Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

On a quiet street in Japan’s Saitama region, a grumpy, middle-aged man switched the sign on his auto repair shop from “Open” to “Closed”. The scowl on his face fit well with the lines forming with age, a shadow of thousands of scowls that now showed even when he smiled. He stormed his way through the shop, into the back room, and stepped up on the platform that marked the beginning of the staircase. The stairs were wooden, and they creaked with his heavy tread. He grumbled under his breath. “Yasuko!” he bellowed. “Dinner had better be ready, or you’ll be as sorry as the lowlifes I had to deal with today!”

The stairs led into a small apartment above the shop. At his call, a small teen girl quickly set her book aside and hurried over to the kitchen stove. She withdrew the meal, turning the oven from ‘warm’ to ‘off’, and deftly served the food. The man entered the main apartment space, kicking off his work boots at the entryway just as she finished setting his filled dish in place. She froze, nervous, as he looked around the room. Apparently finding nothing to criticize, he sighed heavily and walked over to the table. “Have you finished the cleaning chores?” That was her first hint that he had found the space satisfactorily clean; otherwise, he would have started by pointing out the deficits. Yasuko let out a slight breath of relief, but kept her face carefully neutral.

“Yes, Outosama.”
“Did you have a productive day?”

“I did, Outosama.” Her father did not like to hear the exact same response repeated too many times. He had claimed that it sounded too much like insincerity.

“Don’t just say ‘yes’, talk to me,” he grumbled. Yasuko quickly tried to think of a safe response.

“I finished sorting the paperwork from yesterday’s repair jobs and set out tomorrow’s schedule before coming upstairs to start supper.”

He sighed again, mollified. “Alright. Shall we eat?”

To Yasuko’s relief, her father paid most of his attention to his food and his internal complaints. He didn’t start talking until the meal was over halfway finished. “Those idiots were supposed to bring in extra income. What did they think I was sponsoring them for? At least I won’t have to make any payouts to them. They can’t win cleanly, and they can’t even win dirty.” As she remained quiet, he began to take mild offense. “I know you’re named for peace and quiet, but you could at least pretend to care about this. It’s a financial setback. We won’t be able to afford much for a while.”

“I understand. I’m very sorry to hear it. We may not be able to go to the ocean at all this summer.” Yasuko didn’t really want to go to the ocean anymore. Her father seemed to think it an increasing imposition, but he did it anyway, and grumbled the entire time about how she had best be grateful since he was willing to do so much for her. As much as she liked the opportunity to leave her little home and garage and see something new, she had grown to wish that he didn’t bother.

“That’s definitely possible, especially if your school keeps bothering me about that lost laptop. They want me to pay for it. That’s completely unreasonable. If I could afford something like that, I would have just bought one out of pocket like the richer parents did. Did you look for it today while you were cleaning?”

Yasuko wanted to freeze. She knew that was the worst thing she could possibly do. “Yes, Outosama. I’m sorry. I will look again tomorrow. I will move all the furniture in my room.”

Fortunately, he let it go, and they remained in silence as the meal was finished and she took the dishes to wash in the sink. He turned on the old television in the corner and sat back, watching all his usual programs one by one. Yasuko made sure that everything was cleaned up and set back in place, then took a deep breath. “I am going to use the bathroom and then go to bed.”

“Don’t spend so much time in the bathroom. I swear, a girl of your age shouldn’t have such problems. I think you eat too much. If you keep taking so long, I will make sure your dinner is smaller tomorrow.”

“Yes, Outosama.” He hadn’t erupted, not tonight, but she knew that he was already disgruntled and she had better not push him. She slipped into the bathroom and paused for a moment, caught by her own curiosity. She wanted to find out. She wanted to know what happened so badly. She touched one of the panels on the bathroom wall, behind the toilet, a panel that her father did not know could be removed. At least, she hoped he did not know. If he did, she was pretty sure that she would hear about it very quickly.

But she did not open the panel. She didn’t dare to check tonight. Project D had been to Tsuchisaka a couple of nights ago, so she was pretty sure that they had updated the website by now. She wondered if they had set a new record for the course yet. She knew that at least one of them had won; otherwise, her father would not have been so angry ever since the race. She hoped both of them won. Failing that, she hoped that at least her favorite of the two had won.

She would sneak up to use the bathroom tomorrow, she decided, in the late mid-morning when her father had several repair jobs already lined up and would have no time to track her movements. Then, she would find out. She combed out her long hair, a honey-like color that was not quite ‘dark blonde’ or ‘light brown’, and wove it into a braid that fell past her waist. Then, she took down her toothbrush.

“Oh, Yasuko.” His voice came from just outside the bathroom door, startling her. “An offer came in today. I’m going on-site to meet a new client in about a week and a half. It’s late, and it’s a far distance, so I can’t leave you here this time. I’ll expect you to be on your best behavior.”

She took a moment to respond. She had to tamp down her feelings as quickly as possible. She hoped she didn’t let any hope or elation enter her voice. A night trip into another region could mean any of a number of things… but it might, just might, mean that she would get to finally see a street race.

She would watch anybody. But if she were very, very lucky, maybe Project D would be there.

Chapter Text

“That’s him,” said Takahashi Ryosuke, leaning back and pointing at his laptop screen.

His brother Keisuke stared at the screen, but all he saw was the main page for an auto repair shop. “What’s him? That isn’t either of the jerks who raced us last week. What’s this all about, aniki?”

It was a familiar scene. Ryosuke sat at his desk, while his younger brother perched on the bed and rested his arms on his knees. “When the Lan Evo team were willing to accept an alternate FD instead of calling off the race, I guessed that they were willing to go this far to win because money was involved. Since we’ve had to have a short hiatus while your FD was repaired, I started looking into the matter. Both of them are affiliated with this shop. It does a fairly brisk business, but it seems to have some interesting complaints levied against it. Take a look at this.”

Keisuke straightened up and leaned forward so that he could read the screen. “Shoji Shingo. He’s one of Mount Myogi’s Night Kids, isn’t he? This is from just last year. ‘Twisted metal contraption found in the seatbelt assembly’… That’s pretty weird. ‘Resolved satisfactorily’?”

“Or, as the documentation on the case shows, it was determined to not affect the operation of the assembly, so he couldn’t collect any damages. But this isn’t the only case when someone has raised questions about the quality of this man’s work. The odd thing is,” Ryosuke explained patiently, swiveling his chair to look back at Keisuke, “they’re all street racers, and nearly all of them are from the Gunma region.”

“So he’s gypping racers, specifically. And he’s been sponsoring the Lan Evo team. What are we going to do about it? Isn’t there something we can do about it?”

Ryosuke leaned back in his chair. “Maybe. It depends. We can establish a pattern, but with none of the cases decided against him, it isn’t really a pattern of wrongdoing. We’d need something to accuse him of, at least, before we could go to the police and try to collect any real evidence. I don’t think we’re going to find it in his shop. I wonder if we could take a hint from the Americans and check his records for tax evasion. That’s how they took down a notable criminal decades ago, when they couldn’t get him on anything else.”

"The police?” Keisuke was rather understandably hesitant on that point. “Aniki, would they really do anything about it? If he keeps getting away with this stuff, some of them have got to be involved.”

“I have reason to believe they would. He’s apparently managed to annoy some of the detectives on the Saitama Prefecture force. They think he’s connected somehow with the local yakuza, but they can’t really prove anything. ‘Slippery son of-‘… you get the idea. They even had all the surveillance up and ready to go at his shop once or twice, but they lost an opportunity and couldn’t justify it anymore.”

“But you’ve got a plan, right?” Of course he did. Ryosuke always had a plan. One of the things Keisuke admired most about his older brother was his intelligence. He would go silent for hours, maybe days, either working at his computer or lying on his bed with his eyes closed, and then he would know what he wanted to do. Just the fact that he’d reached the point of showing Keisuke what he had been up to was a good sign.

“Yes. That’s why I wanted to talk to you about this. We’re going up to Tsukuba tonight to check the next course. I invited him along to talk business. I can’t know if there’s an angle we can catch him on until I know more about how he does business. I claimed that I was interested in his work on the Lan Evos and wanted to know what he could do for Project D’s vehicles.”

“He’s not touching my FD-“ Keisuke interrupted hotly. Every time he closed his eyes for any length of time, he could still see that oil slick across the road. He hadn’t slept well, despite their decisive and multi-pronged victory.

“Not planning on it,” Ryosuke cut in smoothly. “Keisuke, I’m starting to play a long game. I don’t expect to put either of our star vehicles within his reach anytime soon. Not your FD, not Fujiwara’s Eight-Six. But I am going to need your cooperation tonight.”

“What do you need?” Keisuke shifted to a more defensive posture on the bed. He trusted his brother, and he’d do anything for his brother, if under protest at times. As long as nobody was touching his car tonight…

“I need you to be background,” Ryosuke told his brother sternly. “You kicked up a fuss at our last meet. I’m not blaming you-“ He held up a hand to forestall Keisuke’s reaction. “-but I hear he can be a powderkeg, and you’re a powderkeg with a short fuse, and I don’t need the two of you pinging off each other. I need you to be another Fujiwara tonight. Don’t approach us for anything. Don’t even glower at him from a distance. Stick with your car and do your runs. If you need to tell me something, send Tomiguchi or Fumihiro with a message.” He straightened up in his chair, a more authoritative stance. “It will be good practice for you, Keisuke. Your emotions aren’t a problem. They make you a better driver. But you need to control them. You’ve come a long way in just a couple of short years, and you’ve been doing your best work yet in Project D. But my goal for you is complete control. Not suppression, but control.”

“If he’s a powderkeg, are you sure you even want me to be there?” Keisuke grumbled. “He’ll probably recognize me, by description if nothing else.”

“Actually, I do want you there, not just because I need you to be familiar with the course,” Ryosuke explained. “Not glowering at him or accusing him, but just being present and being the person who intimidated the people his ‘associates’ tried to bring in against us. It’s a delicate balance. Too much pressure, and he becomes cautious. Too much incitement, and he may blow up or shut down. But with the right balance, we might expose his behavior in a way that we can track. I’ll induce him to be confident; you’ll entice him to defraud us. You won’t give him a reason to express his annoyance in any other way.”

That was more information than Ryosuke usually gave out at the beginning of one of his grand plans. “Alright,” Keisuke agreed. “I’ll practice being background. But I am going to start carrying a couple of good, sturdy wrenches in my car, within easy reach. Just in case.”

Ryosuke gave him a steady look, but raised no objection.

Chapter Text

“Cars hate this weather,” muttered Keisuke.

It didn’t take much of the drive up to figure that out. The sky had turned gray during the afternoon, and now it was mostly made up of flat, layered clouds. The air had turned markedly more humid, and the usual summer heat had faded until everything felt just a little chilly and clammy. He pulled into place and leaned back a little, watching as the Eight-Six pulled up beside him and the two vans glided into position. In his rearview mirror, he could see a small group of cars in the dim evening light and a few people standing in a group. One of them, standing a little apart from the others, was short. Upon a second look at the silhouette, he guessed that the short one was female. For a brief, worried moment, he wondered if it was that girl racer Kyoko. He realized just as quickly that the figure was too short to be her. Not that it mattered to him, of course. It certainly didn’t matter to him. He didn’t check surreptitiously at every race to see if she’d showed up again. Not that he’d needed to check, if he had, which he hadn’t, because she had obeyed his wishes and stayed away. His mind returning to the present, he opened his door and stepped out. His mechanic had already exited the van. “How’s the FD running today, Keisuke-san?” the man asked him.

“I thought it seemed slightly sluggish. Could be the weather got into it. Could be the weather got into me, and I was driving it a little weird.” Keisuke sighed and glanced over at the other group of people again. His brother was already approaching them, Fumihiro close behind. The short girl had drifted just a little further back among the cars they had arrived in.

“It might not be you,” Tomiguchi told him. “Yesterday, on my visual inspection, the third spark plug looked just a little ‘off’ to me. I have a full set in the van, of course. I figured I might pull and replace it tonight if you noticed a difference. Otherwise, well, we’re only doing practice tonight. I’d definitely do it before a race. Want me to do it now?”

Keisuke made a decision. “No. This whole situation is going to drive me crazy if I just hang around waiting to see if something happens. I’d rather drive than be driven. I’ll take it down for my first run and see if I still notice anything.” He glanced over to see his colleague opening the hood of the Eight-Six. “He’s getting something checked. I’ll head down now, and we won’t get in each other’s way.”

It didn’t take long for him to conclude that he’d made the right decision. He badly needed a good run, and this new course was certainly that. He noted the interesting feature of the bridge and watched the sides of the road in the dimming light for debris. He pushed the engine and felt satisfied with its response. On his way back up, he passed Fujiwara halfway through his own first run. Keisuke realized belatedly that he hadn’t been paying nearly enough attention to his gauges to make this a proper eighty-percent run. It didn’t matter, he told himself. This wasn’t really a proper run. He was just working his emotions out and testing the vehicle. He’d start his proper set once he got back. As he approached the parking lot, he noticed that the visiting group had moved into the light of Van One’s portable lamp. He pulled up within the lighting of Van Two and stepped out to speak to his people.

“How is it?” Tomiguchi asked him.

“Seemed okay. I think it’ll hold for practice tonight, but if you’d rather pull it now, go ahead.”

“Are you sure, Keisuke-san?”

“Yeah. I’ve got my jitters out now, so it’s up to you. What is it, Kenta?” Keisuke had noticed his protege turning his attention to something over their shoulders. “The meeting is over that way, by Van One.”

“No, it’s not that, Keisuke-san. Someone’s looking at your car.”

Alarmed, Keisuke turned to see the short female figure right next to his prized FD. The thought of sabotage flashed in his mind, but he immediately dismissed it. She wasn’t moving purposefully, and she wasn’t actually trying to do anything to it. Instead, she seemed drawn by it, like a moth to the light. She reached out towards it, hesitated, reached out again, hesitated again, and carefully touched the hood. For just a moment, he saw the glint of the lamplight in her hair and found himself reminded of Kyoko again. She had touched the hood with affection, not realizing that he was watching her. This girl, though, seemed awed by the car itself. Instead of stroking the hood, she ran her fingers up the frame and peeked through the driver’s side window. Kenta spoke again, startling him. “Think you should do something about it?”

“Yeah.” Slipping his hands into his pockets, Keisuke approached the car, trying to look casual and unthreatening. “Hi,” he said, and she immediately froze like a hunted animal. He put on a smile, trying to reassure her. “It’s okay. You’re fine. I guess you like the car.”

The girl stood silently for a moment, giving him time to study her. She wore an unbuttoned, short-sleeved shirt open over a long-sleeved tee. The ends of the long sleeves looked frayed from use. Her cargo pants were stained but clean. They were old, too, a little bit short, even on her spare frame, and thin at the knees. Her hair was very long, held back with a thick headband and bound in a loose, low ponytail with two more elastics paced down its length. Her eyes were a very dark brown, ending the comparison to Kyoko entirely. She didn’t give off the same air, either. Just as he wondered if she was going to speak at all, the words poured out in a torrent. “I love the car. It’s one of my favorites. And it’s yellow, too. I love yellow cars best. I’ve never been this close to a yellow FD before. It’s beautiful… and… are you… the actual driver?” Her eyes widened. “Wait.. What… who are you?”

“Isn’t that my line?” he asked wryly. “My name’s Keisuke. What’s yours?”

Instead of answering him, she started speaking by rote, as if reading a record from a paper or a screen. “Takahashi Keisuke. Member of the Akagi Red Suns. Uphill specialist for Project D. Yellow FD3S, Mazda RX-7. Brother of Takahashi Ryosuke. ‘The Rotary Brothers’.” She blinked again. “Oh!”

Keisuke wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that. “Oh?” He took another look at her and realized that she wasn’t actually very short. She was just young, surely not much more than sixteen by the look of her face. She also seemed nearly overcome with emotion, but he could already tell that she was not the typical fangirl with a crush. “Well, you’re right. Who are you?” he asked, his voice gentler.

“Oh. I am Yamamoto Yasuko. I’m…” She gave a short, wry chuckle. “I’m not as interesting as this car.”

“Yamamoto. I’ve seen that name. He’s here, right? He owns an auto repair shop.”

He meant it as a neutral statement, but he regretted it almost immediately. She pulled her hand away from his car as if it had been stung. “Yes,” she admitted in a small voice. “He’s my father. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come over here. I wasn’t invited.”

That was a strange enough response by itself. Her word for her father, outosama, also puzzled him. It was almost comically formal, but there seemed to be nothing comical about the way she said it. “I said it’s okay, and I meant it.” he responded carefully. “I don’t mind. You were drawn to the car, weren’t you? I’m used to that.” He didn’t want to scare her away. An idea flashed through his head. “Do you want to hear it?”

It was the right thing to try. “I’d love to,” she gasped. “If you really don’t mind.”

“Sure.” He popped open the driver’s side door, sat down, and turned the key. She made a berth around the doorway, staying well out of his personal space, and plunked both hands down on the hood. She closed her eyes and smiled. Finding himself enjoying her obvious enjoyment, he revved the engine a couple of times for her.

“It’s beautiful,” she told him, looking a little less like a frightened animal and a little more like a girl, just a teenager with an interest. “But… could you rev it for me again, please? For a little longer, this time?”

He didn’t mind. He gave it a few more revs and let her listen. She lowered her head, still listening, and nodded slowly. “I think-“ She paused. She had caught him mid-rev, and the engine sound had swallowed up her quiet voice. 

He turned it off and rose from his seat, leaning his arms on the top of the car and the top of the door. “Yes? Go ahead, Yasuko-chan.” He hadn’t meant to use the diminutive, but he realized that it fit - not so much as a ‘cute girl’, but as a small one.

She accepted the diminutive without comment. “I think one of your spark plugs is a little ‘off’. It sounds… I don’t know. I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m saying this. I’m sure you’ve got a mechanic who is a lot more competent than I am.”

Keisuke was as amused as he was surprised. “Well, you said it, so go ahead. Which one do you think we should change?”

Back to business. “I don’t know, Keisuke-san, but it sounds like one of the following ones. I would have to look at them myself to know for sure.”

“You’re a bit of a gearhead, aren’t you, Yasuko-chan?” Intrigued, he stepped around to join her at the hood. She didn’t shrink away this time. “Comes with growing up in an auto repair shop, I guess. Here, take a look. Don’t worry about checking the spark plug, we’ve already got that handled. You were right, by the way. It’s number three. My mechanic was trying to decide whether to pull it now or later.” He released the catch and raised the hood for her.

The last of her reserve disappeared. “It’s in beautiful shape! There’s the engine, there are the twin turbines…” She started pointing out each part, remarking on it. “I see a lot of good choices here. It isn’t just crowded with fancy stuff. Everything works together.” But as she pointed and reached, then withdrew her arm, he realized that the cuff of her long-sleeved shirt had been pushed up a little, and then he saw the bruise.

“Wait a moment.” Keisuke reached out and snatched her other arm, the one closest to him. She squeaked, starting to pull away out of instinct. He held it firmly, but not tightly enough to hurt her. He pulled up her sleeve past the elbow and saw a couple more bruises. He pulled it up further and saw marks on her upper arm. Suddenly, everything slotted into place - her startled animal behavior was an overactive fear response, her strange way of interacting with people was due to social isolation, even her fixation on his car was probably some sort of escape mechanism. He felt his fury rise. He tried to temper it. “Who does this to you?”

She swallowed, and her voice became tiny again. “I hadn’t finished the cleaning, and my father had a long day… he gets frustrated… I had done wrong, and it was the last straw…” She subsided, glancing down. Her arm started to tremble in his grasp.

The first thing he wanted to do was to grab her arms, maybe her shoulders, and get her to look back at him. Just as quickly, he realized that was the worst possible thing he could do to her. Instead, he grabbed hold of her other hand and held both her hands in his. It worked - she looked back up at him, startled, but not fearful. “That is not okay, Yasuko-chan,” he told her firmly. “This is not okay. You know that, don’t you? This is abuse.” He was nearly trembling too, now, from rage. “None of this is your fault.”

She dropped her gaze again, but not before he saw tears gathering in her eyes. “I know, Keisuke-san,” she whispered.

He took several breaths, calming himself down. “Do you want to stay with me?” he offered. This was going to probably blow his brother’s plan all to heck. But that couldn’t matter anymore. He couldn’t just let this go. “Come back with us. Aniki won’t mind, you’ll have a place for the night, at least, and we can figure something out tomorrow.”

The girl remained silent for a long moment, long enough that he thought she would agree. Then, when she looked back up at him, she seemed both composed and a little distant. His heart sank. “Thank you, Keisuke-san, for making the offer.” she told him. “I would have to go back again. It’s not as bad as it would be if I left and had to go back again. I had better go back now and be with the cars when they’re done talking. That would be the safer thing to do.”

“You wouldn’t have to go back,” he pleaded. “We’d work something out.” But even as he spoke, he suspected that she was right. What could they do, just for a few bruises? He knew that there had to be more, that she showed the signs of bearing with a lifetime of anger, belittling, and rapidly-shifting moods. He realized, holding her hands and wrists, that she was also thin for a teenaged girl. She probably wasn’t even eating enough. Could they prove that to a judge? But then she pulled her hands back, and he let her go. As she pulled her sleeve back down, covering the marks, his spirit flared up one more time in rebellion. “Wait. Stay there. Just for a second.” Quickly, he strode back over to the van, where the other two had been half-watching and now looked fully perplexed. “I need paper, something to write with, quickly.” They complied, and in a moment he was back by the open hood of his car with a folded note. “Here. If you need my help, if you change your mind and you want out, call me. Anytime. Call me, and I’ll come and get you right away. I mean it. Okay? Don’t be afraid.”

That brought back her smile. Her words poured out in a rush again, as if she had been wanting to speak them for a long time. “Thank you. You don’t even know… I’ve always loved the street racers. All of you. Will you tell the rest of them for me? I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do this again. But I’ve always wanted to meet one of you, and I’m glad that it was you. Whatever happens, I’ll always remember this. And I’m glad you are kind. I always thought you would be.” She started to retreat back to the other cars, then paused and turned back. She spoke softly, and he could barely hear her. “Takahashi Keisuke… you were always my favorite.”

As she turned her back, returning to the other group of cars, his shoulders slumped in defeat. He took down the prop rod and slammed down the hood. “What was that all about?” Kenta asked, finally approaching him. “What’s going on?”

“Tell Tomiguchi to hold off on the spark plug for now. I need to do my runs. I’ve waited long enough.” Keisuke knew his voice sounded harsh, but he couldn’t help it. “Don’t disturb the meeting. I don’t have a message to send to my brother. But as soon as it’s over, stop me the moment I get back. I need to talk to him as soon as I can, but after they leave.”

“Want me to ride with you, Keisuke-san? I can give your full message to Tomiguchi, he’ll flag you down,” Kenta offered. But Keisuke shook his head.

“I need some time.”

Kenta relayed the message, as he and Tomiguchi watched the yellow FD disappear into the darkness. “Something’s got him rattled about this girl,” he worried. “I wish he’d have let me go with him.”

“A year ago, I’d agree that he should have a ride-along in this state,” Tomiguchi replied. “But he won’t do anything foolish tonight. He’ll work out his temper. Or, we’ll find out what’s going on. Or both.”

Keisuke only finished one run before Kenta flagged him down and pointed him back to the parking lot, which was considerably emptier. He pulled his FD right up to the space between the two vans, where he saw Ryosuke standing with everyone except Fujiwara and his mechanic, whom he’d already passed on the road. He stepped out as soon as he’d turned off the engine. Ryosuke looked up as he approached, dropping the topic of conversation. “Tomiguchi said you needed to speak-“

Keisuke cut him off. “Right away. Yes. I’ve got our ‘in’, Aniki. I found his weakness.”

“What have you got, Keisuke?”

He stated it clearly and unequivocally. The run had helped temper his emotions, but it had not cleared the underlying anger. “He’s abusing his daughter, Yasuko. Physically and emotionally.”

That startled the others. He could see eyes widen across the group and a slight gasp from Kenta. Ryosuke didn’t startle, but his gaze narrowed slightly, increasing a notch in intensity. “Are you sure? Could you prove it in court, Keisuke?”

Keisuke faltered a little. “I… think so. I saw the bruises by mistake, she was hiding them at first. Maybe a court psychologist could prove the rest. She’s like a wild animal. Her speech and mannerisms are strange, and she has a pretty strong fear response.”

“You talked to her?”

“Yeah.” Keisuke rubbed the back of his neck, just a little embarrassed. “She likes my car.”

“We saw her,” Tomiguchi confirmed. “We didn’t hear their conversation, but we watched him rev the engine and raise the hood for her.”

“The yellow car, huh. It’s happened before,” Fumihiro noted wryly.

Ryosuke cut short the chatter and got back to the point. “Have you got anything stronger than that?”

Keisuke had to think about it. “Yes. When I saw the bruises, I told her that it was abuse. She agreed with me.”

He had finally managed to startle Ryosuke. “Keisuke, do you think she’d turn evidence against him?”

Keisuke shrugged. “I think she was one half-step away from leaving him tonight.”

“You’d better tell me more about that.”

Now, Keisuke was trying to keep from feeling silly. “I offered. I told her she could come with us. She turned me down, but I think she seriously considered it.”

“It’s not uncommon for an abuse victim to bond with the abuser. If she feels like she can’t leave him, she might not feel that she can do anything else that might hurt him.” Fumihiro pointed out.

“No, I’m sure it’s not like that,” Keisuke argued. “She said she’d just have to go back, and then it would be worse. I tried to say that we’d work things out, but you know how the system is. I don’t think I could give her enough hope.”

“She’d have to go back, and then it would be worse. Do you realize what that means, Keisuke? It means she’s tried it already.” Ryosuke fell silent for a long moment, his gaze growing distant. “Everyone get ready to move. Fumihiro, stop the Eight-Six. I’ll be right back. Don’t interrupt me unless it is vitally important.”

And with that, he disappeared inside Van One.

“What a mess,” Tomiguchi muttered.
“Keisuke-san did the right thing,” Kenta asserted loyally.

“I agree with Kenta,” Fumihiro replied gruffly, and then he turned and stalked over to the start of the course.

“Better not address the spark plug tonight,” Tomiguchi sighed. “When Ryosuke-san is in this type of mood, I don’t even want to chance it.”

“I hadn’t noticed it yet anyway.” With Ryosuke gone and the group buzzing with potential energy, Keisuke wanted to fill the silence even if it meant idle chatter. “We can leave the FD alone for tonight.”

“I’ll take care of it tomorrow in practice,” Tomiguchi offered.

Only a couple of minutes later, the Eight-Six rolled in beside the FD, and its occupants stepped out. “What’s going on?” Matsumoto asked. True to form, Fujiwara simply trailed behind and remained silent. Fumihiro stepped up and quietly filled them in. The tension continued to stretch. 

The others stood silently in a group, but Keisuke found himself leaning against the car, then perching on the guardrail, then sitting in the driver’s seat, then making a circuit around his car again. Kenta finally approached him. “Keisuke-san, you’re pacing.” As Keisuke turned to respond, a movement from Van One caught his eye, and in a moment everyone was focused on Ryosuke as he stepped down.

Ryosuke had shifted into full leadership mode. “Keisuke, how many runs have you had?” he asked.

“Two. One at eighty percent.”

Ryosuke glanced over at the other team, and Fujiwara spoke up. “Six, Ryosuke-san. Five at eighty percent.”

“Good. Keisuke, I want you here with both vans for a little while longer. Finish your runs. I want five more at eighty percent and one at full. Then, everybody head home. Fujiwara, I need a ride. I’ll show you where to go.”

“I don’t really need both vans,” Keisuke objected mildly. On the one hand, he felt as though he were being punished by being made to stay and do extra runs instead of driving with his brother to wherever he was going. On the other hand, he felt that he probably deserved it.

“I don’t want any of you to be alone out here tonight,” Ryosuke declared. “Keisuke, take Kenta or Tomiguchi with you on each run. Matsumoto, you could probably go home, but-”

“No ride. It’s alright, I don’t mind. I’ll watch the FD for a change.”

“Good.” Ryosuke climbed into the passenger seat of the Eight-Six, already issuing instructions. Keisuke caught the word ‘overtake’, but not much else. He watched the little panda Trueno speed off into the night.

“First run, eighty percent. Kenta, come with me and explain the course.” Knowing that his brother was on the case made Keisuke feel much better. He was finally able to clear his head and focus properly on his racing. The ride-along helped, too, more than he thought it would. Ryosuke had no doubt given that order on purpose and to his benefit. Ryosuke could plan anything. He clearly had everything figured out to the smallest detail. Keisuke wasn’t sure why nobody was allowed to be alone on the course that night, but there was certainly a reason for that, too. They concluded without incident, however, and the earliest light was beginning to dawn as Keisuke finally parked his FD next to his brother’s FC and dragged himself to his room for an exhausted sleep.

Chapter Text

Keisuke’s sleep was interrupted at its deepest point. It took him a moment to recognize his own bedroom and another moment to recognize Ryosuke crouching by his bedside. Everything still felt dream-like, and he shook his head a couple of times in an attempt to clear it. “Aniki. What time is it?”

“Too early for you. I wouldn’t have wakened you if it weren’t important.”

“How important?” Keisuke grumbled, sitting up in bed and glancing at the time. It wasn’t even quite noon yet. In response, Ryosuke handed him a small piece of paper that had been crumpled, smoothed out a little, and re-folded. He unfolded it to find himself staring at his own name and telephone number. The sight of his little note did the work of several cups of coffee. “How did you get this?”

“I’m going to show you,” Ryosuke told him, straightening up and heading for the door. “In my room. But you won’t like it.”

“What is this?” Keisuke sat down on the bed, watching his brother slip a tape into the VCR. Ryosuke had brought a large television and attached VCR into his bedroom. The television screen flickered and came up with a grainy view into a small living area, dim and still.

Ryosuke settled in his desk chair. “Security footage. I took your information straight to the detective who has been working on Yamamoto’s various cases. He’s been searching for a break. He had cameras in the shop already, but he can’t activate them without a compelling reason. I advised him to put one in the main living space before Yamamoto got home, and I gave him a reason to activate it. Then I joined him as quickly as I could, and we watched the live footage together in his trailer.”

“Fujiwara brought you, because I hadn’t finished my runs, right? Otherwise, maybe you would have taken me…” As much as he was sure that Ryosuke had done the right thing, that still burned just a little.

“No. Because we needed someone to make it look as though we were still there, and I needed one of Fujiwara’s unique skills. We had to get past Yamamoto’s people without him realizing that we had done it. An Eight-Six with “Fujiwara Tofu Shop” printed on the side isn’t much less identifiable than a yellow FD. But Fujiwara had already done two successful blind overtakes before, and he had more experience with the course. Last night made three, and it was the hardest one, because he couldn’t turn the lights back on until we had finished passing them. And, like I said, the yellow FD is very identifiable. Anybody who might have spied on us from a distance would have seen Project D practicing late into the night. I needed you where you were, doing what you were doing. If you’d finished, I would have assigned you more runs.”

The last of the sting faded. The brothers watched in silence for a moment. The audio pickup sounded before they saw any movement. Yamamoto was already bellowing in frustration in the stairwell. “Wait. He blew his stack last night? That soon?” Keisuke asked, surprised.

“That’s right, you were out on a run when they left. He walked away from me, reached the cars, growled at her for something I couldn’t hear, and slapped her across the face. I wasn’t sure how to interpret it. Once you mentioned a history of abuse, I understood. He wasn’t very cooperative last night. I tried to be subtle, but I think he may have suspected that I was probing. Either that, or he’s just becoming suspicious in general. In retrospect, I should have waited another month or two before trying to approach him.”

“You already knew the powderkeg was about to blow. So you talked to your detective friend right away, in hopes of catching the explosion on surveillance.” Keisuke fit the pieces together. “And used me as a sort of alibi.” Father and daughter had entered during his analysis, removing their shoes at the top of the stairs, and the father was obviously in a fit of temper. He grabbed her by the arms and shook her - Keisuke winced, remembering the sight of the bruises she still bore from the last time - and shoved her to the floor. He stalked over to the trash can near the kitchen area and tossed a crumpled bit of paper into it. As he took a slender wooden paddle down from the wall and she shrank back, Keisuke glanced away. “I don’t want to see this. I already know what’s going to happen.”

“I didn’t want to see it either,” Ryosuke admitted. “I’d spare you if I could, Keisuke. But I need your professional opinion on it. I’ve got my reasons.”

“Professional opinion? What am I a professional at?” Keisuke protested. It didn’t take him long to realize what Ryosuke meant. “Gang member stuff, is that it? Beating people up? That burns, aniki.”

“Sorry about that. I don’t like to remind you of it, either, and the last time you had to face it wasn’t long ago. But I need you to detach yourself as much as you can and tell me if there’s a method to his madness. I also need you to evaluate her response. You’re the only one of us who talked to her in person.”

Keisuke tried as hard as he could to watch the unprovoked beating of a sweet, innocent little teen girl with detachment and professionalism. “He’s going for the feet first. I think he thinks she’s a flight risk, and he’s trying to discourage movement.” After a moment, he felt the mask slipping. “Do we have to hear the screaming, too? Is he saying anything important?”

Ryosuke leaned forward and turned down the volume. “No, just a mixture of threats and mutually exclusive accusations. How far do you think she would walk in this condition? How would you judge her spirit?”

“She seemed pretty brave, considering her situation. I think, if she felt she had to, she wouldn’t let it slow her down as long as nothing was broken and she didn’t have any internal injuries. But I haven’t heard any bones…” The horror of Keisuke’s words caught up with him. “He’s still hitting her. Aniki, how could you have let it go on for this long? Why didn’t you do something?”

“I wanted to. The detective was the one who made the decision. He’s prosecuted thirty-five child and teen abuse cases, and won twenty-seven. I deferred to his expertise.”

“How could anybody not win a case like this?” Keisuke objected. On the screen, Yamamoto dragged the poor girl up and across the floor again. Despite the thrashing she’d just received, she was still active and trying to fight her way free. “What’s he - No!” The man had grabbed a kitchen knife. Keisuke bolted up from the bed to his feet. “Tell me he didn’t…” But although Yamamoto had initially held the knife closer to her face, causing her to freeze in terror, he apparently changed his mind. He pulled back her long ponytail and sawed it off instead. The remaining hair brushed against her shoulders, only held back from her face by the headband, as she slumped down and started to cry. “Stop the tape,” Keisuke ordered, furious. “Stop it.” Ryosuke hit the pause button, and Keisuke stormed across the floor, cursing like he hadn’t done in years.

“I know,” Ryosuke said after a moment, as the cursing started to subside. “I know, I really do. That was the end of it. Once he showed the knife, the detective pulled the trigger on his plan. The audio is turned down, so you can’t hear it, but someone’s knocking insistently at the shop door downstairs. Once he answered it, the police entered and took him into custody.”

“So she’s at the hospital, that’s why she isn’t here,” Keisuke assumed, finally starting to simmer down. “Why did you need my ‘professional advice’, then? What could I tell you that they couldn’t? Did I really have to watch this?”

“Yes, and you’ll have to finish it, once you’ve settled down,” Ryosuke told his brother sternly. “I told you, I’d spare you if I could.”

“It could have been worse,” Keisuke finally conceded, retreating to the bed. “But any girl with hair that long is going to suffer if someone else cuts it off. That was absolutely cruel. She was so happy last night. It poured out of her.”

Ryosuke silently unpaused the video. As her father left the room, Yasuko lifted her head. She was still sobbing a little, but she crawled over to the entryway and grabbed her sneakers. “Wait,” Keisuke protested. “What’s she doing? Your men are coming up to rescue her, right?”

“Right. But they haven’t started yet. Her father is shouting at them. I wondered if he’d been drinking in the car on the way home. He didn’t smell like it when I was talking to him. But he was being pretty combative for a sober person.” And meanwhile, Yasuko had apparently decided to take things into her own hands. She pulled on the sneakers and laced them tightly, then grabbed the door handle and levered herself to her feet. She froze for less than a second, then hurried for another area which Keisuke had taken for a window. It was, apparently, a windowed door, and it opened onto a fire escape. She hesitated, turning her head.

“Grab something, at least,” Keisuke insisted, as if she could hear him. “Windbreaker jacket…” She apparently had the same idea, because she looked at the coat rack first, then the trash can, then the kitchen. “Some water, some cash, anything.” But she cast a last fearful glance at the other door, then slipped out her door and closed it. “And she’s down the fire escape. But they caught her, right?” Keisuke turned to look at his brother as the screen showed the first pair of officers entering and starting to search the area. He froze at the look on Ryosuke’s face. “Aniki, they caught her, didn’t they?”

Ryosuke let out a heavy sigh and stopped the video. He turned off the television. “No. She slipped through their net and disappeared. We’ve had two city surveillance sightings since, and that’s it. Nothing for hours now. Keisuke, you talked to her. Where is she going? Where are her friends? Who does she trust?”

“Us,” Keisuke answered hollowly. “Street racers. It was the last thing she told me. She said she loves us all. She wanted me to ‘tell them’, as if we’re all on good terms with each other or something. But her locals are the Lan Evo team, and I really hope she’s got more sense than to go to them for anything.”

“Doesn’t she have a girl friend? Someone her age?”

“I doubt it. She didn’t talk like someone who has friends.” Keisuke rose and walked over to the corkboard hanging on the wall in Ryosuke’s room, noticing that it now had a map of the Gunma and Saitama regions printed out and tacked up over most of its real estate. He ran his fingers over a couple of blue pins already pushed into the map, recognizing the area. “Are you tracking the sightings?”

“Yes, I set that up last night. Hold on.” The phone had begun to ring. Ryosuke picked it up, announcing his name and listening for the reply. “Yes… Yes, thank you. Please keep me informed.” He switched off the phone, picked up another pin, and joined Keisuke at the map. He pushed it in, marking a spot some distance away from the first two. “Still image from a street camera. She’ll have disappeared long before they can get someone there. She’s making good time, considering that she’s on foot and injured. Keisuke, where is she going?”

“How should I know?” Keisuke asked, frustrated. He turned back to the map, studying the pins, forming a line that his eyes slowly tracked northeast. “You were always my favorite,” he murmured quietly, remembering the previous night. His finger traced the pins and continued up the map, following the line. “Akagi.”

“What?”

“Isn’t it obvious? She’s going to Akagi. Straight there, but sticking to the smaller roads and staying out of the cities. You’ve got the note I gave her. If she’d memorized my number, she would have found a phone and called it by now. She doesn’t know where we live, so she can’t come here. But she knows that Akagi is my home course.” He started pacing restlessly. “She had this weird way of greeting me. She told me my full name, my racer affiliations, and my vehicle information as if someone had made baseball cars out of street racers and she had one for me. She’s out there all alone, with no supplies and no resources, and this is only way she knows how to reach me.”

Ryosuke looked concerned. “Akagi is about thirty miles away. She’s never going to make it. It would take over a day on foot, well-rested and properly supplied.” 

Keisuke rested his head in his hands. “This is my fault, Aniki. I was trying to save her. Instead I got her the beating of her life, and now she’s on an impossible journey to find me. I’m going to wind up getting her killed.” He brooded darkly on that for a while, as Ryosuke remained silent. Finally, he risked a glance upward to see that his brother had shifted to a stilled, withdrawn mode.

“You said she’s going to Akagi. How sure are you?” Ryosuke finally broke the silence. Keisuke felt his blood pressure ease just a little. His brother sounded like he was formulating a plan.

“I would bet money on it. I’d bet a lot of money on it. She loves racers, but I’m the only one she has ever met in person. I was kind to her. She even pointed that out, and told me she was glad for it.” He glanced down, his voice dropping to an embarrassed murmur. “And that I was always her favorite. Why am I her favorite?”

Ryosuke couldn’t help smiling. “I don’t know, but she made a good choice. She reached out to you, and you noticed her. You cared about what she was going through and tried to help her. You must have given her the thrill of her life. But that’s not the only thing you gave her. You said last night that you couldn’t give her enough hope, but it looks to me like you did.” He traced the pins on the map, as Keisuke had done, and continued his trace around the thickest city areas and up to Mount Akagi. “You didn’t mess this up, Keisuke. This was already messed up. You gave me the way through. It’s a slim chance, but it’s solid. If I’m half as good as you think I am, I’ll make it work.”

Keisuke looked up at his brother, hope returning. “What can I do?”

“Go up to Akagi with Van Two and get that third spark plug changed. Do some practice runs on our home course. Stay in your lane - you’ll be working by daylight. You’re still finessing your pedal control. Grab something to eat on the way. I want you there as soon as possible. Put in several hours of practice. Don’t come home until dinnertime.”

“Practice? Are you serious?”

Ryosuke nodded, turning stern again. “I’m serious. Keisuke, you’ve decided to focus your life on racing. I know part of it is Project D, and I’m pleased that you’re willing to make that sacrifice for me. But the training, the legend, that’s not the only reason I’m doing this. I’m doing it for you, too. I want you to live the life you want, a good and full life, and that is going to involve more than just racing someday. You didn’t want to risk the distraction of a girlfriend, so you recently turned away a nice girl who wanted you. Now, there’s someone who needs you, and you can’t turn away. So I want you to go out there and practice focusing on your driving when you have a hundred doubts and worries circulating in your head. I want you to practice putting them aside. Or, when you’re taking your breaks, maybe talking them out with people you trust. You’ve got the uphill course record on Akagi. I want you to try to break it today. Your drifting will be limited, so it won’t be an easy task.”

“You think I should have a girlfriend?” Keisuke already had objections lining up in his head. Ryosuke shortcut them.

“No, I think you were wise to not take on a dating relationship this year. But you are going to want to do it eventually, and you shouldn’t have to give up racing for dating. I do think you’d have benefited from keeping a friendship with Kyoko. She’s already fast enough to challenge you when you’ve got new techniques to learn. You could have met weekly, or even monthly, and improved each other’s racing. And she could have learned a lot just by coming to your races. You don’t need to focus on her right now, though. You need to go out there and set a new course record when you’d rather try to fix the problem in the forefront of your mind.”

Keisuke didn’t like it, but he could see the sense in it. As he took a moment to get himself ready to leave the house, though, he could see another sense in it. The thought struck him so firmly that he peeked back in at Ryosuke’s door before leaving. “Aniki… if Yasuko can get to Akagi in some way that isn’t on foot, if she gets a ride or takes a bus, she’d get there today, wouldn’t she? While I’m practicing, maybe? Is that the other reason you’re sending me up there now and telling me to stay until suppertime?”

Ryosuke glanced up from his work long enough to nod appreciatively. “You figured it out. Just because I’m asking you to stop focusing on the problem doesn’t mean I’m not solving it myself.”

Buoyed by his brother’s reassurances, Keisuke headed down to grab something to eat and go do his runs. He put as much focus as he could into his driving. Between runs, he checked to see if anybody had made the trip up.

But she never showed.

By the time Keisuke returned for supper, he had not broken his course record. He had finally figured out how to tune his racing thoughts to his racing car. He did it by focusing on the sound and motion of his FD, turning his conscious flow from ‘internal’ to ‘sensory’, trying to pick up on every single little variation of movement on the course he knew so well, seeing if he could find patterns in it. When he told his brother, Ryosuke was pleased. “I don’t think I’ll ask you to practice tomorrow. I don’t know what will happen yet.”

After supper, Ryosuke led his brother back into the bedroom, where the printed-out map had been replaced with one that showed both terrain and streets. Two more blue pins had been added. “Her track didn’t make much sense to me until I switched maps. She’s not only on foot and staying away from urban centers, she’s also avoiding the roads themselves. Look at that - she had to navigate around a pond here, and a ledge over there. I thought perhaps she didn’t realize that the people surrounding her home last night were officers, but now I’m wondering if she is actually avoiding the police on purpose.”

“Why wouldn’t that make sense, aniki? You said she tried to leave him before, and it failed. That probably means that she went to the police, and they returned her.” Keisuke studied the map for a moment. “She’s doing well, but she’s bound to slow down soon. Unless she managed to get food and water somewhere. Even so, she’s all bruised up, so all those muscles will stiffen the first time she stops long enough to cool down.”

“It’s the cooling down that bothers me. We’re going to have rain tonight. Do you think she’ll keep going, or try to find shelter?” Ryosuke asked.

Keisuke took a moment to remember the girl’s personality from his short time observing her, and the way she looked as she put her shoes on and left her living quarters on the surveillance tape. “I think she’s going to keep walking. In the rain, without a jacket. At night. To be honest, I don’t blame her. I don’t think she has left herself another option.” Something was bothering him. Something tickled in the back of his brain, something Ryosuke had said that he couldn’t quite remember now. “She’s evading the police?”

Ryosuke picked something up in his tone of voice. “You said that made sense. What is it?”

“I don’t know.” He started pacing the room. “There’s something else, a connection I’m not making, but I can almost feel the shape of it in my head. Doesn’t this happen to you, too? How do you get through it?” Before his brother could speak, though, Keisuke realized that he already knew. He’d seen it time and time again, how his brother would retreat, close his eyes, and give orders to not be wakened unless it was important. Time to try it for himself. He threw himself down on the bed, tucking his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. The driving and the heavy meal had tired him out, and he felt himself slip almost into a doze. And then, just on the edge of sleep, he had it. The memory sparked up, and he could see Yamamoto’s website in his head as Ryosuke spoke about the police and... He catapulted up out of the bed and turned to see his brother giving him a strange, sort of amused look. “Yakuza. You said the detectives think he’s connected somehow to the local yakuza.” He blinked. “Is that how it happens to you, aniki? You’re almost asleep, and then you suddenly see it?”

“No,” Ryosuke replied, still looking back at him strangely. “It isn’t like that at all. But that doesn’t matter. Follow it up, Keisuke. Where is your thought going?”

“Into the gaps in-between.” Keisuke walked over to the map and traced the spaces between the pegs again. “If the detective is right, then she’s trying to dodge both the officers and the gangs. If she knows her father is involved, then she thinks that he’s called someone up to follow her, maybe to try to get her back.”

“From a holding cell? They took him too quickly to make a call.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Keisuke mused. “And I think I know how to find out.”

“I don’t want to ask you to do that, Keisuke,” Ryosuke told him, now alarmed. “I don’t want you going back in.”

But now, Keisuke was confident that he had an answer, and he felt clear in his head again, as he hadn’t felt all day. “I won’t. I’m not leaving you, and I’m not leaving my car. The gang was a draw because I needed to find a purpose. I have one. I’m going to go outside and make a phone call. I’ll come right back and tell you what I’ve got.”

Ryosuke let him go, but he also walked out to the window and watched his brother stand there, a small figure beside his little car from two stories down, phone in hand. Keisuke leaned against his car for a moment, resting a piece of paper on the roof and making a couple of notes. After a while, he turned off the phone and simply stood there, looking back up at the house. Then he headed straight back to the front doorway, and Ryosuke let out a breath that he hadn’t realized he was holding.

Chapter Text

“It’s not bad news.”

“The gangs aren’t involved?” Ryosuke offered. Keisuke glanced at the board for a moment. The only pegs on the board so far were blue. He picked up three pegs, all red, and consulted his notes. As he answered his brother, he set them in place, filling the spaces in-between.

“They’re involved. Sort of. Yamamoto doesn’t really have an ‘in’ with the yakuza. He might have a favor with one of the street gang subordinates who has a couple of his own men. Most of the street gangs in the Gunma region have no opinion of him. Of course, my contact was interested to find out that there was a connection between him and the Lan Evo team. He didn’t have a lot to give me, just that this single team of three were out looking for some runaway girl, and they’d had a couple of sightings already, but she kept slipping away. They complain about it pretty loudly, and they can be overheard.” He placed the last red peg three miles northeast of the previous most recent sighting. “There. About a half hour ago, they came into the main hideout, frustrated and intending to have a rest. Apparently, they cornered her at the stream right where I just put that last peg, and she decided to ford it. They didn’t follow.”

"She forded the stream?” Ryosuke shook his head. “I suppose she has no reason to stop for a little rain now. How deep was it?”

“I haven’t a clue. But I do have an idea.”

It had come to him as he’d been putting the pins into the map. He had already traced her future likely route to Akagi a few times. Now, with the terrain overlay, he could finesse his guess. Ryosuke had gone to his laptop to look something up, possibly information on the stream, but he paused instead of sitting down in his desk chair. “What have you got, Keisuke?”

