[Summary: Souji, Yosuke, and Kichirou play a racing game.]

[Author's note: another one based on Days Without Nights.]

Day 16 - Beach

One of the best parts of a racing game was the way the vrooom grew louder the faster your car was going. Souji was in the closing stretch, a nice long path with few obstacles, and listening to that beautiful tune. He was so close to winning...!

"Go go, Uncle Seta!" Kicchan said, sitting by his side on the futon. He almost stood up, he was so excited.

"Watch out!" Yosuke said. "That guy behind you has got a blue shell, don't let him—noooo!"

That crash sound, on the other hand, was the opposite of musical. Souji nearly threw down the controller as he totally lost the race. Instead, he handed it off to Yosuke.

"Your turn," he said.

"I'll make it count," Yosuke promised.

They were playing this racing game on the single player mode because one of the controllers was busted. They'd found a way to make it work by passing off the good controller every stage.

Souji watched Yosuke start the race, then grabbed the empty snack bowls and got up. "I'll go refill the strawboballs," he said.

He took the bowls to the kitchen and poured a nice helping of his patented strawberry cookies and into each from a plastic storage container. They probably shouldn't be having so much sugar tonight, but hey, every once in a while you just needed it.

After that, he sprayed the counter down with some diluted bleach and wiped it down since some crumbs had missed the bowl. They'd had an ant problem last week and he wouldn't risk a repeat of that fiasco. Then he stacked the bowls on top of each other and headed out of the kitchen.

However, he turned around too fast and slammed his foot right into the wall partitioning the kitchen from the living room. Pain shot through his foot. "Son of a BIT—" he began.

He spied Kicchan coming around the corner.

"—BEACH!" he corrected.

Kichirou entered the kitchen and blinked at him. "Oh, you want to play the beach stage next? All the water makes it hard to drive."

"Y-yes," Souji breathed quickly, clutching his pained foot. "The beach level, yes... I love... the palm trees..."

Kichirou saw how precariously he was holding the snack bowls and volunteered to take them from him. He then returned to his room. After a couple of minutes spent rubbing his tender foot, Souji managed to follow, though he limped a little.

Yosuke handed him the controller right as he entered. "Your turn."

"Already?" Souji said. "How did you do?"

"Second place. Not bad, especially compared to you."

"Isn't it Kicchan's turn?"

"You wanted to do a beach level, right?" Kichirou said. "That's the next one."

"R-right," Souji said. He sat down next to the boy and set his mind on the game.

Kichirou was right, though. Despite the fun atmosphere and tropical-inspired music, the beach level wasn't very fun. Souji grit his teeth when an enemy cart knocked him into the seaweed, which slowed him down.

Once he learned the layout of the track, though, the going went a bit easier. He even managed to get a mushroom for a speed boost, which he knew was game-breaking when combined with a bumper jump. He couldn't wait to fly across the track with it. Where was the next one? Oh, there!

"Watch this!" he told his family. As he came up to the bumper, he used the boost and...

…Another racer bumped into him, causing him to totally miss the jump and boost right into the deep water.

"Damn...!" he swore. "I-is a thing that holds water don't look at me like that Yosuke."

Yosuke began to laugh. "Oh my god," he said. "I heard you earlier you know. Beach, huh?"

Chastised, Souji turned his attention back to the race. He was dead last now, of course.

"I never knew you had such a potty mouth," Yosuke went on.

"You kiss that potty mouth and you like it," Souji muttered.

Yosuke nudged him with an elbow. "Being a dad is hard sometimes though, isn't it? Casual swearing isn't easy to unlearn. Trust me, I've been there."

"Yeah," Souji said. "I'm sorry. And... looks like I lost again."

"It's okay," Kicchan said. "You'll do better next time."

"Hand it to me," Yosuke said. "We still have another life. Just watch me." He paused, and then a dumb grin came to his face. "I'll get revenge for you on that piece of ship."

At that, even Kichirou began to laugh.