Programmed Lives – Final Stage

Chapter Twenty

Even though Seisuke knew it would happen, it still felt quite denigrating when he and Daichiro started the race and the older guy, no only let Seisuke get ahead of him, but he even allowed himself to start the race about half a second after Seisuke.

However and just as the doctor-in-training prepared himself to enter the first corner, even before he had had the time to even think about blocking it, the twenty three year old was forced to watch the dark purple Subaru WRX driving past him, from the outside and with such an ease that it almost made him feel like crying.

'You'll pay for this,' Seisuke muttered angrily as he pressed the accelerator so he could keep up with the Subaru but after clearing just a few corners, he understood what Misa had told him about what this Daichiro guy seemed to do in order to break one's concentration: his lines, to begin with, were all over the place and, the seemingly effortless way in which he drove down the hill made Seisuke feel very uneasy.

Taking a deep breath, Seisuke steeled his grasp on the RZ-1's steering wheel as he did his very best to stick to the lines he knew were the ideal ones for this particular sector of his home course.

Meanwhile, back at the top of the mountain, Misa seemed to look quite worried.

'He'll be fine,' Ryoko said to her.

'What?' Misa asked sounding almost startled.

'Seisuke,' Ryoko explained, 'he's a great racer.'

'Oh, I know that,' Misa said with a short laugh.

'Misa, are you okay?'

The older girl looked at her boyfriend's cousin as though as she was debating with herself how to answer to that question.

'Not really,' Misa finally replied.

'What's wrong?' Ryoko asked.

'Er…' Misa started then, looking around herself to see that Akito was out of hearing range for he was busy discussing something with Junya and Shinji.

'Misa?' Ryoko insisted.

'I'm worried about Hiroki,' Misa said.

'Ah, that…'

'Ryoko, I know that he's probably not on your…'

'Misa,' Ryoko interrupted her, 'I'm worried about him too. After all, everything that's happened to him is my fault.'

'What? No way…'

'Yes way, Misa,' Ryoko said, 'if I had handled the situation a lot better maybe Hiroki would have given up on me and he would still be a member of our team and…'

'Ryoko, you don't know that,' Misa interrupted her, 'in all the time I've known Hiroki, he's never shown any interest in any of the girls who were after him.'

'Misa,' Ryoko protested for that wasn't making her feel any better.

'Let me finish,' Misa said then, without waiting for an answer, she added, 'now that I know about this Hashimoto guy I understand the reason why Hiroki acted the way he did and that's the reason why I'm so worried about him. '

'What do you mean?'

'Hiroki's a changed man,' Misa said, 'I no longer know what to expect from him. Ever since he ran away from that race against Kojiro he hasn't returned any of my calls. Not even Kosugi has managed to get in touch with him.'

'Do you think Akito's dad or mine will be able to do something to help him?' Ryoko asked.

'I hope so,' Misa replied.

'They better,' Ryoko added, 'otherwise I don't know what Akito will do: he feels even more guilty than I do about all of this.'

'Why is that?' Misa asked.

'Because it was Akito who introduced Hiroki to the GP2's racing world, wasn't he?' Ryoko explained, 'he believes it's partially his fault that those guys saw Hiroki as the weakest link.'

'I see,' Misa said and then it was the two of them who looked very concerned so much so that Misa felt quite bad with herself because, once again, she seemed to be paying more attention to whatever was happening with Hiroki than to her own boyfriend who, by the way, was currently racing an ex-professional racer and therefore in dire need of support.

The white RZ-1 had somehow reached the race's midpoint and, despite the fact that its driver had been pushing it to its limits, the gap between the Mazda and the Subaru kept steadily increasing making Seisuke think, for the first time in his life, that he was really going to lose the race.

'Fuck,' he breathed and even though his forehead was drenched with pearls of sweat, Seisuke didn't trust himself enough to let go of the steering wheel for the RZ-1 was currently travelling at such a high speed that the smallest of mistakes would send him flying off the cliff.

Stealing a quick glance at the Subaru, the twenty three year old noticed with immense displeasure that Daichiro still didn't even seem to be anywhere near as much in trouble as Seisuke was.

How in the heck did he manage to drive like that? Seisuke thought desperately.

