Programmed Lives – Second Stage

Chapter Sixteen

Takumi's arrival made everyone stop and stare at him. This made the young man rather nervous and very reluctant of getting out of the car.

'You!' the other Team Manager shouted seeing Takumi.

This made the whole team get in between the FD and the crazed Team Manager acting as some sort of human shield.

'Look, if you have any problem with my driver's attitude, you should file a complaint with the Federation,' Ryosuke said with, in Takumi's opinion, an almost surreal calm tone.

'WHAT?' the guy shouted.

'What's going on in here?'

They all turned round and saw that there was a middle-aged man standing just outside the team's box, next to him stood Bunta's friend, Keiichi Tsuchiya.

'Who in the hell are you?' the team manager shouted.

'This is Harada-sensei, the Race Director,' Keiichi said quite clearly trying to refrain himself from laughing out loud, especially seeing the mortified face of the Honda's Team Manager.

'Er…'

'I asked you a question,' Harada-sensei said.

'Their driver pushed mine out of the track!' he replied with an almost childish tone while pointing at Takumi.

'Did he now?' Harada-sensei said lifting his eyebrows in obvious disbelief, 'I've seen the action myself and, I think it was YOUR driver who tried to push him out of the circuit.'

'I agree,' Keiichi said.

The Honda's Team Manager's eyes widened with surprise.

'But…'

'You're welcome to do as Takahashi-san said and file a complaint but, like Harada-sensei said, it was pretty much clear to us that your driver spun out the track as a direct consequence of his failed attempt at pushing Fujiwara's car out of the circuit. This could, of course, result in the immediate disqualification of your driver. It's your call,' Keiichi said, this time with a wide smile on his face.

The Team Manager seemed to consider his options and, after a brief silence, he said:

'Alright, forget it then.'

With this he just walked out of the Kirin Takahashi Racing Team's garage.

'Well, if this matter is solved, I shall go back to the control room,' Harada-sensei said.

'Okay, thanks for coming,' Keiichi said.

'No problem,' Harada-sensei said before leaving the garage as well.

'Thanks Keiichi,' Bunta said, talking for the first time.

'Don't mention it. Bunta, one friendly bit of advice, you better watch out for that Honda, that Team Manager has quite a reputation to disregard any fair play in the races. He's definitely willing to do anything, and I mean anything, to make his car win.'

'Thanks for the warning, Tsuchiya-san,' Ryosuke said taking a step towards the two men.

'No problem, I should go now. It looks like they're going to forget about the rest of the qualifying session. It's raining way too much and there were only five minutes left anyway.'

'Really?' Fumihiro said intervening, 'this means that.'

'Yes! We're second!' Keisuke exclaimed.

'Not bad for a rookie team! Good luck tomorrow,' Keiichi said then, waved his hand briefly and left.

'I'm sorry,' Takumi said finally having climbed out of the car.

'Why?' Ryosuke said.

'I got the team in trouble.'

'No you didn't. You and Keisuke got us in second place on the GT300 grid,' Ryosuke said shaking his head.

'Yeah but…'

'No buts, I'm proud of you son,' Bunta said.

'Dad, I did push him out of the track,' Takumi said trying to hide the commotion that his father's praise had caused him.

'And you did well,' Ryosuke said.

'What?'

'I would have done exactly the same,' Ryosuke said and Bunta nodded his agreement to that statement.

'Ryosuke-san…'

'Look, we're here to try and win. That Honda's driver was clearly playing dirty and, if you hadn't done what you did, he would have ended up making you crash the car. I don't need to tell you how unhappy that would make me, do I?'

'No, you don't,' Takumi said.

'Then, don't worry about it. However, you and Keisuke should do as Tsuchiya-san has advised us: tomorrow pay extra attention to that Honda. After today's incident, I'm more than certain they'll be after us,' Ryosuke said.

'Count on it Aniki,' Keisuke said.

'We'll be careful,' Takumi added.

'Good. Now, let us celebrate the fact that, I don't know how yet, but we've managed to get us a really good spot on the grid,' Ryosuke said smiling while putting his hands on his brother's and Takumi's shoulders.

'YES!' Keisuke shouted punching the air with his fist.

As soon as they finished tidying up the garage, and after carefully locking it up, the whole team gathered outside the motorhome.

'What shall we do?' Fumihiro asked Ryosuke.

'We can't do anything that would involve a late night.'

'Why not?' Keisuke asked.

'Because you, and Takumi, need to get as much sleep as possible,' Ryosuke replied looking at his younger brother surprised that he had to explain the obvious.

'Ah, yeah…I forgot,' Keisuke said smiling sheepishly.

Ryosuke shook his head and laughed softly.

'Why don't we just go for a nice meal?' Matsumoto asked.

'Yeah, let's do that,' Bunta said.

'Okay, there's a good Italian restaurant near the circuit,' Ryosuke said and Bunta's face crumbled with disgust.

'Dad hates foreign food,' Takumi explained.

'Ah, okay. There's a good ryokan nearby,' Ryosuke proposed.

'Ah, now you're making some sense,' Bunta said smiling.

Everyone laughed at Ryosuke's flustered expression.

