Programmed Lives – Final Stage

Chapter Three

What Seisuke saw as he stopped his RZ-1 was not a pretty sight: Misa's V37 was overturned with its four wheels facing up and the roof half crushed by the impact against the tarmac. The twenty three year old had never moved faster in his whole life as he jumped out of his car as he grabbed his first aid bag using the same momentum to start running towards where his girlfriend was.

'DON'T TOUCH HER!' he screamed at Daichiro who had his Subaru's front bumper touching the guardrail for he had braked so brusquely that he had almost crashed the dark purple car too.

'I'm just trying to…' the much older man said after stopping just a hair away from Misa's door.

'DON'T-TOUCH-HER,' Seisuke repeated as he pushed Daichiro away so he could have the room he needed to get Misa out of the car then, as he forced the door open he saw that Misa was hanging off her racing seatbelt visibly unconscious.

This made Seisuke unable to think for a couple of interminably long seconds until the doctor training he was getting in his fourth year of medical school kicked in: he then started doing everything as if driven by an automatic pilot and soon after that, Misa was lying on the small blanket he had in his bag as Seisuke started looking for her vital signs.

'She's alive,' he muttered more to himself than to anyone else.

'Er…' Daichiro started.

'What?' Seisuke almost barked.

'I've called an ambulance,' the older guy replied and his subdued tone of voice made Seisuke realise that he was being extremely rude to the poor Daichiro.

'Thanks,' he said.

Daichiro just nodded to Seisuke before he started walking back to his car so he could get it out of the way then, as he drove past both Seisuke and Misa he said:

'Do you need a hand or…'

'No,' Seisuke replied, 'don't worry, just go and get your people out of here.'

'I will,' Daichiro said, 'and I'm very sorry, I really didn't mean to…'

'Just go,' Seisuke interrupted him then, as an afterthought, he added, 'please.'

Daichiro drove off and Seisuke was grateful that there weren't any curious bystanders around him for, as he looked back at the still unconscious Misa, he felt one single tear escaping from his control.

Half an hour later Seisuke was at the waiting room of the Utsunomiya's General Hospital where he had followed the ambulance which had taken Misa into the hospital's emergency department.

'Hey,' Seisuke heard his older brother say as he entered the room followed by Ryoko, Akito, Kosugi and Hiroki, 'how is…'

'I don't know yet,' Seisuke replied even before Kyosuke could finish the question then, just as he had said that, a female doctor came into the room and asked:

'Who's with the girl they've just brought in?'

'I am,' Seisuke replied as he sprung up from the plastic chair.

'Your friend…'

'She's my girlfriend,' Seisuke corrected her.

'Ah, okay,' the middle aged woman said offering him a tiny smile, 'she's fine, she's just got a concussion and a sprained wrist. We're going to run some tests to make sure we haven't missed anything but she should be able to leave the hospital tomorrow evening.'

Seisuke felt himself collapse back onto the chair out of sheer relief. Only then he managed to find the strength to look at the doctor and ask:

'Could I please see her?'

'Well,' the doctor started, 'theoretically speaking only the relatives are allowed but, I think I can make an exception.'

'Thanks, I'd appreciate that,' Seisuke said giving the doctor his best, most charming smile.

'Come with me then,' she said and Ryoko had to repress as snort at the obvious way her cousin had, yet again, used the huge appeal he knew he had on most women.

Shortly after, Seisuke was left alone with Misa who thankfully enough was already awake and despite the orthopaedic collar she was wearing, she looked to be sorrier than in pain.

'Hey, how are you?' he asked her taking a seat by her side.

'I'm okay, I think…' Misa replied, 'how's the car?'

'Not quite so well, I'm afraid,' Seisuke replied and smiled at the way his girlfriend first frowned then sighed in defeat as she said:

'Oh well, it's just a car, I guess.'

'You're right about that,' Seisuke with his smile gone agreed, 'I just don't know what I'd do if…'

'Hey,' Misa said taking his hand with the one which wasn't bandaged, 'I said I'm okay.'

'I know it's just that…'

'I know,' Misa interrupted him, 'I don't know either what I'd do if anything happened to you.'

'Sucks being in love, doesn't it?' Seisuke asked with his cheeky smile coming back to his handsome face as he heard Misa laughing softly.

'Speaking of that,' Misa said suddenly remembering what she'd seen earlier, 'I think Hiroki may have a crush on your cousin.'

'WHAT?' they both then heard an extremely familiar sounding voice shout making them both look at the door where they saw a stunned Akito standing there holding the door's knob.

'Akito…' Seisuke started but then, seeing Akito run back out of the room, he exchanged a quick, worried look with Misa before getting up so he could go after his best friend, catching him just in time before he made it to the waiting room, 'wait,' he whispered as he grabbed Akito's left arm.

'Let go of…'

'Please,' Seisuke begged him while still whispering, 'Misa's just suffered a concussion and she probably doesn't even know what she's saying.'

'Really?' Akito asked him clearly not convinced at all.

'Yes,' Seisuke insisted, wishing Akito didn't speak quite so loudly for he knew that Hiroki was just a few meters away, 'she's very confused right now: she didn't even flinch when I told her about her car.'

