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“They asked me to cover the local rally car race- for the sports section of the paper.” Tanjiro- nineteen years old and approximately two months into his internship at a local newspaper firm- has never even heard of a rally car before this afternoon. Tanjiro- determined to secure a permanent job in order to help provide for his very lovely but very large family- accepts the task with a smile upon his face regardless.
Determination and perseverance may as well be his middle names, as Tanjiro is nothing if not hard working, and if his internship sends him to cover only the obscure, menial stories that no reporter in their right mind would accept- then so be it.
Zenitsu- fellow intern and self-admitted coward- has other ideals entirely.
“You have a death wish- I’m telling you!” He clutches at Tanjiro’s coat as he packs up for the day, white-knuckled and apparently close to tears. “Those cars are fast and scary and NEVER follow road safety rules! You’ll get hit, or squashed, or one of the drivers will-”
Tanjiro places a hand over Zenitsu’s- in the way he would to soothe his youngest siblings in the midst of a tantrum. “I’m so happy that you’re worried about me, Zenitsu, but gaining new experiences is a good thing!” He pats Zenitsu’s hand gently, and, when the other’s grip relaxes in shock, eases his hand away from the lapels of his coat.
“How do you do that?” Zenitsu balks, staring pointedly at Tanjiro in something that comes close to abject horror. “You’re not human- not human, I tell you! Stop responding to threats on your life with that stupid smile!”
“Don’t make such a scene, Zenitsu.” Tanjiro soothes as he picks up his bag and swings it over one shoulder. Realistically, Tanjiro doubts that any of the newspaper staff would have noticed at all- well accustomed to Zenitsu’s antics (He swears he saw one of the editors put in a pair of earplugs before heading into his office one morning). Still, Zenitsu freezes on the spot.
“This is YOUR fault for accepting such dangerous assignments and risking the state of my poor, fragile heart! Apologise! Accept responsibility!” Zenitsu resumes his shouts with vigor, and Tanjiro leaves the office with a wave and a smile.
-
Rally racing, Tanjiro finds, sitting huddled over his laptop in the early hours of the morning, is fast, loud, and ever so dangerous. The first video he watches has his heart doing nauseating somersaults in his chest as the cars on the screen skid past corners at breakneck speed, filling the air with dust and sound.
On the screen, the pixelated form of the final car pulls past the finishing line, and Tanjiro lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
He learns the rules, the requirements, the courses and the car modifications, noting down the speeds and scoring criteria and then jotting down potential interview questions in preparation. The minutes tick by and he feels his concentration begin to wane, but he pushes through regardless. He works hard for even the small jobs- even the stories nobody wants to cover because they’re boring, dirty or pointless, Tanjiro cares for them as much as he would a piece of ground-breaking news. Because, Tanjiro thinks, somebody has to do it.
(“I want to be a reporter,” He’d told his mother, aged fifteen and still finding his feet in life. “I want to tell people’s stories so everyone can read them.”)
And so he writes his questions, watches his videos, makes his notes. Hard-working, dedicated Tanjiro, who loves little more than his work and his family, alone at his desk as the night whistles past.
He wakes up face down upon his laptop, with Nezuko’s jacket thrown around his shoulders and a cup of tea growing cold beside him.
-
Tanjiro makes an effort to arrive early to the racetrack, bag slung over his shoulder to carry his notepad, recording device and camera. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t excited, tiredness forgotten in the adrenaline rush that always comes in the wake of a new story. He flashes his press badge to slip through the slowly gathering crowd around the starting line and into the competitors area, where last minute checks of cars are being carried out by the drivers. There’s a lot of them- more than Tanjiro had expected- and he feels his hands practically itch with excitement.
There’s a special sort of clamour in the air, competitors shouting across cars to their co-drivers, and the revving of engines, kick-started and ready to go. It’s loud, exciting, and buzzing with life, and Tanjro lets himself get swept up in it- a reminder of why he’s here and what he’s doing. The tang of burned rubber hits the back of his throat, and the air tastes something like static as it near hums with anticipation.
Tanjiro notes this down as an afterthought, details of the heady excitement and spring-coiled readiness that has his heart skipping as he weaves through the crowds.
He sets his sight on a car parked at the edge of the group, a man with a shock of white hair perched on the car hood while scrolling through his phone, and another with his long legs trailing out of the passenger seat, trying to tuck long curls of hair into his helmet.
