OK Number 69 - Mr November

Once the circus had finally left the Japanese Grand Prix and headed back to Eurasia for its Korean counterpart, Suzaku Kururugi went on to win the following four races.

In a row.

South Korea, Singapore, the United States, and Mexico. Back to back to back to back. The last two races of the Asian leg of the season, and the first two of the American leg. He won four from four. There were one hundred points on offer, and Suzaku walked away with one hundred points.

Roughly speaking, he walked away with a quantity of points that equalled ten to the second power. You might say that over four races, he earned the square root of ten thousand points. When the crews were wrapping up in Mexico, Suzaku was one hundred points up on where he had been at the close of business at Japan. Every point he could have earned in the month leading up to the finale on December thirteenth, he walked away with, earning him the nickname Mr November.

One could say he had a good streak.

Of course, when the circus rocked up at South Jeolla, there was no way of knowing what was about to go down between October twenty-fifth and December sixth. Kallen had just sealed her fourth win of the season, and looked to be playing, uncharacteristically, the tortoise to Xingke's hare.

With the Korea International Circuit returning to the calendar, several questions needed answering about the teams' relative competitiveness around the angular, but fast track at the beginning of the weekend. Forebodingly, Suzaku Kururugi claimed Pole position. Kallen could only manage second behind him, with Naoto and Rolo completing the second row, the latter piloting a car with yet another upgrade from the factory to bolster the hastily developed package.

Another very wet race was in prospect as the Safety Car started the race - bad news for Kururugi, who would be hounded by Kallen as soon as the safety car went in without the benefit of a standing start, which Kallen was normally weak at. However, with some tricky timing on when Suzaku accelerated out of the last corner, stamping on the loud pedal just as Kallen was having to brake to avoid rear-ending him, he was able to retain the lead, and build up a gap with his consistent, neat driving. Gino was able to pass Rolo and set about chasing the leading pair, but the Briton was having a hard time of it. Suzaku tentatively held the lead throughout, being overtaken by Kallen on lap 31 before the winner at Japan had to pit. However, Kallen's wheelnut crossthreaded, turning what would have been a two second stop into almost a seventeen second one, dropping her to sixth. She climbed back to fifth, but the damage was done.

Kururugi took the flag for his first victory of the season in just his second race with Rebellion, with Naoto and Gino on the podium. Rolo worked some miracles to protect his fourth from a resurgent Kallen, ahead of Xingke, Ernst, and Nonette.

Li Xingke – 199 (5 wins)

Gino Weinberg – 178 (1 win)

Naoto Kōzuki – 175 (1 win)

Kallen Kōzuki – 165 (4 wins)

Rolo Lamperouge – 156 (1 win)

Suzaku Kururugi – 136 (1 win)

The next race was in Singapore, and alarmingly for Kallen, Suzaku and Rolo would seize first and second in qualifying, with Xingke in fourth, behind Naoto, but somehow ahead of Gino in fifth. Kallen meanwhile was all the way back in tenth, with a broken radiator preventing a run in the third session of qualifying. The race began with a clean start going into the expanding apex of turn one on the first lap. Rolo would go wide with Suzaku pushing to try for a wider line, losing track position to Naoto and Xingke, but rejoining without incident. Searing temperatures blistered the tyres down their spine, prompting early pit stops to put on the harder medium tyres. Suzaku maintained his iron grip on first position, while Naoto and Gino battled for the second spot. As they fought side by side, Rolo reeled them back in, regaining third and then second place. Meanwhile, Xingke, in spite of an absolutely heroic lap in qualifying, was sinking through the pack like a stone, dropping from third to fourth to fifth, only holding on to that much by the skin of his teeth.

Race leader Kururugi, meanwhile, was informed that he would have to serve a ten-second penalty for forcing Rolo off of the track at the first turn. Rolo, now ahead of both Naoto and Gino, raced for the undercut, however all of this would come to naught, as Xingke was able to undercut all three of them, leapfrogging from sixth to third. In spite of the track position it earned him, pitting early meant he had no tyres left at the end of the race, and he had sunk back to seventh by the close of business.

