It's Chapter Seven! Lucky 7!
Follow The Leader
by BoomChish
Chapter Seven
Burning Desire
The sun was rising in the eastern sky; a soft golden light bathing the neighborhood as it readied itself for another day. For me, another tedious day of work. Man, I hate work. If it weren't for the fact that I need the money, nevermind the fact that I don't want to be dependent on Miyoko, I wouldn't work. Especially not at my jobs. My main job is working in the transport division at the local hospital. Basically, I stay in the transport room, waiting for a call from a nurse or an orderly to take a certain patient to and from their hospital room and take them to and from some other place. Like the operating room, or something like that. And trust me… some of those patients are very, very cranky. I've even been cussed out repeatedly by some, but since I'm not allowed to talk back or anything, I just keep my mouth shut and escort them to their designated location, then I return to the main transport room for the process to repeat itself. My other job depends on whether the hospital stores need someone to work the overnight shift, lifting, rearranging and documenting their stock. Usually in that case, the head of the stores department discusses terms with the head of the transport department before I'm assigned a shift. Either way, the overnight shift is much more preferable to the daytime transport shift, but while the pay is a wee bit more, the hours are much less. Which is why I rely on both jobs to support my income.
That morning, as I'd stepped out of the front door, keys in one hand and my lunch in the other, I ran into Alex, who'd just returned from his daily walk with Sparky. He was staring at my Evo with a strange look on his face, while Sparky merely sniffed around his ankles. He barked when I stepped out of the house, alerting Alex to my presence.
"Oh hey, Seiji. Going to work?"
"As always," I answered mournfully. He laughed at that heartily, then his expression reverted back to the previous one that graced his face. I looked at him with interest. "Anything wrong?"
"Not really… Just…" here, he paused to sigh, "Miyoko told me something about our Evos compared to yours… Is it true that an internal computer mostly runs the Evo VII, so it relies less on human manipulation? And that since your Evo is an earlier model, it relies heavily on how the driver operates it?"
I shook my head. "Mine has it too. As a matter of fact, I believe it started with the Evo IV. Though there is still a significant difference between my Evo and yours. For example, the Evo VII is at least fifty kilos heavier than its predecessors, sometimes more. But that's beside the point. Why do you ask?"
Alex looked thoughtful. "I was just thinking about what Kyouichi Sudou had said a few days ago… about how Jin, Miyoko and I could never stand to beat Emperor with what we have. Do you think he's right?"
"Alex… Don't let Kyouichi intimidate you into thinking you're inferior, okay? That was my mistake, and I'd rather not have my team members suffer the same mistakes that I did." I waited for it to sink in before I continued, "Of course at the moment that he'd said those words, he had a point. But that's only because you three aren't skilled enough yet to take them on. However, if you keep practicing and improving your skill and your line, you'll be more than ready to let Kyouichi eat his words." As soon as I'd said it, I had to try hard not to laugh out loud. Here I was, encouraging my new teammates to literally make it their goal to destroy my old team leader on the streets.
And to think it was me who told Miyoko not to set her goals too high!
Alex stared at my Evo one last time before he shrugged and nodded. "Okay, I'll keep that in mind. Thanks, Seiji!"
I smiled and mock saluted him. "Don't mention it."
Sparky started sniffing around my feet, eventually wandering around my lunch bag, trying to paw at it. I held it out of his reach. "Hey, hey! That's my lunch, you rascal!"
He let out a plaintive whine and Alex laughed. "Guess he's hungry. I'll go and feed him." The both of them then proceeded up the front steps into the house. Alex paused on the front steps to say, "Well, have a nice day at work Seiji. Try not to work too hard," before he stepped inside the house, closing the door behind him. Try not to work too hard? That depends on the amount of patients I'll have to handle. In any case, I got into my Evo, started the engine and drove off to work.
Pretty much all of the guys at work know that I'm a road racer. Most of them came to that fateful practice several days ago, when Kyouichi made his appearance, and some of them used to come to the Emperor practices when I was a member of Emperor. Either way, when I got to work, they asked me questions at length about it.
"Man, I dunno about you Seiji, but I'd be scared shitless if I'd made my own team after leaving my old one and then my old team leader came hunting me down. How'd you remain all cool-like when Sudou showed up?" one of them asked.
I made a face. "I thought I'd told you several months ago… I didn't quit Emperor, I was thrown out for losing too many times. That's when I went to live with my younger brother, and it was him and his friends who wanted me in their team as their team leader. I had nothing to do with the formation of Evo Prime, you know. Either way, Kyouichi didn't show up to challenge my team, he just came to see what we were all about. That doesn't bother me at all. Now, if he'd come all the way from Irohazaka just to challenge one of my team members to a race, I'd be singing a completely different tune."
"Are any of them good enough to take on Emperor just yet? If not, whenever they are and they do go and challenge Emperor, do tell me. I wanna be there for sure!" another one spoke.
"Yeah, me too!" a third chimed in.
"When they're good enough, I'll be sure to tell you guys. I know you wouldn't want to miss it for the world. But not just yet, seeing as they're not good enough yet," I answered calmly. Watching their faces light up with delight made me feel somewhat honored that even my coworkers admired my efforts to maintain my own team.
