Programmed Lives - First Stage
Chapter Sixteen
Ryosuke was finishing doing his tie up when his brother knocked on his door.
'Aniki, are you ready?' he said, opening the door and stepping into the room. He observed his brother while his brother combed his hair. Keisuke thought that his brother looked extremely handsome in his formal attire.
'Yes,' Ryosuke said examining himself on the mirror just to make sure that everything was alright.
'Nervous?' Keisuke said taking his usual place sitting on of his brother's bed, a bed that no longer would be used after that day.
'Not really. I thought I'd be tough, but I was a lot more nervous during my finals,'
'Yeah, you're a doctor now,' Keisuke commented looking at his brother admiringly.
'Yes, and you're on your way to become a professional racer,' Ryosuke said.
'Not yet. We still have one more challenge with Project D,'
'I know, I'm looking forward to that but it'll have to wait till Akiko and I come back from our honeymoon,' Ryosuke said.
'Alright, let's go,' Keisuke said getting up from the bed.
'You've got the rings, haven't you?' Ryosuke asked.
'What rings?' Keisuke replied and, seeing Ryosuke's panicked expression, he said, 'just kidding Aniki! I thought you weren't nervous…'
'Ha, ha, very funny,' Ryosuke said sarcastically, then he added, 'let's go or Akiko will get there before I do.'
The ceremony started just ten minutes after it had been scheduled and Ryosuke had to repress a gasp of surprise when he saw how beautiful Akiko looked in her very simple but elegant wedding dress.
Kyoko was walking behind her acting as bridesmaid. The two girls had become quite good friends during these past few weeks and it hadn't been a surprise when Akiko, who didn't have any other girlfriend of her same age, had asked Kyoko to assist her at the wedding.
Ryosuke saw that his younger brother was looking at Kyoko with the same admiration he himself had had for his wife-to-be. This reminded him he needed to give a good smack to Keisuke for not having asked Kyoko out yet.
Takumi was there along with the rest of Project D's crew and Ryosuke couldn't help but to think that, all in all, he was lucky to be able to have so many good friends around him on this very important day.
Finally, after the ceremony, the now Mr and Mrs Ryosuke Takahashi welcomed everyone to the reception.
'You came all by yourself?' Keisuke asked Takumi sometime before the meal.
'Yep,' Takumi replied.
'What about that Natsuki girl?' Keisuke asked teasingly.
'There is no Natsuki girl anymore. We're just friends,' he said.
'Ah, I see…'
'Now there is a Mika girl though,' Takumi said nonchalantly.
'What? When did that happen?' Keisuke asked.
'Do you remember those two who pretended to be us?' Takumi asked.
'Yes,' he replied.
'Well, I kind of met her because of them. We've been seeing each other since then.'
'I can't believe it! You sure fool everyone with that innocent look of yours,' Keisuke said laughing.
'What about you?' Takumi asked.
'What about me, what?' Keisuke said pretending not to understand the question.
'What's the story with Kyoko-san?' Takumi asked shocking Keisuke even more. It was very rare of Takumi to pry into people's lives like that.
'When are you going to race your dad?' Keisuke asked, desperate to avoid a topic he wasn't quite ready to face.
'Never, but you're avoiding the topic,' Takumi said, not easily fooled.
'Never? Why not?' Keisuke insisted.
'Because I'm afraid I may beat him,' he said without a trace of arrogance.
'What?' Keisuke asked almost shouting then, reassuming a normal tone of voice, he said, 'Takumi, I know you're good but, come on, your old man is an institution. No man alive can beat him.'
'I might and that's why I don't want to race him. That and the fact that if I did beat him I'd lose my motivation to keep on racing.'
'Why is that?' Keisuke asked.
'Because, deep down, no matter whom I race against, I always keep chasing him. If I race him and I beat him, then I won't have anyone left to chase.'
Keisuke looked at Takumi and was surprised to see that the young man wasn't being full of himself or anything like that. He was being completely honest. This was one of the things about Takumi that puzzled Keisuke and the reason why, to him, Takumi would always be some sort of enigma.
'In any case, you're still avoiding my question,' Takumi said but then, as an afterthought, he added, 'oh well, it's none of my business. I'll tell you this though: my relationship with Natsuki didn't go anywhere because I didn't act on my feelings soon enough. Don't make the same mistake.'
With this Takumi left a very startled Keisuke to go and speak to his car's mechanic. Keisuke then looked for Kyoko who was chatting happily with Akiko. The girl, sensing that she was being observed looked at him and, for a few instants it seemed to Keisuke like the world had stopped.
Okay so, he was in love with her. There, he had admitted it to himself but there was no way he could act on it. No matter what his Aniki or Takumi said, he had to focus all his energies on his racing career and he really had no times for girls. No matter how beautiful, funny, smart…
'Oh! Stop it!' he said aloud startling a few of the wedding's guests who clearly thought that the poor guy had lost his marbles.
After the meal the bride and groom opened the dances and, after the newly married couple had had their first dance together, Keisuke saw Kyoko walking up to him.
'So, shall we dance?' she said.
'What?' Keisuke asked very surprised.
'You're the best man, I'm the bridesmaid, it is customary that we dance together, isn't it?' Kyoko asked trying her best not to look as hurt as she felt.
