Programmed Lives - First Stage
Chapter Seven
The Takahashi were having one of their family meals and thankfully, for everybody's sakes, the whole Akiko incident seemed to have been left behind. So, while Ryosuke and Keisuke's mother entertained her husband with the latest piece of social gossip, Keisuke listened to Ryosuke's detailed analysis of the races against the Sidewinder Team. A challenge that surprisingly enough, albeit not without a huge amount of effort and a large dose of good luck, both of the Double Aces had actually won.
To Ryosuke, seeing all the members of his family enjoying some time together made him to feel finally relaxed and able to concentrate on his finals.
It had been just over a week since the Akiko crisis and, as far as Ryosuke knew, his father had taken care of the whole issue and, to Keisuke's immense relief, nothing else regarding that particularly painful subject had ever been mentioned.
Ryosuke was about to tell Keisuke of a new type of engine he had read about on a magazine when the name of the girl who had technically been his fiancée for eight short hours claimed his attention.
'Is that so? Oh, poor thing…' he heard his mother say to something his father had just said.
'Well, in my opinion it'll do her good,' his father replied.
Ryosuke interrupted what he was saying to his younger brother and, looking at his father, he asked:
'What is going to do good to Akiko-chan?'
He noticed as Keisuke's gaze switched to look at their father too.
'Oh, nothing,' Doctor Takahashi said, 'Arakawa called me earlier to tell me that, the fact that his disobedient daughter had the cheek to reject you, has not altered your professional arrangements with him. You will, of course, still do your residency at the Arakawa Hospital,' he then stopped briefly and, for some reason, the old man looked at Keisuke and said, 'Arakawa has also confided to me that he's already found a way to handle the situation with his daughter. I should take some lessons from Arakawa on how to deal with difficult children.'
'And tell us, what has he planned on doing, father?' Ryosuke said choosing to ignore his father's last remark and hoping Keisuke would do the same.
'He told me that he's going to speak to one of his colleagues, a widower, to ask him to marry his daughter,' Doctor Takahashi announced making Ryosuke's heart to skip a beat.
'Father, you said a widower, didn't you? How old is this colleague of his?' Ryosuke asked, still trying to keep a normal tone of voice.
'I think he graduated two or three years after Arakawa himself. I reckon he should be around the early fifties,' he replied with complete nonchalance.
'WHAT?' Keisuke exclaimed, overlapping Ryosuke's own gasp.
'Arakawa thinks that Ryosuke was probably too young to deal with the sort of wild spirit Akiko-chan seems to be.'
Ryosuke was completely astounded. Defining Akiko a 'wild spirit' was a bit too much…
'Father, but that's over twice her age,' Ryosuke said, ignoring the way Keisuke was now looking at him.
'Like I said, it'll do her good. This kind of girl needs someone with experience to deal with her. Also, this colleague of Arakawa's hasn't had any children because, apparently, his late wife couldn't have any. I'm sure that, with a young wife such as Akiko-chan, he'll be able to have at least two or three. Arakawa seems to be quite desperate for a grandson, which is understandable, poor thing, the only daughter he has and it turns to be so ungrateful,' his father continued, this time talking to his wife, who limited herself with giving her husband a curt nod.
Ryosuke's disgust was mounting at an alarming rate. How could his father think, much less say aloud, such a barbarity? Marrying a young woman to a man old enough to be her father with the sole intent of getting her to make babies? Ryosuke had to make an almost superhuman effort not to shout at his father while storming off the room. Again, that would be a very Keisuke-like behaviour and Ryosuke's auto-imposed self-control made him able to keep his composure.
Suddenly, he felt someone's gaze on him and, turning his head to his left, he found Keisuke staring at him with a weird look in his eyes.
The rest of the meal was a pretty surreal experience for Ryosuke. A new feeling had started developing within him and, for the first time in his life, he was truly desperate to get to his room so he could think things trough.
As soon as he was free to do so, Ryosuke almost dashed towards his room. He had just grasped the door's knob when he heard his brother's voice calling him.
He briefly considered ignoring him but, knowing Keisuke as well as he did, Ryosuke knew that it would be useless.
'What?' he replied, trying to maintain a tone of voice as neutral as possible.
'Look at me, Aniki,' Keisuke said making Ryosuke realise he hadn't turned round to face his younger brother.
He trained his features so they would not betray any of the turmoil he was currently feeling.
'What do you want Keisuke?' he said finally turning round.
'You may think you're fooling everyone Aniki, but you aren't fooling me…'
'I really don't know what you're talking about, Keisuke,' he said using the tone of voice he reserved for his lectures to his younger brother a tone, he knew, that seemed to intimidate Keisuke. Unfortunately it didn't seem to be working this time.
'Oh you do Aniki. You're feeling guilty for that girl,' Keisuke said, nailing with pinpoint precision the exact feeling which had been bothering Ryosuke up to that moment.
'I'm…' Ryosuke started.
'Aniki, please, don't even try denying it. I may not be as brilliant as you are but I think I know you better than anyone else...'
He was completely right. With the possible exception of his cousin Tsugumi, there was no one who knew him as well as Keisuke. Sadly, his younger brother was also right about his feeling guilty.
'Okay, I feel guilty. So what?' Ryosuke finally admitted.
'There is no reason,' Keisuke said.
