Programmed Lives – Second Stage

Chapter Twelve

Kyoko had just parked her car outside the building where her apartment was when she heard her mobile phone ring. She got the phone out of her bag as she climbed out of her car and was about to check the phone's display to see who was calling when she saw Keisuke's yellow FD approaching her at a suicidal speed.

'Oh shit!' she muttered and thanked the gods she had a centralised locking system in her car key so she could lock the doors as she ran towards her house.

She made it into her apartment just in time to shut the door behind her. Predictably enough, she hadn't even had the time to take her shoes off when Keisuke's voice thundered through the door:

'Kyoko open this door at once!'

Kyoko stood there staring at the door not knowing what to do. Kyoko had never been any less ready to face him than at that precise moment and as she started praying so he would give up and leave, he started banging the door so hard that the entire wall seemed to tremble under his fist.

'OPEN THIS FUCKING DOOR OR I SWEAR I'LL KNOCK IT DOWN!' she heard him roar.

Kyoko, despite how very afraid she was, couldn't help but to snicker: was this really the way he thought she would be persuaded to open the door?

Since Kyoko knew Keisuke well enough to realise he would really knock the door down, she decided to surrender and, putting the safety chain on, she opened the door.

'Do you think this is going to keep me outside?' he said looking at the chain disdainfully.

'Of course not, but it gives me a false sense of security. Now, what do you want?' she said tiredly.

'Were you going to tell me about the baby?' Keisuke spurted brutally.

Kyoko felt how her heart skipped a couple of heartbeats.

'She wasn't supposed to tell you,' she finally said unable to believe that Akiko would betray her voluntarily, 'did you beat her up or threatened her so she'd tell you?'

'Akiko? Nah, normal threats don't work with her: she's crazy! She told me that if I hit her she'd kill me and make it look like an accident! No, she didn't tell me, I just guessed by the way she reacted when I asked her if you were pregnant.'

'She told you she'd kill you?' Kyoko asked in a last, desperate attempt at trying to avoid the topic.

'Yeah, she's nuts! I preferred her when she was depressed, at least she was harmless,' he joked and Kyoko felt that her determination to keep him out was beginning to falter.

'Really?' she asked.

'No, of course not, Aniki was too miserable back then. Are you going to let me in so we can talk or will I have to stay out of your house, and of your life, forever?'

Kyoko looked at him in the eyes and, seeing that he had considerably calmed down enough and that he was really serious about it, she said:

'Alright. Five minutes, no more, okay?'

'Okay,' he agreed.

He followed her to her living room and they sat down on the small couch that looked even smaller with Keisuke sitting on it.

'Sorry about the mess,' she said.

'Mess? What mess?' he said looking around the apartment and obviously failing to see where it was messy.

Kyoko decided to ignore the whole thing since she already knew all about Keisuke's standards when it came to cleanliness.

'Keisuke, I'm not sure if I'm pregnant. That's why I went to Akiko, she's having the blood work done as we speak so we know for sure.'

Keisuke looked at her briefly before saying:

'This complicates things…'

'No,' she interrupted him, 'this doesn't complicate anything for YOU! This is all my problem and I'll deal with it.'

'You're wrong Kyoko. As I was saying, this complicates things because if before I really needed you to forgive me and to give me a second opportunity, well, a third actually, now I also need to convince you that I'm not doing it only for the chance you may be carrying my baby.'

Kyoko was speechless.

'Look, Kyoko, I know I'm the biggest ass on the planet, okay? You know me, I'm totally useless when it comes to controlling my anger and I tend to do really stupid things when I'm angry. It must be something that happens to us racers because Takumi does it too, anyway, I said horrible things to you that night at the hospital and I'm sorry I didn't think straight away that you were only trying to help me so I could carry on racing.'

'Now you've caught on, haven't you?' Kyoko said with a bittersweet smile.

'Yeah, I'm a bit slow too. What can I do? I'm full of flaws,' he said miserably, 'in fact, I keep wondering what's a smart woman such as yourself doing with a guy as dumb as me?'

'Keisuke, you're not dumb!' she said frowning.

'Well, the records speak against me. This is the second time I let you go…if that's not dumb, I'd like to know what it is,' he insisted.

'Okay, you're not helping me very much to defend you, you know?' Kyoko complained and, she knew then, that she had to forgive and forget all over again because she simply could not live without him.

'Kyoko, please, allow me back into your life,' he begged her.

'How am I supposed to know whether you'll hurt me again?' she asked even though her heart had already chosen to give him another chance.

'You can't. I can't promise you I won't do anything stupid again but I can promise you that I'll try my very best to make you happy,' he said so honestly that Kyoko couldn't help but to smile.

'Sounds reasonable enough,' she said.

'And we're going to be dealing with this whole pregnancy thing together, okay?' he said smiling too.

'Okay,' she nodded.

