The life of a speed queen centered around, well, speed. However, after a long, tiring day of making things go faster, and test-driving her babies to perfect speeds, the queen just likes relaxing at her apartment, wolfing down popcorn and watching action movies. It's like a system for her; speed up, slow down. Uptight, unwind.

But on this particular Saturday evening, while she was just starting the new Bond movie, a handful of buttered popcorn on the way to her mouth, someone pounded on her door, making her jump. Her eyes sought her wall clock; it was twelve midnight. What was anyone doing, knocking on her door? She debated with herself; there was that slight chance that whoever was at the door was a serial killer. Then again, if anyone wanted to kill her, she'd probably be dead by now.

She had to stop watching horror movies. Especially the ones that Honey suggested.

The pounding intensified. "GoGo, please open up!" Her eyes widened; what the hell was Tadashi doing here at this hour?

No longer hesitating, she paused the film and walked to the door of her apartment, expecting Tadashi to be alone... And was surprised to see not only him standing in the hallway, but his younger brother, and Fred and Wasabi as well. "What's going on?" she asked suspiciously, crossing her arms over her chest.

"We didn't know he couldn't hold his liquor!" Wasabi blurted out.

GoGo narrowed her eyes. "Did you get Tadashi drunk? What were you guys doing?"

After a few seconds, Fred, Wasabi and Tadashi burst out laughing. "No, Tadashi's fine. Really. It's the younger brother we were talking about," Fred said easily.

It was then that GoGo realized two things. One, that Hiro had a dazed, almost creepy sort of grin on his face, and that two, his cheeks (and basically his entire face) were a bit more red than the other three in front of her."Oh, no."

"Guysssssss, I'm not drunk!" Hiro hiccuped, and pushed GoGo aside to run into her apartment. "Heyyyy, when did we get a TV in the lab? Look guys, it's Sylvester Stallone!" he gestured wildly at the screen, where Daniel Craig stared at them broodingly.

The boys snickered, but immediately shut up when GoGo glared. "One minute. Explain."

Tadashi stepped forward. "We had a guys night out- Aunt Cass knew, okay?" He faltered when GoGo continued to stare him down. "Okay, okay, we were supposed to be watching movies. But then Fred brought out beer. And I didn't want to drink, I mean okay, fine, I did, and Hiro said no, but uhm... Once we got him to drink, he practically forgot I existed, and everyone started drinking, and well, we didn't realize that Hiro was a-"

"Guys, I have toes!" Hiro laughed, looking at his feet.

"Lightweight?" GoGo finished Tadashi's sentence, now only slightly amused. Slightly.

"Look, GoGo, if we bring him home now in that state, Aunt Cass is going to castrate us!" Wasabi begged.

"What do you want me to do, and what's in it for me?" she deadpanned, only mildly concerned by the crashing noises behind her.

"Babysit him. Until he's like. Back to normal," Tadashi said quickly. "There's no way I can sneak him past Aunt Cass like that."

"I can't keep him because my parents have relatives over," Wasabi winced. "Honey Lemon's at that chemistry convention for the weekend."

"And there are a lot of breakable things at mine." Everyone looked at Fred, who shrugged. "My dad's pretty cool. Just don't break his action figures."

"Can't you just, I don't know, say that only the three of you were drinking, while you all got Hiro some juice?" she suggested dryly.

"Like she'd believe that!" Tadashi squawked out. "She'd have everyone's head if she knew I'd been in the same room as an alcoholic beverage!"

As if sensing that their friend wasn't going to budge, the three immediately pressed their hands together in prayer, and looked at her desperately. "Pleeeeeeease?"

"All right, all right, fine. I expect food offerings at my lab table for two whole weeks." GoGo sighed, wondering what she was getting herself into.

"Yaaay! Thank you, GoGo!" Tadashi cheered, and saluted the speed queen. "We owe you one."

"You got that right," she muttered. "What are you going to tell Aunt Cass anyway, that you lost him somewhere?"

Fred and Tadashi shrugged. "We'll think of something."

