ARAKITA: Yowamushi Pedal was created by Watanabe Wataru.
MAKISHIMA: Drama CD, More Tales from The Road Racing Club, sho.
TOUDOU: Volume Six: "Arakita's Stupor."
ARAKITA: Yuusuke… my Yuusuke…
TOUDOU: You're kidding me… but his eyes were covered! Did he recognize you by touch?
MAKISHIMA: Why wouldn't he? We hold hands all the time, sho.
TOUDOU: Still, to recognize you in this state… I'm impressed.
ARAKITA: Yuusuke…
MAKISHIMA: Sho?
ARAKITA: My arms feel funny..
MAKISHIMA: Do they hurt, sho?
ARAKITA: Yeah, but.. I think it's the ants.
MAKISHIMA: ..Ants?
ARAKITA: I can feel them. They're everywhere. I think they're eating my arms..
MAKISHIMA: There are no ants here, sho.
ARAKITA: Yuusuke.. can you take my arms off until the ants are gone..?
MAKISHIMA: I can't, sho.
ARAKITA: Why not..?
MAKISHIMA: Your arms aren't detachable, sho.
ARAKITA: Damn it…
MAKISHIMA: You're so out of it, sho…
TOUDOU: He struggled so much the medical team had to sedate him. He was really scary, Maki-chan!
MAKISHIMA: I know I'll regret asking this, but what happened to him, sho?
TOUDOU: After he finished? Or during the race?
MAKISHIMA: Just start from the beginning, sho.
ARAKITA: Yuusuke.. I think my mom's here.
MAKISHIMA: Um…
ARAKITA: I heard her.
TOUDOU: There's nobody else here but me, Arakita.
ARAKITA: Mom. Mom, listen..
TOUDOU: I'm not your mother!
ARAKITA: Stop disowning me, dammit! Now, Mom.. Mom, I need you to find, and wash Bian…
TOUDOU: What?
ARAKITA: I need you to wash Bian..
MAKISHIMA: Bian is his road racer, sho.
ARAKITA: You need to wash Bian, on delicate setting… at thirty degrees centipede.
TOUDOU: Celsius?
ARAKITA: Mom.. I need you to wash Bian.
TOUDOU: Yes, yes, I heard you!
ARAKITA: Oh, good. Wash Bian.. I got blood on her.. gotta get the blood out…
MAKISHIMA: He got blood on his road racer, sho?
TOUDOU: Probably… D-Don't worry, Maki-chan, bloodstains can be removed with cold water!
ARAKITA: Good point… Mom? Mom, make that.. minus thirty degrees centipede.
MAKISHIMA: Celsius, sho.
ARAKITA: Bless you..
TOUDOU: This is ridiculous! How can you keep so calm when he's talking nonsense, Maki-chan?!
MAKISHIMA: Honestly, I'm just glad he's able to talk at all, sho! Sure, it's all nonsense, but what do you expect if he's been sedated? Let him say what he wants, it's not like he can do much else, sho..!
ARAKITA: Yuusuke…
MAKISHIMA: Sho?
TOUDOU: Arakita? Why are you pointing at your face?
MAKISHIMA: I think he wants a kiss, sho.
MAKISHIMA: [kisses ARAKITA] There you go, sho.
ARAKITA: And one more for the road..
MAKISHIMA: [kisses ARAKITA again] For the road, sho?
ARAKITA: Yeah.. I gotta go.
MAKISHIMA: You need to rest, sho.
ARAKITA: No.. I gotta go and kill everyone at.. Hakoshima, Academy.
TOUDOU: Oh god, there he goes again. He almost punched Fuku, you know!
MAKISHIMA: You're going to kill everyone at "Hakoshima Academy," sho.
TOUDOU: Don't ignore me!
ARAKITA: Yeah.. Hakoshima.. Academy. I'm gonna kill everyone.. except the hairband.
TOUDOU: Hairband? I have a name, you know! What's my name, Arakita?
ARAKITA: Mom..?
MAKISHIMA: What's my rival's name, sho?
ARAKITA: …Totty.
TOUDOU: TOTTY?!
ARAKITA: It's short for, Todomatsuno..
TOUDOU: That's not evenclose!
MAKISHIMA: I don't know, it sounds similar, sho.
ARAKITA: Toudou.. Totty.. Shinpachi.
TOUDOU: Just STOP! I can't believe I'm saying this, but I preferred Hairband!
ARAKITA: I gotta go.. Help me up.
MAKISHIMA: No, you have to rest, sho.
ARAKITA: Yuusuke.. if you don't help me up right now.. I'm gonna set this place on fire. I'm gonna burn everything.
