Programmed Lives - First Stage
Chapter Eleven
After a few seconds during which Akiko seemed to be reluctant to answer to his question, Ryosuke said:
'I just want to know if the person you were speaking to is the reason why you were so unwilling to marry me in the first place. I mean, I never asked you if you had a boyfriend.'
Finally, that seemed to make Akiko react: she laughed out loud.
'That's just too good!' she exclaimed still laughing. Ryosuke didn't know what to do nor say.
'Forget it, I don't think I want to know anyway,' Ryosuke said starting to walk away.
Seeing this made Akiko stop laughing. She then grabbed Ryosuke's arm to make him stop.
'Ryosuke, I'm sorry I laughed, is just that James is most definitely NOT my boyfriend. He couldn't be,' Akiko explained, suddenly going all serious.
'Why not? Is he already married? ' Ryosuke asked feeling even more confused than earlier on.
'Oh no, let's just say that it's more likely he'd fancy you,' Akiko said, this time smiling.
'What?' He wasn't understanding anything and what Ryosuke hated the most was to not understand things.
'Ryosuke, James is my best friend, my very gay best friend. He called me to tell me that he's coming to Japan next week,' she explained.
Ryosuke gasped, opened his mouth to speak then closed it again.
'Ah, I see,' he finally said smiling too, 'I think I'm going to go now…' he added still feeling slightly stupid.
'Okay,' she said finally letting go of his arm.
Ryosuke looked at her briefly, then turned round and started walking back to where the Double Aces were.
'Ryosuke-san, will there be any meetings or races in this coming fortnight?' Takumi asked when Ryosuke had reached them.
'Not that I know of, of course, you know we could be challenged anytime though, why are you asking?'
'Well, I…' Takumi said blushing furiously.
'Personal reasons, I take,' Ryosuke said, deciding not to press the poor guy.
'Yeah, something like that,' he replied looking at the tarmac as if was the most fascinating thing in the world.
'Aha! Finally going to see that girlfriend of yours, huh?' Keisuke intervened completely smashing Ryosuke's attempts at trying not to embarrass the hell out of Fujiwara who, predictably enough, became as red as a pepperoni.
Takumi mumbled something incomprehensible before dashing off to his car.
'Really Keisuke, you have the diplomatic skills of an AK47,' Ryosuke said laughing softly and making Keisuke laugh with him too.
Just as suddenly as they had started laughing, Keisuke stopped and looked around himself.
'Where is your girlfriend?'
'She's not my…' Ryosuke tried to deny.
'Yeah, right,' Keisuke said sarcastically.
'Let's get back to work, shall we?' Ryosuke said, only partially annoyed at his younger brother. A part of him actually liked thinking of Akiko as 'his girlfriend'.
Keisuke snorted but did as he was told and followed his brother back to where the team was.
At long last, and after a couple of hours of having both the FD and the AE86 running the familiar Mt Akagi course a number of times with several different settings, Ryosuke was finally happy with the results and decided to call it to an end.
'You got bored, didn't you?' Ryosuke asked Akiko when the team was packing up to go.
'Not at all,' she replied, 'I find it fascinating the amount of work and dedication you guys have. I'm pretty sure that you all work as hard or even harder than most professional racing teams.'
'Yes. We all like what we do here,' he said looking at his team proudly.
'And that's why you'll all succeed in whatever you choose to do,' she commented.
'I hope so,' he said more to himself than to her.
'There is one thing that surprises me,' she said.
'What is it?' he asked.
'Why is it that you use an AE86? Aren't there much newer cars that Fujiwara-kun could use?'
'Oh yes, but that's not a normal AE86 and besides, Fujiwara wouldn't drive anything else…'
'Why not?' she asked.
'He's become too attached to that car, which may become a problem in the future. Thankfully both I and his own father have already devised a plan so he'll slowly realise that he's got to grow out of the 86.'
'I see. You must be tired now, do you want to forget about the driving lessons?' she said.
'Oh no, I'm okay. I'm used to sleep very little anyway. Just let me tell Keisuke that we're staying here, alright?'
'Are you sure?' she said, still uncertain.
'Definitely, I'll be back in a second,' he said and then he walked up to where his brother was.
'Keisuke, I'm going to stay here for a while, you're going straight home, aren't you?'
'You're staying here?' he asked slightly surprised.
'Yes, do you have a problem with that?' Ryosuke said a bit more aggressively than he had intended.
'No, of course not Aniki,' Keisuke said frowning.
Ryosuke could tell he had upset his little brother so he added:
'Keisuke, please…'
Keisuke seemed to think about something then he said:
'Alright. I don't get what you're doing but, again, that's what happens most of the time so, I'll do what I always do: I'm going to trust you know what you're doing.'
Ryosuke let out a sigh of relief.
'Thank you Keisuke, hearing you say this means the world to me.'