“An overtake.” Keisuke pointed to the map as he explained. “The gang’s probably off her back tonight. I don’t think the police cameras work very well in the rain. If she’s as smart as I take her for, she’s going to make a push tonight, while she still can. She’s got to know that her strength is starting to fail. I expect that she’ll make it to that junction over there by morning, and the terrain will box her in. She can’t afford to go around. She’ll have to take the risk and go right through… this street, behind these houses, and in full view of that parking lot, there. I don’t expect her to make it before mid-morning, but I also don’t think it’ll take her longer than early afternoon. So that’s where I’ll be, sitting in the lot with my very identifiable yellow FD, ready to pick her up and whisk her to safety. I’ll even have something for her to eat as soon as she joins me.”

Ryosuke looked genuinely impressed. He paused for a moment, thinking it over, checking the plan in his head. “That’s a very good idea. I think you should do it. I’m going to make a couple of phone calls. While you’re waiting for her, I need to head out myself for a couple of meetings. I’m going to start by talking to the detective in charge of her father’s case. If he can pull back police pursuit and stick to personal surveillance, I think we can ease her journey and better induce her to take the risk. If nobody’s following her-“

“She may come out into the open. I’m going to call it an early night, Aniki. I’m already tired, and I need to be sharp tomorrow.”

The next morning dawned auspiciously. Keisuke found his brother’s room empty and the white FC gone. The map had another blue pin stuck in it, indicating a sighting right square in the middle of the path he’d hoped Yasuko would take. She’d been drawn right through the gap, just as he’d predicted. He hurried a bit, picking up breakfast for himself and a good meal for her on his way. By mid-morning, he sat himself down clear in the middle of a mostly-empty lot, just as he’d planned. This was a weekday. The lot did duty for several small businesses, but none of them were terribly attractive to teens - one of them was a showroom for kitchen and bath renovations, for instance, and another was an old used bookstore - so he didn’t expect traffic until after the workday. Sure enough, the lot remained empty as he sat back, alert at first, then bored, checking the time every ten minutes, taking a couple of walks around the lot, listening, starting up his car and revving up the engine a few times now and then.

But she didn’t show.

Keisuke waited past the point where he thought she could possibly make it. Then, he took a moment to take stock and try to figure out what to do. He pulled out his mobile phone and called Ryosuke, but his brother wasn’t answering and he didn’t know why. He leaned back in his seat, his frustration rising. He made another walk around the parking lot and tried revving the engine again. It was no good. Then, his phone did ring, and it was Ryosuke. “You can’t do any more good there. Either she took another path or something else happened. I want you to go home, check the messages, and be there in case someone calls with more information. I need you to be me for a moment and see if there have been any more sightings. It was a good plan, a very good plan, but at this point, I’d say it’s dead in the water.”

He complied, as much as he hated it. But first, he took the bagged lunch he’d planned for her and set it against the little tree marking a small garden area near the middle of the parking lot. He knew that was littering, and he would likely be identified on street camera. He might be fined. He didn’t care. It was the only thing he could think of that he could still, maybe, do for her. Or maybe a random person. Or maybe a wild animal in the small patch of forest nearby. But it was still a chance, just another blind chance to throw at this quickly-failing situation, and he would take it.

No messages awaited Keisuke at home, and he found himself pacing the house instead of pacing the parking lot where he could have potentially been more useful. Two hours later, his phone buzzed and he practically pounced on it. It was Ryosuke again. Keisuke had nothing to report, but he did confess his small act of littering. He expected some sort of scolding, but his brother didn’t offer any. Ryosuke simply reported that he was heading home to regroup. He sounded tired. For the first time, it occurred to Keisuke to worry about his brother. The past couple of days had been a strain on both of them, and he had been focused on the missing girl who was, no doubt, in greater peril and worse shape than both of them. He paced again, waiting. Ryosuke was late. Keisuke was very glad to see that white FC finally slip into place. His brother did look very tired, but he carried a satchel and walked with purpose. As Ryosuke entered, Keisuke realized with a start that he had shadows under his eyes. “Aniki, when have you been sleeping?”

“Enough,” Ryosuke answered unconvincingly. He reached into his blazer pocket and offered Keisuke a curved object, damp and dirt-stained, a dark green quilted headband. “Do you recognize this at all?”

“No… Yes. Maybe.” Keisuke took it, examining it. “Yasuko was wearing a headband when I met her. I couldn’t really see what color it was in the dark. I wasn’t paying enough attention to notice whether she was wearing it on the surveillance tape. Where did you find it?”

“I stopped by that parking lot on the way home, to clean up your litter,” Ryosuke explained wearily. “I found the headband by the tree. The bag you described was in the trashcan at the edge of the lot. Every bit of packaging in it was completely empty and folded neatly. I barely saw more than a few crumbs at the bottom.”

Again, an object offered by his brother did the work of several cups of coffee. Keisuke looked up, eyes wide. “Wait. Do you think she ate the food and left this for us to find? For me to find?”

“I think it’s likely enough to double-check.” Ryosuke wandered to his bedroom. He dropped the satchel on his desk and dialed up his phone. “Yes, I’d like you to check something for me. A parking lot, surveillance camera, fifteen-hundred to seventeen-hundred hours. Better make it fourteen-thirty to seventeen-hundred.”

As he spoke, Keisuke’s phone buzzed, and he snatched it up. It was his old street gang contact, the man who had briefly confronted him at Tsuchisaka. The man had news. “They thought they would have her, staked out this one spot for hours. She never showed, and now they’ve come back in disgust. They’ve got this idea in their heads that she’s headed for Mount Akagi. They were also trying to agree among themselves over whether they saw you in the parking lot, as if you were waiting for someone. One of the subordinates seems a bit nervous. You think it’s time to tell me what’s going on, Keisuke-san? I don’t like running into this blind.”

He had a point. Keisuke retreated from his brother’s room and wandered just outside the house. He took a breath and spoke in a low, urgent voice. “Amada, just between us, this is bad news for you and for them. This man Yamamoto is going down. I think he’s going down whether she gets caught or not, and I don’t think she’s going to get caught. She’s trying to reach me. As soon as she does, all hell will break loose. If she doesn’t reach me, it’ll still happen, it’ll just take longer. Once he goes down, anybody who has influence with him is going down with him. You don’t want to be on that list when it happens. I’ll do what I can to shield you from notice if your name comes up, for the sake of old times.” He hated throwing his weight around like this, just like old times. It brought up bad memories of a time when he blustered in public and felt completely lost in private.

“Are you asking me to go after them, Keisuke-san? Say the word, and I’ll guarantee every gang member in Gunma will know she’s your girl and not to be touched.”

It was tempting, but Keisuke was beginning to understand how it felt to be his brother and think about all the potential unintended consequences in every step he took. “No. Fade back. Keep your people out of sight and out of notice. Don’t mention me, either. If you want to spread a word, spread this one: Yamamoto is a bad bet. He’s toxic, and anybody associated with him should be nervous. If this one group decides to make another try anyway…” Keisuke really hated doing this now. The satisfaction he used to get from his old position had crumbled to ashes as his brother had drawn him into the racing world instead. “…I’ll handle them myself. I won’t need the help.”

It worked. His contact seemed entirely intimidated and cautious as they ended the conversation cordially. Keisuke realized, as he put his phone back in his pocket, that his hands were trembling a little. He decided that he was simply hungry. He strode back into the house and made his way back to his brother’s room to find that Ryosuke had fallen fast asleep in the desk chair. And, for just a moment, Keisuke felt just as lost as he had in the street gang.

He had no idea what to do, so he did what he could. He played ‘older brother’ for once, carefully guiding Ryosuke from the chair to the bed and covering him with a blanket. He took a red pin and stuck it deep into the map at the parking lot. He sat down heavily in his brother’s chair, in his brother’s place, his phone and his brother’s phone laid out side-by-side, and leaned back. After a long moment of staring at the far wall and feeling utterly helpless, he found his eyes slowly starting to close.

Chapter Text

Keisuke startled awake, disoriented. He had heard something, a clinking sound. Before his vision fully cleared, he realized that he smelled food. He straightened up a little in the chair where he had fallen asleep. A blanket had been laid over him at some point, and he grabbed at it instinctively as it started to fall to the floor. His phone lay on the desk next to a tray with a fresh breakfast laid out on it. Ryosuke’s phone was missing. He looked up to find Ryosuke himself standing by the desk and looking back at him. His brother had changed clothes, and his hair was damp. He also looked considerably more alert and relaxed than before. Ryosuke spoke first. “I’m alright, Keisuke. Thanks for looking after things last night.”

“I didn’t do that great a job, did I?” Keisuke muttered, trying to get his bearings. “Is that your breakfast?”

Ryosuke shook his head. “It’s yours. I already ate. You did a fine job. You picked up every call that came through, which was none. I fell asleep before I could put my information in, but you’d already covered it. I woke up a couple of hours ago. There wasn’t much point in bothering you. There’s really nothing we can do.”

“How can there be nothing we can do?” Keisuke asked. As much as his mood usually affected his appetite, the food was tempting him. He had missed supper. He leaned forward in the chair and slid the plate closer. Ryosuke reached past him and moved the laptop well out of the way. “Aniki, what else has Yasuko got, if we can’t do anything?”

Ryosuke smiled slightly, settling on the edge of the bed in a strange reversal of the brothers’ usual pose. “A full meal and drink, a clear field, and her wits. Our detective friend confirmed on the street camera what I’d already suspected. She didn’t stay in view while she was eating, but she returned to throw the garbage away properly and leave her headband for us to find. Since then, no sightings. Nothing at all, anywhere. No sign of pursuit, either.”

The news filled Keisuke with more hope than he’d felt since the previous morning. “Do you really think she’ll make it? All the way up Akagi to the course start?”

“Not unless she has at least one more stroke of luck,” Ryosuke answered, his face turning solemn. “The stress is too much for her. Not enough sleep, not enough food, and not enough shelter. She’s young enough that she can weather most of the usual ill effects. Probably the first concern right now is that it could affect her heart. She might be having palpitations already from stress and dehydration, and she could develop an irregular heartbeat from there. If that happens, she’ll lose her strength quickly and collapse… somewhere. She needs a break. Anything. But she’s isolated herself so well, I’m not sure how she’s going to get it.”

“That’s a lot of medical language,” Keisuke noted. “Have you already learned about all of this?”

“Yes,” Ryosuke told him. “But that’s not all. I went to see Outosan at the hospital yesterday. I needed his help for the paperwork, and I asked his professional advice while I was there, to make sure of my guess.”

Keisuke remained silent, in a turmoil of feelings. They rarely saw their father anymore. He worked such long hours that he slept in his office half the time. Even when he was home, he tended to arrive after they left, go to bed before they came in, and leave again before they got up. He had also given up on Keisuke several years ago, and that still hurt. Ryosuke was possibly the only one who had spent any time with him in over a year. “Keisuke,” his brother said, breaking into his thoughts. “I still need Yasuko to agree and sign them. But if she does, then everything falls into place. Right now, we have to wait for her to re-emerge. Once we get a sighting, anywhere, we can make something work. But meanwhile, you’d better eat, and you should probably catch a shower of your own.”

The house phone rang nearly an hour later, mid-morning, as Keisuke wandered back towards his brother’s room after his shower. Ryosuke was already using his own phone, so he picked up the house phone. He didn’t feel like being polite or useful. “Keisuke,” he simply said in short greeting.

“This is Fujiwara. I need to speak to you or Ryosuke-san urgently.”

That was probably the last person Keisuke had expected to hear. Ryosuke turned off his own phone, having ended his call, and looked up at his brother curiously. Keisuke passed the handset to him. “Fujiwara. Urgent.”

“This is Ryosuke. Yes? Yes. What?” Ryosuke paused for a moment, listening. “Absolutely. I’m putting this call on the speaker phone. Keisuke’s right here.” He waved for Keisuke to sit down. This time, per normal, he sat in the chair and Keisuke settled on the bed. The voice on the other end wasn’t Fujiwara’s anymore. It was squeakier and nervous.

“-Takeuchi Itsuki, I’m Takumi’s friend. I’ve seen you at street races sometimes… I’m, uh, the idiot with the Levin, and…”

Ryosuke eased the poor fellow’s misery. “I know you, Takeuchi Itsuki. You’re one of the Speed Stars. What do you need to tell me?”

“I think, I mean, Takumi thinks… I saw a strange girl this morning, and I went to tell him about it just because it was so strange, and he said you’re looking for a strange girl, and he said that I need to tell you everything about this right away.”

“Can you describe her?” Ryosuke asked carefully, Keisuke was glad that nobody expected him to speak. He shifted closer to the edge of the bed.

The question seemed to clear the poor kid’s head. “Yes, she’s shorter than me, and she has dark blonde hair. It’s shoulder-length and looks kind of ragged and uneven. Her eyes are this really pretty dark brown. She was wearing pants with holes in the knees, and a short-sleeved shirt over a long-sleeved shirt, and old white sneakers, all dirty, like she’s been on a really long hike. She was kind of thin and a bit shaky. She wouldn’t tell me her name, but when I introduced myself, she did something strange.”

“Takeuchi Itsuki, Akina Speed Stars,” Keisuke broke in ruefully. “Junior member. Drives a white Eight-Five with a new turbocharger.”

“Why, that’s just what she said. How did you know that?”

“Never mind,” Ryosuke broke in. “You have our attention, Takeuchi. What else did she say?”

“Well, I had stopped for a bite to eat, because I was doing errands, that’s not really very important, though, the thing is, I came out and she was touching the team sticker on my car. She asked me if I was a racer, and I said yes and tried to do introductions. But she wouldn’t say anything about herself. She asked me to please give a message to Takahashi Keisuke from Project D. Uh… she looked like she needed help. I told her that I knew him, sort of, that I could give her a ride and take her right to him. I mean, I don’t know where you live, really, but I thought I could go to Takumi, and he’d know… but she refused. I think she really wanted to accept. But she said it wouldn’t be safe.” He sounded puzzled.

“She should have accepted. But she might not be wrong about your safety. Did she give you the message?” Ryosuke asked patiently.

A pause, as Itsuki tried to figure out what Ryosuke meant about his safety. “Oh. Yes. She said that she knew where to find ‘Keisuke-san’, and that she hoped she’d be there by evening. And she said that she ate lunch. I don’t know what she meant by that, but it reminded me, I had my breakfast here, and she hadn’t said anything about supper, so I asked her if she’d like to go in and have breakfast with me, we were right outside a deli, but she didn’t think that was safe, either. And it all didn’t feel right to me, I didn’t think I could just let her go, but what could I have done?” His voice turned pleading. “What could I have done?”

“What did you do?” Keisuke asked, much less patiently than his brother. His tone seemed to snap hapless Itsuki back into a more useful mode.

“I told her to hold on, and don’t run off. She backed away when I came to the car, but then I put my stuff right down on the hood and told her to take it for breakfast. I gave her my jacket, too. She looked cold. She didn’t want to take it and said something about not being a thief. I said that if she was meeting Takahashi Keisuke, she could give it right to him and he’d give it to Takumi and he’d give it right back to me, no problem.”

“So did she take it?” Ryosuke asked.

“Yeah. Two donuts, and a large iced tea,” Itsuki replied mournfully. “But it’s okay,” he offered, brightening. “I’m right in back of a fried tofu shop. I’ll get something here. I just hope I did the right thing. I hope I helped… somehow. I think she thinks I did. She thanked me a couple of times, and said something else weird, ‘Itsuki-san, I think I’m going to make it now.’ And then she looked around like she saw something that scared her, and she ran off into the woods.” He took another breath, clearly heard through the phone. “And… that’s it.”

“She took the jacket, too?” Keisuke asked.

“Yeah, I’m here in my shirt sleeves. It’s chilly this morning, but that doesn’t matter as long as it helped her,” Itsuki answered stoutly. “I know Takumi will lend me something.”

Ryosuke remained silent. He had clearly lapsed back into ‘planning mode’. Keisuke took up the job of answering the hint. “Itsuki, I’ll be plain about it. You might have saved her life this morning. You did it - you gave her the break she needed. You also gave us the tip we needed. I understand her message perfectly.”

Ryosuke spoke up. “Takeuchi, I need you to bring a message to the rest of the Speed Stars. Tell them that Takahashi Ryosuke is asking them to come to the Akagi course tonight for a large, casual race. See if you can get the word out to as many of the usual spectators as you can, too.”

“On a weeknight?” Itsuki squeaked.

“Yes. I know it’s sudden notice and very unusual. I would like to see arrivals at 8pm, and I’d like to start lining up the cars at 9pm. We’ll try to get everyone home before bedtime. Project D is arriving early. But don’t mention this ‘strange girl’ to them or anybody else you know. You told Fujiwara and you told us. That’s enough.”

“Alright, Ryosuke-san,” Itsuki answered nervously. “But why?”

Keisuke was tired of beating around the bush. “She’s running away from a criminal because he abused her. She thinks someone is following her, and she’s probably right. She’s already trusted us to meet her. If word gets around about her, if anybody else figures out where she was this morning, you’ll be putting her life in danger.”

“Are you having fun with me?” Itsuki asked suspiciously. “Are you serious about this? Takumi, are they serious?” Takumi apparently did not respond in words, but Itsuki seemed convinced as his voice returned to the phone. “No way! This is way cooler than real life.”

“Itsuki…” Keisuke had no patience left.

“I’m sorry, I won’t say anything, Keisuke-san, Ryosuke-san, I won’t breathe a word about the girl, I’ll just say that Takahashi Ryosuke sends the message, and Project D will be there, and I’m going to be there, too - do you think there would be autographs?”

Keisuke groaned. Ryosuke answered, amused. “That’s not a bad idea. We need to draw a crowd. I’ll be notifying the other local groups, the ones we can trust. Oh, one more thing. Can you give us the address of the place where you saw her?”

“Sure.” As he gave out the address, Keisuke wandered over to the board and chose a green pin to push in place. “Uh, what is this all about? Criminals and runaways and all? Can you tell me? I promise I won’t tell.”

“I’ll tell the people I need to tell, at the meeting tonight,” Ryosuke said patiently. “But you’ve earned an early hint. Have you ever done business with ‘Yamamoto Auto Repair’?”

Itsuki turned indignant. “Sure have! I bought my car from them! I mean, I love my car, and it’s a great car, especially now, and I’m sure it’s as much as I deserve. But they really did lead me to believe it was an Eight-Six.”

“You’re not the only one they’ve gypped,” Ryosuke told him. “Alright, I need to do a lot of planning. You know what I need you to do.”

“Talk to Iketani Senpai and bring the Speed Stars to Akagi tonight by 8pm. And keep a secret. I won’t let you down, I promise.”

“Alright. Thank you, Takeuchi. Fujiwara, are you still listening?” Ryosuke asked.

“Yes.”

“Can you make it by four?”

“I have work today. I can make it by five.”

“That’s fine. Thank you. I’ll see you this afternoon at Akagi.”

Fujiwara Takumi was not one to run on at the mouth. “Understood.” And the line went dead.

Keisuke wanted to move. He wanted to pace, to dance, to hug his brother, to make this work. He took another look at the map, at the pin he had put in, and very nearly startled. “She’s right at the foot of the hill. If she were in good shape and taking the road, she could be there within two hours. Aniki…”

Ryosuke joined him and rested his hand up on his younger brother’s shoulder. “Go. Keep your cell phone with you. Take Van Two. Go up to the top and wait at the parking lot there. Send someone for food in the afternoon - I don’t want you or your pretty yellow car to leave the course today. Don’t start any runs yet, though. Remember, you were practicing on it just the day before yesterday during daylight hours, and Akagi isn’t a closed course.” He held up his phone with the other hand. “Yet. And I have some ideas about that. Keep in touch.”

As Keisuke was leaving, he heard his brother’s voice on the phone again. “Yes. Nakazato. Yes, this is Takahashi Ryosuke. I need to call in a favor.”

By eleven in the morning, the uphill specialist half of Project D, vehicle, driver, and support, had set up shop and were waiting for news.

By two in the afternoon, Ryosuke had updated them and said that the Gunma police had taken the unusual step of agreeing to close the course starting at six.

By five in the afternoon, Tomiguchi and Kenta had returned with food, just in time for Fujiwara Takumi to pull into place.

By six in the evening, Ryosuke had joined them in his white FC. He ordered Fujiwara and a reluctant Keisuke into their vehicles to start doing runs up and down the hill.

By eight in the evening, Keisuke had his run interrupted by the entire contingent of Speed Stars heading up to the summit. Annoyed, he put on a burst of speed and overtook each one separately, pulling well into place before the first one could arrive. It felt good, but not good enough. The sky darkened, and the air buzzed with voices and car engines.

And yet, she still had not showed.

Ryosuke seemed untroubled. He brought the leaders of the various racing teams together in the lighting of the vans. Itsuki stood between Takumi and Iketani, looking as though he was not entirely sure he was supposed to be there. Nakazato, having been taken clear off his usual schedule by this odd meeting, sipped at a strong coffee that he had purchased on his way up to Akagi. Meanwhile, Ryosuke patiently explained the real reason they had been brought together. “I can’t give you all the details. We finally have a set of lawsuits that are going to take this place down, and all of them hinge on Yamamoto Yasuko, this one runaway girl. She might bear his name, but she is his first victim, so I don’t want to see anybody intimidating her or complaining to her about her father. She’s afraid of almost everything right now, but she loves street racers. She loves all of you and, though she won’t recognize you on sight, she probably knows all of you by name. I’m hoping to draw her out of hiding. If anybody, you, any of your people see her, our point of contact is Keisuke, so alert him right away. He’ll be staying here, near the Project D vans. Let me give you her description and explain the way she greets racers.”

Keisuke didn’t need to be reminded. He wandered to the edge of the light and stared out at the forest surrounding the parking lot. His brother had certainly drawn the asked-for crowd. Some fellow had even pulled up in a truck and started offering cans of soda and packaged ice cream for sale, something Keisuke couldn’t say he’d ever remembered seeing at a street race before.

Near the outskirts of the crowd, on the far side from the Project D vans, Shingo leaned on his car and stared out into the night. He shifted position slightly. He thought he heard something, or saw something. With the darkness and the hum of the crowd, it was nearly impossible to tell if he had. He startled slightly as he realized that someone stood near him, but it was only his reluctant colleague returning from the mysterious briefing. “Something bothering you?” Nakazato asked.

“Yeah. Someone’s out there. Someone, or something. If I were to guess, I’d say some sort of scout and a few others back in the bushes.” If he stayed away from the headlights and streetlights, he could almost make out a slowly approaching figure. “I wish I had better night vision. I can about make out a figure, kind of short.”

“Better than mine,” Nakazato murmured. He took a sip of his coffee and set it down on the hood of Shingo’s car. “Short figure. Female?”

“Can’t tell by movement. The gait is pretty unsteady.” Suddenly, Shingo felt a bit nervous. He disliked feeling nervous. “Like some sort of evil spirit.” As soon as he said it, he wished he hadn’t.

“And someone behind the figure?” Nakazato prompted. Shingo took a moment to think about what he’d seen and heard.

“Backup, maybe. Couple of… people? Things? Maybe just animals. Tell me I’m not imagining things.”

Nakazato pulled a minimag flashlight out of his pocket and turned it on. He directed the thin beam around until it clearly highlighted the dilapidated-looking figure of a girl. Shingo drew in a sharp breath. “You’re not imagining things,” Nakazato said flatly. He thought back to the briefing. “Get a weapon and back me up.”

“What do you mean, back you up? What kind of weapon works against an evil spirit?” Shingo opened his car door and, after a moment’s thought, grabbed a tire iron out of the toolkit he kept on the floor of his back seat.

“She’s not an evil spirit, you idiot. But there might be people after her. I’ll go to her. You deal with them, if they appear. Or, at least, start dealing with them and give a yell. There are enough people here to deal with just about anything, as long as they know there’s something to deal with.”

Shingo looked particularly nervous about this, but Nakazato knew that Shingo had built an entire image of ‘cool’ around not being a nervous person. He also knew that, for all Shingo’s faults, he was dependable in a pinch. Shingo stepped out and to the side as Nakazato headed straight for the female figure. She just kept moving forward, step after step, not even processing her environment anymore. He turned off his flashlight and slipped it into his pocket. She listed forward with her next step. Before he had consciously realized that she had begun to fall, he stepped up and caught her. Quickly, he pulled her back towards the crowds. He stepped into the light of the headlight beams from Shingo’s car and knelt down with her to check on her. She seemed conscious, her eyes open and unfocused. Meanwhile, Shingo continued to back up towards them slowly, keeping his tire iron ready. “Hey,” Nakazato told the girl, hoping to get some sort of response. “I’ve got you, it’s alright.”

It worked, sort of. Her eyes widened in fear. She tried to struggle, but she was too weak. “Who are you?” Her voice was weak, too. He belatedly realized that, if there were people after her, she probably had no idea that ‘I’ve got you’ really did mean ‘it’s alright’.

He called out to the nearest person, a bystander he didn’t recognize. “Hey, you. Go get Takahashi Keisuke right away. It’s important.”

“Who?” the hapless fellow asked. He was a young man, just another watcher, possibly not even a driver. “I-I’m sorry, I don’t know anybody here, I came to see the cars.”

“Well, you’re in the right place tonight,” Nakazato grumbled quietly. He raised his voice. “Takahashi Keisuke. Over by the Project D vans. They’re the only people who brought vans, see? He’s the blond one. But hurry. Go!”

The young man took off like a shot, and Nakazato turned his attention back to the terrified girl. “I said it’s okay. I’m a racer. Alright? You’re among racers, Yasuko. My name is Nakazato. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Her struggles stilled. “Nakazato Takeshi. Leader of the Myogi Night Kids. Drives a black GT-R, a Nissan Skyline.” She paused for breath. “Notable for a grip driving style.”

That cinched it, Nakazato thought. This was definitely the right girl. He looked up, realizing that Shingo had joined them. “Whoever’s back there, they aren’t showing themselves,” Shingo reported, looking relieved. “What’s this all about, then? Who is that girl? Is she real?”

Nakazato snorted. “She’s the one we’re having this whole party for. I’ll explain it to you in a moment. She’s real enough.” He checked her pulse, two fingers gently pressing at her neck. “But she’s in trouble.”

“Keisuke-san?” she asked tremulously. “Is he here?”

“I know, you came looking for him. He’s here. I’ve sent someone for him. You try to rest, okay? He’s coming.” 

His reassurance helped. Her body began to relax, and she became a little more alert. “That’s not your car,” she said suddenly, shifting position and trying to point towards the headlights. “It’s not a GT-R. It looks like a Civic. Not a type R, either, right?”

He glanced up at Shingo. “You’re right. It’s a red Civic. You can’t really see the color in the dark. It belongs to another racer. My car is over there.” He gestured the best he could while holding her up in the beams of the headlights.

“Red EG6.” She closed her eyes, then opened them again. “Like Shoji Shingo.” At that, Shingo startled again and looked back at Nakazato, clearly alarmed.

“Are you sure she’s real?”

“Shut up. I’ll explain later. Get your head out of your superstitions.” Nakazato turned his attention back to the girl. “Yes, that’s Shingo’s car, he’s here too. We’re all here.”

A little bit of light came back into the weary girl’s eyes. “May I touch it?”

Chapter Text

A hapless bystander, having heard about a big racing event announced mysteriously last-minute and eager to get a look at some real street racers for once, was abruptly accosted by a stranger with scary-looking eyes and sent off to ‘the only team that brought vans’ to find the ‘blond person’ named ‘Takahashi Keisuke’ and bring him back over.

Well, at least the vans weren’t that hard to spot. He shouldered through the crowd, looked around helplessly, and spotted a guy about his height with straight blond hair standing near the passenger door of a gorgeous yellow racing car with its driver’s door open. “Hey!” he called, hurrying forward. “Excuse me, please! I’m sorry!” To his relief, the young man turned in the direction of his call. “Takahashi Keisuke?” he asked breathlessly.

The young man didn’t answer right away. From the driver’s seat, another man unfolded himself and stood, towering over both of them, glaring sharp-eyed at the poor fellow. “Yeah?”

“Uh…” The bystander skidded to a stop. He brainlocked and speechlocked at the same time, staring up at the tallest man he had ever seen.

The grumpy young man with spiky blond hair gave him an impatient look. “I’m Keisuke. What is it?”

“This scary-looking guy with weird dark eyes asked me to come and get you. He has a girl with him, and-“

“Probably Nakazato. Thank you.” The blond guy, just as scary-looking in his own way, headed straight off in the correct direction. The bystander stood there, wide-eyed, watching him go. Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He yelped and whirled to see the other blond guy, the one closer to his height.

“What was that all about?” the not-Takahashi Keisuke blond guy asked.

“I really don’t know, I don’t know anybody, I didn’t mean to do anything, I just came for the cars…”

Kenta took pity on the poor fellow. “Well, that’s a heck of a welcome to the racing world. Here, let me show you around a little.”

Meanwhile, Keisuke made a quick circuit around the outside of the gathering, heart pounding, looking for anything unusual. There - two people, down on the ground in front of a car’s headlights. In the light, it didn’t take long to recognize them. Yes, there was Nakazato, kneeling down and supporting a smaller figure. And there she was… the linchpin to Ryosuke’s plan, the lost teen, the one who had taken the hope he’d given her and run much further with it than he’d ever anticipated. She had her hand resting on the car’s bumper. Nakazato explained a bit sheepishly as Keisuke reached them. “She wanted to touch the car. I figured, why not? This is Yasuko, right?”

“Yes.” Keisuke knelt down, taking hold of her free hand. As she startled and turned to face him, he captured her other hand from the car’s bumper, holding both of them as he’d done the first time he’d met her. “Yasuko-chan. Hey. I’m here. You found me. You came to the right place. You need me.”

She focused on him. “Keisuke-san. I’m sorry… you said I could… I don’t mean to be a problem… but you said you would help me…”

“I meant it,” he told her wholeheartedly. “You’re not a problem, Yasuko-chan. But you need help, and that’s what I’m here for. That’s what we’re all here for. We’ve been trying to reach you.” Acting on impulse, he reached in and under Nakazato’s supporting arm. He gathered her into his arms and pulled himself to his feet. He wasn’t sure how she would react to the extra, unexpected contact, but she didn’t protest. “No more walking tonight, Yasuko-chan.”

“You’ve got her?” Nakazato asked, rising to his own feet. “Need help?”

“I’m good, I don’t think she’s all of forty kilos.”

“Seriously, that’s too thin. Her pulse feels off, too. Kind of fluttery.”

Keisuke glanced back at Nakazato, worried. “Like an arrhythmia? Or palpitations?”

“How should I know? I know it isn’t right, but I don’t know how it’s wrong. I didn’t know you knew.”

“I don’t,” Keisuke admitted. “Better get her out of here right away.” Without waiting for an answer, he started carrying her straight back to the Project D vans. Both Nakazato and Shingo trailed behind. By the time he reached the aura of the portable lighting, he already knew what he needed. “I’ve got her. She needs medical care. I need to get her to the hospital as quickly and gently as possible. I don’t think gee forces will be good for her heart. My FD had better be ready to go.”

“Hey,” Nakazato offered. “Let me. I use a grip technique, remember? I can bring her in quickly and without drifting all over the place. It may be an easier drive.”

“Do you know where to go?” Keisuke asked.

“Sure,” Nakazato answered wryly. “I’ve wiped out in the Akagi area before, I know where the hospital is.”

“That’s not very reassuring,” Keisuke started. He was interrupted - for the second time that day - by the same, unexpected source.

“This one’s my job, Keisuke-san. I’ll take her quickly and carefully. Just show me where to go.”

Both men glanced over at Fujiwara Takumi. He had suddenly spoken in a voice that, though quiet as usual, held a strong tone of authority that neither of them were used to hearing from him. “What?” Keisuke blinked. “Why is this your job?”

Takumi offered a wry half-smile and gestured to the company signage on the side of his Eight-Six. “I deliver tofu.”

It was hard to argue with that. Keisuke settled Yasuko into the passenger’s seat of the Eight-Six. The Speed Stars kid, Itsuki, appeared at his elbow and offered him a car blanket to wrap around her. Kenta also stepped in, handing him a fresh bottle of water from the stash they kept in the vans. As he started carefully helping her drink it, he heard his colleague outside asking Nakazato for his coffee. Perplexed, Nakazato handed it over. Takumi removed the top and handed it back to the bemused racer. The cup was filled to the two-thirds mark. Takumi reached almost absently toward Itsuki, who readily gave up his can of soda. Nakazato winced as Takumi poured soda into the coffee until the liquid reached within about an inch of the top of the cup. Settling himself into the driver’s seat, Takumi placed the cup in the cup holder. “Need a cover for that?” Keisuke asked, having missed the entire ritual.

“No, this is just right. I’m ready, but you’ll need to lead me. Don’t slow down unless you’re losing me. I can’t keep up with your full racing speed, but I can go pretty fast.”

“How fast should I start?”

Takumi gave it a moment’s thought. “Seventy percent.”

As he finished tucking her into the seatbelt, Keisuke noticed that Yasuko had started to get that fearful look in her eyes again. “Don’t be afraid, Yasuko-chan. I’ll be just ahead of you. You can trust me. I wouldn’t leave you with anybody I didn’t trust completely.” On impulse, he seized hold of Takumi’s hand and laid it over hers for a moment. He took a moment to remember how she identified racers, and tried to arrange the relevant information in his head. “Fujiwara Takumi. Akina Speed Stars. Downhill specialist for Project D. Eight-six with a modified engine and ‘Fujiwara Tofu Shop’ written on the side. He’s going to drive so gently that you won’t even feel it. Alright?” Takumi was a little startled at the unexpected contact, but he didn’t pull back. He looked at her face, then back at Keisuke, and seemed to understand that this needed to be done.

“Okay,” she murmured, relaxing again. “But Fujiwara Takumi isn’t part of the Speed Stars. He’s unaffiliated.”

Takumi nodded wryly. “She’s right. I don’t have a sticker, I don’t think I ever actually joined.” He gently withdrew his hand. “Sorry. I’m going to need this for driving.”

The support staff for Project D worked quickly to clear a path for the two vehicles. As Keisuke headed for his own car, Ryosuke intercepted him. “Good work, Keisuke,” he greeted his brother. “We’ve got her. When they ask for her address and medical payment information, give them mine. Make sure the supervising doctor gets this.” He offered Keisuke a piece of folded paper. “It’s very important. It’s a police document. They need to document her injuries for the abuse case. They’ll probably have to kick you out of the room for that, but otherwise, stay with her. I’ll join you once I’ve got this mess all sorted. Have Fujiwara stick around, too. I’ll send him home when I arrive.”

“Should you check her heartbeat?” Keisuke asked.

Ryosuke shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what I find. The answer for every situation is to get her to the hospital right away, and you two will arrive there long before they’d get an ambulance up here.”

Keisuke had a lot on his mind, but he couldn’t help sparing a moment of curiosity. “Aniki, what are you planning to do with the rest of this mess?”

Ryosuke grinned. “Give the fans a race to talk about. All of us, together, in one huge run, starting in reverse order by ability and reputation. It’ll be a sight to see, but you’ll miss the whole thing. Get moving.”

The yellow FD glided out, followed by the Eight-Six. The two vehicles fell into a close pattern, and tires squealed as they both drifted into the first corner.

“Alright.” Ryosuke addressed the leaders of the various racing groups again, once his staff had gathered them back together. “We’re going ahead with the setup I mentioned earlier. I want all of you to group your people by driving ability and speed. I want all ‘C-rank’ drivers lined up first, with ‘B-rank” starting to form up behind them. I know I haven’t given good definitions for these categories, but you know your people best, and I don’t want to interfere with that. ‘A-rank’ needs to assemble as soon as C-rank has gone and B-rank is lining up to start. Anybody who has issued a serious challenge to any Project D member is definitely ‘A-rank’. I will be the last one to start. Remember, this is not an official race. It’s for showing off. Nobody should be using this race to settle challenges, though I have no doubt people will be paying attention if some of you do better than expected. We will have people checking the order of racers as they pass the finish line, and we will post the results on Project D’s site with the same disclaimer in place. Alright, go - Nakazato, Shoji, Takeuchi, hold on a moment. I’d like you to follow me to the hospital once the race is over. I’ll wait at the bottom of the hill and lead you. Don’t dawdle on the route.”

Shingo sulked just a little. He’d wanted to demand that he be ‘brought in’, and here he was, being ‘brought in’ before he could make his demand. He turned to Nakazato as Itsuki stammered his acquiescence and hurried off to join C-rank. “He’ll wait at the bottom, will he? You think he’s going to start at the back of the group and wind up in front of all three of us by the end of the run?”

Nakazato himself was still a bit disgruntled about the sudden loss of his coffee. “You think ‘the White Comet of Akagi’ won’t?”

Meanwhile, Ryosuke gave the last instructions to Kenta, the only support member not actively rounding up C-rank. “I don’t want any of you left up here alone. Once I’ve entered the race, I want the rest of you to pack up and get these vans moving, before the crowds dissipate. Go home. I’ll call you if I need you. Otherwise… get some rest.”

There was no denying that Takahashi Ryosuke’s strange last-minute racing meet was a huge success for the fans. First, the Project D racers had come through, doing this impressive high-precision run with multiple parallel drifts, their drivers apparently fearless, the cars within barely an inch of each other. Then the main event itself had started, with multiple overtakes at every corner as the best racers worked their way through the average and mediocre racers. Surprises abounded; some of the lesser-acknowledged racers had done considerably better than expected. Itsuki, for example, had started in C-rank and had sailed through the finish line in the middle of B-rank, just ahead of Iketani. The camera image showed him staring straight ahead, his eyes wide and fixed in shock and horror, and he was still bubbling over about it as Ryosuke led them to the hospital doors. They had found the Project D vehicles parked in the back of the lot, and now there were six semi-famous racing cars all lined up in a neat row. Ryosuke herded them to the side of the doors for a moment, for a semi-private talk. “I already told all of you that this girl, Yamamoto Yasuko, was looking for us and that she was being abused by her father. This is the rest of the story. We have surveillance and other evidence of the abuse. If she agrees, the very detectives who have told you that they couldn’t bring Yamamoto to trial will be able to charge him. As part of that, they should be able to both keep him confined - he was arrested three days ago - and to do a full search of his home and business. Yasuko might also have evidence of his other misdeeds. This will start as an abuse trial, but it will probably result in more. Now, I asked for you in particular because I need your help to keep her safe while she’s here. There might be corruption in the Saitama police department, and there might be other people following her, people who are interested in shutting her up. I don’t think we can hide her location while she’s in the hospital, and there’s a real possibility that they may follow up.”

“Yakuza?” Itsuki squeaked quietly, horrified.

Ryosuke’s lips thinned slightly. “No, not officially. Just a couple of toughs. But I’d like to keep someone in the room with her, and someone else watching for suspicious people entering the area.”

“I’m on shift soon,” Shingo demurred. “I’ll be out in nine hours.”
“I have tomorrow off,” Itsuki offered.
“I’m free,” Nakazato admitted. “I just need another coffee.”

“Shoji, you’d better go now, then,” Ryosuke offered. “Takeuchi, you too. I might want to contact you tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, I’m not important enough to be addressed like that, you can call me Itsuki. I’ll give you my number. I just… I don’t know what to do if… Why me, Ryosuke-san? I’m not tough. I’m not scary like these other two.”

“No,” Ryosuke admitted, “but you’d probably be good at keeping a lonely girl company. You’ll have backup. All you’d have to do is holler.”

As the intrepid group minus Shingo made their way through the main hallway of the emergency room area, it didn’t take long for them to spot Takumi leaning in one of the chairs in a small visitor area, dozing off. He opened his eyes as they approached, and he offered Nakazato the coffee cup as he rose.

“Why do you think I wanted this back?” Nakazato objected, repulsed. “I saw what you did to it.” But Takumi held out the cup wearily, so he shrugged and accepted it. Itsuki wanted to talk to his friend, but Takumi took a moment to debrief Ryosuke first.

“Yes, it’s this room over here. The medical staff kicked us out when they did their checks, but Keisuke-san went back in as soon as they let him. The doctor wouldn’t tell me anything.” Takumi stifled a yawn. In the near background, Nakazato took an experimental sip of his drink, then a longer one. Itsuki gave Nakazato a horrified side-glance.

“Alright, thank you, Fujiwara. You’d better go home and get some rest. I might be asking you to come back here on a rotation and keep an eye on things. You remember what I explained to you earlier this afternoon.”

“I remember. I’m working tomorrow afternoon, but I’ll be up in the morning.”

“I know. Nakazato, do you need anything?” Ryosuke asked, watching the dark-eyed man settle into Takumi’s chair. In the background, as the two friends wandered away, Takumi’s patient voice interupted Itsuki’s excited chatter.

“You’ve been modifying your car and practicing every day for over a year, Itsuki. Did you think you weren’t going to get any better?”

“It’s not bad, actually,” Nakazato answered. “I’m good. I’ll just drink my… caffeinated beverage… and enjoy the quiet for a change.”

Keisuke met his brother right inside the door. “I heard you outside. She’s sleeping. I don’t want to wake her.”

“You look pretty tired, yourself,” Ryosuke noticed. “Fujiwara said the doctors wouldn’t tell him anything.”

“No problem.” Keisuke glanced back at the girl lying quietly in the middle of the bed. “It’s not an arrhythmia. Just palpitations. He said dehydration and exhaustion. They’re testing for malnutrition and other things. Aniki, she’s barely fifteen. Did you know she was that young?”

“Of course I knew. I’ve got paperwork for her, but if she’s really exhausted, I don’t think it would be wise to try to get signatures on it yet. We don’t have a lot of time, though. They won’t hold her father indefinitely.”

“Yeah.” Keisuke glanced back at her again. “But give her as long as you can, alright? They chased me out before they took their pictures, but I saw enough. Her feet look pretty bad.”

“I’ll do what I can.” Ryosuke sighed. “And I have some things to clean up first, anyway. Can you stay here and keep watch? I’ll be back early in the morning.”

“Yeah.” Keisuke rubbed his hand through his hair. “I should be able to stay awake.”

“You’re not alone. Nakazato replaced Fujiwara. I’ve got him waiting outside, because he looks scary. And you in here, because he looks scary.”

“And you don’t want to scare her. Think he’ll stay awake?”

Ryosuke permitted himself a smile. “Given what he just had to drink, I think so.”

Chapter Text

“Yasuko, hey… Yasuko-chan…”

She opened her eyes to see the inside of a hospital room. She’d seen them before - not often, but every now and then. Her mind was still a bit muddled, but she already felt clearer than she had in days. The man speaking to her was fairly recognizable. She’d seen him at the meeting days ago, where she had dared to approach her favorite street racer. She had seen him again a few hours ago, near the vans, when she was trying to figure out whether she dared work her way closer before stepping out into the open. Of course, that didn’t mean that she knew for sure who he really was. She glanced to the side, whimpering slightly. Her protector had carried her away and stayed with her - where was he? No, he was still there, he was in the chair beside her bed, but he had slumped slightly to the side and his eyes were closed.

“It’s alright,” said the man in front of her. “Don’t wake Keisuke. He’s had a long night. Don’t you know who I am?”

Yasuko decided to offer her best guess. “You were in charge, the other night. Takahashi Ryosuke. Uh…” She stopped short.

“Go ahead,” he told her gently, looking amused.

“Is it weird?” Yasuko asked. “People act weird when I do it.”

“Does it matter if it’s weird?” he asked her in return.

The words had been lining up in front of her eyes anyway, whether she spoke them or not. “Akagi’s White Comet. Leader of the Akagi Red Suns. Leader of Project D. A white FC, Mazda RX-7… and… I’ve read the words, I’ve said them, but I… it’s weird, I never really understood them before. ‘Brother of Takahashi Keisuke’. That means… you’re actually his brother. You have the same parents. You grew up together.”

“Yes. We live in the same house.”

“Which one of you is older?” Yasuko asked curiously before she could stop herself.

Ryosuke didn’t seem to mind that, either. “Go ahead, what do you think?”

“I think he’s taller. But… you seem older. More… I shouldn’t say it.”

“He can’t hear you,” Ryosuke told her kindly. “He won’t be offended.”

This man seemed to already understand what she was going to say. “More mature,” she squeaked. He chuckled lightly, but he kept his voice quiet.

“You’re not wrong. Don’t be too hard on him, though. Yasuko, we’re going to help you the best we can. We’ll help you no matter what you decide to do this morning. But depending on what you do, we might be able to help you better. Your father… has been into some shady dealings.”

Yasuko swallowed a little, frightened, but Ryosuke’s eyes were kind. “I believe you,” she admitted. “I’ve seen things… and I’ve heard things. I thought he would get in trouble before now, but it never happens. Even when I…”

“Yes, I thought you’d tried to leave him before. This time is different,” Ryosuke asserted. He reached down, picking a satchel up from the floor, and pulled a small stack of papers out of it. “I’m not going to force you to sign anything, of course. And no matter what you do, if you want us to protect you, we will. We’ll do anything we can to keep you from going back. But if you’re willing to help us, you could wind up helping yourself, too. I hate to push you on this. I was hoping to do it a different way. But I’m afraid I’m running out of time.”

Yasuko accepted the papers. It was a little hard to hold them with the IV in her hand, but she glanced through to see a fair bit of legal jargon and titles she couldn’t quite grasp. “I need to understand what this is before I can sign it. I can read it, but the language is not familiar to me.”

“Alright.” He started pointing to sections of the document as he spoke. “This is the main one. It places you temporarily in my custody. That part makes me legally responsible for everything you are, this part makes me legally responsible for everything you need, and that part over there makes me legally responsible for everything you do. There’s a lot of complicated wording, but that’s about as simple as I can make it. The others all depend upon it. You see, if I’m legally responsible in all ways, that makes me able to pursue legal action on your account, which means that I can prosecute for abuse on your behalf. And this one, in the interests of recovering your property, is permission for a full search and seizure… which might give us the information we need to uncover any of your father’s shady deals.”

She remained silent, thinking this over, trying to process the import of what she’d just been told. She felt a flash of fear as she struggled to understand it - Outosama was always angry with her when she took longer to respond to him - but Ryosuke simply remained quiet and watched her think. This was a big step, if she understood it properly. “If I sign these… I become ‘Takahashi’ and not ‘Yamamoto’.”

“Temporarily, yes. We might be able to make it permanent, depending on how the trial goes. But one way or another, I don’t think he’ll be able to take you back. You might be adopted by another family, a nice family, and that might be better for you. But for now, if you sign, I’ll be your legal guardian in all respects.”

“And Keisuke-san, he’ll be…”

That gave Ryosuke some thought. “It’s hard to explain, exactly. Sort of like a big brother, but also sort of like an uncle. I don’t think I could give you a clear answer. But he’d certainly be part of your family. I know I haven’t had the chance I wanted to earn your trust. But it’s pretty clear that you trust him. I won’t lie to you. I want you to know precisely what you’re agreeing to. I would have the final say and make the decisions on your behalf.” He smiled, his face softening a little. “But I listen to Keisuke. And I promise that I will have your best interests in mind.”

“And it keeps me away from him.” That was the part that really mattered. Yasuko thought over the past years, the past months, the past weeks, the past days. Her body didn’t hurt all over like it had before, but she could still move her arm out from behind the blankets, and she could still take off the soft little hospital socks they had put on her feet, and see the welts and bruises right away if she needed the reminder. But even without the physical pain, she could remember the fear, the ongoing, everpresent fear. She might still be frequently afraid with this new man, but she could not imagine needing to feel the same ongoing, oppressive undercurrent of fear with him. She seized the offered pen, flipped through the paperwork, and wrote her name on each highlighted line. She had never signed anything before, so she wasn’t entirely sure if she did it right, but Ryosuke accepted the paperwork back without correction or rebuke. “It’s done, then,” she ventured. “Takahashi Yasuko. Right?”

“You can call yourself that. I’ll call you that, if you’d prefer,” Ryosuke told her kindly. “Thank you. I need to meet with the detective on Yamamoto’s case and start that search right away, before he can get himself released from custody. Do you know anything that would help us? And is there anything you want us to take for you? Your bedroom furniture, maybe?”