"How encouraging," she sighed. "Good night, guys."

They waved enthusiastically, and left unceremoniously. After she closed the door behind them, she turned around and nearly went into cardiac arrest when she found Hiro standing right behind her. "What the hell?" she growled, rubbing her chest.

"This isn't the lab, this is your apartment!" he stated happily, and followed her to the couch.

"Yeah, yeah," she sighed, and sat back down. He's like a puppy! "Wanna watch the new Bond movie with me? I'm only twenty minutes in."

He said nothing, and merely sat down right next to her, hiccuping. After a few awkward seconds, she scooted away from him. "So, how much did you drink?" she asked while searching for the remote.

"I lost count at one," he admitted, and smiled at her. "You're really pretty."

She blushed, and decided to ignore his last statement. "You're such a lightweight," she snorted, and finally found the remote wedged in between two cushions. "You need water, or anything?" she asked.

"Didn't you hear me? I said that you're really pretty, Leiko."

"Way to boost a girl's self esteem, Hamada," she muttered, but couldn't help but smile. "Thanks, though."

The movie pushed onwards, but as far as GoGo was concerned, there wasn't even a movie playing. Never mind the fact that Hiro was talkative even while he was sober; this was talkative on a whole other level. He was just yapping on and on about how neat her apartment was and how cool 'Sylvester Stallone' looked and is that a new mirror and you really should keep your hair long, GoGo and I want to watch something else and why are you stopping the movie and Can we watch something with Harrison Ford?

GoGo bid her peaceful evening good-bye.

She had just about given up on understanding the entire movie (she liked watching the action scenes, anyway) when he suddenly fell silent. She looked at him from the corner of her eyes, and saw him quietly studying a picture of her when she was five-or-something. "How did you get- oh, never mind," she muttered, and went back to her film.

"You look happy here."

She rose her eyebrows, and focused on the picture he was holding out to her. She did look happy; ridiculously happy for a five year old dressed in a yellow kimono. "I'm like, five there, Hamada. Of course I look happy."

He nodded, satisfied with her answer. He was quiet again, and GoGo allowed herself to catch up with the movie. She was just finally allowing herself to relax again, not caring what the Hamada next to her was doing, when the most pungent smell knocked her off course. What was that infernal smell? GoGo whirled her head to the left, and saw Hiro opening a bottle of lemon yellow nail polish, one hand extending the brush down to her unmanicured nails. "What are you doing?" she hissed.

"Painting your nails," he said innocently, looking at her with a happy expression on his face. "This color reminds me of you."

"What - Don't - How -" GoGo sighed, and gave up. "How does-" she eyed the bottle, and read the obnoxious, curly script that basically screamed the color at you. "Good Morning, Sunshine Yellow remind you of me?"

He put the brush back in the nail polish bottle, and looked thoughtfully at it. "It's a fun, happy color. It doesn't seem like it, but you're a fun person. Not as fun or happy as Honey Lemon, though, because you keep it all bottled inside," he said calmly. "You crave the fun. Why else would you be a speed queen?"

It took GoGo a few moments to remember that Hiro was drunk, and she couldn't help it - she laughed. Mainly because what he told her was a bit true, but also because... Well, she couldn't help but feel a bit touched by his (hopefully) true, yet drunken, ramblings.

There was a far-off look in his gaze as he smiled faintly at her, and she gave him a suspicious look. "What's with the face?"

He tilted his head to the side, and reached a hand out to poke her cheek. "All I ever wanted to do was to make you smile like that." And then, as if nothing else had happened, he unscrewed the cap off of the nail polish bottle, and, taking advantage of her sudden stillness, continued painting her nails Good Morning, Sunshine Yellow.

She decided to let him be, and kept her left hand motionless while she finally, finally got to pay attention to her movie again. Well... That was the original plan anyway.

His words echoed in her brain, a loud, sonorous boom that still shocked her senseless and sent butterflies into her stomach. All I ever wanted to do was to make you smile like that. What did he mean by that? It wasn't like her at all to fret over things like this - like boys, but she couldn't help it...