“Hello!” He calls out to them, face pulled into a practiced smile- welcoming and reassuring. (If it’s the same smile he used to utilise to trick his siblings into eating their vegetables, then nobody has to know.)
“Can’t you see that we’re busy?” The man with the white hair has a voice that is both bitter and scathing, and his eyes remain fixed on his phone screen as he talks. His co-driver winces from behind his helmet.
Tanjiro smiles harder, unfazed. “I’m here with the Fujikasane Gazette, I’m doing a report on the race occurring today- I was wondering if you had the time to answer some questions?”
(Your kindness is your greatest strength, Tanjiro had once been told, after offering to put together a piece on the writing of a man who had considered giving up one too many times. You find a story- and you don’t give it up. And so he smiles, even as the man with the white hair narrows his eyes, and pockets his phone with a glare that is nothing short of terrifying.)
“Kid,” He’s taller and evidently stronger than Tanjiro, and for a brief moment, Zenitsu’s panicked words felt almost rational. “You piss me off.”
“I’ll answer them,” The co-driver rises from his seat suddenly, towering over both Tanjiro and the car’s driver. “I’m finished with the pacenotes anyway.”
Tanjiro grins, delighted, and the co-driver trips over his shoelace as he walks around the side of the car to face him properly.
“Can I get your names?” Tanjiro glances between the two of them- brothers, from what he can guess based on appearance and personality.
“Shinazugawa Genya,” The co-driver, long black hair sticking out from the back of his helmet, announces. “And that’s my brother, Sanemi.”
Sanemi rolls his eyes, but doesn’t make any effort to leave. (A small victory, but a victory regardless.)
“Can you maybe explain some of the rules to me? I’m new to the sport.” Tanjiro jots down notes as he talks, always digilent in his recording. His handwriting suffers a little as he attempts to keep his eyes on Genya and take notes simultaneously, but it’s worth it to see the way that the co-driver relaxes into the conversation.
“Pacenotes are one of the most important parts of the race,” Genya points to the notebook that sits on the passenger seat, filled with instructions written in messy shorthand. “Everyone uses them to make sure they don’t crash into a tree or something dumb like that.”
“Except that one stupid fucker who doesn’t even have a co-driver,” Sanemi speaks up finally, glancing off somewhere down the line of cars. “I don’t know how that idiot is still alive.”
An announcement comes across the loudspeaker, summoning all drivers to the starting line, and Sanemi pulls his helmet down over his eyes, still glaring as he does so. And Tanjiro is so caught up in his words, excited and intrigued all in one, that he almost forgets to wish them both luck before they drive away.
-
There’s one car that drives faster than all the others, skidding around corners at breakneck speed and knocking the breath clean out of Tanjiro’s lungs. It’s suddenly like the rest of the race doesn’t matter, professionalism out of the window as he fixates on the way the driver swings around corners of the track and almost flips over- but never does.
It’s like he defies gravity in the way he drives, and Tanjiro- dedicated, hard-working Tanjiro- doesn’t pick up his pen once.
-
When the car pulls up to the finish line in first place, Tanjiro practically trips over his own feet in his rush to get to it, flashing his press badge to get close in record timing. If he pushes through the crowds a little too hard, a little too enthusiastically, then nobody mentions it. He’s excited, in a way that’s far beyond the usual jolt he feels in the midst of a new story, and he just knows he has to get an interview with the driver of the car- in a way that has him running like a man possessed to catch up.
He knows, somewhere deep in his heart, that if he doesn’t get an interview it will bother him for a very long time.
(The way the person had driven, the mad rush and daredevil maneuvers that shouldn’t have worked, it was nothing short of captivating- and Tanjiro couldn’t help but want to know everything.)
He approaches with his pen and notebook in hand as the car door swings open, and the person behind the wheel throws his boots out of the doorway and into the mud.
Huh, Tanjiro finds himself thinking, a brief intermission in the excitement that sends his heart-rate jumping. That’s odd.
The driver then hops out, sinking barefoot into the mud that his car wheels churned up. He wears a helmet that covers his face, stylised in a way that looks almost like the head of a boar, and Tanjiro- a reporter at heart, curious almost to a fault- wants to ask him questions until the sun sinks below the skyline and the stars fill the sky above them.