Suddenly, Yasuko’s heart started pounding. Her father - Yamamoto - didn’t know. Maybe the detective wouldn’t know. Maybe it wouldn’t be found, there, behind the panel in the bathroom. Maybe it would, and then she would be in terrible trouble. When she had signed her name so easily and transferred her deeds to the Takahashi name, she had temporarily forgotten about the crime she’d committed. She tried to focus. He was more interested in her father’s misdeeds, wasn’t he? Where did her father keep his records? “He uses the main computer in his office, and I write out the paperwork. But I have seen him take another account book out of a locked drawer in the desk. He told me it was for special orders, and I was not to bother with it.” That was all he really wanted, right?

Apparently, it was. “Thank you, Yasuko-chan. That will be a great deal of help. I’ll let you rest, but I’ll be back later today. I want you to know that I’m keeping people here, people I trust, to keep an eye on you and make sure you’re safe. You will always have two guards, one inside your room and one in the hallway where he can hear you.”

“Who?” Yasuko asked, startled. “How do I know you sent them?”

“They’re all street racers. You’ll know who they are. Right now, I’m leaving Keisuke here, and Nakazato is in the hallway. Alright?” Ryosuke rose, and Yasuko realized that he was going to leave.

“Okay,” she answered in a small voice. He gave her another smile, then started for the door.

He didn’t know. He didn’t ask. He wouldn’t find it. Unless he did. But if he didn’t, then it would be the same as if she’d lied to him. That was no big deal. She’d lied to her father whenever she could get away with it. Except now, it was a big deal. She had a new family name. She shared it with two important people. She shared it with her favorite street racer. Ryosuke was nearly at the door now. He would go away, and he would not know. This was the most horrible feeling she’d ever had, worse than the fear, worse than the helplessness. They were kind to her, they’d done nothing but reach out to her. He opened the door. She tried to speak, but all that came out was a squeak. He started to slip outside.

“Wait!” she gasped out in desperation.

It worked. He paused, waited patiently for a moment, then stepped back into the room and closed the door. “Yes, Yasuko-chan?”

The words came out in a rush. “I’ve done something terrible.”

That also worked. He walked back to her bedside with a measured stride. His voice was very calm and even. “What have you done?”

She didn’t know if she could say it. He waited patiently while she tried to collect her words. “I stole a laptop. They issued it to me at school. And when the school year ended, I hid it. In the bathroom, behind the toilet, one of the panels is loose. You can’t tell by looking, or even by tapping. You have to slide it. It’s the second one to the left. Behind it, you will find the stolen laptop.” She took another breath and went for broke. “And my written diary, from before I had the laptop.”

Now she was shaking and near tears, trying as hard as she could to control herself. If he shouted at her, even if he scolded her, she didn’t know how she would respond. But he remained utterly calm, unmoved, with no change of inflection in his voice. “Why did you take the laptop, Yasuko?”

She knew she had better tell the truth. “Because it was my only way to hear news of the racers.” Having admitted the most terrible part, she found herself speaking more easily. His face did change, but he didn’t seem angry, so she pressed on. “They don’t come to the shop anymore. Nobody comes but the Lan Evo team, and they never have any news, no stories that I want to hear. I check the Project D website every day that I dare. My father said I spend too much time in the bathroom, and he gives me less to eat for supper, but I have to know. I can’t miss out.” Ryosuke looked thoughtful now. She didn’t know how her face had changed and the light had come back into her eyes. “He was so angry, I knew something good had happened, but it was days before I could find out that Project D won both races at Tsuchisaka. I hadn’t been able to check again before we left, and I met Keisuke-san in person, and then…” She had rambled too much, she thought, given him more than he’d asked for. She turned quiet. “I’m sorry, Ryosuke-san. It was wrong of me. I didn’t care, and that was wrong, too. You’ve given me a new name, and already I don’t deserve it.”

Now they both fell silent. Ryosuke was the next one to speak. “I’ll need to make this right. You understand that, don’t you? I will return the laptop to the school.”

“I understand.” Her voice was steadier than she thought it would be.

“And I will return your diary to you.” He shook his head slightly as she knew her surprise showed clearly on her face. “I won’t read a girl’s diary. That’s a breach of privacy, and a breach of trust.”

But she already knew what it contained, and what he needed to do. “I give you permission. Please read it. It has a lot of silly things in it, and I don’t know what you’ll think of me when you’re done. But I have put you in charge of me, and you are handling my legal matters, so I think you will need to know everything that is in it. The laptop username will already be filled in, it’s Yamamoto and a dot and Yasuko, and the password…” Another breath before she plunged in. “Is the word ‘butterfly’, capitalized, and with an exclamation point at the end. Just… I hope you won’t think too badly of me, when you’re done. And please, please don’t tell Keisuke-san about the laptop.”

Ryosuke’s eyes darted up and to the side, where Yasuko knew that his brother was sitting as he’d fallen asleep. He looked a little startled, almost slightly alarmed. His voice remained calm. “If you don’t want me to tell him, I won’t tell him. Why don’t you want Keisuke to know?”

Wasn’t the answer obvious? “I did something terrible. You have to know, because you’re in charge of me. And I’ll accept your punishment, whatever it is.” Her voice started to break. She took a moment to try to force it to steady. “But I don’t want him to… to not like me anymore. I don’t want him to be ashamed of me. I’m afraid of what he’ll think of me if he ever finds out. I’m so sorry, but please, please don’t tell him.”

His expression had turned to pity, an emotion she had rarely seen in her isolated life. She let out a shaky breath. “You should tell him,” Ryosuke told her. “I won’t. But I think you’ll feel much better if he knows.” He couldn’t seem to help his wry smile. “Keisuke is not as easily embarrassed as you think. He’ll take it in stride. Thank you for coming clean about this. I am not going to punish you for it. I will set it right, so you don’t need to worry about it anymore. Is there anything else you need to tell me, before I go?”

“No, Ryosuke-san,” she breathed out, and that was the truth. He reached out and gently pressed her hand, then turned and walked away. This time, she let him leave the room. She leaned back against the pillows, letting out a couple more shaky breaths and closing her eyes. She opened her eyes again, turned her head, and nearly stopped breathing altogether. Keisuke was sitting full upright in his chair, alert, eyes widened a little, looking straight back at her!

“I heard everything,” he said simply. “You woke me up when you said ‘wait’.”

She simply did not know what to say. “I… I’m sorry…”

“Why?” he asked sharply. “I’m not. You were trying to survive, Yasuko-chan. What’s it to me, if you took a school laptop in the process? You should have stolen food, too, when he shortened your supper for it. You haven’t got a spare ounce on you as it is.”

“I did take food sometimes,” Yasuko admitted quietly. “When I thought I could get away with it.”

“Good! You should have done it more often!”

“But the family name… You have to understand, I never thought that I could disgrace my own, and I never thought I’d have to worry about disgracing another…”

Keisuke snorted. “If the ‘Takahashi’ name is that fragile, it’s already ruined. Yasuko-chan, you don’t really know what I was like before I took up racing. I got into so much trouble that my own father won’t even speak to me anymore. Aniki never gave up on me. He’s the only one.” He sighed and smiled wryly. “I’m the one who has to worry about you not liking me anymore. I’ve done worse things than steal a school laptop. I’m not proud of it now. But I’ve done far too much to my own life to be ashamed of you. Okay?”

“Okay,” Yasuko answered hesitantly. She took a moment to study him and started to feel her heart rate decline. “Ryosuke-san was right. I feel much better now that you know. I… never wanted to be a bad girl. You believe that, don’t you? I just didn’t care. There was no point in caring. And I just wanted to be… something. I wanted to…” She ran out of words.

“I think I know why you said I’m your favorite,” Keisuke responded quietly.

“Oh. Yes, It’s because…” She glanced down, embarrassed, but his eyes were kind when she met his gaze again. “…because you’re… alive. I mean, obviously everyone’s alive, and I keep hearing that all good street racers have a ‘spark’. But it’s not just a ‘spark’ with you. You’re active, moving, always pushing back. You argue and you get upset.”

“It’s not just that, Yasuko-chan. When I was your age, I felt confined. I was full of energy, and I had nowhere to put it. I got bored and I got frustrated, and I just wanted to escape. But the more I tried to ‘get out’, the more closed-in I got. I’m doing better now, but I’ve got a reputation as a hothead, and it isn’t undeserved. I embarrass my family and I embarrass myself. I’m definitely not the coolest street racer. But you’re like that, too, aren’t you? Not the same way. But Yamamoto has been trying to push you down your whole life, and you won’t be pushed down. You have a passion that won’t be quenched. You knew how much trouble you could get into by talking to me. But that FD just drew you in.” He gave a slight chuckle. “Was it because it’s yellow?”

“Yes. No. I like bright colors. But I think the car is yellow because it’s an expression of your personality, and I just saw the same kind of life in it.”

“It’s the yellow.” He shook his head slightly, amused. “Yasuko-chan, I’m the last person you want as a hero. But I’ll be your friend.”

Ryosuke called his brother after breakfast. Keisuke listened on his phone for a moment, then turned to Yasuko. “The search went well. Do you want any of your bedroom furniture?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she told him. “None of it is special to me. But he can take anything he needs to save money. I don’t know where I’m going to sleep after I leave the hospital. I don’t know if you already have an extra bed.”

He patiently repeated her words back and listened. “He says that your wardrobe is a bit scattered in size. Does it all fit you?”

“None of it really fits me. I was outgrowing my clothes, and my father got me more, but they’re too big on purpose so that I will grow into them and he won’t have to buy more for a while.”

He relayed that, too. His eyes strayed to the folded heap of clothing in the corner, the things she had worn when he had brought her into the hospital. “What color is the rest of her stuff in there?” he asked into the phone. He paused for a moment, then shook his head. “She didn’t pick them out, aniki. She likes bright colors.” Another pause. “I don’t know, pretty things. I’ll try to find out.” Yet another pause, and he turned back to her. “Is there anything in your room that you want?”

Yasuko shook her head regretfully. “I had a jeweled box to put things in. It was fake, colored glass or something, but I only cared that it was pretty and sparkly. My father took it away from me about a year ago as a punishment. It’s the last thing I really wanted from there, but it’s got to be long gone.”

Again, Keisuke repeated patiently to his brother. “Yeah, I agree,” he answered after another pause. “You sure? Ok, I’ll see you back at home.”

“Are you leaving?” Yasuko tried to sound brave.

“Not yet. Hey, I need to go practice, get a meal, get some real sleep. I’ll be back. But I’m not leaving until Fujiwara and his friend show up. They’re good people, you’ll be safe with them.”

“You told me that you would never leave me with anyone you didn’t trust completely. I remember.” That thought calmed her, and she took a moment to think over the other things that had been said to her just in the last several hours. “When I signed the papers for Ryosuke-san, he said that he was hoping to do this a different way. Do you have any idea what he meant by that? Should I be asking him, instead?”

“No, I know. At least, I got the basic idea. Your father got called downstairs to answer the door. You heard footsteps coming back up, and you slipped out and went down the fire escape. You didn’t know that we had surveillance in the house. You didn’t know that the police had come to arrest him for abuse, ask your permission to search the place, and turn you over to us. If you’d stayed, you would have probably been sitting with me having snacks before bed within an hour. And then, you kept evading them. The local toughs would probably have brought you right back to Yamamoto, but the police would have brought you to us. When he realized that you were avoiding the police too, Aniki had them withdraw and give you space to move. We had figured out where you were going by then, and it didn’t look like there was any better plan than to help you get there. I tried to intercept you myself, but that didn’t work either.”

“I know.” She felt all stirred up inside, hearing his explanation, realizing that she could have been safe so much sooner than she could have guessed. The words boiled out of her. “I know, I reached the parking lot, I saw your FD, but I saw those thugs, too, they didn’t see me, I was hiding in the woods and so were they, but I was higher up and I could see them, they were on the other side, closer to you, I could never have gotten to you before they did, and I just sat there for hours, I saw you getting out and walking around, but there was nothing I could do… I was so upset, I started crying, quietly as I could…”

His eyes widened as he listened. “You were there! I was waiting for you! Why didn’t you come to me? If they were on the far side, then I was between you and them.”

It was so obvious to her. “I couldn’t have gotten to you before they did. They would have attacked you. You would have gotten hurt. Maybe badly hurt. I couldn’t take a risk like that.” She faltered at the horrified, astonished look on his face. “There were three of them.”

“You did it to protect me? Yasuko-chan! Next time, don’t!” He reached out and took hold of both her hands. He’d done that before, already, twice. Both times, she remembered, it was because he felt he had something very important to tell her. “I expected trouble. I came prepared. I can take three of the local toughs. If this ever happens again, come to me.” He shook his head, “Besides, I have a reputation. They probably wouldn’t have even approached us, once they saw that I was ready for them. I bet they didn’t make a move until I left.”

“They didn’t. And they didn’t see you put the white bag down. They were on the other side of the tree. I was calm by then. I understood that, if you were willing to try to find me, you would certainly let me come to you for help. I knew my goal had to be Akagi. And then they left, and I crept over and saw that you’d left a meal for me.”

“What would you have done if they’d followed you all the way up Mount Akagi?” Keisuke asked, still more than a little horrified.

Yasuko had thought that through, too, all the way back in the parking lot. “They did, and I thought they would, but I was pretty sure you didn’t practice alone. I hoped there would be enough other people around to deter them. I didn’t realize there would be a whole event planned. Even so, they were between me and the vans, so I just struck out for the closest group of people. It was the last thing I could do. I don’t think I was even really thinking anymore by the time I started moving. I’m sorry I didn’t come to you in the parking lot. I meant to save you trouble, not cause more.”

He waved off her concern. “I sat for a while, got bored, and went home. You’re the one who had to walk all night and climb the hill. You’re the one who’s suffered the most for all this. Did you actually get any other food or drink?”

“I drank a little from the streams whenever I passed them. You gave me lunch on the second day. And Itsuki-san gave me breakfast on the third.” Her eyes strayed to the heap of clothing. “And his jacket. It should go back to him.”

“It will,” Keisuke noted wryly. “I can hear his voice in the hallway. Looks like my relief is here.”

Chapter Text

Yasuko hadn’t realized that “Fujiwara and his friend” meant Fujiwara and Itsuki. She had felt a bit reluctant to see Keisuke go, thinking that the newcomers would no doubt be quiet and boring in comparison. She was quickly educated otherwise on both parts. Takumi took up his position in the hallway, while Itsuki told her all about his long friendship with Takumi and many other things besides. His chatter was bright and friendly, and it lifted her spirits. She genuinely did want to hear all about the gas station, the lakeside, and the Eight-Five with its turbocharger. Not only could Itsuki give her every detail on many of the racing events that she had heard about back in her father’s shop, but he would even act out the most compelling scenes for her. Her first smile appeared within ten minutes of his arrival, and she found herself fully laughing within a half hour. He watched her reactions with an air of deep satisfaction. The rest of the morning passed quickly, and she found herself hungry for lunch when it arrived. Itsuki continued to entertain her after she finished eating. She finally remembered, after a stirring rendition of “Takumi uses his gutter trick to overtake a racer despite only having an Eight-Five to do it with”, that she still had one of his possessions. “I’m sorry. I didn’t forget about your jacket. At least, I didn’t mean to. It’s right there. You said that Keisuke-san would give it to Fujiwara-san, but since you’re right here…”

“Yeah! It’s my favorite.” Itsuki sprang up and hurried over to the pile of clothing. He started to lift up the jacket, then paused as he looked at the rest of the pile. “What, is this all you have to wear? Where’s your jacket?”

“I left without it,” Yasuko admitted. “I couldn’t risk going across the room to grab it. At least, I didn’t think I could. I think they finished the search and seizure of the property, so Ryosuke-san probably has it now. I think he might bring it to me when it’s time for me to leave the hospital.”

“And a change of clothes, right? This stuff is all dark and frayed.”

She chuckled a little. “Just about everything I have is either dark and frayed, or dark and big on me. I don’t know what they’ll bring for me to change into. But it should be clean.”

Itsuki laid his beloved jacket back down on the pile. “Well, I want to see what they bring for you before I take that back. You might still need it. Why do you wear such dark clothes, Yasuko-chan?”

“Outosama picks them out for me. He says that girls shouldn’t draw attention to themselves. So it’s never black, or bright colors. Gray, dark green, dark purple… the dark purple isn’t so bad. He also says that I can’t wear short skirts, which is fine with me. I do like the pants that he gets for me. I just wish sometimes that they were a little more… pretty.”

“Why do you call him that?” Itsuki sat back down in the chair beside her bed.

“He prefers it. Why? What do you call yours?”

“Outosan. I think your father is pretty controlling. What would you wear if you could pick out anything you wanted?”

She definitely had ideas about that. “Lighter colors. Lots of colors. Mint green and pink. Yellow, red, brighter purples and blues. Shirts with butterflies and things that sparkle. Nothing that’s brown or gray.”

Itsuki had something on his mind now. “You looked pretty rough when I met you at that parking lot. And when we all gathered for the meet, Ryosuke-san said that your father was abusing you and that you ran away.”

“That’s right. Ryosuke-san is going to prosecute it on my behalf. He asked me to sign paperwork this morning. I’m in his custody now. I don’t know what will happen next. I am feeling much better than I did when you met me, though. I’ve had this IV in all night, and I’ve had two meals so far. I think they gave me something for the pain, too.”

He looked concerned. “What pain, Yasuko-chan?”

She didn’t mind. She sat up, pulled the blankets back, and slipped off the cute little hospital socks. He stared at her feet round-eyed until she started to giggle at his expression. She couldn’t help it. Keisuke managed to still look serious even when he was wide-eyed. Itsuki did not. “You ran away like that? How far did you have to go on foot to reach Akagi?”

Yasuko thought about the map of the region up in her father’s office, picturing it in her mind. “About thirty miles.”

“When on earth did you leave?”

She had to think about this. “Saturday night. On Monday, I had lunch. Tuesday morning, you gave me breakfast. Is it still Wednesday?”

“Yeah. Wow. I had no idea you were out that long. I wish I could’ve…”

“I don’t think you could have done anything more for me than you did, Itsuki-san,” she assured him. “I was just too afraid to accept anything more.”

“Well, I can do more for you now,” Itsuki asserted. “I can keep you company. Anything you want to talk about, we can talk about.”

“I don’t want to keep thinking about the past few days,” Yasuko admitted, slipping her socks back on and taking the blankets back. “Were you there when your friend Takumi raced against Shoji Shingo?”

“Naw, I was in the hospital. But I can tell you all about that, if you’d like…”

She let him get mostly through before she had to stop him. “Wait. He was in an accident? He hit the guardrail?”

“Well, yes.” Now he was the one who seemed perplexed at her wide-eyed look. “And rebounded, and hit the other one, and spun around, and-“

“Was he okay? Did he get hurt?”

Itsuki blinked. “Yeah, a little. Mostly his arm, I think. Comes of taping your hand to the wheel. Kept him out of driving for a couple of weeks, and he became much nicer. Well, when I say ‘much nicer’, I don’t mean that Shingo is very nice, but he had a long way to go.”

“But he didn’t eject from the vehicle when it crashed.”

“No, of course not, he was wearing his seatbelt. What’s the matter, Yasuko-chan? You’ve gone all pale.”

Yasuko wasn’t sure if she could tell him, but she didn’t get the chance. Right then and there, in that moment of vulnerability, she took the last hit she’d expected at that moment. The door to her hospital room opened, and her father stepped inside, flanked by the Lan Evo racer Aikawa on one side and one of the toughs who had pursued her on the other!

It was like a nightmare. She wondered for a moment if she had actually fallen asleep. She wanted to do something, run, climb out of the bed and leap out the window, anything to get away from this. As the trio stepped closer and the entire tone of the room changed, Itsuki rose from his chair, standing right next to her bed. “Who are you, and what are you doing in here?” he asked.

“Itsuki-san, they’ve come to-“ Yasuko started to stammer out. She was cut off.

“-Yamamoto. I’m her father. I have the legal right to be in here. I explained that to the staff, little boy, and they let me in.” He squared his shoulders, drawing himself up to look intimidating. As well as that worked, Yasuko didn’t think he seemed quite as intimidating as the men flanking him, even though Aikawa looked a bit worse for wear. She hadn’t seen him since before his race with Project D, and he looked like he had a fading black eye. Yasuko glanced up as movement behind them caught her eye. Takumi stepped into the room, his mobile phone handset held to his ear. She hoped he was calling for help.

“I thought you were in custody,” she responded, her voice small. She couldn’t manage to say anything louder through the tight spot in her throat.

“What’s the matter, aren’t you glad to see me?” he asked, a hint of sarcasm and threat in his voice. “They released me less than an hour ago. Get your stuff. I’ll start the discharge paperwork right away.” He raised his voice slightly. She was sure that he could already be heard from the hallway. “I want a nurse in here now. I am Yamamoto Yasuko’s father, and I am taking her home.”

“Takahashi.” She could barely manage to say it. Itsuki stood frozen and Takumi remained silent. She wasn’t sure what they could do for her, but she couldn’t just let herself be taken.

“What?” Yamamoto asked sharply, turning back to her as a nurse entered the room.

Yasuko swallowed, trembling. “Takahashi Yasuko.”

Yamamoto swore. “What do you think you’re talking about?” he roared. Suddenly, everything seemed to happen at once, and yet to stretch out forever. He raised his hand to her. His hand swept down. She cringed back. 

Another arm shot out right in front of her. With a quick, decisive movement, Itsuki slapped Yamamoto’s hand away. “No,” Itsuki stated firmly. “You don’t get to touch her. Not anymore. Not after what you did.”

“How dare you interfere, little boy?” Yamamoto was in a right temper now. Yasuko wondered at his brashness, acting this way in public. Did he think he could dominate everyone in the room? Maybe he could.

But Itsuki didn’t back down, even though she sensed his terror. “No, how dare you come back in here and try to take her away, after she walked for three days just to get away from you! Have you seen her feet? It’s hard to believe she could walk three miles like that! She’s not going back with you!”

“Are you going to stand there between us and her?” Yamamoto roared. “You’re outnumbered and outclassed. Are you really going to hold your ground on this?”

Somehow, Itsuki seemed steadier now. “Yes,” he stated simply.

Meanwhile, in the background, Yasuko realized that Takumi had not remained still and silent. He was speaking to the nurse. “Her record was updated this morning. Yes, he’s on his way. He told me that you were required to check the updated record. Thank you.”

“What’s the hold up?” Yamamoto asked, half-turning and finally catching a bit of the conversation.

The nurse looked a bit nervous. “I am going to have to call down to Records. Her name on the intake paperwork does say ‘Yamamoto Yasuko’, but her legal guardian is ‘Takahashi Ryosuke’.”

“That’s nonsense,” Yamamoto stated dismissively.

“It may be, but I am going to have to double-check this.” The nurse stepped over to the phone in the room and started tapping in the internal number for Records.

This did not make the three interlopers any happier. Yamamoto spoke again, his tone changing from angry to a particular sort of authoritative sternness. “You think you’ve got new friends, Yasuko. But they don’t know what you are really like. They haven’t had to deal with your disobedience, or your malingering, or your lies. Don’t think I don’t know about the times you’ve lied. They’ll be sorry they tried to handle someone like you.”

But Itsuki wasn’t having it. “Of course she’s disobedient to you. You mistreat her. You haven’t earned her trust or her respect. She’s a sweet girl, and she deserves much better than this.”

At first, Yasuko wasn’t so sure about that. After all, Itsuki didn’t know about the terrible thing she’d done, or any of the other things her father had disapproved of. Then again, she had already confessed the worst part of it, and both Takahashi brothers had accepted her. Ryosuke-san had taken her laptop and diary hours ago, so surely he already knew the rest. That, and Keisuke-san had said he’d been even worse, and Ryosuke-san had never given up on him. Surely, he wouldn’t give up on her either. She started feeling a little braver. “He already knows,” she said, finding the tightness in her throat relaxing just enough to let her speak. “He already knows, and he’s still taken charge of me.” A spark of rebellion, not just a desire to escape, flared up in her. She refused to speak her father’s name or honorific even as she addressed him.

“Well, it won’t matter, as soon as we straighten out the record thing and confirm that I have the right to take you.” He turned to the nurse, his anger rising again. “What’s taking so long?”

“I’m having a copy of the updated record brought up,” the nurse answered. “We haven’t got a patient listed under ‘Yamamoto Yasuko’ anymore. The patient in this room is ‘Takahashi Yasuko’, and we have an appended document showing her legal guardian in all respects as ‘Takahashi Ryosuke’. According to this, he’s the only one who could remove her.”

“That can’t hold up in court,” Yamamoto growled.

“Maybe, but this hospital can set its own policy in special cases, and this one has been signed off by the hospital administrator himself. You’d have to take it up with him.”

“That’s settled, then,” Itsuki stepped forward, shaky but resolute. “You can’t take her away. I think it’s time for you to leave.”

Yamamoto turned to him. Feeling the tone in the room change again, Aikawa and the thug shifted their own stances. “No,” Yamamoto stated simply, and then stood to see what would happen next.

Yasuko was no longer entirely sure what would happen next. The nurse retreated to the corner of the room - no help there. But as frightened as he was, Itsuki stood firm, and she really did begin to think that he would fight if he was put to it. Meanwhile, she glanced over at Takumi and blinked in surprise at the way his face had hardened. His hands clenched into fists, and she realized that he was entirely ready for a physical altercation. Just then, the door opened again, and Shoji Shingo entered the room. He stepped out to the side, taking the scene in at a glance, and casually began cracking his knuckles. Yasuko silently updated her assumptions on whether or not Aikawa was the scariest-looking person in the room. Now the confrontation looked more like it could lead to an even match. They stood silently for several minutes. The thug shifted position first, backing off just a little bit. That broke the stand-off. Aikawa made a slight sound like a snarl, turned away, and started for the door just as it opened again. He stopped short barely in time to avoid slamming straight into Takahashi Keisuke.

Yasuko started to breathe again.

Keisuke strode right through the middle of the group, bristling. He came to a stop next to Yasuko’s bed, in front of Itsuki, who stepped back quickly to give him more space. “I assume you were leaving,” Keisuke told Yamamoto, his voice hard-edged, but his actual gaze lingered on Aikawa.

From there, for Yasuko, the scene fell apart completely. She felt her face start to crumple and she turned away, both horrified and embarrassed as she broke down helplessly into terrified sobbing. She could hear some muted bits of conversation and the sound of many people moving around in the room. Her bed bounced slightly as someone heavy landed on it, and someone taller than her father grabbed her and pulled her into his arms, sheltering her a little from the others. After giving her some time to cry unimpeded, he spoke, and she recognized Keisuke’s voice. “Did he hurt you, Yasuko-chan?”

“No,” she sobbed out. “Itsuki-san stopped him. He protected me.”

“We came as soon as Fujiwara told us he was here. Shingo was already on his way to relieve Fujiwara. Even if the hospital had caved, we would have arrived before they could finish the outtake paperwork. You were never in danger of being taken.”

 “I know. I wasn’t sure at first. But Itsuki-san just stood there like a rock and said that I wasn’t going back. He was so brave.” She risked a glance up, the tears still streaming down her face. Shingo leaned against the wall, playing it cool. Ryosuke stood in the corner with the nurse, talking to her quietly. Yasuko’s valiant protector hunched weakly in a chair in the other corner, huffing into a paper bag under Takumi’s careful supervision. Her father and the other two men were no longer in the room.

“Itsuki, huh. There’s more to him than I thought. He looks like he isn’t used to it, though,” Keisuke commented, taking in the sight. “Can you calm yourself down at all, Yasuko-chan? If you can’t, the doctor will have to give you something, and then they’ll have to keep you overnight.”

“I’ll try,” she gasped. He offered her the water glass, and she started making herself take small sips. “But wasn’t I going to stay overnight anyway?”

Keisuke shifted position, and she glanced up to see him locking eyes with his brother. His gaze hardened and Ryosuke’s gaze softened until they had the exact same expression. Ryosuke gave a short nod, and Keisuke turned his attention back to Yasuko. “I don’t think so, Yasuko-chan. After what just happened, I think we’re going to bring you home tonight.”

As she continued to exert herself and the helpless sobbing eased, she could hear Ryosuke speaking. “Alright, Fujiwara, thank you for the information. You’d better go before you’re late for your shift. Shoji, we won’t be keeping you for much longer than an hour, but I would like to ask that you stay. Takeu-… Itsuki, you can go home. Get some rest. You did an excellent job.”

“Who’s going to look after Yasuko-chan?” Itsuki asked. His voice was shaky, but he did not seem hysterical.

“We are. I’m about to initiate the release.” Ryosuke walked over to the bedside, and Keisuke drew back his hold so that she could turn and face him more easily. “I’m sorry about what happened, Yasuko,” Ryosuke told her. “As soon as I heard he was released, we started getting ready to come here and bring you home. As soon as I got Fujiwara’s call, we left for the hospital. I didn’t realize he would come straight here. I thought we had a little more time. But I also had a plan in case something like this did happen. That’s why I kept people here with you at all times. We’re going to take you home with us right now, alright? We brought a clean change of clothes from your old wardrobe.”

“No, wait.” Itsuki stood up from his chair. “She needs something pretty to wear.”

Ryosuke nodded. “She’ll get something better to wear later on. But for now-“

“She needs it now,” Itsuki asserted nervously. “She just got scared half out of her wits. She needs something pretty. It’ll take an hour to do the paperwork anyway, right? That’s enough time. Ryosuke-san, please. I’ll go buy it myself. I’m okay.”

Ryosuke took a moment to think about this. He glanced from Itsuki to Shingo to Keisuke and back to Itsuki, then nodded slowly. He pulled his wallet out of his pocket and handed Itsuki a few notes. “I’ll cover it. Go find her something. Make sure it’s comfortable, Itsuki. Go one size up from what we have here. Maybe two.”

Itsuki’s normal cheerfulness quickly asserted itself. “Yes, Ryosuke-san. Thank you. I’ll be back in less than an hour.” He took a moment to check the tags on the clothing in its pile, then headed off like a shot.

Ryosuke groaned slightly and rested his head on his hand as soon as Itsuki cleared the door. “He doesn’t stop, does he?”

“I like him,” Yasuko admitted loyally. “I like listening to him talk.”

Time passed. Keisuke retreated to the chair next to her bed as the doctor entered and checked her vitals. “I want her to stay off her feet for another three or four days,” he told Ryosuke. “She should continue to take it easy for a while longer. I’d also like to see her gain twenty pounds. Does she have a family doctor for me to connect with?”

“Not yet. I’ll let you know once she does. We can keep her off her feet. What about her heart?”

The doctor wasn’t concerned. “The palpitations eased up once we corrected the dehydration. But if she’s prone to that reaction, you’ll want to make sure she doesn’t go on any more multi-day hikes without proper hydration.”

“Won’t be happening,” Keisuke asserted.

Itsuki arrived just as the release paperwork came through, carrying a pink shopping bag and looking very pleased with himself. He sauntered up to the bed, plunked the bag down, reached inside, and pulled out a pair of pink cargo pants. “The shirt’s dark purple, but…” He unfolded the tee and laid it out on the bed. “It’s got all glittery flowers on it.”

Yasuko squeaked with delight. “It’s beautiful! I love it so much!” As she leaned forward, her hair brushed over her shoulders. What with all else going on, she hadn’t even spent much time thinking about what it looked like now. At first, the headband had held it back and let her forget. Then, she had been ‘in another world’ of exhaustion, fear, and pain. When she lay on a hospital bed, wearing hospital clothing, it was easy to forget about her hair. She hadn’t seen herself in a mirror, either. “This is probably prettier than me,” she murmured, holding up the shirt.

Itsuki shook his head, looking astonished. “No way! You’re much prettier.” She reached up to touch her hair, starting to object, but he took hold of her hand and held it in both of his. “So your hair’s a little weird, I’ll be honest, but that doesn’t make you ugly or anything.”

“You don’t know, do you?” Keisuke spoke up. “Her father cut it off, just before she left him. It was down past her waist. That’s why it looks like this now.”

Yasuko lowered her head, feeling the tears start to return. “I always liked fixing it up and making it pretty. It was a way of controlling what I looked like. I think he knew that.”

“Yasuko-chan, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.” Itsuki released her hand, stepping back a little in consternation. “I, uh…” He was clearly at a loss for words, and that just made her feel even worse. Here she was, on the verge of making another real friend, and the shadow of her father was stepping in-between.

“Please,” she said fiercely. “Please don’t become awkward and distant, Itsuki-san. There’s nothing I can do about what he’s done to me or to anybody else. It hurts. I have to face that, even if it makes other people shrink away.” She started to reach out and paused, looking at the bandaid on her hand. The nurse had put it there after removing the IV.

“I’m sorry.” Itsuki reached out and clasped her hand gently, returning to the bedside. “I’m always going to be awkward, because I’m Itsuki, and I’m just awkward. But I won’t be distant, okay? Look…” Itsuki reached out and gently touched her hair. “It’s getting wavy, since it was cut. All you need is a half hour at a barber shop to trim it even, and it’ll look really pretty. And you can still do lots of things to make it fancy, okay? Another girl would know.” He glanced around the room thoughtfully. “Keisuke-san might know.” Just as quickly, he backpedaled under Keisuke’s flat stare. “I mean, I’m not saying you have girl hair, because you obviously don’t have girl hair, but I know it’s fancy, and I’m sure you put something in it, I mean, a gel or something, I’m not talking about barrettes or anything, but maybe you don’t, maybe it really does just come that way, and…”

“Are you done?” Ryosuke asked in mild annoyance. “The paperwork has come through. Let’s step out and let Yasuko-chan get dressed. Itsuki, you first.” He herded the other men out patiently and paused at the doorway. “If you need anything, just raise your voice and ask. We’ll be right here.”

Itsuki was right. Yasuko felt much better wearing something new and pretty on her way to this new and pretty place to live. The staff discharged her in a wheelchair. Ryosuke lifted her into the car, because Keisuke had to fold himself into the back seat of his brother’s car first. He looked pretty funny trying to make himself fit. She got to watch Ryosuke drive, which looked much different than her father’s driving. Ryosuke was much gentler with his vehicle, but more assertive in traffic. Then they reached a building that was so large and pretty that it didn’t occur to her that it was ‘home’ until Ryosuke got out of the car and walked to the door. There was already a light wheelchair in the house, apparently, because he exited with it and brought it back to the car for her. Once she was inside, though, they let her get out of it and hobble around a little from one room to another. Ryosuke showed her the room that would be hers. The only things in it were a mattress on the floor and a pile of clothing in the corner. “We were hoping to get it ready by tomorrow,” he explained. “The mattress is yours, from the apartment above the repair shop - it was in very good shape. We’ll have the furniture in tomorrow.”

That didn’t matter too much to her, though. Here, she didn’t feel the need to spend the afternoon in her sparse bedroom. They let her sit on the couch and watch television until supper, with no snide remarks about the work she should be doing. At dinnertime, she had as much as she wanted to eat. She didn’t eat very much. She wasn’t really used to it anymore. After dinner, Ryosuke promptly retreated to his room, leaving the other two to sit silently in the living room together. Yasuko wasn’t sure that she could break the silence, but as she thought over the events of the day, there was still one more thing she had to know. “Keisuke-san?” she ventured timidly.

“Yeah.” He had been slouching with a racing magazine and looked nearly half-asleep, but he straightened up when she spoke. “What is it?”

“When my father and those men came into the hospital room…” His expression hardened, making her a bit nervous. “The one on the right, his name is Aikawa…”

“I know.”

“Did you give him that black eye?”

He relaxed a little. “No. I’m not completely sure how that happened. But I wish I had.”

“I don’t want to talk much about him.” Just thinking about either of the Lan Evo drivers made her stomach clench up. “I just wanted to know.”

“It wasn’t me.”

And that ended the conversation. Yasuko still got the sense that he knew more about it than he was telling her, but she didn’t want to stay on the subject, so she let it go.

Chapter Text

Yasuko was having the most fun of her life. She lounged in the passenger seat of Takahashi Keisuke’s FD, watching out the window as cars zipped down the highway. She recognized several of them - there was Nakazato in his black R32, and Shingo waved to her from his red EG6, there was Takumi in his Eight-Six, and Itsuki in his Eight-Five, and she was just looking around for the white FC as everything sort of faded away into a generalized blur of contentment… and then she woke up. Startled, she looked around at her own familiar bedroom. Had everything been a dream? A couple of vines clung to the outside of her window - the back of the building was a mass of them. There was her little dresser, the same one she’d had since she was a young girl. Her father kept saying that he would find her a larger one, but it hadn’t happened yet. Then she heard her father’s voice, and he entered her room, scolding her for not having awakened yet, and-

“Hey.”

That wasn’t her father’s voice! Yasuko startled again, sitting bolt upright on her mattress and finding herself in a completely unfamiliar room. The sun streamed in through the window uninhibited. A figure crouched by her mattress, backlit by the sunbeam. A hand touched her shoulder gently. “Careful, careful… It’s alright, you’re safe.”

She finally figured out where she was and who was in the room with her. “Ryosuke-san.”

“You cried out in your sleep,” he told her, withdrawing his hand and straightening up. “Does that happen often?”

“I don’t know,” Yasuko admitted. “Outosama hadn’t complained about it. Did I wake you? I’m sorry.”

“I was already awake. That’s why I heard you. You weren’t very loud.” He wandered over to the window. “It’s still early. Do you want to try to get some more sleep?”

Yasuko moved her blankets aside and looked at her feet. A lot of the swelling had gone down, and the red marks were mostly faded, leaving the bruising. “I don’t think so, Ryosuke-san. I’m usually up by now.” She looked up, spending just a moment to listen to the background sounds of the house. “It’s so quiet here. I’m used to hearing drills and machines and things banging away downstairs by now.”

He smiled gently in response. “Why don’t you get ready for the day, then? I had your new clothes cleaned from yesterday, so you could wear them again today. You can take a proper bath if you want. I’ve already washed, and Keisuke won’t be up for another couple of hours. Use any of the soaps or lotions that you’d like. Nobody will mind.”

“Am I going to leave the house today?” Yasuko asked.

“That’s the plan. We still have the light wheelchair for you, to keep you off your feet. You need a good wardrobe, and I’m sure you’d like to have your hair done. Keisuke will take you and help you pick out some things. I need more time to finish my documentation and make my strategy.”

She looked up again, hopefully. “Will I get to ride in the yellow FD?”

Ryosuke laughed. “Back to the yellow car, is that it? It’s his car. He’s certainly not taking mine. When you’re done getting ready for the day, come find me in my room. I’d like to talk to you before you set out.”

Yasuko did often get an uninterrupted bathing/dressing time back at home. Any day that she got up after the shop opened and didn’t have to attend school, her father generally didn’t have time to puzzle over where she was until mid-morning. Still, there was a special fun in relaxing in this new space, repeatedly reminding herself that she had yet to hear either brother scream invectives at people or show anger at her. She was told that she could take a ‘proper bath’, so she did, taking Ryosuke at his word that he would not have a problem with it. Indeed he didn’t. Once she was properly dressed, she started trying to find his bedroom. One room was a bit untidy, with blankets strewn half-on the floor and a shirt thrown over the back of the chair. The other one had every single thing in its proper place, including a precisely-made bed, and that was where she found him in the desk chair and working on a laptop. He looked up as she entered. “Good, come on in. I don’t have another chair, but you can sit on the bed. I don’t usually have visitors in here. How do you feel?”

Best to be honest. This was, after all, her guardian. “Kind of sore all over, but not stiff anymore. I still feel a little dizzy sometimes, but it’s really not bad. My feet hurt when I walk on them. But I’m willing to do whatever I need to do, Ryosuke-san. I’m not trying to complain.” She seated herself gingerly on the very edge of the corner of the bed. This was not something she was used to having permission to do. “I washed well and put lotion on the bruises.”

He turned in his chair, halfway between her and the laptop screen. “Good. I’ll have some medication from the hospital for you to take this morning. I’ve been going through the materials you let me read. I’m afraid that I’m going to have to use a lot of it for the upcoming trials. I might have to embarrass you a few times.”

“Do you have to tell them about the laptop?” she squeaked. That was, at this point, the most embarrassing thing she could think of in her life.

“No. I contacted the school. They claimed that you were ‘tardy in returning’ your school laptop because your father said that you had ‘lost it’. I told them that it had been located upon search, and I returned it yesterday after copying and erasing your files. The word ‘stolen’ is not part of the picture. If you ever feel desperate enough to take something again, please tell me. We can work something out. Yasuko-chan, do you have a personal online account? I only found files on the school server and password-secured in the private disk space of the school laptop.”

“No, of course not. If I tried to do that, and my father found out…” She didn’t even want to think about how that would go. “…and with nothing but a school laptop, I think he would.”

“Hm. You didn’t have a portable phone, either. At least, we didn’t find one during the search, and if you had it with you when you escaped, I would hope that you would have tried to use it to reach us instead of walking to Akagi.”

“I don’t have one, Ryosuke-san.”

He nodded. “Thank you. I won’t have to make public your thoughts and feelings about the local street racers. I’m sure that will come as a relief. But the things you’ve done for them, on the other hand, all of that will wind up being public. You know what I’m speaking of.”

Yasuko wasn’t sure if he was reaching to see if she had hid anything from him, or if he was making sure that they were on the same page. She decided that she would not try to play games, not with someone who wouldn’t hurt her if she failed. “Sometimes, I would hear enough to believe that he hadn’t done the right job on a street racer’s car. He didn’t use the right air filter because it was more expensive, or he didn’t bother double-checking the bolts to see if they were tightened, things like that. I used to sneak down into the shop when he wasn’t around and try to make it right, myself.”

“You didn’t want his reputation to be ruined?” Ryosuke asked her curiously.

“…no,” Yasuko admitted, her heart beating faster. “I don’t want to lie to you. I should have cared about his reputation and I should have cared about the shop. I didn’t. But I didn’t want my street racers to get hurt.” She stopped short. She knew she was blushing, and she dropped her gaze. “I mean, the street racers. I’m sorry.”

“Your street racers,” he told her. “I know. It’s alright. I saw the database you made, with writeups for each and every one. That’s why you recite our names, ranks, and vehicles. It’s from your very own database. Personality, strengths, weaknesses, all done with your best guess based on the stories you’ve heard. It’s a silly fan activity, completely harmless, and you’re probably horrified that an actual street racer has read it through.” She risked a glance at him and found that his eyes were kind. “Nobody else has to know about it, Yasuko-chan. I don’t need it for the trial. But I am glad that I got the chance to see it. There are a lot of gaps that you had no way of filling in, but you have some conclusions in here that are pretty insightful. We’ve been your world, haven’t we?”

“Yes,” Yasuko admitted, her voice gone tight. “I’m sorry. It sounds so stupid to say out loud. I’ve had nothing but my street racers. That’s why I kept the school laptop and hid it. That’s why I had to see the Project D website updates. And even now that I’m here, I still have nothing but my street racers. Without your kindness, where would I go? You have been very kind.”

“It’s alright, Yasuko-chan,” Ryosuke told her reassuringly. “I’d say you have some claim to ‘us’. Some of us, at least - he never worked on a Takahashi vehicle, and I believe Fujiwara’s father was handling the Eight-Six’s maintenance before he joined us. But your little tricks probably kept at least one vehicle from failing when a racer needed it most. You’ve been a little guardian angel of sorts.”

“Shoji Shingo,” Yasuko gasped out. “I think about it every time I see him. He’s going to find out all about it, isn’t he?”

“Yes. One way or another, he will.”

“Shingo? Of the ‘Night Kids’?” Keisuke stood in the doorway, yawning slightly, fully dressed for the day. “That’s honestly all I heard. I thought I’d better say something and not risk overhearing things again. I don’t mean to listen in.”

“That’s probably all I need to say anyway,” Ryosuke responded. “Lets get the morning medications done, and then you two can head out.”

“Sure,” Keisuke said casually. “What’s she had for breakfast?”

Yasuko looked at Ryosuke and Ryosuke looked back at Yasuko. She was so certain that he always considered every detail, and she was startled to wonder if he had simply forgotten about food without meaning to.

“Right.” Apparently, this didn’t faze Keisuke. “No problem, we’ll pick something up on our way to the mall.”

Yasuko knew better than to ask for details about her medications. Her father had always scolded her for doing that. He took it as a sign of lack of trust. Ryosuke, however, explained each pill as he handed it to her. “This one’s for the pain. This one should keep you from having stomach problems while you’re getting adjusted to a better diet. And this one is an anti-parasitic medication. You get to take that one because you drank pond water while you were out on your thirty-mile hike. It’s probably the one causing the dizziness. Any stomach problem should be at least partly alleviated by the stomach medication. Let me know if you have other problems.” To her surprise, he gave her a couple of cookies to take with the pills. Then he released her to Keisuke. To her delight, Keisuke pulled the yellow FD up to the walkway and wheeled her right to the passenger side. In a moment, she was reliving part of her dream, watching out the window as he maneuvered expertly down the highway. She didn’t see any of the other racers, though. Then again, she hadn’t expected to. It was only a dream, after all.

Today, though, continued to make a pretty good real-life version of a dream. Keisuke very patiently took her to each store and let her pick out outfit after outfit, until he was loaded down with a variety of bags. He never complained. In one store, he actually made her pick out a nice outfit. “Aniki told me that you needed to have something fitting to wear to court,” he explained. When she could not decide between a more staid, simple formal suit and a pretty, sparkly dress, he simply took one of each. After lunch, they visited an actual hairdresser, where she bogged down while looking at all the various pictures of styles available for her new length and the hairdresser clucked disapprovingly over the way her father had sliced off the rest. The hairdresser offered to trim and layer it in a way to either downplay the waviness or make it more prominent. But as she tried to decide, Yasuko found her gaze drawn to one of the posters on the wall. The cut was all wrong for her hair and her face, but the color! The girl in the image looked like a rock star in short, straight, aqua-blue hair.

Keisuke eventually noticed what she was looking at and made the connection. “Do you want to dye your hair, too, Yasuko-chan?”

She gasped at the very temerity of it, even though she had been secretly loving the idea. “There’s no way I could do that. A trim is one thing, but my father-“

“Your guardian won’t mind,” he reminded her. “You don’t have to please anybody else. Go ahead. Why not? You’ve had a big change forced on you already, you might as well make it yours.”

“But you don’t dye your hair, do you?”

“He does. Did you think he was born with purple hair?”

She cast another longing look at the poster. “No, I couldn’t. It’s so much brighter than his. I couldn’t risk his disapproval, not after everything.”

Keisuke sighed. He pulled out his phone and pressed a couple of buttons. “Yeah, Aniki. I’ve got Yasuko-chan here, and she wants to dye her hair a bright color, maybe blue or green or something. She’s afraid that you won’t approve.” He held up the phone, inviting her to lean close and hear the response.

“I don’t care if it glows in the dark. Don’t interrupt me again unless it’s important.” A click was heard, and the line went dead.

A couple hours later, Yasuko’s hair was wildly wavy and bright aqua, and she kept peeking at store windows to catch a glimpse of the reflection. Something still bothered her, though, and she felt like being quiet for a while. “Are you feeling okay, Yasuko-chan?” Keisuke finally asked, wheeling her along the walkway outside of the mall. “I didn’t push, did I? Do you regret the color?”

“I love the color. But… is Ryosuke-san angry with me for interrupting him?”

“No, not at all. He’s just working on something. He sounds a bit short if he’s interrupted. He gets very focused on what he’s doing. Can’t argue with the results, either. Aniki is brilliant. I don’t know anybody who’s smarter than him. Come on, let’s get some ice cream.”

Her father almost never let her have ice cream. “Won’t it spoil my dinner?”

Keisuke snorted. “You’re supposed to gain twenty pounds, remember? It’s not time to worry about spoiling your dinner. Besides, it’s a warm day, and I’ve been pushing this chair around all day. I want some ice cream.”

Another thought occurred to Yasuko as she took some time to sit with her ice cream. “You’ve bought me so much stuff today. Clothes, hair things, accessories, and I got all of my hair dyed. And now we’re having ice cream. Haven’t I been very expensive today?”

Keisuke waved off her concern. “We don’t spend money like this on the regular, but we have enough to outfit you properly. Our father is a hospital administrator. That’s why we have the large house, and you’ve probably noticed that we dress pretty well. You’re a ‘Takahashi’, at least for now, and we wouldn’t have you looking less cared-for than us.”

“Is that why you already had a light wheelchair in your house?" Yasuko put the pieces together pretty quickly. “Is that why they said the administrator had signed off on the hospital’s decision to keep my father from removing me? Was that your father, both times?”

