AN: This is just a quick, silly thing I wanted to do since I'm also learning driving through driver's education. It's just a baseless idea but kind of incorporates headcanons I have for the characters and how'd they react to this situation. It's not serious but it's a fun little break from the stories I have planned (one for Awakening and one for Fates).
Enjoy!
(Edit: Thanks to The Zubatman for pointing out the use of interchangeable names (Azura and Aqua) and is now corrected)
Do Not Drive
As it turned out, Kamui was a horrible driver.
Not one of his siblings had suspected so, believing their young brother to be of careful caution and of safe movements while in the vehicle. Though, as it so happened, they were wrong.
Terribly, terribly wrong.
The car pulled around a curve, clipping the sidewalk and jolting as tires met raised concrete. Kamui pulled desperately at the wheel, swerving into his lane just as a semi-truck blared its horn. He shouted an apology in response and then cursed the truck, not bothering to open his windows as he slammed his foot upon the gas pedal. The car lurched forward, humming with ferocity as it raced past houses with the speed of the winds of a hurricane.
Behind him, his family muttered a wide range of curses. Ryouma looked sick, hand clasped over his mouth while Hinoka urged her younger brother to move slower. Takumi, who had the privilege of sitting beside the door, hurriedly grabbed onto the car handle right above the window. His fingers were grasping it with dire urgency, muttering foul incoherencies that earned looks of utter horror from his little sister. Aqua, who had the unfavorable task as course instructor, could only shriek and yell and coach Kamui in the way that only she could.
"Kamui, Kamui, slow down. There is a truck in front of us. Truck. Go left here. No, too fast! Stop! Oh dear Lord don't you even think about…Oh Gods. No, no, no! This's a one-way road, Kamui. One-way road." her voice was eerily calm as Kamui completed a U-turn in the middle of the street, turning with such velocity that Takumi swore his door was going to be thrown open and him sucked out of it.
"Get me out of this car," Ryouma moaned. "He's a maniac, a pure maniac."
Kamui hit the gas pedal a little harder. "I'm sorry big bro, what was that?"
"This is criminal," the older man mumbled. Kamui's foot sent the car lurching forward. Ryouma corrected himself. "You're doing well, you're doing-urgh. I'm going to throw-up if he doesn't stop."
Aqua could only imagine the phone calls that were filtering in her office at that very moment. It was bad enough that her phone number was painted on all sides of the cars, but it was worse to have an unruly student in dangerous control of the driver's education vehicle. Kamui was like a man riddled with insanity – he kept going and going and never stopped. She understood his insatiable appetite for driving (she, too, had only been in his position three years ago) but Aqua would have never imagined that he'd be as crazy about it as he was right now.
"Where are the cops?" Takumi screamed, eyeing the doors as they shook with strain. "Why isn't anyone reporting a rogue car going at 70 miles per hour in a twenty-five miles speed limit?"
Sakura nodded eagerly and, in response, Kamui twisted around a corner sharply. All six occupants were pulled to the right, their seatbelts barely restraining them as they straightened out. Kamui applied more gas – gas, gas, it was always more gas and never less – and rolled forward. Aqua considered it a miracle that they hadn't hit anyone yet.
A pedestrian carried herself forward. She was intoxicated, by the looks of her swaying feet and the wild swinging of her cane, and Aqua could only pray as Kamui swerved around her with the grace of a bumbling elephant. The pedestrian waved in anger, mouth moving in what could only be foul language, before she continued on. Aqua wondered if Kamui had bothered to even check his mirrors.
The boy swung forward onto another lane of traffic, barely managing to avoid barreling into another car as he continued onto the right road. His skills in navigating were insane, the blue-haired girl thought, marveling at his ability to dodge oncoming vehicles and bumbling city-walkers, but his talent in actual driving was horrendous. He hit the gas pedal way too often and the brake way too rarely, often rushing headfirst into traffic, bursting past stop signs, and skimming too close around cars. He even scrapped a few cars with the side of his fears, paint trailing on the edges for milliseconds before he uttered a list of apologies that couldn't be heard by the outside world.
"You're going too fast," Aqua warned, watching with wide eyes as the speed meter rang in at eighty miles per hour. "Go slower. A lot slower."
"How can you be so calm?" Takumi shrieked, hands still grasping the bar and fingers digging into the headrest behind him. "This is insane and you're just sitting there like 'oh, whatever'! How can you even sit there and watch him murder us all?"
She ignored him. "Kamui, hit your brakes."
"Alright, alright!" the boy cried, barely applying his brakes before touching the gas pedal once again. Aqua wondered how he could even manage control of the car with such high speed. "There, I touched them!"
"That…was not what I meant," she paused. "Stop sign!"
