kai-Ming is a complete stranger and he didn't have any other reason to say yes to her. But on the other hand, he never really had any reason to say no to her either. Add in the fact that he did do her a solid, meant that he can reasonably assume that she did want to give him gratitude meant that she wasn't exactly trying to screw him over. "…You know what? I got nothing better to do I suppose, so might as well go." Markus said to Kai-Ming's joy at hearing that.

"Great! Follow me!" Kai-Ming said cheerfully as she dragged Markus alone with her to what is known as the Chinese District in Tokyo, one of many as Kai-Ming showed the less sophisticated looking place to Markus as the entered a Chinese themed neighborhood of sorts. It wasn't as clean, the streets were louder, more crowded, and there was plenty of food stalls all around advertising their goods.

All things considered, it felt pretty close to home, at least in Freeside in that regard, so this place actually set him at ease. Was certainly nicer than the sewers for sure, but at the same time it was still cleaner and felt far livelier still. Markus couldn't help but develop a small grin on his face as he passed by many people and many owners trying to sell him things, this place was extremely lively all things considered and Kai-Ming could tell that he was enjoying the district, judging from the knowing smile that she sent him.

"You like this place, don't you?" Kai-Ming said to Markus with a smile on her face.

"This is a pretty nice place." Markus admitted. "I never went to places like these before, I'm more what you call off the beaten path in that context." Markus said as he mixed in truth with his lies.

"Ah so you're more of a country type of guy then?" Kai-Ming said as Markus paused at that train of thought and looked contemplative about it before he spoke up again.

"I suppose you can consider to be that kind of guy." Markus replied as Kai-Ming hummed thoughtfully at that. "A question though." Markus spoke up as Kai-Ming paused and turned to him with a tilt on her head. "As far as I'm aware, most Chinese people or immigrants aren't exactly big on opening to westerners like myself due to how alien we are." He commented as Kai-Ming paused and saw where he was going with this.

Why did you choose to reach out to find me again?

Kai-Ming looked contemplative for a moment before she spoke up and she was bright and bubbly again. "Because you helped me out even though you had no reason to." She said as Markus blinked as Kai-Ming continued. "Contrary to what you may think about me or not, I am fully aware that being an immigrant is difficult, especially for a Chinese immigrant in a place like Japan, that's not well known for being open to foreigners to some extent." She said as she walked with Markus following after her and then she stopped and turned to Markus. "But then there was you." She said to Markus.

"There was me?" Markus parroted back in confusion as Kai-Ming giggled.

"Being an Immigrant with indifferent and sometimes hostile people means you have to get sharper if you want to avoid trouble." Kai-Ming explained. "As such, I can tell that you were in your state of trouble and issues as well. And being a westerner, I can imagine you being British or American, but hearing your accent when you spoke to me in Chinese made your American accent stand out, and I am well aware that neither of our respective countries are on the best of terms right now or ever had." She explained as Markus nodded.

"Which leads to more questions still." Markus said as Kai-Ming smiled.

"It's because you had nothing to gain, and you were dealing with troubles of your own, that you still elected to help me that I am grateful." Kai-Ming said kindly. "You aided me when many would not, and even more than that, you still saved me and walked off without a reward of some kind, do you know how rare it is for that to happen? Especially with the way most people are?" Kai-Ming pointed out to Markus.

"Considering what you started off with, I imagine the number is depressingly far less than either of us would like, correct?" Markus said dryly as Kai-Ming nodded at that.

"Indeed, and father has mentioned that he wanted to see you, that and he's actually aware of your other activities in keeping an eye out on our community." Kai-Ming nodded as Markus blinked in actual surprise at that. While he did needed time to adapt, there were times that he did keep an eye out on the Chinese Community, it was during one of his rare times in which he needed some personal moments, and keeping an eye out on the locals and making sure nothing too bad happened to them did well for his mind and his need to do something.

"Guess I shouldn't be too surprised, let's meet your old man then." Markus said as Kai-Ming nodded and led Markus through a district until they stopped at a somewhat seedy fancy looking Chinse Restaurant and entered it. And Markus couldn't help but note how drastically different the inside of the place looked from the outside. He felt like he was entering the White Gloves' territory again. Though he didn't eat anything in there after he had learned that they had once engaged in cannibalism and one of their members tried to bring back the old ways of eating human meat.

"Father, I brought him in." Kai-Ming said as an older Chinese man clad in a cook's attire and glasses came out of the kitchen wiping his hands a rag before he tossed it to the side as Kai-Ming went to embrace her father.

"Excellent work Kai-Ming." The man's stronger Chinese accent came out. "You did what I ask and without getting yourself into danger, now go up to your room, your breakfast is ready." He said kindly to Kai-Ming as she nodded and went a different direction upstairs as Markus was left with him as his only contact. "So, you must be the man that aided my daughter, truly am grateful for that." The Chinese man said gratefully. "Ah, but where are my manners, my name is Chang Wu-Fei, or Wu-Fei Chang in the western way." Wu-Fei introduced himself.

"Nice to meet you, name's Markus Redgrave." Markus introduced himself as he and Wu-Fei shook hands and soon Wu-Fei treated Markus to rice crackers and tea, which Markus graciously accept.

"I imagine you are quite curious about why I wanted to meet you." Wu-Fei started off more seriously. "Imagine my surprise when my daughter was being harassed by a bunch of no good racist Japanese delinquents and then a stranger comes out of nowhere aiding her and leaves without demanding anything." Wu-Fei said. "Actions like that are not common for one reason or another, especially since we are not exactly overflowing with money as you can tell from the state of our neighborhood." Wu-Fei pointed out as Markus nodded.

