OK Number 61 - Common People

He did indeed, and as the three of them sat around on a couch, Suzaku took the tab off a zero percent beer, not eager to repeat his undisciplined binge from earlier in the week, while Naoto took an alcoholic beer, and Kallen was going through her regular order of whiskey.

"I'm sorry for bothering ye."

Suzaku whispered it, however both of the Kōzuki siblings' ears perked up at the apology. Neither had perceived it as any significant imposition, and Naoto even joked as such in his reply.

"Here, it's no panic." he shrugged, before pointing to Kallen. "I even invited this reprobate up, I'm just in the mood to have guests, it's that kind of day."

He paused to allow Suzaku an opportunity to reply, or Kallen an opportunity to defend herself, however neither happened, and so Naoto continued "What brings you up to this neck of the woods? Normally you're based up near Nagano, or bunking with the team. Only reason I'm not is because I have a flat within a few hours of the track, and Kallen's only here because she can't organise for shit."

"Look, I didn't expect the fan meet to take that long." Kallen laughed, only taking superficial umbrage. "But what's up Suzaku? Is there anything we can help with or?"

Suzaku, face downcast, shook his head dispiritedly, simply saying "No, no. Was… was just awful lonely up in the house by myself, especially with..."

Kallen and Naoto didn't blink, even as Suzaku left the thread hanging for several seconds not wanting to push the matter, with Naoto simply softly mentioning "Needn't go anywhere you don't want to."

"Ach, it's just…" Suzaku began, running his fingers through his hair. "Couldn't go to the hotel. Too much… it's too much."

As Kallen and Naoto briefly matched eyes, mutually at elevated states of attentiveness, Suzaku, who couldn't see their sideward glances, tried to gather his thoughts and restart.

"So, Lelouch has been basically playing me to try and develop the car and boost his brothers stock, make them all think 'Wow, this rookie beat the reigning champion, let's sponsor him', essentially trying to cripple whatever chance I had this year, with getting Rolo the upgrades first, giving him the better strategies, Spa, Monza…"

"Yeah… he has a habit of doing that…"

The reply came from Kallen, as Suzaku continued to just shake his head.

"I mean… goddamn it… I can't even get mad at him. He's not nebulous, or even ambiguous. This is who he is, and how he goes racing. He definitely hit you in F3 on purpose, Naoto, he… might… have hit you in Brazil last year, Kallen, on purpose, in fact in light of recent events I suspect-"

Suzaku paused, as Naoto's gaze steeled slightly. Arguing over Lelouch's guilt or innocence in regards to Brazil of 2018 was a moot discussion given that the only person who could know for certain was Lelouch, who would almost certainly take the secret to his grave. Thusly, Suzaku let the point go, continuing "But anyway… yeah, I'm not sure why I believed he wouldn't do to me what he's done to everyone, but… ach goddamnit…"

He slammed his fist against his thigh in restrained rage, before becoming the third person in the apartment that night to start crying.

"I just… I busted a gut. I had a… bloody mental breakdown at Monaco, I slaved over the computers, for this prick. I don't mind working hard at it, but when the person you're trying to help with all that effort just undermines you… I spent… hundreds of hours, poring over crap for him, and he does this nonsense. It just feels… I couldn't have done anything. I was just…"

Suzaku paused to gather his breath, having exhausted his tank, spluttering and huffing at a barely audible volume, before his raw voice continued to patter through his verbal train of thought as he made sense of everything that had happened.

"I was… I am, I should say, in a situation where I… there is nothing I can do. There is no… input, there's no action I can take within this team to make it work. There's no… venture, no action, no endeavour, there is no positive action I can do to change this, other than just leaving. No matter what, no matter how fast I am, how much I try to work at improving my place in the team, it'll always just be… arggh, for nothing, for nothing! I'm a bloody idiot!"

The train had arrived at the station, and Suzaku, having reached the end of the line, could only be described as livid. Inhabiting the space between Lelouch's cold, harsh, rational plots for vengeance and Kallen's berserk rage, Suzaku's fingers curled firm, as if charged by electricity, and every muscle and twitch in his face indicating a deeply seated desire to let out his anger on some helpless piece of wooden furniture.

