Programmed Lives – Fifth Stage

Chapter Thirty One

If for Hiroki's first test he had only nine people watching him, for the second one it was a completely different story and, by the time Hiroki and his father arrived at the circuit, he saw quite a few familiar looking people sitting at the small grandstand.

'What is this Dad?' Hiroki asked his father Tohru.

'Oh, just a few friends I thought would have liked to watch you driving a GP2 car,' Tohru replied.

'Dad, they're going to make me nervous,' Hiroki said and then both father and son heard someone snigger.

Turning round, they saw Akito walking towards them with the other eight people who had witnessed his first test plus Seisuke who, having been told about Hiroki's abilities, was very much looking forward to seeing the show.

'You know,' Akito started, smirking at Hiroki, 'I didn't think it was possible for you to get nervous about anything.'

Hiroki looked startled for just a second he then shook his head and said:

'Let's go so I can get changed.'

It was Akito's turn to shake his head as he started making his way to the nearby garage where they kept all the racing apparel. Hiroki followed him rushing so he could keep up with Akito.

'Thanks for this,' Tohru said speaking to Keisuke, 'it's a great opportunity for him.'

'He's not in the team yet,' Keisuke reminded him, 'but he's good enough. If only…'

'If only he were a little less dry, I know,' Tohru said, 'unfortunately, he's taken that aspect of his personality after my father in law.'

Keisuke let out a chuckle.

'Don't worry,' Ryosuke said, 'we'll make sure he gets all the right training.'

'And, again, I thank you for that,' Tohru said then, looking at Takumi, he added, 'it's kind of funny. Who would have said that our kids would end up racing together?'

'Not me,' Takumi replied honestly.

'What about your kids? I'd thought they'd become professional racers too,' Tohru said glancing back at the Takahashi brothers.

'Kyosuke's going to be involved in the team as one of the engineers,' Ryosuke explained, 'Seisuke will be too busy this year with his finals so he'll just come to help out whenever he can.'

'Ah, I see.'

'I'll help too,' Ryoko said before her own father could speak.

'Yeah, by making sure Akito doesn't get too stressed,' Seisuke said teasingly, earning himself twin glares coming from both Ryoko and her father.

'Just ignore him,' Kizuna said linking her arm with Ryoko's, 'remember that he's lovesick now,' she added winking an eye at her.

'That's right, poor thing,' Ryoko agreed and then the two girls walked away from the group to go up to the grandstand from where they would watch Hiroki's second test then, noticing that everyone was looking at Seisuke in a very inquisitive manner, he let out an exasperated huff before following them too, doing his best to ignore the badly stifled chuckle coming from his older brother.

'Is it true?' Keisuke whispered to his other nephew while they made their way to the box where they kept the borrowed GP2 car.

'I think so,' Kyosuke replied smiling at his uncle.

'What about the 'I'm done with girls' policy?' Keisuke asked.

'Uncle Keisuke,' Kyosuke said, 'Seisuke's been single for a whole five months and, to be honest, I didn't think he'd last half that long without a girlfriend…'

'I see,' Keisuke said and, before he could add anything else, they saw Akito and Hiroki coming back to re-join them.

'Okay, just do what I said,' Akito was saying, 'and when you see the IN sign…'

'I'll get in, don't worry,' Hiroki said then, putting his helmet on, he walked towards the GP2 car and climbed into it so he could strap himself onto the seat.

'Don't worry, he says…' Akito muttered sounding so miserable that Takumi patted his son's left shoulder trying to give the kid some much needed strength, 'he's so frustrating that's driving me insane,' Akito added.

'It's hard teaching other people, isn't it?' Takumi asked his son.

'I swear, I'll never make fun of any teacher ever again,' Akito replied making Takumi smile at his kid.

An instant later, Fumihiro started the GP2 car's engine and its roar made it impossible for anyone to hear anything and shortly after that, they all saw Hiroki driving the car out of the box and into the circuit.

'Dad,' Akito said, 'do you think I could take it for a spin too?'

