Chapter 19: Utena's Stash
"Whoa." Seiya said, having thought that it was just another sturdy, normal garage wall.
"The guys installed this so I could keep my stuff here." She ducked under the slowly raising door. The others followed.
"Wow! This is all yours?" Nausicaa said in amazement.
In front of the group sat 13 totally souped-up cars, sparkling as if they were new. There were three Honda Civic DXs, dark green, pale blue, and dark purple (almost a black); a silver Toyota Celica; a red Nissan S13 Silvia K's; two Mistubishi Lancer Evoluton VIIIs, white and silver; and two Mazda RX-7 FC3S Savannahs, black and dark blue. Behind these drift-based cars, were parked two Ferraris. One was a goldish-yellow, and the other was bright red. These two were most likely used for the drag racing that happened on Monday and Thursday nights on the longest side street in Akina, which was about a mile and a half. There were also two other cars parked so that they were barely visible behind the two Ferraris. The two cars were a pale blue Subaru STi and a black Nissan Skyline GT-R.
"You have two FCs?" Ryosuke asked in astonishment at her owning the same type of car as he himself drove.
"Yeah. I love RX-7s, but Evos are my favorite, after all, it's got 4WD. The Honda Civic hatchback comes in at a close second on my list though. And I'm waiting for a Nissan 350Z to come in."
"A 350Z?! You're getting one?!" Keisuke was flabbergasted. "That's supposed to be the best car today."
(AN: Okay, I'm incorporating a new car into this. I know the "times" don't match up with these cars...but it sounds more interesting with cars from today, right?)
"Yeah. A friend of mine was able to get me a great deal. Only 24 grand!" Utena said proudly.
"'Only?!?!'" Julius exclaimed with wide eyes. "Where the hell do you get that kind of money?!"
"I DO work you know," Utena retorted, her hand on her hip.
"What do you do?" Julius asked, afraid at what she did for work. 'There's only one way she could get THAT much money in a short time!'
Utena glared at him. She knew exactly what he was thinking. "I am NOT in that line of work! I DO NOT do exotic dancing OR porno movies!"
"Be great if you did though," muttered Kaneda.
"You. Shut up." Utena whipped around to face him, having heard his little comment. She turned back to her brother and Miki. "Actually, I work at Pyro Autoshop's extension, Pyro Racing AutoShop." (It's spelled like that, not a mis-"print").
"You do?" Kelly asked a surprised expression on her face. "My older brother works there. I've been there tons of times but I've never seen you there."
"I'm only called in for special projects or works. Your brother's name is Kenzo, right? I noticed you guys look somewhat alike," Utena told her.
"He never told me that there was a girl working there," Kelly went on. 'Something's up with Utena's story,' she thought, narrowing her eyes.
"He isn't supposed to. The manager thought it'd be bad business if word got out that a female was working at Pyro's," Utena explained with disgust. She sighed. "You see, in the current street circuit, women are thought to 'defile the car,' as they put it. When I went in for the job, the manager told me 'no' right off the bat. I knew he had to give me a chance to apply for the job because it was against the law to not allow a person apply for a job, so he gave me a form and said that I had to undergo a timed run in fixing a car. I fixed the car he assigned me in less than the time limit, and he was really impressed, so he gave me the job," Utena told them.
"I found out later from Kenzo that the manager had given me the so-called 'non-fixable car' and had given me a much more difficult time frame to fix the car within. So, to sum it all up, I only work a few times a week, in the evening, in the back of the garage, with Kenzo and the other top mechanics," Utena said. She turned to Kelly who was frowning. "You can ask your brother if you want, and tell him I told you."
"I'll do that," Kelly said. But the frown was still clear on her face.
"So, you only have cars?" Seiya asked, changing the subject.
"Mostly, but I have a few motorcycles too. Check it out." Utena headed over to the right side of the hidden garage, where there was an unusually wide door. Unlocking the padlock that hung from the chain that was looped through the metal holes drilled into the tab of metal, she pulled the sliding door open and gestured to her companions to enter.
There, before them, were half a dozen motorcycles, parked in a horizontal line in front of the door. Julius recognized a few. There was a Ducati Supersport 900, a Kawasaki Ninja ZZR1200, a Kawasaki Ninja ZX-12R, a Honda CBR1100, a Suzuki Hayabusa, and Suzuki GSXR1000.