Kallen, fresh from being someone who would have very eagerly done all that and worse to said wooden furniture, didn't quite have a response. However Naoto, raising his palm, spoke slowly, and quietly, quickly earning Suzaku's attention.

"It hasn't been a waste."

Suzaku blinked, looking up with a mystified expression, before shaking "But I worked so hard…"

Naoto, with a face that just oozed understanding and sympathy, nodded, and replied "Very often… how hard you work isn't as big a factor. Obviously luck comes into it, but there's sometimes more concrete stuff. I've been able to get both of us out, spending most of what I earned at the time as a sales assistant getting onto the track, then getting whatever prize money I had together to get Kallen out on track. Very often, I was so busy between work and racing I'd not get any practice in at all, I'd rock up maybe ten minutes before qualifying to a track I'd never driven and have to leave before the podium to get back in time for my shift, but I still did it."

Suzaku nodded, answering a question Naoto hadn't asked in replying "You worked hard at your job."

Naoto shook his head, combining the motion with his hands, which swept across his torso with palms out towards Suzaku to stop him in his tracks. "Sometimes it's not about… how hard you work, but moreso who you know, who you have access to. I got lucky with pretty much a dice roll, and Kallen got lucky by being the sister of someone who won that dice roll. I remember everyone who I raced with, back to… carts, Ginettas, F4, and up. Most wanted to one day be up there, where the three of us are. Some make it, but there's a difference between saying anyone can make and saying everyone can. For every Naoto Kōzuki, there's maybe hundreds of people who worked just as hard, or harder. We just got the break."

"So you had natural talent?

Naoto rolled his eyes, before letting out a chuckle. "Pffft. You mustn't have raced with me for very long. You joined… 2016 was it? And I'm only just back after a two year break, I can see how you'd make that mistake. Mistaking me for talented, now that's a laugh."

"You're after humbling Kyoshiro Tohdoh." Suzaku pointed out. "At least, before… ach…"

"Nah… I'm more talking… there were folks down at carts who beat me easily. But everyone had to take time away to pay for it. Everyone had a day job, had to live on the edge financially for a good bit. It was just for fun, it had to be. There wasn't the ability to just go down and plug away at setup and practice… well at least not if you were going to school, Kallen."

Kallen rolled her eyes at Naoto's jab, only biting her tongue due to it coming from perhaps the only person qualified to comment on her school record. Giving her a brief sidewards glance, Naoto returned to his thesis.

"Anyway… success… it doesn't dole itself out fairly. Some people who should have a shot don't, some people who haven't done halfway to a decent junior career, Shinichiro Tamaki comes to mind, get up to the upper echelons without lifting a finger. There's a reason for that, and it isn't that they're secretly industrious."

Suzaku's eyes widened, as Kallen imagined what he must be thinking. That he had only gotten here because of money, that without it he would be nowhere, and he had not earned it. Kallen knew the flaw therein; certainly, without money, or access to connections, getting on the ladder was far more challenging, but it was only one of the obstacles. One would not be handed a world championship for simply rocking up with the most money, even if it was important at the lower levels; skill would be required.

Fortunately, Naoto knew this too, and once again, gesticulating slowly but intensely to try and clarify.

"It's less… having money, though that's a part of it. I mean, if you have money… it's hardly as if you woke up and found a million quid under your bed. Parents, whatever, but… people with more… money, do tend to have an easier time climbing up the ladder, but it's not just that they can pay for it, though that doesn't hurt. You don't earn money without building connections, business connections and so on. A network. And it's far easier to find a sponsor to help pay for your racing if you have a network. Means you don't need a job, don't need to waste time on things you don't want to do, you're paid to race, while advertising the people you're sponsored by. Having that… makes everything easier. You can spend the hours just plugging away at it, perfecting the lines, getting better, but only because you had that initial agency, that freedom that your connections gave you. In your case, it possibly also helped that your dad was the ambassador to France, could pay for your housing, food, and so on, all you had to do was find the money to race."

As Suzaku tried to digest this, Naoto tilted his head to try and reframe the issue, acknowledging his points could be taken as minimising Suzaku's ability, when this was not the intention.