However, all of these midfield battles seemed almost insignificant compared to the masterclass going on at the front end. Kururugi was in a world of his own at Singapore, winning by over forty seconds from Rolo and Naoto, who when combined with Gino and Kallen made for the only the only four drivers he didn't manage to put a lap down that weekend, getting so far ahead that he pulled such a gap to sixteen drivers that he had looped all the way back around the circuit to overtake them again and take them off the lead lap.

All of this in spite of serving a ten-second penalty.

It was a timely reminder of his skill, and a demonstration of something Suzaku had never really done before; he went out and just dominated that race from flag to flag, unlike his tradition of not pushing, or being too flashy. He just rocked up to the track and made everyone look like an amateur. If it weren't proved already, he was back in form.

What made it particularly impressive was that this was a track that traditionally suited Kallen's driving style far more than Suzaku's. However, with the new car, which had been designed around Kallen's front-focused driving, the combination was lethal around the streets of Singapore.

It was designed to be inherently mechanically and aerodynamically unstable. It wanted to swap ends through pretty much every corner. Piloting it was mainly a job of trying to mitigate the natural rotation of the car as opposed to trying to cajole it into rotating. While it was not the car Suzaku might have asked to pilot over a season, at Singapore it was the perfect combination for Singapore, a silky touch meeting a delicate, fine-edged scalpel.

Li Xingke – 205 (5 wins)

Naoto Kōzuki – 190 (1 win) (4 seconds)

Gino Weinberg – 190 (1 win) (3 seconds)

Kallen Kōzuki – 175 (4 wins)

Rolo Lamperouge – 174 (1 win)

Suzaku Kururugi – 161 (2 wins)

At this point, the Asian chapter of the book of 2019 had now closed, with the schedule only having three races remaining, all in the New World; Austin Texas, Mexico City, and Sao Paulo Brazil. Up front, Gino's consistent points finishes and Naoto's fourth podium in a row had vaulted both men to within fifteen points of the Chinese points leader. Suzaku was on fire, and Rolo, assisted by the full technical might of his brother and Lloyd Asplund, was also having a midseason resurgence. Aside from Xingke, the only title contender who was having something of a slump was actually Kallen. It had been two fifth place finishes back to back, two races since she finished on the podium, which had allowed Rolo to get to within one point of her tally.

However, neither Rolo nor Kallen lined up on Pole for the race in Austin Texas, because Suzaku was on fire, getting his third straight Pole, ahead of even Ms. Qualifying, Kallen Kōzuki, who he had posted a faster time than for the second time in their second even fight for Pole. Suzaku was squeezing an entire season's performance into the last five races to make up for lost time it seemed.

On Sunday, the race's drama began on the very first corner. Kururugi held his lead, but Rolo got a jump on Kallen, who went into anti-stall, and lost four positions in total. Further back, Xingke found himself caught behind Enneagram, whose Vanwall proved to be a difficult obstacle for the under-powered Geely engine to pass. They quickly were caught in a game of chicken as to who would pit first, and Li was the first to blink, coming in for his lone pit stop of the race in the hopes of undercutting the obstruction.

Racing continued in the chasing pack. Kallen's aggressive, two-stop strategy successfully brought her back ahead of Rolo, just as twin disasters struck for B.A.R, with Albert's engine failing and his brother suffering an agonizingly long half-minute in the pits, throwing him back to offer Tamaki some company. Throughout all of this, Suzaku Kururugi was just racing the clock, and quietly building up his lead.

Sure enough, he was the first to the line, winning by a comfortable margin over Kallen and Rolo. A full minute behind these two, Naoto emerged out of the final turn and crossed the finish line in fourth. Xingke followed in fifth, a necessary haul of points to keep his lead in the title race. Gino Weinberg finished the attrition-filled race in sixth, a comfortable margin ahead of Albert, Claudio, Nonette, Zhou, and Bradley. Shinichiro Tamaki, the last classified finisher, took a point for his tenth place result, despite being several minutes and multiple laps down on the leaders.

