Golden Arrows

Chapter Twenty

Kyosuke parked his RZ-1 in front of the apartment block where Kizuna lived at exactly seven o'clock in the morning like he'd agreed with her before leaving the Centre. He knew that it was unlikely that she'd be late for he was slowly learning that, unlike other girls, Kizuna was always terribly punctual and he hadn't even turned the engine off when he saw her walking out of the building.

'Just as I expected,' Kyosuke muttered to himself, his lips curving up a little.

He observed her while she made her way to the car: she was back to wearing her usual pair of jeans but, instead of a t-shirt, she had a very pretty and rather feminine looking yellow shirt with three quarter length sleeves. She had also a pair of matching canvas shoes that while comfortable to walk on, they also made her look awfully cute. Kyosuke's smile widened when she opened the door and, climbing into the car, he noticed that she was wearing perfume too, it smelled of roses.

'Good morning,' she said.

'Good morning,' he repeated then, as casually as possible, he added, 'you look great.'

'It's all part of Ryoko's makeover,' she confessed, 'I wouldn't have bought anything yellow myself but she insisted that it looked good on me and there was nothing I could say that would make her change her mind.'

'She's right though,' Kyosuke said, 'it really suits you.'

'Thanks,' Kizuna replied shyly.

Kyosuke felt very self conscious all of a sudden and started debating whether it would be okay to give her a peck then, shaking his head once, he decided that it was way too soon to start behaving like that with her so, instead, he decided to get the car moving and not knowing what to say, he spent the twenty minutes it took them to get from Maebashi to Takasaki Station in complete silence. He only spoke to her when he parked the RZ-1 at the station.

'The train leaves in fifteen minutes,' he said.

'Ah,' Kizuna gasped, 'we should hurry then.'

'Yes,' Kyosuke confirmed.

At exactly the same time, the two of them climbed out of the car and, also together, they closed the doors with one single motion. That made them exchange a glance over the car's roof while they smiled at each other thinking that it was rather bizarre the way they seemed to be in absolute synchrony. They even opened their mouth to speak a the same time but Kyosuke, being a gentleman, said:

'You first.'

'Alright,' Kizuna said, 'just wanted to thank you for the trip.'

'But we haven't left yet,' Kyosuke pointed out.

'I know,' Kizuna said, 'it's just in case I forget to say it later.'

Kyosuke nodded once and then, they started making their way to the station where he insisted on paying for both of their tickets ignoring Kizuna's protests that it was the twenty first century and that she wanted to pay for her own share of the expenses they would have during the day. Kyosuke shook his head and said:

'No way.'

'But…'

'Kizuna,' he interrupted her gently but firmly, 'I'm only going to say this once: I suggested this trip and I'm going to be paying for everything, including whichever souvenirs we might want to buy. Twenty first century or not, I'm the sort of guy who feels like crap if his girlfriend pays for stuff so, please humour me.'

The girl remained mute, not because she couldn't think of ways to counter his point but because she'd just hear him referring to him as his girlfriend for the first time and that made her get butterflies in her stomach. She'd never felt like that in her whole life and now she didn't know what to do.

'Let's go,' Kyosuke told her offering his hand to her.

Kizuna looked at the hand for a brief moment then, shaking her head, she smiled at him and took it in hers.

'Again,' she said, 'you Takahashi can't take a no as an answer.'

'Nope,' Kyosuke replied smiling at her, 'keep that in mind, okay?'

'Alright,' she conceded, 'for now and only because you won the race yesterday.'

Kyosuke let out a soft chuckle then, the two of them took the escalator up the platform and, from one of the vending machines there, they got a couple of cans of juice so that they could drink something while they waited for the train. Kizuna hadn't even opened her can when she saw the Joetsu Shinkansen approaching a lot faster than she thought it wise. She was about to look at Kyosuke in worry when she saw that the train's highly efficient brakes made it stop right at the spot where it was supposed to.

'Wow,' she gasped.

'First time you're on one of them?' Kyosuke asked her while the two got onboard the train.