A brief glance inside of the car reveals no co-driver, no pacenotes, just the driver and his helmet and mud-covered feet, pounding the top of the car with his fist as if he were berating an animal of some sort. Sanemi’s words from earlier come back to Tanjiro, about the driver who races alone, no co-driver, no support, nothing. I don’t know how he’s still alive. Thinking back to the way the driver had swerved down the track, tackling corners on his own intuition, Tanjiro thinks he understands how.
The driver shucks off his jacket and throws it into the mud along with his shoes, and marches in Tanjiro’s direction. He’s still wearing his helmet despite being completely shirtless and shoeless, and Tanjiro doesn’t think he’s ever been so interested in a person in his life.
“Hi, I’m with the Fujikasane Gazette, could I maybe ask you some questions?” Tanjiro smiles- hoping his voice doesn’t betray the excitement that rises up in him like a flash-flood. The driver turns to look at him, face obscured behind that odd-looking boar helmet. He’s got mud half-way up his legs from stomping around the perimeter of his car, and Tanjiro hopes that he has something to clean it off with.
The driver stares down at Tanjiro’s name tag for a long, uncomfortable moment.
“Gonpachiro!” He shouts, and Tanjiro looks over his shoulder, confused, before registering that it’s him who the driver is talking to.
“That’s not-”
“What makes you think I want you to interview me, huh?” He leans in close, close enough for Tanjiro to make out a wild grin behind the visor of his helmet, and then laughs when Tanjiro takes a step backwards. “I have better things to do!”
And then he’s gone, running back over to his car and slinging his mud-splattered jacket over one shoulder with a wild laugh ringing in the air behind him.
“You’re new here, I’m guessing?” A man with flame patterns down the side of his car glances sympathetically in Tanjiro’s direction, pausing his inspection of a scratch engraved into the paintwork. “Inosuke is a bit of a lost cause.”
“I doubt that!” Tanjiro grins- because he’s nothing if not stubborn, and the driver, Inosuke, with his reckless manoeuvres and loud voice, is the best challenge he’s had in a long while.
“Inosuke!” He shouts to where the driver is retreating through the mud. “Good luck on your next race!”
And if he feels a wicked spark of satisfaction when Inosuke stills his movements, if only for a second, then nobody has to know.
-
Urokodaki, chief editor of the Fujikasane Gazette, is confused when Tanjiro bursts into his office with a request to cover the next day of the rally tournament- but assigns him the task regardless.
-
Inosuke wins the following day too, tearing down the final length of the track at a breakneck pace after almost flipping on his roof around a tight corner. Tanjiro is already waiting for him, and, as soon as Inosuke’s car has stopped and his boots come flying out of the doorway to land in the mud, Tanjiro is already approaching him like a man on a mission, determined as ever.
(Tanjiro is a reporter through and through, and this is one story he’s not willing to give up.)
“You!” Inosuke points at him as he approaches, jacket hanging off one arm and his voice perpetually raised to a shout. “I said I didn’t want an interview!”
Tanjiro moves closer, and then stops. Up close, he can see the deep purple bruise on Inosuke’s shoulder from where the seatbelt had evidently dug in, the redness to his palms from grappling with the wheel, the way he seems to be riding the tail end of an adrenaline rush in the slight shake of his hands. Before anything- before the stubbornness and the dedication- Kamado Tanjiro is a kind person. Perhaps it’s something about being the eldest of so many siblings, or perhaps it’s just part of his nature- either way, it stops him in his tracks.
He takes a step back, and lowers his notepad.
“I’m sorry, you must be so tired right now- I didn’t even think-” He barely makes it into the first sentence of his apology, before Inosuke rips off his jacket fully, and throws it into the mud with a sound that would seem more appropriate coming from a wild animal.
“Tired? Tired?” The incredulous tone to Inosuke’s voice is practically overflowing. “I’m not tired! Not at all! I’ll do your stupid interview- no, I’ll do twenty of your stupid interviews!” He marches up, forcing himself into Tanjiro’s personal space, and grabs at the hand that holds his notebook. “Bring it on!”
Tanjiro blinks, confused beyond belief, but starts writing anyway.
They walk as Tanjiro asks his questions and Inosuke gives his answers- all expectedly loud and nothing short of amusing, to the point that Tanjiro finds himself so caught up in the conversation that he forgets to even record them.
It’s after he asks inosuke his strategy for winning ( “Just be better than everyone else- works every time!” ) that he laughs hard enough to trip and drop his notebook into the mud.
