Programmed Lives – Third Stage

Chapter Five

Remembering the way Takumi had proposed still made Minami smile as she tried on one of the wedding dresses at the shop Akiko and Kyoko had taken her to.

It had happened almost two weeks before, in the evening of the very same day Kyoko had shown up at the singer's place. Takumi had simply walked into the music room where she was about to start playing the piano and said:

'Minami, put your shoes on, we're going out.'

She obeyed and, more out of curiosity than anything else, followed him to his beloved AE86.

The two of them drove all the way from Tokyo to the top of Mt Akina in complete silence and just as Minami had finally come up with something to say, Takumi stopped the car.

Looking beyond the windscreen, Minami saw that they had parked the car at one of the topmost corners of the mountain pass, from which one could admire the mountain, its road and, beyond that, the valley with the cities that, being night time, were all lit up making it all look as a piece of dark velvet with sparkly bits thrown randomly on it.

Takumi turned round to face her and said:

'I know one is supposed to ask this over a candlelit dinner but, this is the best I can do with us being so famous and all.'

'Takumi, has Keisuke talked to you?' Minami asked and Takumi nodded, 'So, you're just going to ask me to marry you because Keisuke told you I wanted to,' Minami said miserably.

'No, I'm asking you to marry me because I want to be with you my whole life,' Takumi said rendering Minami speechless, 'look, I really don't care if we're legally married or not. As far as I'm concerned we've been living as man and wife ever since I moved into the house. Keisuke's told me that you told Kyoko that you'd be happier if we made our union legal and your happiness is all that matters to me.'

'Takumi…'

'Minami, I really want you to be happy, because if you're happy then I'll be happy too. If this means we have to get married, then so be it.'

Minami looked at him astonished to see how very serious Takumi was about this then, she said:

'Are you sure we're ready for all of this? You know, the baby and all.'

'I don't know. I won't know how I feel about the baby until I have him or her in my arms but I can tell you that the thought of having made something this special with you makes me feel great.'

'Same here,' she admitted and then the two of them looked at each other for a while until, Takumi, frowning, said:

'You still haven't said it…'

'Ah! Yes…I'm sorry…I accept,' Minami said.

'You accept?' Takumi said raising his eyebrows in surprise, 'is that how you're supposed to reply to a marriage proposal?'

'I don't know…I guess so. Er…I'll be happy to be your wife?' she said tentatively making Takumi shake his head.

'Alright then, let's head back home,' Takumi said.

'Er…Takumi, aren't you supposed to give me something?' Minami asked.

'Ah, yes, sorry,' he said and bending across the car, he took her face in one of his hands and kissed her.

'Okay, that was good but, isn't there something else?' Minami asked showing him her left hand. Finally something seemed to click on Takumi's brain and, biting his lower lip, he said:

'I'm sorry, I didn't have time to…'

'It's alright, I don't really need a ring anyway,' Minami said laughing softly and it was true, she was so happy that she really didn't care about something as trivial as that.

'No, no, I'll get you one,' Takumi insisted.

A few minutes later, they headed back home and, for the first time in too many days, the two of them fell asleep in each other's arms.

'Are you sure you won't need more time to organise the whole thing a bit more carefully?' Kyoko asked making Minami come back to reality.

'No, it's alright, I want to get married before I start showing…' Minami admitted blushing delicately.

'It makes sense,' Akiko, always the pragmatic one, said.

'Besides, getting married right after the next race means we will have a few days off to go on our honeymoon,' Minami explained.

'Yes, that's also true,' Kyoko said.

'I wonder what's going to be,' Minami said looking down at her still flat tummy.

'Me too,' Kyoko said nodding and looking at her own, no longer quite so flat one.

Akiko laughed at her two friends.

'I still don't know how you coped while you were expecting Kyosuke without knowing the baby's gender,' Kyoko said looking at Akiko.

'You didn't want to know?' Minami asked Akiko who shook her head.

'No.'

'Why not?' Minami asked.

'Ah, that's a long story,' Akiko said clearly not wanting to go too much into details.