'Yes,' Kizuna replied, 'when I came here from Narita I took normal trains. I thought that the Shinkansen would be too complicated for me and I really didn't want to get lost while trying to get to Maebashi.'

'No,' Kyosuke decided, 'that would have been a very bad idea.'

She nodded trying not to think that he had just sounded a little too serious for what was supposed to be a light hearted statement and while they found their seats, Kizuna reflected on the fact that if she had never found Maebashi, she would have never met Kyosuke. That thought made her get rather serious too.

'So,' he said once they were seated, 'did you have fun yesterday?'

'Of course,' Kizuna replied, 'that birthday cake was a bit too much though. I wasn't expecting it at all!'

'Well,' Kyosuke reasoned, 'that was the whole point, you know?'

'Yes,' Kizuna said, 'but your cousin had already gone through the trouble of buying me a birthday present the day before so I didn't think she'd do anything else and besides, we were there to celebrate Akito's promotion, weren't we? I hope he didn't feel that I…'

'Hey,' Kyosuke interrupted her, 'Ryoko loves doing this kind of things so don't think for a second she had to "trouble" herself, any excuse is a good one to organise a party and go shopping for her so imagine if she actually has a legit reason to do it. As per Akito, he was very grateful that you took a lot of the focus off him. In case you haven't noticed, he simply hates being in the centre of the attention.'

'He does?' Kizuna asked sounding surprised.

'Oh yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'other than behind a steering wheel, he's just a kid who is not as confident as you might think. In fact, Seisuke and I often tease him because of it, mainly because we're worried about how he's going to cope once he'll be thrown head first into the professional racing world.'

'He's not going to like it much,' Kizuna decided.

'That's an understatement,' Kyosuke said laughing softly, 'just try to imagine him facing the press.'

Kizuna made the effort of seeing the poor kid in front of a whole panel of journalists firing questions at him and taking snapshots. She smiled a bit while she pictured Akito hiding under the table trying to disappear.

'Yeah,' she finally said, 'he better get ready or they'll eat him alive.'

'Exactly,' Kyosuke replied happy that she'd see his point, 'anyway,' he continued, 'what did you think of the challenges? Did you figure out what they were for and what we were supposed to learn from them?'

'Kind of,' she replied, 'I'm not too sure about the details but I know that we covered every aspect of what will help us become better and faster drivers. But I didn't understand the reason why we had to drive an F3 car, I mean, we're never going to race with one of them, are we?'

'No,' Kyosuke replied, 'but that's the whole point.'

While Kizuna looked at him feeling a bit confused, she realised that at some point during their conversation the train had started moving and from through the window all she could see was a furiously fast blur.

'Alright,' Kyosuke said seeing that she wasn't going to speak, 'the point of driving an F3 car was to show us how in comparison driving our cars is relatively easy. There's nothing harder to drive than a single seater, not only because its behaviour is so radically different but also because it's difficult to get used to.'

'That's true,' Kizuna observed.

'Akito,' he added, 'and all other racers spend ages training themselves to drive those cars and even they have problems keeping them under control. I think that whoever was in that car yesterday felt relieved once they got back onboard their rides. That was the first lesson we needed to learn: familiarity with the vehicle is always a very powerful factor when it comes to be the fastest racer.'

Kizuna just nodded.

'The we had the sudden acceleration/braking test,' he continued, 'I don't know if you noticed that if one calibrates the increase on the amount of pressure on the throttle the car accelerates much more easily without forcing the engine too much, the timing in which we stepped on the brake was also crucial and it was designed to test our reflexes as well as making us realise the true extend of our car's braking power.'

'Wow,' Kizuna gasped, 'you figured all that much by yourself?'

'No,' he confessed, 'I had a long talk with my father last night before I went to bed.'

'Your father?' Kizuna asked him, 'I thought it was your uncle and Takumi-san who organised the event.'

'They did,' Kyosuke explained with a smile, 'but it turns out that they planned the whole thing with my father's help who isn't anywhere near as rusty as he wants us all to believe. In fact, I think he's still secretly tuning his FC when he thinks no one is watching and he'd probably take it for a serious spin somewhere if it weren't because my mother would get mad at him and, believe me, you don't want to see my mother when she's angry.'