Because Inosuke is loud, unapologetic, and quite possibly the oddest person he has ever met, and Tanjiro doesn’t think he’s ever had so much fun with an interview in his life.
“You know, you don’t have to worry about helmet hair- I won’t laugh.” Tanjiro glances at Inosuke’s boar-like helmet, still sitting unsettling on his shoulders with the visor obscuring his face. (Curiosity gets the better of him by the food stand, as Inosuke is waiting for them to heat up the snacks he ordered.)
From where he’s snapping wooden stirrers absentmindedly between his fingers, Inosuke freezes.
“Huh?” He drops a broken stirrer on the ground, and Tanjiro resists the urge to pick it up.
“Well, I just figured you weren’t taking the helmet off because-”
Inosuke- preferring actions over words- rips off his helmet and flings it to the ground at Tanjiro’s feet. It rolls to a halt by the toe of his shoes, splattered in mud, and next to it stands Inosuke, something close to fuming.
“I’ll show you helmet hair!” He glares at Tanjiro- large green eyes, pretty hair and eyelashes that skim his cheeks each time he blinks- and Tanjiro almost drops his notebook a second time. He stares, and Inosuke frowns even harder. “You have a problem with my face?”
Professionalism is always something Tanjiro has prided himself on, but- just this once- he throws it to the wind.
“No- you have a really nice face.” He smiles and pockets his notebook, and it’s Inosuke’s turn to stare.
“Your food is ready,” It’s the person behind the food stand that interrupts them, sliding a polystyrene container across the countertop. “Have a nice day.”
Inosuke grabs the container, and punches Tanjiro in the arm hard enough to bruise.
-
“You survived! You actually didn’t die!” Zenitsu seems genuinely surprised to see Tanjiro back in the office on Monday, tripping and almost spilling his coffee as he runs down the corridor. ( Does he really need any more energy? Tanjiro finds himself thinking, but doesn’t voice it.)
Tanjiro smiles, warm and genuine, because despite his loud nature and perpetual fear of most things that move (and most things that don’t), Zenitsu is a good friend- one of the best- and it makes his heart soar just a little to know that he was thinking of him.
Zenitsu proceeds to give him a thorough pat-down, as if unconvinced that all of Tanjiro’s limbs are still present. “Did any of them try to run you over? Or fight you? Or pull off your legs? Or-”
“Zenitsu, it was fine,” Tanjiro stops him, in that firm but gentle way he’s learned works just the trick when Zenitsu has worked himself into a panic. “I actually enjoyed it. I think I’m going to ask if I can cover the next race they host there too.”
The other reporter halts, and for a few seconds, Tanjiro can practically see the gears working somewhere behind his eyes. Then, as if struck by lightning, he leaps backwards, almost staggering into one of the desks behind him. “What! No, you can’t! You’ll die and then you’ll leave me and I don’t want-”
Tanjiro smiles, and walks to the break room to pour himself some coffee.
(He has a feeling he’s going to need it.)
-
Tanjiro makes sure to set off early when Saturday comes around once again, the rally competition relocating to a new track- this one weaving through a dense forest with tall redwood trees that seem to skim the clouds with their uppermost branches. He catches a bus in the morning, press badge and notebook settled in his bag along with a flask of tea and a pastry with shaky icing that Hanako had made for him the night before. It’s a peaceful walk to the track, past the trees and the sunlight that slices past them, illuminating the small insects that dance in the early morning air.
The world smells like it’s waking up from a deep slumber, and Tanjiro can’t help but feel rejuvenated.
He’s almost forgotten where he is, when a car comes racing around the corner, kicking up dirt and pine-needles before roaring out of sight once more, a flash of gunmetal black and an engine that howls like a wild animal. His heartbeat jumps in his chest, and he walks onward, just a little faster.
“Monjiro! Interview me again!” Inosuke is waiting for him (Tanjiro can’t ignore the spark of happiness it sends racing through his veins), perched on the top of his car and kicking his feet, barefoot as always.
“Good morning, Inosuke!” Tanjiro smiles, Inosuke’s mannerisms no less interesting than they were the first time he saw him, storming through the mud with a wild grin behind his visor.
From where he’s sitting on top of the car, Inosuke swings his legs around and stamps a foot against the hood of the car. Tanjiro winces a little at the loud, metallic clang it makes, worried slightly for the paintwork. “Sit down here- so you’re lower than me!”