'Does it hurt as much as they say?' Minami asked taking the hint.

'I wouldn't know: both of my sons were born via c-section. But you shouldn't worry too much, medicine has evolved quite significantly in the pain management field and, nowadays, there are many different ways to prevent both the baby and the mother from having to suffer more than it's strictly necessary.'

'Ah, I see...'

'It's not my area of expertise but, if you have any questions about the pregnancy or childbirth, feel free to ask and I'll answer them as well as I can,' Akiko said.

'Isn't it great to have a doctor in the family?' Kyoko said smiling happily as Minami's head started making a long mental list of questions she wanted to ask Akiko.

Meanwhile, Takumi had gone to Shibukawa so he could meet up with his best friend. Itsuki was already waiting for him outside the Family restaurant where, a few years back, he and the gang used to spend so many of their evenings.

'So, what is it you wanted to tell me?' Itsuki asked after they had sat down at a table and had two coffees in front of them.

'Er…I just needed to tell you that I'm getting married in two weeks time,' Takumi said and Itsuki, nearly chocking himself with his coffee, wondered how Takumi managed to say something like that with such an expressionless face.

'What?' he asked the minute he regained the ability to speak.

'Yeah, and that's not all,' Takumi said and then proceeded to explain his best friend about the reason behind these extremely rushed nuptials.

'Wow Takumi, I thought you were fast only with cars,' Itsuki commented still looking very much stunned after having found out about Minami's pregnancy.

'Yeah, well, the thing is, I wanted to know if you'd mind…' Takumi stared.

'No, of course not, I'll be happy to be your best man,' Itsuki said interrupting Takumi at mid-sentence.

'Itsuki, I'm…'

'What? You weren't going to ask me that?' Itsuki said frowning in confusion.

'Not really,' Takumi replied and Itsuki's face could not have shown any more disappointment.

'Then what is it?' he asked sounding positively upset.

'The thing is, Minami and I got together mainly because of Keisuke and, I wanted to know if you'd mind awfully if I asked him to be my best man instead of you,' Takumi said and his friend's sour expression was enough of an answer for him.

Itsuki looked at his friend for a long while before saying:

'Look, I'm not going to lie to you. I thought that I'd be your best man the day you'd get married since I am your best friend, however, it does make sense you'd want to repay Keisuke by asking him instead.'

'Are you sure?' Takumi asked and Itsuki nodded.

'Yeah, I'll let Keisuke do the honours but, I get to be your kid's godfather, understood?' he said pointing at Takumi with his teaspoon.

'Deal,' Takumi said nodding and Itsuki's lips curved into a smile, making his friend's return to his usual, happy, carefree self.

After that, Takumi and Itsuki finished their coffees and headed out to the car park when two schoolgirls approached them and, one of them said:

'Hey, you're Mina-chan's boyfriend, aren't you?'

Takumi was about to say something when Itsuki, getting himself in between the girls and Takumi, said:

'Wow, what are two beautiful girls like you doing in an ugly place like this?'

Takumi shook his head but, taking the chance Itsuki was giving him, ran to his 86 and, after getting into it, he saw Itsuki throwing two kisses at each of the angry looking girls as he, too, climbed into his beloved Levin.

The two men greeted each other from the inside of their cars and then, they parted ways, one to go back to his workplace, the other to head back home in Tokyo.

The following weekend, the Kirin Takahashi Racing Team was at Motegi's circuit for the second round of the Super GT championship and, as Fumihiro opened their garage to start preparing the car for the first of the free practice sessions.

'What the…' Matsumoto said walking towards the rack where they kept all their tyres.

'Holy shit,' Keisuke said looking at one of the tyres: it had a very ugly looking gash across its entire width.

'Yeah, they're all the same!' Fumihiro said disconsolately.

'Who could so something like that?' Takumi said, his eyes wide with horror.

'We'll soon find out,' Ryosuke said with an eerily calm voice. Keisuke turned round to see his brother getting on top of a nearby chair.

'What's that?' Fumihiro asked as he saw his Team Manager unhook a small box that had been hanging, unnoticed, at one of the garage's corners.

