Chapter Text
If someone asked Keisuke what he thinks about Project D having its own website, he would say that it was over the top and a little pretentious. Internet is mainly used by universities and stuck-ups. He can’t comprehend what his brother does all these hours in front of the computer when he’s not analyzing touges and races. He browses Yahoo! like it’s an endless encyclopedia when in reality, it just sucks. Keisuke remembers only one thing from the website and that’s a section called “Cool Links”. He’s happy to remain ignorant of what’s inside.
Who, among street racers, is connected to the Internet, anyway? Ryousuke’s notion that the website would help them gain visibility, and by extension popularity, is far fetched. Street racers communicate by word of mouth. And he’s trying to appeal to the wrong target group, anyway. Instead of listening about “being findable on Webcrawler”, “building the website using Tripod” or “who would’ve thought there’s a .d domain!”, their target audience would rather hear about the latest aftermarket car parts companies, how to tune a limited slip differential, or which exhaust makes better noise.
Maybe Ryousuke just wants to build a more tangible thing. Project D will run for a few months, blow everyone’s minds and eventually retreat to the realm of urban legends. Having a website adds a level of credibility. Perhaps. Keisuke has given up on trying to decipher his brother’s mind. When the maniac was building the website, he just looked at the process from behind, and from there he shook his head with pity. Ryousuke didn’t notice. It’s his project and if he wants a pretentious website, he will get a pretentious website.
So the website grinds Keisuke’s gears, but it’s a small annoyance in an ocean of positives when it comes to Project D. Or just street racing in general. Really, he feels lucky to be exactly where he is right now, which is much higher than the rock bottom that he hit three years ago.
His life was a downward slope ever since he was old enough to see his parents for more than the caretakers they tried to be. He sighs. How plain, blaming your shortcomings on your parents and their style of upbringing. But they did make his life more miserable, and whose fault is it that as a child he was trying to navigate their demands, failed and went on the offensive?
Ryousuke was the first child, so in that regard, did he have it worse? Their parents’ expectations of him were high, but he was the first child, a blank page, a completely new project with no manual attached. But he was smart and he delivered. He unwittingly became a template. Now their parents had a manual and they applied it to their second child, hoping to have the same result. It didn’t work. Despite the physical similarities, the two brothers were very different from one another. Even the fundamentals of their personalities were different, Ryousuke being an introvert, Keisuke being an extravert.
When Keisuke was old enough to taste for the first time his parents’ disappointment when he failed to be at the top of his class, he had two ways this could go further. One, become a poster child and work hard to be worthy of his parents’ praise despite what his heart desired (being carefree and not attend regular school, cram school and music school at the same time), or two, rebel against them. The first option would have put an immense strain on his mental health, he supposed, which was suspiciously smart for a preteen kid. The other one was socially unacceptable and lead to a path of a delinquent with a pompadour.
Their parents are good people in principle, he knows, but they are part of higher society and are victims of it. Owning a whole ass hospital is no small business, after all. He wonders what they were like when they met those 20-something years ago, when they were in college. Imagining his father as a youthful contemporary to Keisuke is uncomfortable to say the least, but he couldn’t be a high society stuck-up as a student, could he? Somewhere along the line he became a textbook stern father who views his children as tools in his own road to success. And mother is just passive, with a crippling need to please her husband. Add to that the sociological concept of Face with a capital F, and you get a recipe for a strained household.
So Keisuke didn’t meet their expectations of being the poster child, best student, music prodigy, terrific at chemistry and biology and perhaps also quantum mechanics. If he can’t run the hospital in the future or at least be a doctor, he’s a waste of space. It started with a mild name-calling, patronizing and sarcasm (the latter of which he didn’t understand until his mid-teens at least). Eventually, his father stepped up his game and started to insult, belittle, blame and trivialize, all the while demanding respect. Keisuke dealt with it by either yelling at him or ignoring him altogether.
His brother was his biggest ally, but when you’re a teenager fueled by rage and trying to protect yourself any way you can from the shitty treatment, you tend to overlook the helping hand that’s given you. This is why Keisuke turned away from his family.
The pompadour lifestyle didn’t escape him and he eventually joined a bosozoku gang. He managed to retain a dignified hairstyle, though. Driving around with a bunch of guys on motorcycles was fun then. It gave him a feeling of invincibility. There was hierarchy, there was petty crime, and there was Amada, who was his first delinquent friend. Their rookie days didn’t last long and soon enough they walked around with metal pipes, scaring middle schoolers and grandpas alike. Invincibility wasn’t enough for Keisuke, though, and the feeling of aimlessness permeated him. It was a bone-chilling fear about one’s bleak future, or lack thereof.