'I don't know, you'll have to ask Ryosuke,' Takumi replied. Akito nodded and walked to where the doctor was, repeated the question, getting a very obvious negative answer then, Akito walked back to his father looking quite sulky as he sat down on the grass which grew outside the boxes.

'Too soon my foot,' he muttered to himself as he shook his head.

'Son,' Takumi said crouching next to his kid, 'you've got to be patient.'

'Patient?' Akito exclaimed incredulously, 'it's been almost two months and it's still too soon!'

'You're already driving the V-86, aren't you?' Takumi asked.

'Yes but…'

'Then don't rush things,' Takumi ordered, 'the more you rush it the longer it's going to take for you to get back in shape,' he added as he got back up so he could walk to where the rest of the adults were.

Akito grunted as he strapped a bit of grass with his hand, throwing the strands back on the ground then, as he heard Kenta beginning to shout about the fantastic times Hiroki was still keeping made Akito feel so extremely frustrated that he would have given anything to be able to get in the car and show Hiroki the reason why he had made it to professionalism so quickly.

'Hey, can I join you?' Ryoko asked making Akito look up at his beautiful girlfriend.

'Of course,' Akito replied hoping that his voice sounded normal.

'I know how you must be feeling,' Ryoko started as she sat down next to her boyfriend, 'but don't worry: I know that regardless of how good his times are, you can beat them easily.'

Akito laughed softly as he took Ryoko's hand in his, bringing it up his lips so he could kiss it.

'I love you,' he said and the way she smiled at him made Akito almost forget how very upset he was.

Two hours later, the second test was over and as Akito had predicted and feared, everyone was still very impressed with Hiroki's performance so, after signing the contract which tied him to the team, the nineteen year old was welcomed into the team by Keisuke who gave him a handshake.

'Well done son!' Tohru exclaimed grasping his kid's shoulders with his two hands, 'I can't believe you've made it!'

'Thanks for the vote of confidence,' Hiroki said with such a monotone voice that Akito wanted to smack him on the back of his head for he remembered the day he'd made it into a professional racing team as one of the most exciting days of his life.

Instead, he just got up and after he helped Ryoko get up too, they walked to where Kyosuke, Kizuna and Seisuke were.

'Guys,' Akito said, 'let's go for a drive later on, okay?'

'We have to,' Kyosuke replied, 'we've got a training session tonight, remember?'

'Ah, that's right,' Akito said slapping his forehead with his hand, 'that's just perfect!' he added smiling at his friends feeling very grateful that at least he would be able to release a bit of his pent up frustration as he drifted all the way down Mt Akagi.

'They're leaving,' Seisuke commented pointing at Hiroki and his father who, followed by the horde of friends they had brought with them, were making their way back to their cars.

'Good,' Akito said with such a bitter tone of voice that everyone looked at him.

'Hey,' Kyosuke said, 'I thought you had brought him here because you liked him.'

'It's not that I don't like him,' Akito explained, 'it's just that this carefree attitude of his is beginning to get on my nerves.'

'I'm hungry,' Ryoko said all of a sudden, 'let's go and get some lunch, okay?'

'I can't,' Seisuke said, 'I've got to…'

'…go and see Misa,' the two couples said speaking all four of them at the same time.

'Geez people, you need to get a life,' Seisuke complained as he rushed towards his RZ-1, once more, ignoring the snicker coming from the group of what supposedly were his best friends.

'We've got to stay here with the rest of the technical staff,' Kyosuke explained, 'now that we've got our two drivers, the budget and the infrastructure, we'll need to start working on the cars.'

'That's right,' Kizuna said looking very much eager to start doing just that, 'I can't wait!' she added smiling happily.

'Can I do anything to help you guys?' Akito asked and seeing Kyosuke shaking his head made him look at Ryoko and say, 'It's just the two of us then.'

'Perfect,' the girl said grabbing him by the arm and, before he could even add anything else, she started dragging him back to the V-86.

Three weeks after Hiroki had become a member of the still nameless GP2 team, Akito and the rest of the Golden Arrows got together at their usual meeting point so they could drive all the distance to the Kanagawa prefecture where, in the twisted roads of the Hakone Pass, there would be one of the biggest street racing gatherings of the Kanto region.