“He was involved. You probably won’t see him, though. I never do.”

Yasuko hesitated. “I probably shouldn’t ask this.”

Keisuke shook his head. “Always ask me, Yasuko-chan. Anything.”

“Isn’t it normal, if your father isn’t abusive, to see him now and then? Especially if you’re living under his roof?”

“My father isn’t abusive, but that doesn’t mean that we’re normal,” Keisuke explained. He leaned back in his seat, turning contemplative. “He works very hard. His bedroom is on the third floor, but he usually doesn’t come home at night. And I… he pretty much gave up on me when I kept getting into trouble, so he acts as if I don’t exist. I can’t say I did nothing to deserve it.”

Yasuko wasn’t sure what to say in response, but she was saved the trouble. Keisuke started slightly and removed his mobile phone from his pocket, answering it. “Yeah. We’re done, we’re just having some ice cream. Yes, she dyed it. Yes, I remembered the toothbrush. Tights? What does she need tights for? Yes, we picked up a dress and a formal outfit. Oh. I guess you’re right. Yeah, new sneakers and some cushioned slippers for the house. No, I guess they wouldn’t go with the dresses… I’ll take care of it. We’ll be home once we’re done. Shouldn’t take too much longer.” He ended the call and glanced down, smiling wryly and looking a little chagrined. “Should have another girl doing this. Yasuko-chan, I got the outfit, but I didn’t really pick up anything else you need for a formal court appearance. We’ll fix that and then go home. You must be tired out.”

“Was that Ryosuke-san?”

“Yeah. He said your bedroom is ready.”

“Did he sound angry?” she asked timidly.

“You’re really sensitive to that, aren’t you?” He studied her for a moment. “I guess you’d have to be. Aniki doesn’t have a temper. He isn’t going to blow up at you, isn’t going to shout at you, and he definitely isn’t going to hit you. If either of us ever scare you, it’ll probably be me. I’ll never hit you, I promise. But I do have a temper.” His cone began to drip, and he finished it off before speaking again. “I guess rescuing you from an abusive father is going to take a little more than just removing you from his house, huh.”

“I hadn’t even thought about anything more than getting away from the pain. Now I’m surrounded by unfamiliar things, and the people I’d watched from a distance are all around me.” Yasuko pondered this. “And everything is so quiet.”

“Aniki knows what to do,” Keisuke told her confidently. “I’ll admit I didn’t think much past seeing something that made my blood boil and wanting to do something about it. But I’m glad you’re here. For now, I guess, just try to get used to being safe.”

When they arrived back at the house that Yasuko didn’t know how to call ‘home’ yet, Keisuke started by wheeling her to the door. “You go up and check your room. I’ll be a while, getting all the girl stuff out of my car.” So she walked gingerly up to the second floor, down the hallway, peeking through the open doorway to Ryosuke’s bedroom and seeing him staring at his laptop, his desk strewn with papers. She didn’t disturb him. Instead, she peeked in at the room where she’d slept. She couldn’t help her squeal of delight. The mattress had been moved across the room and set on a frame. She had all new furniture - a dresser, a desk, a lamp for the desk, and a wall shelf, all matching. The room was so light and airy that it took her a moment to realize that it actually had her things in it. Her books had been lined up on the shelf. Her old hairbrush rested on the dresser, along with a box that gleamed with color. That was a bit of a shock. She hadn’t seen the old jewelry box in years. She rushed over to it and opened it, but it was empty. She had more or less expected that. She was astonished that Ryosuke had found it at all and thought to give it back to her. She checked the dresser drawers to find that, aside from some of her underthings neatly folded, it was empty. All of the old frayed clothing that was too large or too small for her was gone from the room.

The desk held another surprise. The front drawer was locked, but its key sat on a small chain on the desktop. When she unlocked the drawer, Yasuko found her diary inside. This discovery delighted her so much that it took her longer to realize what else was sitting on the desktop. When she finally noticed it, she couldn’t even squeal. Breathless with astonishment, she carefully touched and lifted the lid of an adorable, mint green laptop with a pink butterfly design. A small note inside gave her the username and password to her very first personal online account.

“Well, do you like it?” The voice startled her, and she turned to see Ryosuke lingering in the doorway. He smiled gently, the brusqueness gone from his tone, and she realized that he looked tired. Suddenly, the full import of everything he had done and was doing for her surged through her. Forgetting the sore spots on her still-bruised feet, she launched herself across the room and flung her arms around the man who, just a moment earlier, had very nearly frightened her. “Thank you,” she whispered, and she pulled out the longest, most formal form of the phrase, hoping to soak up as much of her gratitude and relief into it as possible.

Chapter Text

Yasuko was very determined to show everybody that she could be the best ‘Takahashi Yasuko’ she could be. She was so very grateful for all that had been done for her. She spent the rest of Thursday afternoon setting up her brand new laptop, discovering to her continued delight that Ryosuke had saved all of her files for her and she had not lost a bit of her hard work. She also spent it putting away her new clothing as it arrived, properly washed, in her doorway. She was determined to eat properly and show that a bit of ice cream did not hurt her at all, even though her stomach did feel a little uneasy. Her father had always claimed that she was so much trouble. He’d claimed she was unreliable, intractable, and unforgivably stubborn. She needed so badly to prove him wrong and show that she responded well when she was treated well. But it was just so hard! She wanted to go with Project D to see the race on Saturday, and Ryosuke had said no!

He hadn’t been cruel about it. He had even apologized. “We’ll take you other times. We’ll probably be able to take you next time. But this is going to be intense, and I need full focus from my entire team. You’re still recovering, and your security situation is a bit touchy. So this time, the answer is no.”

She had tried to come up with solutions that would keep her from being any trouble. She had begged and pleaded. If he had done like her father and turned sharp-tongued at any time, she would have subsided immediately in terror. Instead, he answered every objection calmly and levelly. Finally, she retired to her bedroom and cried from horror and misery that she had begged and pleaded and argued instead of just giving in like a good girl. Keisuke entered after a while and tried to comfort her, but he agreed with his brother. “This one’s not the place for you, Yasuko-chan. I know it’s hard. If I were you, I’d be furious. But I’ll promise you this. When we get home, I’ll tell you right away how it went, even if you’ve gone to bed and I have to wake you up. Alright? I’ll wake you up and tell you before anybody could have possibly put it on the website.”

It still wasn’t enough. But when she was called to dinner, she came obediently, with her tears dried and her face washed. “I understand how it is going to be, Ryosuke-san,” she told him politely, “and I accept your decision. I apologize for giving you trouble about it.”

“I’m glad you gave me some trouble,” he told her in return. “As long as you accept my decisions by the time I need you to accept them, I don’t mind if you question them. You haven’t given me more trouble than I can handle. Besides…” He glanced at his brother, who chose to sit quietly at the table and be on his best behavior. “I’m used to it.”

The rest of the evening went well. After dinner, both brothers sat down with her and spent a couple of hours just playing games with her and generally paying attention to her. They also agreed to another game night on Sunday. That made her feel a little better. In addition to giving her the evening medications, Ryosuke had her watch as he set out portions for morning and evening for the time that he’d be gone, so that she would know which pills to take and when to take them.

Friday itself, however, did not start well. Yasuko couldn’t keep herself still. She was supposed to stay off her feet, and she was supposed to be good and quiet so that the Leader of Project D and his Uphill Specialist could rest, prepare, and go. But she was restless, and she couldn’t help it. She moved from the couch to her desk to her bed to the couch and kept wandering to the windows to look out and find that the view had not changed in the past ten minutes. Ryosuke exited his bedroom and caught her mid-wander. “You’re being Keisuke,” he told her wryly. “Come downstairs and sit for a moment.”

“I’m sorry.” She followed him meekly to the living room. She seated herself on the couch and pulled one foot up in a way that made her more comfortable, but had always drawn rebuke from her father for not being ladylike. Ryosuke didn’t seem to mind, though. “I accept your decision, and I mean it. I’m trying to be a good girl.”

“It’s not your fault. You can feel the energy, can’t you? And you can’t ride it out, not easily. Yasuko-chan, I should have given you something to do, or some place to be, instead of expecting you to just sit at home and wait for us. I’m not sure what I can do about it now, though.”

“Is someone coming?” Yasuko thought she heard the faint sound of an engine approaching, distinct from the distant hum of surrounding traffic.

“Maybe.” Ryosuke took his own wander to the window. “Yes. Looks like a white Levin. It’s not Wataru’s Eight-Six, that’s not the sound of a racing engine.”

Yasuko had a different opinion, listening from the couch. “It is a racing engine, it has a turbocharger. I only know one person who drives a white Levin that isn’t an Eight-Six and has a turbocharger.”

“It’s Itsuki’s Eight-Five,” Ryosuke remarked from the window. “I wonder what he’s doing here.”

“I’m impressed, but I shouldn’t be,” Yasuko noted. “I never met anybody else who could hear enough differences in an engine to identify an Eight-Five with a turbocharger. But of course you can, you’re the best.”

“I can’t,” Ryosuke responded, amused. “I’m good, but not that good. I know it’s Itsuki’s Eight-Five because I just watched him climb out of the driver’s seat. He’s coming to the door. Don’t get up. I’ll go see what he wants.”

A couple of minutes later, Ryosuke re-entered the room, smiling. “Itsuki came to ask how you were doing. I told him that you were stuck at home today, and he offered to take you to see a few of the places that he told you about when you were in the hospital. Would you like to go?”

This was far better than Yasuko could have hoped. “I’d love to!” she squeaked. Then she sobered. “If you think it would be safe.”

Ryosuke sat down on the couch beside her. “I think Itsuki is pretty safe. Do you feel comfortable going with him?”

“Yes. Since he stood up to my father, yes.”

“Oh, that I’m not very concerned about. I’m going to give him instructions about that. But Itsuki is a younger man, closer to your age, and he’s eager. He’d better treat you with respect. Never mind anybody else in the picture, do you feel safe with him?”

“I do,” Yasuko admitted. “There are some men I’ve met, and something about the way they treat me makes me feel like I don’t want to be anywhere near them. But I’m not afraid of Itsuki-san. I’d like to go with him.”

Yasuko felt that she wanted to look nice for her trip out, but she wasn’t sure how. She brushed out her hair, but she didn’t really know how to style it. Both her dresses were too nice for a date, assuming this was even a date, which she didn’t think it was. Everything else she owned were cargo pants and t-shirts. Well, they were colorful, and they were clean, and they were new. She didn’t have any jewelry to wear. She hadn’t even thought to ask about makeup. One of the few points where she agreed with her father was that she was too young to wear it. She slipped her wallet into her pocket- that was new, a simple little trifold with nothing in it but her temporary student identification card with her temporary new name on it. Remembering how that name on her paperwork had saved her from her father, she felt as if she were putting a little shield in her pocket. Then, she was ready, because she had no more getting-ready to do. She heard Ryosuke giving Itsuki instructions as she headed to the door and picked up her new sneakers. “She doesn’t need the wheelchair, but keep her off her feet. It’s not a good day to stroll through a museum or a mall, or to go for a hike. That number I gave you belongs to the detective working on her case. If you see any of the men you saw before, or anybody else seems to be following you suspiciously-“

“Anybody who isn’t Senpai or Kenji. They follow me if they think I’m out with a girl. I mean, this isn’t a date, I know it isn’t, but she’s still a girl… Speaking of that, Ryosuke-san, when should I bring her back home again?”

“Project D is racing at Ibaraki. We won’t be home tonight, so it doesn’t matter how long she’s out as long as she’s having a good time and you aren’t doing anything improper. Here.” Ryosuke checked his own wallet and handed several notes to Yasuko. “Put that in your own wallet. As this isn’t a date, you’ll pay your own way. Have a good time.”

She turned to her guardian. “I… suppose I won’t be here to see you off. Please let Keisuke-san know that I wish him all the best luck and I still want to hear right away how everything went. I feel a little bad about going without seeing him off.”

“Trust me on this, Yasuko-chan,” Ryosuke told her. “Keisuke will feel better and race better when he knows that you’re out enjoying yourself.”

For the first time, Itsuki turned his full attention on Yasuko. Then, he stared wide-eyed. “Wow.” He continued to stare until she wondered if there was something terribly wrong with her appearance, then the rest of his reaction burst out of him. “You look amazing! I love what you did with your hair!”

“Thank you, Itsuki-san,” Yasuko responded properly, relieved and pleased. 

Itsuki offered her his arm and escorted her to his car like a gentleman, which Yasuko liked very much, and she did get to see Keisuke after all. She recognized his tall figure standing at the living room window when she glanced back at the house. She waved to him and, after a moment, he gave her a cautious wave back.

It didn’t take long for Yasuko to decide that she enjoyed Itsuki’s world.

Akina Lake was beautiful. He took her out on a rowboat and, when she begged to row with him, he let her. After all, he argued, it kept her off her feet. He took her for a drive up the pass but, to her secret disappointment, he didn’t go very fast. He pointed out several other places where he said he would take her when she could walk and run more easily. But her mood did flag when he asked her if she’d been to the ocean, and he picked up on it. “Are you okay, Yasuko-chan? I’ve been taking you places and talking about everything, but you’ve been pretty quiet. If you aren’t having fun, we can do something else. Or if you’re just quiet, that’s okay too!”

They were sitting on a park bench, back at the lake, looking out at the water. “I’m okay,” Yasuko answered slowly, finding her words. “But I don’t always know what to say, when you talk about places you’ve been, and I don’t really have much I can say about places I’ve been. Or what I have to say isn’t very nice. I don’t want you to stop talking about it, and I don’t want you to stop bringing me. I’ve had so much fun already today.” She knew that he was looking at her, but she chose to look out across the water instead of meeting his gaze. “My father usually takes me to the ocean once a year. I used to really enjoy it. But in recent years, he’s been more difficult to please, and I have to try to act in a way that makes him feel good about bringing me, or he gets really angry. This year, he hadn’t brought me yet, but I didn’t want to go anymore.” She still didn’t want to look at his face and see his expression. She dropped her gaze, studying her beautiful, brand-new sneakers. “But I think I would like to go with someone like you. I don’t have to play guessing games with your mood. And you’ve enjoyed everything as much as I have, without me having to do anything extra for you.”

“Well, of course I have,” Itsuki told her, turning serious. “And I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, too. Can you tell me, if you want to… Haven’t you been somewhere nice? What did you like about where you lived? Was all of it bad?”

“No, not all of it.” Yasuko still didn’t look at him, but she did lift her eyes back to the water and the horizon beyond it. “I didn’t leave the house except for school, most of the time. But it wasn’t just a house, you know. Downstairs was an entire auto repair business. I did a lot of the paperwork, except for the special stuff. But I also got to watch the mechanics do their work. My father wasn’t always in a bad mood, and he liked to teach me about what he was doing. I would listen to the car engines. I admit I kind of miss that. It’s lovely, being ‘Takahashi Yasuko’, lovelier than most of the rest of my life. But it’s so quiet. I’m not used to it being so quiet.” She finally risked a glance in his direction. Itsuki looked entirely sympathetic, but he was also smiling, and she found that lifted her spirits a little. She smiled in response. “I was sitting on the couch when you came this morning, but I knew it was you, because I could hear your car. I don’t know anybody else with a turbocharger on an Eight-Five.”

That impressed him, and she found that she liked impressing him more than she liked his sympathy. “You could hear all that? Wow! What else can you hear in an engine?”

That loosened her tongue further. “I can tune an engine by ear, though I always double-check it with the instruments. And when I actually got to talk to a street racer myself for the first time, I could hear correctly that one of his spark plugs was just a little bit worn. His mechanic already knew and was planning to replace it.”

“That’s awesome!” Itsuki grinned. “Tell you what, let’s go have lunch. On the way, you can listen to my car all you want. If you hear anything I should fix, let me know, okay?”

Yasuko liked this idea. They had a lovely lunch out, during which she gave Itsuki a laundry list of the things she heard and felt in his car while driving there. As the list went on, though, she noticed that he started to look downcast, and she hurried to try to reassure him. “For a regular car, just to drive around in, I’d remove most of these things. I’m evaluating it as a racing car, because I know that’s what you want to do with it. You don’t have a bad car. It might not be ideal for racing if you want to do really well at it and win most of your races, but it isn’t a bad car. It’s stout and hard-working, and it will go the distance. Who cares if it’s a bit slow?”

It worked. She saw the light come back into his eyes. “I’m going to write down the whole list anyway, and just work on them one by one. Thank you for doing this with me.”

As they left the diner, Yasuko noticed hesitancy creeping into Itsuki’s voice, and she could guess by his posture that a change was coming. “Do you have to bring me home now?” she guessed.

“I need to start my shift in less than an hour,” he told her. “You wouldn’t want to be stuck at the gas station for the rest of the day, hanging around. If you’d like, I can come back on my next day off, and then we’d have the whole day to explore.”

Yasuko didn’t dare object, not to Itsuki, not after he’d been so kind to her. “Well,” she murmured, “either I would hang around at the gas station for the rest of the day, or I would hang around in a silent house by myself for the rest of the day.”

He looked up, surprised. “Wait, Yasuko-chan, are you saying that you would rather hang around a gas station than to go spent time alone in the nicest house I’ve ever seen?”

She backtracked, abashed. “I wouldn’t want you to do anything that made you uncomfortable, or anything that would damage your job.”

Itsuki grinned. “That’s not a ‘no’! If you really think you’d rather come to work with me than go home, I’ll take you with me. It should be safe, anyway. Pretty much all the other Speed Stars members work at the same station, and my boss is really nice. He won’t mind.”

Nearly as soon as the Eight-Five rolled into the gas station, Itsuki was swarmed by his coworkers. “Hey, you brought your car today” quickly turned into astonished cries of “Itsuki’s got a girl!” He didn’t take long to put them in their place - at least, as far as his passenger was concerned. “She’s not ‘a girl’. I mean, obviously she’s a girl, but she’s under sixteen, she isn’t a date. I’m just taking her around to meet people and learn the area.” Initial teasing aside, however, they turned out to be nice people - casual and untroubled, not as serious or professional as the racers she had met so far, but certainly very kind. She found herself quickly absorbed into their little ongoing trials. Itsuki and the one they called ‘Iketani Senpai’ bemoaned their loneliness in company while Iketani staunchly refused to attempt to re-establish contact with the girl of his dreams, who liked him. All of them followed Project D, but all of them were cheering on Takumi and had barely noticed Keisuke. 

Meanwhile, Kenji was hanging around so that he could take advantage of the mostly-empty bays behind the gas station that, Yasuko thought to herself, might have once been a small repair shop in its own right. He had purchased new brake pads and intended to change them out as soon as Itsuki started his shift, in case he needed Iketani’s expertise. Buoyed by the casual, friendly atmosphere, Yasuko forgot to be cautious and reserved. “Oh, may I help you put them in? Please, may I help you?”

Kenji gave Itsuki a startled glance, but Itsuki took Yasuko’s side. “She’s bored, and she won’t be in your way, she’s already worked in an auto repair shop. Be nice to her, and she might do you a favor and tune your engine… by ear!”

“What auto shop?” Kenji asked suspiciously. “Who is this girl?”

“Takahashi Yasuko,” she asserted boldly, before Itsuki could try to explain.

“Isn’t she the one-“ Kenji started, but Iketani stepped in.

“Kenji, I need a word with you. Over here. No, further. Around the corner.” And the two young men disappeared from view, leaving Yasuko feeling a bit crestfallen. She turned to Itsuki.

“It’s about my father, isn’t it?”

He rested his hand on her shoulder comfortingly. “Yeah, but it’s not what you might think. Ryosuke-san gave the racing group leaders a bit of a lecture on the night you showed up. He told them not to judge you by your father, or air any of their grievances about him to you. Senpai is probably just explaining that to Kenji. I’m sorry that it’s a bit awkward, but it’ll be fine, you’ll see.”

Itsuki was correct. Kenji seemed a bit chastened as he walked back over to her, but his acceptance of her offer was genuine. The two of them set to work, as Iketani and Itsuki watched between tending to customers. After a while, Yasuko realized that an older man was also watching them work. She assumed that this must be their boss. Itsuki had described his boss as ‘really nice’, and the man did rather remind her of a large teddy bear, even at a distance. By the time they finished the brake job, Kenji had accepted her as a fellow mechanic, even though she was a little clumsy since the smallest work gloves they had were still very large on her hands. He let her look through the rest of the internals of his One-Eighty, ‘loving the car’ as she put it, tightening a bolt here and untwisting a wire there, learning its quirks. By this time, Kenji was ‘sold’, and he delighted her by asking her very politely if she would tune the engine as she saw fit. After asking him a few questions about the way he drove and the way he raced, she set to work with the limited tools that he had available for her. The mysterious boss had some extra tools of his own, and he started bringing her things as soon as he heard her remark that they would be useful for the job. By the time Yasuko closed the hood and pulled off her gloves, the heat of the summer’s day was well over. Kenji decided enthusiastically to head out and test his ‘new car’ at Akina Pass, and the mysterious boss kindly invited Yasuko into the brightly-lit, heavily-windowed shop area for some refreshment. Itsuki encouraged her to accept. “I’m right out here, you’ll be able to see me the whole time.”

The mysterious boss introduced himself, and he offered a very nice spread of tea and small snacks. “It will be dinnertime soon enough. Maybe we ought to treat you to dinner, considering all the work you did today.”

“Thank you, Tachibana-san,” Yasuko replied politely. “But you don’t need to do that. Ryosuke-san gave me some money, and I have enough left to pay my own way.”

“That’s right, I heard you introduce yourself as a ‘Takahashi’,” he mused. “I’ve heard of the ‘Rotary Brothers’, of course, but I didn’t know they had a sister.”

“Not really,” Yasuko admitted. “I’m Takahashi Ryosuke’s ward. For now, at least. I don’t know what will happen later.”

He studied her for a moment. “I’ve heard little whispers here and there about something going on, but I haven’t really picked up the full picture. If you’re his ward, where did you come from?”

Yasuko took a breath and consoled herself with the hope that, if this boss hadn’t heard much of what was going on, he surely wouldn’t know who her father was. “I came from the Saitama region. ‘Yamamoto Yasuko’.”

Tachibana Yuichi startled. “What is your father’s name?”

“Yamamoto Shinji. He owns an auto repair shop.” She knew her last name was a relatively common one.

“Yamamoto Shinji!” he replied in astonishment. “I didn’t know he had a daughter.”

“Yes,” Yasuko told him timidly. “My father’s first name is Shinji, and my mother’s-“

“First name was Suki. But Suki died many years ago.”

“That’s right. How did you know that?” 

After a long pause, he took a deep breath. “I think there are some things I need to ask you, and I think there are some things I need to tell you. Strange fate brought you here today.”

Nervously, Yasuko glanced back through the huge windows. Itsuki was sweeping the pavement around the gas pumps. He grinned at her and offered her a friendly thumbs-up. She took a deep breath and turned back to this unusual man who apparently knew more about her family than she did… but didn’t know about her at all. “What do you need me to tell you?”

Chapter Text

Yasuko didn’t think it wise to speak too much about her father’s unfriendly business practices or Takahashi Ryosuke’s plan to bring him to trial over it.

That left plenty more to tell, though, and Itsuki’s gas station boss seemed content with what she could give him. She had to explain why she had a different guardian, so she told him about the abuse angle, instead. She told him about the shop with the wild vines climbing the back wall, the rattle and hum of tools and the roar of car engines, the tranquil sulks and sudden rages. It was easier than she had anticipated to summarize the whole matter and deliver it point-blank, and Yuichi did not interrupt her as she spoke. “I feel sometimes,” she admitted, finishing up, “as though I am going to have to tell this entire story every time I meet someone new, for the rest of my life.”

“I’m sorry,” he told her kindly. “This won’t be your whole life. But you left him less than a week ago, and I won’t expect anything to settle down until after the trial. I’m also sorry that I never knew about you or what you were going through. I’m afraid your father alienated his family and his friends before you were old enough to benefit from them. If I’d known he had a child, maybe…”

“You know him?” Yasuko ventured.

“I knew him,” Yuichi told her. “You’ve been very patient, and you deserve an explanation. He and I were in the same grade at school. His parents owned an auto repair shop in the Saitama region. When they died, he took it over. It was a fairly well-known place, but from the way you describe Shinji’s shop, it looks as though he hasn’t been flourishing. Does he… ever talk about your mother?”

“Never,” Yasuko answered sadly. “I don’t remember her. I was told that I was only a couple of months old when she died. I don’t even know why she died. Even when I was younger and he was nicer to me, he never spoke of her. He has said something strange to me, though, in recent years, when he has been very angry with me. Did you know her?”

Yuichi’s own expression turned both thoughtful and sad. “I knew her. I knew both of them. I was there at their wedding, and I kept in touch for a few years afterward. But the last time I saw either of them was about a year before she died. What did Shinji say to you, that you found so strange?”

“He said I was not his daughter,” Yasuko remembered. “I thought that meant he was disowning me. But he didn’t disown me, not legally, at least. I found that out when I tried to leave. Why would he say something like that, if he didn’t mean to make it true?”

But she didn’t get an answer. Yuichi remained silent for a long moment before speaking again. “You said that there would be an abuse trial. When is it?”

“I don’t know. I’m sure Ryosuke-san is handling all the details. He said that I needed a good outfit to wear at court, so I think I am going to have to be part of it.”

“Hmmm…. Yes…. I might need to get in touch with him.” He blinked a couple of times, then finally focused on her again. “I’m sorry, Yasuko. There are some things that I’m not ready to talk about just yet. That isn’t very fair to you. You’ve been very forthright, and I appreciate that. Tell you what, I’ll cover dinner for you just because of that. Don’t worry about it. Consider it payment for what I just put you through. And I hope I didn’t scare you away. I’d like you to feel welcome here whenever you would like to stop by.” He smiled kindly. “I mean it. Your presence startled me. I didn’t know you existed. But I hope Suki’s and Shinji’s daughter - or Takahashi Ryosuke’s ward, whichever you’d prefer - always feels that she can come here.”

Tachibani Yuichi and his employees all ordered dinner from a nearby takeout. He showed her the menu. “Are you sure you want to pay for it?” Yasuko asked, just to be sure. “I do have money.”

“I’m paying, as recompense for what I put you through, having just met you and everything. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable here, and you’ve got plenty of reason to be,” he asserted. He had this particular sort of twinkle in his eye, and she did feel very much put out by his questions and revelations and lack of revelations. So, in a spark of defiance, she chose the most expensive thing on the menu. She pointed it out tentatively, poised, watching his face carefully, ready to quickly switch to a second choice. But, if anything, the twinkle seemed brighter as he agreed readily. The employees ate in shifts, keeping someone always ready to serve customers, and none of them remarked on Yasuko’s fancy meal. Yuichi avoided awkward questions and statements altogether, and he discussed car knowledge and racer knowledge with her for the rest of the evening. “I like you,” he told her, as Itsuki finished the closing chores. “I’m glad. I wanted to like you. Come back anytime.”

“Will you tell me more about my family, if I ask?” Yasuko wanted to know. He smiled and patted her on the shoulder.

“Of course. You just startled me today. The next time you come, I promise to be more helpful.”

She exited the shop area to find Itsuki starting to panic. “I’m supposed to be at the top of Akina by ten. I need to bring you back right away, Yasuko-chan, or I’ll never make it in time.”

Iketani heard him. “What are you doing up there at that time of night? Is it a race? Are you actually racing someone?”

And just at that moment, Kenji pulled his own car in. “This runs great!  I love the job that girl Yasuko did, if she’s still… What’s going on?”

“Itsuki’s racing tonight!” Iketani told him. His eyes widened.

“Wait, he didn’t actually say-“ Yasuko began, confused. But Itsuki’s shoulders slumped slightly as he smiled bravely.

“Yeah, it’s true. I’m supposed to meet Shoji Shingo for a race. He took notice of how I did back on Tuesday. I’m gonna lose, but-“

“We’ll come and support you! Won’t we? You can’t just go race without the rest of the Speed Stars to cheer you on!” Kenji insisted.

Itsuki scratched the back of his head. “Well, first, you know, I need to hurry up and bring Yasuko-chan home, I’m sure she doesn’t want to…” His voice trailed off as he looked back at her face. “You actually want to see a street race, don’t you? There won’t be much to look at, and I don’t think Ryosuke-san would like it if I left you up at the starting line by yourself. I think he’d like it even less if I took you on the race itself.”

“We’ll bring her,” Kenji offered enthusiastically. “I’m ready to move, everyone can just pile in. We’ll make sure there’s always someone with her.”

“I don’t know, guys…” Itsuki started. Yasuko didn’t dare say anything. She wanted so badly to go that she felt as if her whole body were vibrating. She looked up at the others. Iketani smiled at her.

“Park it, Kenji. We’ll take mine. Yasuko will be chauffeured up the hill by the Speed Stars’ best driver. We’ll take such good care of her, there’s no way even Takahashi Ryosuke could object.”

Itsuki opened his mouth again at Iketani’s ‘best driver’ remark, but he said nothing to the racer whom he’d managed to overtake just a few days ago. Impulse and common sense had hit each other inside his head with a solid impact, rendering him temporarily speechless. Meanwhile, Iketani offered his arm to Yasuko like a gentleman and escorted her to his pale green vehicle, waving for Kenji to enter first. “You’ve got the back seat today, Kenji.” 

For just a moment, Itsuki looked like he might object, and Yasuko hesitated, not wanting to do something that her guide for the day disapproved of… but then he met her gaze squarely and his hesitancy melted into a smile. “Go ahead, Yasuko-chan. Iketani Senpai will take good care of you. I’ll meet you at the top of Akina Pass.”

Yasuko had one question for her new impromptu chaperone. “Since it’s after dark, will you be able to drive very fast up the hill?”

Iketani refused to drift, but he did take the hill at a fairly good clip. The race wasn’t heavily attended, but there were a few people at each of the most prominent corners. At the top, there were a few more. As she stepped out of the S13, she recognized Nakazato Takeshi on the other side of the parking lot and waved to him. He looked a little confused, but he waved back. As Itsuki pulled into place at the starting line, she followed Iketani over to wish him luck. Shingo looked downright startled to see her, but he hesitantly returned her wave as well. Then she retreated and watched the countdown. With a squeal of tires, both cars shot off into the night. She heard another squeal further down, and then silence. After a moment, Yasuko noticed Iketani stiffening slightly, and she looked up to see Nakazato approach. “Oh, I know who you are now,” the Night Kids leader remarked as he drew near. “I was wondering when you waved to me. You’re that girl from the court case. You’re looking a lot better today. I like what you did with your hair. Who did you come to root for?”

Yasuko hadn’t thought of that. “I don’t know. I’m not a racer, and I’m not affiliated. I suppose, with Ryosuke-san as my guardian, I would be on the side of the Red Suns. But none of them are here. Itsuki-san is the one who let me come, but I’ve followed Shoji-san for longer. So I guess, both of them. Uh…” This was actually an opportunity, and one that she knew she couldn’t miss. She didn’t know how soon the trial would happen. “Actually, it would be good if I could speak to Shoji-san tonight, after the race. How would I do that?”

Nakazato shrugged. “’Shoji-san’, eh? You wait until you see him get out of the car and shake hands with Itsuki, and then you walk towards him and call out, ‘Hey, Shoji-san, I need to talk to you’. If that’s what you’re going to call him, anyway. He might freak out a little. Don’t let that bother you.”

“Why would he freak out?” Yasuko asked, puzzled.

“Because even though he acts tough, he’s a bit superstitious, and your appearance at the last event unnerved him a bit. He’s also said that you have a sort of strange look in your eyes when you look at him. I haven’t seen it, myself. He’ll get over it.”

“I guess I do look at him strangely,” Yasuko admitted. “But it’s because I need to talk to him. Once I do, I hope he’ll understand.”

Nakazato looked as though he were about to ask something, but he was interrupted by his phone. He took the call, listened, thanked the caller, and ended the call with a satisfied look on his face. “Takeuchi tried to overtake, but Shingo kept ahead of him. They’re near the halfway point, two-second gap. That kid’s actually doing pretty well, but he’s no Fujiwara. He won’t win.”

“He knew he wouldn’t,” Yasuko remembered. “But he’s so happy just to get the chance to try.”

“Not exactly a winning attitude.” Nakazato shrugged. “But he’s right, he wasn’t really going to win it anyway.”

Sure enough, the next report confirmed the loss. Both cars worked their way back up the hill, Shingo leading Itsuki, and then the two of them exited their vehicles and shook hands like gentlemen. Itsuki came bouncing back to the other Speed Stars, distracting them, and Yasuko took the opportunity to step away from her chaperone and make for her target. She lined up the words in her head as Nakazato had recommended, but her nervousness completely ruined the casual tone she was hoping for. “Shoji-san, I-need-to-talk-to-you.”

It worked, sort of. He glanced up, startled, and his expression turned wary as she approached. He took a step back, then leaned as casually as he could against his own car with his arms folded. “Okay… but ‘Shoji-san’ is my father, and it sounds really weird to hear it at a racing event. You can call me ‘Shingo’. What do you want?”

“I need to tell you something.” She took a breath, then another. “Ryosuke-san said it’s all going to come out in the trial. And you’re going to find out all about it. I want to tell you first, before you find out.” Now that she had come to it, standing there, she wasn’t sure she could. He’d always been letters on a page and stories at the shop, but now he was suddenly a real live person watching her face as she spoke.

“You’re trembling,” he remarked, looking less uneasy and more surprised. “Are you afraid of me?”

“Sort of. I’m afraid of what I have to tell you about,” Yasuko admitted.

His gaze softened a little. “Well, hey. Don’t be scared of me, I won’t hurt you.” He lowered himself to the pavement. “Come sit down.”

Yasuko felt a little braver as they both sat on the ground, facing each other in the dim streetlight. “Okay. I know you brought your vehicle into my father’s shop. I know he replaced your driver’s side seatbelt.”

His gaze hardened, but he glanced away from her as he responded. “Yeah. Found a weird twisted piece of metal in it. I filed suit, but since the seatbelt worked properly, they ruled that there was no harm and I couldn’t collect anything. Look, Takahashi Ryosuke told us that we weren’t to bug you about anything your father did. But you brought it up, and I don’t hate you for what he did. Is that what was bothering you?”

It wasn’t what was bothering her, not at all, but she wasn’t sure at first that she could explain what was. He had answered her pretty straightforwardly, though, so she took his cues and answered in kind. “It was plastic.”

That got his attention. “What are you talking about? It was either brass or bronze.”

Yasuko started talking quickly, forcing the story out. “The part was plastic. I didn’t like it. My father said it was probably fine, he’d gotten it cheaply enough, and if you were a fool with your car, it was your fault. But I knew you were a racer, and I didn’t, I mean, I’m not saying you’re a fool, but I didn’t think it would be good enough for a racer. It was the hardest work I ever tried to do. He’s not an alcoholic, thankfully, he doesn’t get violent that way, but if he has enough, it’ll put him to sleep. And I know how to refill it when he isn’t paying attention, and when he’s watching his favorite show and doesn’t track how much…” She realized that she was babbling now. She took a couple of breaths. “So I knew he’d sleep all night long in his chair. And I crept back down to the shop. The disassembly was easy, but I couldn’t find a part to replace the plastic. I looked through the rods, but none of them were thin enough. But I had something, and I used it. I’d never actually worked the torch before, but I’d used the soldiering iron, so I did my best and it took hours. It came out all twisted and weird, but I tested the tensile strength against the plastic part, and it held after the plastic part snapped. So I put it in. I did that. You found the piece of twisted metal in there because I put it in there.”

His eyes widened in astonishment. By the time she was done telling her part, he was the one looking at her strangely, while she gave a short laugh of relief. She was shaking openly now, but she didn’t care anymore. He started to speak again, slowly. “So, I found it because I did get into a pretty bad, high-speed wreck. If you hadn’t done that, the seatbelt might have failed.”

“Maybe it would have held,” Yasuko conceded. “Maybe I was wrong. But I’ve always loved my racers, and you’re one of them. I couldn’t take the chance.”

“What did you use?” Shingo wanted to know. “You said it wasn’t a rod from the shop. Where did you find the metal?”

“A piece of jewelry,” Yasuko admitted. “A brooch with a butterfly on it, with pink and purple gems on the butterfly wings. I don’t know how old it was. I’ve had it for as long as I can remember. I lied to my father. I told him it had broken. He was angry, but he was also confused, because it was actually brass, and he didn’t think it could be broken. I had the little accent gems in my jewelry box, but he took it away from me. I have the box back, but the gems are gone.”

“And that’s why you kept giving me strange looks.” Shingo finished putting the pieces together. “I can’t believe you sacrificed an old brooch for me. I don’t think you had a lot of jewelry to spare.”

Yasuko shook her head. “Just the brooch. But it was worth it to me. Maybe it was silly. And if you’re still angry, I understand. It really wasn’t a professional job, and it might have cheated you out of a legitimate case against my father. But…”

“Yeah, but the seatbelt didn’t fail!” Shingo shook his head. “Well, I’m not mad at you. I’m actually… kind of impressed. In fact, I think I should be thanking you. You said this was all coming out in the trial?”

“Yes. Your case was the most… noticeable… and the most dramatic. But it wasn’t the only time I crept in and ‘fixed’ something that I thought wasn’t done right. My father hates racers. I don’t know why. But he was always much sloppier with racer vehicles, and I worried about them… about you… about all of you. I wrote it all down, and now it’s actual legal evidence.”

“So you haven’t just been listening to us. You’ve actually been looking out for us.”

“Yes.” Yasuko drew up her knees and rocked back a little. “Ryosuke-san told me that I’d been a little guardian angel. He made my first personal online account for me, and he made the name ‘Racers’ Angel’, like, the word ‘racers’ and a dot, and then the word ‘angel’. I’m a bit nervous about that. That’s a pretty big claim to make.”

Shingo shrugged. “Project D updates and profiles tend to be pretty bold. I think he’s doing it on purpose.”

“Yasuko! There you are!” Iketani hurried up to them, alarmed. “I just turned around and you were gone! I promised I’d take good care of you! Itsuki’s going crazy looking for you, he’s ready to leave.”

“It’s alright,” Shingo offered, rising to his feet. “She was safe. We were just talking. I’d have kept any of the creeps away from her.”

From the look on Iketani’s face, he clearly believed that Shingo was one of the creeps that he wanted to keep away from Yasuko. 

As Yasuko started to rise, Shingo held out his hand to her. He pulled her to her feet, and they shook hands as soon as she was fully standing. “Thank you for agreeing to speak with me, Shingo-san,” she told him politely.

He laughed. “Still weird. ‘Shingo’, okay? Maybe I’ll see you at the next race. And I’ll keep an eye out for your new nickname online.”

There was something steady about Iketani. Even when he looked stern and acted strict, Yasuko found that she was not afraid of him. He was exactly what the other Speed Stars members called him, a true senpai, naturally tracking and watching out for younger and less experienced people within his sphere of influence. She had seen a bit of the same ‘big brother’ tendency in Keisuke, even though he was the younger brother of the two. She could not help smiling as Iketani clucked and fretted and herded her over to the Eight-Five to wait for Itsuki. It didn’t take long for Itsuki to spot them and beeline for them, looking very relieved. “I found her,” Iketani explained. “She was fine, she was off making friends with Shoji Shingo.”

“Making friends with Shoji Shingo?” Itsuki stared at her. “Does he have friends?”

“Of course he does,” Yasuko offered easily. “Nakazato Takeshi is his friend, right?”

From the exchanged glances between Itsuki and Iketani, they weren’t so sure about that.

“Never mind that,” she said quickly. “I heard you did well.” Yasuko wasn’t sure how to console the loser in a race. She hoped that Itsuki wouldn’t be downcast or, worse, angry.

But he wasn’t. “Yeah! Yeah! I got past the midway point! He lost me around a couple of hairpin turns. And I tried to overtake him! It didn’t work, but I actually tried it, and I feel like I learned so much. This was awesome. I hope I get to actually race someone again sometime soon. Hey, let me take you home. It’s awfully late. If you were any other girl, I’d be in deep trouble by now.”

Yasuko looked up at him hopefully. “Can you go fast down the hill?”

Ituski agreed to drive a little faster than he normally would, but he flatly refused to drift around corners for her. “You’re Takahashi Ryosuke’s ward. It’s not worth my life to race like that when you’re in the car with me.”

“Why, what do you think Ryosuke-san would do to you?”

He laughed openly. “I think ‘Keisuke-san’ would actually kill me!”

As they eased off the pass, he slowed down considerably. Yasuko felt too tired to talk. She watched the street lights and the darkened buildings pass by, closed her eyes… and startled, because someone had touched her shoulder and spoken her name. The Eight-Five was sitting still, engine rumbling quietly. “Hey, you fell asleep. You’re home.”

Her hopes of a repeat performance for tomorrow were pretty quickly dashed. “It’s going to be really hot,” Itsuki told her. “Pretty brutal. I think you should just be glad that you can stay inside all day. I’ll be working a long shift and Saturdays are pretty busy all day, so nobody’s going to have much time to spend with you. But I’ll see you again soon, okay?” Yasuko found that she was too tired to protest anyway, and a long stretch of doing nothing actually did sound pretty good after all the crazy activity of the day. Itsuki saw her to the door like a gentleman to make sure she got inside safely, then waved to her before walking away. She remembered to take her evening medications, crept up to her room as the clock struck midnight, and only half-undressed before crawling into bed and falling fast asleep.

Her dreams were very strange.

Chapter Text

A tall, lanky, older man finished closing up his shop for Friday night. He had just settled down on the couch to think about dinner when the phone rang. He picked it up.

“Hello. ….Oh, it’s you. Huh? Might as well.”

He hung up the phone, sighed, and pulled on his shoes. He checked his cigarette package to find that he only had three left. “Wonder what’s got Yuichi all worked up tonight. It’s just as well. I’d have had to go out anyway.”

About a half hour and a couple of trips later, the blue Subaru Impreza sat in the parking lot of their favorite restaurant. The two men themselves sat in a booth this time instead of being contented at the bar. At least, Bunta would have been fine at the bar, but his friend wanted a booth. He didn’t really mind. The food was still the same. He didn’t really have to ask why they were eating out together tonight. He knew that the pressure would build until his friend simply couldn’t keep silent anymore. Sure enough, Yuichi spoke before the appetizer was finished. “Did you know that Yamamoto Shinji had a child?”

“Hm. A daughter. Yasuko.”

That clearly startled Yuichi. “How long have you known about this, Bunta? Why didn’t you ever say anything to me?”

“Didn’t need to stir the pot. You haven’t mentioned her in a long time.”

“When did you find out?” Yuichi persisted. 

This time, Bunta addressed it. “Less than a week ago. Sunday. Takumi told me.”

“You didn’t know, either. All these years.” Yuichi drew in a shaky breath, then focused on his appetizer. “Itsuki brought her to the station earlier today, to show her around at his workplace. She’s a sweet girl.”

“Mm.” After that profound response, Bunta fell silent. He knew that his friend needed to say something, and that he needed to work himself up to it. The appetizers were cleared away and the main dishes set out. Once the waitress left, Yuichi tried again.

“Shinji hates street racers. Specifically. He’s apparently picked up a habit of defrauding them on purpose. That’s why he’s in trouble now.” He paused for a long moment, but Bunta didn’t press him. The two ate several bites before he tried again. “You know how I felt about… her.”

Bunta took pity on his friend. “You were in love with Yamamoto Suki. And she loved you. She made her choice. But she didn’t stop loving you, either.”

It worked. Yuichi worked his way past the last barrier in his mind and looked up at his friend beseechingly. “Yasuko-chan told me that her father had said something interesting to her. He said that she was not his daughter. But he didn’t disown her, so he meant something different than just giving up on her. He only said it in anger, she said.”

Bunta didn’t want to seem dismissive or disapproving, so he went with “Mmhmm” this time.

“He thinks she isn’t his daughter. At least, when he’s angry, he believes it. And he hates street racers. I think… I think I know what he thinks. I think I know who he thinks her father was.”

“Mmm?” Bunta raised an eyebrow.

“If it were true,” Yuichi asked desperately, “if I’d done such a thing, would I lose your friendship?”

Bunta took no time to consider the question. “No,” he stated firmly. Another pause, and he added, “I already knew, back then, that it could have happened.”

Yuichi let out a breath and fell silent. The two worked their way slowly through their main dishes, though it was clear that Bunta had a better appetite for it than Yuichi did. Finally, Yuichi broke into a slight, rueful laugh. “Bunta, is there anything I could do, that would be stupid enough to drive you away?”

“Yes.” Bunta looked up and met his gaze squarely. “If you had found out that a little girl was being abused, and there was something you could do about it, especially since you had reason to believe that you were involved. But you didn’t, because you were concerned about your reputation.” He picked up the last bite of his food. “That would just about do it.”

They continued in silence for a moment. When Yuichi spoke again, the tension in his voice was gone. “Thank you. Now I know exactly what to do.”

“You already knew,” Bunta remarked wryly. “You may have never been very fast, but you have always had the heart of a street racer.”

On Saturday, Yasuko woke up late. She also woke up with a headache. She could hear the ‘heat bugs’ outside already, but the house was cool. She checked the time and was startled to see that it was already nearly noon.

Her thirst for adventure quenched from the turmoil of the previous day, she enjoyed her time alone instead. She took her morning medications, luxuriated in a nice long bath, made herself a lovely little lunch from the well-stocked kitchen, and took a moment to be conscientious and clean up her bedroom. She had herself a relaxing session with lotion on her bruises, checked the Project D website to find nothing new, and read a book for a while. She also took some time to just lounge on the couch and stare out the window, thinking over everything that had occurred just over the past week. Everything blended together at first, and then she started to untangle threads - the racers who accepted her, the continued threat from her father, the mysterious man at the gas station who knew her parents. She could think about it, but she couldn’t really feel it, not yet. She didn’t even know yet if she wanted to go back and talk to him again. She blessed the heat and humidity, outside where it wasn’t bothering her, for trapping her inside and keeping her from making more decisions on the fly before she knew how to sort out her own head. She had forgotten to think about how Project D was out in the heat, or how they might be struggling with it.

As the heat of the day passed, Yasuko drifted into a light nap on the couch. She startled as she heard the front door open. She still saw light in the sky, so it wouldn’t make sense for Project D to be returning, not unless something terrible had happened. She sat up on the couch, listening in the quiet house. One person had entered - a man, she guessed, from the slight grunt she heard as he removed his shoes. She couldn’t imagine that the two brothers wouldn’t enter together. Then a middle-aged man entered the room, someone whom she immediately both did and did not recognize. She was strongly reminded of both of the Takahashi brothers at once, but there was something more - he was not quite as tall as either of them, but his authoritative bearing exceeded Ryosuke’s by such a significant amount that she found herself rising from her seat and offering a formal bow before she even fully realized what she was doing. Her voice nearly caught as she tried to greet him. “Takahashi-sama…”

“Ah,” he stated, looking back at her. “I understand. You must be part of Ryosuke’s project, the girl he took in. I might have expected you to be here.”

“My name is Yasuko, Takahashi-sama,” she told him. Although she added the formalities and kept her language respectful, she did wonder at her own brashness.

He looked at her steadily for a moment, then quirked a slight smile. “Were you left here alone, Yasuko?”

“Yes, Takahashi-sama. I think your sons will be home later tonight.”

“The formality is going to become tiring,” he told her. He paused for a moment, thinking. “Refer to me as ‘Ojii-san’. I am not quite that old yet, but it will do. Yasuko, do you know how to cook?”

Her breath caught for a moment in her nervousness. “I do, Ojii-san. I cooked for my father.” As usual, she automatically used the term outo-sama, and she saw him raise one eyebrow in response.

“Good. Please make dinner for both of us. I will be ready to eat in an hour. Does that suit?”

She nodded, wide-eyed. “Yes, Ojii-san.”

“Good,” he stated simply, and left the room. She heard him climb the stairs. She let out a shaky breath and headed straight for the kitchen. There were plenty of eggs, but none of them seemed hard-boiled, so she started there. Being that it had been a hot day, she opted for seaweed salad and a nice rice and chicken dish rather than a soup or another hearty meal. She watched the clock and carefully set up the table for dinner. She had no idea how punctual the formidable Takahashi father would be. As it was, he re-entered almost exactly one hour later and nodded with satisfaction as she presented the table. “Very good.”

