Dreaming of Akina
Chapter Nine
The very next day, a very determined Bunta showed up at the repairs shop where Masashi Suzuki worked to find the guy under a Subaru which looked so old that Bunta couldn't help but to think that the owner, instead of getting it fixed, should have allowed the poor thing to have a merciful end.
In any case, Bunta cleared his throat rather loudly and, without waiting for Masashi to come out from under the car, he asked:
'Can you organise that race with the Mitsubishis?'
A painful sounding thud and a few colourful swear words followed his question and, only after that, Masashi emerged from under the car and as he rubbed his forehead, smudging it with grease in the process, he said:
'So, you've finally made up your mind.'
'Yep,' Bunta replied while trying to suppress a chuckle.
'I guess I could spread the word around,' Masashi said then, he added, 'where do you want to race?'
'Akina,' Bunta replied, 'where else?'
'Of course,' Masashi said, 'and I take you'll be racing downhill.'
'Actually,' Bunta started, 'I was thinking of both.'
'Both? What do you mean by both?' Masashi asked him looking puzzled then, remembering that the younger guy had spoken in plural, he exclaimed, 'you're not planning on racing the two of them, are you?'
'That's exactly what I want to do,' Bunta replied calmly.
'Are you crazy?' Masashi asked in what sounded more a rhetoric question than anything else.
'No,' Bunta replied nonetheless, 'I've had an idea and I'd like to ask you if it's something which can be done.'
'Bunta,' Masashi said, 'this is street racing we're talking about: anything can be done.'
'Ah, that's right,' Bunta said slapping his forehead with his hand, 'sorry…I kind of forgot.'
Masashi chuckled as he shook his head in disbelief: this guy was really too much.
'So,' Bunta said interrupting his train of thought, 'I'll leave everything in your hands.'
'Wait. Have you thought of our offer?' Masashi asked, trying not to sound nor look too hopeful.
'What offer?' Bunta asked.
'The one Shinobu-san made you,' Masashi replied unable to believe the fact that Bunta genuinely seemed to have forgotten something as important as that, 'asking you to join our team,' he explained, just in case.
'Ah, that,' Bunta said then, shaking his head a couple of times, he added, 'I'm not sure I'll join any teams at the moment. I'm still not…'
'That's bullshit and you know it,' Masashi interrupted him with an angry frown appearing on his forehead, 'if I have to hear that you don't think you're good enough to be part of our team, I'll smack your head with one of my spanners.'
'Alright,' Bunta said taking one step backwards, 'er…well, I've got to go now or I'll be late for school.'
With that, and before Masashi could get anywhere near his working tools, Bunta started running out of the shop and towards the school where he found Yuuichi talking to a couple of girls who seemed to be laughing at something he'd just said.
'Morning,' Bunta said offering his best smile to the two girls who, instead of looking impressed, they seemed to be pretty freaked out.
'We'll see you later,' one of them said to Yuuichi.
'Okay,' Yuuichi replied then, both girls left walking a bit more briskly that it really was necessary while Bunta stared at them not understanding anything.
'Am I that scary?' he asked Yuuichi as they made their way to their classroom.
'Er…' Yuuichi started, almost as though as he was buying himself time to find an appropriate answer, 'no, I wouldn't say that,' he finally said.
'Then, what happened just there?' Bunta asked him.
'I don't know,' Yuuichi replied, 'maybe it's because you're an unknown face.'
Bunta looked at his friend before deciding to settle for that very unlikely, yet comforting theory. Girls were weird, he thought to himself as he sat down at his desk, immediately next to that of Yuuichi, pulling out of his bag all the material he needed to pretend he was paying attention to the lesson.
A few hours later, and while everyone was enjoying their lunch break, Bunta sat onto Yuuichi's desk and said:
'I'm going to race those Mitsubishi.'
Yuuichi, who had been munching away the bento his mother had carefully prepared for him, hearing that statement made him choke with a bit of onigiri and that led to a terrible fit of coughing.
'Hey, don't die on me,' Bunta said as he patted his friend's back.
'Fucking bastard,' Yuuichi muttered using one of the first gulps of air he managed to take.
'I thought you'd be happy to know,' Bunta complained.
'I am,' Yuuichi said as he avidly drank from his bottle of water, 'is just that, coming here and announcing it all of a sudden.'