'No, I don't,' she replied.

She remembered the tiny and almost frail looking woman she'd met at the Arakawa Hospital and the sensation she had got when she'd seen the fire in her eyes and the firmness in her tone of voice. She knew that in spite of how mild she seemed to be, she could probably be rather intimidating if she got ticked off.

'Anyway,' Kyosuke said, 'didn't you find it odd that they put mannequins there instead of cones?'

'Yeah,' she admitted, 'that was rather weird.'

'Well,' Kyosuke said, 'my father thought that if we saw human-shaped obstacles, in addition to having to control the car while we drifted, we would also need to fight the urge to drive away from what our brain perceived as people. That, he reckoned, would give us an extra handicap.'

'It did,' Kizuna commented, 'look at the way the poor Yuta reacted when he ran over one of them.'

'Precisely,' Kyosuke replied, 'we then had the cone slalom which was timed to put extra pressure on us. That one and the mannequin drift were thought out to test how well we handled our cars when under stress.'

'And the eight-shaped one?' Kizuna asked.

'That was for us to see that we still have a long way to go,' Kyosuke replied.

'A dose of humility syrup,' Kizuna decided and for some reason that made him laugh.

'Yeah,' he said nodding, 'that's what it was: a large dose of humility syrup.'

'Well,' she said, 'it worked because after seeing your uncle doing that at his age and with the first car he could find was pretty impressive, not to mention the fact that not even you or Akito were able to copy him.'

'Yeah,' Kyosuke replied not looking too happy, 'I can't believe I lost control of my RZ-1 so badly. I don't think I remember the last time it happened, maybe when I first drove it on my own down Mt Akagi. To my defence, it was January and everything was covered with snow.'

'It's okay,' she hurried to say, 'it's not like you need to justify yourself. Do you want me to tell you what happened to the first car I ever drove?' she asked him then, seeing his nod, she said, 'I smashed it so badly that not even my uncle could repair it so we had to send it to the scrap yard.'

'What were you trying to do?' Kyosuke asked sounding a tad too worried.

'Nothing I will ever try and emulate again,' Kizuna replied clearly not wanting to recall the memory.

Kyosuke nodded to that too and, after that, they started talking about their very first driving experiences, with Kyosuke explaining to her about the day when he and Seisuke had first met Akito and the fact that they'd race together ever since, first at the Centre while they were all underage and how the three would train in Mt Akagi the instant Akito got his driving license. To Kizuna it seemed like Kyosuke was looking forward to that moment even more than Akito himself.

Roughly seventy minutes after their departure Kyosuke announced that they had to get off the train for they were arriving at Ueno Station, the penultimate stop before the Joetsu Shinkansen ended its journey in Tokyo Station. Kizuna was wondering the reason why they were getting off before that when Kyosuke said:

'There's something I want you to see here.'

'Alright,' she said feeling just a little unsettled that he sometimes seemed to be able to read her thoughts.

In any case, she followed him off the train and soon they found themselves in a very modern looking station complete with a huge shopping centre as well as every possible restaurant and café, ready to cater the pickiest traveller with several delicacies. Kizuna was starting to feel a tad hungry but she remembered that he had insisted on paying for everything so she felt reluctant to say anything about it.

'Have you had breakfast?' he asked her.

'Er…'

'Because I haven't,' he said, 'and my parents will get ballistic if they know I've skipped the morning meal. You know, sometimes it's a great thing having two doctors in the family but very often it's a royal pain.'

'I can imagine,' Kizuna said, 'I bet that faking any illnesses when you were kids in order to skip school was totally out of the question.'

'Oh yes,' Kyosuke replied, 'Seisuke once tried to, I think we were six and seven, and our parents threatened him to have him admitted to one of the hospitals where they would do all sorts of very nasty tests on him to figure out what was wrong with him. Needless to say, Seisuke was the subject of a miraculous recovery.'

Kizuna laughed softly then, remembering what he'd just said, she asked:

'Why did you say one of the hospitals? How many are they?'