A few kilometres town the road, Kyosuke was standing by his RZ-1 with a very worried frown on his face when he saw his fiancée Kizuna walking towards him.

'He's still behind,' the girl said, 'Masato just reported from the midpoint and he says that there is a gap of four seconds between them…'

Without saying anything to that, Kyosuke got into his car and switched the radio on.

'Seisuke, it's me,' he said.

'Aniki, this looks pretty bad.'

Kyosuke winced for he had never heard his younger brother speaking with such a dejected tone of voice.

'Seisuke, this is what I want you to do: drive as you usually do, stop looking at him and focus on your driving. Don't give up just yet, do you hear me?' he ordered then, after a brief silence, he heard:

'I hear you.'

'Good, now go and do your thing,' Kyosuke said and, as an afterthought, he added, 'and make me proud!'

The soft chuckle he heard from his younger brother made Kyosuke smile for he knew that now, with this new-found determination, Seisuke would start driving in his uniquely aggressive style and therefore he would attack Daichiro in every single corner until the older guy would either give up or crash.

The doctor-in-training vowed to do his best not to betray his brother's expectations and, at the fifth attack and with only a couple of other places left where it was possible to do so, he managed to enter the corner while pushing the WRX towards the outside of it.

They exited the turn side by side but at the following one Seisuke drifted into it making it virtually impossible for the Subaru to enter the corner before the RZ-1 did then, as the Mazda started clearing it, Seisuke found himself in a position which finally was at his own advantage, he was ahead and could do now what he did best: blocking the opponent.

Luckily Seisuke only had to do that for a very short time for he noticed that, as they reached the end of the course, Daichiro was preparing himself to do one last desperate attack.

'No-no,' Seisuke muttered as he floored the RZ-1 accelerator finally crossing the finish line with a margin of just half a car.

Then, as he parked his car next to that of his older brother Seisuke realised that his legs were trembling so violently that he doubted he could get out of the car and stand up by himself.

'Seisuke, are you okay?' he heard his brother ask as Kyosuke opened the white RZ-1's door.

'F-fuck, A-aniki…' Seisuke stuttered.

'Seisuke?' Kyosuke asked, this time sounding a lot more urgent, 'what's wrong?'

'Is he okay?' Daichiro asked as he and his friend Fujimoto walked towards the RZ-1.

'I…I think I am,' Seisuke replied then, glancing first at his older brother then at Daichiro, he added, 'this was the worst race of my whole life.'

'I'm sorry to hear that,' Daichiro said looking slightly offended.

'No, no,' Seisuke hurried to say, 'it's just that I've never had to drive quite as hard as you've made me.'

'Same here,' Daichiro said and that made everyone turn their heads sharply to look at him, 'you really are a great driver, even though I've tried my best to confuse you, you've still kept your cool…and the way you've overtaken me…man, that's given me the creeps.'

Seisuke chuckled and, realising that his lower limbs were no longer shaking, he finally decided to climb out of his car.

'Thanks for this fantastic race,' he said offering Daichiro his hand.

'You're welcome,' the older guy said shaking it briefly, 'I'm glad that girlfriend of yours is fine too.'

'Yeah,' Seisuke said.

'She really is gorgeous…if she were single…'

'Hey, watch it,' Seisuke said warningly but then, realising that Daichiro was just winding him up, Seisuke smiled as he shook his head disapprovingly. Kizuna, observing all of this, tilted her head towards her fiancé and whispered:

'I think your brother has finally found someone who can be as much of a teaser as he is.'

Kyosuke just nodded at that while giving her a tiny smile.

'Shall we hit the road?' he then heard Fujimoto say.

'Yeah, the sooner the better,' Kyosuke replied and, with this, he walked towards his own RZ-1, a slightly older version of that of Seisuke which had just had its yellow paintwork redone.

Five minutes later, the same scene repeated itself only that, this time, the drivers were Fujimoto and Kyosuke while their rides were a bright yellow highly tuned Mitsubishi X-2 and an equally well prepped Mazda RZ-1.

'Aniki, be careful these…'

'I know, Seisuke, I know,' Kyosuke said looking through the opened window at his younger brother, 'don't worry: I know what I have to do.'