Aside from that one bit of praise, he did not speak during the meal, so she remained silent as well. She rose once he was finished, cleared the table, and set out the tea. To her surprise, he took over as the host and served her. It was only afterwards that he spoke again, and he sounded much less sharp and straightforward. “You have been taught well. You can be proud of yourself. You look well enough, considering your condition. Has my son been seeing properly to your needs?”

“Yes, Ojii-san,” she replied, letting out another breath and feeling some of the nervousness seep away. “Very much so. My new room is very nice, and Ryosuke-san even replaced my wardrobe and made sure I had all of my possessions. He set out my medications, so that I would know what to take while he was gone.”

“Good,” he said again. “May I see the medications?”

“Of course.” She brought him her last packet, the one prepared for her to take that evening before bed. He looked through the small assortment of pills and nodded, looking satisfied again.

“Have you been to a doctor since you left the hospital, Yasuko? Do you have a doctor that you already see?” he asked.

Yasuko faltered, hoping that she wasn’t about to get her guardian into trouble. “I have not, Ojii-san. I have never had a regular doctor of my own. My father took me to see someone if I was seriously ill or hurt, but it was a different person every time.”

“Hm. Well, it hasn’t been long, there is time.” He paused as he drank the last sip of tea. “May I see your feet?”

This seemed like an odd request, but Yasuko remembered that he worked at a hospital and had already asked to see her medications. She had no objections, so she nodded and pulled off her cushioned slippers and socks. He took a moment to study her feet one by one, prodding at them and watching her reaction. “They seem to be healing well,” he told her. “I think you can start walking normally tomorrow, as long as you start slow and don’t push yourself if you’re too tired. Your feet will be the last to heal, because they are furthest from your heart and you put a lot of weight on them when you use them.” He rose from the table. “Thank you for making dinner. This isn’t much of a household to raise a girl in, but I understand that it’s better than you already had. My son is apparently taking proper care of you, at least. For as long as you need to be ‘Takahashi Yasuko’, I have no objection.” And with that, he started to walk back towards the doorway.

Suddenly, Yasuko wanted to speak up. She didn’t want to be disrespectful, but she had noticed the man’s repeated wording about ‘his son’, and she felt like she had to try to say something about it. She could feel it like energy filling her body. “Your other son…” she blurted out, her heart starting to race. She hoped that she wasn’t about to make him angry.

But he didn’t respond in anger. He turned back and looked at her. “Keisuke,” he stated. He paused for a moment. “Yes? What about him?”

That response seemed at least a little bit promising. “He’s been taking care of me, too. He brought me out to the store to pick out my wardrobe. He pushed me around in the chair all day. He was the first one I spoke to, the one who told me that I could leave my father and that they would take care of me.”

“Did he tell you something about me?” he asked, his voice level and slightly curious. Yasuko still didn’t detect anger, so she pushed ahead.

“He said that you ignored him, but that he gave you cause. He said that he had gotten into trouble, and he deserved it. But I…” She clamped her mouth shut. It wasn’t right to say anything more than that. She wasn’t even sure that she was entitled to say as much as she had.

He regarded her for a moment, as the seconds stretched out. Then, he smiled just slightly. “I haven’t disowned Keisuke. I’m glad that he recognizes the trouble he was in. His brother was doing a better job of reaching him than I was. I’ve been maintaining a stern distance and letting Ryosuke do what he can. Don’t tell anybody. The strong disapproval of a parent is of great benefit when a child needs to learn that he has done wrong. But I’m watching Keisuke more closely than either of them know. He isn’t fully aware yet, but I haven’t given up on him.” He paused for another moment. “Is that what you wanted to know?”

“Thank you,” she gasped out, and he gave her a grave nod before heading back up the stairs to the third floor.

The very next thing Yasuko did, as soon as she could breathe properly again, was to wash up all the dishes and make absolutely sure that the common room was tidy and clean. By the time she was done, she felt herself growing weary again. She took her evening medications, properly brushed her teeth this time, and tucked herself into bed. She lay awake for a long moment, her mind whirling even more than it had before. She wasn’t fully aware of when she closed her eyes and did not open them again. Suddenly, she startled awake as she realized that someone was in the room with her, perched on the edge of her bed. “Hey,” he said softly. In the faint light streaming in from the hallway through the open door, she recognized Keisuke. She sat up and gave him a big hug. As soon as she did, she already knew his news, because he was nearly vibrating with it as he hugged her back. “We won. Both of us.”

“I knew it!” She tried to keep her voice down, too, sitting back and looking up at him. “I was sure you would.”

“I wasn’t that sure. It was really rough. The weather was terrible, too. Aniki was right not to bring you. We’re going to have a break after this. Fujiwara pretty nearly tore out his suspension by the eighth round. It’ll have to be completely rebuilt.” He patted her on the shoulder and rose. “Go back to sleep. It’s a couple hours before dawn.”

“How long ago did you get back?” Yasuko asked.

“Just now. I did tell you that I’d make sure you knew as soon as we got in. I need to shower and get some sleep. You won’t see me again before lunchtime.”

“What about Ryosuke-san?”

“Oh, he got to sleep the whole way home. I had to drive my FD back, of course. We’re pretty worn out from the weather. I need to go take a shower.”

With the comforting sound of other people on the same floor, murmuring quietly to each other and walking about before falling dark and silent again, it didn’t take Yasuko long to drift back to sleep.

Next morning, after getting ready for the day, Yasuko checked the hallway to find Ryosuke’s bedroom door open and Keisuke’s door shut. She peeked at Ryosuke’s doorway. He sat typing away at his laptop. She waited patiently until he finished his typing and looked up. “Good morning,” he told her. “Did you have your medicine yet?”

She hadn’t, of course. He decided to take a break from his typing and actually sit down to breakfast with her in the common area. Seeing him sitting across from her with his food reminded her of the previous night’s odd supper. “I met your father last night,” she told him. “He told me that I could call him ‘Ojii-san’ for now. I think he approved of me.”

“I know,” Ryosuke told her. “He talked to me this morning, before he left.” He paused for a moment, distracted, then looked up at her again. “He said that you acquitted yourself well. Did you have a good time with Itsuki on Friday?”

The story tumbled out bit by bit. As she described her talk with Shingo and the ride home, he frowned slightly. “When did you get home that night, Yasuko-chan?”

“About midnight. Was that wrong? Itsuki-san did ask for a curfew time, and you said that there wasn’t one.”

“No, he did fine, he didn’t break any rules I set down. I’m just not sure I set down enough rules,” Ryosuke said thoughtfully. “Don’t feel bad about anything you did. You were fine, too. But I think I have to take a moment and really think through the implications of you staying here under my care.”

“Will I still be able to go places with Itsuki-san, and talk to this man who knew my parents?” Yasuko asked timidly.

He nodded. “Certainly. But probably not until midnight, and I think I want to set some ground rules for attending street races, too. You’ve been very lucky, Yasuko-chan. You keep running into good people. Either that, or you keep running into people and bringing out the good in them. Shoji Shingo wouldn’t have really been my first choice for a street race chaperone.”

“Iketani-san brought me.”

“I know. He’s fine.”

After breakfast, Ryosuke went back to his laptop and Yasuko went to hers. She kept checking the Project D website until it suddenly updated. As soon as she started reading the new information, she heard footsteps in the hallway and Ryosuke’s voice. “Yasuko-chan, I have a couple of errands to run and a meeting at lunchtime. When Keisuke gets up, just let him know that I should be back in the late afternoon. I haven’t forgotten that we promised you a game night.”

“I can make supper,” Yasuko offered. “It’s something useful that I can do to help.”

“Sure. I appreciate it. Do you need me to pick up anything for the kitchen?” He peeked into the bedroom through the open door.

Yasuko thought about it for a moment. “We’re a little low on katsuobushi and mirin, but there’s enough for tonight, easily.” Just for a moment, she was reminded of her father, and how she would let him know when he was headed out if they needed anything restocked in the kitchen. Her father would grunt and walk out the door, and she would hope that he would bring the ingredients back. Usually, he did.

Ryosuke reacted differently. He pulled a small notepad out of his pocket, wrote the two items down, and tucked the notepad away. “Thank you, Yasuko-chan. I’ll see to it,” he told her, and then he walked to the entryway to put his shoes on and leave the house. She hurried to the window - something else she never wanted to do before - and watched his white FC pull out of the parking area and head down the street.

Chapter Text

Yasuko was lounging on the couch and reading when she heard Keisuke’s voice in the hallway. “Hey, Aniki, I was wondering…” A pause, and he peeked into the common area, puzzled.

“Ryosuke-san asked me to tell you that he’d be back in the late afternoon. He said he had some errands to run and a meeting at lunchtime. He remembers that he promised me a game night tonight,” Yasuko explained, tipping her head up from the arm of the couch to look at him upside-down.

“Oh. Okay.” He wandered in and laughed to see her stretched out across both cushions. “Push over, make some room.” She obligingly pulled up her feet, perching on one side of the couch, and he threw himself onto the other side and let out a long sigh. “I don’t mean to interrupt your reading. What are you reading, Yasuko-chan?”

“It’s a silly teen romance book. A girl from school bought two copies by mistake and offered me one of them. I don’t have the last book I was reading, it’s my fath-…” She paused for a moment, realizing that the familiar undercurrent of fear had disappeared from her life until she was about to mention her father again. “Yamamoto-san’s book,” she offered stubbornly, and gave Keisuke a defiant look, waiting for him to react.

His mouth twitched slightly, but he actually looked pleased instead of confused or offended. “What was it?”

“A history of suspension systems for automobiles.” His expression changed to surprise, and she decided to explain. “I know how to tell a lot of car problems by sound, and I can tell a lot of engines apart by sound. I can tune engines by ear, too, if I know what the engine is being used for. But I don’t have enough experience riding in cars to feel out suspension problems, and I thought I could learn about it in the abstract, at least.”

“We might have that book. I ought to let you loose in the house library,” Keisuke remarked. “So you haven’t actually ridden in cars much?”

“Only going very slowly. When the mechanics are working in the shop, one of the things I do… did… for them was to bring in vehicles from the parking lot and put them back again. But that’s really not a good way to feel a suspension. I have ridden more in the past few days than I usually do in years, because…” She took a breath. “Yamamoto-san almost never brought me with him anywhere.”

“You’ve driven. A little, at least.”

“Yes, but never in any gear but first and reverse.”

“Huh. Do you like driving as much as you like cars?” he asked curiously.

She didn’t really know the answer. “I’m not sure I’d call what I did ‘driving’, Keisuke-san. Until I actually do get to drive, I won’t know.”

“That’s fair.” He leaned back. “I saw you head out with Itsuki on Friday. Had a good time?”

She found herself telling him all about it. Ryosuke had mostly been interested in details - where, when, what. Keisuke didn’t ask any questions, and she found herself telling it more like a story rather than a report. By the time she finished, though, he looked concerned. “And then you spent all day yesterday here, by yourself?”

“Pretty much.” She didn’t really want to tell him about the dinner with his father, and she knew she couldn’t tell him about her question and his father’s answer, because his father had told her not to. At any rate, she reasoned, Keisuke was probably talking more about not having spent time with someone she could confide in. “I told Ryosuke-san about it this morning.”

“That’s a heck of a thing for a girl to have to carry around all by herself,” Keisuke mused. “With her guardians gone for days.”

Yasuko straightened up in her seat, almost subconsciously. “Haven’t I been carrying things by myself, for years now?” she challenged. “Whether or not my guardian was home.”

That drew an almost immediate response. “Yeah, but you shouldn’t have to!” Keisuke paused for a moment, sighed, and spoke a little more calmly. “Look, just because it’s ‘better’ now doesn’t mean that it’s ‘normal’. But if you need to talk this stuff out, you can come to me. I’ll listen. How do you feel about having talked to Shingo?”

Ryosuke hadn’t asked her that. “Better,” Yasuko responded immediately. “He knows the whole story, and he didn’t get mad at me. It doesn’t have to ‘be weird’ anymore. When he said that maybe he’d see me at the next race, I liked that. I would like to go to the next race and wave hi when I see him.”

The next question was harder to answer. “How do you feel about meeting this gas station owner, Tachibana, who knew your parents? I noticed that you’ve switched the word you use for…” Keisuke fell silent, not sure whether to use the usual term for ‘father’, Yasuko’s special term for ‘father’, or the man’s last name. Yasuko took pity on him and exerted herself.

“I don’t know how I feel, Keisuke-san. I want to hear more. But, at the same time, I don’t want to know.”

“Are you afraid?” he asked. Yasuko nodded. “What are you afraid of, Yasuko-chan?” he followed up. She had to think about it.

“I don’t know,” she finally admitted.

“That’s fair. C’mon, then. I’ll show you the library. Unless you want to keep reading the teen romance book, of course. I’m not one to judge. And if you want to talk about anything else, you know you can, right?”

Yes, she knew, and she was perfectly happy to ditch the teen romance and take a good look at a wide range of books on automotive stuff in general and racing stuff in particular. She squealed with excitement when she saw that they did have the book she’d been reading on suspensions, and she took it back with her to the living room to read instead. A pleasant time passed. After a while of reading, she felt restless and paced around for a while. Keisuke also alternated between reading, pacing, and catching small naps. He still seemed tired from the previous night’s race. Both of them perked up at the same time. “That’s Ryosuke-san,” Yasuko declared first.

“Already learned the sound of his car?” Keisuke asked, a little surprised.

“No,” Yasuko admitted. “It’s just that I know it’s an FC, so I’m pretty sure it’s going to be his.”

“Can you hear the color?” he asked her. She could tell by his eyes that he was teasing her, and she laughed at him.

“White. See if I’m wrong.”

Of course, she wasn’t. Ryosuke offered her the requested pantry items on his way to his room. “Come see me as soon as you get those stowed. I’ve got news.”

That was enough to unnerve her, and not without reason. He was already typing something on his laptop when she entered. He waved her to the bed, so she sat down. Keisuke leaned in the doorway, and Ryosuke made no comment. That made her feel a little better. Whatever it was, it wasn’t secret. “Alright,” Ryosuke finally told her, finishing what he was doing and turning in his chair to face her. “Your presence has been requested in court tomorrow, in the morning. The judge and the lawyers need to ask you some questions. I know you’ve already picked up some formal wear. I don’t think you’ll need to do any special preparation aside from making sure that it’s ready.”

Yasuko took a breath, trying to calm her sudden nervousness. She hoped that she wouldn’t have to do this alone. She didn’t know if she dared ask. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one whose thoughts turned in that direction. “Not all by herself. Right, aniki?” Keisuke asked. “We’ll go too.”

“I’ll be there,” Ryosuke asserted. “And that’s why I needed to speak to you ahead of time to prepare you, Yasuko-chan. I’ll be with you as your guardian. This is important. If you’re confused, or upset, or just not entirely sure of yourself, I want you to look to me first and not to anybody else in the room. Your father will probably be there along with his lawyer. Don’t look to him for any sort of reaction or guidance. Look to me. I know you’re a bit of a live wire in your own way, but you’ve developed a remarkable capacity for self-control. Use it.”

“Should I avoid looking at him completely, Ryosuke-san?” Yasuko asked humbly. She wasn’t sure if she could do that without being very artificial.

“No, don’t worry about that. Just don’t look to him when you’re answering questions, or if you need a break. This is probably going to take hours. He’s probably going to bluster and try to command some sort of control over you at some point. He might try to fluster you. It doesn’t matter what he says. In that courtroom, I am your legal guardian.”

“Actually, that makes me feel a lot better,” Yasuko admitted. “I’ll remember. I’ll do just as you say.”

That settled, Ryosuke turned his attention to his brother. “Of course you can come, Keisuke. But you probably won’t be seated with us. If they are using a room with audience seating, you would probably be seated there, instead. You’ll probably find it by turns boring and hard to sit through.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’ll be there, if that’s alright with Yasuko.”

“I think I would feel braver,” Yasuko admitted. “I mean no offense to you, Ryosuke-san,” she added timidly.

“I take none,” he told her calmly. “It makes perfect sense to me. He was your first touchstone, after all, and the two of you have a similar spirit.”

That, also, made her feel better. “I had better go and start making dinner,” she offered, and Ryosuke let her go. He and Keisuke stayed in his bedroom, talking quietly together, as she worked in the kitchen. Buoyed by the knowledge that she’d already managed to please their father, she worked well and felt good about the finished product that she set out on the table. Apparently, they felt the same way - Keisuke wanted to know if she could make supper more often, while Ryosuke asked her how she’d learned to cook. She steeled herself. She was determined to start using her more detached term for her father, and Keisuke had taken it well, but she wasn’t sure what her actual guardian would think. “Yamamoto-san taught me. He started giving me small jobs in the kitchen when I was about six, and by the time I was eight, I was making the simpler meals on my own. He was very pleasant about it, actually. He would get angry with me if I did badly, but he wasn’t very difficult to please. By the time he stopped helping me, I could even follow recipes that I hadn’t made before.”

“Well, you can try any recipes on me anytime,” Keisuke told her, as Ryosuke rose and started collecting the dishes. He continued to lounge with her at the table for a few minutes and waved her back down when he stretched and rose to his feet. “You cooked. Aniki is cleaning up, so I gotta go get the tea ready.”

This surprised Yasuko, but she certainly didn’t mind. Ryosuke hadn’t reacted to her statement about cooking, but he did speak up again during their tea. “Does it help you, Yasuko-chan, to refer to your father in a detached way?”

“I don’t know, Ryosuke-san,” she admitted. “I realized that I feel this rising fear in my chest now when I use his title. It’s a fear that I’ve felt constantly for a long time, and I like the way I feel without it. So I started trying something new, to see if it keeps the fear from coming back.”

“Does it work?” Keisuke asked.

“Maybe. I think it works a little. Maybe that’s just because it’s new, and I feel defiant when I’m doing it, so it’ll stop working when I get used to it. Or maybe it’ll work better as I get used to it. Do either of you have a problem with me trying it? I’ll stop if it’s wrong. I really am trying to be a good girl for you.”

“I don’t have a problem with it,” Ryosuke answered, amused. “And I’m not too worried about you being ‘a good girl’ as long as you’re honest with me and you will take direction when I lay down the law. After all, I live with Keisuke.”

As before, Keisuke wisely refrained from any incriminating comment or action.

Chapter Text

With such a frightening prospect as a day spent with her father and a judge looming before her, Yasuko was sure that she would have a difficult evening followed by a troubled sleep. However, Ryosuke and Keisuke fulfilled their promise for a game night, and she wound up having a lovely time. She slept well and awoke in good time. The nervousness didn’t start creeping in until she dressed more formally than she had in her entire life to this point and discovered that she had to ride in with Ryosuke instead of retreating to the relative familiarity of that yellow FD. Keisuke opted to follow them instead of trying to fit himself into his brother’s back seat. Yasuko hadn’t dared push the issue of whom she would ride with, not with such an important day ahead, and she wound up being glad that she hadn’t. Something about Ryosuke’s utterly calm, masterful manner helped to settle her and prepare her mindspace for the day ahead. He was her guardian, he was in charge of her, and now he was bringing her to this court in their fine formal wear and the sophisticated white FC.

Ryosuke didn’t wait for his brother to arrive. He led Yasuko into the court building, pausing to orient himself and check the information, and got directed to the correct room. It was sterile and not very large, which helped to settle her a little further. She could see that it was set up with separation between the two groups being dealt with, and that settled her yet more. Then her father entered the room, flanked by a couple of people she didn’t recognize, and she suddenly felt completely and totally unsettled. The first thought that flashed through her mind was that she was not ready for this, not at all. Then Ryosuke reached out and rested his hand on her opposite shoulder, and she remembered her duty to look to him and not anybody else. She didn’t have to figure out what to say or do, because neither saying nor doing was required of her. She didn’t even have to look at the man.

“Well, looks like it didn’t take much time for you to have trouble with her,” she heard her father say. She remembered her instructions. She suppressed her initial startled reaction and looked to Ryosuke, just as he’d told her to do.

He responded for her. “There’s been no trouble. She takes direction from me.” A couple more people entered the room. Yasuko glanced around at them, but she didn’t recognize any of them.

“Really? Just look at…” Yasuko did look up at her father’s statement, catching an odd tone in his voice. He was gesturing towards her hair. She suddenly realized that he was taken just as far off-balance by her appearance as she was by his. When her father got upset, he tried to assert himself, even if he did it clumsily. She wondered if Ryosuke realized that.

Ryosuke shrugged slightly, his own voice turning casual. “She asked first. She had permission.”

“You really gave her permission to make her hair that color?” Yamamoto exclaimed in disbelief.

“No,” Ryosuke answered easily. “I gave her permission to go brighter, but she played it safe.” Suddenly, Yasuko couldn’t help but remember his annoyed voice over the phone, claiming that he didn’t care if her hair glowed in the dark and not to bother him unless it was important. She managed to suppress her amusement. From behind her, she heard a sound like a snort. She glanced over to see Keisuke taking a seat in the audience area, trying to suppress his own amusement and mostly failing. “I like it,” Ryosuke added. She glanced back at him, remembering for the first time in days that his own hair was, in fact, dark purple.

“Well, it’d be a fine thing if I get control of her and she comes home looking like that,” her father muttered darkly. Yasuko glanced from him to Ryosuke, astonished at her father’s bluntness. Did he know what that sounded like, in front of anybody who knew what he’d done to her hair before she’d fled?

“Shouldn’t be a problem.” A hint of ice entered Ryosuke’s tone. “It’ll grow out, won’t it?”

“If you please,” added a new voice, calling them to order. The judge had entered the room. Ryosuke sat Yasuko down at the table on one side of the judge and took his seat next to her. A couple of men she didn’t recognize joined them at the table. Her father and the people who had come with him sat at the other table. Yasuko focused on the judge, determined to not look back at her father. As it happened, he was the wrong person to focus on. He certainly presided, but he mostly listened. It was apparently a clerk’s job to patiently read out questions for her to answer. Well, either he was a clerk or he was a lawyer… Yasuko tried to follow the introductions, but got lost quickly. Fortunately, she had her directions. When the clerk/lawyer/person started to ask her questions directly, she glanced at Ryosuke. When he nodded, she began answering. 

The first question, confirmation of her identity, calmed her mood again. The name read from the document was ‘Takahashi Yasuko’. Unfortunately, she soon discovered that the easy questions would only mark the beginning of a difficult interrogation. Many of the things being asked of her were things she simply did not know, such as where her father went during certain times of day, or did not remember, details of his life during her earlier childhood when the world seemed a calmer and kinder place. The clerk asked her several questions about her mother, but all she could say was that she was told that her mother’s name was Suki and that she had died when Yasuko was only a few months old. When the questions moved into familiar territory, they were no less difficult. Ryosuke had already warned her that everything she had done for the racers was going to come out into public. She hadn’t realized that she would wind up describing each action, as if her diary had not already chronicled the event, in a room with her father and anybody in the visitor’s section listening in. Ryosuke’s direction to her became her lifeline. She described the first incident, a set of spark plugs that she’d slipped in and replaced even though ‘the old ones were fine’, and felt the urge to glance up at her father. Instead, she answered the urge by looking to Ryosuke. He nodded and smiled encouragingly and she felt braver. As she continued to describe incidents, she periodically heard a creaking or scraping from the other table, the sound of someone changing position. Each time that she was tempted to look, she turned to Ryosuke instead. Once, she glanced further over at Keisuke instead, in the audience behind her, and he gave her an encouraging nod of his own. The second time she looked, she blinked in surprise. Tachibana Yuichi sat to the side, a couple of rows back from Keisuke. The third time she started to turn, Ryosuke interrupted her. “Don’t look at the audience anymore,” he told her quietly. “Look to me. Or face the clerk.”

“Yes, Ryosuke-san,” she answered obediently, and continued to follow his direction. She had no idea how long it had been. She patiently answered question after question, describing fix after fix, periodically glancing at him for that now-familiar nod of approval. Finally, she heard her father’s voice interrupt the questioning.

“What’s the point of all this? Is this how you build a case against me? Absolutely none of these put anybody at risk. Waste, more often than not. Do you know how many good mechanics I fired because of this? They kept falling over each other claiming that the log entry must have been written by someone else, and it turns out they were right!”

Yasuko was stung into forgetting her first instruction. She looked up. Her father was furious, his face very nearly purple. Just for a moment, she felt that old fear flash up again, as if he might tear right across both tables and start hitting her again. But behind the fear, she felt a sudden flash of anger. “The seatbelt put someone at risk,” she blurted out. She felt Ryosuke’s hand rest on her shoulder and quickly subsided. She dropped her gaze to the table, controlling her emotions.

“We were going to get to that,” the clerk noted dryly. “We may as well address it out of sequence. So far, everything that you have told us lines up with the account that Takahashi-san has submitted on your behalf. Go ahead and tell us about the seatbelt, then.”

As Yasuko described this particular repair, she felt her voice getting wobbly. She took a break to center herself, then another. The silence hung each time she stopped, making her feel awkward. Instead filling any of those awkward breaks, though, her father actually waited until she was in the middle of speaking to suddenly interrupt her with a roar. “You’re telling me that you destroyed your mother’s brooch, just to fix up a street racer’s seatbelt?”

Yasuko promptly forgot everything she was supposed to say or do. The room spun around her for a moment. When her vision steadied, she was already on her feet, hands planted on the table, leaning over it. “You never told me it was hers! You never told me anything about it! I loved it! I loved it because it was beautiful, and it was the only thing I had that was beautiful! And yes, I sacrificed it. I did it to save one of my racers.” If she had tried to speak the words normally, she never could have done it without breaking down. But she was shouting instead, and her voice held.

“He didn’t need saving, you stupid girl! That was part of the latch release! If it broke in the crash, he wouldn’t have been able to unbuckle the seatbelt! His life was never in danger from it! Worst case, someone would have had to cut through the seatbelt to get him out of the car! That’s why the case was cleared. I did nothing wrong!” Father matched daughter, leaning across his own table and bellowing back.

“You made me think he could die!” Yasuko shot back, her entire body filling with pure fury. “You said if he was a fool, it was his own fault! How dare you make me think his life was at stake! I did what I had to do!”

“Yasuko!”

Ryosuke didn’t shout. He snapped out her name clear and strong, cutting through her rage and stopping her tirade. She turned to look at him and froze in place, caught in his cold glare. Slowly, she became aware of her surroundings again. She forgot herself, breaking his other direction, turning to the audience in a sudden search for kindness. It was the worst thing she could have done at that moment. Her eyes traveled helplessly across several familiar faces. Tachibana looked genuinely horrified. Aikawa sat alone on the far side, sneering at her. She glanced away from him quickly and found herself looking straight at Shingo himself. The stunned look on his face mirrored hers. She glanced from him to Nakazato, who sat next to him looking entirely detached from the emotion of the proceedings. None of the Speed Stars had attended - no help there. She found the sympathy on Keisuke’s face, clear and plain, and immediately regretted seeking it out. She knew she was about to break down.

“Yasuko.” Ryosuke spoke her name this time. As she looked back to him, she realized that he was stern, but not cold. He was firm, but not angry. She felt her control returning. She turned back to the judge and the clerk, trembling, but her voice held.

“I apologize to the court,” she stated formally. She turned back to her guardian. “I’m sorry, Ryosuke-san,” she added.

“Take your seat, Yasuko,” he told her calmly. She obeyed immediately and fixed her eyes on the table in front of her. She took deep breaths until she felt the trembling begin to subside. Then she glanced up at Ryosuke timidly. His expression softened, and he offered a smile and nod of approval.

“Can she continue?” the clerk asked Ryosuke. “We have three more.”

“She will continue,” Ryosuke answered, and Yasuko knew that she must. The seatbelt had been the worst part. She described each item numbly, drained from her outburst. Her father did not interrupt. The clerk had remained detached this entire time, and the judge had remained silent, simply watching and listening. When she finished, the judge stirred and then spoke.

“We will pause for lunch. Usually, I do not allow eating in the courtroom, but it seems wise to make an exception. One side may choose to stay and eat here, if they wish to avoid any… conversation… with the other side outside of the courtroom. The other side will have to leave.”

Ryosuke spoke up promptly, announcing Team Yasuko’s desire to stay put. The judge accepted this gravely and made it clear that Yamamoto and his people would have to step out. As the audience began to thin, Ryosuke stepped over to the divider and Keisuke joined him on the other side. The two of them spoke quietly for a moment. Having been told explicitly to seat herself, Yasuko didn’t want to risk moving. Ryosuke rejoined her as Keisuke left the room. “He’ll bring us some lunch. You can relax now, Yasuko-chan. You’re doing fine.”

“How can you say that?” Yasuko retorted, amazed. “You had two instructions for me, and I failed both of them!”

“I thought he was going to try to fluster you on purpose. Instead, he flustered you by accident, because you flustered him. I already knew that you’d have an outburst sooner or later, and it was only a matter of seeing how quickly you could control it. This was one of the better scenarios I’d considered. You both broke composure, and you regained it first. Relax, Yasuko-chan. You’ve earned a good lunch. You’re doing fine.”

One of the other men, the one who had taken a seat on the other side of her from Ryosuke, took the opportunity to speak up. “I agree. That could have been a great deal worse than it was. Being assigned this judge was a stroke of luck.”

“I didn’t think that,” Ryosuke responded, surprised. “Wasn’t he the one who cleared the ‘seatbelt case’?”

“Sure. I could tell by the look on his face that Yamamoto’s belligerence in court was driving him crazy, but he held his course and made the correct judgment given the facts. He also admitted afterwards that he wished he could find out someday what really happened. He’s a good judge to draw for abuse cases, too, as he’s got a soft spot for kids. Five of his own, and a few grandchildren already. So your girl here has both relieved his curiosity and very likely drawn his compassion and respect, especially since you were able to bring her to order so quickly.” As the man talked, Yasuko studied him for a moment. He was dressed formally enough for court, but lacked a lawyer-like air. He seemed tired. His spotty, scruffy bit of facial hair reminded her of Iketani.

“Five children. I didn’t know that,” Ryosuke mused.

“Is that a lot?” Yasuko honestly didn’t know. She had seen the kids at school, but she had never heard more than an occasional mention of a brother here or a sister there.

“One or two is a lot more common,” the man remarked. “I think you have a visitor.”

“’Visitor’? What do you mean?” She turned to the visitor section, expecting to see Keisuke at the divider with a bag of lunch for her. There was someone at the divider, but it wasn’t Keisuke. “It’s Shingo. I think I had better go and see what he wants.” Yasuko glanced up at Ryosuke first, remembering to look to him for guidance, even though the court was not in session. He nodded his acquiescence. She rose and made her way down to the divider. She felt this would have to be awkward. But she had faced Shingo before, with the intent of telling the truth, and he hadn’t been angry or dismissive. She looked at his expression and realized that he felt just as awkward as she did. “Hi, uh…” she started. She wasn’t sure what else to say.

“Yasuko-chan. I…” He reached out and rested his hand over hers, then pulled it away. Then he decided to place it over hers again. “I wanted you to know that what your father said doesn’t matter. I don’t care if your seatbelt trick actually saved my life or not. What matters is that you thought my life was at risk, and you thought it was worth saving.” He paused for a moment, glancing around to make sure nobody was within easy earshot. “That actually means a lot to a guy like me. I know you’ve got this really sweet view of all the street racers out there, and I don’t know if you’ll understand what I’m saying. But I wanted you to know that what you did doesn’t mean anything less than what you thought you were doing.”

She didn’t move her hand, but she did feel oddly guilty. “You knew it was just the release, when I talked to you about it before.”

“No, I didn’t. They weren’t very clear about it in the paperwork. They just had experts from the company that sold him the seatbelt, certifying its limits. And it was determined that the crash didn’t exceed the limits. That’s something else I can thank you for. You managed to sting your father into explaining it plainly. I do wonder what Takahashi Ryosuke is after, though, if they can’t charge your father with anything that you’re admitting to.”

Yasuko felt that she had to set a couple of these statements straight. “I don’t love all of the street racers. There are a couple of them that I actually hate. And I am not calling him my father anymore, not by ‘outosan’ or ‘outosama’. I have started referring to him as “Yamamoto-san”.

Shingo thought about that for just a moment. “That’s fair. I’ll try to remember. And you know what, you haven’t turned me away, you already greet Takeshi like a friend, and Takahashi Keisuke is practically your brother at this point… if there are racers that you don’t like, they must be really bad. Look, Yasuko-chan, I’m going to have to leave for work in a bit. If you look at the audience section this afternoon and I’m not there, it isn’t because anything chased me off, okay?”

“Thanks for telling me that.” Yasuko felt the first real smile emerge since she’d entered the room. “Ryosuke-san probably won’t let me look again. He told me not to look before. So if I don’t look, it isn’t because I don’t care. I feel better knowing that you and Nakazato-san showed up for me. I wonder why nobody else did.”

“They couldn’t. Everyone knows by now that all the Speed Stars work at the same gas station, and I’d heard that the owner came for the trial, so they’re probably covering for him. Hey, I have something for you. Well, I’m going to have something for you. I hoped I’d have it today, but it got delayed. So I’ll send it to you when I can.” He squeezed her hand lightly and stepped back. “Your lunch is here.”

“Thank you…” Yasuko watched him walk across the audience area and out one of the doors. Then she startled as she realized that someone else had replaced him at the divider. This time, it was Keisuke, and he did have her lunch.

“Still can’t believe you managed to befriend Shoji Shingo,” Keisuke remarked, offering her one of his bags of food. “He’s not exactly a soft touch.”

“He said something similar about you, Keisuke-san. Thank you.” She accepted the bag, and Ryosuke stepped up next to her to take the others. “But I took a risk with you, and, well…” she continued. “I really should have just agreed to go with you the very night that I met you. Would it have made today any easier?”

“Probably not,” Ryosuke told her, handing the third bag over to the scruffy-bearded man who didn’t seem like a lawyer. Keisuke leaned on the divider and started in on his own lunch.

Yasuko remembered the other thing that Shingo had just told her. “Ryosuke-san, how is today supposed to bring… to bring Yamamoto-san down? Did you know about the seatbelt part?”

“I knew. I researched it. Today isn’t about your… about Yamamoto. It’s about you.”

“What do you mean?”

He glanced over at the scruffy-bearded not-lawyer and back at her. “I don’t want to tell you too much. You’ve got a rough afternoon ahead.”

“I want to know,” she asserted. Then she took a breath and resolved to be a good girl. “But I will accept your decision, and I will do a better job this afternoon of following your directives.”

Ryosuke shrugged slightly. He glanced over at the mostly-empty audience section and turned back to her. “This isn’t about proving that he did something wrong, Yasuko-chan. Those cheap tricks with the racer cars don’t really pass the threshold for criminal activity. We have two goals today: proving that he was abusing you sufficiently for the judge to end his custody of you, and proving that you didn’t actually have any clue about the criminal activities he’s been involved in.”

Yasuko’s eyes widened. “You mean, there’s worse?”

“I shouldn’t have told you,” Ryosuke sighed. “I’m not going to tell you anything more than that, and I suggest that you forget what I’ve just told you and focus on your job. His trial starts next week. This is for you. What’s coming may be much harder than what you’ve already done today.”

“Alright,” Yasuko told him, renewing her determination. “I’ll do better, Ryosuke-san. I promise.”

Chapter Text

Ryosuke was right. The second half of the day was much harder than the first. The first part had been focused on the things she had done. This part of the questioning was devoted to things that had been done to her. Yasuko had to answer questions about the times her father had raged at her and beaten her, about the events that had led up to each incident, about how each situation was resolved or simply laid to rest. Following Ryosuke’s direction was actually easier, as her father did not engage in any outbursts, and she had nothing to say that made her feel like responding in kind. It was simply a long, miserable slog through unpleasant moment after unpleasant moment, a return to the constant oppression that she’d felt daily for the past few years of her life. She lost the animation in her voice. She stopped even bothering to look up at the clerk as she answered his questions. Nothing tempted her to look at the audience. Detachment was easier. By the time the clerk announced that he was finished, Yasuko felt drained and numb. The judge announced that everyone would be required to return the next morning, and she couldn’t make herself care. As the court was dismissed, she simply stood beside Ryosuke and let him lead her out.

Keisuke met them in the lobby area, looking concerned. “That wiped her out, Aniki. It wiped me out just listening to it. And they want her back tomorrow? Now what?”

Of course, his brother had a plan. “We stop to eat dinner on the way home, somewhere nice, with a relaxing atmosphere and the ability to tempt her appetite. Tomorrow morning, we go back. At least, she and I go back. You should take the break. You need to get your head back into your driving.”

“I’ll be fine,” Keisuke waved off the last comment. “I’d like to see it through.”

Anything Ryosuke might have said in response was interrupted by a voice booming in the lobby area. “Yamamato Yasuko! You can’t hide behind another name - or another person - forever! I am your father and I have the right to speak to you about all of this!” Sure enough, it was her father, storming towards them. Yasuko did want to hide behind ‘another person’. She didn’t have to. Before she could even move, Ryosuke stepped out in front of her, hand held out slightly to signal both her and Keisuke to stay back. But he didn’t get the chance to answer Yamamoto, either, because another voice rang out from the side.

“Yamamoto Shinji! I know your secrets. I know why you hate the street racers. I know why you’ve abused your daughter. It’s time for you to face the right target. I’m here now, and I’m calling you out!” This was one of the audience members, Tachibana Yuichi, the gas station owner. Though his voice lacked the same menace, it was just as strong. 

For just a moment, Yasuko felt that she could see what she had heard described as emanations of energy from particularly formidable street racing opponents. The room itself practically crackled with it. She perceived her father as putting out a red flame that danced wildly, while Ryosuke seemed to burn a steady blue. The newcomer, Tachibana, blazed yellow like a star. She took a step backwards, looking to escape the intensity of the churning emotions, only to bump right into another blaze of yellow right behind her, controlled and contained. Keisuke grabbed her shoulder and steadied her. Ryosuke turned just his head, just far enough to look at her face and up at his brother. “Keisuke. Get her out of here,” he ordered.

Keisuke started to protest. “And leave you here? Aniki…”

Ryosuke’s tone turned to icy steel. “Get Yasuko-chan well clear. Immediately.”

There was apparently no arguing with that. Keisuke took hold of both her shoulders and promptly marched her out the nearest door. Yasuko didn’t resist. She wasn’t sure she could even if she wanted to. The sun was starting to drop in the sky, the heat of the day fading and the humidity rising. Keisuke didn’t stop as they exited the building. He continued to walk her straight through the parking lot and to the passenger door of his yellow FD, which he unlocked for her. As she opened the door and settled into her seat, he walked around to the driver’s side. He unlocked the door, opened it, and threw himself down on his seat. Then he loosened his tie and unbuttoned the collar on his shirt. He gave a sigh of relief.

“Are we waiting for Ryosuke-san?” Yasuko asked timidly.

“Nope. Buckle up. He said to get you well clear, so we’re leaving,” Keisuke decided. He buckled his own harness and started up the car.

The slight spark of curiosity was quickly quenched by her own fatigue, and she didn’t ask where they were going. Instead, she watched quietly out the window as they left the court building and started maneuvering down the streets. She listened to the roar of the engine as they merged onto a larger road. Neither of them spoke until they had left the main roads for smaller streets and finally pulled into the parking lot of a rather nice-looking restaurant. Yasuko glanced at the car’s clock and realized that they had left nearly an hour ago. “Keisuke-san,” she asked, “do you think Ryosuke-san is okay?”

“Yeah.” He stretched and shifted in his seat. “If there were a physical threat, I’m pretty sure he would have taken you and let me handle it. At least, I hope that’s what he would do. He obviously thought that he could deal with whatever was going on, and that he’d do it better without either of us in the room.”

“How will he know where we’ve gone?” Yasuko felt like a young child again, lost and confused.

“Oh, I’m not worried about that. He knows this place. We’ve been here plenty of times together. He’s probably already guessed that I brought you here. If he can’t find us, he’ll call me. Do you want to take a walk, stretch your legs? There are a couple of shops across the street.”

Yasuko wanted to squeeze herself all the way into the middle of her seat and, if possible, disappear. “No, thank you.” Her father, she thought, would respond to that in anger. He would accuse her of ungratefulness for refusing his kind offer.

But Keisuke wasn’t her father. “Man.” He shifted in his seat again, watching her. “Yamamoto really beat you down, didn’t he? And you got reminded of it all afternoon long. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Thank you, Keisuke-san.” Her voice caught for just a moment. “I don’t know what will help me.”

“You know what, then, I’ll just give you some space.” He started up the car again, letting it idle with the air conditioning on, and fell silent. As the minutes ticked by, the steady rumble seemed to help untangle her mind, and she was about to admit that she was feeling better when his phone rang. He pulled it out and answered it. “Yeah. Aniki. We’re in the parking lot, waiting in the car. No, we’re on the other side of the building. Ok.” He ended the call. “He knew. He’s coming around to find us.”

Sure enough, just a few seconds later, the ‘White Comet of Akagi’ glided cleanly into the empty spot next to them. Ryosuke was still fully, formally dressed and actually looked pretty comfortable. “Good job, Keisuke,” he praised his brother as they all exited their cars. “Let’s go have something to eat.”

“What happened in there?” Keisuke wanted to know.

Ryosuke shook his head. “Dinner first.”

Yasuko had been very skeptical of Ryosuke’s decision that dinner at a nice restaurant would benefit her. She wasn’t hungry, and she didn’t want to spent more time in a place with other people about. She soon realized that he knew just what he was doing. They were given a private place to eat, and the range of delicious offerings managed to tempt her. Even Ryosuke loosened his tie after a while, and Keisuke took his tie off completely and untucked his shirt. Yasuko pulled off her formal jacket and untucked her blouse. She wished she could take off her tights and change into pants, and she knew she couldn’t. Still, their more relaxed attitudes infected her, and she felt the tension starting to drain away. By the time they settled down to a light dessert, she had eaten more than she had anticipated. “Well,” Ryosuke finally explained, “we had a proper mess in the lobby. Tachibana challenged Yamamoto to a paternity test. Yamamoto went for him.”

“What do you mean, ‘went for him’?” Keisuke asked, startled.

“I mean that he initiated an actual physical fight, and the two of them wound up being carted off to spend the night in a cell.” Ryosuke thought about this for just a moment. “If the Saitama police are wise, separate cells.”

Keisuke blinked. “Are you alright?”

Ryosuke nodded wryly. “I’ve got more sense than to get into the middle of something like that. I gave them plenty of space and stayed on the margins. I got detained for a few minutes as a witness. As soon as they let me go, I headed straight for the restaurant.”

“I knew you’d come here. A paternity test, huh? I wonder what that’s all about,” Keisuke mused. Yasuko remained silent. She knew that Tachibana had reacted noticeably when she had mentioned her father claiming that she was not his daughter. She knew there was something to that, but she couldn’t figure it out. She couldn’t make herself think. Despite the excellent dinner, the malaise of the afternoon was still affecting her. She wanted to go home.

Fortunately, it wasn’t long before they did indeed head home. Yasuko was given the choice of whom to ride with. She found herself struggling even with that, so Ryosuke took her home. He didn’t ask her any questions, so she didn’t speak. Once they got inside, she made a beeline for her room so that she could take off all the fancy clothes and see if that made her feel more like herself. It helped, a little. She dropped down on her bed for just a moment, and then she felt like she wanted to get up and actually move around a little. From outside her room, she could hear the brothers talking. “Tomorrow’s an early day for us,” Ryosuke remarked. “Yasuko-chan needs to go to bed early tonight, and I have some documentation I need to finish. But I want you to head out and at least make a couple of laps at Akagi so that you can start getting your head back into your game.”

In the pause that followed, Yasuko felt one spark flicker back into her heart. It wasn’t fair. They were going to go do racing again, and she couldn’t go. She wanted to go. It wasn’t enough to make her act, but it was enough to make her feel. She didn’t expect the next thing that happened. Keisuke answered the protest that hadn’t even left the inside of her head. “No practice tonight, Aniki,” he stated firmly.

No practice? He intended to stay. She’d have someone to talk to. Maybe he’d even play a game or two with her. He wasn’t going to go out without her and leave her for his driving. Just as these hopes flashed through her head, she heard Ryosuke’s answer. He sounded surprised, even confused. “Keisuke, you need to practice. Your opponents are only going to get tougher, and you know you can’t afford to lose any ground.”

Just as quickly, Yasuko’s hopes were dashed. Ryosuke was completely right. Keisuke needed to practice. She couldn’t let him give that up for her. It wasn’t fair to him. Of course, he needed to walk away and go driving, while she tried to recover from the day and go to bed early. But Keisuke apparently still disagreed. “It won’t make enough of a difference. I’m not leaving the house tonight. Yasuko-chan is in a state - you’ve seen her yourself. They want her back tomorrow. I’m going to sit with her and see if I can coax the spark back into her.”

He had noticed. That was why he had looked so concerned in the lobby and during supper. She couldn’t let herself be the reason why he didn’t practice, even for just one night. Project D was important. But she couldn’t just sit here by herself; she’d go mad. “You can be sure that Fujiwara is practicing tonight,” Ryosuke shot back. “Even in a different car, he’s still sharpening his technique.” And Yasuko knew that Keisuke still wanted another chance to race Fujiwara someday and beat him this time. She wasn’t sure if it could ever happen, but she was sure that he still wanted it.

But even this didn’t sway Keisuke. “Not tonight,” he declared.

She heard footsteps and the sound of a door closing. Then, a muffled conversation started in another room. Yasuko had already mapped out the bedrooms on the second story. She knew that they both had to be in one of the other two. Judging from the way she’d been lulled to sleep by Ryosuke’s keyboard and the fact that she couldn’t make out anything they were saying, she guessed that they might be in Keisuke’s room. Their voices started to lose patience and grow sharper. Yasuko sat back down on the bed and huddled there. Were they arguing? Were they going to fight?

Suddenly, Keisuke’s voice rose in volume, and she could hear him clearly even through the walls of the house. “No! Aniki, this is exactly why I turned Kyoko down! It doesn’t matter what she actually expects out of us. What matters is what she should expect, what she has the right to expect!” Ryosuke’s reply was still too quiet to be understood, but Keisuke spoke loudly in his frustration. “I know all about your time limit! I’m supporting you on that. You know I am. But you can’t juggle all of this at once, and it’s most unfair to her. There is so much more that goes into raising a girl than either of us can give her.” Another murmur, and he responded again. “Then open it up! Give someone else the chance.” For a moment, both brothers spoke more quietly, and then Keisuke’s voice rose again. “Summer break ends in less than two weeks, is she even enrolled yet?”

They were fighting, and they were fighting over her, which was even worse. Yasuko rocked on her bed, listening as their voices dropped back into a murmur. She wanted to cry, but she couldn’t. Instead of feeling hot, she felt cold. She felt as if her heart were turning to stone. This was wrong, it was all wrong. She brought strife wherever she went. No wonder her father yelled at her. When she was around, people yelled at each other. She couldn’t let herself wreck this place. She couldn’t let herself wreck the relationship between two brothers who were this close to each other. She had to go. She had to leave. Keisuke had told her that she could stay as long as she needed and that they’d work something out. It was time to work something out. What, she didn’t even know. But she could move now, driven by the dull certainty that she would have to try. She dressed comfortably, cargo pants and a t-shirt. She would probably have to walk a long way… somewhere. She fluffed out her hair a little, but it really didn’t seem to matter if she made it pretty. She felt that the tension in the house was going to tear her apart. She had to get distance.

Yasuko glanced around the room. She had two jackets hanging on the hook near the door. One of them was the one that she’d picked out when she was with Keisuke at the mall. The other, she knew, belonged to Takeuchi Itsuki. He had not taken it back yet. She knew that, once she was gone, surely someone would hand it back to Fujiwara and it would get back to him. She took it off the hook so that she could reach her jacket and paused. She pulled it on. She remembered the bit of comfort it gave her at the bottom of Akagi, in the chilly morning where he’d offered her breakfast and a ride. She hugged herself, and a spark of rebellion flared up. Surely he had other jackets. She needed some sort of consolation. She’d keep it with her, and always remember… something. She stepped out of her room and paused, caught for a moment. She should say good-bye. She should say thank-you. She wasn’t sure how. She took a step down the hallway, intending to make a try for it anyway. “That’s it,” she heard Keisuke declare. “I’m out. I need some air.” And before she could move or think, he had burst out of his room, the door swinging wide and slamming into the wall, and he started barreling down the hallway. He stopped short right in front of her, startled and astonished. “Yasuko-chan, what…”

“I’m going.” Her voice trembled. She took a breath. Ryosuke stepped out into the hallway and froze in place, looking at her uncomprehendingly. “I have to go,” she repeated. “I can’t… I can’t have you fighting about me.”

