Programmed Lives – Third Stage
Chapter Ten
Everyone stayed still for what seemed like an indefinite amount of time before, as usual, Ryosuke was the fastest among them to start making decisions:
'Where have they taken them?' he asked putting a hand on Takumi's shoulder so the younger man would try to pay attention to what his Team Manager was asking.
'The Tokyo University Medical Centre,' Takumi half mumbled and Ryosuke saw that his driver was quickly falling into a state of shock.
'Right, you come with me, I'll drive you there. Fumihiro, you'll tell Fujiwara-san as soon as he gets here, the rest of you, stay here,' Ryosuke said with the commanding tone of voice everyone had come to associate with the moments when their boss wasn't asking but ordering.
As Ryosuke was leading Takumi to the FC, Keisuke started running to the FD.
'Keisuke, your brother…' Matsumoto started saying.
'Fuck it, I'm not staying here,' Keisuke said not even bothering to turn round to look at the Chief Engineer.
A few minutes later both Mazda were chasing each other and, for once, their speed had nothing to do with any of the shows they used to do to entertain the galleries. This time Ryosuke was racing against time and Keisuke was just trying his best to keep up with his brother.
'It'll be fine,' Ryosuke said knowing how pointless it was for him to make such a prediction, especially since he didn't know how bad the accident had been.
Takumi didn't even reply. His face was as expressionless as ever and only his firmly set jaw betrayed how very nervous, or afraid, or both, the young man was.
When they finally made it to the hospital, Takumi jumped out of the FC even before Ryosuke could stop the car so, in the time it took Ryosuke to park the vehicle, Takumi was already running towards the entrance of the Tokyo University Medical Centre.
Ryosuke joined Takumi at the reception desk as his driver was asking the nurse about Minami's conditions and, as the nurse was doing a research in her computer, a middle aged male doctor came walking towards them.
'You're Fujiwara Takumi, aren't you?' the doctor said and, for once, Takumi didn't feel annoyed at being recognised.
'Yes,' he said nodding.
'Er…Fujiwara-san, I'm going to need you to follow me in there…' the doctor said pointing at a room behind a glass door. Ryosuke swallowed as he saw his brother arrive there.
'What's up Aniki?' Keisuke asked as Takumi followed the doctor into the room, closing the door behind them.
'Aniki?' Keisuke repeated seeing that his brother had his gaze fixed on the glass door and on what was going on behind it. Keisuke decided to look at Takumi as the doctor talked to him.
Keisuke saw Takumi get up all the sudden, toppling his chair over in the process. He then grabbed something that was on the room's table and made it crash against one of the walls. All of this, while he screamed so loudly that even the nurse at the reception desk got frightened.
Both Ryosuke and Keisuke were about to go inside the room to help the doctor as he tried to get Takumi to calm down, when they saw the middle aged man injecting something into Takumi that made him go almost instantly limp.
Then, as carefully as he could, the doctor propped the racer against the wall, got out of the room and asked two orderlies for a stretcher.
'Doctor…' Ryosuke said trying to get his colleague's attention.
The doctor looked at him and shook his head in an unmistakable manner.
'What happened?' Ryosuke asked and when the doctor seemed to be reticent to explain himself, Ryosuke added, 'I'm a doctor too as well as a good friend of Fujiwara-san.'
'Ah, I see,' the doctor said then, taking his glasses off and grabbing the bridge of his nose with the index and thumb of his left hand, he said, 'there was nothing we could do: the driver of one of the trucks they're using to rebuild the road to this hospital lost control of the vehicle and, before he could do anything to prevent it, the truck hit the car where the two ladies were travelling. It fell into a large pit on the ground and while Yoshimura-san was killed instantly, Fujiwara-san and the baby arrived at the hospital alive.'
The doctor paused for a brief second, probably to regain a bit of strength, before saying what Ryosuke had been fearing the most:
'Unfortunately Fujiwara-san died while we were performing an emergency c-section.'
Ryosuke felt his stomach freeze inside him and, looking at his younger brother made him realise that Keisuke hadn't taken the blow any better.
'What about the baby?' Ryosuke found his voice to form the question from goodness knew where.
