Programmed Lives – Second Stage

Chapter Two

Keisuke was shocked to see his older brother coming back to the nursery, even more so because he was accompanied by Akiko's father who was holding Ryosuke by his arm. He looked as if someone had just punched him in the stomach. This made both Keisuke and Kyoko fear the worse.

'Aniki, what's wrong?' Keisuke asked, even though he wasn't sure he wanted to hear it.

'She doesn't want to see me,' Ryosuke said sounding, if that was possible, even more distraught than earlier on.

'What?' Keisuke asked feeling really confused.

'It's just a phase. I've already told you that she's not herself right now,' Doctor Arakawa said speaking instead of Ryosuke.

'What's going on?' Kyoko asked feeling rather frustrated at not being able to understand anything anymore.

'Akiko woke up a few minutes ago and asked us to leave her alone. I was telling Ryosuke that it's not so rare for women who've just given birth to react that way. We have to give her some room if she asks for it,' the doctor explained.

'You don't understand: she's outraged! I've never seen such cold fury in her eyes before,' Ryosuke insisted.

'Like I said: give her some space and you'll see she'll be back to being herself in no time,' Doctor Arakawa said then, walking towards the nursery's door, he said, 'one of you two should call your parents to tell them the news. Now I'm going to check on my grandson.'

'I've messed up Keisuke,' Ryosuke said disconsolately.

Keisuke hadn't seen his brother acting more out of character ever since that week during which Ryosuke had believed he had blown it with Akiko.

'Aniki, I really think that what Doctor Arakawa is saying makes sense,' Keisuke said hating to be forced to agree with a man he despised.

Ryosuke looked at him and then shook his head.

'No, you all don't understand what's happening. After Akiko found out about the truth regarding her mother's death, I promised her I would be always by her side. I sworn I would not fail her the way her father had failed her mother. That was not even three months ago and, the first time I have the chance to prove myself to her, I fail her.'

Keisuke was about to reply to that when his phone started ringing.

'Shit, wait a sec,' he said while answering it, 'hello?'

He walked away from both his brother and Kyoko while he listened.

'Fumihiro, right now it's not a very good moment,' he whispered.

'What's happened?' Fumihiro asked worriedly.

'Akiko had some problems giving birth. The baby is fine but she's not doing very well at the moment,' Keisuke explained.

'Oh God. How's your brother?'

'Not very well either. Look, Aniki needs to be here now so, please handle everything for him in the meantime, okay?'

'Sure. I'm sorry to hear about Akiko, I really hope she'll get well soon,' Fumihiro said.

'So do I,' Keisuke said.

'Ah, what was it? A boy or a girl?' Fumihiro asked as they were about to finish the call.

'A boy, a very handsome one,' Keisuke replied proudly.

'Congratulate Ryosuke for me, will you please?'

'Will do. Bye for now,' Keisuke said then he headed back to where his brother was.

Meanwhile, at the circuit, Fumihiro put his phone back into the pocket of his jeans and walked back to where the rest of the team was.

'What's up?' Matsumoto asked.

'Akiko has had a baby boy. He's doing very well but, unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Akiko.'

'What's wrong with her?'

'I don't know. Keisuke didn't specify but I've never seen him being this much worried before.'

'What do we do with the testing session?'

'I guess we'll just carry on with Takumi,' Fumihiro said.

'What about the appointment with the sponsors?' Matsumoto said reminding Fumihiro about the meeting Ryosuke was due to attend that same afternoon.

'Shit! I forgot about that,' Fumihiro said then, after thinking about it, he added, 'we can't count on Ryosuke right now. He's got to be by his wife's side right now. I'll call them in the morning to ask them if they'd like to reschedule.'

'And if they don't?' Matsumoto asked.

'Well, if they don't, they don't. There's nothing I can do about that,' Fumihiro replied a bit crossly.

Not a good start for the team, Fumihiro thought while walking away from Matsumoto. It had taken them ages to get the new car built and delivered, only to find out that it wasn't anywhere near as performing as Keisuke's highly tuned FD.

Things were looking so bad that, at some point, Fumihiro even wanted to suggest using Keisuke's car for the championship. Unsurprisingly, Ryosuke had preceded him by tellling him that Keisuke's FD didn't comply with the GT300's regulations so they couldn't think of entering it for the races.

'It's almost four am, I'm going to do my deliveries,' Fujiwara-san announced, interrupting Fumihiro's thoughts.

'Alright,' Fumihiro replied distractedly.

'Get Takumi to take a break. He's been driving non-stop for almost an hour now,' Bunta said making Fumihiro smile. The old man, no matter how hard he tried, couldn't stop caring about his son's wellbeing.

'Sure. Thanks for coming tonight Fujiwara-san.'

'Whatever,' he just said before heading towards his Impreza.

Fumihiro's smile widened when he saw the way Bunta Fujiwara left the car park at the circuit: drifting all the way, in perfect Fujiwara-style.

His smile promptly disappeared when his mind went back to all the problems that needed to be solved for the team. He walked back to the garage where the mechanics were working on one of the spare engines.

'Guys, can I have your attention for a bit?'