"Whoa," Miki said quietly to himself. He approached the Kawasaki Ninja ZZR1200 as the others headed off towards other motorcycles of their liking. Utena came up behind Miki as he rested his hands on the front and back ends of the seat. She slid her arms around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder blade.
"Wow," Miki said to Utena, in a slightly louder voice. "This bike is..."
"Yeah, I know. It's my favorite bike." Utena smiled.
"Well, that's not surprising," Miki said with a smile, looking down at his girlfriend. "We seem to have the same interests for almost everything, huh?"
"You know it."
"Hey Utena!" called out Seiya who had hopped aboard the Ducati and was imagining himself racing this monster of a motorcycle. "You think I could take a spin on this sometime?"
Utena let go of Miki and turned to look at the others, "Yeah sure." She saw Seiya and Nausicaa over by the Ducati, while Julius was checking out the ZX- 12R, Yaten as running his hands over the CBR1100 in amazement, Taiki and Keisuke were by the Hayabusa, and Ryosuke was studying the GSXR. Ryosuke walked around the motorcycle slowly, as if he was trying to see every detail. Utena strolled over to him. "So how do you like this Suzuki?"
"Huh?" Ryosuke looked up, distractedly. "Oh, yeah. How did you get this model? I thought it wasn't out on the markets yet."
"Yeah, it isn't. A friend of mine pulled a few strings to get me this early," Utena smiled. "It's kind of fun showing it off on the streets. It's my second favorite bike."
"Oh? And which is your first favorite?" Ryosuke raised an eyebrow. "It's not the Ducati, is it?"
"No. It's the ZZR1200." Utena laughed. "I prefer that one because it was given to me by a really good friend of mine. And it's the one that I train with too. I'm more comfortable with it in the rain."
"So that WAS you. I thought it was." When Utena looked questioningly at him, he explained, "Keisuke and I were driving back from Akagi one night and we saw a biker racing down the main streets in the rain. The racer was uniformly balanced, even on the slick pavement, and seemed to have total control of the high-speed motorcycle. Do you train like that every rainy night?"
"Yeah. It helps a lot. You can shoot off the line faster after you practice on the wet pavement, and you learn more control," Utena explained.
"That's what I heard from some friends of mine who race motorcycles in Kawasaki Prefecture. They train like that too, every rainy night. They said I'd be a pretty decent motorcyclist." Ryosuke smiled. "But cars are more my style."
Utena laughed. "I was just the opposite. I lived off motorcycles. I lived at a motorcycle track for a while...and I was practically a track brat." She laughed again. "Everyone knew me, and I didn't know anyone else but their motorcycles."
"Hey you all, it's almost two in the morning. I think we should get back to the academy," Julius called out to them. There were murmurs of agreement as the Council members reluctantly dragged their eyes from the awesome motorcycles.
As the teens exited the garage, Miki said to Utena, "We'll wait in the car."
"Hey Utena!" Chris called from the front of the garage. "We put your FD in here. We can start assessing it tomorrow morning."
"Thanks, but I think it'd be better if you guys just used it for parts, instead of wasting time fixing it up," Utena said. Padlocking the sliding metal door, she followed the council members out to the front garage.
"What?" Kaneda said "You just want to break this thing down? After all that hard work we all put into it?"
"Yeah. Anyway, you guys can use some parts for the FD you guys bought from Manni Komitsu. It would be more worth the time," Utena said. She glanced over at the rusted FD3S that the boys had bought with the plan of fixing it up and souping up to sell to some racers.
"I guess," Kaneda admitted. He left out a small breath and then said, "Then I guess we can work on your green or blue Civic."
"I'm going to be racing the green one now, so either the blue or the purple," Utena told them.
"I never liked the color purple, so it's going to have to be the blue," Kaneda said.
"Alright. I'll stop by after school tomorrow," Utena said as she headed out the garage. Then she stopped and poked her head back in. "And I expect that house to be picked up, at the least."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Author ------- Not much for small talk...but...
Mai: Hey, well, this fanfic is getting even more longer. Dayum, I was only planning on it getting to about 10 chapters. I think I'm gonna keep on writing it until I feel like it has reached the end. I know I haven't uploaded chapters as soon as I would like, but I've been pretty busy with work and all. I can't believe I'm this !stressed out!-during summer vaca!!! Imagine me during the school year. Lol. Nah, I'm pretty much slacking, but anyway, enjoy the rest of the story. I'll try to upload the chapters every once and a while (hopefully at least every two weeks) for you guys. Thanks for reading this far, I hope you guys have liked it, so far.