'The boy's fine. He's a bit premature and will have to remain in the incubator for at least a couple of weeks but he's healthy enough, considering the circumstances in which he was born: Fujiwara-san was very severely injured when she arrived here. It's a miracle the baby survived at all,' the doctor explained.
Keisuke, not being able to take it any longer, he just ran to the nearest bathroom. Ryosuke didn't need his medical degree to know that Keisuke was probably throwing up everything he had in his stomach for he felt exactly like doing the same.
He then watched as the two orderlies put an unconscious Takumi on the stretcher.
'Where are they taking him?' Ryosuke asked.
'I've just given him a mild sedative, he'll wake up shortly and, just in case, we're going to keep him in a room on his own.'
Ryosuke wasn't entirely happy about this but he knew only too well that the doctor was just following the standard procedure when it came to this kind of situations.
The doctor then left and Ryosuke took a seat on a nearby waiting area, he then saw his brother coming out of the bathroom with his face so white that he looked like he'd just seen a ghost.
Keisuke just sat next to his older brother exchanging neither a word nor a glance with him and the two of them remained in complete silence, looking at the floor, for a very long while.
They only looked up when they saw the same middle aged doctor step into the waiting area.
'Fujiwara-san's awake now,' he said and, judging by his face, Takumi's humour hadn't changed a bit.
'I'll go and talk to him,' Ryosuke said and Keisuke was almost glad about that since he really didn't know what to say to his team-mate.
Leaving his younger brother behind, Ryosuke followed the doctor to a door.
'I'll leave you two alone,' the doctor said then Ryosuke entered the room fighting to remove the knot that was tying his throat so tightly he feared he'd choke himself if he tried to speak.
'Takumi?' he managed to whisper.
'Leave me alone,' a raspy grunt came from the stretcher where Takumi was lying down on his side, giving his back to him.
Ryosuke remained there for an instant.
'I said: leave me alone. I don't want to talk to anybody,' Takumi said, his voice sounding even rougher as he increased its tone.
'Fine. We'll be…' Ryosuke started.
'Yeah, I know,' Takumi said and, the way his voice was shaking, Ryosuke knew that his driver was using every bit of his determination not to burst into tears and, for this reason, knowing a man really wanted his privacy in such moments of weakness, he turned round and left the room.
Ryosuke walked back to the waiting room so he could rejoin his younger brother when he saw Bunta Fujiwara walking into the hospital with a very alarmed looking Kyoko following him.
'What's happened?' Bunta asked and, for once, Ryosuke didn't hear a single bit of the arrogance nor the usual carefree tone the old man used when talking to everybody. To Ryosuke, Bunta sounded a lot more like the very worried father he now was.
Keisuke joined the group as Ryosuke, as plainly as he could, explained to both Bunta and Kyoko what had happened.
'Oh my God,' Kyoko said bursting into tears and leaning onto her husband for support. Keisuke just hugged her, trying his best not to start crying too, as he caressed his sobbing wife's hair.
Bunta's reaction, unlike his son's, was one of complete calmness. He took a deep breath, nodded and said:
'I'll go and talk to my son.'
'Fujiwara-san, Takumi doesn't really want to talk to anybody right now,' Ryosuke said.
'I know that,' Bunta said, 'he doesn't need to talk, I'm going to be doing all the talking.'
With that, Bunta Fujiwara walked towards where Ryosuke had indicated Takumi's room was.
'It's over,' Ryosuke said retaking his seat at the waiting room.
'What are you talking about?' Keisuke asked as he tried to get Kyoko to sit down too.
'The championship,' Ryosuke said, 'I'm withdrawing the team from the last race.'
Keisuke didn't even find it in himself to contradict his brother for he, too, agreed that there was no way they could carry on with their racing as if nothing had happened.
'We can't ask Takumi to race after this,' Ryosuke continued and, by the looks of him, Keisuke realised that his older brother was talking more to himself than to anyone else.
'What's going to happen to the baby?' Kyoko said in between sobs.
'Shit! The baby,' Keisuke said wanting to kick himself for having forgotten something as important as that.