In high school, there was a silent panic in him and a shy plea for help. By this time, his parents gave up on him altogether, though. He was free to do whatever he pleased, whether it was driving around on a motorcycle in a heap of sweaty guys, scraping wallets off of white collar family men, or getting himself thrown in jail. Interestingly, they also let Ryousuke off the hook, allowing him to do whatever he wanted as well, though that came from trust rather than resignation.
Turned out that Ryousuke, bless his soul, wasn’t that glaringly different from him after all. Despite being a successful child of their successful parents, getting accepted into medical college and shouldering the grim future of taking over their father’s business, he fell victim to the car culture. While Keisuke was busy being a pawn in a motorcycle gang, his brother, ever the prodigy, was busy building his own street racing team on Mount Akagi. He was also smart enough to know that if he wanted to pull Keisuke away from the pompadour delinquent lifestyle, he needed to be sneaky. He painted his racing team in delinquent colors for his brother, so that when he invited Keisuke to join him, Keisuke agreed even though he could only drive a car the boring way.
What he can attribute to his parents is that they drilled into him that hard work is a path to success. The fact that he deliberately chose to piss on that life lesson when he was still in school is secondary. His parents might not have induced warm feelings in him, but he did like and respect his brother, and he found himself naturally willing not to disappoint him. So he bought an FD (feeling superior privately, since his brother owned an older FC) and he began training performance driving like there was no tomorrow.
Sure, he had tripped in life when he was in a literal gang, but once he became the second best RedSuns racer, everything started looking up. He found out that he loved racing and found a purpose in his life for the first time ever. He had popularity, respect, purpose, a bomb ass looking car and crowds cheering for him from the touges’ galleries during his races. It was cool, but he still harbored a lot of anger and hot-headedness, protected his delinquent pride like his life depended on it, and continuously tickled his overgrown ego. No one knows this, but he even took on Kenta as his apprentice just so he could feel more self-important.
He counts himself lucky to have been given the opportunity to define his worth on his own terms. But it was being bested at Akina by an unassuming 10-year-old family car that really entailed his further growth. No one and nothing had ever humbled him quite like losing a race against Fujiwara and his 86. Keisuke had no experience dealing with crushing defeats before. And so with one inertia drift, the first time the ghostly 86 passed him on Akina, Keisuke quickly turned to the one way of dealing with his problems that he knew – by being combative, challenging, prickly and angry.
The official battle on Akina and his subsequent defeat poured icy cold water on his head. RedSuns’ streak of wins was broken, his ego shrank uncomfortably, and his delinquent pride shattered to pieces. He wasn’t humble yet, but this was a stepping stone. He dedicated himself to watching all the other races the ghost took part in, in order to learn his patterns and weaknesses. He felt validated with his little obsession by how Ryousuke did literally the same. If he had known back then that he and his sworn rival would end up on one team, crushing the best street racers in Saitama, Tochigi and Kanagawa, he would’ve laughed. There’s no way he’d race alongside the one person that made him feel this tiny.
But Keisuke decided to push aside all his self-imposed hurt feelings and embrace the situation. If Fujiwara joined Project D, he would grow and improve under Ryousuke’s tutelage, but the exact same would happen to Keisuke. There was no reason for him to panic that Fujiwara would surpass him in racing skill.
There was also no reason for him to keep up the rivalry. Fujiwara became a teammate after all, and he was an outstanding asset to Project D. At first Keisuke thought that he forgave Fujiwara for crushing him (twice), but in reality he forgave himself for losing. That was the first step that allowed him to put his best foot forward and befriend the reluctant downhill ace. With each new battle, after spending hours practicing the course together, feeling it out and coming up with strategies for winning, discussing the opponents’ strengths and weaknesses, drinking copious amounts of canned coffee, slowly but surely the two became somewhat friendly towards each other.
Which worked out great for Keisuke, as it turned out. Fujiwara was so placid and unexcitable that it was difficult for Keisuke to maintain his combustive self around him. He just stood out like a sore thumb. Sure, being in the spotlight was his jam and nothing fed his ego like having all eyes on him, but the one annoying trait Fujiwara dragged with him since the stupid race in Akina was the ability to make Keisuke feel small. Any outburst of anger on his part suddenly felt inappropriate and overly dramatic. He soaked Fujiwara’s calm like a sponge (he wonders if he can also soak up Fujiwara’s ability to fall asleep in minutes the day before a race). So before he knew it, Fujiwara drained his anger issues away and helped him sever the delinquent ties for good. And he didn’t even do anything. He just showed up for the Project D races, won with a straight face like cutting corners on mountain roads was child’s play, and went home. Really, it all happened in Keisuke’s head. So what if maybe he has a slight inferiority complex? Every cloud has a silver lining.