"I'm not… diminishing how hard you work. I don't have a doubt anywhere in my mind you'd pull hundred-hour weeks on a regular basis. You have dedicated amounts of time into getting good that I can't even comprehend, and I don't want to diminish that. I'm just saying it doesn't have as big an effect as you think it does. You wouldn't have gotten scouted from F2 if you hadn't done well in F3, and you wouldn't have made it into into F3 if… wll, and so on. If you didn't have the sponsors and money and time to take you through the bottom few rungs, you won't get up to the top rung. It's not that you didn't work hard, it's just that there can be a lot of obstacles to a young racing driver that you mightn't have encountered due to circumstances. Sometimes the solution isn't just to work harder. But-"

Naoto hung onto that but, as Suzaku's head, having dipped considerably, shot back up. Kallen knew how hard reality checks could be, and also knew how hard it was to hear anything positive thereafter, as you sat stewing thinking over how bad you were. However, just as there was good in Kallen, Suzaku was far from an unskilled rich chancer.

"But…" Naoto repeated, "What makes you good, what makes you worth keeping as a driver, isn't that you work hard at it, that you're connected, or that your family has money. You've had a spectacular platform to build your career off of, no question, which, like it or not, has a big impact on whether you got to F1, but if all you had going for you was hard work and cash, if you'd stood on that platform and done nothing remarkable, then you'd just be around the level of Tamaki, or Glinda at best, and you're above that. You didn't get here solely and exclusively by the fruits of your own labour, quite a bit of it was your lucky position in life and with connections, but that does not mean you're talentless, or don't deserve what you've won."

Suzaku frowned, still in the mindset wherein all he had going for him was work ethic, bit, asking "What?"

"A… a skill, or an achievement… those can be the product of something other than plain old hard work, and still be something you've earned."

As Suzaku tried to make sense of this new framework, with it clearly being alien to him judging by how often he was blinking alone, Kallen moved forward, and spoke.

"Look… I fought you for the title all of last year, I know better than anyone the ins and outs of how you drive. You are buttery smooth on the controls. Just… gradual, progressive inputs, just progressively rolling on the throttle, on the steering lock. Never jerky, never sudden, you put next to no forces through your chassis. I lose so much momentum with big, sudden twitches and wrenches, which does work at some tracks, but you know how it goes at places like Monza or Spa. Your gentle rolls onto the pedals, smooth, minimal inputs on the wheel in smooth, decisive actions, and you're patient. You never break traction, which is both fast, and gentle on the tyres, and you're consistent to boot."

As Suzaku absorbed this, Naoto nodded before building on Kallen's praise.

"The upshot is that you don't need to hide behind working hard. You've got skill. You have earned your place here, and it's not by outworking everyone, you haven't blagged your way in or 'cheated' by having a bigger opportunity to work harder at it. You had a much better opportunity and a better platform, but you wouldn't be a world champion if you hadn't made the best of it. If all that was sustaining you was the extra hours, it would have been exposed by now, and it hasn't been."

Suzaku's eyes almost doubled his size, as the penny dropped in his head. Even with the far lighter relative complexion to the comparably brown skinned Kōzuki's, Suzaku still managed to allow what colour there was flush out of his face, paling three shades like someone had upped the contrast to full.

"Oh fo…"

As Suzaku shook his head, he dropped his face into his hands and screamed into his muffling arms. Once his breath had run short again, he wheezed another attempt.

"I… did all of that… bloody…"

After running short of breath again in his heaving breaths, he gave himself a moments, pause, before committing to completing the sentence come hell or high water.

"I put so much work into saving Rosenberg. I split my ribs, I poured everything I had, put every drip I had into it, and… it was for nothing! I wasted it, it was for nothing!"

The point rested for a moment, before Naoto, who had already taken on quite a bit more emotional labour tonight than he might have been expected to, simply raised his palm again.

"Suzaku." he calmly began. "You're in your fourth year. You've maybe lost a year, and 2019 isn't even over yet. I wasted three years from the prime of my career in hospital because Rebellion had faulty suspension. Trust me, with your talent, you haven't lost anything. If anything, think of it as a learning experience, something to take with you, and grow from. I learned more in my first year away from racing than I ever did in it in my three years before in it. And again, the championship hasn't even been settled yet."