Li Xingke – 215 (5 wins)

Naoto Kōzuki – 202 (1 win)

Gino Weinberg – 198 (1 win)

Kallen Kōzuki – 193 (4 wins)

Rolo Lamperouge – 189 (1 win)

Suzaku Kururugi – 186 (3 wins)

By this stage, Suzaku had more than recovered, and was only twenty nine points behind Xingke, with anywhere up to fifty points still to be claimed. Moreover, going to the penultimate round of the season at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, he had beastly momentum.

However, Kallen had been stung with Suzaku's run of form, and once stung, she was twice as deadly, claiming a narrow provisional P1 in the first part of Q3. However, Suzaku was able to knuckle down and reclaim the top spot, denying Kallen her nineteenth Pole position with an almost robotic neatness, with the car not losing traction or deviating from the theoretically ideal line once.

On raceday, it was Kallen rather than Suzaku who made the better start off the front row. But the reigning World Champion thought quickly, moving right to crowd Kallen as his Type-2/F20 Seiten got going properly. Suzaku thusly held the lead through Turn 1, as Naoto briefly nipped past his sister for second before Kallen slid back around the outside to reclaim the position.

As the race settled down in the first few laps, barring some brief excitement when the Softrolas crashed against one another in the stadium section, Naoto was holding a comfortable fourth when he dropped his car on his own at the penultimate corner.

Ending up at a right angle to the track, his attempt to spin the car around successfully returned him to the track, however the last podium spot was conceded to Rolo.

The race then burst into life following the first round of pit stops, with the hard tyre-shod Suzaku emerging on Lap 21 just in front of Kallens medium-tyred Camelot. Kōzuki was in pursuit behind the Rebellion driver, and almost as soon as they met two laps later, the battle had grown fiercely intense. Suzaku firmly cut to the right of the track, forcing an irate Kallen onto the run-off and earning him a black and white driving standards flag.

What it meant, though, was that Suzaku held on the lead – but it was far from a comfortable one. Kallen was applying pressure to Suzaku's rear end as if she had a blow torch for a front wing – but unfortunately for her, she was also starting to struggle on her medium tyres. Unlike the marathon back at Stavelot, Kururugi was able to keep ramping up the pace, enduring this trial by fire and keeping Kallen behind, even if it was by any means necessary, and then some, as he took defensive tack after defensive tack. However, even if his ethics left something to be desired, he did not blink, he did not flinch; no matter how doggedly Kallen pursued him, no matter how many feints she made, how many attempts or ripostes, his wall was impermeable.

He seemed to have some ethereal bubble around him, a wall, declaring boldly that Kallen would not pass. It just seemed that Suzaku was the master of the track, mentally conforming it to be the exact width of his car. No matter how much Kallen pushed against the wall, how much force she applied to it, none of the bricks gave. Kallen had been about three tenths of a second behind Suzaku on lap twenty five, and as they crossed the finish line, with Kallen exhausted from how much she had been pushing to try and sweat out Suzaku, they were only separated by three tenths of a second.

The three tenths of a second gap between first and second contrasted with the fifteen second chasm back to third, such was the intensity at which the leading pair had been pushing. Said final step on the podium belonged to Rolo, with Naoto in fourth, Xingke in fifth, and Gino having a poor day back in sixth.

Li Xingke – 223 (5 wins)

Naoto Kōzuki – 214 (1 win)

Suzaku Kururugi – 211 (4 wins) (2 seconds) (2 thirds)

Kallen Kōzuki – 211 (4 wins) (2 seconds) (1 third)

Gino Weinberg – 208 (1 win)

Rolo Lamperouge – 204 (1 win)

"Lelouch? Are you awake?"

Lelouch was suddenly yanked back into this plane of existence, however he had been here before; being brought back to the sudden present after falling into a stupor of thought was nothing unusual to the Franc, who was just as often wondering what could be as what was.