He looks up to Fujiwara, which is annoying because the kid is three years his junior. Fujiwara has the creepy ability to win a race even if all odds are against him. He often starts out wonky, but comes around just in time to pass his opponent, and he does it like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Between races, his brother assigns him additional gruesome training to perfect his use of tires, braking and accelerating, but he never makes Fujiwara train any more than the night before a race. How infuriating. And a curious thing is, Fujiwara isn’t full of himself despite his superior technique and an innate ability to see the best line. Keisuke isn’t sure if Fujiwara is totally aware of what’s happening around him. Does he know how good of a racer he is? Does he even enjoy racing at all? Keisuke truly can’t tell. He’s so stoic all the time, it’s hard to read him. And he has such low energy that sometimes Keisuke wonders if a single gust of wind will trip the kid. Or maybe he’ll fall asleep standing up.
Fujiwara also talks only when spoken to which makes him a polar opposite to Keisuke, but in a concerning way. Among all Project D members, he seems closest to Fumihiro, but that’s stretching it. He’s apprehensive of Ryousuke, but it’s low-key enough that it passes for respect. He straight up escapes Kenta whenever he can help it, but Keisuke understands – Kenta is allergic to Fujiwara, as he took it upon himself to carry out the righteous anger that was due after Keisuke’s defeat on Akina. Matsumoto is Fujiwara’s appointed mechanic, so Keisuke expected them to be friends, but for some reason they keep their interactions professional.
It would be easy to say Fujiwara keeps them at an arms length, but he’s surprisingly friendly and agreeable once one gets him to talk, and Keisuke is an observant type. He knows issues when he sees them. Maybe Fujiwara is also traumatized by his parents. Maybe Keisuke will have a chance to unload the accumulation of mental abuse he went through and find a kindred spirit in Fujiwara. Time will tell.
It is after their successful battles in Nagao that Tomiguchi, accompanied by Kenta, suggests to go out for drinks. He says that they’re already in Kanagawa and only two more locations remain for them to go to. Soon enough Project D will end.
“We never have time to meet up like that,” he says and Kenta nods his head furiously from behind him. “So Kenta thought that we should socialize some more.” Kenta looks at him, betrayed.
They’re almost packed and ready to go home. The defeated racers have already left. Somewhere to the side, Ryousuke is talking to his brother and looking smug. Fujiwara is helping Matsumoto bring some spare parts back into the van.
“Kenta should know that the real adults are busy with their real jobs and don’t have much time to socialize,” Matsumoto snickers.
“But the real adults still find time three days a week for Project D,” Kenta retorts, “and besides, Ryousuke and Keisuke don’t work so they will find time.”
Fumihiro slaps him on his shoulder playfully. “Ryousuke has his medical college stuff to work on besides Project D and I don’t think he will find time. And Keisuke is a spoiled brat, I don’t know what he’s doing all these days when we’re not out battling.”
“He’s up on Akagi all day long, burning tires like they cost nothing,” Tomiguchi answers. “And motor oil, for that matter. The biggest flex in today’s street racing isn’t owning the latest sports car, it’s owning a rotary.”
“So that’s why he turned down the cute girl from Saitama,” Fumihiro whispers to himself and slams one of the vans’ doors closed. “Anyway, we could meet up next week. Kenta and I have already scouted Nanamagari so we’re free on Tuesday.”
“Are you meeting up?” Ryousuke asks as he approaches. Keisuke is trailing behind him.
“Yeah, let’s grab a few drinks. Are you guys free?”
“I should be able to make time. I have a rough plan for the next course already, and not too many college assignments. Are you coming, brother?”
“Maybe. I’m planning a meeting with some high school friends now and can’t say if I’ll be free on Tuesday. I’ll let you know.”
“You better show up!” Kenta exclaims. “Tomiguchi says you drive on Akagi all day every day. That’s not healthy, you know?”
Keisuke jumps a little and counters, “Well, I’m already planning another meeting, so it’s not like all I do is drive, okay? Besides, I practice. It’s not like I slack off,” he grumbles and looks over to Fujiwara. Not so graciously he shifts the attention to him. “Fujiwara, what about you?”