“Going… where?” Ryosuke asked, sounding stunned. Keisuke simply stared back at her wide-eyed.

Of course, she had no idea where. “I’ll find… I’ll find somewhere.” She started to tremble. “Somewhere I won’t be a burden. You need to… It’s important… what you’re doing is important, and I can’t… I’m sorry, Ryosuke-san, Keisuke-san, you’ve been very kind, and I… I’m glad you are, but…” And that was it, she’d said her apology, she’d thanked them the best she could. She wanted to turn away, but she couldn’t. All three of them seemed frozen in place.

“Yasuko-chan, you’ve had a hard day,” Ryosuke started. Yasuko suddenly realized that his voice was as tight as hers. She needed him to be cold and calm and reasonable, so that he would understand why she had to go, but he was upset.

“Yes, I’ve had a hard day! But that’s beside the point!” She looked back at their faces and fell silent. It was worse. It had been a bad day, but now it was worse. She was a problem, and she wanted to fix the problem, but now she was making things worse. “I wish I were dead,” she blurted out, suddenly near tears. 

She knew she was being dramatic. She was upset. She didn’t mean it literally. She didn’t expect such an utterance from a teenaged girl to mean anything. It certainly wouldn’t have meant anything to her father. But both brothers immediately reacted to it. Keisuke glanced over at his brother, plainly alarmed. Ryosuke actually turned white, and he looked as though he might fall over. Yasuko realized that she had hurt him somehow, hurt him deeply, and she didn’t even know how she had done it. She wanted to turn and run away from him and the house and the entire mess, but something held her still. She tried to say something, but she simply didn’t know what.

Keisuke took over. He broke his frozen stance, stepped forward, and seized hold of her hand. “Alright, then,” he told her. “We’re going.”

“What?” That made no sense. She was the one who had to leave. “But…”

“You’re going, I’m going, so we’re going together. Come on.”

She still didn’t understand. “You needed some air, but I was going to…”

“Yasuko-chan,” Keisuke declared firmly. “There is absolutely no way I am letting you out by yourself tonight. You have to go, I have to go. You don’t even know where you’re going. I do. Aniki…” Yasuko remembered how, back in the hospital, the two brothers had matched gazes. Keisuke had hardened and Ryosuke had softened until their expressions matched, and then Ryosuke had nodded as if they both understood. The same thing happened now, but in reverse. Keisuke’s angry expression softened. Ryosuke seemed to gain some measure of strength and composure, his expression hardening, until they matched. Ryosuke nodded.

Keisuke led Yasuko through the house and down to the entryway. “Put your sneakers on,” he ordered her, and she did. She wasn’t sure what to do with this sudden stern demeanor. He didn’t thank her or praise her for her prompt obedience. Instead, once he put his own sneakers on, he directed her right through the door and to the passenger’s side of his car. “Get in,” he told her. She climbed in quietly, subdued and almost a little afraid, and buckled her seatbelt properly. That did not turn out to be the correct thing to do. “Not the regular one,” he corrected, climbing into his own seat. “Put on the harness.” His car had two restraint methods, as she’d already noticed - a normal, three-point seatbelt, and a more complicated restraint that had clearly been installed separately. She obeyed him. He started up the car and drove away, in full control, careful and obeying every traffic law.

Yasuko risked a glance at Keisuke as he drove. His jaw was set and his eyes were narrowed. After a moment, she ventured a timid question. “Are you angry?”

“Yes,” he stated simply, keeping his eyes on the road.

She could barely manage the next question. “At me?”

His voice softened just a little bit. “No, Yasuko-chan. Don’t be afraid.”

That seemed like an impossible task at first. But she had to realize that he really had given her no reason to mistrust him. Even now, in his odd sternness, he hadn’t hurt her. She fell silent again, watching out the window. She started to feel different, more awake somehow. She thought she could almost feel some sort of energy building up within the car. Finally, he eased to a stop in the middle of the road. A couple of young men stood by the side of the road, and one of them walked up to him as he rolled down his window. “Is it clear?” he asked.

“One normal car, almost through. We should see it pass by in less than a minute,” the man reported.

“Good. I want two timed runs, one up and one down.”

“Right away, Keisuke-san,” the man replied. He spoke into his walkie-talkie. “Yeah, I’ve got Takahashi Keisuke here for two timed runs. Keep it clear.” After receiving the acknowledgment, he turned his attention back to the car. “Once it’s clear, I’ll count you down.”

“Thank you.” Even when he was angry and stern, Keisuke could still be polite. He rolled the window back up and started revving the engine. Headlights appeared; a car whizzed past, and the young man started calling out the countdown. “Hold on,” Keisuke told Yasuko. She nodded, wide-eyed, finally realizing that she was about to get what she’d been begging from Iketani and Itsuki in vain - ‘going very fast’ up the hill. Then the young man’s arm swept down. Yasuko squeaked as the FD’s engine roared, the tachometer shooting up within a hairsbreadth of the red line as it took off into the night.

Chapter Text

Aside from the initial squeak, Yasuko didn’t make a sound as they zoomed up the hill, and she didn’t make a sound as they flew back down it again. She just soaked it up wide-eyed, the speed, the drift, the precision and the art. She trusted her driver absolutely, so she could not be afraid even when he came very, very close to the guardrail. They flashed past the people guarding the bottom of the hill, spun around, and eased up to them. “Well?” Keisuke asked the young man who had counted him down.

“New record, both up and down. New personal record, I mean,” was the response. “But you didn’t break the record for the downhill on the course itself.”

“I didn’t really expect to.” Keisuke turned to Yasuko. His earlier anger had dissipated during the drive, and he was calm and centered. “Are you okay? Were you scared?”

She was still breathless, but she knew what she wanted. “Again,” she gasped.

“What?”

“I want to go again. Please, Keisuke-san, take me again.”

He looked back at her, studying her face for a moment in the dim lighting. Then he turned to the young man. “I’m just going to run with the others now. Don’t worry about clearing the course. I won’t be going flat out anymore tonight.” And with that, he started back up the hill. This time, Yasuko could more fully appreciate what he was doing, the careful technique, the drifts and the straightaways, neatly dodging any car headed in the other direction and passing any car headed in the same direction. She remained silent, still drinking it in, as they went back up and back down again. As they headed up for the third time, though, she felt refilled with energy and started really showing her enjoyment. She cheered around every corner and threw her arms up as they reached the summit, laughing. Keisuke started chuckling at her enthusiasm as he pulled the car around and out of the raceway, coming to a stop under the street lights. “You actually liked that, didn’t you?” he asked her. “You’re a little speed demon.”

“I think I could do it every day and never get tired of it,” Yasuko admitted. “How did you know just what I needed? I didn’t know what I needed.”

“I didn’t know what you needed. I just knew what I needed. Hate to disappoint you, though. I’ll have to be gentler down the hill, and then that will be it. We didn’t bring a van with us, so I can’t risk wearing my tires down much further.”

“And then, do we have to go back home already?” Yasuko felt better, much better, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to face what they had just walked away from. “I don’t know how to explain it. I feel alive again. Like I wasn’t alive all afternoon, and now…”

“It’s alright, I understand.” He gave the matter a moment’s thought. “Let’s go get some ice cream. Then we’ll go back.”

This sounded good to her. They soared back down the hill, much more sedately this time, except that Keisuke shifted back into ‘racing mode’ and passed everyone they met going in their direction on the way down. There were no young men watching the course at the other end. “I’m keeping you out pretty late, Yasuko-chan,” he told her. “And tomorrow is an early day.”

“I don’t care,” she asserted. “I should, but I don’t. I want ice cream.”

As the two of them sat in a booth at a small, local place with their ice cream, Yasuko started thinking more clearly about the events of the day. “Keisuke-san,” she finally said. “I want to know why you and Ryosuke-san were arguing. I heard a few of the things you said. I want to know what’s going on now, and not later.”

Keisuke sighed heavily. “You know what, you’re right. You should know. Today went pretty well. It’s certain that your father will lose custody. Question is, what happens next. We’re practically a couple of kids ourselves. Aniki is studying at the university, and he’s really going to have no time left for anything else pretty soon. By that time, I’m planning to join the racing circuit and go professional. I think he wants to keep you. I’ll admit it, I’d like to keep you, too. But I don’t think it’ll be the best life we can give you. I think you’d better get used to the idea that it may be someone else.”

“Someone nice?” Yasuko asked worriedly. “And then you… would I see you again?”

“Of course you would! And I’ve told you before that I wouldn’t leave you with someone I didn’t trust. Yasuko-chan, we’re not leaving your life. We just might not be the right people to finish raising you.” He smiled. “But while we’ve got you, we’ll do our best. Okay?”

“Okay.” She brooded for a moment. “Ryosuke-san said that Tachibana-san challenged… Yamamoto-san… to a paternity test. What does that mean?”

Keisuke leaned back thoughtfully. “I already asked that, but I don’t think anybody but Tachibana knows the answer. I can tell you what the words basically mean. He’s challenging Yamamoto to submit… samples… to a biology lab. His genetics can be compared to yours, to verify that he is your biological father.”

“Why would he…” Yasuko fell silent for a moment. She realized that Keisuke was looking back at her questioningly. “He acted a little strangely when I told him that my father said in anger that I was not his daughter. Do you think Tachibana-san thinks that Yamamoto-san isn’t my father?”

“I think that’s an awful lot for you to process tonight,” Keisuke answered gently. “Especially given the day you’ve had.”

“I don’t think I have much of a choice,” Yasuko returned.

“Alright. Well… it’s possible that all Tachibana is doing is reacting to his claim by basically saying ‘put up or shut up’. Giving him the chance to act on his accusation instead of just making it and acting like it’s a valid reason to be abusive.”

“Do you think that’s what Tachibana-san is doing?”

Keisuke laughed just a little, wryly. “Yasuko-chan, I don’t know, and that’s the truth. I have less of a clue than you do, and neither of us has much of a clue to start with. I think you’re really better off just not thinking about it, if you can help it. Anticipating what you think might happen won’t make anything happen any faster. Enjoy your ice cream. Tomorrow, we’ll both be there with you, whatever happens. Okay?”

“Okay.” But as she finished her last bite, she started thinking about what would happen next, once they went back home. “Keisuke-san… Just before we left, I think I hurt Ryosuke-san. I think I hurt him a lot.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Keisuke turned somber. “I could tell immediately, that hit him pretty hard.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt him. I want to tell him that. Even when I was really upset, I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t know I could.” She looked up at him pleadingly. “I didn’t know what to do, and everything I said just made things worse.”

Keisuke sighed. “Yasuko-chan, it’s always possible to hurt someone who loves you. I know that Aniki seems a bit detached, and he’s almost always calm on the outside. But he’s not all that different from us inside. I think you should just tell him what you told me when we get back. He’ll accept it. I think he knows you’re not vindictive, and I think he knows deep down that you aren’t suicidal, either.”

“Suicidal?” Yasuko’s eyes widened. “Keisuke-san, if I were suicidal, I would’ve done it long ago. I was upset, and I said something I didn’t really mean. I meant, I felt like I was being a problem, and I didn’t want to be a problem anymore, and if I were dead I wouldn’t be a problem… but I never had any desire or plans to actually kill myself. Did he think I was literally serious?”

“He knew someone who was. And that’s all you’re going to get out of me, because that’s all he’s ever told me about it.”

Yasuko was horrified. “We need to go home. We need to go back, so that I can tell him that I’m sorry and I wasn’t serious. He’s got to be really worried by now. We both stormed off in the middle of a fight and just left him there all by himself. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“What gave you the idea that either of us were thinking?” Keisuke asked wryly. “Well, we’ve paid for the ice cream, and we’re done with it, so let’s get going. Don’t worry too much. This isn’t the first time we’ve fought and I’ve stormed out, and it won’t be the last. Aniki knows I always come back home now. He knows I just need to blow off some steam. I bet he’s managed to get a good amount of work done with the house quiet.”

But when the yellow FD pulled into its usual spot, they saw the shadowed figure of a tall man backlit by the bedroom light on the second floor. “Huh,” Keisuke remarked. “He was waiting up for us. I guess he was a little more worried than I thought.” Sure enough, the figure turned away from the window as they exited the car, and Ryosuke stood at the edge of the entryway as they reached the door.

Yasuko wasted no time. Before even taking her shoes off, she rushed forward and caught her guardian in a big hug. “I’m sorry, Ryosuke-san. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you or upset you. I was just upset myself, and I didn’t know how to say it. I didn’t mean what I said, not deep down…”

He wrapped his arms around her and just held on for a moment. “You’re completely forgiven, Yasuko-chan. I’m glad you’re home,” he told her, and she felt him shift as he looked up at his brother.

“She’s ok, Aniki,” Keisuke told him. “She’s all better. So am I.”

“Do I need to take my evening medications, Ryosuke-san?” Yasuko asked.

He gently released her and nodded. “You’re on the anti-parasitical for tonight and tomorrow morning. Is it still making you dizzy?”

“No, Ryosuke-san. A little, sometimes, but not at all like before.”

“Good. Go to the kitchen. I’ll be right there.”

She kicked off her sneakers and remembered to line them up neatly before heading to the kitchen. As she went, she could hear the brothers having a moment in the entryway. “Keisuke, I didn’t even know how to get through,” Ryosuke admitted. “How did you reach her?”

“Same way you reached me. And I finally broke my record for Akagi, like you told me to last week.”

Ryosuke sounded dryly amused. “You took her downhill and made her think you were both going to die?”

“More the first than the second. She wasn’t frightened at all, Aniki. She loved it. I’d love to see her get behind the wheel herself. She already knows how to use first gear and reverse.”

“Great. I’ve got two Keisuke’s in the house now.” Ryosuke headed back through the house and into the kitchen as he spoke. “Alright, Yasuko-chan, let’s get your medication and get you to bed. It’s far too late for you as it is.”

“I suppose the whole evening just fell apart,” Yasuko admitted.

“Evenings do that sometimes.” Keisuke wasn’t worried. “It’s fine.”

The mood in the house was washed clean by their little outing and reconciliation. Yasuko took her meds, got ready for bed, and settled in to the comforting sounds - first, of the two brothers talking quietly and calmly to each other, and then, the endless typing sound of Ryosuke at his keyboard.

Yasuko startled awake to find the sun high in the sky. She squeaked, scrambling out of bed in a panic. “I’m up, I’m up! I’m sorry! I’ll get ready right away!” she called out.

“It’s okay, calm down!” Keisuke called on the other side of her bedroom door. “Court got postponed until tomorrow. Aniki said to let you sleep. Get up nice and easy and come on out when you’re ready.”

She saved her pressing question for the moment when she exited her room, dressed casually and feeling much more relaxed. “Why is court postponed?”

Ryosuke sprawled on the couch in a rare moment of simple relaxation. “Yamamoto decided to accept Tachibana’s challenge, and the judge agreed to add paternity testing to the process. I’m not sure what it’ll change. We made a very compelling argument for severing parental rights regardless of biological paternity. Unless Tachibana is planning to put in an adoption bid, and thinks a negative result from Yamamoto will strengthen his case. At any rate, they’ll need a sample from you to compare to. You don’t need to go all the way back to Saitama today, though. I can collect the sample and bring it in.”

“I’ll bring it in for you, Aniki,” Keisuke offered, walking in from the hallway. Not unlike the previous day, he wore slacks, a button-down shirt with the top two buttons undone, and a loosened tie. “I’ve got errands in Saitama today. I can save you the trip.”

Ryosuke blinked. “That would make my day much easier. But what have you got to do in Saitama today, Keisuke?”

Keisuke waved the question aside. “I’ll talk to you about it later. I’ll be back before practice. I know we can’t go too late tonight, because of court tomorrow.”

It mattered whether they were out late. Yasuko felt a surge of hope. “Does this mean I can come this time?”

Ryosuke answered. “Yes, Yasuko-chan. We’ll both be there tonight. Do you have anything else that you want to do today?”

“What do you mean?” She didn’t understand.

“Is there somewhere you want to go, something you want to see? Something you need? One of us can take you.”

This was a bit of a novel concept for her, and she spent a moment of fascination before answering. “If it’s no trouble, if it’s okay with you and him, I’d like to get to see Itsuki-san again. I wouldn’t mind visiting at his workplace. I like the flow there. It reminds me a little of the repair shop, but without any of the anger. But I don’t know how to find out if he’s free, or if it’s okay for me to go to the gas station today.”

“I do.” Ryosuke fished his cell phone out of his pocket, flipped it open, and started checking it. “There’s his number. Go ahead and call him. You can use my phone.”

“I… Okay…” Yasuko took the phone timidly. She could see “Takeuchi Itsuki” on the screen with a number underneath. After a moment, she pressed the call button and held the phone to her ear as she’d seen other people do. Then, she had to move it just a little bit away from her ear as a familiar voice spoke, sounding both surprised and very nervous.

“Um, yes, Ryosuke-san? What do you need?”

Yasuko couldn’t help but giggle just a little. “It isn’t him, it’s me, I’m using his phone.”

That got a delighted response. “Yasuko-chan, hi! I’m glad to hear from you. How are you doing? What’s up?”

“I was told that I could go somewhere today. I wanted to know if I could go somewhere with you, or if I could visit you at work if you’re working today. I… don’t want to be a problem…”

He chuckled. “You’re no problem, Yasuko-chan. Look, I’m stuck working today. My boss hasn’t even come in yet. But it’s not a very busy day. If you’d like to come in and hang around, that’s fine with me. We’re all here and we’ll keep an eye on you. Do you need a ride? That might be a little harder.”

Yasuko looked up at Ryosuke, but she didn’t move the phone. “He’s asking me if I need a ride. He said that might be harder.”

Ryosuke opened his mouth, but Keisuke got there first. “I’ll take you. I can drop you off on my way out. When you’re done hanging out, you can have Itsuki call either one of us, or I’ll just come by on my way to practice.”

“Thank you, Keisuke-san,” Yasuko said both to him and into the phone. Then she turned her attention back to the phone. “I have a ride.”

Itsuki sounded amused. “Sounds good, Yasuko-chan. I’ll see you in a little while.”

She heard a click and a long silence. After a moment of confusion, she offered the phone back to Ryosuke. He took a look at it and folded it closed. “Yasuko-chan, how many phone calls have you made?”

“Did I do it wrong?” she asked. “I wasn’t allowed to answer the phone at the shop, and I never had any numbers to call.”

“Well, that’s going to change,” he remarked wryly. “Meanwhile, let’s get you ready to go.”

It took some time before they set out. Yasuko had to have some food along with her medication, and Ryosuke insisted on giving her a full meal. As the yellow FD pulled out of its spot, Yasuko looked up and realized that he was watching them from the picture window. She waved, and he waved back. Then, she relaxed and just watched Keisuke drive. She liked how smooth and careful the shifting was. She figured that, if she was ever going to learn how to get out of first gear, she would have to watch - listen - learn. After a couple of minutes, though, he spoke up and interrupted her concentration. “So, a day to do whatever you want, and you want to visit a gas station. And Itsuki, of course. Is that the only reason?”

“Well, sort of. If Tachibana-san comes back, I would like to talk to him. He admitted that he’d made me talk about myself without explaining himself, and told me that I could ask him anything the next time I saw him. I certainly have some things I’d like to ask him.” She glanced out the window. “But if he doesn’t show up, then yes. I like spending time with Itsuki-san. He’s dramatic, but not angry. And he’s very easy to read. I don’t have to worry about underlying emotions and sudden mood swings. He doesn’t seem to have any ‘danger signs’.”

“I’m sure he seems very safe to someone who’s used to anticipating an abusive environment,” Keisuke remarked. “And he’s going to be pretty safe - at least, while you’re still so young.”

“What do you mean by that?” Yasuko asked, suddenly paying a good deal more attention to Keisuke than to the road or his driving.

He was clearly amused. “You’re still a kid, but you’re fifteen now. Most of us at least have enough morals that we won’t try to date a kid. But you’re pretty, and Itsuki’s eager. Once you cross that threshold, he’ll probably start to see you rather differently. I think it’s very likely that he’ll be romantically interested in you around the time you turn sixteen.”

This was something Yasuko really hadn’t thought about. It was something that happened in teen romance novels that the other girls read at school. It was an abstract concept. “Is that bad, Keisuke-san?” she asked timidly.

He laughed outright. “No, it’s not bad! At least, it’s not bad as long as you like it. For all his drama, he seems like a sensible person. I don’t think he’d push anything on you.” Then, he sobered for a moment. “If anybody does, even if it’s another racer, let me know right away. I’ll handle it for you.”

“What do you mean, ‘handle it’?” Yasuko paused, remembering what little she’d seen on television and heard from the other girls at school as they talked to each other. “Are you saying that you’d actually fight someone because of me?”

“Of course. Anybody who won’t respect your boundaries needs a good thrashing.” He glanced at her, noted her astonished expression, and winked. “Won’t put him in the hospital. Probably. Well, depending on what he did.”

That led to another concern on her mind. “What if… what if someone else does adopt me, and I am put in another family somewhere?”

“When I found out you were being abused, I gave you my number. I told you that you could call me anytime, and I would come. I still mean it,” Keisuke reassured her. “Memorize my number this time and program it into your phone once you get one. Hopefully, anybody we’d release you to would be willing to do the job for you. But if they don’t, or if you don’t want to tell them about it, always tell me. Okay?”

“And if some boy is bothering me and won’t stop, I can tell him that Takahashi Keisuke will come beat him up if he doesn’t stop,” Yasuko mused. “Right?”

He laughed, but then he nodded firmly. “Absolutely, Yasuko-chan.”

“That’s why Itsuki-san refused to drive very fast or drift when I was in the car with him, even though I asked him. He said you would kill him if he did,” she confessed.

That obviously pleased Keisuke. “See, I told you he seemed sensible.”

Chapter Text

Tachibana Yuichi was not at the gas station, and his employees had no idea where he was. “He took yesterday off, which was weird to start with,” Itsuki told her soon after she was dropped off. “But I thought he’d be in this morning to start like usual.”

Yasuko didn’t think enough about what she was saying. “I didn’t think he’d be back first thing in the morning. But I don’t know why he’s still gone. I think he should be back very soon,” she divulged. She promptly became the focus of the entire workplace.

“Why? Do you know where he is? What happened? What’s going on?” The questions rained in on all sides, and she realized that she probably shouldn’t be answering them.

“Don’t ask me, please,” she told them. “I shouldn’t have said as much as I did. It’s his business to tell you if he pleases. I was at court all day yesterday and I got to bed late.”

That triggered a wave of sympathy, and they stopped asking. Instead, they set about their duties, returning to chat between customers. Yasuko faded back a little and simply listened to them discuss the latest street races and street racers. After a little while, she found that she wanted to work. She wasn’t sure what to do, so she grabbed the broom and started sweeping. Then, she saw some rags that needed cleaning, so she started working on that instead. The others started laughing easily and complimenting her on her work, and Iketani found an extra uniform cap for her to wear. She found herself laughing just as easily. She was focused on part of her cleaning work when the mood of the station suddenly changed from jovial to straight-laced, and she looked up to see Tachibana Yuichi drive in. He seemed tired, but satisfied. He spent the first couple of minutes checking to make sure his employees were shaping up and doing their work properly, but it didn’t take long for him to spot her with her cleaning supplies and her uniform hat. “What’s this? I didn’t hire you. You’re just a bit too young for that. Don’t tell me they’ve put you to work!”

Yasuko was well used to listening for menace behind her father’s tone, and she caught nothing but humor and surprise behind Tachibana’s stern demeanor. She dared to smile in reply. “No, I wanted to help. I… I asked to come here. You’d said I could.”

His sternness melted like frost under the sun. “You wanted to come back?”

“I like the energy here,” Yasuko admitted. She immediately felt silly for saying it aloud. He seemed to understand, though, and his smile broadened.

“Well, I meant it when I told you that I hoped you would feel welcome here. Come join me whenever you’re ready. I haven’t forgotten that I promised to be more open with you,” he invited. He spent one more moment of fake sternness towards his employees, who immediately assumed the most professional and serious stances they could, then made his way inside the building proper.

“He wouldn’t tell us where he’d been all morning. See if you can get it out of him, Yasuko-chan,” Iketani begged. But Yasuko was pretty sure she already knew where he’d been, and she still had no intention of discussing it.

“No promises,” she told him.

Once Yasuko was finished with her cleaning chore, she wandered into the storefront area. Yuichi had just finished making some coffee for himself, and he offered her a bottle of juice from the store refrigerator. After the work she’d been doing, it was particularly delicious, and she sat there and enjoyed her drink for a moment before speaking. “Your employees are pretty eager to find out why you were so late today.”

“Do you know why?” he asked her curiously.

She nodded. “Ryosuke-san told us when he joined us for dinner. I didn’t tell them, but I think I accidentally let on that I know.”

“Don’t let that bother you,” he told her. “In fact, I could just let you tell them. I don’t think they should hear it from me, but I don’t mind if they know. Takahashi Ryosuke was smart to get you out of there quickly. He sent you out with his brother, right?”

“Yes, Tachibana-san, his younger brother.”

They fell silent for a moment. Then Yuichi spoke again, amused. “You’re vibrating with a question, Yasuko-chan. Ask it.”

Well, he did leave himself wide open. She decided to go straight to the point. “Are you my real father?”

He seemed to be expecting the question. He took a long sip of his coffee, then looked directly into her eyes. “No.”

Yasuko had to admit to herself that she was hoping otherwise. “Can you be sure?” she asked timidly.

“Yes.” Yuichi took another long sip and took a moment before speaking again. “I see a lot of your father in you. You resemble him in looks and in temperament.” He seemed to anticipate her strong objection to that idea. “Yasuko-chan, I know he’s abused you, and you probably despise him by now. But we weren’t friends just on a whim. He was bright and innocent, with a strong and turbulent spirit. He was determined and very intelligent. I see all of those traits in you.” He paused again, and she let him, because she was still trying to absorb what he was telling her. “And your mother was gentle-hearted and very sweet. She was the kind of person who would never intentionally hurt a soul. Excellent musician, too, rather unlike your father.”

“I can tune an engine by ear,” Yasuko mused. “Outo-sama liked to see me do it. But he never told me why. I don’t think he could do it himself. But… I never thought of myself as being like him. I don’t want to be like him.” She had almost forgotten about her intention to call her father by his name instead of his title. Oddly, while talking to Tachibana Yuichi, she didn’t feel the same fear when she used it.

“You are like yourself. Don’t fear that,” Yuichi advised. “The other reason I know that I’m not your father is that it is impossible.”

“Ryosuke-san wondered if you had made your challenge because you wanted to file for adoption and thought that the results would strengthen your claim.” Her heart started pounding faster. “If you really were my biological father, of course.” She realized belatedly that she wasn’t ready to hear the truth. But now she had said it, which meant that she had practically asked for it.

It took him longer to answer that one. “I initiated the challenge because I realized from what you told me that Shinji had always doubted it. He could have asked me years ago. He let his jealousy drive us apart instead. I suppose if he asked me now, he’d think I was lying. He should know better than that. But he won’t be able to lie to himself about the test result.”

“So Keisuke-san was right,” Yasuko said wonderingly. “He thought you were telling my father to ‘put up or shut up’.” She began to think about that. Keisuke understood her motivations in ways that Ryosuke did not, because they had a similar spirit. If he also understood Tachibana Yuichi in a way that Ryosuke did not, maybe Yuichi, too, had a similar spirit to hers.

As she mused on that, though, Yuichi turned more serious. “But Takahashi Ryosuke wasn’t wrong. I did put in a bid to adopt you. I also know I’m not the only one. I’m glad I saw you today, because I wanted to tell you that myself.”

That sent Yasuko’s thoughts whirling. “I don’t know what you mean,” she told him. She quickly realized that wasn’t entirely what she meant. “I mean, I understand the words you said, but… I don’t know what it would mean.” She shook her head slightly. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

“I understand what you’re trying to say,” Yuichi told her kindly. “You understand what I said. You’re struggling with the implications. I can make things plain. I’m not your father. But I would be. I’m not married, so it would just be the two of us. I am already looking into securing an apartment closer to the city with a bedroom for you. I work here. I would bring you to school when it was in session, and you would probably walk here afterwards to spend the afternoon. I would give you a home, and I would do my best to help you become the amazing person I see in you. I believe I could do it. I’ve been dealing with teenagers for years. As you seem to be mostly a mix of Shinji and Suki, I doubt there are any surprises in your temperament.”

“Ryosuke-san and Keisuke-san have told me that they would do the best they could for me,” Yasuko mused. “But neither of them are sure that they can do the best job that can be done for me.”

“They’re pretty young,” Yuichi remarked. “I’m not. They’re still chasing their own dreams, but I’m pretty settled by now. I watch the younger folk chase theirs. I believe I can give you a more stable environment, and you haven’t got much time left to find some form of stability in your life.”

“If I lived with you, you wouldn’t mind that I love the street racers?” Yasuko asked quietly. “That would be alright with you?”

He chuckled openly at that. “Don’t you know by now that this is the unofficial quarters of the Akina Speed Stars? I was a street racer. So was my best friend.” Then, he turned somber. “I’m probably the reason your father hates them now. I’m sorry for that. A couple of decades ago, he would have been happy for his daughter to follow them… maybe, even, to become one.”

She needed time to process this. She fell silent, and he simply watched her as he continued to sip at his coffee. She looked up at him after a long moment and realized by his expression that he knew she needed time and was willing to give it to her. “This might… be the best. I don’t know who else wants to adopt me. You said there were others. Who are they?”

He shook his head. “I’m not allowed to know that information.” 

“If they’re just lonely people who want a child, they might be further away, and they might not let me see the friends I’ve made here, the only friends I’ve ever really had. But-“ Her voice caught for a moment. “I like the friends here, and I like you, but I’ve really come to love who I’m already living with, and… would that be a problem with you, for me to stay in touch with them, too?”

Yuichi snorted at that. “Takahashi Ryosuke and Takahashi Keisuke? I don’t have any problem with that. I have the feeling that, even if you become a Tachibana, you won’t ever really stop being a Takahashi. That’s fine with me. They should definitely remain part of your life. From what you said, I get the impression that they would make better big brothers than parents at this point, and I think they would agree with that.”

“Thank you,” Yasuko replied, relieved. “I’m glad for that. I wish I could stay with them, but I think I would be happy here. If the judge decided to honor your request, I think that might be the right way.”

“I’m honored,” Yuichi told her, and they both fell silent for a while longer. “Yasuko-chan,” he asked pensively, “when you said that you knew how to tune an engine by ear, why did you learn that? You know a lot, not only about the racers, but about their vehicles. Yamamoto Shinji used to work almost exclusively for street racers, but I can’t imagine he has the same focus now. Does he hate all of them?”

“Almost all,” Yasuko told him. “There’s one pair who comes in frequently, and he does a lot of work for them. They both drive Lancer Evo’s.” She couldn’t help but shiver just a little. “I hate both of them.”

Yuichi looked surprised. “Why do you hate them, Yasuko-chan? I don’t think I’ve heard you say you hated somebody yet.”

“Well…” She glanced down. “I just sort of despise Ichijo-san, but he’ll ignore me if I ignore him. The one I hate is Aikawa-san. He’s cruel. I think he’s crueler than my father. He scared me years ago by claiming that I was going to be betrothed to him. He still teases me about it sometimes. I don’t want to ever see his face again.”

That startled Yuichi. “Did you ask your father if you were betrothed? If he’s serious, that’s-“

“Yes, I asked. Outo-sama told me to stop talking like a fool.”

He finished his last sip of coffee and sat for a moment. “Have you told Takahashi Ryosuke?”

“No, Tachibana-san. I don’t like talking about it or thinking about them.”

“I think you should tell him later today, when you return,” Yuichi told her. “Even if your father was telling the truth, and even if Aikawa was just teasing to be cruel, there’s something about it that concerns me. I’ve never met this man, have I?”

Yasuko glanced up at him. “He was sitting in the visitor area. You were sitting behind Keisuke-san on my table’s side, and Shingo and Nakazato-san were sitting near the middle, and he sat in front, nearer to the other table. I don’t remember seeing anybody else watching. And I don’t know when Shingo left, because Ryosuke-san told me to stop looking at the audience.”

“That explains a lot,” Yuichi mused, but he didn’t elaborate. “Tell your guardian. Even if it’s nothing, he should know about it. Masterminds always work best when they have all the information we can give them, and Takahashi Ryosuke is one of the best masterminds I have ever seen.”

Before Yasuko rejoined the other employees outside, Yuichi reiterated that she had his permission to give out his secret. “Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yes. It’s probably going to come out eventually. It’s not like that was a private matter, and I need to keep my street cred up somehow. They wanted you to get it out of me, so here’s your chance to come through for them.”

Itsuki was in the middle of washing the windows of a car as its tank filled with gas, so she waited for him to farewell the car away before sidling over to him. He turned to see her and startled. “Oh! Oh, hi, Yasuko-chan. Did you have a good rest? What is it?”

She looked up at him, bright-eyed. She was sure she’d get a good, classic, Itsuki reaction from this. “Your boss is here late because he spent the night in a jail cell for disorderly conduct inside the court building,” she told him, and watched in amused satisfaction as his eyes just widened more and more.

“No! Disorderly conduct? What did he do!?”

“What?” His reaction had drawn Iketani’s attention. Kenji had arrived at some point while Yasuko had been talking to Yuichi, and both he and Iketani wandered over.

“He picked a fight with my father, and it turned into a physical altercation.” Yasuko was rather enjoying this.

“Who did? Takahashi Keisuke?” Iketani immediately jumped to a rather understandable conclusion.

Yasuko waited to give Itsuki the chance to tell them what she’d just told him. He couldn’t. He stood there opening and closing his mouth, so she took pity on him. “No. Tachibana Yuichi did. Your boss. He and my father got into a fight in the court building, and they both had to spend the night in a cell. That’s why he got in late.”

“I don’t believe it!” Itsuki declared. “Is that what he told you? I’ve never heard him lie, but…”

“Oh, yes, by all means, let’s have a full court and cross-examination,” Iketani offered in amusement. “Don’t push the poor girl, Itsuki.” It didn’t take him a full minute, though, to prove himself a hypocrite. “Is that how you know, Yasuko-chan? Boss told you that’s what happened?”

She laughed merrily. “Yes! But also, no! I saw the beginning of the confrontation, but Keisuke-san took me away before any physical violence happened. Ryosuke-san told us about it. Tachibana-san just confirmed it and gave me permission to tell you. I wouldn’t have told you if he asked me not to. If it matters, Ryosuke-san did say that my father threw the first punch.”

“I’ve never heard of anything like that. I mean, you know, our boss, your father, they’re old people. I didn’t think old people still did stuff like that. I couldn’t imagine my father doing something like that,” Itsuki declared. “I mean, did they even know each other? Or was it about him being abusive and our boss liking you?”

“I can’t tell you everything,” Yasuko told him. “But the answer to both questions is yes. I, um, I might be able to come and hang out here at the station more often. That’s not a problem for you, is it?”

Immediately, they all hastened to reassure her that they liked having her hang around and offered to make her the station mascot. “Station mascots should be little and cute,” Itsuki enthused. “We should take you to dinner with us tonight, all of us, and then-“

“I don’t think you’ll be able to,” Yasuko remarked, closing her eyes for a moment. “I hear a rotary engine approaching. There aren’t a lot of those around, so it might be my ride.”

“You think Keisuke-san has come back to collect you?” Itsuki asked. “I can’t listen to the street traffic and just hear a rotary engine like that.”

“No, it’s probably not Keisuke-san,” Yasuko murmured, listening more carefully. “It’s not the type he drives. It’s close, but not quite as powerful. It’s not the way he drives, either. I think that’s Ryosuke-san in the FC.”

“Wow,” Itsuki said reverently. “If you’re right, that’s amazing.”

Sure enough, the white FC glided in and pulled up to one of the pumps. Ryosuke rolled down his window half-way. “I’m here for Yasuko-chan, but you may as well fill it up with premium while I’m here. We’ve got some driving to do tonight.”

That set both Iketani and Itsuki to work, so she just told them quick good-byes and waved to Tachibana Yuichi through the storefront windows before walking around and getting into the passenger’s seat. “Which seatbelt should I be using, Ryosuke-san?” she asked first, remembering the previous night.

“Whichever one you like. Why?”

“Keisuke-san made me put on the harness before he took me up the hill, and I thought maybe…” Yasuko offered timidly.

“You want me to do it, too? I usually don’t these days. I didn’t bring the car for my sake. But if that’s what you want, you’d better put on the harness.”

“Okay!” Yasuko quickly buckled herself into the harness. “I didn’t know you were the one who was going to pick me up.”

“Keisuke called me. He’s a little delayed. He’ll meet us there.”

“Delayed on his errands in Saitama. Did he tell you what he was doing? Am I allowed to know?” she asked.

But Ryosuke shook his head. “He didn’t tell me. He didn’t have to. I trust my brother. Did you have a good time?”

“I did have a good time. They’re very nice, and I had a good talk with Tachibana-san. I’m not as afraid of the future now, however it goes,” Yasuko told him. She paused.

“That’s good,” he replied. “I don’t want you to be afraid.”

She took a breath. “He said that there’s something I should tell you about. But I don’t really want to talk about it.”

Again, Ryosuke remained calm. “Alright. Let’s talk during practice, after we’ve eaten and my driver has settled down to his work.”

That seemed sensible. “Okay. Tachibana-san also told me that he knows he isn’t my father. But that he put in a bid to adopt me.”

“I’m not surprised he did that,” Ryosuke responded. “I did too.”

“Hmm.” Yasuko took a moment to realize what he’d just said. “Wait, do you mean that you filed the paperwork asking to adopt me?”

“Yes, I did. Keisuke is right - we can’t give you a normal life. But that might not be what you need. I wouldn’t have done it if I thought an ordinary family looking for adoption could do a better job. There’s another factor, too, that he hasn’t thought about. People like to adopt babies or very young children. We know that you won’t be a chore to raise. But there really aren’t a lot of people who will adopt an older teenager who has been abused.”

“Why not?” Yasuko asked, at once surprised, relieved, and a little horrified.

Ryosuke smiled slightly. “They’re afraid you will turn out like Keisuke. That doesn’t frighten me. And at this point, I think it would be a mistake to take you entirely away from street racing. We’ve been your rock for a long time.”

“Someday, someone is going to tell me what Keisuke-san did,” Yasuko sulked. “I just keep getting hints here and there that it was pretty bad.”

“That someone isn’t going to be me,” Ryosuke told her. “It should be him. Here we go. Hold on… and don’t be afraid.”

They had reached the base of the mountain. Ryosuke did not bother to ask anybody to check or clear the course, nor did he pause to announce his arrival at all. He simply accelerated sharply, and his car shot away into the fading summer sunlight.

Chapter Text

By the time they reached the top of Akagi’s course, Yasuko was certain that Ryosuke was the best driver in the region, at least. She was so sure that she told him instead of asking him. “When Keisuke-san broke his record last night, they said that it wasn’t the record for the course itself. You hold that record, don’t you?”

“I hold the downhill record,” he told her, pleased. “That was a good run. I enjoyed it. You were good and quiet, too. You weren’t scared?”

“No. I couldn’t be. It was frighteningly fast, but I could see that you knew exactly where the car was going the whole time, and where any of the other cars we encountered were going, too. It was like watching a computer in your head. You weren’t scared.”

“You’ve got a lot of faith in me,” Ryosuke remarked. “That’s good. You’re going to need it tonight. Here.” He had parked the car at one end of the lot. He turned off the car and stepped out, but left the keys in the ignition. “I requested a van for the night. It’s going to pull up right over there, same place it was the night that you found us. I want you to bring the FC over there for me.”

“Bring it over? You want me to drive it?” Yasuko blinked. “For you?”

“Yes,” he told her patiently. “That’s exactly what I want you to do.”

She didn’t really believe it, but he had made the order pretty clear, and she had sworn to take direction from him. So she walked around, got into the driver’s seat, and had to readjust it far forward just to reach the pedals. She knew already that both brothers were taller than her, but she hadn’t fully appreciated just how much taller. She adjusted the mirrors, buckled the seatbelt, took a breath, and started it up. Of course, she remembered how to move vehicles for her father and his technicians. If she just thought of this as a job, and not as her driving one of the most iconic and celebrated vehicles in the entire Gunma street racing scene, it was actually a very easy one. The car was in excellent shape and shifted easily. She crawled it across the parking lot and finally slid it neatly into a spot. Ryosuke had been striding across the lot as she went. She parked the car, but he opened the passenger side door and got in before she could turn it off. “Good. You clearly know how to move a car. Now, bring it back. But this time, make the trip in second gear.”

Suddenly, Yasuko realized what was going on. “Are you teaching me something? I’ve never been in second gear.”

“Of course. Keisuke told me that you didn’t know if you liked driving, because you weren’t sure you could call what you did driving. So now’s your chance.”

She wasn’t so sure this was a good idea. “It’s your car! The ‘White Comet of Akagi’s’ FC! What if I hit something while I’m learning?”

He gestured across the empty, wide-open parking lot. “I’ll take my chances. Go ahead.”

Second gear turned out to be much easier than first. The clutch re-engaged much more smoothly, and the speed was actually more comfortable for the distance. He had her going back and forth several times before the van arrived. Her eyes widened in a momentary terror as the larger vehicle pulled into the lot, but she soon realized that, even in second gear, it was actually not that hard for two vehicles in a large and empty lot to avoid winding up in the same place at the same time. “Pull up in the spot behind them,” Ryosuke instructed, and that was easy, because it was the type of low-speed tight maneuvering that she was used to.

One of the mechanics stepped over to the driver’s side window and blinked in surprise as she wound it down. He relaxed slightly as he glanced over to the passenger’s side. “Starting them young, aren’t we?” he asked, amused.

“Not younger than Fujiwara,” Ryosuke commented, getting out of the car. “I’d say the lesson is done for the day. Maybe next time, depending on how much she’s retained, we’ll try third gear.” He turned his attention to his student. “You can park it now, Yasuko-chan. Come get some food. I’ve heard that you listen to cars. Do you have any hints for my mechanic?”

Yasuko had to really think about it, because she hadn’t noticed anything. “No,” she finally concluded. “I would have to say that there is really nothing wrong with this car at all. It’s completely and totally optimized.”

“Don’t laugh,” Ryosuke told the mechanic. “This is Yasuko. Yasuko, this is Fumihiro. He’s in charge of the Project D mechanics. Yasuko here has grown up in a car repair shop, and she enjoys the work. I’d like you to let her watch what you’re doing, maybe even help if she can, if you’re comfortable with that.”

“We can do that.”

What followed was certainly one of the nicest evenings that Yasuko could remember. She had her portion of the dinner that had been brought up for the crew. She had rarely eaten takeout before leaving her father’s home, and she enjoyed the novelty. Then, she got to show off her knowledge, naming spare parts in Van Two and telling Fumihiro what each one did to the best of her ability. She was in the middle of doing that when she noticed some extra movement in the parking lot and turned to see the yellow FD pull into place. She immediately darted out and caught Keisuke in a big hug just as soon as he was able to get out of the driver’s seat. “Keisuke-san! I’m glad to see you! You’re late! I drove in second gear! I didn’t hit anything!”

He laughed and returned the hug, mussing up her hair. “I know I’m late, I stopped by the house to change. I was already late, so I figured I might as well be comfortable. I’m glad you’ve been having so much fun. Did you leave me any food?”

“I ate it all up,” she tried to tease, but one of the other people from Van Two promptly handed him the bag.

“Not that I’d have minded if you had, Yasuko-chan,” he told her, settling down to eat. “You’ve still got to gain weight, remember?”

“I had forgotten about that,” Yasuko admitted.

“I hadn’t,” Ryosuke remarked, joining them. “I’ve been working on things behind the scenes. I still need to bring you to a doctor’s appointment to follow up, now that your medication is done.”

“It seems longer than it’s been,” Yasuko mused. “One week ago today, Itsuki-san gave me his breakfast, and then I climbed up here on foot. I was so tired, and my feet hurt so much, but I was so sure that all I had to do was get here and everything would be alright.”

“You were right, and you could have showed up anytime,” Keisuke told her. “I was up here before lunchtime, waiting.”

“And you said you could take on ‘three local toughs’. You have a reputation. And other people have hinted at it. Keisuke-san, what did you do? I asked Ryosuke-san, and even he wouldn’t tell me.”

Keisuke looked embarrassed. He glanced away. “Is it that bad, Aniki?”

“Yasuko-chan didn’t want me to tell you about the laptop,” Ryosuke answered in amusement. “I figured you also had the right to decide what and when.”

“Well, I guess that’s fair. When I was in high school, I joined a street gang. I was in it for a couple of years. I’ve been out for longer than I’ve been in, by now.” He glanced at her, then looked away again. “I went pretty far. Got into a fair number of fights. That’s how I know I can take three opponents. I think my limit is about five, depending on what I’ve got as a weapon.” He looked back at her again, holding her gaze this time. “Yasuko-chan, I don’t do those kinds of things anymore. But if you’re in trouble and you come to me, I’ll defend you.”

Yasuko was stunned at first, confused, and she couldn’t help thinking about the men who had pursued her even when the police had stepped back. She shook her head slightly. It wasn’t right, she thought, to equate him with them. At least, she hoped it never had been. “The ones who were after me…” But she had to ask. “Did you ever…”

He blinked, shocked. “Go after a girl like you? No! None of my people did, either. I don’t even know the people who were following you. Give me a little credit, okay? I might have been a thug, but I hope I was never a creep.”

She watched Keisuke for a moment. He still ate, but he seemed restless. He tapped his foot, glanced around, drummed his fingers on his leg a couple of times. Yasuko suddenly realized that he was nervous now, just as she’d been nervous when she didn’t want him to know about the laptop. He actually cared what she thought of him. Suddenly, everything she knew about him drew into a clear picture, a fully human being, with flaws and regrets, with strong energy and a good heart. What mattered wasn’t what he’d done when he was adrift and angry. What mattered was that he’d told her that it was not okay for her to be abused and immediately put himself at risk to get her out. She went to him and gave him another hug. “It’s okay. You’ll always be my favorite racer.”

He relaxed as he hugged her back. “I’m glad of that, Yasuko-chan.”

As Keisuke finished his late dinner, he took a moment to stretch. “I’m still on the time trials, right, Aniki? I’d like to start with a full-out run, and then I’ll settle down to my work.”

“Sounds good, Keisuke. Report your times to Fumihiro for a while. Yasuko-chan said she needs to tell me something that she doesn’t want to talk about, so we may be a while.”

“Is it something you need me to stay for?” Keisuke offered.

Yasuko shook her head. She couldn’t help smiling at his offer, in spite of the jump in her own nervousness. “I’m glad you’re willing, Keisuke-san, but I think you should practice instead. It’ll be easier for me if there’s no emotion, and I think you’d get really upset.”

“Sure, wind me up and then set me to practice,” Keisuke complained mildly. “Well, alright, then.”

“I don’t mind if you know about it. Ryosuke-san, I don’t mind if you tell Keisuke-san about it later,” Yasuko offered.

That seemed to do the trick. Keisuke climbed into his FD and set off down the hill. Yasuko and Ryosuke sat down in his FC, and he put on the air conditioning against the late summer heat. “Alright,” he told her. “Soon as you’re comfortable, tell me what Tachibana thinks I need to know.”

She didn’t wait very long. The pressure mounted in her head until she felt like she just had to speak. “I used to see street racers come in for maintenance here and there, and I loved to listen to their stories. But in the past couple of months, only two of them kept coming.”

“The Lan Evo team at Tsuchisaka. Ichijo on the downhill, and Aikawa on the uphill. I know. Their desperation to win made me suspect that money was at stake, and that’s what put me on Yamamoto’s trail.”

That diverted Yasuko for just a moment. “You know what, I’d nearly forgotten that I was referring to him that way. I’ve been calling him Outo-sama again all afternoon. I guess I was just too tired, and I didn’t want to explain the change to everyone I met.”

“You do what’s more comfortable for you, Yasuko-chan. Did you have more to tell me than that?”

“Yeah…” She took a breath and tried again. “I hate both of them. I hate Aikawa-san more. I don’t even like being around where he is.”