Perhaps this was why he had never become worldly, as a driver. Good drivers, great drivers, focused only on the present. They were ephemeral creatures, existing only in the tenth of a second they occupied, not considering the possibility of what might happen in the next tenth, what could be, how it could go wrong. Lelouch was cursed with an inability to make himself devoid of context, cursed with the need to contemplate, to plot, never satisfied with the moment.

But this was a moot point. He had been caught, but he knew what to do to get out of his daydream without drawing attention from experience.

When suddenly snapping back to attention, there was a human tendency to inhale sharply through the nose in a loud, hoglike snort, to sharply turn ones head around to get a sense of surroundings, and the extension of ones limbs, again, suddenly and uncontrolledly. He consciously tried to freeze his joints to avoid these sudden jolts, before smoothly transitioning into a gaze towards the gentleman who had called on him; V.V.

"I'm here, just thinking over what you said regarding the developments for next year is all."

With that, Lelouch went back to rubbing his head. The migraine had not faded since the race last year, and continued to plague him. He wasn't on painkillers; he didn't want to dull their affect for when he really needed them with an increasing bodily tolerance. Antiseizure medication was unavoidable, but he would take as little as he could get away with.

Wryly smirking as he seemed to acknowledge that while he knew Lelouch hadn't been fully attentive, he had no way to prove it in light of Lelouch's admirable performance, V.V asked, his voice hiding any indication of knowledge, "Well, what do you think?"

But Lelouch was not going to be caught flat footed. Lelouch may have been thinking abstractly, about how the season had unfolded since Suzaku had gone, since Lelouch had completely overstepped the mark and perhaps committed infanticide against his Rosenberg, but he would not be shown up.

He remembered back to the warehouse. Suzaku meant what he had said, and was not prone to sudden bursts of anger or emotion; Suzaku trusted far more readily than Lelouch would ever feel comfortable trusting, but one could draw blood from stone easier than readily drawing wells of emotion from Suzaku. Even Lelouch was more abstractly caring than Suzaku. That Suzaku had wept at his bed, that he had done so much for the team, that he had exploded in Milan and, after an entire week, still been angry at the warehouse in Nagasaki, did not speak volumes about Suzaku. It spoke far more about Lelouch, and about how Lelouch had conducted himself.

Lelouch did not feel pity for many of the people he pulled tricks on to get ahead. Small time skullduggery, underhanded chicanery, barely honest sharp practice, against garage owners, wealthy sponsors, event hosts, rarely ruffled Lelouch or his conscience. He certainly didn't feel pity for Kallen, whether or not the incident at Brazil was conscious or deliberate, a question he had not hashed entirely though even within himself. He was one man against a big world, and easily rationalized these underhanded schemes as justified. He still, to this day, believed them to be.

However Suzaku was different. First of all, Suzaku was hardly at the same level of power as these event hosts who would try any trick they could think of to stiff you, and Lelouch was not now at the place he was seven years ago, trying desperately to find money to go racing to get money to pay for Nunnally's private care. Lelouch was living perfectly comfortably now.

And the business with Suzaku, how Lelouch had hurt Suzaku, was not like in the past. It did ruffle Lelouch, and very deeply at that. Because Suzaku had been right.

He had become one of those event hosts, or garage owners, picking out favourites. Lelouch imagined if he had been on a karting team, sponsored by a Languedoc oil magnate and driving alongside his son, with the magnates son getting the better engines first, the better tyres first, and so on. He would have been outraged then, but the roles had been switched.

"I think the third option is the best, but it will only work if he doesn't win in Brazil."

This would never happen again. Lelouch barrowed his breath, forcing it out in cold, hollow shakes. This was not the sort of team Lelouch wanted to run, one which would chase his friends away.

People had long wondered how far Lelouch would go for his family. What watershed, what Rubicon would he stop it? What would he not do for Rolo and Nunnally.

For a long time, Lelouch didn't have an answer. That wasn't the case anymore. He was willing to tolerate a lot to help the people he loved, but he wasn't willing to do this.

