Programmed Lives – Second Stage

Chapter Six

It had taken him a few days to gather up the courage needed to make that phone call but, at the end, it had turned up to be a lot easier than he thought. So now, Takumi was being driven to the Takahashi residence by Itsuki who, as usual, couldn't stop talking.

'Wow, now, this is what I call a house!' Itsuki said looking though the windscreen at the big house where Ryosuke Takahashi lived with his baby son, wife and younger brother.

Takumi just made a nondescript sound that could have meant anything.

They parked the AE85 down the lane that led to the house's garage where, Takumi knew, were kept the three Mazda the family owned, four whenever Kyoko Iwase was staying in the house too.

Both Takumi and Itsuki walked up to the house's front door and rang the bell.

'Good morning Takumi,' Ryosuke's wife Akiko said opening the door, 'Keisuke is in the living room.'

'Good morning,' Takumi replied and, looking sideways to Itsuki, he saw his friend blushing when Akiko looked at him, 'this is my friend Takeuchi Itsuki. Itsuki, this is Akiko-san, Ryosuke-san's wife.'

'H-hi…' Itsuki managed to stammer making Akiko give him an almost motherly smile.

'Nice to meet you, Takeuchi-kun. Do any of you two want anything to drink?' Akiko asked.

'Nope thanks, I'm alright,' Takumi replied. Itsuki just shook his head.

'Okay, I'm going upstairs now, make yourselves at home,' she said.

Itsuki followed Takumi all the way to the living room gasping at the nice, expensive looking furniture that decorated Ryosuke's house.

'Takumi, that's…'

'Yes, I know, it's a Ferrari steering wheel from the fifties,' he said talking about the object that hung from one of the corridor's walls.

'Wow…'

They found Keisuke watching the sixty inches flat screen TV placed at the Takahashi's living room. His brother Ryosuke was nowhere to be seen.

'Hey, you're late,' Keisuke complained seeing them coming in the room.

'I know, I'm sorry,' Takumi said.

'Oh well, let's go to the garage,' Keisuke said grabbing his crutches to help him stand up. Takumi briefly considered helping him but, on second thoughts, maybe Keisuke wouldn't appreciate the offer very much so he decided to stay put.

Walking as fast as he could, considering he had a broken ankle, Keisuke led them to the door that communicated the main house with the garage. His apartment was directly on top of the garage but, from the three rooms he had at his disposal, he only used his bedroom for he preferred to use his brother's living room instead of his own.

'So, there you go,' Keisuke said handing Takumi a set of car keys.

'Keisuke I appreciate what you're doing for me,' Takumi said taking them.

'Oh well, just be careful with my baby, if I find a single scratch on it, I'll kill you,' Keisuke said using his best gangster-style tone of voice. Seeing Takumi swallow visibly, he added, 'hey, I'm kidding!'

'Ah, right,' Takumi said feeling relieved.

'Seriously now, be careful, this is the only thing I own and…'

'I know. I'll treat it like if it were my AE86,' Takumi assured him very seriously.

'Right, now I'm worried,' Keisuke said frowning at Takumi.

'I meant…'

'Takumi, don't worry. I trust you, otherwise I wouldn't even dream of lending you my FD.'

'Right. I'll be careful, I promise,' Takumi said and, turning to Itsuki, he said:

'Let's go.'

Itsuki just nodded.

He was too busy looking around the garage walls where all sorts of tools and machines were carefully stored on the shelves. In the middle of the garage which, Itsuki noticed, was as large as his own house, there were parked Ryosuke's famous FC3S, to its right a blue 10AE and to its left Keisuke's yellow FD3S.

Walking out of the garage though the service door, Itsuki marvelled at the thought of having enough money to buy, let alone maintain, those three beautiful pieces of machinery.

'I thought your brother wasn't at home,' Takumi commented seeing the FC parked there.

'He's not, he's using the new car,' Keisuke explained.

'New car?' Takumi said.

'Yeah, he's bought an MPV so we can put Kyosuke's baby carrier in it,' Keisuke explained.

'Your brother's driving a van?' Takumi asked his voice expressing his shock.

'Yep, he's a family man now, remember?' Keisuke said smirking.

Takumi didn't know what to say.

Keisuke meanwhile pressed the button that opened the garage's gate and, seeing Takumi climb into the FD, he said:

'Hey Takumi, one more thing.'

'What is it?' Takumi said, feeling very odd while seating in front of the FD steering wheel. That car had Keisuke Takahashi written all over it.

'I know you're going to be using it to do the tofu deliveries but, please, I'm begging you, don't go and put one of those Fujiwara Tofu Shop decals on it, alright?'

Takumi laughed at Keisuke's worried expression.

'Don't worry, I don't think Dad's got any more of those.'

'That's a relief. Now, go before I have second thoughts,' Keisuke said and Takumi started the FD's engine and, being as careful as he could, drove it out of the garage and down the lane where Itsuki was waiting for him in his AE85.

Leaving a very concerned looking Keisuke behind, Takumi passed Itsuki's Toyota and started driving back to his hometown.

It had been awfully good of Keisuke to lend Takumi his beloved FD while his foot healed and Takumi, knowing how special this car was for the youngest of the two Rotary Brothers, vowed to himself that he wouldn't allow for it to get damaged in any way.

For this reason, the following morning, Takumi got up half an hour earlier than usual to run his turn of deliveries.

