----------(5)----------

When he was very young, Touya had once been taken to Tokyo Disneyland by his mother. He was too small for anything else other than the children's rides then, but the feeling of being held tightly against another warm body as they went on the carousel was a memory that he had never really forgotten. Especially not when he was reliving the experience in such a surreal way.

Shindou was clinging to him for dear life.

True to his word, Fujiwara drove fast. In fact, Touya was not precisely sure that Fujiwara was 'driving', because they seemed to be falling, rather than moving horizontally on the roads. The scenery outside gave Touya a sense of vertigo, being nothing more than a summer-themed tunnel of greenery and blue-and-white skies.

Shindou was still clinging to him.

It was nice to think that perhaps his experience with Ogata's driving allowed him to remain calm while the nice, ordinary-looking tofu delivery car they were in abruptly transformed into a missile. But that was not true. Perhaps he was simply frozen with fear. Perhaps it was his companion.

For all his clinging, Shindou was in fact shouting words of encouragement to Fujiwara.

"Banzai! All right!" They shot down a sloping stretch, seemingly out of control and heading for onward collision with the guardrail. Touya held his breath. They cleared it.

"Fantastic!" Shindou went on. "Go! Go! Go!" They missed the guardrail by the skin of their teeth, or so it seemed like to Touya, half-deafened by his shouts.

Fujiwara's lips were compressed with concentration in the rearview mirror, but his gaze flickered back to them, just for a split second, and he smiled, saying, "There are five hairpin curves coming ahead, Shindou-san, Touya-san. Brace yourself."

Touya's breath froze in his throat, but Shindou only nodded vigorously, his chin colliding with Touya's shoulder as he did so. The grin on his face was almost blinding.

"Here we go."

Like a large-sized rollercoaster, the car swooped around so sharply that it seemed like it was reversing on itself. There was heavy pressure on Touya's chest, but it then eased so suddenly that he felt weightless.

"One!" Shindou yelled. He fell against Touya, and then clung on to him even more tightly as they reached the beginning of the second curve. Touya squeezed his eyes shut. Maybe if he didn't watch...

"Two!" Shindou sounded like five-year-old.

Touya opened his eyes. Somehow, it was worse if you couldn't see your doom coming. It was like that in Go, too. He swallowed as they slid around a curve that should have sent them off the road, at the very least.

"Three!"

Another one.

"Four!"

For a moment Touya could see, between the trees, the little town at the foot of the mountain. Then it disappeared.

"Five!"

Touya felt like his seat had been yanked away from under him as they took the next curve. He took in his first deep breath as Shindou finally released him, and sat there, trying to recover his voice. Shindou was bouncing on his seat as they seemed to settle into a straight stretch. "That was awesome!" he said, peering over at Fujiwara like a small child at Disneyland. "Can we do that again?"

"Are you crazy?" Touya burst out before he could stop himself.

Shindou glanced back at him, his eyes shining. "Didn't you like it, Touya? It was a bit scary, but... wow! Have we caught up with the jerk yet?" The second question was directed at Fujiwara.

"It's right in front," Fujiwara said.

For a moment Touya couldn't see it, but then they took another turn--a gentler one this time--and he spotted it. Before he had time to blink, Fujiwara had passed it, and slowed down, forcing the other car to slow, too.

Both cars came to a stop.

Shindou was the first out of the car, yelling, "Give me back my ramen!"

----------to be continued-------------