MAKISHIMA: Even me, sho..?
ARAKITA: No…! No, no, I'm gonna burn everything except you, cause I love you…
MAKISHIMA: I love you too, but you can't set this place on fire, sho.
ARAKITA: Why not..?!
MAKISHIMA: It's not flammable, sho.
ARAKITA: Damn it…
TOUDOU: Why are you smiling, Maki-chan?! He just threatened to commit arson! You're way too calm about this, it's creepy!
MAKISHIMA: You can leave if he's too much for you, sho.
TOUDOU: N-No, it's fine, Maki-chan.. I still need to tell you what happened, anyway. Remember what I said about our seniors forcing Arakita to take the sprinter checkpoint?
MAKISHIMA: Yeah?
TOUDOU: Originally, one of our sprinters was going to take the checkpoint once we had lost Arakita in the mountains, but when they realized he had kept up with us, they made him take the checkpoint to exhaust him for good.
ARAKITA: They were gonna kill me, Yuusuke… I told you it was all a trap..
MAKISHIMA: You did, sho…
ARAKITA: You thought I was just being mean.. that hurt…
MAKISHIMA: I'm sorry, sho..
TOUDOU: I swear that wasn't my intention when I made him that offer, Maki-chan. Fuku suggested he should join our train to compensate for what he did to your ace…
ARAKITA: I gotta go.. and kill the stone-faced jerk.
MAKISHIMA: Stay for a minute, sho.
ARAKITA: Okay…
TOUDOU: As I was saying, it was a peace offering, and we didn't think we'd be in any danger. There was no way Arakita was going to beat an entire team—
ARAKITA: Excuse you, I beat you. Kinjou said so.
TOUDOU: I'm sorry, what?
MAKISHIMA: What did Kinjou say, sho?
ARAKITA: He said it didn't matter, 'cause when he passed me, he knew I had beaten him anyway…
TOUDOU: Oh no.. I think he's slipping, Maki-chan…
MAKISHIMA: He might be talking about something else, sho. Yasutomo, when did Kinjou pass you?
ARAKITA: At the Namamomoyama Hill Climb…
MAKISHIMA: Our first race, sho?
ARAKITA: Yeah… heh.. I worked real hard, didn't I, Yuusuke…
MAKISHIMA: You did, sho… There, see, Toudou? You just have to ask the right thing, sho.
TOUDOU: If you say so, Maki-chan… Anyway, our seniors were wary of letting an opponent ride with us, and I suppose it was also a matter of pride. I'm sure their real intention was to exhaust Arakita, but since they had to give up the checkpoint for this, they wanted to make it look like he had won fair and square after giving his all.
ARAKITA: I gave everything… my sweat and blood.. poured it all over the course..
TOUDOU: I'm getting to that! So he passed the checkpoint, and instead of resting, he pulled to the side and started sprinting along the railing! I've never seen anything like it! He was like a human pachinko ball, Maki-chan!
ARAKITA: That's Todoroki.
TOUDOU: Pardon?
ARAKITA: Todoroki.. is the Romping Human Pachinko Ball.
MAKISHIMA: Tadokorocchi is the Rampaging Human Cannon Ball,sho.
TOUDOU: But you could be the Romping Human Pachinko Ball, Arakita!
ARAKITA: No, I can't… 'cause I already got a nickname. I am.. the Youkai.
MAKISHIMA: You're the Daredevil, sho!
TOUDOU: The Daredevil?
MAKISHIMA: The Daredevil of Sohoku. You never heard of him?
TOUDOU: Can't say that I have, Maki-chan! Hmm… The Daredevil of Sohoku! Hahahaha! It doesn't sound as elegant as Mountain God or Sleeping Beauty, but we can't all be winners!
MAKISHIMA: Way to make this about yourself, sho.
TOUDOU: Sorry, Maki-chan! Force of habit..?
MAKISHIMA: Keh!
TOUDOU: Let's get back to my story, okay? So Arakita was riding along the railing, and then we entered the final climb, and you know what he did, Maki-chan? He took his last water bottle, and he threw it away when it was still full!
MAKISHIMA: How do you know it was full, sho?
TOUDOU: He threw it so hard, it burst open on the ground! If your seniors hadn't stopped him, he might have broken Fuku's jaw with that arm! What was he in his previous life, a boxer? A pitcher?
ARAKITA: Shut up, shut up, shuddup, SHUDDUP!
TOUDOU: What the— what's wrong now?!
ARAKITA: You are slandering..! It's all slander 'cause I never, I hate baseball with every inch of my being, so I never played ever, in my life.