Tanjiro looks from Inosuke to the car hood, hesitant. Then a scowl begins to creep into place on Inosuke’s features- one that’s beyond the usual expression of competition-fuelled anger that seems to be a permanent feature of his face- and he decides to comply, sitting down carefully in order to not damage anything. The top of the car is warm from the sunlight, and the engine purrs lowly beneath him, a constant hum that works its way into his very heartbeat.
(It’s obvious, he thinks, why people love driving like this so much.)
“Why’re you smiling like that, huh?” Inosuke peers down at him, hair framing his face in a way that Tanjiro can’t help but find pretty. “I made you sit below me and everything.”
“I’m just glad you’re letting me sit with you at all! It really beats you yelling at me and telling me to go away.” And it’s an honest statement- because Tanjiro much prefers this Inosuke to the one that sweeps past him in a stormcloud of angry noises and bad moods.
Inosuke doesn’t say a single thing, face scrunching up into an expression that isn’t so pretty, before he swings a leg around and lands his foot against Tanjiro’s spine, hard.
Tanjiro splutters, caught off guard for a second as he almost topples off the car, but once he’s righted himself, he smiles once more. “You have some really great leg strength there, Inosuke! Does driving help with that?”
(“There’s no way you weren’t doing that on purpose,” Nezuko will chide him later, when he tells her all about Inosuke and his fast car and powerful kick. “Even you’re not that dense.” And Tanjiro will smile, amicable, because Nezuko really can read him like a book.)
More people roll their cars into place, chatter filling the air as competitors confer with their co-drivers about pacenotes and strategy. Tanjiro only catches snippets of their conversations- about the tight corner a few turns in, on the fork in the path after the trees thin out, on the muddied areas from the rain earlier in the week. From where he lies on the roof, sprawled out and staring up at the clouds, Inosuke talks about everything under the sun- about how shoes are uncomfortable and his car feels like riding a living beast through the forest, about how he cuts his own hair because he feels hairdressers are plotting to kill him off with their scissors and how he wants to beat the Shinazugawa brothers in an arm-wrestling contest one day.
Tanjiro doesn’t write a word of it down- because while he’s a reporter, while this is his job- he wants these small pieces of Inosuke to be his and his alone.
(He’s been told to be more selfish on more than one occasion- so why not start now?)
He pulls the pastry Hanako made him out of his bag as he listens, smiling to himself at the lopsided icing and slightly misshapen sides. (Hanako had smiled at him when she handed it over, proud as anything of her handiwork.)
He gets one bite into it, before it’s suddenly snatched from his hands.
Up on the roof of the car, Inosuke holds the pastry, crumbs sticking to him and a wide, toothy grin upon his face. Tanjiro knows he should feel angry, should snatch the pastry back, maybe give Inosuke a piece of his mind- preferably an unhappy one- but he can’t bring himself to.
It’s a little overwhelming really- how happy it makes him to see Inosuke enjoying something that one of his siblings made. (His siblings, who he would give the world for without a second thought, and Inosuke, something new and exciting and unusual, all coming together. He wonders, briefly, if it would be too early to ask Inosuke to dinner at his house.)
“It’s good, right?” Tanjiro schools his excitement down, just a little. “My younger sister made it- she’s going to be such a great baker.”
The pastry gets thrust back into Tanjiro’s hands, as Inosuke slams his helmet down over his head, and yells somewhere behind it.
“If you’re gonna be all smiley-happy all the time, then get off!” Tanjiro barely makes it back onto his feet before Inosuke swings himself into the drivers seat, zipping up his jacket and pulling on his boots as he goes.
And if Tanjiro didn’t know any better, he’d even go as far as to say that Inosuke sounded flustered.
-
“That was a great race, Inosuke!” Tanjiro waits for him by the fence dividing the track from the crowd, having stood there for the duration of the race with bated breath and his heart racing just a little too fast. Inosuke had come in second, just behind the driver with flame patterns upon his car- something that he’s evidently fuming about by the way he slams the door and leaves his boots on just long enough to kick a solid dent in the back door of his car.
Tanjiro winces, and begins to wonder whether calling him over was such a good idea.
