Chapter 2
Lucio
‘Looking after’ Hana mostly consisted of watching her as she played this new game for her fans.
I was sitting on the sofa behind her in my blue shorts and green vest using her spare laptop to moderate the chat while she streamed. Every now and then she would look at her phone and type something out before getting back to the game.
A few minutes passed before the checked the time and looked into the camera.
“okay guys I’m gonna go take a brake but I’ll be back in a few minutes, if you wanna be entered into the giveaway then type the code into chat and the bot will randomly select one of you beautiful people”
She made an expression to show she was thinking
“The giveaway code will be...” she turned around to me and stuck out her tongue “…fucklucio, no spaces! Okay Ima be right back guyyys.” She made a kissing face to the camera before turning it off and walking towards me.
“Alright big guy you’ve got my attention” she put a hand on her hip and gave me a playful look. She was wearing a pink crop top with small blue shorts and her own brand of pink and white earphones that she never takes off. I looked at her and chuckled.
“Nice code, where’d you think of that idea?” I teased. Hana came and sat next to me on the couch and we both listened to some music for a while before I thought to ask about her phone.
“Who were you texting by the way? I thought you turned your phone off during streams?”
“Oh I was about to but then green machine started texting me and I figured I’d leave the phone on this time” she leaned into me and rested her head on my shoulder and played a game on her phone. Hana’s livestreaming made enough money to look after herself for a while so she doesn’t really have much to losing by skipping a day of school so I wasn’t worried about that. I left school earlier than everyone else because I got picked up by a local studio to be their sound guy so I didn’t really see the point in staying. Plus it gave me more time to look after everybody and have some fun.
I smiled a little bit as I thought about my life since I started work. The last few months has been some of the best (and busiest) of my life. I’d started making enough money to pay of the money my Momma borrowed so even she’s happy. I made sure not to get too happy with myself though, that can lead to being selfish.
They’ll always be someone that needs my help, I thought, and I always want to be there to look after them.
“Genji’s asked about you” Hana said, to break the silence “Do you think he… knows?”
“No, he couldn’t. It’s not like we’ve been telling anyone. What did he ask?”
“Just ‘is Lucio there looking after you?’”
“He’s probably being nice, Genji’s a good guy”
She pushed a little harder on my shoulder “It’s not Genji I’m worried about, it’s his family. I know Genji would never do anything to hurt either of us but…”
She didn’t need to explain it; we all knew who the Shimada’s were. Genji Shimada was part of the family in charge of the Japanese mob. Him or his elder brother, Hanzo Shimada would one day rule the largest crime ring in the local area. We all trusted him and we could always rely on him to be there for us but it didn’t change who his family was.
It wasn’t like Genji liked it either though, he’d come to us more than a few times about his concerns with his family. He hated them and their business but it’s not like he can just leave.
None of us can claim to understand the situation he’s in. We just need to be there for him.
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I checked my watch for the time. I thanked Hana for having my over and left to make some errands
Once I got into town I ran down to the market to pick up some veggies for tomorrow. I make the best anti-hangover soup in town and considering how Lena’s parties usually go, they’re going to need it.
The town we all live in isn’t necessarily that big and it’s only about 30 minutes’ drive away from the nearest big city. That why a lot of people live here, it’s small enough to have these little markets where we all get our food but big enough to have a large range of jobs in many different fields.
“Lucio, is that you?” I woke up from my little day dream and turned around to see Satya Vaswani. She and I used to not get along but I’m close to her boyfriend so we’ve started to get closer to her too.
“Oh hey Satya, how’ve you been?”
“Very good, thank you. Are you free for a moment? I require some assistance.” She asked.
“Sure, I’m not doing anything” I lied “what do you need?”
“I wanted to walk into town to get a gift for Lena but there’s a lot of people and I… I just can’t”
“Ah okay, I understand” Satya suffered from aspersers syndrome as well as a few other forms of autism. Sometimes she just needs help from people to deal with high stress situations. I pull some headphones out of by backpack and hand them to her. “Here, take these. They’re the noise cancelling ones I use for work. Just put them on and it all goes silent”
She took them from my hands and put them on her head. For a moment she looked confused before I turned them on. Then she simply gave me a pleasant smile. “These will do nicely, thank you Lucio”
“No problem” I said “now let’s go get Lena her present”
Genji
I woke up to Angela’s cheerful smile.