My euphoria was short-lived. One of the transport guys who was out on a call, Gennai, came back with some news - news which happened to be very bad for me - "Guys, you won't believe this… especially you, Seiji." He waited until he'd had all our attention before he continued, "I went to take a patient from the ER back to his room, and one of the nurses there told me that they'd just admitted a patient who'd been in a car accident…"
Car accident? Oh no… please don't let it be…
Gennai fixed me with a direct, solemn stare. I didn't say a word, but someone else did, "Well, speak up. Who is it?"
"Miyoko Ieyasu."
"No!" I sprang to my feet. "Impossible! How? She's a good driver! How could she get into a car accident?" My mind was racing, screaming how can this happen? How?!.
He shrugged. "From what the paramedics said, they'd found her car somewhat smashed against a guardrail. The damage isn't extensively serious, neither are her injuries, but she was unconscious when they pulled her out. With any luck, she'd-"
I didn't stay to hear the rest. I darted out of the transport room almost immediately and almost ran at top speed towards the emergency room, not bothering to take the elevator. Within five minutes, I was there. Just my luck, the goddamn orderlies wouldn't let me through.
"Sorry Seiji… Immediate family only. Those are the rules."
"But-!" I knew he was right though. Especially as an employee, I'm not allowed to break hospital rules. He sensed my distress and decided to reassure me. "Hey, if it makes you feel any better, her injuries aren't too serious. A mild concussion, whiplash and a sprained shoulder, but otherwise, she's okay. Give her a few weeks to recover and she'll be back to her old self."
At least that was reassuring. But it still didn't explain everything. "But I don't understand… I know her driving style… How did it happen? She wouldn't get into an accident for nothing." As soon as the words left my mouth, it made me wonder… Did she end up crashing because she made a grave miscalculation in drifting? That was more Jin's style, not Miyoko's. I fervently hoped that it wasn't that.
The orderly shrugged. "Beats me. That's something you'd have to ask her yourself."
And I fully intended to do just that… as soon as they'd let me see her.
Knowing that I wouldn't get any more progress if I lingered there, I left and immediately went to a pay phone (my cell phone was always off in the hospital, considering hospital rules) and called home. It was Jin who answered, his jovial voice permeating the line. "Hi aniki! What's up?"
"Cut the cheery mood, Jin. Miyoko's been in an accident. She's at the ER right now."
"What! You can't be serious! What happened?" Jin demanded.
"I have no clue. I have to wait until the ER assigns her a room for recovery. When that happens, I intend to go visit her and ask her all about it."
"But can't you just go into the ER and see her there? After all, you work there!"
I smiled grimly at my brother's naivete. "Only immediate family members are allowed to see patients in the ER. Anyone else has to wait outside."
I heard Jin make a grumbling noise. "Couldn't you have said you're her boyfriend or her fiancé or something? I'm sure they'd have let you in under that pretext."
Her boyfriend? Her fiancé? I couldn't help but guffaw at that. "Like they'd fall for that one! If anything, you or Alex could fool them with a stunt like that, but not me. They know me too well here." I let out a sigh. "In any case, we'll just have to wait and see."
Five minutes near the end of my shift, one of the orderlies who'd been at the ER came to see me at the transport room, with news for me. "Good news, Seiji. She's been assigned a room on the fourth floor of Medical. Room M-4-342. You can go see her now. She's resting and hopefully, she'll be out tomorrow, though she'll have to wear her neck brace and the sling for a week or two."
I thanked him profusely and made my way to the Medical wing of the hospital. On the way, I stopped off at the gift shop to get her a small bouquet of flowers (hey, after all, she was hospitalized).
I paused briefly outside of Room M-4-342 before I stepped inside. She was lying down; the neck brace making her head appear smaller than it was. Her arm was also in a sling. She appeared to be sleeping, but when I came closer, she opened her eyes slowly.
"Seiji? Wha… wh… why am I here?" she demanded weakly.
I arranged the flowers on her bedside table before I pulled up a chair and sat down next to her bed. "That's a good question, Miyoko. What happened?"
"Mm…" She closed her eyes a bit and appeared to be deep in thought before she opened them again and spoke, "Well… I was driving… through Happo… taking a look around… since I normally see it in the night… and not the day… There was this… red car behind me… a… Honda Civic, I think…"
"A red Honda Civic?" I repeated. There were many models of Civics out there… Which one was it? "Did you see what kind of Civic it was? More importantly, was there a team sticker on it?"
"It was a hatchback… that I know… looked to be an SiRII…" She paused for a bit. "And I seem to remember… a dark sticker… Night… Night something… Ah, I don't remember exactly…"
"Well, no matter. We'll figure it out eventually… Now, what did the Civic do?" I wanted to make sure that whoever it was, it was their fault before I exacted the next part of my plot.