“Did you see that, Kanjuro?” Far from the anger-flushed scowl Tanjiro was expecting, when Inosuke pulls off his helmet he looks positively starstruck. “Did y’see how he took on those corners? He’s on a whole ‘nother level!” Inosuke grips the barrier, leaning over it with that wild, excited grin upon his face. “I’m gonna beat him next time- and then I’ll be the best driver ever!”
It takes all of Tanjiro’s willpower to stop him from taking a step backwards, because he’s feeling a little starstruck himself.
“I’m sure you’ll manage it!” Tanjiro knows he’s an awful liar, so he’s lucky that every word of it is the truth.
“You’d better come to watch next time- so you can see me win!” Inosuke lets go of the barrier, and Tanjiro lets himself breathe normally again. “I couldn’t have my biggest fan missing out on it.”
Inosuke doesn’t have a thing to worry about, Tanjiro thinks, because he wouldn’t miss it for the world.
-
They fall effortlessly into a routine- Tanjiro spending his weeks at work, seeking information and putting people’s stories down in words, then making his way to the racetrack at the weekends, two pastries packed in his bag and a smile on his face- even if he does have to leave a little too early to catch the bus. He no longer takes his notebook and press badge- it quickly becomes clear that the hours he spends amongst the roar of car engines aren’t about his job any more, and he knows that the officiators recognise his face and will let him behind the scenes, press badge or not.
He still interviews Inosuke, under the others insistence (“I bet I’m the best person you’ve ever interviewed.” He’d once crowed, smug and self assured as always), but he doesn’t write any of it down, instead storing it in his memory along with fond conversations between his colleagues, and late night chats amongst his family.
It startles him sometimes, the way Inosuke has forced his way into his life, now taking up a permanent, loud presence in the forefront of his mind- all raucous laughter and overflowing confidence, driving like gravity has made an exception for him alone. But when he makes it to the racetrack on a Saturday morning, with the sun rising over the treetops and Inosuke trying to catch small flies that drift through the air above his head- he realises it’s not such a surprise after all.
-
“Inosuke, I was thinking about going to get lunch after this.” It’s after a few weeks that Tanjiro notices he’s never once seen Inosuke outside of the racetrack, never once seen him without that helmet by his side and his racing jacket thrown over one shoulder.
“Yeah, what do you want me to do about it?” Inosuke doesn’t even look up from where he’s examining the dashboard, prodding at a warning light that’s flashing concerningly at him. The intent behind Tanjiro’s statement flies right past him, landing somewhere in the backseat with his helmet and jacket.
Tanjiro stands outside the car, because while Inosuke is comfortable enough to let him perch on top of it, enough to let Tanjiro stand close enough for their elbows to brush as they walk- Inosuke’s car, with its roaring engine and chipped paintwork, is entirely off limits. He peers in through the doorway, and tries again.
“Well, I spotted a diner on the way here and I thought-” He barely gets through a few words, before Inosuke is out of his seat and pulling him by his wrist, sudden and forceful. (When Tanjiro’s thoughts finally kick back in gear, the first thing that comes to mind is how Inosuke’s hands are almost unnaturally warm.)
“No, no no- you can’t go there! The food is rubbish and they won’t let me in without shoes on!” He doesn’t release his grip in the slightest, not even when Tanjiro walks faster to keep up with him. “You have awful taste- I’m gonna show you somewhere much better.”
They end up at the racetrack food truck, Inosuke turning to him with a flourish and a grin upon his face that’s far too proud- and far too endearing.
Inosuke lives and breathes racing, always at his most alive when surrounded by the smell of burned rubber and exhaust fumes, finding comfort amongst the metal sides of the cars like sleeping beasts that reflect the sun- so really, it’s no surprise that everything else he does works with racing as its centrepiece.
But as they sit a little way into the treeline and eat their burgers, Inosuke getting breadcrumbs in his hair and laughing when he drops sauce down his front, Tanjiro can’t even bring himself to mind it.
-
“Put this on, Gonpachiro!” When Tanjiro arrives a few weeks later, Inosuke forces a helmet into his hands, something evidently borrowed or stolen from one of the other drivers. He’s already got his own boar-patterned helmet pulled on, boots laced up and ready to go. From behind the visor, Tanjiro can just about make out his grin and bright, excited eyes. “C’mon, we don’t have all day!”
Tanjiro stares down at the helmet that sits in his hands, more than a little bemused.
“Hashibira? Letting someone in the passenger seat?” Another driver, car parked alongside Inosuke’s, calls out. “I must be going mad.”