'In that case,' Akito said, 'it won't hurt if I ask him, will it?'

'Akito…'

'By the way,' the nineteen years old interrupted him, 'I came to tell Misa that your brother and Kosugi have the V37 on a truck and they're going to take it back to the Centre tonight to see if we can fix it.'

With that, Seisuke observed helplessly as Akito walked back into the waiting room leaving him with no other option but to follow him.

'Hiroki,' Akito said using an almost harsh tone of voice, 'can I have a word with you, in private?'

'Er…' the slightly older guy said hesitantly.

'Akito, please let it be,' Seisuke repeated beginning to get rather desperate for he could hardly say anything more specific right in front of everyone, especially to the only girl present in the room: Ryoko.

'Hiroki?' Akito asked clearly ignoring Seisuke's plea.

'Alright,' Hiroki said as he finally got up to follow Akito out of the waiting area.

'What's going on?' Ryoko asked to the younger of her two cousins.

'I don't know,' he lied.

'I'll go w…'

'I don't think that's a good idea,' Seisuke said taking Ryoko by one of her small shoulders, 'they're going to talk about racing,' he lied again.

'Really?' Ryoko asked sounding so sceptical that it made the youngest of the Takahashi brothers think that he needed to improve a lot when it came to his acting abilities.

Meanwhile and after walking down one of the hospital's corridors for quite a while, Akito stopped so abruptly that he nearly made Hiroki collide against him.

'What's up?' Hiroki asked him trying to appear as unconcerned as possible.

'What I'm going to ask you will probably sound rather weird,' Akito started, 'however,' he continued, 'it's something that Misa thinks but, for some reason, it kind of makes sense.'

'What is it?' Hiroki asked unable to cope with the suspense for much longer.

'Do you have a crush on my girlfriend?' Akito asked so bluntly that Hiroki looked as though as someone had slapped him and, for a few instants, he seemed unable to utter a single word, confirming Akito's worst fears, 'Hiroki, please tell me Misa and I are wrong, or else…'

'Y-yes,' Hiroki finally replied.

'Yes as in we're wrong or yes,' Akito barked barely able to keep himself from punching his team mate for what would be the second time ever.

'Yes, you're wrong,' Hiroki said as quickly as it was humanly possible, 'there's no way I could...I mean…she's YOUR girl.'

'That's right,' Akito agreed then, using his driest tone of voice, he added, 'she's MY girl so I hope I don't need to…'

'Look,' Hiroki interrupted him, 'I am not interested in Ryoko, okay?' he added surprising himself of how easy it had been for him to say such a huge lie.

'Good,' Akito said, 'because I don't even want to think about what would happen to the team if…'

'Hey,' Hiroki interrupted him once more, 'I said I'm not interested, okay?' he repeated, 'let's just go back with the rest of the guys, okay?'

'Yeah, let's do that,' Akito said as he started walking without waiting for Hiroki who then followed his younger team mate back to the waiting room.

Just as they were stepping into it, he felt as Akito glanced at him briefly before returning his gaze towards Ryoko, walking towards her and taking her hand in his making it even clearer to Hiroki that Ryoko was and would always be his girl.

'Kosugi and I are going to head to the Centre with Misa's car,' Kyosuke said to Akito and Hiroki, 'what are you going to do?'

'We'll go home,' Akito replied, deciding for both he and Ryoko with the girl glancing at her boyfriend looking a bit taken aback by this but choosing to say nothing at all.

'I'm going to go home too,' Hiroki added.

'I'm staying here with Misa,' Seisuke said, 'Aniki, can you please tell Mum and Dad?'

'Of course, I've got the parental units covered,' Kyosuke replied even before his brother could finish the question.

'Send my love to Misa, okay?' Ryoko asked as Akito started to, quite literally, drag her out of the room.

'I will,' Seisuke replied training his features in what he hoped was a completely blank expression to prevent it from showing how extremely worried he was about the conversation Akito and Hiroki had just had.

Just after Akito and Ryoko's departure, Jiro glanced at a downcast looking Hiroki and asked:

'Is everything alright?'

'Yeah,' the younger guy replied to the Tochigi Thunders' leader, 'I'll see you all later,' he added as he too left the waiting area.

'Don't ask me,' Seisuke said to both Kyosuke and Jiro who looked at him inquisitively the instant Hiroki was gone, 'I'm going to speak to Misa.'

He then left the two twenty four year olds alone as he made his way back to his girlfriend's room where he found a very concerned looking Misa waiting for him.

'What happened?' she asked.

'Either you were wrong or Hiroki's a really good liar,' Seisuke replied, 'because he was still in one piece after he and Akito talked.'

'I think it's the second,' Misa said miserably, 'I should have kept this to myself.'

'Too late for that now,' Seisuke said, 'in any case, what makes you so sure that Hiroki likes Ryoko?'

'I don't know,' Misa replied, 'it's the way he looks at her and the way his face lightens up when she's around. I've been observing him for a while but I didn't make the connection until tonight.'