"I can understand that." Markus accepted. "It would be a bit odd if all of that happened and I didn't demand anything. This is a world where everyone wants something, and all men have their price, albeit the price varies." Markus said as Wu-Fei nodded.

"It is for that reason alone I wanted to keep an eye on you, we Chinese immigrants have few friends and fewer allies willing to stand up for us, so someone like you is unique." Wu-Fei said. "Imagine to my surprise that apparently, you live with Homeless people of all things and you simply sell repurposed all tech goods for money and resources from what I heard from one of the local pawn shop's assistants." He said to him.

Markus shrugged at that. "Got to eat somehow, and you be surprised at what people throw out in the garbage of all things." He said to Wu-Fei who was looking rather contemplative at that.

"And yet, even that's suspect to some extent, the level of knowledge you displayed from fixing and making those electronics functional again takes some skills of some note here, especially if that someone was a foreigner, considering the vast majority of foreigners here are either tourists or businessmen of some kind, so you being a handyman is a real surprise." Wu-Fei said to him. "Even more surprising is that I have not heard of any missing person's report going by your description or anything." Wu-Fei pointed out now as he got to the meat of the issue. "As such, the question is; who are you, Markus?" Wu-Fei asked.

Markus was silent for a moment as he thought about what he would respond with and decided to mix in truth with his lies as he simply sighed and pushed up his hair covering his forehead and Wu-Fei gasped in shock at the sight of two bullet scars on his forehead. "In truth Wu-Fei? I have no idea or no clue as to who I am." Markus admitted. "When I woke up, I had lost all of my memories of who I was and I didn't have any form of ID whatsoever, and even worse is that most of my possessions are gone, but what I have does not tell me anything." He started off as he told his cover story to Wu-Fei.

The best lies were the ones that mixed in truth, Markus honestly didn't know his real name, Markus Redgrave was a name he was given, one by Marcus the Super Mutant, with his own name being his namesake, and Redgrave coming from the fact that every foe he fought tends to end up a bloody mess in a grave. Markus then told Wu-Fei about his lack of knowledge and how he woke up in Tokyo without any memories desperately trying to figure out what happened to him, but for some reason he could understand and speak Chinese. And eventually after trying hard, he couldn't figure out who he was and decided to lay low among Homeless people.

Wu-Fei was silent as he stared at Markus with wide eyes. "I must admit, your tale is a very odd one." He said as Markus nodded reluctantly. "If it were up to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, they would no doubt arrest you and throw away the keys, they are not that forgiving or kind to foreigners that stand out." Wu-Fei said. "But it does explain why you are living with Homeless people, and why you are avoiding the police as well, in a strange twist of fate, you are a man hopelessly cast adrift with no recourse save for those you have found your own way with as I am understood."

"…I suppose you could say that." Markus said reluctantly. "I know that my situation isn't good right now, especially since I have nothing going for me, but I can only do what I can in my situation." Markus said as he sighed, meeting Kira and the others was a blessing, that much he can accept. But he didn't want to live like a squalor the entire time here either…if he had to live his life stuck in another world then maybe some creature comforts would be nice.

Wu-Fei nodded. "Indeed, your situation is hardly wonderful in the least, but what if there's a chance for you to get something better?" Wu-Fei asked as Markus caught onto that.

"What do you mean?" Markus questioned.

"Well correct me if I'm wrong but you are good at working with technology, and you also have several other skillsets, correct?" Wu-Fei asked as Markus nodded at that.

"I am good with mechanical work, medical work, economics, wilderness survival, basic chemistry, and a number of other skills." Markus replied as Wu-Fei looked surprised at that. "Don't know how I know that, but I imagine some things are basic pure muscle memories, while others I had to figure out while living with my fellows." Markus said.

"Impressive." Wu-Fei admitted. "And this leads to my next question, how do you feel about becoming Chinatown's handyman?" Wu-Fei asked as Markus blinked. "We are a tight knit community here, and I know someone who can get you a room, no questions asked, and we can get you settled in and exchange for your room and other living essentials, you simply have to do troubleshooting work for our home." Wu-Fei said.

"…Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't I a total stranger?" Markus asked.

"Yes."

"One whom you barely know anything about aside from being a homeless guy who aided your daughter?"

"Correct."

"As such, don't you have any worries about me trying to do anything malicious to you or your home?" Markus questioned.

"Perhaps." Wu-Fei admitted. "But I don't know why but…you do not strike as an intentionally malicious person Markus." Wu-Fei said softly. "Perhaps I am too optimistic hoping that nothing malicious will happen. But there's a great deal of many tragedies that I have seen that challenges that belief." Wu-Fei said as he looked far older than he does and his eyes gained a haunted look that Markus could recognize. "Perhaps it is foolish, but I just want trying to be optimistic, just this one time…this one time I help someone out and I want to help you out for helping my daughter out. That and I do genuinely believe that your skillset can benefit our neighborhood, Markus." Wu-Fei said.

"Wu-Fei." Markus muttered softly.

"We do not have many friends outside of our community, and many more people that will try to take advantage of us." Wu-Fei said. "But even so…I still want to believe in the possibility of the good will in people, and I want your help, Markus." Wu-Fei said.

At first there was nothing but silence, understandable since Wu-Fei made a pretty big offer and it's not one to be taken lightly. Especially since there are stipulations and various other issues to work out. But for Markus, life isn't life for him without a little risk here and there, but before he can do that though, there was some issues that had to be taken care of.

"…Before I accept, I need to tell the old gang that I'm with about what's going on." Markus said after thinking about it as Wu-Fei smiled and nodded as he offered a hand to Markus and he shook it back. "I hope we do not regret this in the future ahead." Markus said.

"The future is unknown, and there is no fate but what we choose to make." Wu-Fei said knowingly. "Welcome to Chinatown Markus." Wu-Fei said kindly.