“Hah!” Inosuke slings an arm around Tanjiro’s shoulders, all loud and excited and right in his face. (The helmet in Tanjiro’s hands almost goes toppling into the mud.) “I’m just making sure my underling understands the true extent of my power! Can’t show him that while he’s staring at me from a distance!”
“You’ve really taken to this reporter guy, haven’t you?” The other driver, snake patterns weaving down the arms of his jacket, rolls his eyes, and turns back to his pacenotes.
Tanjiro pulls the helmet down over his ears, blinking as the visor dulls his vision and muffles his hearing slightly. He wonders for a moment if this is why Inosuke is perpetually yelling. As soon as the helmet is on securely, Inosuke knocks a fist against the top of it, the sound reverberating through the material.
“Not bad!” He crows, evidently proud of himself. “You should take up driving full-time!”
Tanjiro doesn’t mention the fact that he doesn’t even have a license to drive on normal roads, never mind something like this.
He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous, sitting himself down in the passenger seat and buckling himself in, clinging onto the seatbelt for any sort of support. He’s seen the way Inosuke drives, flinging himself around the track with no regard for gravity or his own safety, and just watching it from a distance had made Tanjiro’s heartbeat pick up. Then Inosuke climbs into his own seat, falling into it like he belongs there, and it reassures him just a little.
“Hang on tight!” Inosuke pulls out of where he’s parked, the engine humming under his fingertips in anticipation. He turns, flashes Tanjiro one of those wild, brillant grins behind the visor of his helmet, and steps on the accelerator.
Tanjiro is suddenly very glad that he didn’t eat breakfast.
Inosuke propels them down the track like they’ve been fired from the barrel of a gun, flying over rough terrain with wheels skidding and the engine roaring, kicking up dust and leaves in the early morning sunlight. The trees are little more than a blur as they whip past, streaks of green leaves flickering in the peripheries of Tanjiro’s vision, barely enough to register. His stomach lurches as Inosuke flings them around the first corner, tyres screeching against the earth until his ears are filled with the roar of the engine and the sound of his heart pounding against his ribcage like it’s trying to break loose. He swears he feels the wheels of the car disconnect from the ground just for a little, flying in the most nauseating way, and he screws his eyes tightly shut.
Then to his side, Inosuke laughs, a sound that’s so loud and free and excited that it cleaves through Tanjiro’s terror in an instant. Hesitantly, he opens his eyes, and in the driver’s seat, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Inosuke look so alive.
Hands upon the wheel, he spins them around the track as if it’s easy as breathing, adjusting the controls as if they’re a part of him, an extension of his own body that allows him to fly. As he drives, he laughs, whoops, calls out his joy to the forest around them, immersed so entirely in the speed and sound that Tanjiro can’t bear to tear his eyes away.
And while his heart thunders in his chest and his stomach jolts every time they fly around a tight corner, Tanjiro feels alive too.
They stagger to a halt and stumble out of the doors, Tanjiro sighing at the feeling of solid ground beneath his feet and Inosuke unzipping his jacket. He pulls off his helmet with a laugh, and Tanjiro freezes on the spot.
Because Inosuke’s eyes are alight, filled with all the life and excitement in the world as he grins at Tanjiro in a way that almost knocks the breath clean out of his lungs. All of a sudden, the ground doesn’t feel quite so steady any more.
“Did y’see that? Did y’see it?” I couldn’t look away even if I wanted to , Tanjiro so desperately wants to tell him. “That was so fun! Monjiro- be my co-driver full time! It’s so much more fun with you!”
Tanjiro feels his stomach do another nauseating somersault, but this time his feet are planted firmly on the ground.
-
It’s become a talent of sorts, Tanjiro thinks, keeping his eyes fixed on Inosuke as he spins his way in laps around the racetrack. They’re at a different track to the usual one, located in a new corner of the forest with more rocks than trees, and the final length of the track stretching out into an open field where the crowds stand and watch.
Inosuke is in the lead, the way he likes it, speeding well ahead of everyone else with dust at his wheels and the trees flying past. Tanjiro can imagine him behind the wheel, shouting his jubilation for him and the forest alone to hear, before he disappears into the treeline once more.
The seconds tick by, and he doesn’t emerge from the other side again.
One car drives out of the trees, then another, crossing the finish line ahead of Inosuke. Tanjiro grips the barrier a little harder, his heart beating a little faster.