'Alright then,' Keisuke said letting her lead him towards the dance floor where a few couples had already joined Ryosuke and Akiko.
'She's so beautiful…' Kyoko commented while they danced to a slow tune.
'Who?'
'Akiko,' she explained, 'they look truly happy. I'm really glad for them, I know they didn't have a very easy start but something tells me they're going to be happy together.'
'Yeah, probably,' Keisuke agreed and then, seeing her dreamy expression he said before he could stop himself, 'what is it? Do you want that too?'
Kyoko looked at him stunned, then she shook her head and said:
'No. I stopped dreaming about this a long time ago.'
The hurt in her voice made Keisuke's heart shrink painfully inside his chest.
'Kyoko…' he started.
'Oh! I know, alright! I get it!' she said and then she made a strange sound and, snatching herself from his arms, turned round and started running away.
Keisuke didn't know what to do but then, Ryosuke, who had witnessed the whole thing walked towards him and with a very stern sounding voice, he said:
'If you don't go after her this instant I'm kicking you out of Project D.'
Keisuke looked at his brother and, seeing he was very serious about it, he nodded and started running towards the hall.
It was empty so he carried on towards the car park just in time to see Kyoko's FD leaving it at an alarming speed.
Not thinking about it twice, Keisuke got into his own FD and started its engine so he could follow her.
'Goddamit she's fast!' he complained seeing how very quickly the black FD was disappearing in the distance.
Fortunately for him, the restaurant where the reception was being held was on top of Mt Akagi so he decided to forget about the incoming traffic making the FD's rotary engine give him all it had.
Unfortunately for him, Kyoko seemed to have had the same idea and, not even using the best drifting techniques he had, he still couldn't close the gap between them.
Keisuke had never driven like that before; he had never felt anymore desperate for speed in his whole life. Not even during the hardest races with Project D.
Keisuke's mounting frustration turned into sheer terror when he saw that Kyoko's car had started behaving oddly.
Pressing the accelerator further, Keisuke managed to get close enough to take a good look at the black FD and, with dismay, he realised that one of the rear tyres was lower than the other one.
'Stop it you stupid woman! You're going to kill yourself!' he shouted inside his car knowing perfectly well that Kyoko couldn't hear him.
Then it happened: the tyre gave up and exploded, sending Kyoko's car into an incontrollable spin. Seeing this made Keisuke feel as though as his heart wanted to come out through his throat.
In slow motion, he saw as the black FD's front hit one of the guardrails and then, following the inertia, hit its back against the opposite guardrail bringing the car to a halt across the middle of the road. Keisuke was grateful that no cars came neither of the two ways for it would have been an instant collision.
Keisuke braked as hard as he could making his car stop just a few centimetres away from Kyoko's FD. He literally jumped out of the yellow FD as he ran towards the driver's side of the black one.
'ARE YOU CRAZY?' he shouted at her the minute he had got the door open.
Kyoko was sitting very still holding the steering wheel with both hands. In her face, Keisuke saw the traces of her tears and that made him do something he'd been dying to do.
Snatching her seatbelt open, he basically removed her from the car and took her in his arms hugging her as tightly as he could to him.
'You could have died you stupid woman,' he said with his voice full of all the emotion he had repressed for all those months.
She didn't say anything so he carried on:
'What would I do if you died? Do you want to tell me that?'
Finally, Kyoko pushed away from him and looking up to his eyes, she said:
'Why do you care?'
Her bitterness made him hurt even more.
'Goddammit Kyoko!' he shouted, 'what do you want me to say? That I'm in love with you? That I can't live with the thought that one day you'll get tired of waiting for me? Is that what you want to hear?'
He felt himself shaking and, not being able to cope with it anymore he released her and sat on top of the black FD's bonnet hiding his face in his hands.
'I don't know what to do…' he finally said sounding absolutely devastated.
'You're in love with me?' he heard Kyoko ask with a very tiny voice.
He looked up and said:
'Yes. What do we do now?'
'I don't know,' she said.
'Look, you know that I'm not good with doing more than one thing at the time.'
'Keisuke, I know that. The mistake you made was to think that I'd expect you to give me all of your time to me. I wouldn't want that. I know that a part of your heart will always belong to racing. All I ever wanted was to be allowed into your life.'
'Even if I can't be with you all the time, even if I can't give you my full attention?' he asked.
'Even if you could only dedicate me just five minutes every day, I still would treasure those five minutes and would be looking forward to them more than to anything else.'
'I don't know, it sounds too selfish for me to ask you to cope with that.'
'You aren't listening to me Keisuke: I'd love to be with you even if it was for only a few minutes. You don't have to ask me, I'm volunteering for it.'
'Are you sure you can be happy with that?' he asked still unsure.
'YES! Do you want me to spell it out for you? I-L-O-V-E-Y-O-U! There, happy?' she said exasperatedly.
He looked at her and then his lips started to curve to form a smile.
'You're too much.'
'Look who's talking,' she said smiling through her dried tears.
'What a messed up couple we're going to be,' Keisuke commented while getting up to kiss her.
Kyoko simply laughed. The two were far too happy to think that they really needed to remove their cars from the middle of the road.
To be continued…