“Oh Genji, if you can’t even stay awake for a few hours then how can you hope to survive tonight?” she teased, sitting down on the couch next to me and lying on my arm.
I tried to wipe the tiredness from my eyes
“What did I do to end up in heaven?”
She gave me a confused glance “what do you mean?”
“Then why did I wake up in front of an angel?”
Angela looked at me for a moment until she realised what I’d been implying. She covered her face a little as she blushed. “Genji you’re the worst”
“Why thank you, I try my best”
She leaned up and pecked my cheek before standing up to pulling a stool over to the table next to me. She started doing some of the biology work she pulled from her backpack. Only a short moment passed before she put the pen down and groaned. “I think Mr. Wilhelm actually hates me, he sets me so much more work than the other students!”
“Well that’s because you’re so much better Angie. I’m sure you’ve done half of it in the few seconds we’ve been having this conversation, haven’t you”
She rolled her eyes at me “I’m not a miracle worker you know”
I raised an eyebrow at her “you sure about that?”
She started blushing again in an even darker shade of red once she realised what I was saying.
“Well… not always I guess” she teased.
I was about to say something else but the bell rang to signal the end of the day. I asked her whether she wanted me to stay and sit with her after school while she did her work.
“No its fine, you can go. I wouldn’t get any work done with you around anyways” she laughed
“Whatever you say m’lady” I said, tipping my invisible hat “see you at Lena’s for about 8?”
“9, I’m going to be working on this for a while”
“Cool” I stood up and made my way out of the common-room “see you there, Angie”
As I started to make my way towards where I was meeting McCree I began to wonder about my brother. He and I were supposed to be attending school together but since we moved I haven’t seen him attend a single lesson. I’ve seen him at home every now and then and every now and then at the gym but not much else. While I actively avoid my mother and father I’ve always cared for my brother. I’m more than aware my parents have been going easy on me however. They obviously want my brother take over the family business instead of me so they have no problem with me staying out of their hair, or so I think. Then again I should be thanking them; it’s why I’m able to be with a woman like Angela.
Right now she was the light of my life. Luckily her family barley speak English so they haven’t learnt who my family were yet, they’ve been judging me based on who I am, not who my family are. She and I met though one of Lena’s races early last year and we hit it off immediately. She’s one of the more popular girls in school so most of the rumours people had been hearing about the Shimadas had already made their way to her a long time before she met me, she didn’t care though. That one of the best things about Angela, she would never judge someone based on what she’s heard; she’ll always want to get to know someone before they pass judgement.
Enough day-dreaming, I thought, I need to find Jesse
He told me he’d be waiting outside the front of the school but as far as I can see the only living things here are the birds that the cleaner likes to keep on campus.
Then I hear it, that familiar rumbling of a powerful engine. The sound of rubber on tarmac slowly rolling round a corner as the engine spits out noise.
I turn around to see my best friend on a large black Harley Davison motorbike with a helmet sitting in his arms.
“Like what you see?” He asked
For a moment I was lost for words. Jesse has always told me about his Harley but I’ve never actually seen him ride it. Seeing it in person you could tell how much effort he puts into it, every piece of visible metal was clean and well-polished. I noticed he even added a few of his own personal art onto the side, but I didn’t pau it much attention, I was more focused on the bike itself.
“Jesse… I… I’m amazed!”
“That ain’t all either, Mako said because I was a friend o’ Jamie’s I could get this one custom made”
He reached behind him and pulled out another helmet. It was a silver helmet and had a green dragon design curling around one side and on the other side it was opening its maw around the visor. On the front it had the two Japanese symbols on it and underneath that a large green ‘G’ that seemed to have been carved into the metal.
“Jesse, this is… it’s amazing” I exclaimed “why doesn’t yours have any decal?”
“oh, this thin’?” he put his own helmet his head “I’m gonna do this one m’self when I think of a good design. Now put on the helmet and get on, let see what this new engine can do!”
He passed me the helmet and I put it over my head, the padding on the inside of the helmet meant it fit me perfectly. I walked behind him and got onto the bike, putting a hand on his shoulder to hold on.
“Where are we going?” I asked
“Home, Fareeha told me she wanted to see the bike before I ruin it”
“Well how are we going to get there?” I asked, with a grin
He turned around to look me in the eye “quickly, that how”
He slammed the throttle as the bike launched itself forward pulling away from the school, leaving tire marks on the road where we left.