Tanjiro is prone to worrying about his friends- he cares deeply about them, so how could he not be concerned about them? But the jolt of pure, nauseating fear that strikes him when word of a crash (near the front, where Inosuke reigns) makes its way through the crowds- that is something else entirely.
He feels his blood run cold, chilling him down to his bones, and before he knows what he’s doing, he’s running, forcing his way through the crowd near the barrier. It feels like he’s trapped, unable to get past the people that push and hum in impassive worry, but don’t attempt to move, don’t attempt to help. It’s frustrating, unbelievably so, and Tanjiro feels tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. He reaches up to rub furiously at them, to stop them from falling.
You never even invited him over for dinner.
Tanjiro isn’t one for violence, but he barely has it in him to apologise when he elbows the last of the people in the crowd out of the way, and tumbles out into the field. He runs- runs till his lungs are burning and he doesn’t remember how to breathe, tripping over his own feet as he stumbles along the length of the track.
If driving these tracks in the passenger seat of Inosuke’s car was scary, then this- Tanjiro thinks- this is what terror feels like.
Just off the side of the track, Inosuke’s car is wrecked. The metal front is accordion-folded into the side of a tree, one of the wheels hanging off-kilter and a plume of something like smoke rising from the hood. Tanjiro doesn’t want to look, but he finds that he can’t tear his eyes away.
And then Inosuke comes stumbling out of the drivers seat, bruised and fuming but oh so alive, and Tanjiro has never been so glad to see someone shout his way barefooted through the mud.
The tears that had threatened to fall before finally spill over, and Tanjiro runs towards Inosuke. He trips, stumbles through the undergrowth and past the bits of plastic that litter the ground, ankle twisting at a bad angle as he goes, but it barely passes through his mind as he falls against Inosuke. He clings to him like a lifeline, like he’s afraid he’ll slip away if he lets go even for a second.
Inosuke stares down at him, stunned momentarily, then laughs and pulls him into something that’s more of a fighting move than a hug- hard enough to hurt Tanjiro’s ribs and so like Inosuke that Tanjiro can’t help but cry harder.
“Tanjiro- you look so ugly right now!” Inosuke releases him and prods at his face, evidently red and tear-stained (Tanjiro takes a deep breath, glad to be able to use his lungs again).
“You-” There, in the forest alongside the wreckage of Inosuke’s car, Tanjiro has never felt warmer. “You said my name right.”
Inosuke pulls his helmet off, letting his hair fall free around his shoulders. And perhaps it’s the adrenaline from running, perhaps it’s the relief, or the fear, or perhaps it’s just been a long time coming- Tanjiro doesn’t know- but it doesn’t stop him from placing a hand against Inosuke’s face, and kissing him lightly on the cheek.
There’s silence aside from a bird in the treetops that sings on, and Tanjiro wonders if he’s misjudged things oh so badly.
“Stop trying to one-up me! You’re gonna make me mad!” Inosuke grabs Tanjiro’s face, enthusiastic yet surprisingly gentle in the same instance, and kisses him properly. When they separate, when Tanjiro’s hand flies to his lips like he can’t quite believe it, when Inosuke smiles like he’s never been so proud, the bird in the treetops keeps singing.
“I win!” There’s the same light in Inosuke’s eyes as when he’s driving, flying along the racetrack with gravity bending to his will, and Tanjiro feels himself melt under it.
The bird stops singing only when the on-site medics come stumbling through the undergrowth to find them.
-
“You sure you don’t wanna be my co-driver?” Inosuke asks, as Tanjiro fastens his seatbelt and adjusts his helmet.
“I’m sure- I have so many stories to write up at the moment, I wouldn’t have the time.” Really, Tanjiro doesn’t have the time for this either, clambering into Inosuke’s passenger seat in the early hours of the morning to fly around the forest in a pre-race haze.
But there’s just something about the way Inosuke laughs when he races, something that Tanjiro couldn’t possibly refuse.
Tanjiro lifts his helmet a little, just enough to press a kiss against Inosuke’s visor, enough to see the way his grip on the wheel tightens ever so slightly.
And then they’re flying, down the track like a slingshot with the surrounding world struggling to catch up. Around them the engine roars, but Inosuke’s laugh- wild and unpredictable and brilliant- is the only sound Tanjiro can hear.