Programmed Lives – Final Stage

Chapter Ten

After Fumihiro had taken him to one of the three hospitals the Takahashi Arakawa Medical Group owned, Hiroki declined the older man's offer to drive him to Utsunomiya asking him to just get him back to the Centre so that he could pick up his Eclipse GT.

'I'm sorry about all of this,' Fumihiro said as the young man climbed into his car.

'No more than I am,' Hiroki replied with his voice still sounding rather guttural due to the broken nose then, giving one quick look around the Takahashi Motorsports Centre, just in case it really was the last time he ever saw it, he climbed into his car, started its engine and he drove off and out of the place.

Almost an hour later, Hiroki parked the Mitsubishi next to his parents' SUV and only then, he realised that his father would probably go ballistic when he found out about what had just happened. His faint hopes that his mother's intervention could save him from the worst reprimand ever evaporated as Hiroki remembered that it was Sunday afternoon and that his mother was probably at the ikebana club.

'Just freaking fantastic,' he said to himself while trying not to frown for his face just hurt too much if he did so.

'What are you doing home?' Hiroki heard his father ask from somewhere behind him, making him turn around so fast that the sudden motion made his nose throb quite painfully, 'oh my…' Tohru Suetsugu gasped seeing his son's badly bruised face, 'what happened?' he then asked rushing towards him.

'We better go inside,' Hiroki suggested knowing that it was better if they kept this conversation out of the neighbours hearing range then, once locked up in the safety of their home, the twenty year old proceeded to explain everything to his father who, predictably enough, got every bit as mad as Hiroki had foreseen.

'I just can't believe it!' Tohru shouted getting back up from the sofa where he and his son had been sitting, 'I knew this would happen! I just knew it.'

'Dad…' Hiroki started, looking up to his father.

'Hiroki, do you realise that you've thrown away the best chance you had to become an F1 racer?' Tohru asked as he stood up with his hands on his hips towering his son in the Suetsugu's small living room.

'Dad I…'

'And all of this for what?' Tohru said, 'for a girl?' he added.

'Yes,' Hiroki replied lowering his gaze to look at the floor for he really couldn't stand the way his father was looking at him.

'Son,' Tohru said, 'what made you think she'd leave Fujiwara-kun for you?'

'I don't know,' Hiroki lied because there was no way he could tell his father about his encounter in Spain with that mysterious guy who, after all, had been who had dared him to give it a go.

'Dad,' he added after a short silence as he glanced back at his father's face, 'you've always told me that if you want something you've got to go for it.'

'Yes,' Tohru said, 'and I still think so but, when I said that, I meant things you could actually get: those to have been together for a really long time and they're in love. You had no business messing up with their relationship.'

'But…'

'Enough of this,' Tohru said, 'I think that right now you've got a much bigger problem.'

'Dad, Keisuke-san can't fire me, can he? I mean, I signed a contract with them, didn't I?'

'Yes, you did,' Tohru said, 'but you clearly didn't read it very well, did you?'

'What do you mean?' Hiroki asked confused.

'The contract says that they can fire you in the case your performance or your behaviour affects in someway the team and I'd say that you've more than breached those terms.'

'Where does it say that?' Hiroki asked.

'In the small print you obviously didn't read,' Tohru replied then, seeing his son's depressed face, he added, 'now go and lie down, you probably need some rest.'

'Dad, what about my punishment?' Hiroki asked.

'I think that's more than enough,' Tohru said pointing at all the cuts and bruises Akito had provoked with his fists.

Nodding his agreement Hiroki got up from the sofa and walked up to his room where, not even bothering to turn the light on nor take his clothes off, he just collapsed onto his bed, finally allowing himself to feel all the pain his body and heart were transmitting to his brain for, aside the tremendous beating Akito had given him, Hiroki had also lost two of the things he cared for the most: racing and Ryoko. For the first time in his whole live, Hiroki Suetsugu cried himself to sleep.

Five days later he still wasn't feeling much better when, on Friday morning, the twenty year old decided to go out for a walk since he really didn't have anything else to do with his time.

'Where are you going?' he heard his mother ask as he saw her getting ready for her shift at the office where she worked.

'I'll go to the employment agency to see if they have any jobs for me,' Hiroki replied.

'Okay,' Nao said, 'have you taken your painkillers?'

'Nah,' Hiroki replied, 'it's not so painful anymore,' he added putting his index finger over his still bandaged nose while wishing that his heartache could heal as fast as his bruises were doing.

'Oh well,' Nao said, 'don't overdo it: a broken nose is not something you can underestimate.'

'Mum,' Hiroki said, 'I'm fine, believe me.'

The woman looked at her son with a worried expression on her aging but still beautiful face before she nodded.

'I've left your lunch in the microwave,' she said, 'you just need to press the start button.'

'Thanks Mum,' he said as he kissed her on her forehead before taking his car keys and his denim jacket so he could finally leave his house.

An hour later and after getting told by the local employment agency that 'they would call him', Hiroki was wandering aimlessly around Utsunomiya with a half idea of going to the huge shopping centre the city was famous for when he heard someone calling out his name.