“Keisuke isn’t fond of him either. The team tried to sabotage the uphill race and nearly succeeded.”

Again, her attention was diverted. “The Project D site just said that he used a borrowed FD due to a serious mechanical issue. You’re saying they actually did something to his car?”

“Not that directly. They - or someone being paid off by them - spread oil across the road, and Keisuke wiped out during practice.”

“That’s terrible!” she exclaimed. “He might have been killed!”

“He’s a better driver than that,” Ryosuke asserted confidently. “But the FD was damaged beyond the point where it could be used in the race. So I’m guessing that the reason you hate them is both different and more important.”

Time to come to it. “Yes. Several years ago, Aikawa-san claimed that I was betrothed to him. My father says I’m not. But Aikawa-san teases me about it, and he looks at me in a weird way that makes me want to stay away from him. The last couple of times I heard his voice in the shop, I slipped out and went upstairs into the bathroom to wait him out. I’m glad my father didn’t seem to notice. Usually, he’d shout at me if I disappeared like that for long enough. I guess whatever business they were doing took up all his attention.”

“Maybe.” As she’d hoped, Ryosuke’s response was completely calm, detached, like a machine. “Maybe not. Let me think about this for a moment. You said your father told you that you were not betrothed?”

“Yes. I mean, he never said I wasn’t betrothed to anybody, but he told me to stop talking like a fool when I asked if I was betrothed to Aikawa-san.” Her voice had started trembling, so she fell silent. Ryosuke remained silent, so she sat and listened to the hum of the engine and the air conditioning until she started to feel calmer and braver. When she glanced at him again, his eyes were closed. But then he spoke without opening them, and she realized that he was not asleep.

“Keisuke told me that you like bright colors to wear. Your wardrobe certainly didn’t reflect that. Your father picked out your clothes.”

She repeated what she had told Itsuki days ago. “Outo-sama said that girls shouldn’t dress in a way that draws attention to themselves. So it was always dark or plain colors, but no black. No short skirts. Not even mid-length. I don’t think he even approved of the school uniform.”

“Hm. Was it always like this?”

She had to think about that. “Actually, no. When I was younger, I wore all sorts of things.”

Ryosuke opened his eyes. “Alright. I am nearly entirely certain that, not only are you not betrothed to Aikawa, but your father is interested in keeping you out of his hands.”

“Even my father doesn’t like him? Are you sure?”

“I’m willing to bet that he was dressing you like that to avoid drawing Aikawa’s attention in particular, and I think he was letting you hide in the bathroom for the same reason,” Ryosuke replied, now turning and looking at her. “What do you think, Yasuko-chan?”

That was a hard adjustment to make in her mindset. “I don’t know what to think. But if you’re right, that makes me feel a little better. My information wasn’t important, then?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. Whenever something like this occurs to you, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know. You never know what little bit of information is going to be an important piece to a larger puzzle. Thank you for bringing this to me. I would say that you don’t need to worry about Aikawa now or in the near future.”

Yasuko let out a breath, glad for the reassurance. “What should I be worrying about now or in the near future, Ryosuke-san?”

“Mostly, getting through your court visit tomorrow. Hopefully, it will be the last one. The judge will make a decision on whether your father regains custody, and he may decide to award it to someone else permanently if he’s made up his mind already. I have to admit that I am not sure how it will go. But there’s a pretty good chance that he won’t choose me as your final legal guardian, especially as you said that Tachibana filed for custody, so you will have to get ready to move again.”

“Do you think that Tachibana-san will get custody?” Yasuko asked plainly.

Ryosuke answered her just as plainly. “I think he will, unless a better option is available.”

“What would be a better option?”

“A married couple with their own home, who already had a bedroom free.”

“And what if the judge doesn’t make a permanent decision tomorrow?” she wanted to know.

“Then I’m your guardian until he does, per the paperwork you already signed.”

“I’m fine with that,” Yasuko told him. “I think I’m getting used to it.”

“Something will have to change soon, at any rate,” Ryosuke mused. “We’ve got an extra week. But once Fujiwara’s Eight-Six is back on the road, we will be making regular trips to Kanagawa. I don’t think I can take you with us - it’s too far, and school will be starting again soon. But I don’t think I can leave you home, alone, for days at a time. It’s better that we solve this sooner rather than later.”

“Maybe tomorrow.” Yasuko turned away from him, looking out the window. “So I had best make the most out of tonight, hadn’t I? Keisuke-san is back. Do you think he would take me on his next run?”

He was happy enough to do so, and it distracted her from her worries and apprehensions for a while. By the time they got home, she was too tired to think. After all, nothing new would happen until tomorrow. Everything new would happen tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Yasuko awoke bright and early for the day, with plenty of time to shower and get dressed back into her plainer formal wear. Ryosuke would not let her wear the sparkly dress to court, so it was back into the other outfit - the blouse, the skirt, the jacket, and the tights. There wasn’t much she could do to make it comfortable. But Keisuke stopped her as she was getting ready and quietly told her to slip a pair of socks and pants into a bag for him to stow in his car. “Should have thought of this the day before yesterday,” he muttered. “I’ll grab your sneakers on the way out the door. That way you won’t have to wear those silly shoes all day. Why do women do this to themselves?”

“Well, I’m only doing it because I’m expected to,” she answered, and he conceded the point. 

As she was trying to eat some breakfast and feeling a bit nervous in her tummy, the doorbell sounded. Keisuke was still sorting out his tie, so Ryosuke answered it. A moment later, he headed into the dining area with a small box in his hand. “This came for you, Yasuko-chan.  Were you expecting something?”

“Actually, I should have been,” she replied, surprised. “I’d forgotten. Shingo told me that he had something for me, but he didn’t have it in hand yet. Is it from him?” In response, he simply handed it over, and she checked the little card to find ‘Shoji’ written on the front. The reverse side of the card read ‘For the Racers’ Angel’. She carefully opened the box to find a piece of jewelry inside. It was a bronze butterfly pin, decorated with little pink and purple gems. She lifted it out carefully, eyes wide with wonder, and took it to the sunbeam in the window so that she could watch it sparkle.

It didn’t take Ryosuke long to figure out what was going on. “A brooch, to replace the one you sacrificed. Is it the same, Yasuko-chan?”

“No,” she gasped, examining it more closely. “This is a little larger and much more detailed. It’s also bronze, not brass. I wonder where he found it! I want to wear it…” She held it up to her jacket. “I’m all in black and white, it would kind of stand out… If I pinned it under the collar, maybe… Just so that I’d know it’s there…”

Before she could decide, though, Keisuke strode in from his bedroom, properly attired. He walked up to her and gently took the butterfly brooch from her hand. “Oh, that’s pretty. Having trouble with the catch? There you go. All set.” He pinned it carefully to her jacket lapel and stepped back, entirely oblivious to any fashion concerns. She glanced over at Ryosuke, but he made no comment, so she took that as tacit permission. Its very presence did make her feel just a little braver.

She needed the courage. This time, instead of heading to a courtroom, Ryosuke took her deeper into the courthouse and waited with her at a door until it opened and the judge himself looked out. “Alright, very good,” he said. “Takahashi Yasuko, yes? In here, please.” Yasuko panicked for just a moment as she realized that nobody was going in with her. She looked to Ryosuke and he nodded encouragingly. She followed the judge into a comfortable little office space and sat opposite his desk, feeling rather as if she were in the office of the school principal and quite possibly in trouble. The man himself, though, had a calming and even friendly air about him, and she realized as soon as he spoke to her that he was used to dealing with children and teens. She belatedly remembered that he apparently had five children of his own. “I don’t want you to be nervous,” he reassured her. “I’ve had some difficult decisions to make. Your case is rather unusual. Before I finalize them, I wanted to talk to you for myself. Alright? I’ll make it as easy as possible. I just have a few questions for you.”

She agreed timidly, addressing him as she’d heard the others address him, and he settled down to business. “What is your opinion of Fujiwara Bunta?” he asked first.

That wasn’t really a question she expected. “I’m sorry… I don’t even recognize the name. I don’t know who he is.”

“Alright. He did seem to indicate that there was no close relation. He lives above a tofu shop. He is a single parent with one adult son named-“

Suddenly, Yasuko understood and repeated the name along with the judge. “Takumi. Yes. I know… well… I know of… I’ve met Fujiwara Takumi. I don’t know his family. He’s calm and quiet.” She thought back to the hospital, when he had faced down her father with clenched fists. “But not passive. I didn’t know his father’s name, but I know that he drives a car with the tofu shop name on the side.”

“Hm,” the judge remarked, looking down at the papers on his desk. “Fujiwara Bunta put in a bid to adopt you, but he indicated in interview that his primary interest was ensuring that you would not fall into your father’s hands if the other bids fell through. Or, in his own words, ‘in case that fool of a best friend does something stupid and gets himself disqualified’. I take it there is really no relationship between you.”

She shook her head wonderingly, and he nodded in satisfaction. “Alright, that one was easy. What about your temporary guardian, Takahashi Ryosuke?”

“I like him,” Yasuko answered easily. “He’s a good authority figure. He doesn’t frighten me, and I feel safe with him. He does a good job in taking care of me. He’s said that he isn’t sure he can give me the best home. But I think I would do fine with him. I don’t think he’d let me get into much trouble.”

“That sounds promising,” the judge mused, looking back down at his paperwork. “Do you recognize the name Tachibana Yuichi?”

“Yes, I do. I’ve only talked to him a couple of times, but he’s had a lot of deep things to say. He knew my parents. I feel like he understands me. I haven’t been directly under his authority yet, but I would obey him. I think that he has my best interests in mind. Whatever happens to me, I hope that I will still be able to talk to him.”

“And Takahashi Ryosuke has your best interests in mind?”

“Yes.” Yasuko thought about this for a moment. She added, “I’m not sure he understands me quite as well. But Keisuke-san does, and Ryosuke-san listens to his brother.”

“Tell me more about Takahashi Keisuke,” the judge invited.

“Ryosuke-san is almost always completely calm and collected. Keisuke-san… isn’t. But I feel that he understands my spirit better. He’s safe and responsible. I think the two of them, working together, do a very good job.”

“If Takahashi Keisuke was put in authority over you, you would obey him?”

“Of course I would!” Yasuko knew that immediately. “It isn’t quite the same as Ryosuke-san. He’s more like… like, maybe, an older brother. It’s hard to explain. But I listen to Keisuke-san. And he listens to me. They both do.”

“Good,” the judge told her. “I’m afraid we’re on to a couple of harder topics, now. Your father.” He paused for a moment, watching her face as she struggled for words. “I can see part of what you’re trying to say already. You showed an immediate fear response. Is it always like that now? Was it always?”

“It wasn’t always.” Yasuko felt that it was particularly important to tell the truth to someone as important as a judge. “But more and more, it is. He used to be nicer, but now… and with the last thing he did to me, I just couldn’t…” She took a breath and straightened in her seat. The brooch flashed briefly in the light, drawing her eye to it. Yasuko decided that she wasn’t going to beat around the bush. “If I am sent back to him, I will run away again and try to reach Takahashi Keisuke. I know Keisuke-san would let me come to him no matter what.”

“I appreciate your honesty,” the judge replied, as she gasped for breath from the very boldness of her statement and hoped she hadn’t just done something against the law. “Would you say that there has been a complete breakdown of paternal relationship with your father?”

Yasuko closed her eyes for a moment, then looked straight at him. “Yes, I would.”

“Alright. Do you recognize the name Aikawa?” Again, the judge watched her reactions before she spoke. “You do. You don’t like him. Go ahead, be plain. My job is much easier if you are plain.”

“I would rather go back to my father than to wind up in Aikawa’s hands,” Yasuko told him plainly. “I talked to Tachibana-san and Ryosuke-san about him already. Ryosuke-san thinks that even my father doesn’t want him near me. I feel sick in my stomach whenever I’m in the same room with him. He teases me by saying that I’m betrothed to him, but my father says that I’m not.”

“Mm. Thank you, Yasuko. I have the information I need from you. You can step out now. One of the clerks will be waiting to bring you to the courtroom we will be using today.”

She rose and, again, addressed him properly and formally. “Thank you. I feel that you care about making a good decision for me, and that makes me feel much less afraid.”

That elicited a true smile from the man. “I don’t want you to be afraid, Takahashi Yasuko. I will see you in several minutes.”

When she exited the judge’s office, there was nobody waiting for her in the hallway except for the clerk. That made her a bit nervous, but she followed him silently and obediently down a couple of hallways to a door she didn’t even recognize. It opened into another courtroom, with a larger area for the people involved to sit and settle and no audience area at all. She saw three tables set up around the judge’s seat, two people seated at each table. Her father and Aikawa sat at one table, and she avoided them entirely. She approached the middle table, where Tachibana sat with the scruffy man she remembered from the previous court appearance. Curiosity piqued, she approached the scruffy man. “I’m sorry, I was introduced to everyone, and I couldn’t sort anything out. Who are you? I mean… what are you? Why are you here?” She paused, suddenly horrified. “I didn’t mean to ask that the way I did.”

The man gave her a gracious smile. “It’s alright, I’m the detective assigned to your case. I wanted to see how everything turned out.”

“Thank you for all of the work you did,” Yasuko told him politely. As she started to turn away, she heard a strange gasp from her father’s table. She turned to face him fully. He stared at the brooch on her lapel, turning very pale. Yasuko made the decision that she did not want to deal with him anymore. She straightened her back, lifted her head slightly, turned away from him, and walked to the third table, which had the most familiar faces of all. She seated herself there, right between Ryosuke and Keisuke. Keisuke pressed her hand under the table in a show of solidarity, cheering her. Then she took a moment to wonder why both he and Aikawa were allowed in the room, up at the tables with the rest of the people who were actually involved in her case. She turned to ask him, but the judge appeared before she could.

Once everyone was settled and ready, the judge spoke. “Due to the unusual way that our last session concluded, there is a little business to address before I lay out my decision on this case. I would like to start by making it clear that this is a side issue, and the results gained from it have not been used to make any decisions. It is information only… and, apparently, at least two of the people present have decided that it is information that needed to be brought forward.” He paused, looking at his notes. “I have two paternity test results for the young lady currently known legally as Takahashi Yasuko. The first test was done for Tachibana Yuichi.” Another pause, as the tension in the room ratcheted up a notch. Yasuko found herself hoping, despite Yuichi’s assurance, for a positive result. “The result is negative,” the judge reported, and she let out a breath. 

Yuichi did not look at all surprised. Yamamato Shinji, on the other hand, looked astonished. “Are you sure?” he asked, and Yasuko suddenly realized that he actually meant those bitter words when he said them. Her nervousness flared back up into anger. She didn’t mean to show it on her face or in her body, but she knew she must have started giving off some sort of subconscious signal, because Keisuke reached under the table and took hold of her hand again.

"The result here is less than one percent,” the judge explained patiently. “Your two families could not have touched for at least two or three generations, possibly longer. Tachibana Yuichi is unquestionably not the biological father.” He paused for a moment, waiting to see if any other objections or remarks were forthcoming. Everyone remained silent, so he moved on. “The second test was done for Yamamoto Shinji. The result is positive, with a similarity of fifty percent. Yamamoto Shinji is unquestionably the biological father of Takahashi Yasuko.”

Yasuko didn’t want to look back at her father’s face, but she felt compelled. He had gone white again. Oddly, instead of anger or frustration, she saw regret mixed with horror. She didn’t want him to go soft at a time like this. She wanted him to make it easier for her to spurn him forever. But he had been suddenly thrown well clear of the dark mood that had dominated him for the past several years. Then, Yuichi spoke, his voice oddly gentle, and he directed his words straight to her father. “You could have asked me at any time, Shinji. I would have told you. There was no chance that she was mine, because Suki and I never did anything. I knew you were jealous, and I knew you were harsh with Suki. I even offered, the last time I saw her, to take her away with me. I was still in love with her, and I knew she loved me. But she refused. She was completely loyal to you. She would not even consider turning away from you. I’m sorry that you let this draw you into a cycle of bitterness and frustration. We could have settled this many years ago. Look at Yasuko-chan now. You should have known just by her face that she was yours. When the two of you snapped at each other at the previous session, I could have held up a mirror between you. You couldn’t see it. But even if you chose to never ask, even if you believed that you were not the biological father, you still had a treasure here. I could see her amazing potential within minutes of meeting her. No matter who’s child she was, she was in your hands. You could have raised her to exceed you, as any parent should want to do. Finally, even if you weren’t sure that she was yours, you had to know that she was all you had left of Suki. That should have meant more to you.” Yuichi fell silent, and the room remained silent for a long time. A strange change had come over Yamamoto Shinji. He seemed deeply pained. Aikawa’s scowl, on the other hand, became even uglier than usual.

“If that is settled,” the judge remarked dryly, “we can continue. Due to the severity of the child abuse charge we are settling today and the overwhelming level of evidence substantiating that claim, I am severing all parental rights, permanently and irrevocably.”

This should have been no surprise to anybody in the room. Yasuko noticed that her father - no longer her father - started at the news anyway. She quickly glanced away from him. It was no easier to see the pain than it had been to see the anger. She heartily wished that this was all over. She had hoped that today would be easier, but it was harder instead. 

The judge continued. “For final custody, we do have an unusual case here. Adoption requests for children of Yasuko’s age are not common, and whoever takes her will only have her for a couple of years before she becomes a legal adult. But I have received six separate requests.” At that, Yasuko glanced up at the judge, surprised, and started trying to count people in her head. She couldn’t come up with six no matter how hard she tried. There weren’t even six people in the room aside from the judge, the detective, and herself. “The first request is conditional,” the judge noted, shuffling the papers in front of him. “The condition is not met. The request is denied without prejudice. Two more requests, upon evaluation of the submitter with a view of Yasuko’s best interests in mind, are denied with prejudice.” He paused for a moment, looking out across the room. “Yamamoto and Aikawa, you are no longer part of these proceedings. You must now leave.”

The two men rose and made their proper obeisance. Aikawa departed first, looking both angry and sullen at the same time. Yamamoto lingered for just a moment, long enough that Yasuko felt compelled to look up and meet his gaze one more time. He glanced at Aikawa’s retreating back, then looked back at his ex-daughter as she sat quietly between the Takahashi brothers. Then, his expression changed. His mouth curved into an odd wry smile. He gave a slight laugh that was not free of bitterness, but not dominated by it either. “Well,” he said, half to himself and half to the other men in the room, “she’ll be safe.” And with that, he turned and walked out.

The judge was supposed to resume as soon as both men had left the room, but he didn’t get a chance. Yasuko felt an odd, wild mixture of relief and sorrow well up in her spirit. It hit her so strongly that she found herself blinded by tears almost before she had realized that her emotions had changed. She felt someone’s hand rest comfortingly on her back, and she promptly broke down completely. The world itself had seemingly come to an end. For a long moment, just to oblige her, it did. Nobody spoke. Nobody made her do anything or listen to anything. Someone kept a hand resting on her back. After the initial burst of tears, someone handed her a tissue and replaced it as soon as she cried through it. After a moment, someone took hold of the hand that she was not using to hold the tissue to her face. She heard some murmured words of comfort, and it helped her just to know that there was at least one person who cared. Finally, she heard her guardian’s voice, calm and steady. “Alright, Yasuko-chan. Let’s see if you can calm yourself down now.” She wanted to obey, so she set her focus on regaining control. It slowly worked. As she quieted down enough to look up, she found that there were at least three people who cared. Yuichi had moved his seat opposite hers at the table. He was murmuring words of comfort while holding her hand. Keisuke was the one who had rested his hand on her back, and Ryosuke had the tissue box. The judge handed Yuichi a fresh, unopened bottle of water, and Yuichi opened it for her before handing it over.

“Thank you,” Yasuko whispered. She sipped the water slowly, straightening up and wiping her face, until she started to feel a little more human. The judge returned to his seat, but the others stayed where they were.

“You can take your time,” the judge told her kindly. “When I have a case involving children, I usually allot a generous amount of time. It is not even lunchtime yet, and I have no other cases today.”

“I’m alright,” she managed to answer after another moment. She took another drink of her water. “Please, if you have decided on custody, I want to know.”

“Alright. We may continue. As your situation is unusual, I chose an unusual solution. There are three remaining bids for adoption, and I have had a set of documents drafted that honors all three,” the judge explained. “I made it as simple as I could, but it is not entirely straightforward, so I would like everyone in the room to pay special attention. All three parties - and Takahashi Yasuko - will need to sign in order to make this official.”

The judge looked around, confirming that all eyes were on him, before continuing. “The first is very easy and straightforward. I am awarding primary guardianship and custody to Tachibana Yuichi. Yasuko’s legal name will be ‘Tachibana Yasuko’, and she will reside with him. He will be the primary decision-maker for her affairs. This paperwork is simple and normal, and you will find that you have few if any problems getting any authority to recognize it. On paper, you are the one who will most resemble her legal parent.”

That part, Yasuko had more or less expected. She looked up at Yuichi, who smiled gently at her in response. “It’ll be alright, Yasuko-chan,” he told her. “I’ll take good care of you, and I’ll make sure that you keep contact with all the friends you have made here.” Obeying an impulse that had begun to form into a habit, Yasuko looked to Ryosuke next, and he gave her a nod of approval.

“That is good to hear,” the judge noted dryly. “Because I am also awarding secondary guardianship and full visitation rights to Takahashi Ryosuke. You have a custom document detailing your own rights and responsibilities. Put simply, you have a right to give input on all major decisions involving Yasuko’s life, and may even override Tachibana’s decisions through the court if you find it necessary. Given that you both have her best interests in mind and both seem to have very similar ideas on what her best interests entail, I don’t foresee any serious issues from this unusual arrangement. Ah, of course. And if for some reason Tachibana Yuichi is unable to maintain a residence for Yasuko for any period of time, temporary custody will fall to Takahashi Ryosuke and, in the case of Tachibana’s permanent inability to continue as her guardian, he will take permanent custody and she will revert to the legal name of ‘Takahashi Yasuko’ as well. Your paperwork is the most complicated. Given the unusual way that you took legal custody of her to begin with, I doubt that will pose much of a barrier for you.”

That made Yasuko feel even better. “So if something happens… for some reason… I won’t go ‘into the system’,” she ventured. “I’ll have a home with someone I trust no matter what.”

“That is the intent,” the judge told her kindly. “Hence the last part of this unusual situation. I am awarding tertiary guardianship and full visitation rights to Takahashi Keisuke. He may be consulted by the other two guardians on major decisions regarding Yasuko’s life. In the event that neither Tachibana Yuichi nor Takahashi Ryosuke are able to maintain custody, sole custody will fall to him.”

That caused heads to turn. Ryosuke looked and sounded startled. “Keisuke, did you file a bid to adopt Yasuko-chan?”

“I did it yesterday,” Keisuke replied, looking rather pleased with himself at having drawn attention. “A bit late, but I had an interview on the spot, so everything obviously worked out.”

“After the talk we had the night before?” Ryosuke asked, still surprised.

“Of course,” Keisuke declared. “I was right. You know I was right. But so were you. So, of course, I had to do something. You won’t have to worry about the future now, right Yasuko-chan?”

She wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or start crying again. “No. I’m not afraid anymore.”

Chapter Text

Nobody had a problem signing the paperwork, though Ryosuke had to take some time reviewing his in order to understand it fully. Yasuko was the last to put her signature on it. As she finished, her two main guardians began proper and friendly negotiations at once. “I don’t think that moving her immediately would be in her best interests,” Tachibana remarked. “I am securing a new apartment with a bedroom for her, but it will take a few more days. Would that suit you?”

“Yes, I think that would be wise,” Ryosuke replied. “We still have a little over a week before Fujiwara’s Eight-Six will be repaired. It would be good if we could settle her in her new place before we start our next expedition. School is starting back up soon, too.”

“She’s fifteen, so she’ll be starting at the highschool proper,” Yuichi noted. “Why don’t we all meet for lunch? I’m ready to eat, and Yasuko-chan has got to be hungry by now. We can have a nice talk about her future, since we’re all here.”

This sounded good, and they quickly settled on a place before splitting up. Given the choice of three separate cars, Yasuko opted for Yuichi’s. “I’ve never ridden with you before. And if you’re going to be my first guardian, I think I had better start getting used to it.”

“Hold up, Yasuko-chan. I’ve still got your stuff in mine,” Keisuke pointed out. He headed out to the parking lot and returned with a bag. “Go get comfortable.”

“Of all things, I definitely want her to be comfortable,” Yuichi agreed immediately, and Yasuko gratefully made a beeline for the restroom so that she could change into her pants and sneakers before setting out.

“One thing still puzzles me,” Yuichi remarked, as he pulled out from the courthouse parking lot and glided onto the road. “The other bid for adoption, the conditional one. I can guess at the two that were dismissed with prejudice, and I know which three were honored.”

“I think I know,” Yasuko replied, thinking back to the judge’s odd questions in his office. “But that doesn’t mean that I understand why. Tachibana-san, you drive like a racer. But you’re different from Ryosuke-san and Keisuke-san. Is it because you don’t race anymore?”

He chuckled kindly. “We’ll have to find a title for me that’s a little less formal and easier to say. I’m sorry to disappoint you, Yasuko-chan. I was never a racer like the ‘Rotary Brothers’, or like Takumi for that matter. I was probably more like the Speed Stars. Your - I mean, Shinji - never really raced. He was too nervous when driving. He preferred the mechanic work. Bunta was the real expert. His son is like him.”

“Oh! You know Fujiwara Bunta!” The purpose behind the mystery bid was becoming more clear now.

“He’s my best friend. You’ll probably see him or hear from him now and then, while you’re living with me. Why?”

Yasuko was too excited to have solved the puzzle to think about whether she was supposed to divulge the information. “The only name I didn’t recognize, when the judge asked me questions in his office, was ‘Fujiwara Bunta’. The judge told me that he put in a bid in case his ‘fool’ best friend was disqualified by doing something stupid. He wanted to make absolutely sure that I would not go back to… to Yamamoto-san. I had no idea why he would do that, or who his best friend was. I don’t know him at all. Why did he say it like that, Tachibana-san?”

At that, Yuichi paused and went into such a fit of laughter that Yasuko hoped he would not swerve off the road. His car never deviated from its course, and she started to relax a little. “He said it like that because he knows me, Yasuko-chan. He knows me all too well. I didn’t tell him about the fight or the night I spent in a cell for it, but I’m sure it’s no surprise to him. Let me give you a hint. If you know Takumi at all, you know Bunta too. But even I hadn’t guessed that he would step up and support me to that degree. He really is the best friend I ever had.”

“At the hospital, Yamamoto-san tried to take me back, and he stood firm when he was told to leave. I remember seeing… seeing Fujiwara-san with his fists clenched and realizing that he was ready to fight. So if his father is the same way…”

“Now you have it. So, Yasuko-chan, what do you want to call me? Do you have a preference? I am legally outosan by rights, but I don’t know if you’re quite comfortable with that.” He maneuvered from the road to the highway and accelerated smoothly.

“I don’t know. Is there something between ‘outosan’ and ‘Tachibana-san’ that you would like?” Yasuko asked. She felt as though she should be timid, but something about his presence did not encourage timidity or formality.

“Why don’t you try ‘Yuichi-san’?” he offered. “I certainly won’t have you calling me the way my employees do.”

That seemed reasonable. “Should I address you differently when we are at the gas station?” she offered.

He shook his head with a ready smile. “You get special privileges.”

They did not go to the same place where she’d had dinner after her previous court appearance. This trip was much shorter. It would have been very neat and interesting, she thought, to put all three vehicles in a row in the parking lot. Unfortunately, parking was scattered all over the place. Yuichi managed to find a spot within easy view of the other two vehicles, and both brothers exited Ryosuke’s FC as Yasuko opened her door. She realized in a moment how much she really would miss living with the two of them as she saw them from a distance like that, and she was glad that all four going to have lunch together today, at least.

The lunch, however, turned out to be very boring. Yasuko’s two newly-christened primary and secondary guardians spent the entire time discussing aspects of her new life to a degree of minutiae that she knew she should find interesting, but couldn’t keep her attention. Keisuke helped a little, winking or sticking his tongue out at her from time to time as he recognized her boredom, but even he listened intently and occasionally interjected thoughts as they worked out details from pediatric recommendations to bedroom furniture to cell phone plans. After a while, Yasuko found herself drawn, not into the conversation itself, but into its tone. She was used to her father - her former father, now - bargaining for every piece he could and bemoaning everything he had to give. These people, on the other hand, kept giving way to each other’s supposed expertise and offering to pay for anything and everything involved. As they finally started finishing up the last of their tea, Yasuko felt that she’d had enough of listening to other people map out her future. She was so used to suppressing the rise of her spirit, second-guessing and considering the risks of speaking, that she remained silent as her desire to speak grew. Keisuke started to stick his tongue out at her again and paused, looking at her expression and posture. He paused with his tongue stuck out just a little bit, which made Yasuko start to giggle quietly. Then he reached out and nudged his brother. Almost immediately, she had the table’s full attention.

“Oh, uh, I…” Yasuko took a breath and went for it. “You’re planning my life, and I don’t mind, because I like what you’re doing. But I want to have a say.”

“Of course, Yasuko-chan,” Yuichi responded immediately and easily. “What are you thinking of? Tell us, and we’ll figure something out.”

She took a breath. “I want to keep coming to Project D’s practices. I know the races are too far away for me to attend, and that’s okay, as long as I can keep finding out about them. But I want to go to the practices as often as I can, and ride the course sometimes, and learn about the car maintenance, and help if I’m not in the way.”

Ryosuke and Yuichi looked at each other for a moment. “Well, I don’t have any objection,” Yuichi noted, “as long as your homework is done and you aren’t out too late on a school night.”

“Our practices can go pretty late,” Ryosuke remarked, “and I can’t guarantee the ability to send her home with someone early.”

“I can go pick her up on my way home from the station,” Yuichi offered. “I don’t mind if it’s out of my way. Dropping her off may be a little harder. Itsuki might be full-time now, but I’ve lost one of my part-timers fairly recently and there aren’t always runners to spare.”

“I’ll give her a ride to practice,” Keisuke filled in. “I can pick her up at the gas station or the school.”

“Call me when you’re on your way to pick her up in the evening,” Ryosuke told Yuichi, “and I’ll send her to the bottom of the hill. With two people continuously headed up and down, that will be easy. That will cut some time off of your trip and keep you from getting into their track.”

Buoyed by her easy success, Yasuko blurted out the other thought on her mind. “And I want to drive in third gear.”

Yuichi looked blank. Ryosuke filled in the gaps. “I started teaching her how to drive when there was nobody else around. She already knows how to move vehicles around in first and reverse, because she did it at the repair shop. We practiced second gear yesterday. I was planning to let her on the road sometimes during our practice when it’s been reported clear.”

“Not by herself, though,” Yuichi interrupted, mildly alarmed.

“Of course not,” Ryosuke replied immediately. “She’s been driving my FC.”

There was a longer pause this time while Yasuko’s new primary guardian adjusted himself to the idea. “Well,” he finally said, thoughtfully, “She isn’t the youngest I’ve heard of, and it does sound like you’re taking precautions. I suppose we couldn’t do much better for a driving instructor. I have no objection.”

Yasuko had also learned to try to restrain her enthusiasm around her father when she managed to get what she wanted. She tried to remain decorous in victory here at the restaurant, surrounded by guardians in their deep negotiations about her life. But Keisuke offered her a congratulatory fistbump, and that she could not resist. Laughter around the table broke the seriousness of the mood, and the adults fell into lighter discussions.

What followed was a time that Yasuko looked back on as a “Week of Rest”. Of course, it was the week that she moved from the Takahashi house to the second bedroom in Tachibana Yuichi’s new apartment. It was the week that his kitchen went from being sparsely supplied to fully equipped, at her request. It was a week in which each day was filled with time spent at the gas station and time spent in practice with Project D, learning from their mechanics and becoming more comfortable in Third Gear. But it was also a week without nasty surprises. It was a week without uncomfortable revelations, court cases, and administrative upheavals. Even the move didn’t seem quite that disruptive, as it held a sense of finality. Yasuko began to write in her diary again and updated a few racer profiles on her laptop. Ryosuke gave her a beautiful little cell phone, themed in mint green and pink like her laptop, and she learned how to use it. Then, Yuichi had her fitted for her school uniform, and she realized that she was about to face yet another transition. After what she had been through just over the course of a couple of weeks, though, it did not seem all that difficult to face. After all, after abuse, running away, a hospital stay, and a full-on court custody case, how bad could highschool be?

On the last day of summer, Yuichi took her to the ocean, and she enjoyed every last bit of it.

Chapter Text

Yasuko didn’t know if there was any possible way to get out of the trouble she was in. She had managed, in the space of just a few minutes, to completely isolate herself from correct society. She had no doubt ruined the Tachibana name and brought total disgrace upon her new guardian. She huddled in the corner of a disused highschool classroom, leaning against the wall, horrified and miserable. She wanted to reach out to someone, to rejoin society, even to take her punishment just so that she could see a friendly face. But she just couldn’t bear the punishment that she was sure she’d earned. There was an unbridgeable gap between her and the rest of the world, and she was a cast-off, a delinquent…

A delinquent. Something about that thought snagged in her mind, and she took a moment to marshal her thoughts. What she needed was a bridge for an unbridgeable gap. Suddenly, hope flared up in her ever-turbulent spirit. Maybe she had one. Yasuko started checking the pockets of her uniform. Of course, she had dropped her backpack in the hallway, and goodness knows what had happened to it since. But she was pretty sure she hadn’t stored her phone there. Yes - yes, here it was. Her hands shaking, she flipped it open and tapped past the first two numbers in her list. She took a deep breath, her nervousness rising. She waited for the emotion to ebb, just a little, and she hit the call button.

“Are you serious? What are you doing to my FD? I’m supposed to be out on the road by now!” Keisuke leaned on the car frame, looking under the hood.

“Ryosuke-san asked me to change the settings,” his mechanic explained patiently. “I know it’s last minute, but I don’t think it’ll take me longer than a half hour.”

“And that would be why he wanted me up here this early, so that I could take more time to get used to it. Alright, fine. Want some help?” Otherwise, what was he going to do except to pace around waiting for the chance to join Fujiwara on the hill?

And then, his phone rang.

He pulled it out and answered it without even looking at it. “Yeah, speak.”

“Keisuke-san?” came a timid voice.

He recognized her, of course. “Yasuko-chan. Hey. Aren’t you at school? It’s after lunchtime.”

“Yes, I know. But I’m in a lot of trouble, and I don’t know what to do.”

That caught his attention. “Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

She sounded close to tears. “I’m not hurt, Keisuke-san.”

“Where are you?” he asked. “What’s the trouble?”

“I did something wrong. I ran away, and now I don’t know how to go back,” she admitted.

“Are you lost? Did you leave the school?”

“I’m not lost, I’m hiding in one of the classrooms.”

He didn’t understand what the problem was. “So leave the classroom and go to your class. You might be a little late, but you’ll just get a scolding from the teacher. That’s no big deal.”

“No, I’ve missed… two classes so far. I’m sure they’ve started looking for me. I can’t just go back.”

Keisuke started to wander as he spoke. “What on earth were you doing for all that time? What’s going on?”

“I was crying…” Her voice caught for just a moment. “Please, Keisuke-san. I don’t know how to go back. Please come and get me out.”

“They’ll contact Tachibana, he’ll come and get you, right?” Keisuke asked. He glanced up at the sky. “I’m supposed to start practice soon.”

“I don’t know if he’ll understand.” Her voice trembled again, but she kept talking. “I don’t want to be a bad girl. But I can’t just go back and turn myself in. I don’t know if anybody can help me. But if anybody can, you can.”

He took a couple of deep breaths, reminding himself to be patient. Whatever was going on, this was obviously important to her, and she was obviously in some sort of distress. “Alright, you’d better tell me what happened. I can’t help you if I don’t even know what’s going on. Why did you run off?”

“You remember the girl in class, her friends call her ‘Kana’, who has been bullying me. She keeps saying little mean cutting things about my looks-“

“And your hair, even though you’ve got a waiver from the school administration due to the reason it’s cut short and dyed ‘an unnatural color’. I remember. I also remember that Aniki told you to ignore her and not let her get to you. What did you do?” As he asked, he looked up and noticed his brother emerging from one of the vans, a slight frown of puzzlement on his face.

“I didn’t, honest, I was trying to ignore her. She got in front of me, so I tried to walk around her. And then she told me that she wasn’t going to be ignored, but I refused to answer her. And then she slapped me.”

“How many times did you hit her back?” Keisuke immediately responded, feeling his own temper rise.

“I didn’t hit her back,” Yasuko answered, surprised.

“Well, why not?” Keisuke demanded. He glanced up to see Ryosuke giving him a disapproving look.

“I can’t go around hitting people at school, Keisuke-san,” Yasuko explained with an almost exaggerated patience. “I’d get into so much more trouble than I’m already in.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that answer from both sides now,” Keisuke muttered, glancing back at his brother. “So what’s the problem, then? What did you do?” As he asked, he noticed Ryosuke picking up his own phone to answer a call.

“I… well, I… I just kind of broke down, and I told her the whole story, but kind of quickly, I told her how my father cut off my hair and I ran away and the court took me away from him, and I’d dyed what was left so that I could feel a bit more in control of it. Only I didn’t really say it, I more screamed it, and everyone heard me, probably in the whole school, and then…” Her impassioned tone faltered. “…I ran away, and hid in this remote classroom, and I’ve been here since. And I don’t want to go to class, and I don’t want to go to the principal, I just want to leave here and never come back.”

Keisuke spent a moment thinking this over. “It sounds to me like Kana was in the wrong, Yasuko-chan. Why don’t you go back? If the school administration is halfway competent, they’ll have figured out that you didn’t start it and you didn’t even finish it. I don’t see that you’d get anything but-“

“A punishment, right?” Yasuko pointed out. “Maybe a cleaning chore, or lines to write, or something else of that sort. And if she’s wrong and I’m wrong and they figure that we’re both equally wrong, we’ll be punished together, right? And I’ll have to spend the rest of the afternoon in a room with her. I can’t do that, Keisuke-san. Can’t you understand that?”

“Well, of course I could understand that. But they’d have to put you in separate rooms. It would be completely unreasonable to expect you to serve a punishment with her like that, after what she did.” Keisuke glanced over at his brother and caught his gaze. “Hold on a moment, ok?” he told Yasuko over the phone. “Don’t hang up, I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” she assented, her voice turning wobbly again.

He tapped the mute button. “Yes, I know,” he heard Ryosuke answer into his own phone. “I think so. Hold on.” Ryosuke turned his attention to Keisuke. “It’s Tachibana. He said the school just called him. Yasuko-chan is missing, and she isn’t answering her phone.”

“Yeah, she called me. The bullying escalated and she ran off. She’s hiding in the school somewhere. She asked me to go get her.”

Ryosuke relayed the information on his own phone. “She’s on the phone with Keisuke, that’s why she didn’t answer. She’s alright, but it seems like she’s pretty upset.”

Keisuke turned back to his own conversation, unmuting the phone. “Yasuko-chan, hey. Tachibana just called. The school called him. He’ll be coming for you soon. He already tried to reach you on your phone. So you should be fine in just a moment, right?”

Her voice turned to tears again. “Please come too, Keisuke-san.”

“Yasuko-chan…” He glanced over at his brother.

“Please.”

That did it. “Alright. Stay where you are, Yasuko-chan. I’ll sort this out for you. I’ll call you back once I get there.” He ended the call and turned to Ryosuke. “Tell Tachibana I’ll meet him at the school. But I need to leave right away, and my car isn’t ready.”

“Keisuke’s going to meet you at the school,” Ryosuke said into the phone. “It’ll just take a few moments to-“ But Keisuke held out his hand imperiously, and Ryosuke sighed as he rummaged in his pocket. “Alright, alright. He’s on his way.” He tossed his keychain at Keisuke, who plucked it cleanly out of the air. “So what can you do that he can’t?” Ryosuke asked, as he ended the call and Keisuke headed for the white FC. “Just a pickup from school?”

“No.” Keisuke realized that he knew the shape of her problem, but he hadn’t quite put it into words yet. He remembered when she had run away from her father, how she had evaded the police and even poor harmless Itsuki, and his mild annoyance softened. “She isolated herself again. I guess she trusts me - and only me - to negotiate her way back into polite society.”

As he headed towards the school, Keisuke pondered on that. He remembered well enough how large every problem seemed to him when he was younger, and how each act of disobedience had helped to convince him that he was surely too far gone this time. He felt an odd rise of nervousness as he entered the school building, realizing that he really had never liked the place himself. By the time he was conducted to the administrative office, he felt himself in greater sympathy with Yasuko. As he entered, glancing from Tachibana’s worried expression to the administrator’s stern demeanor, the full absurdity of the situation - and the role he played in it, as a responsible adult interceding for his ward - finally hit him full force. “I told her to stay put,” he immediately informed them, not waiting for introductions or other niceties. “She’s alright, she’s just upset.”

The administrator in the office still looked irked. Tachibana’s expression changed to profound relief mixed with worry, and Keisuke immediately liked him just a little bit better. “A couple of girls have come forward,” the administrator told him. “We’ve gathered a few accounts, and we are fairly sure we know what happened.”

Keisuke nodded. “The girl Kana who’s been bullying her started to harass her again. When she refused to respond, Kana slapped her. That upset her - as any fool might expect, given her history - but she didn’t slap back. Instead, she explained herself passionately, felt horribly embarrassed and ashamed, and ran off to hide. Once she missed her first class, she figured she was in too much trouble to return, so she just stayed there. Once she calmed down a little, she called me.”

The administrator blinked. “Well… yes. Obviously nobody knew what happened once she ran off, but the accounts all agree with what you just told us.”

Keisuke shrugged. “Yasuko wouldn’t lie to me. So, what now?”

Tachibana Yuichi spoke up next. “Apparently, Kana is being required to write out the relevant parts of the school rules and do extra cleaning chores, and her parents will be contacted. Yasuko has the relevant school rules to write for missing several classes, but that’s it, because of mitigating circumstances.”

“Yeah, that’s what she thought,” Keisuke mused. “And they’d do this separately, right?”

“Both of them are expected to serve their punishment as soon as possible,” the administrator explained. “But your ward only has the lines to write…”

“Yeah, but they’d be in different rooms, right? You have more than one room available for this?” Keisuke could already see the answer on the administrator’s face. He cursed. “She was right. I can’t believe she was right.”

Keisuke hadn’t really thought before cursing, but it changed the entire dynamic of the room. Tachibana blinked in surprise, but didn’t respond. The administrator, though, paled as if Keisuke had done something terrible. Keisuke realized belatedly that this was the place where he would have been - and had been - censured for language. But now that he was an adult, there was nothing the administrator could do except to disapprove strongly and silently. When the administrator spoke again, his voice was tight, but restrained. “What is your role here, Takahashi-san?”

The rest of the situation suddenly became entirely clear. “I’m Tachibana Yasuko’s negotiator,” Keisuke replied, trying to keep the sudden flash of amusement out of his tone. “She called me in to negotiate her return from delinquency to civilized society. At least, that’s the way she sees it, so that’s what I’m going to do. I’m one of her guardians. Check the paperwork - it’s a bit complicated, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got my rights here. If you can’t find that in there, I bet Aniki could.”

Tachibana caught on. “If you’re a negotiator, what are her terms?” he asked. To his credit, he remained entirely serious.

Keisuke thought back to their conversation. “She doesn’t want to be in the same room at the same time as the bully who slapped her.”

“That’s completely and totally reasonable,” Tachibana responded.

The administrator decided to take a hard line. “She might not be allowed to return if she has not completed her lines.”

“I don’t think that will be a deal-breaker,” Keisuke remarked wryly. “She also said that she wanted to leave and never come back. She was upset when she said it, but if she’s pushed to it…”

Tachibana nodded firmly. “We absolutely do not want to push her into a corner on this. On the other hand, she does need to have an education.”

“Alright. I think it’s time for me to make contact.” Keisuke pulled out his phone and brought up her number. He waited patiently. Use of the phone was still a bit new for Yasuko, and it took her a little while to check the number and tap the right button to answer. “Yasuko-chan, it’s me,” he told her. “I’m here at the school, it’s alright. Neither Tachibana nor I are going to make you take punishment at the same time as that girl. We can figure something out. But you might not be able to return to school until you’ve done your lines.”

“I don’t ever want to come back here.” Her voice was steadier now, the decision made in her head. He knew that it was not spoken in frustration alone.

Keisuke had just enough sense to not curse again in response. “Yasuko-chan, you need an education. I think ‘never coming back’ is going to be a hard sell.”

“I’m sorry, Keisuke-san,” she told him defiantly. “I don’t want to be a bad girl, and I know this makes me bad. I wish I could feel differently.” She paused for just a moment. “Maybe… maybe I was wrong, and even you can’t reach me this time.”

Alarm bells went off in his head. He sensed that she was getting ready to cut the call, and he knew instinctively that he absolutely could not let her hang up on him. “Yasuko-chan, don’t,” he told her. But he knew that this was more than just defiance. She was withdrawing. He followed his instincts onto a new path. “Look, I said I’d sort this out, and I will. You’ve made your demands clear. It’s time for me to negotiate. You stay there. I’ll call you back in a couple of minutes.” And with that, he cut the call - not ideal, he thought, but at least he hadn’t given her the chance to give up on him and cut the call herself. He wanted to slump into a chair or against the wall, groan, maybe curse again, but he didn’t like to do that in front of the administrator. Instead, he closed his eyes for a moment while staying otherwise still. When he opened them, both of the other men in the room seemed at just as much of a loss. He tried to think of something to say. “Tachibana, you’re the expert on Yasuko-chan’s spirit. I don’t think she’s going to bend on this. What do you think?”

It worked. They went from a standstill to motion - maybe not much, but at least they were proceeding. “Shinji could be extremely stubborn,” Tachibana responded slowly. “Yasuko-chan tries to be reasonable, and she’s usually eager to please. If she hits a brick wall, well, what can we do? I think it would be a mistake to order her to return, but I don’t like the idea of closing this door completely. Maybe we could tell her that, if she changes her mind and wants to return, she has to tell each one of us separately. That way, she won’t fear that she might be pressured into it.”

“I could agree with that, but I’m not the only one involved.” Keisuke snatched up his phone and flipped it open again. “I think it’s time to bring in the other guardian.” He didn’t wait for assent before bringing up the first contact saved on his phone, but nobody objected. Ryosuke took almost no time to answer, and Keisuke cut straight to the point. “Aniki, we’ve got a problem. Yasuko-chan is being asked to complete a punishment at the same time as the girl who hit her. She wants to leave the school and never come back.”

Ryosuke responded promptly. “She shouldn’t have to be in the same room with the girl who hit her. But she does need an education.”

“I know, trust me, I know, I said the same thing. But she’s standing pretty firm on this. The administrator here says that she might not be allowed back until she completes the lines. Yasuko-chan hasn’t made any friends, and she’s had problems with this girl Kana from the beginning. Highschool really hasn’t been a kind place for her.”

The administrator spoke up at that, affronted. “This is a place of learning, and we expect proper and respectful behavior here. It should be clean, academically rigorous, and, above all, disciplined. ‘Kindness’ shouldn’t even be a priority.”

He had spoken pretty clearly in his annoyance, so Keisuke simply turned back to his phone. “Did you catch that?”

“Yes.” Ryosuke sighed. “Yasuko-chan doesn’t put her foot down if she can help it, especially if it goes against our desires. It’s odd that the administrator is being so strict about it. We didn’t have that trouble with you.”

Keisuke sighed. “That’s because I scared them. They think she’s worth rehabilitating. I don’t think we want to give her the impression that she can get out of it if she isn’t.”

“Of course. They give out the punishments they think they can enforce. We could order her and she would probably comply, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. It would strain the bond of trust and I’d rather save that for something more important. If she’d rather leave than take the punishment, we’ll have to withdraw her.”

“Tachibana agrees. He suggested that she let each of us know separately if she decides to go back. That way, she can still change her mind, but she won’t be pushed into a corner on it. I’m just not sure what to do with her meanwhile.”

Ryosuke figured that part out easily. “I’ll hire a tutor. One way or another, she’ll be educated. She has to agree to that. Alright, I concur with your decision. Let me know how it goes.” And Keisuke did get hung up on after all.

He didn’t mind it much, though. He turned to Tachibana, deliberately ignoring the administrator. “He’s alright with it. He said he’d provide a tutor. I’m good with that. If you agree, I’ll put it to her.”