'It's a camera. I put it here when we arrived yesterday and it's been recording everything that's been going on during the whole night,' Ryosuke said as he connected the device to his laptop so he could see the footage.

Fumihiro shook his head and, once more, was impressed by his old friend's seemingly unlimited resourcefulness.

Before Ryosuke had the time to turn his computer on, one of the mechanics did something really weird: he threw himself on the floor in a very deep, clearly apologising bow while keeping his head down.

'Tsuyoshi! What are you…' Kenta, being the one closer to him said.

'Ryosuke-san, I'm sorry…I…'

The whole team looked at him in complete disbelief.

'Tsuyoshi, get up,' Ryosuke ordered walking up to his junior mechanic. Very reluctantly, the young man obeyed and stood up refusing to look at anything else but the floor between his feet.

'Ryosuke-san…'

'Did you have anything to do with this?' Ryosuke asked even though he already knew the answer.

'You fucking…' Keisuke said taking a couple of steps towards the mechanic with every intention to beat the crap out of him.

Ryosuke put a hand on his younger brother's shoulder making him turn round to look at him.

'Aniki!'

Ryosuke shook his head and Keisuke gave up.

'Tsuyoshi, why did you do it?' Ryosuke asked still keeping an admirably calm tone of voice. Both Keisuke and Takumi, and the rest of the team for that matter, couldn't help but to be in awe of their Team Manager's ability to keep his emotions under control at almost all times.

Tsuyoshi looked at him briefly and Ryosuke saw that the young man looked absolutely terrified.

'I just…'

'Tsuyoshi, don't be afraid. I'd like you to speak your mind freely,' Ryosuke said putting his hand on the mechanic's shoulder and he was relieved to notice that Tsuyoshi stopped trembling.

'Ryosuke-san, I didn't want you to quit racing,' he finally said shocking everyone in the garage. Even Ryosuke didn't understand this and his inquisitive look encouraged Tsuyoshi to elaborate this statement:

'I thought that if we didn't win the championship you'd carry on with the team…'

'What made you think that?' Ryosuke said finally understanding what the younger man was trying to say.

'Well, I thought that if you didn't get everything you wanted, you wouldn't dissolve the team and we could still work altogether,' Tsuyoshi explained.

'Tsuyoshi, and this is also for everyone else: those of you who know me best probably know this already. I was never really interested in professional racing. Not as a driver, not as a Team Manager. The only reason why I founded this team was to give my brother and Takumi the chance to start up their own professional careers,' Ryosuke said and both Keisuke and Takumi felt something strange in their stomachs.

'I know only too well how difficult it is for anyone to make it into the professional racing world and I thought that if I could ease things for Keisuke and Takumi then I had to give it a try. After winning the GT300, and if we win the GT500, they will have good enough credentials for any team to respect them and to treat them seriously. If we win the GT500 this year, none of you will need me in order to make it big in their careers. Even you Tsuyoshi, will be able to go ahead and work for any racing team, even an F1 team if you work hard enough…'

'Ryosuke-san, what about you?' Tsuyoshi asked.

'I'm going to go and work full time for the Takahashi Arakawa Medical Group. I'm actually looking forward to start working with my wife so I get to spend more time with her,' Ryosuke said smiling.

'Ryosuke, what about the tyres?' Fumihiro asked and Ryosuke, still smiling, said:

'Fujiwara-san, could you please go and get the spare van for us?'

'Sure,' Bunta said and turned round to get out of the garage.

'How many spares did you bring?' Matsumoto, still moved by their Team Manager's speech, asked.

'Only nine sets. This means we only have three sets per day so, guys, you'll need to treat your tyres very, very carefully, understood?' Ryosuke said, talking to his drivers.

'Yes sir,' Keisuke said saluting his brother in a military way making Ryosuke shake his head.

'Ryosuke-san, what about me? I've…' Tsuyoshi said.

'Just work twice as hard as you usually do, then I'll forget everything that's happened,' Ryosuke said.

'You've got my word,' Tsuyoshi said.

To be continued…