MAKISHIMA: He was an ace pitcher until he broke his elbow in middle school, sho.
ARAKITA: God dammit, Yuusuke..!
MAKISHIMA: It's a sensitive topic, sho.
ARAKITA: You've done it now.. now I gotta kill everyone in here so no one else finds out…
MAKISHIMA: Even me, sho?
ARAKITA: Nooo, I'm not gonna kill you. I love you…
MAKISHIMA: Who are you going to kill then, sho?
ARAKITA: Who else is here..?
TOUDOU: I swear I won't tell anyone.
ARAKITA: Yuusuke.. help me up.
TOUDOU: Just stay where you are and hear me out! As I was saying, there was that stunt with the water bottle—
ARAKITA: He's lying, Yuusuke! I'm gonna kill him..!
MAKISHIMA: Please don't mention the water bottle thing again, sho.
TOUDOU: Alright, alright, jeez! So Arakita started sprint-climbing, but he used this really weird form! He switched to his lower handlebars and he was leaning forward too much, and he was standing, but sort of propped on the tip of his saddle? Nobody at Hakone Academy climbs like that, I think. Anyway, you can only do that for so long on a climb before you run out of steam, so by the time we passed him, he was riding blindly and his nose started bleeding.
ARAKITA: It was so annoying.. I couldn't see a thing…
TOUDOU: He kept going though, and managed to follow us by riding along the barrier. He pressed against it so he wouldn't lose his way, and when the road started winding, he kept slamming into the barrier to find it again. It was horrible, Maki-chan. We were honestly worried he was going to break something.
MAKISHIMA: Yasutomo…
TOUDOU: That was bad enough, but then he fell, just after the goal. You know how the goalposts stick out onto the road, Maki-chan? Because he couldn't see it, Arakita hit the left one and crashed into the opposite barrier. That's when he hurt his legs and his other arm. We were honestly amazed he managed to stand up on his own after that fall.
MAKISHIMA: Yasutomo…! We should take him to the hospital, he might need surgery, sho! I'll have staff call an ambulance!
TOUDOU: Wait, Maki-chan! He'll be fine! The medical team examined him, and they said he didn't break anything! …M-Maki-chan?! What's wrong now?!
MAKISHIMA: [sniffling] It just, doesn't make any sense, sho… One measly elbow injury and his entire baseball career went down the drain, but now that he's riding, he's unbreakable! How does that even work, sho?!
TOUDOU: Maybe the gods blessed him with extremely good luck, to compensate for his lack of good looks and manners, Maki-chan!
ARAKITA: Did you just call me an ugly jerk..?
TOUDOU: N-No, I'd never—
ARAKITA: Yuusuke.. help me up.
TOUDOU: We were just talking about how lucky you are! Please stay down!
ARAKITA: I'm gonna kill him…
MAKISHIMA: Please don't, sho.
ARAKITA: Why not?
MAKISHIMA: Because then you'd go to jail, sho.
TOUDOU: That's your reason?!
ARAKITA: That's okay… I'm gonna die soon anyway…
MAKISHIMA: You're not going to die, sho.
ARAKITA: Why not?!
MAKISHIMA: You suck at dying, remember?
ARAKITA: Damn it..!
TOUDOU: He sucks at dying..?
MAKISHIMA: He's still alive, isn't he?
TOUDOU: Fair enough.
ARAKITA: Yuusuke…
MAKISHIMA: Sho?
ARAKITA: I'm gonna die soon, so hold my hand, okay..? I swear you can let go when I'm dead..
MAKISHIMA: Alright, sho.
ARAKITA: Yuusuke.. I did okay, didn't I..?
MAKISHIMA: You were fantastic, sho.
ARAKITA: I worked so hard for you…
MAKISHIMA: You did.. You're my hero, sho…
TOUDOU: Maki-chan, why are you crying?!
ARAKITA: Yuusuke… marry me.
MAKISHIMA: Sho?!
ARAKITA: Marry me, Yuusuke.. I'm gonna die soon, and I wanna die your husband.
TOUDOU: Oh my god.
MAKISHIMA: That's.. really sweet, sho…
TOUDOU: Maki-chan, stop crying! He's not going to die!
ARAKITA: Yuusuke… if you marry me, you can inherit my property… I'm gonna leave everything to you, Yuusuke..
TOUDOU: He owns property..?
MAKISHIMA: What property, Yasutomo?
ARAKITA: I'm gonna leave you.. Bian.. and everything I own, at the Sohoku dorms…
TOUDOU: What exactly do you own at the Sohoku dorms, Arakita?