“Eh?” Fujiwara looks up at him from the van’s floor where he’s crouched, looks at everyone else and frowns a little. He has a fairly dumb look on his face. “You’re inviting me as well?”
“Of course we are,” Fumihiro says.
“Why wouldn’t we?”
“You’re so stupid sometimes, Fujiwara,” Kenta scolds him.
Fujiwara mumbles under his breath something that sounds like ‘I don’t know’. The team doesn’t push him, but instead goes on to decide on a place. Keisuke notices a look of discomfort on his face as he busies himself with Matsumoto’s rope. In the back of his mind Keisuke wonders what Matsumoto needs rope for on their expeditions. He walks over to Fujiwara and eyes it suspiciously.
“You don’t mind they’re only thinking of places in Takasaki?”
“All of you are from Takasaki, so it kind of makes sense. I’m the odd one out here, aren’t I?” Fujiwara tells him, intently focused on the rope. He finally puts it away in a box and without his hands busy, looks up at Keisuke like it’s a punishment.
“Hmph. Make sure you show up, though.”
“I do have a life outside of racing, unlike someone here.” It’s said softly enough that Keisuke knows it’s an attempt at humor, but how strained it is! He barks out a laugh and lets Fujiwara off the hook. The latter looks relieved beyond measure when the whole team finally gets into their cars and files out of the parking lot. The 86 stays in Keisuke’s rear-view mirror all the way until they arrive at an intersection, where it turns left and heads for Shibukawa. In the distance, Fujiwara flicks his emergency lights as a goodbye and disappears into the night.
Keisuke ends up declining the invitation for a team meeting. He calls Tomiguchi to tell him that in the end, his other meeting takes place on Tuesday and he’s not going to show up. He asks him to keep Kenta off his back, knowing full well that if given the chance, Kenta will pester him until one of them pukes.
He’s excited for the meeting. As much as he hates admitting that nowadays all he does is practice, he knows that a certain routine has crawled into his life and it doesn’t sit well with him. When he was still a troublemaker, he was always surrounded by people, doing things. Every day was different from the previous one, but now he just practices performance driving. He wants to go pro. It requires a ton of experience and knowledge, despite what driving might look like from a layman’s point of view. That’s why he feels excused for not having a life outside of it, but a little part of him is still wary of what people think of him. Kenta is one of them, and a total kid at heart, so his jabs shouldn’t hold much meaning, but Keisuke just can’t help himself. Any comment with a negative connotation he regards as an attack, an annoying relic from his gang past. He’ll have to work on it. He reasons with himself that you need to dedicate the work and the hours in order to learn something. He’s not in college, but he still learns. It’s the same, except instead of sitting in a stuffy classroom, he soars on a mountain. And he tells himself that the team’s comments aren’t them making fun of him.
He hasn’t seen most of his school friends since graduating high school. It’s been four years. They’re at this crazy age where some of them are still students, some have started their own businesses, some already have spouses and kids, and some are still goofing around. He doesn’t feel like he’s goofing around, but he knows his friends will think so. He’ll just have to change their minds.
They meet up in a quaint joint. There are six of them in total although Keisuke expected to see only three guys from school. Turns out two of them brought their girlfriends. They’re happy as a puppy and Keisuke snorts inwardly. They’ve clearly been waiting for this opportunity to show the girls off.
They have a whole big booth to themselves and they get rowdy pretty quickly. Turns out that Okumura and Sato have bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and marine biology, respectively. They’re both doing their master’s now and can’t wait to be free from academia. So they’re a little impressive, but who cares? Sato’s girlfriend, a bespectacled little thing called Yuko, goes on a rant about why there are less women in STEM and how toxic the corporate culture in Japan is. She’s quite impressive too, having quit a great position at Sony just because all her bosses were dicks, and started a flower shop. The shop is located in Tokyo’s main business district. Apparently she couldn’t fully escape the corporate dicks.
Sotozaki also left for Tokyo after high school, but it’s unclear what he’s been doing all these years. He landed a bomb ass girl. She’s a little too bomb ass for him, though. Her name is Mina, she’s tall and confident, and she dresses like a gangster’s girl. Keisuke would know. They will either ruin your life or be best wife material, no in-between. She’s also a whooping 5 years older than Sotozaki and everybody’s looking at each other surreptitiously, wondering what she sees in him. Of all the things she could be, she’s a psychotherapist.