'I only decided it last night,' Bunta said choosing to leave out that not so subtle way in which his uncle had implied he didn't have the courage to race the two cars from Akagi.
'That's great,' Yuuichi replied as he slowly got back to his normal colour of skin, 'but, you said Mitsubishi, you're not going to race the two of them, are you?'
'Yes,' Bunta replied, 'Masashi-san said that there's nothing which prevents me from doing that.'
'What about, I don't know, common sense?' Yuuichi asked him sarcastically.
'Common sense doesn't have anything to do with street racing, does it?' Bunta asked using what Yuuichi had come to call, his very peculiar line of reasoning.
'Not really,' Yuuichi admitted.
'I thought so,' Bunta said then, considering the topic as closed, he asked, 'can I eat one of those?'
Just like Masashi had predicted, getting in touch with the Mitsubishi drivers was reasonably easy and, very soon, they fixed the race for the following Saturday evening, which meant that Bunta had a week to train himself for what was going to be his first official battle during the time he wasn't at school or working at the repairs shop.
The evening of the race arrived pretty soon and just as he climbed into his Toyota so he could follow Yuuichi in his Capella, Bunta saw the first few raindrops falling onto his car's windscreen.
'Oh well,' he thought shrugging his shoulders.
Fifteen minutes later, they parked their rides next to the dark red Fairlady Z having seen that, despite the rain, there were quite a lot of spectators standing behind the guardrails.
'Are you nervous?' Yuuichi asked him.
'Nope,' Bunta replied sounding indeed eerily calm.
'Of course not,' Yuuichi said.
Bunta didn't even acknowledge that for he saw the two Mitsubishi parked just across the road and the two drivers chatting with a few of his friends. Without waiting for any of the members of the Akina Firebolts and ignoring the drops of rain which were beginning to fall quite insistently, Bunta walked towards them.
'I smell trouble,' Masashi said to his team leader Shinobu Aihara.
'Me and you both,' Shinobu replied before he started following Bunta, leaving Masashi and Yuuichi no option but to follow him too.
'You're nuts,' the three men heard one of the Mitsubishi drivers say.
'Why?' Bunta asked them.
'What's going on?' Shinobu asked to no one in particular.
'You said that everything was allowed,' Bunta said to Masashi.
'I did,' Masashi replied.
'Well,' Bunta started, 'since we can't race all three of us at the same time, I was suggesting to, first race him downhill,' he explained pointing at one of the Mitsubishi drivers, 'and then, if I win the first heat, I'll race him uphill,' he added pointing at the other driver.
'You're nuts!' Masashi exclaimed.
'That's what I said,' the Mitsubishi driver said, looking happy that someone was backing his theory.
'I don't think it's such a bad idea,' Shinobu said making everyone gasp.
'Shinobu-san…' Masashi started.
'Let him do what he says,' Shinobu insisted, 'I think it'll be fun,' he added winking and smiling at Bunta then, before anyone else could express their disagreement, he walked back to where the rest of his team were.
'Alright, have it your way,' one of the Mitsubishi drivers said glaring at an impassive looking Bunta, 'but you'll regret having underestimated us…'
Then, he and his friend made their way back to their cars, two identical black Colt Galant GTOs with their characteristic quad-headlamps and a design which made them look like some of the American Muscle cars Bunta had only seen on the cover of some magazines.
Even though he knew that the GTO's engine wasn't as powerful as his 2000GT's one, Bunta wasn't going to take neither of the two races too lightly, even more so considering that the first race was going to be going downhill where the power of the car didn't matter as much as the skills of its driver.
For this reason, and as he made his way back to his Toyota, Bunta started making up the strategy he would use for the first heat.
'Bunta,' Yuuichi said, 'I know you've practiced a lot but…'
'I know,' Bunta interrupted him, 'don't worry, I'll be fine.'
Offering a reassuring grin to his friend, Bunta climbed into his car and fastened his seatbelt before turning the key on the ignition so he could turn the wipers on. The rain was beginning to become a downpour, he thought allowing himself a moment to feel worried about that.
Shaking his head to remove any traces of concern, he finished turning the key so he could start his Toyota's engine, enjoying as he always did, the vibration that made the car tremble slightly.
He loved that sensation, Bunta thought while smiling to himself.
As he rolled his car out of his parking spot, he saw one of the GTO's driving down the hill and towards the base where its driver would wait for the end of the first heat. Meanwhile, the other GTO driver stopped at the beginning of the short straight which was traditionally used as the starting point of every downhill race in Mt Akina.