Then, Ryosuke patted his brother's shoulder and turned round to walk back to where Akiko was.
'Ready?' he said smiling at her.
'Okay but don't be too hard on me, I'm a newbie, remember?' she said returning the smile.
He laughed and said:
'Come on, let's get into the car.'
Having witnessed this exchange and climbing into his FD, Keisuke thought that he had never seen his brother laughing so carelessly before. Keisuke really didn't know what to think anymore…
'Alright, so, do you have any questions you'd like to ask first?' Ryosuke asked once he was sitting on the passenger seat of Akiko's Mazda.
'Yes, there was one thing: I had my first, and so far only accident once when it was raining. My car aquaplaned and I couldn't do anything to control it.'
'Ah, yes, aquaplaning is a very dangerous and nasty phenomenon. Unfortunately there is very little you can do when the car is already aquaplaning, other than trying to keep the car as straight as possible and hope for the best. However, there are techniques you can use while driving on the rain that will prevent the car from aquaplaning.'
'Well, I'm all ears, because it scared the heck out of me when it happened,' she said.
'I'm sure it did,' he replied and then, and for the next half an hour, Ryosuke held a private lecture about the various techniques and different settings that one could use to prepare the car for adverse weather conditions.
By the time they actually started practicing some of these techniques, the whole of the Project D crew had already headed home.
'You've almost got it now. You're a really quick learner!' he said after Akiko had quasi managed to get her car to do an especially difficult manoeuvre Ryosuke had just taught her.
'All merit goes to the teacher though,' she said smiling at him.
He smiled back feeling slightly embarrassed.
'Can I ask you something?' she said.
'Sure, what is it?' he replied thinking that she wanted him to explain some driving technique.
'Earlier on, when you asked me who James was, well, I…no, I probably just imagined it. Forget it,' she said almost stuttering.
'No, please tell me…' he insisted for a reason unknown even to himself.
She seemed to be reluctant to say it but, gathering some courage, she finally said:
'No, is just that I thought that you were, you know, a bit jealous…'
He looked at her for a bit, buying himself time so he could investigate the sensation he had felt earlier on. Was it jealousy what he had felt when he had heard her become so intimate with that James guy?
'I'm quite stupid, aren't I?' she said laughing nervously seeing that he wasn't saying anything.
'No. You're not,' he replied and then, he added, 'and yes, I don't know if it was jealousy, but I didn't like the way you were speaking to James.'
There, he had finally admitted it.
'But I've already told you: he's just my best friend,' she said and, maybe Ryosuke was getting paranoid but he thought that she actually sounded happy.
'I know that now,' he said almost grumpily making her laugh. Gosh, I love it when she laughs, Ryosuke thought astounding even himself with that thought.
There was no point denying it: He liked her. Finally, after all the uncertainty regarding his feelings, something had made itself clear. He liked this girl. He didn't really know why, but he had just felt the famous 'spark'.
'Ryosuke? You're alright?' Akiko asked sounding concerned.
'Yes. Never been better,' he said and then, he added, 'Akiko, there is something I'd like to do…'
'What is it?' she asked.
'This,' he said and then, without any further warning, he put his left hand on the right side of her face and, pulling her towards him, he touched her lips with his.
At first Ryosuke braced himself for the eventuality that Akiko may actually want to slap him but, seeing that this wasn't happening, he deepened the kiss.
Meanwhile, Akiko's head was a whirl of emotions. She had never been any more confused in her life and couldn't quite believe what was happening. A large part of her just decided to give up trying to come up with a logical explanation of what was going on, the only thing she managed to do was to finally allow herself to relax and start returning the kiss.
Ryosuke felt the instant when she surrendered and chose that moment to become more passionate.
Everything was going very well when Akiko started hearing that little nasty voice in her head reminding her that Ryosuke was just playing with her. That there was no way on earth that a man like him, someone as fantastic and as fascinating as him could possibly be interested in someone as plain as she was.
Finally, her insecurity got the best of her and, moving her hands from his back to his chest, she pushed him away from her as hard as she could.
'What's wrong?' Ryosuke whispered still short of breath.
'I want to go home,' she said with a very small voice.
'Akiko…' he started.
'Please, Ryosuke, I really want to go home,' she insisted and Ryosuke could tell that her tone wasn't one that left any room for negotiations. Trying to regain his composure as fast as he could, he said:
'Alright, what do you want to do tomorrow?'
'I can't see you tomorrow. I'm busy,' she lied.
'Okay, what about the day after?' he asked refusing to give up.
'I don't know. I'll call you, okay?' she said and, something in her voice made Ryosuke realise that something was not right but that insisting would only make it worse.
'Alright…' he said finally surrendering. He then opened the car's door and stepped out of it.
As soon as he closed the door, and without waiting for him to get back into his car, she started hers actually driving away from him leaving Ryosuke utterly bewildered.
He only knew one thing: somehow, he had blown it.
To be continued…