He streaked right past it, earning himself several horn blares from the drivers behind him. Aqua even caught the middle finger in the view of the right hand mirror. She wished inwardly that she could do the same thing to Kamui. However, as driving instructor, she quickly convinced herself otherwise.
"We're gonna die, we're all gonna die," Ryouma hummed sadly and Hinoka patted his shoulder with blank eyes.
"We're going to die regardless!" Takumi hissed. "This door's just barely keeping itself shut so how do you think I feel? If not for someone's lack of repair, I might be dragged out this goddamn side and flung out into a sad death of concrete, rolling tires, and holy freakin' shit did you just pull in front of a semi truck!?"
"As a matter of fact, I did," Kamui stated with a swell of his chest.
"That's not something to be proud of!" Hinoka snapped. "Slow down, Kamui! You're going too fast, you're going to…run a red light. Of course, now they'll have our license plate number and everything. I am so not paying for your insurance bills."
He waved her off, raising one hand off the steering wheel to perform the action. Sakura squealed and Ryouma groaned as the car swerved back and forth, just barely managing to stay under control. Takumi uttered more foul language under his breath, only stopping to pause when he saw blue and red lights flashing from behind him. "The police!" he cried with exuberance. "The police are here!"
The black-and-white cars pulled forward, trailing alongside Kamui as the boy fought to gain speed. They, in return, gained speed, cornering him on either side so that he could only move straight. The platinum blond boy hissed and cursed, throwing up the middle finger as Kamui went right ahead of them. They threw up their own versions of the action, both sides performing it with such elegance despite the high speed both police cars were going.
Something hissed. Steam poured out of the front and Aqua, in a moment of emotion, panicked. "Of all things-! Kamui, stop right now! Stop!"
Takumi blanched. "You say that when you see steam pouring out of the engine but you don't say that when we're being chased by police cars!? What kind of instructor are you?"
"A bad one," she admitted and Ryouma looked even more pale than before. "But that's not my fault. Your brother won't listen to me."
"He won't listen to us either!"
The car lurched and the speedometer trickled down. Kamui, acting panicky in his own rights, pressed on the gas pedal. However, despite his best efforts, the car only slowed, lurching and skidding and sending his siblings and instructor bouncing around the car. Thank God for seatbelts, Aqua looked at her own strap with worship. A quick glance behind her said that the siblings were doing the same thing as well, fingers clinging desperately onto the grayish strips.
Kamui gave a little whine. "It won't speed up!" he scowled, pressing his foot over and over onto the gas. The vehicle whined with him, growling and puffing as it slid further and further to a stop.
A few seconds later, and the car slowed to a halt. It complained loudly about the lack of fuel before it came to a stop, puffing out tiny clouds of smoke. The police cars apprehended the vehicle, surrounding it before bursting of their cars with guns in hand to approach them. They called for the doors to open and for the persons inside to step out. Ryouma did so first, sliding out of the car and literally kissing the ground with a passion that puzzled the officers. Hinoka merely removed herself, looking shaken and wary and she collapsed to her feet with a look of relief. Sakura went after her, the girl's eyes glazed over while her brother followed afterwards, muttering curses and praises and vowing to never, ever again, trust his sibling with driving. Aqua was the second to last to leave, face comfortingly calm but a kind of terror plastered into her movements. The instructor was just as shaken as Hinoka, dazed and lost and all hope abandoned. Kamui, however, removed himself from the car with beaming pride. He faced the officers with question, lips wide with a smile and eyes gleaming with the exhilaration of his drive.
The boy turned to Aqua with a giddy grin.
"So?" he asked. "How did I do?"
Kamui was arrested immediately, labeled a liability, and quickly taken to jail. Everyone praised their luck, worshipping the empty fuel tank that had ceased their descent into madness. The car wheezed, snorted out smoke, and completely fell to pieces.
They had the decency to hold a vigil in honor of the fallen vehicle. It was quick, short, and, overall, glorious.
Bonus:
Marx was terrified. Camilla was horrified. Leon was a mix of the two and Elise was completely unconscious. They had unleashed a terrible beast upon themselves, and all four of them regretted it completely. It was only Kamui's second drive – right after he had regained his revoked license – but it seemed he had learned nothing from his last driving experience. He swerved around a bend and sent them leaning sharply towards the right side of the car.
Elise regained consciousness, glanced at the window, and slumped far, far down in her seat, hands hiding her eyes. "When will it end?" the blonde girl asked. "When will it end?"
Aqua offered nothing but silence, watching in utter fear as Kamui's mirror nearly scraped into the vehicle moving next to them. The instructor seemed just as dazed as the rest of them, the only exception being the constant words of prayer that uttered from her lips. She was not a religious person but, so long as Kamui remained in control of the car, she would believe anything to keep her from losing her sanity.