Neither Bunta nor the GTO driver got out of their cars since it was now raining pretty heavily and they just waited for Shinobu to finish checking with the members of his team that they were okay to start the race then, Bunta saw as the Akina Firebolts' leader positioned himself right in front of the two cars.
As he entered the first gear, Bunta took a deep breath while he observed Shinobu raising his arm, getting ready to start the countdown then, right at the instant Shinobu lowered it, Bunta pressed the throttle while releasing the clutch taking off so fast that he didn't even see the Firebolts' leader as he dashed past him.
Not caring about the whereabouts of the GTO, Bunta just made it to the first corner at such high speed that he couldn't help but to feel grateful he didn't have the cup full of water for it would have probably spilt all its contents all over the place.
Just as he was clearing the seventh turn, he realised that the Mitsubishi was right behind him.
About bloody time, Bunta thought to himself while he pressed the accelerator even further down. Thankfully, unlike during that first unofficial race against Masashi and despite the rain which kept falling incessantly, the grip of his car's tyres was nearly perfect.
He hadn't even finished that thought when something weird happened: all of a sudden the 2000GT's tyres seemed to lose all traction. It took Bunta less than half a second to realise what was wrong.
Aquaplaning.
'Shit,' Bunta whispered as he started applying the clutch so he could enter the first gear as he fought to get the car back onto the right line all the while trying to stay away from the incoming GTO, the driver of which, probably taken by surprise, didn't even think of overtaking at first.
Sadly, it didn't take him long to react and, before Bunta could do anything to stop it, he was forced to watch as the GTO drove past his Toyota.
'Shit!' Bunta exclaimed angrily as he punched his car's steering wheel then, realising that it wasn't its fault, he added, 'sorry.'
With the damage already done and having no other option but to be the chaser for a while, Bunta started pushing his car to its limits, using every single trick he'd learned in the few weeks he'd been driving down this road.
Including what he'd come to call the gutter run.
Only that allowed for Bunta to keep up with the GTO and, as they approached the five consecutive hairpins, he started planning the first of his attacks:
He kept the front of his Toyota glued to the back of the Mitsubishi for the first of the extremely tight corners and only as they were about to exit it, he lowered his tyres onto the gutter.
'Let's see if this works too,' he muttered to himself as he used the extra grip this technique offered to propel himself forward and, as he saw the GTO driving out of the hairpin, veering slightly towards the middle of the road, Bunta pushed his car into the small gap the Mitsubishi had left open.
Flooring the accelerator, the teenager got his car level with the GTO and, in what probably was the craziest overtaking manoeuvre in the history of the Mt Akina's past races, Bunta managed to get his car right ahead to the entrance of the following hairpin.
He cleared that one too as well as the other three using in all of them the gutter run in its exit version.
Everyone was surprised to see the Toyota get to the finish line first, even more so because they had to wait for a good fifteen seconds before they saw the Mitsubishi crossing the line. Bunta allowed himself a chuckle as he saw the face of the other GTO's driver: it was the perfect picture of astonishment.
'What happened?' Bunta heard him ask to his friend.
'He's as crazy as that old man we saw him with,' he replied, 'you better be careful.'
'Hey,' Bunta said climbing out of his car, 'I haven't got all night, you know?'
The two GTO drivers stared at him in disbelief then, the one who'd just been beaten by Bunta went to start walking towards him with very obvious intentions of beating the crap out of the teenager.
'Forget it,' his friend said putting a hand onto his shoulder, 'I'll make him pay for his presumption.'
Bunta smirked as he got back into his car for he had just managed to get exactly what he wanted: an even more determined opponent.
Repeating the same pattern again, this time with some guy who Bunta assumed was also a member of the Akina Firebolts, he waited for the 'go' as he prepared himself to go back up to the summit only that, for this race, he wanted to adopt an entirely different strategy:
Allowing the GTO to get ahead of him at the start, Bunta decided to wait until after the hairpins to start any attacks, not because he wanted to do the Mitsubishi driver a favour, but because he was curious to see if all the training he'd done with the water cup had produced any results.
For this reason, in the following few corners Bunta tried several kind of drifting techniques while keeping an eye on the Mitsubishi, making sure that the gap between the two of them didn't increase too much. Then, at the very last corner before the five hairpins, Bunta noticed something odd about the GTO.