'Guys,' Kyosuke said, 'this is it, we've been training very hard and we know we can win whichever race they throw at us. Now, let's just drive there and show them who the Golden Arrows are!'

'YES!' everyone shouted, including Ryoko who wasn't even an official member of the team.

'Are you sure you want to take your car there?' Akito asked her as they stood next to her little Mazda.

'Yeah, I should be fine,' she said, 'besides, I have the radio and if I need to tell you something, we can always use the private channel…'

'That's right,' Akito said giving her a quick kiss, 'just don't drive too fast, okay?'

She laughed at him and getting into her small red convertible, she said:

'Just try to keep up with me.'

Kizuna, who had overheard the exchange, chuckled as she glanced at Akito with an amused expression on her exotic looking face then, before Akito could even open his mouth, the half-American girl climbed into her grey Nissan locking herself in it.

'Hey get moving,' Seisuke said as he too climbed into the white RZ-1 making Akito realise that he was the only one who still was out of his car then, running towards the Toyota, he got in it, strapped himself onto the bucket seat and turned the engine on.

Soon enough, all seventeen cars got into the motorway heading southwest for Hakone, leaving the Gunma prefecture behind and cutting across Saitama and Tokyo to get into Kanagawa, the southernmost prefecture of the Kanto region.

In Hakone, situated right at the border with the neighbouring Chubu region, there was the starting point of the old Tokaido road and a part of this ancient road formed the Hakone Pass which, given the mountainous nature of the area, was even more twisted and sometimes steeper than the infamous Irohazaka pass in Mt Nikko.

Akito simply could not wait to try the pass himself for his own father had told him that it was the place were, together with Ryosuke-san's project D, he had raced one of his hardest battles and, after what Akito had been through in the past few weeks, he felt really impatient to test himself to see if he was indeed back to normal.

Getting out of the motorway Akito rotated his right shoulder to notice that it no longer cracked nor it was painful.

'This is fantastic,' he then heard Ryoko's voice say and that made Akito notice that the seventeen cars had arrived at the Hakone Park and, even in the dimming light of the dusk, its beauty was truly breathtaking.

'Just look at that,' he then heard Shinji exclaim and Akito looked ahead and saw that there were quite a few other cars already driving up and down the hills, some of them drifting with such mastery that made all of them get goose bumps.

'I wanna do that too!' Izawa shouted.

'Guys, calm down,' Kyosuke said trying to make sure no one got too enthusiastic even though, he had to admit it, he was also getting rather excited.

'Yes, we'll all get our chance to show our skills,' he then heard Kizuna add making him smile for she sounded every bit as eager to test her driving in such a challenging mountain pass.

As he'd been told by the event's organisers, they had arranged to gather in a car park by one of the area's numerous lakes and, after parking the RZ-1, Kyosuke looked around himself as he waited for the rest of his team to climb out of their cars.

It was absolutely amazing, Kyosuke thought, there were so many cars and such a huge amount of people, that the oldest of the Takahashi brothers could not help but to think that surely the authorities knew about this and they simply turned a blind eye to the whole thing.

'Hey, who are you?' a guy in his mid twenties asked walking towards Kyosuke.

'I'm Takahashi Kyosuke, leader of the Golden Arrows.'

'Ah,' the guy said, 'you're the guy from Akagi, aren't you?'

'Yes, that's right,' Kyosuke said, 'you must be Ozawa Ichiro.'

'Yes, that's me,' the guy replied, 'and those there are the members of my team,' he added pointing at a group formed by only six cars all of them heavily modified and with twin stickers bearing the name 'Hakone Maniacs' on them.

'Hakone Maniacs?' Akito whispered to Seisuke who, lifting his eyebrows up, he shrugged his shoulders.

Meanwhile, Ichiro finished issuing Kyosuke some instructions and, with that, he walked away from them and back to his team.

'Okay guys, we've got to decide who's going to race,' Kyosuke informed them, 'then, we've got to give our car's keys to that girl over there,' he added pointing at a girl who was now talking to Ichiro.