'You're wrong. I think there is every reason for me to feel guilty,' Ryosuke contradicted him. He couldn't remember being this angry at his brother before.
'Why so?' Keisuke insisted, probably knowing that he was pushing it a bit too far.
'Look Keisuke, I told father that Akiko-chan didn't want to marry me. He probably told Doctor Arakawa and he punished her for it, she warned me that this is what would happen if she didn't do what her father wanted,' Ryosuke said rather crossly.
Keisuke looked slightly taken aback by his brother display of anger. Keisuke had rarely seen his brother getting angry before, even less having this anger directed at him.
'Look Keisuke, right now I'm not in the mood to talk about this. I have lots of work to do so you just…I don't know, go for a drive or tidy up your room.'
With this, and not even waiting to hear his younger brother's protests, he did something else he rarely did: he entered his room and locked the door behind him.
Ryosuke let out a sigh trying to release all the pent up anger and frustration, failing miserably.
'What have I done?' he whispered to himself covering his face with his hands while leaning against the door.
That night neither of the Takahashi brothers got any sleep and it showed on their faces the next morning when they met at the Takahashi's breakfast room.
'Aniki…' Keisuke started.
'Keisuke, let me at least get some coffee before you start again,' Ryosuke said, his irritation at his younger brother still there even though over eight hours had gone by.
Keisuke realised that and decided to remain quiet throughout the entire meal.
Even their mother realised this and commented:
'Keisuke darling, what's the matter?'
'Nothing, I'm going for a drive,' he said throwing a look at his older brother. Ryosuke couldn't quite identify the emotion he had read on Keisuke's eyes. It was a strange mixture between hurt and worry.
After Keisuke left the room, Ryosuke decided that he couldn't get anything else than a cup of coffee down his throat so, excusing himself with his parents, he decided to get his books and go to the morning lectures.
It wasn't as though as he could concentrate so he took his recorder with him so he would get the lectures tapped so he would be able to understand what had been explained later. That was if he ever regained his ability to focus on anything, other than the immense guilt that had taken possession of his entire being.
Even Tsugumi realised that something wasn't right with him when he went to pick her up from school.
'Ryosuke what's the matter?' she asked after they had, very uncharacteristically, spent several minutes in total quietness.
'Oh, nothing,' he lied.
'Nothing? Then why are you this quiet?' she asked refusing to give up on the subject.
'I'm a bit worried about something, that's all, so, what do you need help with today?' he asked, trying to sound as cheerful as he usually was whenever he was around his cousin.
'Do you want to talk about it?' Tsugumi insisted, completely ignoring his attempt at trying to change the topic of the conversation.
'Not really,' he said deciding to be honest.
'Oh,' Tsugumi said slightly taken aback.
Ryosuke realised that he had probably hurt her and, fearing that he could not cope with any more guilt on top of the one he was already feeling he said:
'Look, it's just a rather complicated matter. I just don't want to worry you.'
'Ryosuke, don't do that,' she warned him.
'Do what?' he asked her confusedly.
'Treat me like a little silly girl the way Keisuke does,' she replied.
'Is this why he annoys you so much?' he asked.
'Yes, but don't change the topic. What's worrying you?' she insisted. This girl was too smart for Ryosuke's own good. Well, he had nobody but himself to blame. After all, he was her private tutor, wasn't he?
Finally giving up, he decided to explain everything to Tsugumi who, after he had finished retelling the whole thing to her, remained quiet for a few instants.
'You know what?' she said as they were arriving at the Takahashi's residence.
'What?' Ryosuke asked realising he was actually asking a teenager for romantic advice and feeling even more miserable for how pathetic that was.
'I think you should think very carefully if you could possibly like this girl. After all, you never even gave yourselves a chance, did you?'
'No, we didn't,' he replied honestly.
'You said she likes Mazda cars and that she's also going to be a doctor, didn't you?' she continued.
'Yes, I did,' he replied not really knowing where she wanted to go with this.
'Well, that's two things you already have in common. Many couples start with even less than that,' she said looking very serious.
Ryosuke laughed out loud.
'Since when are you an expert in relationships?' he asked her, hoping she wouldn't take offence.
'I'm in high school, remember? Relationships are almost all we talk about!' she said.
'Really? Are you in one?' he asked suddenly.
'Oh, Ryosuke, I really, really need your help with history, I don't get the whole Edo period…' she said smiling in a rather cheeky way.
'Now who's changing topic?' he asked laughing again. Being with Tsugumi really cheered him up and, for the sake of not provoking an argument, he decided to ignore the whole subject, not without making a mental note to insist later on. If Tsugumi had a boyfriend he wanted to take a good look at him, maybe a short interrogation too, just to make sure he was right for his adored cousin.
In any case, after giving Tsugumi a lift back to her place, Ryosuke decided to drive around for a bit with his FC. Driving leisurely was something he rarely had time for these days and he sorely missed the times when he was a lot freer from all these pressures.
He truly envied Keisuke. He had never said anything to him, nor to anyone else, but he was truly jealous of his brother. Keisuke enjoyed the best of being a Takahashi without any of the duties it brought with it.
Ryosuke, on the other hand, had known nothing but duties. Was he prepared to do the ultimate sacrifice in the name of familial duty and change his mind about this marriage?
With this thought, he decided to go to Mt Akagi and look for the answer within its sharp corners.
To be continued…