Slowly, he turned round to see a guy in his mid thirties who looked vaguely familiar walking towards him.

'Hey, it is you!' the guy exclaimed.

'Excuse me,' the twenty years old said, 'do I know you?'

'Oh, I'm hurt,' the guy said in a very theatrical way, 'there was I listening to all your problems for an entire evening to be forgotten, just like that…'

'You're that guy from that bar in Montmelò, aren't you?' Hiroki asked finally remembering.

'Bingo,' the guy said smiling at Hiroki in a very friendly way, a tad too friendly if one was to look at it objectively, 'I think I told you at the bar but, just in case, my name's Hashimoto Ken.'

'You probably did,' Hiroki admitted, 'but I don't remember much of what happened that night.'

The guy let out a chuckle before saying:

'No wonder you don't: you had had quite a few beers that evening.'

'Yeah, I did,' Hiroki agreed, renewing his vow not to go anywhere near that horrible drink again.

'It'd propose you to go for one now,' Ken said, 'but it's not even noon yet so, unless you have something else to do, why don't we go for a coffee instead?'

'Er…'

'We need to celebrate that we've met again!' Ken insisted, 'isn't it an amazing coincidence?' he then asked.

'It is,' Hiroki replied and, shaking off the slightly uneasy sensation this guy was beginning to make him feel, he finally said, 'alright, I've got plenty of time anyway.'

Fifteen minutes later they were sitting at a table with a couple of cappuccinos and two delicious looking pastries when Ken asked the question Hiroki had been expecting for quite a while:

'What happened to your face?'

Hiroki summarized the whole incident as quickly as he could and seeing the sorry look on Ken's face served him as a small consolation prize.

'I'm really sorry about that,' Ken said, 'I…I just didn't think this would happen…'

'Yeah well,' Hiroki said, 'I guess my approach wasn't the smartest ever.'

'So, you've been kicked out of the GP2 team you raced for,' Ken commented.

'Yeah,' Hiroki confirmed miserably while pretending to be fascinated by the whirl the cream formed on top of his cappuccino.

'I take you're looking for a job now, are you not?' Ken asked.

'Of course,' Hiroki replied, 'my family's not as rich as the Takahashi are…'

'Then it's your lucky day,' Ken said and seeing the younger man's perplexed expression made him add, 'I happen to have a friend of mine working for one of the GP2 teams and I believe that they're actually looking for someone…'

'That's impossible, all the race seats are taken,' Hiroki pointed out.

'I'm not talking about race seats here,' Ken said, 'would you be interested in working as a tester?'

'Tester?' Hiroki asked not really liking the way that sounded.

'Yeah,' Ken replied, 'it may not be too appealing but I think that a job as a test driver is always better than finding employment as an office clerk or something like that.'

Hiroki looked at him for a short while before nodding his agreement.

'I can make a call now if you want,' Ken insisted.

'O-okay,' Hiroki finally said and, with that, Ken pulled out of his pocket a very fancy looking mobile phone pressing a quick-dial button which made Hiroki realise that Ken and this 'friend' of his must be a really good one.

'Hey, it's me,' he heard Ken say as someone obviously answered the call, 'I'm doing great,' he said, 'as you know, I'm in Japan and I've just met this nice young man who may be exactly what you're looking for.'

Hiroki observed as Ken listened to whatever his friend was telling him then the thirty something man said, 'great, hang on a second,' he added removing the phone from his ear, 'hey, are you free tomorrow morning?'

'Yeah,' Hiroki replied and, bringing the phone back to his ear, Ken said:

'I'll bring him with me tomorrow at around ten, okay?'

It was almost lunch time when Hiroki and Ken left the café and as they were about to part ways, the older man said:

'Your former team will regret firing you. If you ask me, they don't have what it takes to make it big in the GP2 championship.'

'Why are you saying that?' Hiroki asked.

'It's obvious,' Ken replied, 'their lack of professionalism is astonishing: they shouldn't fire their drivers because of something as trivial as a fight between their drivers. It seems to me like they believe they're running a family business rather than the highly competitive racing team they think they are.'

Hiroki nodded to that noncommittally.

'Oh well,' Ken said, 'I'll pick you up here tomorrow morning at nine o'clock, okay?'

'Sure,' Hiroki replied and, with that, he observed Ken as he walked away from him feeling, yet again, an odd sensation nagging at him but, once more, he shook it off thinking that if he played his cards well he could very well be back behind the steering wheel of a GP2 car sometime very soon.

With that extremely refreshing thought, Hiroki walked back to his house.

Meanwhile, the seven most important members of the Takawara Racing Team were gathered in the Takahashi Motorsports Centre's main common room raking their brains as they tried to come up with a solution for the still unresolved issue of their lack of second driver.

'What about that guy we tested yesterday?' Kenta asked trying his best to be helpful, 'he wasn't that bad.'

'Kenta,' Fumihiro said, 'he almost crashed the car, remember?'

'Yeah,' Kenta replied, 'I forgot about that.'

'I think we should look into one of the junior categories,' Kizuna suggested.

