Programmed Lives – Fifth Stage
Chapter Twenty Seven
Organising an illegal street race without getting caught by the authorities was difficult enough but, organising it without the parental units knowing about it was a whole lot more complicated. Especially if said parental units had been street racers too.
For this reason Akito was happy that his father was still at the centre on Saturday evening as he and Ryoko prepared themselves to leave the Fujiwara residence.
'Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?' Natsuki asked.
'No,' Akito said, 'Ryoko here is going to be driving the V-86 up to the summit. I'll just practice for a bit and then we'll come back home.'
'Okay,' Natsuki said, 'be careful and don't over do it: you know you're not supposed to be driving yet.'
'Yeah, I know, don't worry,' Akito said and, as he and Ryoko walked to his car, the girl commented:
'You know, I'm a bit worried.'
'Don't be, I'll be okay,' Akito assured her.
'No,' Ryoko said, 'I'm worried about how easy it is for you to lie to your mother. It makes me wonder.'
'Ryoko,' Akito started, pausing so he could look at her, 'I wasn't lying: you are going to drive my car to Mt Akina and for me, this race is practice.'
Ryoko snorted as she looked at him with a disbelieving expression on her beautiful face.
'Ryoko, I wouldn't lie to you, ever,' Akito said looking very serious and seeing this made her say:
'I know.'
'Good,' Akito said as he climbed into the passenger seat of his V-86 while thinking that he could never get used to seeing things from this perspective. Ten minutes later, Ryoko parked the Toyota next to her cousins RZ-1s and, climbing out of the car, she asked to her boyfriend:
'How did I do?'
'Great, considering you've never driven it before…'
'Thanks,' Ryoko said smiling happily, 'but, to be honest, I prefer my convertible, it's a lot…'
'Smaller?' Seisuke said teasingly.
'I was going to say agile, idiot,' Ryoko said getting annoyed.
'Guys,' Kyosuke interrupted, 'let's head up, Kizuna and the guys are waiting for us there.'
'Yeah,' Akito agreed as he and Ryoko climbed back into the V-86, this time with Akito getting behind the steering wheel.
'Are you sure you're going to be okay?' Kyosuke asked him.
'Yeah, I just have to be careful and use the technique my father's taught me,' Akito replied.
'Okay, Seisuke will follow you two in his car, in case you need his help.'
'What? No way…' Akito protested.
'Look,' Kyosuke said, 'I'm your team leader, and if you don't accept this condition, I'm not letting you race, got it?'
Akito looked at his friend and, noticing the unusually harsh tone Kyosuke was using convinced Akito that the older Takahashi brother was seriously worried about him.
'Fine,' Akito said, 'but don't tell Junya I'm still injured, I don't want him to do me any favours…'
'Don't worry,' Seisuke said, 'we won't tell him. You just be very careful, okay?'
'Stop it you two!' Akito complained and then, hoping to lighten up the general mood, he joked, 'I don't think I look good wearing the hospital's sleeping gown so, I have no intentions whatsoever of going back to one.'
'You better not!' Ryoko exclaimed obviously failing to see the humorous side of it. This made Akito start the V-86's engine and, seeing the two Takahashi brothers get into their RZ-1s, he made his way up to Mt Akina's summit where, as Kyosuke had said, the whole of the Golden Arrows were waiting for their three top drivers.
'Hey man,' Eiji said seeing Akito climb out of his car, 'it's good to see you back in the Panda.'
'Don't call it that,' Akito complained but, since he was so happy to back with the gang, he didn't even bother taking offence.
'Anyway,' Kizuna said looking at him with the same concerned look her boyfriend had, 'be careful, okay?'
'Guys, stop telling me to be careful, you're going to bring me bad luck!' he exclaimed.
'That's right,' they all heard Junya say, ' because you're going to need all the good luck in the world if you're hoping to beat me.'
'Junya, there's no need to be this nasty,' Kizuna admonished him.
'He can't help it,' Masato said angrily, 'he's just that much of an asshole.'
'Say that again!' Junya shouted walking up to Masato and putting his face just a couple of centimetres away from his ex team-mate's.
'ENOUGH!' Kyosuke roared, startling everyone for they had never heard his team leader raise his voice so much.
'Aniki's right,' Seisuke said, 'let's just race, okay?'
'Yeah,' Akito agreed as he noticed that Ryoko was getting quite freaked out by the whole thing. Thankfully, Junya decided to be reasonable and pulling himself apart from Masato, he made his way to where Akito was and said:
'I know you've just been discharged from the hospital but I'm not going to do you any favours.'
'I hope you're not,' Akito countered.
'Good,' Junya said, 'you remember what's at stake here, don't you?'
'Yeah, if I lose, Mt Akina's yours,' Akito replied.
'Exactly,' Junya said.
'But if I win,' Akito continued, 'you'll have to do anything I ask you.'
Junya looked a bit taken aback by the younger man's boldness but, recovering quickly, he snorted and said:
'Hell, why not?'