ARAKITA: I own.. all my stuff.. my building… and fifty loyal followers. Yuusuke.. you'll be the new Youkai and inherit all my followers..
TOUDOU: His building? Followers? Youkai?! What is going on?!
MAKISHIMA: Don't listen to him! He's delirious, remember?
ARAKITA: Yuusuke.. my price list is in the closet…
TOUDOU: Price list?!
MAKISHIMA: Please stop talking, I'm begging you, sho!
ARAKITA: Rude! I'm trying to propose, here..! Now, are you gonna marry me or do I gotta beg, huh..?
TOUDOU: Maki-chan, why are you blushing?! He's delirious, remember?!
MAKISHIMA: I do, sho…
ARAKITA: I now announce us husband and… husband number two.
TOUDOU: That's not how it works, Arakita! You don't even have a ring or anything!
ARAKITA: Oh.. you're right, Totty… hold on…
TOUDOU: Stop calling me that! And what are you doing with that straw? Put that down, it's been used!
ARAKITA: Gimme your hand, Yuusuke…
MAKISHIMA: Like this, sho?
TOUDOU: Don't encourage him! Oh no, look, now he's— Arakita, you can't tie a straw into a ring!
MAKISHIMA: Here, let me help, sho.
ARAKITA: Aight… aaand there we go.
TOUDOU: Are you serious? You trapped his pinkie finger under there, too!
ARAKITA: Yeah.
TOUDOU: Why?
ARAKITA: 'Cause that's his claw.
TOUDOU: His what?
ARAKITA: His claw.. I have a claw, and now he has a claw, so we match..
MAKISHIMA: He suffered nerve damage when he broke his elbow, so he has a claw hand, sho. See how those two fingers curl up on his right hand, sho?
TOUDOU: All this from an elbow injury? Incredible…
ARAKITA: Shuddup.
TOUDOU: …Sorry.
ARAKITA: Yuusuke… hey, Yuusuke…
MAKISHIMA: Sho..?
ARAKITA: We're married.. now I can die happy.
MAKISHIMA: I'd rather you lived, sho.
ARAKITA: Aww.. you're just saying that cause you love me…
MAKISHIMA: I do, sho.
ARAKITA: Aww, you love me… that's embarrassing…
MAKISHIMA: We're married, sho.
ARAKITA: Still..!
TOUDOU: Are you serious right now, Maki-chan? You realize this wasn't an official ceremony, right?
MAKISHIMA: Don't be rude, sho.
ARAKITA: Yeah.. don't be rude to my husband or I'll kill ya.
TOUDOU: I give up. [sighs] Well, at least you two look happy… I suppose I should go back to our tent now, but I'm glad I got to see you, Maki-chan.
MAKISHIMA: Thanks for stopping by, sho. And for the Bepsi.
ARAKITA: We have Bepsi..?
MAKISHIMA: You want more Bepsi, sho?
ARAKITA: Yeah…!
MAKISHIMA: Okay, hold on, sho… I need to help you up… Oh, wait, let me take the compress off first… Here we go, sho.
ARAKITA: Thanks, Yuusuke.. you're a real pal… [sips loudly] Yup.. there's nothing like two guys being pals, huh..?
MAKISHIMA: Keh. …What's with that head shake, Toudou?
TOUDOU: I just… No, never mind, Maki-chan. I was just thinking how nice it is to see you so happy together. I'll leave now. Will you two be fine on your own?
MAKISHIMA: I think so. Thanks again, sho.
ARAKITA: Thanks for coming to our wedding, Totty…
TOUDOU: Please don't call me that ever again.
ARAKITA: You got to be our witness.. our best man… how do you feel.
TOUDOU: I'm… I'm honored, Arakita…
MAKISHIMA: Why are you tearing up, sho?!
TOUDOU: [sobbing] I'm just so happy for you, Maki-chan..!
MAKISHIMA: Jeez.. you really take things too seriously, sho!
END NOTE:
Again, the plastic straw engagement ring was inspired by a good friend's comment, who liked the recurring motif of the plastic straw as a symbolic gesture of love and caring. I just had to do something with that, and this is what I did! Shoutout to zenonaa on Ao3 for being a lovely reviewer and an excellent writer, too! Check her out if you like Danganronpa, her fics are wonderful!
And this is it for a while! There is still one more companion piece to go - the third-year Inter-high, of course, but I will have to rewatch the first two seasons several times to work it all out, so for now, please enjoy all of these (and the bonus chapter at the end of this story), and anything else I might put out until the "final" piece comes out. Thank you so much for reading!