'Three,' Kyosuke replied casually, 'one in Maebashi and two in Takasaki. Plus we have a day clinic in Isesaki as well as a number of practitioners who work for the Arakawa Takahashi Medical Group and who are spread over Gunma, Nagano and Tochigi.'

'Wow,' she gasped feeling dismayed.

'I thought you knew,' Kyosuke said sounding a little concerned, 'didn't Ryoko tell you?'

'No,' Kizuna replied almost wishing the younger girl had, 'we never talked all that much about it, she just said that your family managed the Arakawa Hospital and that they owned the Motorsports Centre, I…'

'This doesn't change anything,' he said making it sound a bit like a question.

'No,' she replied, 'of course it doesn't.'

'Good,' Kyosuke said then, deciding that they had been standing there for long enough, he said, 'let's get something to eat, okay?'

'Alright,' she managed to say.

She followed him to a café there where he immediately asked for a full traditional Japanese breakfast as well as a couple of cups of tea. Kizuna said that it was way too much food but he insisted that they were going to do a lot of walking around so they would need the extra energy. Faced with such a flawless reasoning, she just nodded while she watched the waiter serving an almost indecent amount of fish, rice and sweet pickles together with two steaming cups of green tea from Shizuoka.

'Do you like it?' he asked her while she took a sip.

'It's perfect,' she replied.

His smile made her think that she needed to stop being stupid about the money issue. Not because she knew that he could more than afford it but because he was genuinely enjoying treating her like a princess and, for once in her life, Kizuna decided to relax and enjoy what was going to be the best first date ever and, after their late breakfast, the two made their way to the Ueno Park adjacent to the station.

There, not only there was one of the biggest and best kept parks she'd seen in her whole life but there also was a zoo which they chose not to visit because Kyosuke said that they would probably need all day to see all the animals properly but as soon as Kizuna saw the alternative she was happy they had ditched the zoo so that they could visit the Tokyo National Museum with its extensive collection of ancient Japanese art.

'Oh wow,' she gasped softly while admiring a beautiful hand painted kimono, 'that's gorgeous.'

'It is,' he agreed, he then checked the guide and said, 'it's from the ninth century.'

Kizuna glanced at him quickly before she returned her attention to the ancient and probably priceless garment. She tried to imagine the sort of person who had worn the beautiful kimono, deciding that it had to be a member of the Imperial Family because unless she was mistaken, the golden parts in it were actually made of gold. She simply couldn't believe someone would wear something like that.

'Let's go,' Kyosuke said taking her by her hand.

They completed the tour in about an hour and from there, bypassing a fair bit of it since it was nearly eleven o'clock and they still had a lot of things which they wanted to visit and their train left at seven thirty pm. For this reason, they soon got out of the museum and walked towards the Ueno underground station so that they could take the Hibiya line to Akihabara. Kizuna remembered that she had told Kyosuke about wanting to see place which was famous mainly for having every electronic gadget imaginable as well as being the Mecca for anime and manga lovers.

'You're alright?' Kyosuke asked her while they were on the train.

'Yes,' Kizuna replied, 'its just that it's the first time I ride the underground.'

'I have a confession to make,' Kyosuke said, 'me too.'

'Really?' Kizuna asked, 'but surely you've visited Tokyo before, I mean…'

'I have,' Kyosuke said, 'but with my parents and there's no way you'll get my father on a train, come to think of it, I don't think he's ever taken any form of public transportation in his whole life: it's probably against his religion.'

Kizuna laughed at that and was still smiling at his comment when they got off at Akihabara Station, only two stops away from Ueno. They soon found themselves surrounded by an enormous amount of people who came and went from the numerous shops, cafés and stores which densely populated the area. Kyosuke took her to one of the electronic stores and the two were checking one of the latest models of laptops when they heard a very familiar sounding voice coming from behind them.

'Kyosuke-san?'

The two turned round and at the same time they both said:

'Yuta?'