Miyoko closed her eyes in pain. "It… started to drive behind me… tapping my bumper… so I tried to move out of the way… but it followed me and kept tapping me… so finally, I slowed down enough to let it pass… That's how I saw the sticker… then it swerved in front of me, and suddenly braked… forcing me to brake as well… I kept trying to pass it, but it kept swerving in front of me, braking suddenly… Then when it finally took off, I was in the wrong lane before a turn… and a car was coming in the opposite direction, so I swerved out of the way… and hit the guardrail…" She opened her eyes again and suddenly her facial expression changed. "Seiji… are you… Are you going to track down the Civic and challenge him to a race? To avenge me?"
How did she know? I decided to be honest with her, "Yes. Of course I will, Miyoko. No one jerks around with my teammates and gets away with it," I answered firmly.
Her next response was surprising. "No. I want to challenge him."
"You're in no condition to do anything of that sort, missy." I patted her arm affectionately. "But if that's what you want, I'll let you go ahead. Just recover first, and then you can take him on whenever you please." I wasn't about to tell her, but I had no intention of keeping that promise. Not this time. Miyoko looked at me hopefully then smiled weakly. I smiled back at her, then said, "My shift's almost over and I forgot something in my car. I'll just go and get it, and take it back to the transport room, then I'll be right back. I promise."
"Okay." She nodded once, then drifted off to sleep. I knew that Jin and Alex would be on their way right away after work, so I knew I shouldn't dally. I walked out of the hospital towards my car, my keys in my hand, wondering who the driver of that red Civic SiRII could be. And what team he was from.
When I got to my car, I had my keys ready to open my door when I suddenly froze. After all my time spent with Evo Prime, I'd never bothered to remove the upside down team stickers cut in half that were on my back wing. The teams that I'd defeated as a member of Emperor.
And there, on the back wing, cut in half and upside down, was a dark sticker. A dark sticker that said "Night Kids."
Night Kids… A team from Gunma…
I'd remembered my match against their team leader, a seemingly foolish character by the name of Takeshi Nakazato, who drove a midnight black Nissan Skyline GT-R R32. It was an uphill match… and he'd taken the lead throughout the first part of it, but he'd lost control and hit the wall, while I'd passed him and claimed the victory. I knew it couldn't be him, because why would he go from a GT-R down to a crappy Civic? In addition to that, I had his team sticker. No, it had to be someone else on his team.
Someone with less honor in road racing than he had… than anyone had.
I felt my blood begin to boil as I clutched my keys in my fist.
The Night Kids were going to pay for what they did to Miyoko…
And I was going to make sure of it!
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Sudden braking and bumper tapping? Red Honda Civic SiRII? Night Kids? Shingo?!
Yep, who else could it be? None other than the Ratman himself, Shingo Shouji of the Night Kids. Now, the reason why I chose to bring in Shingo and the Night Kids is because the upcoming race is supposed to be one that cements Seiji's position as leader of Evo Prime. In addition to that, there is a reason why I decided to make Shingo the rat bastard here. If you compare Shingo and Seiji in the anime, most people disliked Seiji because when he'd win, he'd take their team sticker, cut it in half and paste it upside down on his car, in addition to having a cocky attitude. Well, Shingo had a cocky attitude too, but the main difference is that he's a character who'd actually go to the great length of forcing a driver off the road and hospitalizing them. Seiji, despite his cocky and arrogant attitude in the anime and manga, still had enough decency not to hurt the other drivers. (yes, I know that in Second Stage, when Kyouichi and Seiji visit Ryousuke on Akagi, after Takahashi leaves, Seiji wanted to run him over, but Kyouichi stopped him. Had it been Takeshi and Shingo, the same thing would've happened, except Shingo would've probably gone later on and attacked Ryousuke anyway without Takeshi's knowledge. Seiji would never go that far.)
I had a hell of a time trying to decide what Seiji's job was going to be. I knew I couldn't make it something too menial, because then how the heck would he be able to afford constant maintenance on his Evo? And despite a mechanic being a decent menial job, Seiji just doesn't strike me as the mechanical type. On the same note, Seiji doesn't strike me as someone with a higher paying job either, he seems a bit too simple for those types of jobs. In the end, I decided to give him the job(s) that my eldest brother currently has; hospital transport tech and stockroom worker. Both of his jobs pay decent money and one could make a living off of those salaries if budgeted properly. Plus, being a transport tech, one has to be strong and able-bodied, considering they have to move patients around and whatnot (they don't lift the patients; that's the nurses and the orderlies' jobs. Since the transport techs aren't insured for patients injuring themselves while they lift them, they're not allowed to). Seiji fits that description to a tee, which is why I felt the job was perfect for him. Plus, it's a job that's not too far-fetched anywhere, considering it's in a hospital.
EDIT: Here's where I made the correction concerning Seiji's Evo and the AYC system. Since Kyouichi's Evo III doesn't have the AYC controller, he basically has the right to say that the other Evos are inferior due to the computer, since his doesn't and it'd merely be his personal opinion. But since Seiji's does have the AYC in his Evo, I made sure that he acknowledged that fact with Alex, and at the same time, mentions some of the real differences between the Evo IV and the Evo VII. (From what I've read up, the Evo VII is apparently one of the heavier Evos out there, but it doesn't have a significant effect on its performance)
-BoomChish