'We can't,' Kyosuke said, 'they need to be over sixteen years old to get the license from the FIA.'

'If only you had had your daughter sooner she'd now be old enough,' Keisuke commented looking at Takumi accusingly then, realising that for Haruko to be over sixteen years of age she'd have to be born while Takumi was still mourning for his first wife's death, he hurried to apologise, 'sorry…I…'

'Forget it,' Takumi said shaking his head.

'Let's face it,' Akito said, 'we're running out of time…'

They all looked at him for a while before Kenta let out a very loud sigh.

'We should give it up,' Fumihiro said, 'it's useless to look only nationally.'

'Fumihiro…' Keisuke began to protest.

'Keisuke,' Fumihiro interrupted him, 'I know that you want an all-Japanese team but…'

'Oi!' Kizuna complained, reminding everyone that she was only fifty percent Japanese.

'Come on Kizuna,' Kyosuke said smiling at her, 'you know what Fumihiro meant.'

Kizuna was about to reply when they heard the very loud roar from a well known engine coming from outside.

'What's Grandpa doing in here?' Akito asked looking at his father who just shrugged his shoulders for Takumi had learned to expect absolutely everything from his old man. In any case, curiosity made all of them get up and walk towards the building's main entrance where they saw Bunta climbing out of his GC8.

'Hello there,' the old man said waving at them.

'What the…' Keisuke started, seeing the person who was getting out of the Subaru's passenger seat who, by the way, looked pretty frightened.

'I swear Bunta, this is the last time I let you drive.'

'You're such a pussy,' Bunta said to his old mate, the man formerly known as Drift King, Tsuchiya Keiichi who instead of replying to the seventy three years old, probably knowing how very useless it would be to try and retaliate, limited himself to give Bunta a sarcastic smile.

'Dad,' Takumi said, 'what's the meaning of this?'

'Hey kid,' Bunta suddenly said talking to his car, making Takumi frown in worry thinking that his father had finally gone senile, 'get out of there,' the old man added and then Takumi and the rest saw as a rather short and very young looking teenager climbed out of the Subaru.

'Grandpa, is this the place?' the kid asked talking to Keiichi.

'Yes, this is it,' Keiichi replied, 'what do you think?'

'It's very impressive,' the kid said.

'People,' Bunta said glancing at the seven other people present there, 'meet Tsuchiya Kojiro, he's this loser's grandkid.'

'Dad, what…' Takumi started.

'Hey Keisuke,' Bunta said clearly ignoring his son, 'get him into one of your cars so he can show us what he can do.'

As usual, Bunta's requests were promptly taken as an order and soon everyone was standing next to the centre's main racing track with Keiichi talking to his grandson while Kyosuke helped the teenager with the car's seatbelt.

'Alright Dad,' Takumi said, 'what's all of this?'

'You were looking for a driver, weren't you?' Bunta asked.

'Yes, of course,' Takumi replied.

'Well,' the old man said, 'I've just found you one.'

'But…' Keisuke started.

'Hey,' Bunta interrupted him, 'that kid there was supposed to take a break after graduating from the Formula Renault series in France but, since it's me who's asking, Keiichi has convinced him to drive for us.'

'The Formula Renault?' Fumihiro asked raising his eyebrows in surprise.

'Yep,' Bunta replied, 'the poor kid's been living in France for two whole years,' he added shuddering as he remembered his own horrible experience in the European country when Takumi and Keisuke had competed in the 24 hours of Le Mans.

'Is he any good?' Akito asked his grandfather.

'We'll soon find out, won't we?' Bunta replied.

Thirty five minutes later and as Kojiro entered his fifteenth lap around the circuit, they were all stunned to see the astonishingly good times the kid was actually making.

'He's good,' Bunta said.

'Of course he is!' Keiichi exclaimed, 'he's a Tsuchiya!'

Bunta looked at him as though as he was failing to see Keiichi's point and everyone had to bite their lower lips to prevent themselves from laughing.

'Tsuchiya-san,' Takumi said, 'how old is he?'

'Just turned eighteen,' the former Drift King replied, 'I know that he looks a lot younger because he's so short.'

'Does he have his FIA license?' Keisuke asked.

'Of course,' Keiichi replied.

Takumi and Keisuke looked at each other unable to believe their luck.

'I think we've found our driver,' Fumihiro sentenced.

'Hey,' Akito said, 'I'd like to know one thing.'

'What is it?' Keiichi asked the nineteen year old looking at him with a grandfatherly affection.

'Er…' Akito hesitated, 'does he have a girlfriend?'

'W-what? Keiichi stuttered looking positively taken aback by what possibly was the weirdest question ever.

'I know it's none of our business but, I really need to know,' Akito said trying to find the right words to get his point across.

'I think he's seeing a girl he met in France,' Keiichi replied.

Akito glanced at his grandfather's mate before looking around himself at his team then, smiling, he said:

'In that case, he's got my vote.'

Everyone burst out laughing and, soon after that, the Fujiwara-Takahashi-Tsuchiya alliance was born making Akito think that, this time, nothing would prevent his team from taking both GP2 titles.

To be continued…