'Of course you do,' Seisuke said smiling at his brother confidently.

Nodding once, Kyosuke glanced at Kizuna who stood right in front of him, ready to do the countdown, looking at him in a way which made him get all the encouragement he needed so, pressing the button to roll the window up, he started his pre-race routine of checking that everything was exactly as he wanted it then, he closed his eyes for a few moments.

'Let's do it,' he muttered as he turned the RZ-1's engine on enjoying, as he usually did, the way its vibrations made him feel part of the car itself. His Aunt Kyoko had told him numerous times about the time when, because of a very desperate situation, she had been forced to take him as one month old baby in the passenger seat of her black FD, Kyosuke had always believed that it had been then when he'd fallen in love with the sensations the rotary engine's vibrations made him feel.

By the time Kizuna finally shouted the 'go', Kyosuke had reached such a high level of concentration that he didn't care about anything else other than getting to the top of the mountain as soon as he could.

'Wow,' Seisuke gasped.

'What the…' he heard Daichiro say and, judging by his startled expression the younger of the two Takahashi brothers realised that the fact that Fujimoto had been left behind as badly as he had, wasn't part of the plan at all.

'Seisuke,' he then heard Kizuna say, 'do you think the same thing I do?'

'I think so…'

'What's going on?' Daichiro asked.

'No offence but…' Seisuke started.

'I've only seen Kyosuke driving like this once before,' Kizuna interrupted him, 'and that was when he raced me.'

'Holy crap,' Seisuke said.

'Care to explain?' one of Daichiro's friends asked.

'It's over,' Daichiro replied instead, 'if your brother drives like that throughout the entire course, Fujimoto won't have any chance to keep up with him.'

'Hey,' Seisuke said, 'your mate is extremely good.'

'It's not a question of technique.'

'Is this because of his injury?' Kizuna asked.

'Yes,' Daichiro replied.

'What's wrong with your friend?' Seisuke asked.

'I don't think you'd understand,' Daichiro replied.

'I'm training to become a doctor,' Seisuke countered and the older man nodded once, then he said:

'Fujimoto suffers from a heart condition called macrocardio…'

'Oh shit,' Seisuke muttered and was about to start running to his car when Daichiro grabbed him by his arm.

'Where are you going?' he asked.

'I'm going to stop this race,' Seisuke replied trying to release himself from the older guy's grasp.

'What's going on?' Kizuna asked.

'Fujimoto's seriously ill,' Seisuke explained, 'he shouldn't be racing at all!'

'He knows what he's doing,' Daichiro said letting go of Seisuke's arm.

'But…'

'Look, street racing is all he's got left,' Daichiro explained, 'he knows how far he can push himself and if he gets to that point, he will stop racing himself.'

Seisuke looked at him and then at the other two guys who were part of the Kanto Kaisers, then he glanced at Kizuna who shrugged her shoulders seeming to be even less sure about what to do than he was.

'Alright,' he finally said, 'but Aniki's not going to be happy when he finds out.'

While this happened, Kyosuke continued his uphill race almost entirely by himself for it had been a while since he'd lost sight of the bright yellow Mitsubishi. Thankfully he knew better than to let himself be worried about that so he just kept racing using a trick he hadn't used in a very long time: imagining that he had his father's FC in front of him.

Then when he had just passed the midpoint of the race, he started feeling some weird vibration coming from the RZ-1's rotary engine.

'What the…' he muttered to himself and was about to pay more attention to it something else distracted his attention: the radio.

'Kyosuke-san, this is Masato.'

'What's up?' Kyosuke asked as he felt himself getting increasingly worried about his car's engine.

'It's Fujimoto,' Masato said, 'he's stopped his car a few corners from here.'

'He's what?' Kyosuke half shouted.

'Izawa's gone to see what's happened to him,' Masato said.

Kyosuke didn't think twice as he slammed the brake pedal to stop the car then, doing a three point turn, he started driving downhill.

'SEISUKE!' he shouted hoping that his younger brother was somewhere near his car.

'We've just heard,' Kyosuke heard him say, 'I'm on my way up.'

'Great, I'll see you there.'

I hope, Kyosuke added mentally for the RZ-1's engine seemed to refuse to go over a certain amount of revs per minute, clearly indicating that something was very wrong with it.