Especially since she was practically palpitating at the thought of what he possibly could have meant by that statement.

"I'm done with the left hand!" he exclaimed loudly, and she jumped, nearly upsetting the bottle of polish on the couch. GoGo held up the hand to inspect it, and he had surprisingly done a good job - for a boy. Her eyes narrowed as she remembered how Aunt Cass usually had such pretty colored nails... "Can I do the right one, please?"

GoGo pretended to think about it for a while; in reality, she was trying to remember if she had any nail polish remover. "All right. Fine."

He gave her such a genuinely happy, boyish smile, that she very nearly considered to ask him to do her toes, as well. Just not in Good Morning, Sunshine Yellow.

Hiro stood up and clumsily made his way to the other side of the couch, where he sat down next to her. "It's easier if you put your hand here," he said plainly, grabbing her wrist and placing her hand on his knee. "You and Aunt Cass kind of have the same hand size."

My assumptions were correct, GoGo thought to herself, and snickered. The image of Hiro painting Aunt Cass' nails was kind of cute. "Does the concept of a hand size even exist?" she asked him.

He shrugged. "All I know is, you have small, rugged hands. Wouldn't expect less from you," he replied, starting on her thumb.

She spent a few moments trying to decide if that was an insult, decided it wasn't, and turned her attention back to the screen. The movie was almost over, and she had missed three-fourths of it. Oh, well. She could always re-watch it. "Are you hungry?" she asked after a few minutes.

Hiro shook his head, just as he finished applying the second coat to her pinkie finger. "I'm sleepy," he stated plainly, and she couldn't help but think how childish he was acting. And the fact that, okay, he was acting kind of cute.

"Then we sleep." She clicked off the television, and stood up, stretching her arms above her head, ignoring his cries of 'You'll mess up the final coat!'. "Come on, I'll get you some pillows."

"You're making me sleep here?" He whined, and GoGo rolled her eyes at his petulance.

"What did you think we were going to do, Hamada, fall asleep holding hands?"

"It would have been nice..."

GoGo turned away, marching off to her room, before he could see the blush that had erupted over her face.

ѼѼѼ

"Now, boys. I want you three to explain to me very carefully the reason why Hiro is not with you tonight. Think very hard about the story you're about to tell me, and make sure that each angle of it adds up, because there's going to be some hell to pay if something's happened to him and all of you are just covering it up."

Wasabi, Fred, and Tadashi sat in front of Aunt Cass, looking as serious as they could possibly be... And mentally beating themselves up for being stupid enough to completely forget that they needed to sort up some kind of story to satisfy Aunt Cass.

Aunt Cass, who was a mother bear, if anything else.

Aunt Cass, who could have worked as a detective in a past life. Or probably sometime next week, if ever.

Aunt Cass, who, while she was a bit on the cute, clueless side, could sniff out anything wrong if it concerned her two nephews.

The trio gulped.

"Well?"

"He's with GoGo!" Tadashi blurted out, not being able to hold down the fort when it came to Aunt Cass.

Fred and Wasabi nodded quickly, figuring that if they couldn't tell Aunt Cass about the underage drinking, they could at least give her the truth - the slightly modified version of the truth. "He wanted to confess to her!" Wasabi said quickly, looking at Tadashi and Fred for confirmation. "He's loved her since, I don't know, since forever!"

"Yeah, and he - He, uhm... He told us to wait outside while he talked to her," Fred continued, waiting for someone else to add on.

"And - Uhm, gosh Aunt Cass," Tadashi scratched the back of his head, almost believable, "When he didn't come out after like, three hours, we decided to just leave him there!"

Aunt Cass narrowed her eyes at them. And then finally broke into a huge grin. "Well, finally! I've been waiting for those two to get together since they became friends! All right, kiddos, you can pass."

They breathed a sigh of relief as they walked in single file up to Tadashi and Hiro's bedroom, their minds now on the next problem - how to tell GoGo that they had (technically) pinned the blame on her.