They all stopped working, except Kenta who was currently keeping the time for Takumi.

'Ryosuke's not going to be able to come back for a while. As you all know, his wife was expecting a baby and she's just given birth to a baby boy who, I'm glad to say, is doing very well. Unfortunately she is not quite so well and Ryosuke will have to stay with her. I hope I can count on your hard work to make up for our leader's absence.'

'Of course you can,' Matsumoto replied, speaking on behalf of all the guys.

'Great, now, get back to work. Matsumoto, tell Takumi to get back in at the end of the next lap,' Fumihiro said before going back to Ryosuke's computer to check the data in it.

'Takumi, this is Matsumoto, get back in the boxes,' Matsumoto ordered speaking through the team's radio.

'Why? I'm not tired,' he heard Takumi say.

'You're probably not, but we need to preserve the car,' Matsumoto said smiling at the young driver's stubbornness.

'Alright,' Takumi replied and Matsumoto knew that Fujiwara wasn't happy with that order.

A few minutes later, Takumi was getting out of the car looking a lot more tired than he had tried to appear.

'Get some rest,' Matsumoto said handing him a bottle of water.

'Where is my father?' he asked looking around for his dad.

'He's gone to do his deliveries,' Fumihiro replied talking from the desk where he was working with the computer.

'And Keisuke?'

'He's gone with his brother to the hospital, Akiko's had her baby,' Fumihiro summarized not wanting to repeat the whole thing all over again.

'Ah, okay,' Takumi said and, without giving it a second thought, he walked towards the AE86 so he could get some sleep in it.

'Typical Takumi,' Matsumoto laughed.

'Yeah, he must be a lot more tired than he wanted us to believe…' Fumihiro said.

'That's right. He didn't even complain about the car like he always does,' Matsumoto agreed.

Fumihiro nodded. It was true that Takumi didn't like the car. Naturally, and since Keisuke refused to drive anything else, it was a Mazda, an FD3S specially built and projected for the GT300 championship. Unfortunately, Takumi was having a really hard time getting used to it and Fumihiro knew that Ryosuke was very worried about this.

That was the reason why Ryosuke had begged Bunta Fujiwara to join his team as an advisor and, even though at first Fumihiro was sceptical about the old man's reliability, now he couldn't have been happier.

Albeit Fujiwara-san was, at best, cryptic in the way he expressed himself, both Fumihiro and Ryosuke were learning tons of things about mechanics and racing, specifically, the psychological side of it and just by listening to the few words with which Fujiwara-san graced them every now and then, Fumihiro had learned an infinity of things about the mentality one had to have in order to be a winner.

Not even Ryosuke was at that level of understanding of the whole racing philosophy and, for this reason, Fumihiro and the whole team considered themselves blessed to have the old man in the team.

'Fumihiro-san, since neither Keisuke-san nor Fujiwara are driving the car, do you think I could take it for a spin?' Kenta asked startling Fumihiro who was lost in his thoughts.

'What?'

'I said if I could possibly drive the car for a while,' Kenta repeated pleadingly.

'Sorry Kenta but we're going to be working on it. Next time, okay?'

'Oh. Okay then, what should I do?' Kenta said trying, and failing, to hide the disappointment he felt.

'I don't know. Why don't you just get some rest?'

'Fine. I'll be in my S14 if you guys need me,' he said and, judging by the tone of his voice, Fumihiro could tell that the poor Kenta was feeling almost as helpless as Fumihiro did whenever Ryosuke wasn't around.

Back at the hospital, and needing to register the baby, Ryosuke disobeyed his father-in-law's orders and found himself knocking on the door of his wife's room but, since he really wasn't expecting an answer, he went in without having received permission to do so.

'Akiko,' he whispered walking to his wife's bed.

She was either asleep or pretending to be so so, taking a deep, steadying breath and without being too sure whether she would listen to him or not, Ryosuke said:

'Akiko, I'm not sure if you know this but the baby is a boy and we need to register him. I need to know if you have any preferences when it comes to names.'

Predictably, Akiko kept her eyes closed.

'Alright, I thought of a few of them myself…'

'I don't care,' he finally heard her say.

So, she was awake.

'Akiko…'

'I said I don't care. Do whatever you want, you always do anyway,' she said now speaking with a much firmer but still rather weak tone of voice.

'That's not fair,' he complained.

'Don't you talk about fairness!' Akiko cried before visibly wincing. She had probably upset her stitches and was now paying for it. Then, using whispering furiously, she added, 'leave me alone!'

Ryosuke briefly considered defying her but, seeing how useless that would be, he shook his head in defeat and left the room.

'How did it go?' Keisuke asked.

'Not well, she doesn't even care about the name we give to our baby son.'

'What are you going to do?' Kyoko asked.

'I'm going to the registry office,' Ryosuke announced.

'What are you going to call him?' Keisuke asked.

After giving it some thought, Ryosuke looked at Kyoko first, then at Keisuke and then said:

'Kyosuke.'

'Takahashi Kyosuke. I like it,' Keisuke sentenced.

'I'm glad at least you do,' Ryosuke said sombrely then he left.

To be continued…