'It is you,' Yuta said oblivious to the stunned expression which had appeared on their faces, 'I thought I had seen you crossing the street,' he explained indicating Kizuna, 'but I wasn't sure till I saw your hair,' he added looking at Kyosuke's bleached spikes, 'and I knew it could only be you two. I'm so surprised to find you here of all places! I mean, I didn't think you'd be into this kind of stuff…'

'Well,' Kyosuke said being the first one to recover from the shock, 'Kizuna's never been to Tokyo and she said that she'd heard of Akihabara and wanted to visit it so, here we are.'

'You come here often?' Kizuna asked Yuta.

'Oh yes,' he replied, 'as often as I can, can you see that building over there?' he asked pointing at nearby place, he saw them nodding and he added, 'well, in the fourth floor there's the café where the girl I like works so I always go there to visit her.'

Kyosuke simply could not find his voice to say anything to that.

'That's…' Kizuna tried, 'very thoughtful of you,' she finished.

'I know,' Yuta replied proudly, 'I'm hoping that one day she might want to go out with me.'

'Have you ever asked her out?' Kyosuke finally managed to ask.

'No way,' Yuta replied as though as the idea was preposterous, 'she's the most popular girl in the café, if I ask her out the management will get really angry with her and they might not allow me to visit her again.'

'What kind of café is it?' Kizuna asked, she was beginning to get a very disturbing picture in her mind.

'You guys want to come with me?' Yuta asked sounding very enthusiastic as well as hopeful.

'Er…' Kyosuke hesitated glancing at Kizuna who, unable to resist the puppy eyes Yuta was giving them, she sighed and nodded, 'alright,' Kyosuke said, 'I guess it'll be okay if we have a cup of coffee.'

Yuta smiled at them and then he took off in the direction of the place. They followed him into an elevator which reminded her that in Tokyo most places could only be reached by elevator. At the fourth floor, the doors opened to reveal the last place Kizuna would ever expected to visit: a Maid Cafés, one of those places where the waitresses were dressed in French Maid uniforms and who called their clients with funny names.

'Yukkun!' one of them exclaimed sounding way too happy, 'you're earlier than usual!'

'And you've brought a friend!' another one added, this one ignored Kizuna and looking up at Kyosuke, she made an exceedingly cute face and said, 'you're so cool! What's your name?'

'Er…'

'Kyosuke-san,' Yuta supplied all too helpfully.

'Kyokkun!' the first girl squealed sounding even more cheerful.

Kizuna bit her lips trying not to burst out laughing when she saw Kyosuke's eyes widening as far as they went and his horrified expression when the two girls decided to kidnap him so that they could start pampering him like a king. They only asked Kizuna what she wanted to drink when both guys had been properly looked after and she noticed that the service they granted her was significantly less effusive.

'Oh-my-God,' an overwhelmed Kyosuke told her the instant they had left Yuta.

The guy had decided to stay at the café while he had his third cappuccino, this time served by the girl he seemed to have a crush on: a very tiny and but very pretty girl who appeared to be around Ryoko's age. Kizuna was seriously shocked by what she'd seen up to then and she didn't even have the strength to comment on it. Instead, she remained silent all the way to the Higashi Ginza station. They bypassed the Mitsukoshi department store and were walking past the Kabuki Theatre when Kizuna said:

'I've always wanted to see a kabuki play.'

'Really?' Kyosuke asked her.

'Oh yes,' she replied, 'but I've heard they go on for hours and we don't have that much time.'

'We do,' Kyosuke countered, 'and at any rate, I know that they do shorter segments for tourists who don't want to watch the whole thing. If you want to, I'm sure we can get into one of the late morning shows.'

Kizuna's expression provided him with the answer he needed and soon the two of them were inside the old theatre, sitting in the dark onto two plush red seats with a group of people who, just as Kyosuke had told her, were mostly foreigners visiting Tokyo. She even heard a few Americans among them and that made her feel somewhat homesick. Thankfully, the play started very shortly afterwards and watching the powerful performance made her forget about everything else.

'That was great,' she said when she and Kyosuke walked out of the theatre.

'I'm glad you liked it,' he replied then, he pointed at a family restaurant nearby and said, 'lunch?'