Kallen watched their interaction fascinatedly, as Suzaku mulled over what he had heard.

"I can't…" he began, stuttering. "Do… do you mind if I… stay here tonight? This is all… it's all a bit much. I need a night, and I don't want to go back to the house by myself."

"Oh absolutely!" Naoto nodded enthusiastically, before Kallen affirmed "I'll sort out the bed, we have a fold out couch I can sleep on. Let us know if you need anything at all. Hopefully you can have a good rest."

Arranging this was surprisingly easy, with the bed already made and the couch unfolding in a single action. As Suzaku set up in Kallen's room, which had not been slept in in months, Kallen stretched out above the spot she would be sleeping, as Naoto walked into the room, tired after having brushed his teeth. With Suzaku drifting off to sleep, Kallen silent waved to Naoto to grab his attention, before sighing.

"Thank you." she simply said. "That was incredible, I've been dancing around that and you just… you're going to have to teach me how to do that, just cut across and set things straight."

Naoto chuckled, and replied "You've given me plenty of practice. Now you get some rest too."

Kallen woke to the sound of sizzling. She briefly panicked, rushing to throw herself out from the weight on top of her torso, frantically trying to put out the fire, feeling her wrists tear and flake as her skin was boiled. The sizzling, the crackling, it was-

BOOF

Kallen felt a sudden bang against her face, blunt and sudden, that made her roar in sudden pain. The acute pain brought her very suddenly into the moment, as by reflex she shot back up to grasp her situation and the world exploded in light.

As her sight adjusted to accommodate the morning light, she took in details of the room. The blinding light was not fire, and neither was the sizzling; it was a bright morning day, with the beaming summer sun assaulting the walls, angled into Kallen's face, and the noise came from Suzaku, who stood across the room from her at the hob, standing in the front half of the open area which doubled as a kitchen and living room. Suzaku was doing a fry up, just now turning over the sausages as he prepared breakfast for the three of them.

She laughed, as she rubbed her arm against her nose, now aching from having fallen out of the bed in a panic. The pain, it emerged as she pulled them away from her face, was her hand wounds again having opened up as she had tried to claw away at the blanket to get away from the fire she imagined, her memories of fire and pain from Hungary being brought to the forefront of her minds eye by the sounds of the burning sausages.

However, as Kallen quietly realised her white duvet was now stained in blood and tried to hide it away for later cleaning, two became three, as Naoto opened the door in from his bedroom, quietly humming the theme tune of what Kallen suspected, though did not have the knowledge to confirm, was a children's animated television show.

However, Naoto moved past her, sitting down into the small circular dining table which was better described as a coffee table, he nodded and mentioned "Thank you so much again Suzaku, you're the guest you don't need to be doing this."

"Ah, well." Suzaku shrugged, as he attended to the eggs. "You've given me a lot to think about, it's been… nice, and almost liberating. I probably haven't fully… parsed through it yet. Least I can do is cook breakfast."

"Well it's definitely appreciated." Naoto nodded, before straightening himself and becoming more severe.

"I've just gotten a text."

Neither Suzaku or Kallen paid much note to it, until Naoto continued. "Tohdoh's awake, and speaking. He has asked to see the three of us."

This got their attention in a real hurry, as the prospect of coming face to face with a man they all had an emotional stake in, to see him reduced to as low a state as he was, and yet marvel at how he had not been reduced lower… it would surely be a fraught meeting.

"Do you know where he is?"

Naoto nodded to Suzaku, before answering his implied question. "He's in Kyoto University Hospital, that's not far from the route we'd be taking to Suzuka anyway. Let's have breakfast, we want to get out before the trains get busy."

All very emotionally intense. And it ain't stopping, because we're in Japan, everyone's a little on edge, and it isn't even Friday yet. And yet, life goes on, and now that the whole gang is in the same country as Tohdoh's acute ward, that's where they'll be headed. Be sure to leave a review if you can, they are really nice and fulfilling to read.

~G1ll3s