It was too late, of course, for anything to be done; Suzaku was gone, and was emphatically not coming back, whether it was in a boat, on a goat, within a box or atop a fox. There was no way to undo the damage he had done, the loss of chance, the loss of the greatest talent of Lelouch's generation.

"Really? You want him?" V.V. asked, blinking. "He's pretty old."

But that did not mean that there was no future. Contrary to Fukuyama's declaration, this was not the end of history, the end of all time. Schwarzenritter was not a creature that was short for this world, and, touch wood, neither would the still-tenacious Lelouch.

"Yes, I do. He's the best option we have. We've unfinished business."

Just because he had let his friend, the best driver of the last two decades, slip away, did not mean he was unable to self-correct for the future. It did not mean Lelouch's hands were bound for the future course he set.

Lelouch was obsessed with the future, to a fault. Borrowing an aphorism from Noam Chomsky, his interest in the future was less a function of attempted prediction than it was borne of a desire to do something about it. To exert some control of the future, to plot the next move, and then the next sixteen. The future was not lost with Suzaku's departure; just as time had continued to move through him, even if he had not quite moved through it, while Nunnally was in the most acute surgeries, while he himself was in hospital, the future would continue to grow into becoming the new present.

Lelouch's drive to contemplate the future was why he had made a very bad racing driver. But surely as it would continue to come in like the rolling waves and tides, Lelouch could learn from this experience.

"What about Rolo?"

Yes, the case of Rolo. The remaining driver, and the source of all of this disruption. Lelouch could not find any blame in Rolo, of course; it was not the boys choice to be born with such a foolish brother, who had tried to have it both ways and, as it may well prove, had come away with neither. He had lost Suzaku, and the likelihood of his brother winning a debut championship, while mathematically possible if he won the race, Suzaku and the woman both finished lower than second, Naoto Kōzuki finished lower than third, and Li Xingke finished lower than seventh, was not high, given the improbability of such an event. The common understanding was that the title would go to either Xingke or Naoto. Lelouch had tried for a title from Rolo and a well-developed car from Suzaku, and walked away with neither.

God, he was such a fool. He was selfish, but he couldn't even do selfishness right. His only internal barometer of anything were his siblings. He had no emotions of his own, no internal driving force. Charles had been absolutely right back when Lelouch was asking for the ban on V.V to be lifted; Lelouch was hollow, a completely empty suit. Ethics, ambitions, desires? None would be found under Lelouch's skin. It was a wonder he had even blood to bleed when Kallen assaulted him. All he had ever been was another life support tool for Rolo and Nunnally. And he didn't even have that anymore, such was their rebuttal back when Lelouch was in hospital. And now Suzaku was gone.

For the first time, Lelouch was left without much of a goal. His quest had not ended so much as it had petered out, and for the first time, he was having to look in the mirror, catch his breath, and find out who he was.

The answer was no one. He had grown to become a chameleon, adjusting his personality to whoever he was trying to manipulate. Now, with the only purpose he had ever seen fit to assign himself in life, look after Rolo and Nunnally, completed, and his friend gone, he saw a figure, wholly empty.

What the hell would he do now?

He had spent somewhere like twelve years in singleminded pursuit, on a mission, rejecting any semblance of distraction, and the result was the hollow shell of a man he had grown up to be. A lizard, incapable of seeing any relationship through any lens other than cost and benefit.

Lelouch thought back to a book Suzaku introduced him to, and the words of its author, Osamu Dazai; "I can't even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being."

Twelve years of fixation and bitter, self-destructive climbing back to someplace that resembled stability all for the low price of humanity. He had lost out on any possibility of a childhood, an adolescence, pushed out any contemplation of himself, of his own nature, all of it had passed him by while his nose was pressed to the grindstone, and only now, with Suzaku's wakeup call, it all was flooding in at once, almost overwhelmed him.

But while the best time to start would have been twelve years ago, the second best time was now.

"We'll have to reevaluate. Look at what happened with Suzaku, we can't have that happening again. See what the third option says after the Sao Paulo."

Nice

~G1ll3s