'One more thing,' Kyosuke said, 'Seisuke will be the referee for this race. He's going to follow you two to make sure the race is fair.'
'No way,' Junya said, 'he's not impartial.'
'It's either that or there's no race,' Kyosuke insisted and, seeing as he had no other option, Junya decided to agree with that condition too.
'Okay,' he said and, with that, he walked up to where Shinji was and, handing his jacket to the younger man, he climbed into his light blue Nismo-tuned Nissan.
'Beat the crap out of him,' Ryoko said to Akito as he prepared himself to get into his V-86.
'Okay,' Akito said laughing softly at the unusually aggressive expression he saw in his girlfriend's face.
'And be careful,' she couldn't help but to add and, this time, Akito didn't get annoyed because he knew that this was just part of their pre-race ritual.
'I will be,' he replied then, slowly so he wouldn't hurt himself, he fastened his four point racing seatbelt and starting the V-86's engine, he drove it towards Junya's car, parking it right next to it then, they saw as Seisuke placed his RZ-1 immediately behind them.
Shinji acted as the countdown man and as he heard him shout 'go', remembering what it was like to have Junya's car near him, Akito decided to floor it so he would get ahead of the older man then, as he made it through the first corner, he felt very grateful to both his father, for having taught him such a useful technique and to Seisuke, for having applied some Chinese anti-inflammatory ointment on his shoulder before carefully bandaging it.
I can do this, Akito thought as he entered the second of the Akina's course curves, turning the steering wheel just a couple of centimetres, distributing the weight in a way that made the back of the car over steer so much that it was the car itself which turned without the assistance of its driver.
Akito's only job, as his father had instructed him, was to make sure he got the car under his control on time to avoid hitting the barrier but, for this, he barely needed to touch the steering wheel for it was just a question of doing the right pedal work balancing the use of the brake and the throttle.
An easy enough thing to do once one knew how to do it. He had to give credit to his father for Akito knew that his old man had mastered this technique right in the middle of a race and without any kind of previous practice.
He was a freaking genius, Akito thought proudly as he entered the fourth corner of the course.
'How's he doing?' Kyosuke asked his brother, using the private channel which communicated the two RZ-1s.
'He's doing fantastic,' Seisuke replied as he followed Junya's Nissan, noticing with pleasure that the guy had every bit as much trouble as he had following Akito's V-86.
'Really?' Kyosuke asked.
'Yeah,' Seisuke replied, 'I swear Aniki, that punk's never going to cease to surprise us…'
Kyosuke laughed softly before saying:
'I hope he never will: it's one of the things I like the most about him.'
It was Seisuke's turn to chuckle then, he said:
'Now, don't distract me, these two are getting freakingly serious about this race.'
The three cars had almost made it to the five consecutive hairpins when Akito saw something that had definitely not been there when he'd driven uphill: a rock had fallen right in the middle of the road making Akito have to steer incredibly hard in order to dodge it.
Unfortunately for him, that made him have to lift his right arm and move it sideways to the left. The crack which followed was definitely not healthy.
'Crap,' Akito breathed as he felt the pain coming back at an alarmingly fast rate. He swallowed as he released the steering wheel for just a brief second so he could make the muscles of his stomach relax. Then, letting out a shaky breath he forced himself to get an equally trembling right hand to grab the bottom section of the steering wheel.
'Okay,' he muttered as he realised that, whereas his right arm was almost entirely useless, he still had a fully functional left arm. He only needed to make sure his right hand could hold the steering wheel while the left one was busy changing gears.
He also noticed two other things which he could consider positive: one, Junya had almost driven over the rock, making him brake rather brusquely and that had caused the gap between his V-86 and the Nissan to increase. Two, he was definitely not scared of the high speed he was driving at.
'Are you okay?' Akito heard Seisuke's worried voice ask.
'Yeah,' Akito replied and, technically speaking, he wasn't lying.
Negotiating the five hairpins with only one hand while the pain in his shoulder worsened as the race went on made Akito sweat like he'd never done in his life, not even during the GP2 races when the fireproof racing suit and the helmet made him feel like if he were in a sauna and, by the time he cleared the fifth one, he was very grateful to see the first lights of the city which indicated that the goal was nearer.
Sadly, so was Junya's Nissan, Akito thought miserably as he stole a quick look at his rear view mirror, noticing that, indeed the S-18 was a whole lot closer than it had been during the hairpin section.
'Shit,' Akito said and, deciding to forget about the pain, he floored the accelerator and drove the last sector of the course as though as his arm was okay. He knew that he would pay for it later but, right now, he didn't care.
By the time he crossed the finish line, always heading the race, Akito felt a couple of tears burning in his eyes and he felt so warm that he believed he was running a bit of temperature too.
'Hey, are you okay?' Seisuke asked sounding a bit out of breath for he had jumped out of his car and ran towards Akito's the minute all three vehicles had stopped.
'No,' Akito replied with a very weak sounding voice.
'Shit,' Seisuke said, 'let me help you get out of here,' he added as he opened the V-86's door and started unfastening Akito's seatbelt, 'man you look really bad.'