'Don't give up on me just yet,' he begged his six year old car but, by the time he finally saw the bright yellow Mitsubishi, Kyosuke realised that his car was moving almost exclusively due to the fact that it was going downhill.

Because of this, he decided to spare the poor malfunctioning engine from its agony by pulling the RZ-1 over to the side of the road where he parked it. He then climbed out of it so he could cover the short distance which separated him from the X-2 on foot.

'What's going on?' he asked to Izawa who was already there with other people as they all tried to get the Mitsubishi's driver's door open.

'I don't know,' his team mate replied, 'he's not moving,' he pointed at a seemingly unconscious Fujimoto.

'Shit,' Kyosuke muttered then, without thinking twice, he removed the light jumper he was wearing and, pushing everyone out of the way, he rolled the garment around his elbow and after smashing the window with it, he finally managed to get the door open.

'Fujimoto!' Kyosuke exclaimed as he freed the older guy from his seatbelt, 'can you hear me?'

He saw as Fujimoto's eyelids flickered then Kyosuke heard someone running towards them.

'Aniki, let me handle this,' Seisuke said as he gently moved him out of the way.

'What are you doing?' Kyosuke asked seeing that his younger brother was searching for something inside the pockets of Fujimoto's denim jacket.

'He's very sick,' Seisuke explained as he extracted a small flask containing some medicine then, taking a syringe form his first aid kid, he took a bit of the liquid, mixed it with what looked like water and then injected it into Fujimoto's arm.

'I take you know what you're doing,' Kyosuke said sounding slightly freaked out.

'I do,' Seisuke replied, 'an ambulance should be here any minute now but this should make sure his heart doesn't stop.'

'Why would it?' a startled Kyosuke asked.

'He's got a heart condition,' Daichiro explained for the second time that night.

'What!' Kyosuke exclaimed, his shock copying that of the rest of the crowd gathered there.

'You need to understand this,' Daichiro said, 'Fujimoto wanted to race the Golden Arrows more than anything in the world. He's always said that the other races were just a warm up because our real target was beating you guys in your home turf.'

'But…'

'He's waking up,' Seisuke announced causing everyone to let out a sigh of relief, 'don't move,' the doctor-in-training ordered seeing that Fujimoto was trying to climb out of his car.

'My medicine…'

'I've already given it to you,' Seisuke said, 'we've also called an ambulance so just relax, okay? You're going to be fine.'

'Thanks,' Fujimoto whispered weakly.

'I'm just doing my job,' Seisuke said.

Kyosuke looked at his younger brother not being able to remember a time when he'd felt any prouder of him then, glancing at his nearly broken-down RZ-1, he said to Daichiro:

'We should call this a draw.'

'What are you talking about?' Daichiro asked, 'if it hadn't been…'

'I was going to stop too,' Kyosuke said and that made Seisuke and Kizuna look at him eye-widen, 'there's something wrong with the engine,' he explained to them, 'I seriously doubt I would have made it to the summit.'

'It doesn't matter,' Daichiro said, 'your brother has beaten me so that was the end of the Kanto Kaisers, wasn't it?' he asked looking at Fujimoto who nodded to that.

'What do you mean?' Seisuke asked.

'We were going to quit racing the day we found someone who could beat us,' Daichiro explained.

'And we've found them,' Fujimoto whispered, still sounding desperately feeble.

'But…' Kyosuke started.

'You better go now,' Daichiro said, 'get your people out of here before the ambulance comes.'

'What about Fujimoto?' Seisuke asked.

'I'll take care of him,' Daichiro replied then, allowing himself a smile, he added, 'you guys are truly great. I do hope you won't quit racing for a long time because we'd like to keep an eye on you.'

'We won't,' Kyosuke assured him, 'and thank you for racing us,' he added looking at Fujimoto who, again, just nodded.

After making sure that his RZ-1 was out of the way so he could take a look at it later, Kyosuke climbed into Kizuna's Nissan so they could all drive to the summit where Akito and the rest of the Golden Arrows were already waiting for them.

'Winning like this doesn't really feel like winning,' Kyosuke commented miserably.

'I agree,' Kizuna said sounding as sad as her fiancé did.

To be continued…