Keisuke was careful to steer the conversation away from him for as long as possible, but eventually he needs to give his friends a rundown of his life since high school as well. He tells them about the street racing scene.
“A lot of people are into the whole car culture now,” Sato says. “I have some friends who drive around at night and race each other and such. One of them slipped his car and fell off a cliff. There was this random British crew on site, with cameras and all and they filmed his car hanging upside down. And they interviewed him.”
Sotozaki laughs hysterically. “I-Imagine standing next to your car hanging upside down on a cliff, wondering how the fuck to get it out without police intervention, and a white dude comes up to you with a microphone and he’s like, ‘so, how do you feel?’”
“That’s exactly what happened!”
“Talk about an uncomfortable exposure!” Mina laughs. “You’ve just messed up your car and the whole world will see that.”
“Do people hang their cars upside down on Akagi as well, T?”
“No, I don’t think it ever happens,” Keisuke says. “We’re all pretty good up there, so the biggest fuckup is when you spin out and stop in the middle of the road.”
He tells them about RedSuns and the new expeditionary team.
“Wait a minute, I’ve heard the name Project D before!” Sato butts in again. “But it was like, ‘Project D is fucking annoying’ kind of talk. What’s up with that?”
“We go to different places and challenge the local street racers. And so far we’ve always won. I guess that’s why we’re ‘fucking annoying’.” He smirks. He hasn’t bragged in a long time. “My brother is the team leader, strategist and instructor. Then there’s a liaison and two mechanics. And a kid who tags along because he has nothing better to do. And there are two racers. I specialize in uphill races, and there’s also a downhill ace.”
“So you don’t race uphill and downhill?”
“Not in Project D, no. It’s not super common for street racers to limit themselves like that, but it makes sense with me and Fujiwara. My car has more power, and his car is lightweight and more agile.”
Okumura, who has been listening quietly, leans in from across the table, narrows his eyes comically and says, “So there’s another racer in this fancy expeditionary team? And how much do you butt heads?”
“Not at all, why?”
“Don’t lie to me, I know you. You see an opponent in everyone who does what you do.”
“That’s true!” Sato chimes in. “You always compete whenever you have the chance.”
Mina humphs. “My, my, do you want to dissect that behavior? I see a lot of insecurity and a need to prove one’s worth.”
Sato and Okumura snort in unison, and Mina’s boyfriend shakes with a quiet laughter. The other girl, Yuko, is looking wide-eyed at Mina, as if she was the most scandalous person she’s ever met. And Keisuke, who loves the spotlight, decides that he hates it after all.
“First of all,” he says, “I don’t see an opponent in everyone. Second of all, I’m not insecure. And third of all, Okumura, I don’t butt heads with the other racer because we’re teammates, so why would I? Besides, even if so, it’s impossible to butt heads with Fujiwara.” He’s eager to talk about anyone else than himself, so he goes on, “He’s the most unemotional, quiet and placid person I’ve ever met. He’s tired all the time, he only has one facial expression, a painfully neutral one, and I never saw him crack a smile, really. He stays to the sidelines and doesn’t interact with the rest of the team if he doesn’t have to. Last weekend he was surprised to be invited for drinks. How could I butt heads with someone like that?”
“That’s very interesting.” Mina readily picks it up. “Does he seem sad or in low spirits, as well?”
Keisuke looks at her for a second before answering. Are they really talking about the (admittedly best racer in Gunma) most boring person in Keisuke’s life right now?
“How would I know?” He crosses his arms and leans back. “I can’t tell if he even enjoys racing anymore. I had to talk him into it, actually. Then he got into it, and agreed to join PD. But if I’m being honest, it feels like racing for Project D is a chore for him now. Maybe I’m just reading it wrong, though.”
“And does the team treat him differently, or does he alienate himself?” Mina prods further.
“Mina, cut it out. Sorry, T, she’s in a mode,” Sotozaki interrupts, but Mina puts her hand on his mouth unceremoniously and looks at Keisuke intently. The latter frowns.
“Alienate?” He asks.
“If the team treats him differently, they might distance him from everyone else, knowingly or not. But if they don’t, and your downhill ace still doesn’t feel like he belongs there, then he might be the one distancing himself from the team.”
“Nobody treats him differently. He’s the one who’s surprised when they invite him for drinks.”
“So he is a low energy individual. He doesn’t show much emotion—"
“A total poker face, yeah.”