"Whoa." Seiya said, having thought that it was just another sturdy, normal garage wall.
"The guys installed this so I could keep my stuff here." She ducked under the slowly raising door. The others followed.
"Wow! This is all yours?" Nausicaa said in amazement.
In front of the group sat 13 totally souped-up cars, sparkling as if they were new. There were three Honda Civic DXs, dark green, pale blue, and dark purple (almost a black); a silver Toyota Celica; a red Nissan S13 Silvia K's; two Mistubishi Lancer Evoluton VIIIs, white and silver; and two Mazda RX-7 FC3S Savannahs, black and dark blue. Behind these drift-based cars, were parked two Ferraris. One was a goldish-yellow, and the other was bright red. These two were most likely used for the drag racing that happened on Monday and Thursday nights on the longest side street in Akina, which was about a mile and a half. There were also two other cars parked so that they were barely visible behind the two Ferraris. The two cars were a pale blue Subaru STi and a black Nissan Skyline GT-R.
"You have two FCs?" Ryosuke asked in astonishment at her owning the same type of car as he himself drove.
"Yeah. I love RX-7s, but Evos are my favorite, after all, it's got 4WD. The Honda Civic hatchback comes in at a close second on my list though. And I'm waiting for a Nissan 350Z to come in."
"A 350Z?! You're getting one?!" Keisuke was flabbergasted. "That's supposed to be the best car today."
(AN: Okay, I'm incorporating a new car into this. I know the "times" don't match up with these cars...but it sounds more interesting with cars from today, right?)
"Yeah. A friend of mine was able to get me a great deal. Only 24 grand!" Utena said proudly.
"'Only?!?!'" Julius exclaimed with wide eyes. "Where the hell do you get that kind of money?!"
"I DO work you know," Utena retorted, her hand on her hip.
"What do you do?" Julius asked, afraid at what she did for work. 'There's only one way she could get THAT much money in a short time!'
Utena glared at him. She knew exactly what he was thinking. "I am NOT in that line of work! I DO NOT do exotic dancing OR porno movies!"
"Be great if you did though," muttered Kaneda.
"You. Shut up." Utena whipped around to face him, having heard his little comment. She turned back to her brother and Miki. "Actually, I work at Pyro Autoshop's extension, Pyro Racing AutoShop." (It's spelled like that, not a mis-"print").
"You do?" Kelly asked a surprised expression on her face. "My older brother works there. I've been there tons of times but I've never seen you there."
"I'm only called in for special projects or works. Your brother's name is Kenzo, right? I noticed you guys look somewhat alike," Utena told her.
"He never told me that there was a girl working there," Kelly went on. 'Something's up with Utena's story,' she thought, narrowing her eyes.
"He isn't supposed to. The manager thought it'd be bad business if word got out that a female was working at Pyro's," Utena explained with disgust. She sighed. "You see, in the current street circuit, women are thought to 'defile the car,' as they put it. When I went in for the job, the manager told me 'no' right off the bat. I knew he had to give me a chance to apply for the job because it was against the law to not allow a person apply for a job, so he gave me a form and said that I had to undergo a timed run in fixing a car. I fixed the car he assigned me in less than the time limit, and he was really impressed, so he gave me the job," Utena told them.
"I found out later from Kenzo that the manager had given me the so-called 'non-fixable car' and had given me a much more difficult time frame to fix the car within. So, to sum it all up, I only work a few times a week, in the evening, in the back of the garage, with Kenzo and the other top mechanics," Utena said. She turned to Kelly who was frowning. "You can ask your brother if you want, and tell him I told you."
"I'll do that," Kelly said. But the frown was still clear on her face.
"So, you only have cars?" Seiya asked, changing the subject.
"Mostly, but I have a few motorcycles too. Check it out." Utena headed over to the right side of the hidden garage, where there was an unusually wide door. Unlocking the padlock that hung from the chain that was looped through the metal holes drilled into the tab of metal, she pulled the sliding door open and gestured to her companions to enter.
There, before them, were half a dozen motorcycles, parked in a horizontal line in front of the door. Julius recognized a few. There was a Ducati Supersport 900, a Kawasaki Ninja ZZR1200, a Kawasaki Ninja ZX-12R, a Honda CBR1100, a Suzuki Hayabusa, and Suzuki GSXR1000.