It wasn't drifting.
It struck to him that the Mitsubishi's driver hadn't drifted at all in the whole distance they had covered and that made Bunta very curious to see the difference it made to negotiate the corners by using the same line the GTO was following.
He tried it in the first hairpin, entering it and exiting it driving over the marks the GTO's tyres were leaving and it was with immense pleasure that Bunta realised that, despite not being as exciting as drifting, driving by grip was a lot faster.
At the end of the fifth hairpin, the front of the 2000GT was glued to the rear bumper of the Mitsubishi and that made Bunta decide to anticipate his attack just a bit.
He waited until they finished clearing the corner which came immediately after the five consecutive hairpins to veer sharply towards the outside of the turn, flooring the accelerator pedal and making the 2000GT's engine to give him all it had.
Cruising at over one hundred and fifty kilometres an hour, he left the poor GTO behind as he entered the following corner, this time allowing himself a drift.
This made Bunta feel surprisingly bad: he'd used his car's higher speed instead of his own driving skills and, for some strange reason, he didn't like that because, even if he ended up winning the race, he didn't think it would feel like a proper victory.
He was still pondering this when he saw, a bit further ahead of him, that enormous puddle which had almost cost him his first battle. Smirking at the puddle and almost as if it could listen to him, Bunta said:
'You're not getting me twice.'
With that, he lifted his foot off the accelerator at the same time as he veered towards the outer section of the road where the puddle seemed to be a lot shallower. Behind him, the GTO's driver watched the whole manoeuvre thinking that he'd just won the lottery.
Bunta just about saw the moment when the GTO literally flew past him.
'What the…' the teenager said as he flinched involuntarily.
The whole thing didn't last for more than a few milliseconds but to Bunta, and probably even more so to the Mitsubishi's driver, it seemed like an eternity when they both saw, in slow motion, as the GTO's tyres lost all their traction, sending the poor car crashing against a nearby wall.
'Ouch,' Bunta winced as he pressed the brake pedal of his Toyota so it would come to a complete stop then, turning round inside his car, he tried to see if the GTO's driver was alright but since it was rather dark and it was raining, he couldn't see anything.
Bunta already had his hand on the door's handle to climb out so he could go and help his rival when, all of a sudden, he heard the GTO's engine coming back on then, glancing at the rear view mirror, he saw that the Mitsubishi was actually moving away from the wall and, with a smashed up headlight and all, its driver still seemed to want to carry on racing.
'Fair enough,' Bunta muttered as he, too, entered the first gear to continue with the race.
It was a really unfair battle, Bunta thought bitterly as he crossed the finish line in first position for the second time that evening. Not only his car's engine was a lot more powerful but also, after the crash, the GTO wasn't performing as well as it should have.
'You've won!' Yuuichi exclaimed as he tried to hug Bunta.
'Yeah well,' Bunta said as he tried to dodge his friend as well as quite a few of the Firebolts which wanted to join in the celebrations, 'hang on a sec,' the teenager added, speaking to no one in particular.
He then walked away from the group of cheering people to go towards the GTO, the driver of which was already inspecting the damage he'd done to his poor car.
'Hey, are you alright?' Bunta asked him.
'Why do you care?' the guy asked angrily, getting up from his crouching position so he could be eye-level with Bunta.
'I don't really,' Bunta replied honestly.
'Then what the fuck do you want?' the guy exclaimed, looking livid with fury.
'A name and another race,' Bunta replied.
'What?' the guy said, now his voice just over a whisper.
'You heard me,' Bunta insisted.
The guy looked at him for a while almost as though as he was trying to decide whether to answer to the question or to beat the crap out of the teenager then, settling for the first option, he said:
'Watanabe Makoto.'
'I'm Fujiwara Bunta. I understand that your home course is in Mt Akagi.'
'That's correct,' Makoto said still eyeing him suspiciously.
'Fine, let's race there,' Bunta said, 'I'm free whenever you want except this coming Friday.'
'Why not Friday?' Makoto asked.
'Can you see those two babes there?' Bunta asked while pointing with his head to where Fuka and Seiko were, standing under a bright yellow umbrella.
'Yes,' Makoto replied.
'I've got a date with them,' Bunta replied and, before Makoto could say anything, the teenager walked away from him leaving the poor GTO driver bowing his head in defeat.
To be continued…