“—doesn’t laugh or smile, he seems tired all the time, looks like he doesn’t enjoy racing, even though he used to, and even though he’s a part of an – as I take it – esteemed team. He withdraws from this team, doesn’t see himself as one of you. Do you think he’s distancing himself because he’s cocky?”
“I’m cocky. He’s just existentially tired.”
“And do you know by any chance if he eats little and sleeps badly?”
Keisuke sighs inwardly. He’s about to become existentially tired as well. “Eats little but he falls asleep in minutes and sleeps like the dead. We drive out to Kanagawa, and the night before a race he’s so unbothered he’s out in a minute. Creep.”
Mina smiles to herself like she knows a good secret, and maybe she does, because she takes a sip of her drink, clasps her hands, exhales long and hard, and asks, “Do you think that perhaps your teammate is… mentally unsound?”
Keisuke appreciates her delicate wording, but walking on eggshells always made him angry. He wonders what gave her the idea that she could psychoanalyze anyone like that, and on a lighthearted night out no less. Sotozaki always had weird taste in women, but this one is nuts. He tells himself he’s going to be nice. Fujiwara would be nice in this situation, or any other for that matter. Or maybe he’s too wrung out to hold his ground, and that’s why he’s always nice?
“He’s a genius performance driver. Every genius is weird. Let it go.” He ends the conversation there, and his friends smoothly change the topic. Bless them. He joins the conversation a few minutes later, when he’s sure he won’t be abrasive anymore, and the night continues on. All in all, it’s a nice meeting.
When he’s driving home that night, all of the life stories and anecdotes his friends told him have already gone in one ear and out the other, but what the edgy fox of a psychotherapist told him refuses to leave his mind. He doesn’t want to think about it, if he’s being honest. What a drag. It’s one thing to see someone’s behavior and accept it as one’s personality trait, and another to analyze and dissect it.
He’s not an expert, but he did go through a lot of self-reflection in the past. That’s why he’s not a low-level gangster now, but a decent person. He’d be conventionally perfect if only he wasn’t involved in illegal street racing. So if he can sort out the effects of his parents’ mental abuse on him, Fujiwara can sort himself out too.
He stands by what he said about how geniuses are always weird, though he doesn’t dismiss any of the points she made. He would just feel much more comfortable if she didn’t rub it all in his face. Next week he’s going to see Fujiwara in Nanamagari and wonder if he’s tired because he didn’t get much sleep or because he’s depressed. Fujiwara is going to look in the distance, seem very far away with his thoughts, then snap out of it, and look down as if someone just scolded him. He’ll drink canned coffee like it’s water, but only take a few bites out of his dinner. He’ll stand to the side, looking impassive and lackluster, and after the race, which he will win, he will look exactly the same.
How annoying. Not Fujiwara per se, but how all of this was brought to Keisuke’s attention. And now what? His brother is better equipped to deal with these things, but the idea of talking to Ryousuke and essentially living through the same conversation twice makes him nauseous.
Maybe Ryousuke already knows. His level of perceptiveness should be illegal. But despite how skillfully his brother hides it, he’s really not a people person. Even when he helped Keisuke out of a gang, he did it through action, not affection. Keisuke doesn’t think Fujiwara needs the former. He’d rather not think about the latter.
He wonders if madness is a verbally transmitted disease. If he ever sees Mina again, he will give her a piece of his mind. The following morning, he drives to Akina just shy of 4 AM and catches the ghostly 86 speeding up a mountain. He follows, then parks his car next to Fujiwara’s and silently helps him carry a few boxes of tofu inside the hotel’s pantry. Fujiwara gives him a few questioning glances, but he accepts the help and doesn’t comment. The only thing that he says is where Keisuke can lay down the tofu.
It turns out that the hotel staff are either acquainted with his father, or just trust Fujiwara. He opened the storeroom with his own key, and now he’s locking it back up and heading to his car like that’s all. Deliveries usually look different, Keisuke thinks. Fujiwara already has one leg inside his car when he turns to Keisuke, who’s still walking behind, and he does this motion with his head that tells Keisuke ‘come on, we’re racing’. No true street racer has to be told twice.
This is what he needed. He’s been practicing driving so much that even Kenta made fun of him. He’s only been racing one nondescript guy a week, and he realizes now that he misses racing with people just for fun. He follows Fujiwara and, surprisingly, he’s completely fine with it. He doesn’t need to be in the front. Besides, he knows full well that letting Fujiwara follow is the worst. This is nice. He’ll have his revenge on Akina some other time.
Thank god Fujiwara makes everything so easy because Keisuke accompanies him on his deliveries for the rest of the week.