'Shit,' Seisuke said slapping his forehead with his hand, 'you know what this means?'

'No,' Misa said shaking her head as much as she could with the orthopaedic collar she had on.

'If you've realised that, probably Akito's seen something weird too,' Seisuke explained.

'Why would he? You haven't noticed any of that,' Misa countered.

'Yes,' Seisuke agreed, 'but again, Ryoko's not my girlfriend,' he added, 'if anyone did something like that with you I would definitely see it.'

'So you think I'm right then?' Misa asked.

'The signs are all there,' Seisuke replied, 'and don't forget we're talking about Hiroki. He's not the most expressive guy on earth, is he?'

'No, he isn't,' Misa agreed looking at her boyfriend, 'which is precisely the reason why I started noticing it in the first place.'

'What a gigantic mess,' Seisuke said.

Meanwhile Akito was already on the road back to Maebashi followed by Kyosuke in his RZ-1 and by Kosugi who was driving a towing truck training Misa's V37.

'What did you and Hiroki talk about?' Ryoko asked after checking that the car's radio was turned off.

'Racing,' Akito replied a bit too fast to be entirely convincing.

'Right, racing,' Ryoko said sceptically.

'Ryoko,' Akito started, 'don't take this the wrong way.'

The girl interrupted him with a dry snort.

'If you say this, I will most certainly take it the wrong way,' she said.

'Then don't,' Akito asked her, 'because I'd prefer if you didn't come to the races anymore.'

'What?' Ryoko half shouted, 'why?' she then added with a dismayed tone of voice.

'Er…' Akito hesitated as he realised that he didn't really know what to say, 'I just think it'd better that you concentrate on your studies and the ice skating job.'

'Oh-my-god,' she said marking each of the words, 'I knew it. I just knew it.'

'You knew what?' Akito asked her.

'I knew that if I got back into ice skating you'd do that.'

'Baby,' Akito said, 'I just…'

'Akito,' Ryoko interrupted him, using once more the commanding tone of voice which made it very clear that she was a Takahashi through and through, 'you know I quit ice skating after your accident because I wanted to be with you all the time, including the races.'

'Yes, that's right but…'

'And you also know how extremely hard it was to convince my father to let me skip some of the university lectures so I could come with you to the races.'

'Yes, I know that but…'

'And you were very happy when I told you I would follow you to every single event.'

'Yes I was but…'

'Then how is…'

'Ryoko,' Akito finally interrupted her, 'I just think it's better this way for both of us.'

'What?' Ryoko asked him again almost shouting, 'what in the heck are you talking about?'

At this point Akito started regretting this whole conversation and began getting angry at Hiroki and even angrier at himself for allowing his team mate to provoke his argument. Yet again, it had been quite some time that he'd noticed something was very odd in the way Hiroki interacted with Ryoko and only Misa's words had made everything click into place.

'So?' Ryoko asked, raising her voice and getting him out of his reverie.

'You'll distract me if you're around,' Akito replied no longer able to think straight.

'I WILL WHAT?' Ryoko asked now definitely shouting at him.

'Please baby I…'

'Oh my gosh,' Ryoko said using such a low tone of voice that Akito had trouble hearing her over the noise of the V-86's racing engine.

'Ryoko…'

'You don't want me around so you can go and flirt with one of those pit lane girls, don't you?' Ryoko asked accusingly in what sounded more like a rhetoric question than anything else.

'NO!' Akito exclaimed almost losing control of the vehicle, 'Ryoko…'

'SHUT UP AND STOP THE CAR!' Ryoko ordered him.

'What? I…'

'I want you to stop the car this instant!' Ryoko shouted as she went to turn the radio back on.

'Ryoko, please…'

'Kyosuke, this is Ryoko,' the girl said clearly ignoring her boyfriend, 'pull over, I'm going home with you.'

'What's the matter?' Kyosuke asked sounding every bit as puzzled as Ryoko was angry.

'Noth…' Akito started.

'Pull the car over,' Ryoko ordered to her cousin then, looking back at Akito, she snarled, 'stop the car or I swear I'll jump out of it!'

Knowing that anything he did or said would be useless and since Kyosuke was already stopping by the side of the road with a very confused Jiro doing the same with the truck, Akito was forced to stop the V-86 too.

'Ryoko,' Akito started in what was one last desperate attempt at making her be reasonable.

'You know what?' Ryoko said icily, 'since you don't want me around during the races you won't have me around at all.'

With that and before Akito's brain even finished registering her sentence, Ryoko got out of the car and ran to Kyosuke's and by the time he managed to climb out of the V-86 he saw as his girlfriend ordered her cousin to re-start driving.

'What happened?' Akito half-heard Jiro ask amidst his confused state.

Unable to bring himself to do anything else, Akito's knees gave up on him forcing him down into a crouching position. He then held his head in his hands wondering the exact moment when he'd started messing everything up this badly.

'Fujiwara…' Jiro said sounding very worried but the younger man didn't pay any attention to him:

He had just spotted something metallic on the ground and, as he started at it, his confounded brain started forming an idea which Akito hoped would be good enough to make Ryoko forgive him.

To be continued…