"Whoa," Miki said quietly to himself. He approached the Kawasaki Ninja ZZR1200 as the others headed off towards other motorcycles of their liking. Utena came up behind Miki as he rested his hands on the front and back ends of the seat. She slid her arms around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder blade.
"Wow," Miki said to Utena, in a slightly louder voice. "This bike is..."
"Yeah, I know. It's my favorite bike." Utena smiled.
"Well, that's not surprising," Miki said with a smile, looking down at his girlfriend. "We seem to have the same interests for almost everything, huh?"
"You know it."
"Hey Utena!" called out Seiya who had hopped aboard the Ducati and was imagining himself racing this monster of a motorcycle. "You think I could take a spin on this sometime?"
Utena let go of Miki and turned to look at the others, "Yeah sure." She saw Seiya and Nausicaa over by the Ducati, while Julius was checking out the ZX- 12R, Yaten as running his hands over the CBR1100 in amazement, Taiki and Keisuke were by the Hayabusa, and Ryosuke was studying the GSXR. Ryosuke walked around the motorcycle slowly, as if he was trying to see every detail. Utena strolled over to him. "So how do you like this Suzuki?"
"Huh?" Ryosuke looked up, distractedly. "Oh, yeah. How did you get this model? I thought it wasn't out on the markets yet."
"Yeah, it isn't. A friend of mine pulled a few strings to get me this early," Utena smiled. "It's kind of fun showing it off on the streets. It's my second favorite bike."
"Oh? And which is your first favorite?" Ryosuke raised an eyebrow. "It's not the Ducati, is it?"
"No. It's the ZZR1200." Utena laughed. "I prefer that one because it was given to me by a really good friend of mine. And it's the one that I train with too. I'm more comfortable with it in the rain."
"So that WAS you. I thought it was." When Utena looked questioningly at him, he explained, "Keisuke and I were driving back from Akagi one night and we saw a biker racing down the main streets in the rain. The racer was uniformly balanced, even on the slick pavement, and seemed to have total control of the high-speed motorcycle. Do you train like that every rainy night?"
"Yeah. It helps a lot. You can shoot off the line faster after you practice on the wet pavement, and you learn more control," Utena explained.
"That's what I heard from some friends of mine who race motorcycles in Kawasaki Prefecture. They train like that too, every rainy night. They said I'd be a pretty decent motorcyclist." Ryosuke smiled. "But cars are more my style."
Utena laughed. "I was just the opposite. I lived off motorcycles. I lived at a motorcycle track for a while...and I was practically a track brat." She laughed again. "Everyone knew me, and I didn't know anyone else but their motorcycles."
"Hey you all, it's almost two in the morning. I think we should get back to the academy," Julius called out to them. There were murmurs of agreement as the Council members reluctantly dragged their eyes from the awesome motorcycles.
As the teens exited the garage, Miki said to Utena, "We'll wait in the car."
"Hey Utena!" Chris called from the front of the garage. "We put your FD in here. We can start assessing it tomorrow morning."
"Thanks, but I think it'd be better if you guys just used it for parts, instead of wasting time fixing it up," Utena said. Padlocking the sliding metal door, she followed the council members out to the front garage.
"What?" Kaneda said "You just want to break this thing down? After all that hard work we all put into it?"
"Yeah. Anyway, you guys can use some parts for the FD you guys bought from Manni Komitsu. It would be more worth the time," Utena said. She glanced over at the rusted FD3S that the boys had bought with the plan of fixing it up and souping up to sell to some racers.
"I guess," Kaneda admitted. He left out a small breath and then said, "Then I guess we can work on your green or blue Civic."
"I'm going to be racing the green one now, so either the blue or the purple," Utena told them.
"I never liked the color purple, so it's going to have to be the blue," Kaneda said.
"Alright. I'll stop by after school tomorrow," Utena said as she headed out the garage. Then she stopped and poked her head back in. "And I expect that house to be picked up, at the least."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Author ------- Not much for small talk...but...
Mai: Hey, well, this fanfic is getting even more longer. Dayum, I was only planning on it getting to about 10 chapters. I think I'm gonna keep on writing it until I feel like it has reached the end. I know I haven't uploaded chapters as soon as I would like, but I've been pretty busy with work and all. I can't believe I'm this !stressed out!-during summer vaca!!! Imagine me during the school year. Lol. Nah, I'm pretty much slacking, but anyway, enjoy the rest of the story. I'll try to upload the chapters every once and a while (hopefully at least every two weeks) for you guys. Thanks for reading this far, I hope you guys have liked it, so far.