The girl nodded and even though she wasn't particularly hungry, she still followed him into the restaurant where she chose to eat a Caesar salad and a glass of coke. Kyosuke eat a full steak with peppercorn sauce and roasted potatoes saying that for once he was going to go wild and not eat the traditional Japanese food he seemed to prefer. Kizuna gave him a benevolent smile thinking that judging by the old fashioned way in which he behaved it seemed like Kyosuke had been born in the wrong century.

She grew more convinced of this idea when she and Kyosuke visited the Imperial Palace: seeing him in the very old but massive construction was too easy to imagine him wearing a samurai armour and yielding the two katana the ancient Japanese soldiers were famous for. He really seemed to be in his element walking around the park explaining to her all sorts of stories about the history of the Imperial Family.

'I'm boring you, aren't I?' he asked worriedly when they left the place nearly three hours later.

'Of course not,' she hurried to say, 'Kyosuke, how can you even think that?'

'I don't know,' he said, 'it's just that I'm not sure if I'm doing a good job, I'm…'

Kizuna glanced around herself to see if they were alone on the street and not seeing anyone, she stopped right in front of him and, getting on her tiptoes, grabbed herself onto his shoulders and kissed him.

'That's as much as I'm enjoying myself,' she said.

The girl started walking again as if nothing had happened. Kyosuke followed her and taking her hand in his, he smiled in the way which made Kizuna feel like she was about to take off propelled by sheer happiness. She simply could not believe that this was only their first date because somewhere in her heart, she felt like she'd known Kyosuke her whole life and not just under three months. That thought scared her a little because she knew that she had just gone past the point in which she could imagine her life without him.

'It's too bad,' Kyosuke said taking her out of her reverie and she was about to wonder if he had read her thoughts once again when he added, 'I wish we didn't have to go home but I'm supposed to work on a paper tomorrow and I haven't finished doing all the research I need to do.'

'It's okay,' Kizuna replied, 'I need to do some studying too,' she said, 'besides, we need to promise each other that we'll be our most strict to one another. If you see me slacking off, you need to tell me as I'll tell you if you do, okay?'

'Yes ma'am,' he said smiling at her.

'I'm serious,' she insisted.

'I know,' Kyosuke replied sobering up, 'and I also know that one of the conditions for you to date me is that I don't distract you from your course so I'll make sure you keep your marks up so that we can be together without you feeling bad about it. I give you my word that I won't hold you down.'

'Alright,' Kizuna said, 'then you've got mine.'

She put her hand in front of his expecting him to shake it and seal the deal when, instead, he took it in his and, bringing it to his lips, he kissed it softly. He then looked up to her with some very strong emotion reflected on his face, he said:

'You have no idea how happy you've made me today.'

She couldn't reply, she had a knot tying her throat.

'I'll do my best to make you this happy too,' he promised.

Kizuna found herself feeling like she was travelling on a cloud and she barely noticed when they rode the Shinkansen to Takasaki nor when he drove her back home to Maebashi. Kizuna had never felt happier in her whole life and thinking that Kyosuke intended to make her even happier was too much for her poor heart to handle so the instant she got into the apartment, stopping only to take her shoes off, she ran to her bedroom and throwing herself onto the bed, Kizuna started crying out of sheer happiness and, a little bit of fear too.

Meanwhile, Kyosuke drove back to the Takahashi residence feeling very accomplished. He'd been so worried during the entire week which had preceded their date that he had had trouble sleeping but now, having seen Kizuna's face while riding the train and as he took her home he knew that he'd finally managed to get as close to her heart as she was getting to his. He now understood the reason why both Seisuke and Akito had always been so protective of their feelings towards the girls they both loved because if that's how one felt when one was in love, there was little wonder why so many people craved for it and how such a strong emotion could be the source of so much trouble.

It was definitely scary but, he reckoned, it was worth it.

Kyosuke was so busy pondering all of this that he failed to see his younger brother leaning against the white RZ-1 as if he'd been waiting for him for a long time. He only noticed him when he got out of his car and heard him speaking with an unusually cold tone of voice.

'So Aniki,' Seisuke said, 'did you have fun today with your girlfriend?'

To be continued…