'Why?' Akito asked for he wasn't too happy about separating himself from the key to his V-86.

'That's to decide who races against whom: they'll put our car's keys in a bag then they will extract one and pair it with another one, that's why I asked you earlier on to stick a label with your initials on your key, this way they can identify it fairly quickly…' Kyosuke explained showing to everyone his own key which had the initials KT engraved on it.

'Okay,' Seisuke said pulling his RZ-1's key out of his pocket.

'Who else wants to race?' Kyosuke said.

'Here,' Akito said giving his key to Kyosuke.

'I'm in too,' Masato said.

'Junya?' Kyosuke asked to the former rogue of his team.

'Nah, I'll leave this one to Akito,' he said patting Akito on his right shoulder, who winced visibly, 'sorry, I…'

'Just kidding,' Akito said with a cheeky grin.

'You're such a punk,' Junya complained but keeping a wide smile on his face.

'Holy mother of…' they heard Seisuke say all of a sudden.

'What's up?' Akito asked but he didn't need an answer to his question for he then saw the mica coloured Honda Civic Si Coupe belonging to the Tochigi Thunder's leader Jiro Kosugi. Following that car, it was the red V37 from Seisuke's girlfriend Misa, 'did she mention to you that they'd be here?' Akito asked as he also noticed Hiroki's orange Eclipse parking next to Misa's car.

'Nope,' Seisuke replied as he made his way to where his girlfriend was then, as Akito was going to follow him, he saw Ichiro walking towards Jiro and, smelling trouble, Akito and the rest of his team mates rushed to where Jiro was.

'Hey, I didn't think you'd show up,' they heard Ichiro say to the leader of the Tochigi Thunders.

'Why not?' Jiro asked crossing his arms in front of his chest while adopting an almost defensive pose.

'Er…' Ichiro started, 'well…no reason, I guess.'

'Good,' Jiro said and, handing him three keys, he added, 'here, these are the keys from the members of my team which will take part in the races.'

'Okay,' Ichiro said and, with that, Jiro left to, once more, re-joined his team.

'Hey,' Ichiro said talking to Kyosuke, 'do you have your keys ready too?'

'Yes,' Kyosuke said handing them to him.

'Thank you,' the guy said then as Ichiro passed them onto the girl who was with him, she looked at Ryoko and asked:

'Is your key one of those?'

Ryoko looked all flustered for a second before she shook her head once.

'No, I'm not a racer.'

'You're not?' the girl said incredulously, 'well, I am and I've seen you drive the same car I do so, if you feel like it, I'd like to take our cars for a spin…'

Akito was about to say no when, taking everyone by surprise, Ryoko smiled to the girl and said:

'Okay, but we'll have to take it easy, I'm not very good.'

'That's what the best racers always say,' the girl said before she and Ichiro walked away from them.

'Ryoko, what do you think you're doing?' Kyosuke asked his baby cousin using a very reprimanding tone of voice.

'Hey,' Ryoko protested, 'it's not like I'm racing her: we'll just drive for the fun of it.'

Then, and before anyone had the time to correct her, Ryoko and the rest saw as Ichiro and the girl started pairing up the keys they had gathered, hanging them together on a wooden panel full of hooks they had brought with them, making it obvious to everyone that they were very used to this kind of system.

'Right,' Ichiro shouted so everyone could hear him, 'the first race is…oh, that's funny,' he said laughing, 'this is MY key,' he added then, taking the other key, he asked, 'who drives a Mazda and has the initials ST?'

'That's me,' Seisuke shouted at him and that made Misa gasp very loudly.

'What's wrong?' Seisuke asked her.

'You can't race him,' Misa ordered clearly beginning to panic.

'Why not?' Seisuke asked her, feeling very confused by his girlfriend's odd reaction.

'Seisuke,' Misa said grasping her boyfriend's arm as she spoke, 'do you know who this guy is?' she asked.

'No,' Seisuke replied.

'That's the guy who was racing against my brother the night he died.'

To be continued…