'I've finished loading the car, are you ready?' Bunta asked his son.

'Yep.'

'You've had a good idea borrowing this car,' Bunta said in what was one of the very rare occasions in which he praised his son.

'I think so. If I manage to master Mt Akina with this car, it'll help me being more comfortable with it,' Takumi explained his dad.

'Yep. That's right,' Bunta said and then, taking a long puff of his cigarette, said, 'come on, off you go…'

'Dad, aren't you forgetting something?'

'Nah, I can't give you a cup of water. This bloody car doesn't even have a cup holder,' he said shaking his head and mumbling to himself, 'no cup holder, and they all it a car.'

Takumi smiled at his father's ramblings and, starting the engine, he drove away.

The uphill of Mt Akina had always been the trickiest for Takumi. Not only because his car was underpowered when it came to climbing up the mountain pass, but also because of the tofu he had in the trunk.

Even when he drove his father's GC8, he still had the same handicap: the tofu. The lack of the usual cup of water made it even more difficult for Takumi was unable to tell whether his driving was too rough for the tofu so, for the first time in years, Takumi drove uphill at a normal speed.

He decided to leave the fast driving for the downhill when the trunk would be empty.

Driving at such low speed, not only made it difficult for Takumi to stay awake, but made Takumi's thoughts wander and soon he found himself thinking of a certain beautiful golfer who had been in his life for just over eighteen months.

Takumi briefly touched the cheek Maki slapped the first time they met, when she had mistaken him for the fake-Takumi.

He now found it almost funny but, at first, he had been really mad at her for slapping him and at the fake-Takumi for messing around using his name.

Now though, Takumi felt grateful because that loser had allowed him to meet Maki. He still couldn't believe that his girlfriend was the famous golfer Uehara Maki, a player respected by her much older and much more experienced rivals.

Takumi also felt grateful that, because of the unexpected events that had forced the team to take a break, he had now plenty of free time to go and see her.

That lack of time to see each other had begun to put quite a lot of strain on their relationship driving Takumi to a point where he really thought they would have to stop dating.

All of this had made Takumi very upset and, adding to this feeling the frustration he felt driving the team's car, had brought Takumi very close to losing it.

Oh how much he despised the team's FD! He had hated it the minute he had taken a corner with it. He just didn't like how it felt. It was even worse, if that was possible, than his father's Subaru.

His father, the cheek of him, telling him he would outclass him with a camper in front of everybody. That shitty old man!

He would show him and the rest of the team that he, Fujiwara Takumi, could be fast driving any type of car. He would master Mt Akina with Keisuke's FD, even if it was the last thing he did.

With his thoughts having reached the very machine he was driving, he had to consider a few things.

One, the car itself was way better than the one he had been driving for the team. To begin with, it felt a lot more stable and its engine seemed to respond better to his touch.

Of course, he still had to take it downhill but, so far, he had to admit that, uphill, Keisuke's FD was definitely better than his AE86. It was lucky he had never been foolish enough to challenge Keisuke to an uphill battle…

Another thing he had to consider was the fact that, being honest to himself, he didn't know how to get the best out of the rotary engine.

This was something he had been worried about ever since Ryosuke-san had founded the new team. During his time as a member of Project D, Takumi had always been able to rely on his car and, therefore, he had never been forced to change the way he drove for, one of the best things the AE86 had was that it helped him overcome his own limitations.

After all, he wasn't fond of his car for nothing. The AE86, besides being a legendary, highly tuned car, was also a large part of the secret to Takumi's undefeated record.

But his father was right, he had to get used to driving other cars and, even more importantly, he had to master going uphill and driving in a track if he ever hoped to become a professional racer.

If for Takumi the GC8 had been the breakthrough to a whole new level of driving, the FD3S was the challenge Takumi had to overcome so he could begin to consider turning his dreams into a reality.

After doing the last of the deliveries, Takumi turned the car round in the hotel's car park and entered the road facing downhill.

'Alright, let's do this…' he said aloud, talking to the FD.

Slowly at first but, picking up speed as the road's descent became steeper, Takumi started testing the FD's limits.

First, the brakes: he pressed and let go of the brake's pedal a few times, sometimes allowing the car to stop in the middle of the road, just to get an exact idea of the actual ability that the brakes had stopping the car.

After he was entirely sure of that, he moved on to testing the steering wheel, making sure he got a precise idea of how much he had to turn the wheel in order to make the car do what he wanted and how he wanted it.

Testing the engine's capacity was a bit trickier for, as usual, he seemed to have problems understanding the way the twin-turbo rotary engine responded to his commands.

All and all, it took him almost four times as long to get the deliveries done and to get back downhill but, when he parked the car near his father's tofu shop at ten past six in the morning, Takumi was happy with the night's work.

'How did it go?' his father asked him seeing Takumi enter their small living room.

'Not bad. I think I'm beginning to understand what I'm doing wrong.'

His father smiled at him and said:

'I knew you would. Now, go to sleep, you're supposed to be up again in less than an hour.'

'I know, you don't need to remind me,' Takumi said getting annoyed at his father's constant smothering.

'What a spoilt brat you are,' he said going back to watching the TV.

Takumi's last coherent thought before falling asleep was that, if everything went as he hoped it would, he would be able to return the FD to its owner pretty soon.

To be continued…