'I can't believe that there's another guy other than my father who makes me feel like I'm five,' Ryosuke commented in the van as Fumihiro drove them to the Japanese traditional hotel were they would eat their dinner.

'I know. He makes us all feel like if we were five,' Fumihiro said smirking, then as an afterthought, he said: 'think of this: Takumi was raised by this guy. I'm not surprised that Takumi has so little self-confidence after being brought up by Bunta Fujiwara.'

'You think so? I think Takumi is very confident of his skills. He's just a very quiet guy, that's all,' Ryosuke commented.

'Yeah, those are the most dangerous ones,' Fumihiro said and Ryosuke had the distinct impression that his old friend wasn't talking only about Takumi here.

They arrived at the ryokan and, after waiting for about ten minutes, they were shown to one of the private dinning rooms the hotel had.

They were extremely lucky that there had been a last minute cancellation so they could use one of the largest rooms there. After all, they were ten people and it would have been uncomfortable if they had been forced to use one of the standard rooms.

'There's an even larger party next door so, we apologise if they disturb you in any way,' the ryokan's employee told them pointing at the sliding door next to theirs.

'That's alright, we just need something quick to eat,' Ryosuke said, speaking on behalf of the team.

Twenty minutes later, everyone was enjoying their meal, strictly Japanese traditional food to Bunta's immense satisfaction:

'Except tofu, I like everything else,' Bunta explained.

'Why do you sell it if you don't like it?' Matsumoto asked, voicing the very same question everyone had in their heads.

'I sell it because I don't eat it, if I ate it, I wouldn't sell it,' Bunta said shrugging his shoulders and, seeing the absolute logic in his reply, no one could add anything else.

'Who's taking care of the deliveries now?' Keisuke asked him.

'I made an extra large delivery the day before we came here. I'm sure they'll survive with no tofu for these two days. I'll reassume the deliveries tomorrow night though,' Bunta replied.

'Where are you going?' Matsumoto asked Takumi seeing that the young man getting up from his cushion.

'I'm going to the bathroom,' Takumi said.

He left the room and was about to head to the reception to ask where the loos were, when the door next to theirs slid open.

'Hey! What a coincidence!'

Takumi looked to his left to see Mina-chan's smiling face.

'Yeah,' Takumi said.

'What are you doing...' Mina-chan started, then, realising how stupid her question was, she corrected herself, 'having dinner with your team?'

'Yeah,' Takumi said passing his hand through his hair nervously.

'Going to the bathroom?' she asked then.

'Yeah,' Takumi replied damning himself for being unable to produce anything other than monosyllabic words.

'I'm coming with you then,' she said and Takumi's widened eyes made her add, 'I mean, I'm not coming with you, I'm just…'

Seeing her get flustered made Takumi say:

'I get it.'

Forcing himself to relax, he smiled at her while they walked to the reception together. They asked where the bathrooms were and, ignoring the knowing look from the receptionist, Takumi accompanied Mina-chan to the bathroom's entrance.

'Hey,' she said just as Takumi was opening the gents' door, 'I liked kissing you. Would you have dinner with me tomorrow after the race?'

Takumi was totally unprepared for this and, for quite a few, painful instants, he considered telling her that he had a girlfriend. Then, something evil within himself made him say:

'Alright.'

'I'll get someone to pick you up from your box. I can't do it myself because if I were to be seen with you, you would have no peace from the journalists,' she explained.

'Alright,' he repeated trying to silence the voice that kept telling him that this whole thing was wrong.

'See you tomorrow,' she said and opening the ladies' door, she went inside the bathroom leaving Takumi standing there holding still holding the doorknob.

'Isn't that Mina-chan, the singer?' he heard Keisuke's voice not too far from there.

'Er…yeah…' Takumi asked trying to hide his surprise at seeing his team mate there.

'Takumi, last time I checked, you had a girlfriend,' Keisuke said keeping his voice down.

'I do. We're just friends,' Takumi said feeling his face heat up.

'Really? You're friends with Mina-chan?' Keisuke asked, his voice full of scepticism.

'Yeah,' Takumi said now unable to look at Keisuke in the eye.

'Maybe I'm just being traditional but, in my book, when you have a girlfriend you don't go around kissing other girls and taking them out for dinner, even less if the girl in question is a nation-wide famous singer,' Keisuke said.

Takumi didn't know what to say to that and Keisuke just shook his head before saying:

'I just hope you know what you're doing. By the way, I came to ask you if you wanted any dessert but, I think you've had plenty of sweets tonight,' then he left.

Takumi had a lot of trouble falling asleep that night and, when he got up at eight o'clock in the morning, he found Keisuke in the motorhome's kitchen smiling at him in a really weird way.

'What's up?' Takumi asked almost afraid of his team-mate's answer.

'Oh, nothing, just go outside, will you?'

Takumi obeyed and went down the steps, with Keisuke following him closely. Not far from the motorhome, standing by one of the vans and speaking to his father, Takumi saw the last person he expected to see there: his girlfriend Mika.

'I'm going to love to see how you explain to her about your date,' Keisuke said.

To be continued…