'Thanks,' Akito said as he took Seisuke's hand with his left one so he could climb out of the car.
'What the fuck's wrong with him?' Junya asked as he walked towards the Toyota.
'He's still injured, you moron,' Seisuke spat.
'What?' Junya asked widening his eyes in surprise, 'and you raced me anyway?'
'Yeah,' Akito said damning himself for how very feeble his voice sounded.
'Why?' Junya asked.
'Because, unlike you, he's a real racer!' Seisuke hissed angrily.
'Seisuke,' Akito said shaking his head, 'leave it. I've won the race.'
'Yeah, you have,' Junya agreed miserably, 'so, what do you want me to do? Do I have to be your slave or something like that?'
'No,' Akito replied, 'I just want you and Shinji to get back in the team and for you to stop being such a baby.'
'What?' Seisuke asked voicing the very same question Junya was about to ask, 'are you serious?' he added.
'Yeah,' Akito said, 'I'd really like to have Junya and Shinji back in the team, if your brother agrees, of course…'
'I don't know what to say,' Junya said still unable to believe his ears.
'You don't have any say in the matter,' Akito reminded him, 'you've lost the race so you've got to stick to your end of the deal.'
'Akito, we've got to get you to a hospital,' Seisuke said noticing the unhealthy way Akito was sweating.
'No, no more hospitals, please,' Akito begged, 'whatever I need done, you can do it yourself, can't you?'
Seisuke looked at him and, nodding, he said:
'Yeah, just wait for me here, I'll go and get my bag.'
'Sure,' Akito agreed as he went down to sit onto the ground using the bodywork of his car as backrest while covering his right shoulder with his left hand.
'You're crazy, did you know that?' Junya asked.
'Yeah, it runs in the family,' Akito replied tiredly.
Junya laughed softly and then, getting very serious, he said:
'Sorry about everything. I've been an ass…'
'Yes, you have,' Akito agreed mercilessly and that made Junya chuckle again.
'Let's start again, okay? My name is Shimano Junya. I'm from Maebashi.'
Akito looked up at the hand Junya was offering him and, taking it with his left one, he smiled cheekily before saying:
'I'm Fujiwara Akito, from Shibukawa, best downhiller in the whole of Gunma.'
Then both he and Junya shook hands while the latter gave him an incredulous look but, judging by the way the older guy was smiling, Akito knew that for the two of them this was indeed a whole new beginning.
Two days later, it was May 20th, Kizuna's twenty second birthday and since her family from the US had not been able to visit her and since they had a huge, parent-free house, Kyosuke decided to organise a small party for her using the large garden at the Takahashi residence.
'We could use the pool too,' Ryoko said seeing that despite the fact that it was late in the afternoon, the temperature was still warm enough for them to take a dip at the oval-shaped pool the Takahashi's had in their garden.
'That's a great idea,' Seisuke said as he helped his older brother carrying bottles from the kitchen out to the garden, 'Ryoko, how come you're not with Akito?' he added as an afterthought.
'Oh,' she said, 'he desperately needs some rest and, let's face it, if I'm there…'
'Yeah,' Seisuke said, 'I get the picture.'
'So do I and it's a rather disturbing one,' Kyosuke complained as he made his way back into the house which, soon enough, filled itself with friends and members of the Golden Arrows, including Junya and Shinji who, after much pressure and persuasion from Akito's side, had been reinstated as members of the team.
Seisuke was walking towards the kitchen to go and get some more plastic cups when he saw someone he hadn't seen in a while stepping into the Takahashi's hall.
'What in the…' he said and forgetting about the cups, he walked towards the entrance and with a very dry tone of voice, he asked, 'what in the heck are you doing in my house?'
'I was invited by Kizuna,' Misa replied with an equally harsh tone of voice.
'Is that right?' Seisuke asked sardonically and before Misa could reply, Kizuna came running towards them.
'Misa! How good of you to come, let me show you the way to the garden…'
'Happy birthday sweetie,' Misa said smiling at Kizuna and, ignoring the way Seisuke was glaring at her, she bypassed him pretending he wasn't even there.
'Whoa,' Seisuke muttered and realising that he was getting out of control dangerously fast, he took a couple of steadying breaths before following the two girls out to the garden.
There he saw something even more disturbing: Misa had just removed her summer dress and she stood there wearing such a ridiculously small bikini that made Seisuke run back into the house.
'Hey, are you okay?' Kyosuke said as he saw him rushing past.
'What's Kizuna playing at inviting her here?' Seisuke whispered furiously pointing at a nearly naked Misa.
'It's her birthday, she can invite whoever she wants,' Kyosuke pointed out then, after hesitating for a bit, he suggested, 'maybe you could use this chance to straighten things with her.'
'What?' Seisuke asked.
'You still haven't talked to her properly since New Year's,' Kyosuke reminded him, 'I think you two need to sort things out.'
Seisuke looked at his older brother for a bit before nodding once.
'You're right: I'm going to talk to her.'
To be continued…