'I only know that Takumi's going to need all the help he can get right now,' Ryosuke said looking at his brother and sister-in-law.
'Yes, the press is going to go nuts with this,' Kyoko said realising the hugeness of the situation they were in.
'We're going to need to stop them before they get to Takumi,' Keisuke said.
'Absolutely, there's no way Takumi can deal with the media right now,' Ryosuke agreed.
'It's going to be an enormous commotion when they find out Minami's dead,' Kyoko said and, both Takahashi brothers looked at her making Kyoko realise that she had just said aloud what no one wanted to hear. She felt brand new tears coming up to her eyes.
'Like I said, we need to shield Takumi from all of that,' Ryosuke said.
'I wonder what crazy old man is doing in there,' Keisuke said looking at the door.
Behind that door, things were a lot quieter. Bunta had just entered the room as quietly as possible and, instead of saying anything, he had just sat on a nearby chair remaining there, in complete silence, for a long time.
'What do you want?' Takumi finally said, without turning round.
'I just wanted to be here for you,' Bunta said, using the tone of voice he reserved for when he wanted to get certain reactions from his son.
'I don't want to talk to anybody,' Takumi said stubbornly.
'That's fine. We can just be here for a while,' Bunta said and, just to make a point, he moved in his chair trying to find a more comfortable position.
'Dad, I really want to be left alone,' Takumi said, this time turning round to face his father.
'I thought you didn't want to talk,' Bunta said crossing his arms on his chest, following a very carefully studied choreography that got him exactly what he'd been after: Takumi's face when from expressionless to show profound disbelief.
'What the hell do you want from me?' Takumi said, finally getting up from the stretcher.
Bunta looked up at his son and said, very slowly as if he were speaking to a kid:
'Nothing at all, I just figured I'd be here in case you need me.'
'I don't need you,' Takumi said, almost shouting.
'Fine, then I'll just sit here quietly,' Bunta said and Takumi couldn't believe his ears.
'Dad, please, leave me alone,' Takumi said and Bunta realised that he only needed to push it a bit more for his son to do what he desperately needed to do.
'Nope. This is a free country and I want to sit here.'
'Dad!' Takumi exclaimed sounding exasperated.
Finally, Bunta got up.
'I swear son, you've always been so stubborn.'
'Look who's talking,' Takumi said and, as he looked as his old man, Takumi felt that the ice that had formed somewhere inside his chest breaking into a million pieces stabbing him as little knives finally making him acknowledge the pain he'd been feeling ever since the doctor had said those hateful words.
'Minami's dead,' Takumi said.
'I know son, I know,' Bunta said, finally dropping his act and getting back to being a worried father.
'What am I going to do?' Takumi asked and the desperation in his voice made Bunta's insides cringe.
'Nothing son, you don't need to do anything,' Bunta said hoping his son would collapse before he did.
'But the baby needs me,' Takumi said.
'Yes, he does. That's the only thing you have to worry about: your son,' Bunta said knowing all too well the feeling for, an eternity ago, he'd been forced to face the very same situation.
'I can't do that by myself,' Takumi said still looking at his father.
'You're not by yourself. You've got loads of friends who are more than willing to help you. And, son, you've got me.'
'Dad,' Takumi said his voice finally beginning to break up.
'Come here son,' Bunta said extending a hand towards Takumi who, giving everything up, crushed himself against his father and, finally, screamed every ounce of the pain he had kept bottled up.
Bunta just stayed there hugging him and patting his son's head understanding so extremely well what Takumi was feeling that, for the first time since his own wife's passing, Bunta felt like crying.
'There Takumi, there…cry as much as you want,' Bunta said as his son's screams became horrifyingly painful sobs.
If the situation had not been so desperately dramatic, Bunta Fujiwara would have laughed out loud for it had to be some sort of joke that fate had reserved the same destiny to both him and his son: meeting the woman of their lives, having a baby son with her only to lose her shortly afterwards.
Fortunately for Takumi, Bunta was more than prepared as to what to do to help his son get on with his life. However, this fact wouldn't make things any easier for, Bunta knew, it would take a lot more than a miracle for his son to be anywhere near as happy as he'd been in these past few years.
To be continued…