'Now, woman, can I kiss you or not because I've been dying to do it since I saw you opening that bloody door,'

Kyoko laughed out loud and, taking his head with her hands, she kissed him.

'No, no, not good, you've kissed me. Now it's my turn,' he said kissing her back then, looking at his watch, he said, 'I think my five minutes are up.'

'Well, I could give you five more minutes,' she said.

'What about all your life?' he asked.

'What?' Kyoko said.

'I'm not saying I'd like to do it now but, in the near future, regardless of the test's result, I'd like you to marry me.'

'What?' she repeated.

'Now who's the slow one?' he asked with mock annoyance.

'Are you asking me to marry you?'

'I'd like you to,' he explained.

'I'll be happy to be your wife,' she added smiling.

They were about to kiss again, when the phone, this time the one in the house, rang.

'I'll go and get it,' she said, 'hello?'

'Kyoko? I'm so sorry, I just…'

'Akiko, it's okay. Don't worry about it, it seems like Keisuke and I are back together,' she explained to her very worried sounding friend.

'When he left, I decided to go to the labs and run the test myself so we could get the results a lot faster,' Akiko said.

'And?' Kyoko asked tightening the grip on the phone. Keisuke was looking at her worriedly so her nervousness was probably obvious enough.

'Kyoko, I'm not sure if this is good or bad news but the results are negative. I ran the tests several times just to be sure: you are not pregnant. Should I say I'm sorry?' she asked.

Kyoko remained silent for a short while.

'Kyoko?' Akiko asked sounding even more anxious, 'I don't think I should have told you over the phone,' she said.

'No, it's fine. Thanks for telling me. I'm very happy, don't worry. I'll speak to you later, okay?' Kyoko finally said.

'Are you sure you're okay?' Akiko insisted.

'Absolutely, thanks.'

Slowly, Kyoko put the receiver down and turned round to face her boyfriend.

'So? Are we going to be parents?' he asked tentatively.

Kyoko shook her head.

'No, it seems like it's definitely a negative,' she said and what she saw surprised her: Keisuke was actually disappointed by the news.

'I'm sorry…'

'You really wanted to have a baby?' Kyoko asked showing her incredulity through her voice.

'Yeah, I would have loved to have a kid. Granted, it's a bit too soon for me but, I hope one day we'll have a baby like Kyo-chan, don't you?'

'Yes, I'd love to have a baby like him too but I wouldn't mind having a girl, you know.'

'No, not a girl! I already have enough problems trying to understand you, imagine if I had a mini-you to deal with too. Also, I would have to kill any boy who'd look at her and that would land me in prison.'

Kyoko laughed at that and, even though she felt like crying, for the first time in over a week, the tears would be of joy not sorrow.

Three weeks later, the whole team was gathered for their last training session before the GT300 season started the following weekend.

'Hey Takumi, you're not sleeping enough as usual, huh?' Keisuke said patting his shoulder so heavily that it made Takumi temporarily lose his balance.

'No, if anything, I'm sleeping too much these days,' he replied rubbing the shoulder where Keisuke had hit him.

'Why, isn't your girlfriend keeping you busy?' Keisuke asked hoping Takumi would blush but, instead, Takumi just looked angry.

'I wish. She's all busy training for this very important golf tournament, with that, and our own training sessions, we haven't seen each other for almost two weeks.'

Keisuke lifted his eyebrows and said:

'I'm sorry to hear that man.'

'Can't do anything about it so…you look better though, I take things are going well with Kyoko-san?' Takumi asked and Keisuke was pleased to notice that Takumi had finally learned to relax around him.

'Yeah, they're great! This time I'm not going to screw up, I swear.'

'Keisuke-san, Fujiwara, come here, Ryosuke-san wants to talk to all of us,' Kenta said interrupting their conversation.

The two drivers looked at each other and then decided to follow Kenta and join the rest of the group.

Ryosuke was already there and, judging by his facial expression, he didn't have any good news.

'Guys, we have a small problem: the scrutinisers have just sent us a fax with the verdict of the checks they did on our car to see if it complied with all the GT300 regulations. I was sure that there were no illegal parts in it but, apparently, they aren't happy with the whole exhaust system.'

'Why not?' Matsumoto asked frowning.

'They said that we cannot have any hand made parts on the car,' Ryosuke explained.

'Well, we'll just have to replace the exhaust with the one we had before Fujiwara-san asked us to change it,' Fumihiro said.

'That's not so easy Fumihiro,' Matsumoto said.

'Why not?' Fumihiro said.

'Because we no longer have that one, since we thought we were going to use the one Fujiwara-san suggested, we threw out the old one and sold the parts that could be sold. All the parts we have now are for the new exhaust system.'

'What are you saying?' Ryosuke asked and Keisuke noticed a faint panicky tone on Aniki's voice.

'Ryosuke, we cannot change the exhaust on time for the first race of the season because we don't have the parts,' Matsumoto said looking positively horrified.

To be continued…