Tachibana thought about it for a moment before nodding. “I think that’s probably the best we can do. I agree.”

Keisuke took a breath and flipped his phone open again, switching to Yasuko’s number. As she picked up, he could immediately tell that she had started crying again. “Keisuke-san, I’m so sorry. I wish I could bend on this for you. All of you have been so kind to me, and I just can’t be what I should. I’m just… I’m going to be a problem, but I am sorry for it.”

He sighed, sensing the despair in her tone. “Yasuko-chan, you’ll never be a problem. Look, you called me here to negotiate for you, right? I’ve got a deal for you. I think it’s the best I can get, so I want you to listen up and pay attention.”

Yasuko took a moment to collect herself. “I’m listening.”

“Good girl. Here’s the deal. I’ll come get you, and Tachibana will take you home. You won’t have to return to school unless you change your mind. If you change your mind, you have to tell all three of your guardians separately, so that we all know that nobody is forcing you to go back. Meanwhile, you’ll have a tutor, because you really do have to have an education. That’ll get you out of here and back with us, alright? We can figure everything out from there.”

He waited patiently, hoping like crazy that she had managed to reach some sort of equilibrium without ‘going fast up the hill’, Fortunately, she did sound calm as she answered. “I accept that, Keisuke-san. You can come and get me now, and I will go home with Yuichi-san.” She turned timid again. “Is he angry?”

That perennial question again. “He’s not angry, Yasuko-chan. He’s worried. I think he’ll be glad to see you.” Tachibana nodded in response, and Keisuke felt both relief and an emotional exhaustion descend. His sense of humor sparked up again. “Okay. Give me another demand.”

“What?” She didn’t understand.

“You gave us a demand. I negotiated it and brought back a concession. You accepted the concession very gracefully. C’mon, Yasuko-chan. This wasn’t your fault, it was hers and theirs. We want you back with us, so you’ve got the advantage here. Give me another demand in return for the concession you made.”

“Keisuke-san, I don’t think that’s a good idea…”

But he wanted that spark back in her voice. “Hey, you’re the one who asked me to be your negotiator. Give me something.”

“I guess… well… I missed lunch. I…” There it was, a subtle sign of life. “I want ice cream.”

Keisuke grinned as he glanced up at Tachibana. “She wants ice cream.”

Tachibana smiled in return. “She’s got it.”

“Done and done. Now tell me where you are.” She didn’t actually know, but she described the classroom and the view from the windows the best she could. “Yeah,” Keisuke told her after a moment. “I know which one you mean. You stay put and stay quiet. I’ll be right there.”

“Thank you, Keisuke-san.” Her voice had turned tranquil, and he knew that she would obey him. He ended the call and turned to the other two. Tachibana seemed relieved, even pleased. The administrator, on the other hand, was wound up even worse than Keisuke had been when he’d entered the school. Keisuke felt perversely pleased at the sight.

“The next time I get into trouble, Takahashi Keisuke,” Tachibana remarked, “I’m calling you. That was impressive.”

Keisuke rubbed at the back of his neck, feeling a bit embarrassed. “Can’t promise I’ll always have the authority for it. Okay, I’ll go get Yasuko-chan. There’s probably some kind of paperwork for removing her. You can handle that, can’t you?”

“No problem. I’ll have her out of here by the time you do.”

That handled, Keisuke headed straight out of the office and fell into a quick stride. He knew the classroom, alright. He also knew that it used to be a place where troublemakers met just after school, and sometimes they even skipped the last period of class. His job now was to get there before anybody else did, assuming they still did. He barely succeeded. He caught a couple of boys lurking in the hallway. He directed a firm glare in their direction. That and his stature was usually enough to clear his way, and this time was no exception. As they fell back, he entered the classroom, and his expression softened as he caught sight of the little figure huddled on the floor in the corner. “Hi.”

She uncurled, looked up, and immediately ran to him for a hug. “Keisuke-san, thank you so much, I’m so glad to see you, thank you so much for coming… I’m not afraid anymore.”

“You can always come to me,” he comforted her. “You did the right thing. Whenever you think you can’t call anybody else, call me.” He drew back a little, looking at her tear-stained face. “And Tachibana, as you grow to trust him further. He really does have your best interests in-“ His thought was interrupted as he took a second look at her face. He reached out and tipped her chin up gently to get a better look at a fading red mark on her cheek. “What’s this? Yasuko-chan, you said you weren’t hurt.”

“That was where she slapped me. I didn’t think that counted.”

“Of course it counts!” Keisuke had been playing with the idea of turning Yasuko over to Tachibana on the school steps, or perhaps even taking her out a back door and meeting him for ice cream. Now, he changed his mind. “Come on. I’ll take you right to Tachibana. He’s in the administrator’s office.”

Yasuko recoiled. “Do I have to go into the office?”

“Absolutely. That idiot administrator is definitely going to see this - and he’s going to be there when Tachibana sees this, too.” Keisuke’s anger had returned. He did his best to keep himself calm and steady as he marched Yasuko out of the room. As they worked their way to the lower levels and started down the hallways where the students milled about on their way to the last class of the day, he took hold of her hand and doubled down on showing a calm demeanor. Most of the students simply parted for them, but several did a double-take upon seeing the two of them together, and he felt a bit mollified as he heard one or two whisper something about ‘Project D’ in astonishment. “There, see?” he told her. “I’m famous. I should have done this for you before.”

Then they had reached the administrator’s office, and he whisked her inside before she had a chance to hesitate. Tachibana had just finished signing the last of the papers. He took one look at her and promptly rounded upon the administrator, who seemed even more stressed than when Keisuke had left him. “You didn’t tell me the slap was that hard.”

“I had no way of knowing… I didn’t see it… if she’d come straight to the office…” the administrator stuttered, now plainly alarmed.

Tachibana followed up. “You were going to send a survivor of abuse into the same room with the student who did that to her?” He reached out in a quick motion and the administrator recoiled, but he merely picked up a nearly-empty backpack on the desk and offered it to Yasuko. “Check this, Yasuko-chan, and make sure you have all your things. We took the books out - they stay here.” He spoke gently to her, but he fixed his glare on the administrator. Keisuke stepped back and leaned in the doorframe, watching in satisfaction. 

Yasuko checked through the backpack, removed a couple of pencils, and laid them gently on the administrator’s desk. “They gave me those at the school. Everything else is mine, and it’s all here, even the things that I had in my locker.”

“I had it cleaned out. Now, I believe I agreed to a deal that involved ice cream,” Tachibana offered, reaching out his arm to escort Yasuko. “Shall we?”

Keisuke didn’t go with them. He drove back to the vans, where his car had been ready and waiting for him for a while, and took a moment to update his brother. Ryosuke listened patiently through the entire tale and shook his head as it concluded. “You are going to make a good father someday, Keisuke.”

“That’s good, because I’m going to have to parent children like Yasuko-chan. Right?” Keisuke responded, feeling rather pleased with himself despite having lost a fair bit of practicing time.

“No, no,” Ryosuke assured him. “I am counting on your children to be much, much worse.”

Chapter Text

Yasuko’s new transition went fairly smoothly. The first tutor would only come to the house, and started her introduction by threatening to pinch Yasuko if she did not behave properly. Emboldened by her success at the school, Yasuko took this issue directly to Yuichi instead of calling Keisuke, and he promptly sent the tutor away. This gave him a reputation of someone who was ‘difficult to work with’, and the center sent a ‘difficult’ tutor in response. However, the new tutor agreed to work at the gas station or in the home. She drilled Yasuko mercilessly in her studies, was sparse with both breaks and praise, and set difficult homework assignments - but never gave any indication of punishing misbehavior, physically or not. Yasuko loved her immediately and set herself in readiness to rise to the challenge.

Acclimating the other station employees to the change was another matter. For the first couple of days, Yasuko endured a strange environment in which they would cast curious looks in her direction, but refuse to address anything directly. Finally, she sat Itsuki down during his break and verbally pinned him to the wall. “Did Yuichi-san tell you not to ask me why I’m being tutored instead of going to highschool?” she asked directly.

Itsuki took it well. He responded in relief. “How’d you know that? Of course, we’re all curious. But he told us not to bring it up and not to bother you. Well, you brought it up, so what happened?”

By now, she’d had a few days to process the whole incident, and she laid it out plainly. She couldn’t help getting a little upset, even now, but he listened patiently and let her express herself. Once she’d finished, he remained quiet, and she gave him time to think it over. “It’s a stupid idea to punish you two in the same room together after that. But I remember that administrator - I graduated less than a year ago - and I guess I’m not surprised. But that happens sometimes. Is it really enough to give up school for? Haven’t you been in school this whole time? It gets unfair sometimes. That’s just the way it is.”

Yasuko wasn’t sure if she could explain, so she remained silent for a moment and he let her. “What do you get from school?” she finally asked. “What did you like about it?”

“Well, I got to do sports and other activities. I had friends there. Takumi and I had most of the same classes. And with high-school, I got to see all the cute girls every day, and… well…” He blushed. “I shouldn’t talk about that with you. Why do you ask?” But as she continued to remain silent, he took a moment to think for himself. “You didn’t, did you? You had a controlling father, and you worked in his auto repair shop. Didn’t you ever stay after for activities?” Yasuko shook her head, and he followed it up. “Didn’t you ever make any friends?”

“Some of the girls were nice to me sometimes, but it wasn’t like with you, where we sit and talk,” Yasuko told him. “And high-school was just going to be that all over again.”

“Not the same! The boss would definitely let you do after school activities! You could make friends and walk to the mall with them after school. Now’s your chance. Isn’t it?”

“I think it’s too late for me to think that way,” Yasuko replied slowly, though his words did stir new thoughts in her head. “At any rate, she is still doing her punishment, and I’m not doing it with her.”

“Fair.” Itsuki smiled at her. “It’s ok, I’m not going to get weird about you being tutored instead. I’m glad you explained it. Is it ok if I tell the guys?”

“Yes. I’m glad Yuichi-san didn’t want you to bother me about it, because all three of you can be a bit much when you’re asking questions on top of each other. But I’m not ashamed of it, not anymore, and especially if it gets you all to stop acting weird around me…”

Itsuki considered this. “You want me to just tell you privately when we’ve been told not to talk to you about something? You don’t have to tell me anything. But you could tell me everything you want. Then it won’t be weird.”

“I’d like that.” Yasuko smiled in return, brightening up. “Always awkward, but never distant. That’s what you said, wasn’t it?”

“I’m surprised you remember that.” He laughed ruefully. “No, really, I don’t mind. Oh, I’m getting in that new muffler system you recommended. Want to help me with it?”

“Yes!” She paused. “But… I’ve got a double math assignment this afternoon, and Keisuke-san is picking me up for practice. I’ll be pressed for time.”

“No worries! I’m not even picking it up until tomorrow, and I know they’re headed out to Kanagawa all weekend, so we can do it then.”

Indeed they were, and that made Yasuko feel just a little lonelier. Fortunately, this time, their absence was easier to bear. She had several activities to occupy her time. She enjoyed working on Itsuki’s car with him. That took up most of the day. Then, she found out that Nakazato and Shingo were planning to race each other that night at Myogi. When he saw how her eyes lit up at the news, Itsuki offered to take her with Yuichi’s permission. She enjoyed having the opportunity to show Shingo that she’d received and appreciated the brooch, which she always had pinned to her shirt or jacket and wore everywhere. Then they offered to let her do the countdown, which pleased her very much. She did the best, most professional job she could, but she felt a surge of excitement and power when the cars both zoomed off at the sweep of her hand. She did a little dance in the backwash of the wind before bouncing back over to Itsuki and giving him a high-five. Some of the spectators gave her odd looks, but as the racers obviously knew her and accepted her, nobody approached her.

Yasuko had to get up quite early in the mornings now, because her guardian nearly always had to arrive early at his workplace and she went with him. She was just starting to yawn and stretch in the very dim, very early morning light, when her phone buzzed and startled her. She snatched it up and checked to see if it was someone in her contacts list. Once she saw the name, she wasted no time hitting the button. “Keisuke-san! Good morning!” Suddenly, she wondered why he had called her, when he had never contacted her on a trip before. “Is everyone okay?”

“Everyone’s fine, Yasuko-chan,” he reassured her immediately. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

She listened to the tone of his voice. “No, I was just about to get up. You sound really tired.”

“I am tired. I practiced all night long. I’m about to go to bed, but I realized that you might be awake by now. I thought you’d like to hear from me.”

“Yes! I miss you! I’m very glad you called me,” she told him. “You can even wake me up if you have to. I checked the site when I finally got home last night, but I didn’t see any updates.”

He stifled a yawn. “There won’t be any until tomorrow morning. We’re also going to have a rest before we start back, so I’ll pick you up for practice the day after tomorrow. Are you having a good time?”

That prompted her to tell him all about the exhaust work, followed by her accounting of the race the previous night. “They let me count them down! It was so fun! Nakazato won, but it was really, really close. They said it came down to luck by the end. I wish I could have seen some of it.”

“Why don’t you spectate sometime?” Keisuke asked.

“I don’t know how. What do you mean?”

“Just drive out behind them. Keep a little distance, so everyone knows you’re not part of the race. Then you can get a good view. You want a good enough driver, though, someone who can react quickly if things go badly and keep you from getting caught in the crash.” He paused. “Maybe you’d better not. I’m not sure who I’d trust as a driver.”

“Within a couple weeks, maybe I’ll be good enough to spectate for myself,” Yasuko returned pertly. “Now that Ryosuke-san finally lets me use all the gears.”

Keisuke laughed. “Maybe I’d better spectate you at the next practice. Alright, I’m out. Good night, Yasuko-chan.”

“Sleep well, Keisuke-san… and please tell Ryosuke-san the same. Oh. And all the others, of course.”

He promised to convey the message and ended the call. 

That contact energized Yasuko for the day ahead. Unfortunately, it energized her for a day that didn’t need much energy. She did her best to keep her mind on her homework, but she kept getting up to wander around. Nobody was fixing up their cars today. She took some time to reorganize the tools in the bay where they usually worked, but she did it distractedly and it took twice as long as it should. As the afternoon wore on, she could feel a familiar energy building up inside her. She could picture her racers all the way within view of the largest mountain in the country, waking up and getting ready for their next race. Imagining that only made it harder for her to stay calm. Finally, she knew that she had to do something. She knew what she wanted. She just didn’t know if she could get it.

Yasuko reasoned that it wouldn’t hurt to try. She walked back inside, where her guardian sat on one of the couches. “Yuichi-san, would you please take me to Akagi tonight?”

He looked surprised. “I could do that. Why, is there a race? One of the Speed Stars could probably take you.”

“No. I-I want to practice. I know it’s something you might not like, but I don’t think I’d hit anything, and-“

“Are you asking me to let you drive my car up and down the hill?” he asked her plainly. But he didn’t seem angry, upset, or even cautious, so she nodded sheepishly. “Well…” He watched her for a moment, as she tried to hold still. “I’ll think about it,” he finally concluded. “When did you want to go?”

“Oh, after we leave the station for the day, of course,” she told him. “When the timekeepers and spectators are out. That way, I can ask for a clear course. I’ve never done it for myself before, but I’ve seen it done lots of times. I know how. It’s the weekend, and the weather is fine, so I’m sure people will be there.”

“Alright. Let me think about it,” he told her. She withdrew politely and did her best to give him time to think. Her patience paid off. As Itsuki and Iketani started doing their closing-up duties, he ushered her over to the car. “Ok, I’ll let you take the wheel when we get closer to the mountain. But I’m riding along.”

“Of course!” Yasuko agreed, relieved and happy. “I didn’t think I was going to do it all by myself.”

Yuichi did indeed pull over and let her drive when they reached the bottom of the mountain pass. She pulled up to the usual timekeeper and rolled down the window. He looked surprised to see her. “Please tell them that Tachibana Yasuko is asking for a clear course,” she told him. “I would like to do two runs, but if I can only do one, that’s alright.”

He complied - mostly. “Yeah, I’ve got an unexpected situation,” he spoke into his walkie-talkie. “Yasuko-chan is here with her guardian in a V40, it looks like, and she’s asking to do two runs. What should I tell her?” He paused as the answer came back, and then he smiled. “It’s clear right now. Go on up. I’ll have someone flag you down if a regular car enters the course.”

Elated, she thanked him and started her run. She started by working her way up the hill and down again as she’d been taught to do as her practice. Then she headed back up again as quickly as she dared to drive. At the top, though, she was flagged down and had to sit for a few minutes as a regular car worked its way through the pass. Then they let her go again, and she sped down the hill in utter and absolute delight. As she reached the bottom, she pulled over to talk to the timekeeper. “Let’s see,” he murmured, checking his list. “Good run, but you didn’t break your record tonight.”

“I didn’t think I would,” she told him. “But it felt good. Thank you.” Then she pulled over and let her guardian back behind the wheel. “Thank you too,” she told him, as she settled in the passenger’s seat and put on her seatbelt. “I was all over the place today, but I feel much better now.”

“Yes, I’d noticed,” Yuichi told her, easing his car back onto the road. “I noticed how you did your first run, too. Has your driving instructor been putting a limit on your RPM’s?”

“Yes! Each time I master one level, Ryosuke-san lets me add a thousand. He said that’s the next step, now that I can drive in all the gears. But every now and then he just lets me go however I want as long as I don’t go further than the yellow area.”

“I noticed that you didn’t run the tachometer into the yellow this time,” he remarked.

“Of course not. You didn’t give me permission. I didn’t want to put stress on the car.”

That virtually ended the conversation for the evening, because Yuichi fell silent and became very thoughtful for the rest of the trip home. Yasuko’s feeling of tranquility lasted for the entire next day, so she didn’t ask for another run. She didn’t want to push her luck. They had the day off and spent it resting at home. Yasuko caught up on sleep and spent the rest of the morning checking the Project D website updates. She made a good lunch for both of them. Then, they spent the afternoon simply engaging in idle conversation and reading. She had been allowed to borrow the book on suspensions from the Takahashi house. After a while, she asked Yuichi a question about what she was reading, and he started telling her far more about suspensions and racing than she’d ever guessed he knew. That evening, he left her alone for a couple of hours. He had planned to go out to dinner with his best friend. She didn’t mind, of course. “This was a really nice day, Yuichi-san,” she told him, as he was preparing to leave. “It was… it was like I wished quiet days were like, with… with my father.”

At that, he walked back into the living area, even though he’d already put his shoes on, and gave her a big hug. “I’m glad, Yasuko-chan. I’m so glad.”

The next day started out as a return to normalcy. Yasuko went with her guardian to the gas station, sat down with her tutor, and went over her lessons for the day. She studied hard, took breaks with the employees, and did her homework. Once they had eaten their evening meal, she put her backpack with her schoolbooks in Yuichi’s car, per usual, and waited outside for that bright yellow car to glide in and whisk her away to practice. She wasn’t disappointed, and she didn’t have long to wait. Practice itself, though, was different. The two racers did their work as usual. The mechanics let her work with them and learn from them, as usual. But she could tell that her driving instructor was distracted. On her run, she sensed clearly that he was not paying attention. His mood was starting to affect her driving, and that annoyed her, so she gunned the engine as soon as they hit the next straightaway. That drew a quick response. “Under five thousand,” he warned her sharply. She didn’t mind the sharp tone, because she held his focus for the rest of the run.

“Ryosuke-san, you’ve been thinking about other things all evening,” Yasuko pointed out, as she parked the car back at the top of the hill. “It’s probably stuff you wouldn’t talk to me about, but is everything okay?”

He smiled for her. “Everything’s alright. But I’ve got something I am going to need to tend to. That reminds me. I’m afraid I’m going to have to suspend the driving lessons for a few weeks. I won’t be bringing the FC to practice for a while.”

That worried her despite his reassurance. “Is the car okay? Have I been driving it too hard? Did I mess it up somehow?” She didn’t think she had. It still sounded fine and handled well.

“No, not at all. But I am going to need it modified and retuned,” he told her. “I’m sorry, I know you love your runs up and down the hill. It’s only for a while, though, and you can still work with the mechanics. I’d see if I could talk Keisuke into letting you take the FD down, but I’m afraid he really does need all the practice he can get right now. The first line of defense was fairly straight-forward, but he’s got the most difficult battles of his career ahead of him.”

“It’s only for a few weeks,” Yasuko told him. She wanted to lift some of the weight on his shoulders if she could. At least, she didn’t want to be a problem. “I’m fine, I still want to learn with the mechanics.” And even if she couldn’t drive, at least she knew that she could still ‘go very fast down the hill’ when she was brought down to meet her guardian at the bottom of the hill.

But it wasn’t quite enough. Several days later, as they were drawing near the beginning of their next trip. Yasuko felt that familiar energy build-up again. Fujiwara brought her to the bottom of the hill, quickly and smoothly. His driving was so much different than anybody else’s, and she always enjoyed watching it, even if it didn’t give her quite the same rush as Keisuke’s headlong dashes. Not that she missed him entirely on the run; on their way down, they had passed the yellow FD heading back up again. Yuichi was waiting for her already, per usual. She decided to take a chance. “Please, I’d like to request just one run up and down,” she told the timekeeper. “If it’s a problem, Ryosuke-san would surely tell me.” She turned to the waiting car. “If that’s okay with you, Yuichi-san. Please?”

It was fine with him, and the timekeeper reported back promptly. “He said to go right ahead and start now. He’ll ground Keisuke-san at the top of the hill, and he has no fear of you catching up meanwhile.” Yasuko didn’t think there was the slightest chance of catching up to Keisuke either, and she was correct. 

Ryosuke had apparently arranged to give her a run with as little disruption to the team schedule as possible. The Eight-Six followed her up the hill at a far distance. She barely even noticed him. As she started her trip down from the hill after a turnaround and quick wave to Ryosuke, something larger and yellow slipped out right behind her. She glanced in the rear view mirror and recognized the FD. “What’s he doing?” she wondered aloud, startled. “Is he going to try to go past me?”

Yuichi studied the car behind them with a practiced air. “No, he’s just spectating. Pretend he isn’t there. He’ll look after himself.”

Ignoring her new follower proved difficult. He was following much more closely than Fujiwara had. On top of that, he was putting off his usual turbulent energy, and she could feel it on the back of her neck. Yasuko pushed her speed, temporarily opening a wider gap between them. That didn’t last long. He had no problem at all keeping up with her. She felt the intensity of her own emotions rise. She pushed the pace again. She took the next corner a bit wider than she’d intended. But it didn’t alarm her much. She hadn’t taken it as widely as she’d seen the others do. Emboldened, she took the next corner a little faster. The yellow FD drew near in her rearview again, and she pushed her pace. Suddenly, at the next corner, everything went wrong.

She realized as soon as she turned that she had not slowed down well enough. She felt the rear tires slide out from underneath her. Yasuko panicked. Even as her conscious mind blanked out, though, she found herself reacting. Her hands steered the way she had seen the other drivers steer over and over again. It wasn’t enough. She felt as though she could see her car’s path in her mind, ahead of her, changing over and over again with each shift in the car’s movement. She swung completely around and still continued to spin. Was her skid controlled or uncontrolled? She didn’t even know. Then, she suddenly saw a flash of yellow very, very close to her driver’s side door. She hadn’t thought about that, either, how a closely-following car could get caught right up in an impending accident. Oddly, though, as soon as that occurred to her, she calmed right down. There were few things she knew for certain, and even fewer things that she could trust in an uncontrolled car that she was supposed to be controlling, but she knew solidly that Keisuke would never hit her car no matter how badly she was driving it. He was just too good. Her mind went tranquil, completely ignoring his maneuver. She continued to work with the wheel, the pedals, the gearshift. Her body was obeying instructions made up from multiple experiences overlaid upon each other. She didn’t consciously know what she was doing, but she knew that her spin was slowing and becoming more manageable. She realized that the rear of the car was too close to the other side of the road this time, and she would not clear the guardrail. By now, though, she had slowed considerably. The back bumper rebounded lightly, providing its own countersteer, and Tachibana Yuichi’s car came to a full stop diagonally across both sides of the road. 

Yasuko knew that the car was idling, the stick in gear, her foot on the clutch, and she wanted to shift into neutral so that she could sit back in her chair and try to relax her body. She couldn’t get her hands to move from the steering wheel. Yuichi reached over and pushed the stick to the center for her, but she still couldn’t make herself move her feet from the brake and the clutch. “It’s alright,” he told her. “We’re fine, Yasuko-chan. You’re perfectly safe.”

Then she did have to move her hands from the wheel, because Keisuke had reached the car on foot and started hammering on her window. She started the automatic window rolling down, then pried her other hand from the wheel and leaned back in her chair. She pulled her feet back from the pedals and let out a long breath, closing her eyes for a moment. “Are you alright?” Keisuke asked her. He didn’t get an answer right away, so he turned to her guardian instead. “Is she okay?”

“She’s just a bit shaken, we’re fine,” Yuichi responded.

“How could we be fine?” Yasuko burst out, finally able to speak. “I hit the guardrail! With your car!” 

At that, Keisuke left the window and checked the back of the car. “I’m sure it’s fine,” Yuichi consoled her. “It was just a tap. I don’t even think you bent it.”

Keisuke returned to the window in time to hear Yuichi’s guess. “Just a couple of scratches,” he confirmed. “It’ll buff right out. You spun out, that’s all. I’ve done it plenty of times.”

“I could feel the energy…” she whimpered. “I didn’t mean to go so fast…”

Keisuke looked genuinely chagrined. “I’m sorry, Yasuko-chan. I didn’t realize I was pushing you. You were doing so well, I guess I forgot that you’re still a kid. I should have given you more space.” He glanced up at the curved tire marks on the road. “Handled it well, though. I’ll have to tell the others how you did, once I get back up the hill.”

Yasuko reacted in horror. “Oh, don’t tell Ryosuke-san about this, I…” She thought about that for a moment. “No, I see that he has to know. Just… I hope he’ll still agree to teach me after this.” She was starting to calm down further and process more of her environment. She still sat in the driver’s seat of a car that sat and hummed comfortably, idling, unbothered. Further down the road, she could see the yellow FD pulled over, the driver side door hanging open. Keisuke remained at her window, concerned, but not appalled or upset. Yuichi seemed not only calm, but utterly unbothered and even a little amused.

“Do you want me to take over, Yasuko-chan?” Yuichi offered, after giving her a moment of silence. “For your own comfort, of course. If you want to keep going, I don’t mind.”

“Thank you, Yuichi-san,” Yasuko answered, giving it a moment’s thought. “I would like to drive the rest of the way, and show that I can recover. I promise I won’t go fast again.”

“For tonight, anyway. Don’t give up going fast, Yasuko-chan,” Keisuke advised her. “Look, I’m ahead of you now. I’ll draw you down. I’ll keep a careful pace, alright? Just follow.” That made her a bit nervous, as she wasn’t used to driving when other cars were in view, but she didn’t think that she could outpace him. She didn’t think he would let her hit him, either. So she nodded and watched him stride back to his own car. By the time his car started moving, she was ready to go back into first gear. She learned something that she should have already known - it is very hard to accidentally hit a car ahead of you if you are not going faster than it is.

By the time they reached the bottom of the hill, Yasuko had finally started shaking. She carefully pulled over and exited the car, only to see Keisuke out of his own car and on his phone. “Yeah, she just spun out. Everyone’s fine. Pretty cleanly, really. Okay, I’m on my way back up.”

But he did stop and give her a hug first, and so did Yuichi before driving her back home.

Chapter Text

Given her dramatic spin-out, Yasuko found herself driving again much sooner than she had suspected.

She didn’t ask for another run. She also didn’t tell the Speed Stars, but they found out about it somehow anyway. Apparently, Yuichi hadn’t told them to avoid discussing it with her. They surrounded her on the very next morning, begging for details. That turned out to be much easier than she had dreaded. They just laughed, but she did not get the impression that they were making fun of her. Then they started telling her about all the times they had either spun out or outright crashed, culminating with a terribly embarrassing tale involving Iketani and the lead racer at Usui Pass. Then, they declared her to be a proper racer now - apparently, losing control of the car by going too fast was some sort of rite of passage - and started discussing whether or not Boss would let them put a Speed Star sticker on his car. Yasuko found it all comforting, but she still didn’t ask to drive again.

The Project D personnel didn’t mention it at all, but the mechanics did start discussing and explaining various types of drifts and spins and how to deal with them, mostly to each other and in the course of their various mechanic duties. Yasuko was pretty sure that they were doing this for her benefit, and she found it more embarrassing than the Speed Stars’ reactions. This only lasted for a couple more days, though, and then daily practice was suspended as the whole crew headed off for their next expedition and race.

It was during this time, when Iketani and Itsuki had started closing up the gas station and Yasuko idled, knowing that there would be no ride to Akagi that evening, that Fujiwara Bunta pulled up to fill his gas tank at the last possible minute. Yuichi walked out to talk to him, and Yasuko lagged behind. When Bunta saw her, however, he addressed her. “Yasuko, yes? I’ve heard you can drive a little. I need someone to deliver the tofu with me tomorrow morning. Turned my ankle and it’s a bit sore for driving. With my son off on his expedition, I’ve got nobody to do it for me.”

Yasuko glanced up at Yuichi in surprise and alarm, but he nodded encouragingly. She took a moment to try to figure out how to address this taciturn but important-looking man, who had an aura about him that reminded her a bit of the father in the Takahashi household. “Yes, Fujiwara-sama, I could drive that far, though I don’t have practice driving in traffic.”

“It’ll be before dawn,” he told her. “Nobody’s out. Alright, I’ll see you at the shop tomorrow morning.” And with that, he drove off, before she could say anything else.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” she asked her guardian on their way home. “Why me? Why not someone who has a proper driver’s license?”

Yuichi turned evasive. “We’re often on our way to work by then anyway, and it shouldn’t be beyond your ability. He’s so stubborn, I’m glad he asked for help.”

“I think he’s ‘quiet stubborn’,” Yasuko mused. “I’m stubborn, but not quiet.”

“I like your spirit, Yasuko-chan,” Yuichi told her. “And I think Bunta will, too. It’ll be fine.”

In fact, her guardian seemed very pleased that his friend had asked her to do this, and Yasuko began to wonder if there was something else behind it. Still, she really had no reason to refuse. Her new guardians - all three of them - had always accommodated her when she had been driven to refuse them, and she did not like refusing them. That, and she was a little curious about this man who had been willing to upend his life to keep her away from her abusive father for the sake of his old friendship. So she got up very early the next morning, and she dressed comfortably per usual, and she grabbed a quick bite to eat before getting her ride with Yuichi to the quiet tofu shop in the dim light. His friend was already standing in front of the store, carrying a cup of water. “You want me to stay and pick her up?” Yuichi offered.

“No, go ahead. I’ll have her go to the station,” Bunta told him. Yuichi nodded, waved to Yasuko, and headed on his way. Yasuko watched as Bunta walked over to his own vehicle, climbed into the passenger’s seat, and settled the cup of water in the cupholder. She climbed in on the driver’s side and started checking the seat and mirrors. “You’re delivering tofu,” he told her simply. “You can drive any way you like, as long as you don’t spill the water.”

In a flash, Yasuko remembered something she’d heard in a haze, just a few weeks ago, when she was rescued on Akagi and Takumi had driven her to the hospital in such a way that she had never felt a single corner. “I understand, Fujiwara-sama,” she told him, not just because the instruction was not hard to follow, but because she suddenly understood why ‘I deliver tofu’ meant that someone could drive without so much as spilling a cup of water. She pulled out carefully, going slowly at first, getting a feel for her task. She was glad that she’d been practicing shifting into gear over and over again. Even though the vehicle was rather unlike the FC, she could still find the points at which the process happened as smoothly as possible.

He gave her some time to work it out before speaking again. “Why do you call me that?”

Yasuko waited until a straight stretch before answering, and he didn’t seem to mind waiting. “I call your son ‘Fujiwara-san’.”

“You can address me the same way,” he told her. “It’s no disgrace to be regarded on the same level as he is.”

She didn’t answer, but that was because she had suddenly realized that driving without spilling the water was a lot harder than she’d thought it was. After a while, she finally began to work out that going faster worked better as long as she didn’t turn, accelerate, or brake too quickly. The car itself bothered her, though. She wasn’t sure exactly how it was supposed to drive, but it seemed to have slightly less power than she expected. It was hard to listen to the engine while paying attention to the cup. By the time they reached the hotel, however, she was pretty sure she knew what was wrong. “Do… you have a good mechanic, Fujiwara-san?” she asked hesitantly as she eased the vehicle to a slow stop.

“The best. Why?” He was an interesting person to drive with. Yasuko was so used to picking up people’s moods and having that affect her, but he seemed to have no mood at all.

“I… think there might be something wrong with your air filter. Or maybe not. I don’t think it’s working improperly, but I’m not sure it’s working as well as it should. I guess that sounds strange.” She hoped she wasn’t about to insult his ‘best’ mechanic or make him angry.

But he didn’t change his mood at all. “Here, then. I have a spare. I’ll bring the tofu in while you fix it.” He reached into the back seat and offered her a brand new air filter in its packaging.

Yasuko didn’t mind much when someone was strange, as long as he wasn’t scary, and Fujiwara Bunta wasn’t frightening her despite his odd behavior. He wasn’t asking anything of her that she didn’t know how to do, either. She popped the hood, pleased to find that it had a light in it, and set to work. Sure enough, the air filter was in good shape, but it was the wrong type for the vehicle. The replacement was correct, though, so she swapped them out and spent a moment longer checking under the hood. Everything else seemed okay. In fact, everything else looked so good that the air filter problem really surprised her. Bunta had finished delivering the tofu before she finished checking everything under the hood. He sat silently in the passenger’s seat, waiting for her without complaint. “It was the wrong type of air filter,” she told him, settling back into the driver’s seat. “But everything else looks really good. We should be all set now.”

“Good,” he told her. “You can drive back as you please. I’ve heard that you like to go fast.”

“Oh, I couldn’t,” Yasuko responded immediately. “The last time I drove, I went too fast and I spun out!”

Bunta shrugged. “Then spin out.”

“But I hit the bumper on the guardrail and scratched Yuichi-san’s car!”

“Did he give you trouble over it?”

“No,” Yasuko admitted. “He wasn’t bothered at all.”

He looked back at her steadily. “Drive the way you want. I would like to see how you drive fast. I don’t care if you spin out, and I don’t care if you scratch the bumper. I won’t let you crash.”

Yasuko studied him dubiously and decided to strike out with her suspicions. “Has all this been some sort of test?”

He remained silent for a moment, but she still did not detect a change in mood. “Yes.”

She realized that she wasn’t likely to get any more information out of him than that, so she decided to follow her own desires. She didn’t want to risk spinning out no matter what he said. But she could still go pretty quickly. She didn’t want to put too much wear on his vehicle either. She didn’t watch the tachometer, but she did listen to the engine and chose the point at which it seemed most comfortable with her maneuvers. Driving fast without hurting the engine wasn’t terribly difficult, as Akina’s downhill was pretty much entirely downhill. At the bottom, she wasn’t sure which way to go. He directed her patiently until she recognized the area, and then she carefully pulled his vehicle into the gas station lot and parked it. “How did I do?” she asked him daringly.

That drew a slight, thin smile. “Well enough. Do you want to become a racer?”

“I.. I don’t know, Fujiwara-san. I know that there is something in me that needs to go fast now and then, or I feel unsettled. I don’t really care if I’m ‘good’ compared to other people. I might change my mind if I ever had an actual race. Or when I get better at driving - right now, I’m just afraid of hitting people by accident. But I just enjoy cars. And I like listening to them the best. Is that strange? I know I am strange in a lot of ways.”

He shook his head. “There is nothing wrong with you, Yasuko. Go ahead and continue learning. Keep going fast, and keep listening to engines. In a few years, I am sure the Speed Stars would be happy to have you join them. Now go ahead inside. I can make my own way home.”

“Wait…” Yasuko took a breath, nervous, and made herself speak. “Thank you. I know you put in a conditional bid to adopt me. I’m glad I wound up with Yuichi-san. But I think I would not live in fear, if I had gone to you instead. I know you were supporting him, because he’s your friend. But I’m also glad that you cared that I wasn’t afraid.”

His slight smile reappeared. “You’re welcome.”

The ‘turned ankle’ claim had been a pretty thin excuse to begin with, so Yasuko was not  surprised to see him exit the car with no sign of physical difficulty. Yuichi wandered over to speak to him. Yasuko felt that they were having a private conversation, but she was so very sure that they were going to talk about her that she tried to stay within their hearing without being obvious about it. She could have hidden herself from view, but that felt too much like eavesdropping, so she decided to just work quietly nearby. “Well?” Yuichi asked. “Is she a racer?”

“No,” Bunta answered immediately. “Not like Takumi. Not like the ones who go professional. She’ll do pretty well, she might beat a few of the locals, and she’ll enjoy herself. But she hasn’t got the talent.”

Yuichi seemed a bit disappointed. “But she’ll win some races, sometimes… right?”

Bunta leaned against the nearby wall and lit a cigarette. “She’ll win most of them - amateur and professional.”

That sounded like a complete reversal of what he’d just said. Yuichi clearly had the same internal reaction that Yasuko did. “What do you mean? You just said-“

“Yasuko is receiving her education from a tutor right now, isn’t she? I remember you telling me about it.”

“Yes. High-school hasn’t been a good place for her. She put her foot down and, well…”

Bunta looked directly at his friend. “That’s because it was the wrong school. You need to get her into the technical high-school. If she needs special tutoring for it, give it to her. Her other guardians can probably afford it. If money is still a problem, let me know.”

Yuichi stared back. “The technical high-school? Are you sure?”

“More than sure. She isn’t going to win her races as a driver. She’s going to build the engines that win the races. That’s why she needs to get into the technical school right away. She’s a mechanic now, but she’s going to become an engineer, and then a designer. If you and she have got a bit of sense, anyway. She clearly does.”

Yuichi remained silent, clearly dumbstruck. Yasuko felt a mixture of confusion and elation. This was not a path she’d considered, but something about it resonated with her. She wondered if Bunta was going to coax his friend further, or if Yuichi was going to respond, but neither of them spoke. Then, Bunta opened his door and settled down in the driver’s seat, clearly ready to leave. “Oh, yes,” he added, as an afterthought. “At some point, Yasuko is probably going to want to open the mechanic bays in your station and start offering simple services like oil changes. When she does, let her… and let me know. I will be her first customer.” And with that, he closed the door, started up his vehicle, and drove away.

Yuichi watched his friend drive away. He leaned against the nearby wall himself, remaining lost in thought for a moment. Then he spoke. “I knew you were listening, Yasuko-chan. What do you think?”

There seemed no point in hedging about it. “I listened. I wasn’t trying to hide it. Did you ask him to take me on that run so that he could judge my driving, Yuichi-san?”

“It was pretty obvious.” He smiled at her. “I was understandably curious. Shinji was never a racer, but he didn’t like going fast, either. Of course, Suki was always too ladylike for it.”

“Should I be more ladylike?” Yasuko asked.

Yuichi snorted. “Not if you’re going to attend a technical school. I’m not trying to raise a doll for an arranged marriage. That, and you’re only fifteen. You’ve got plenty of time to work out your own natural femininity. What did you think about that, by the way? Attending a technical high-school and learning how to design engines?”

“I don’t know what I think about it, Yuichi-san,” she told him honestly.

“Neither do I,” he admitted. “So, we’ll table it. Come on in, have some breakfast.”

Yuichi didn’t tell anybody else about her guardian’s best friend’s advice. Neither did Yasuko, initially. The next day, Itsuki had the afternoon off, and he took her horseback riding. She found horses to be very unlike cars. She was a very awkward rider. The whole process unnerved her, and her horse danced about until Itsuki rode up beside her and took hold of her horse’s harness to lead it. He explained part of her trouble afterwards, as they sat down on a bench overlooking the lake with some ice cream. “You’re used to cars, Yasuko-chan. You’re used to picking up their moods. But horses are… well, they’re kind of like you. They pick up your mood. If you can’t keep yourself calm and untroubled, they’ll sense it. You were making your horse nervous.”

“And you’re always so calm, even when you’re excited. I think I should learn how to do that, at least for a little while,” Yasuko mused. “And then maybe I could try to ride a horse again.”

“I’ll take you again anytime, before it gets too cold,” Itsuki offered. “The weather is turning. Can you feel it?”

“Yes. This is the time of year when I would usually have been back in school.” She looked down at her sneakers for a moment. “Itsuki-san, what do you think about technical high-schools?”

He chuckled lightly. “Not much. They require so much more math and science than anything else. Those subjects drove me crazy in school! And everyone’s much stricter. I hear they sometimes let all the students wear the uniform with pants, even if they’re girls, because of the lab work they have to do. And there aren’t many girls anyway. A school with almost no girls, where even the girls wear pants and everyone works harder?”

But his criticism had rather the opposite effect. Yasuko looked up at him hopefully. “Is it really like that?”

“I think so.” He paused, uncertain. “Why are you asking about it?”

Yasuko felt a little silly, after the way he had stated everything as a negative. “I prefer wearing pants. I’m not very comfortable around other girls. And math is my favorite subject, and science is my second favorite. I thought I might like to do more than mechanic work someday. Yuichi-san’s best friend thinks that I could learn to design racing engines. I had never thought of such a thing before, but now the idea of it excites me.”

Itsuki didn’t take long to put the pieces together. “Takumi’s dad thinks you could design racing engines! That sounds so cool! And at a technical high-school, you could really focus on the things you enjoy doing. The social scene might be a lot easier for you.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at his apparent reversal. “I thought you didn’t think much of technical high-schools.”

But he waved off her remark. “Not for me! But for you, it might be a really solid choice. What do you think?”

“I know that when I left the regular high-school, the agreement was that I had to go to each of my three guardians separately to let them know if I want to go back,” Yasuko responded, after a moment’s thought. “I think maybe that should be my next step. I can’t imagine that all three of them would lead me in the wrong direction.”

“So, then, you start with the Boss, right? That’s easy,” Itsuki replied. “You can talk to him tonight.”

“No.” Yasuko knew what to do next. “It’s been put to him already, and he doesn’t know what to tell me yet. I start tomorrow, when Keisuke-san picks me up for practice again.”

Chapter Text

Yasuko had a ‘uniform’ of her own at this point. Her formal wear had been hanging in her closet unused, ever since the trial. The sparkly dress had never been worn. When she had been allowed to pick her own clothes, everything had been either cargo pants in various colors or t-shirts with a variety of designs, most of them floral or with butterflies, and all of them with some level of glitter. Most of her bright aqua hair was not long enough to fit into a ponytail yet, though she did pull back what she could whenever she was working on cars. The temperature was not quite chilly yet except for the early mornings. She had a cute little pink denim jacket to wear at times like those. She didn’t have winter wear yet, but she didn’t have to worry about that. She could trust her guardian. She liked that feeling. She didn’t have to fear him, either, and she liked that even better.

It was a school day, so her tutor arrived after she had eaten the breakfast that Yuichi had picked up on their way to the station. Yasuko realized this morning that she had reason to be grateful that all of her clothing had been purchased one size large. She didn’t have to wear a belt anymore. Her tutor paused to speak to Yuichi before they started work, and she noticed that the tutor pressed her further on math and science than she’d done before. Yasuko guessed that Yuichi had already spoken to the woman about the possibility of a technical high-school, and she felt grateful for his active anticipation of her needs. Whether she chose it or not, she felt that the extra focus was a good idea.

Of course, this meant that she had extra homework. She had no time to hang and talk with the other employees. She didn’t even have time to stop for a tea break. It was just as well, as the first workday of the week was always busy for a gas station and the other employees didn’t really have much time to spend with her. She finished her last algebra problem and put her school things in her guardian’s car, and then she had a precious ten minutes to lounge on one of the couches and close her eyes before she distinguished the sound of a rotary engine from the surrounding traffic. She bounced up and hurried outside just in time to see her favorite yellow car pull in.

“You won!” She didn’t even give Keisuke a chance to speak as she climbed into the passenger’s seat and started attaching the harness. “I saw on the website. I knew you would. Was it hard?”

Keisuke laughed at her enthusiasm. “Nothing I couldn’t handle. This was the second line of defense. It gets more challenging from here. How have you been meanwhile? No more catastrophes, I take it. Any more serious life changes?”

“Almost,” Yasuko told him. “Actually, you’re going to be busy training, and I don’t know if I’ll get another chance, so I ought to talk to you about that now.”

“I was kidding,” he told her wryly. “You need a break from all these changes. So what do you have on your list today, Yasuko-chan?”

Akagi was far enough away that, even with Keisuke’s usual fast driving, Yasuko had enough time to summarize her strange evaluation by Fujiwara Bunta and his advice to Tachibana Yuichi. “I asked Ituski-san about technical high-schools, and I think I might like them better. I’m willing to try, at least.”

“Hey, that might actually work. I should’ve thought of that, since I know you prefer books about automobile suspensions over romance novels. Are you asking for advice, or are you telling me as one of your guardians, per our agreement?”

“Sort of both.” Yasuko paused for a moment. She had considered one drawback, but it didn’t seem to be a wise thing to bring up to Itsuki. “Uh, Keisuke-san, if I’m going to a technical school, if I can drive fast and I’m smart in math and science, are guys not going to want to date me?”

“Wow.” He fell silent for a moment, clearly at a bit of a loss. “Well, I did want you to know that you could ask me anything. Do you want guys to date you? Why do you think they wouldn’t, if you were at a technical high-school?”

Those were both good questions. “I don’t know if I feel comfortable about guys wanting to date me. But I’m still young, and I might feel differently in about a year or two, and I don’t think I’d like to ruin my chances ahead of time. From what I’ve heard listening to the other girls at school, and in that romance novel that one girl gave me, and on television shows, guys don’t like girls who are better than them at, you know, guy things. They prefer girls who are pretty and domestic and who admire them for, you know, their man traits.”

Keisuke blinked. “Ouch. Don’t judge us too harshly, Yasuko-chan. I have to admit you have a point. But think of it this way. It’s one thing if you’re actually pretty and domestic and kind of stupid. But do you really want to pretend to be stupid to get a man? Do you think your spirit could take that? I think your cleverness and your energy would burst out of you here and there and totally ruin the relationship sooner or later. I don’t think changing yourself to get a date is going to be an option for you.”

“So I probably won’t get dates whether I go into a technical high-school or not,” Yasuko concluded ruefully. “How many guys are actually interested in girls who are into cars?”

“Well, me, for one,” Keisuke replied easily. Then he fell silent again for a moment. “I liked a girl who is into cars. It just didn’t work out that way, because I won’t date any girl while I’m doing Project D. But if I were interested in dating, I think it would have been her. She was definitely willing.”

“Oh, Keisuke-san, not you too!” Yasuko wailed in dismay.

“What do you mean? Not me what?”

She sighed. “The Speed Stars spend about half the time talking about it, themselves. Iketani-san especially… he’s in love with this girl, and she likes him, but he won’t ever contact her because he doesn’t want to get in the way. I think maybe she’d like him to get in the way. And then he and Itsuki-san and Kenji-san start talking about how racers don’t have girlfriends. I find it very silly, and I thought you had more sense than that.”

That drew a rueful chuckle. “I do, Yasuko-chan. This is different. I made a decision for myself, because I need to focus on my training. Project D won’t last forever. It won’t even last out the year. Fujiwara’s dating. I don’t really know who. You know him, he doesn’t talk. But I can tell he’s dating someone.”

“What about the girl you like?” Yasuko asked curiously. “She’s into cars?”

“More than that. She’s a talented uphill racer in the Saitama region who drives an FD.”

“Iwase Kyoko. Sadamine Pass. Black FD3S. Single turbo.” She recited it without thinking, per usual, then blinked. “You like her! And she likes you, too!”

“I did, at least. I don’t really expect her to wait for me,” he replied. “I turned her down pretty bluntly. Even if I reach out to her after Project D, she might not be interested anymore. But that’s not what you asked about. I doubt I’m the only one out there who likes intelligence and spirit in a girl. Especially if you keep hanging around racers all the time, I’m sure you’ll have plenty of chances.”

But now, Yasuko had something else on her mind. “In the battle right before I met you, the one with… with him, when you used a borrowed FD…”

“Look, I don’t want to talk about that, alright?” It was the sharpest tone she’d heard from him yet, and she quailed under it, falling silent. He turned down another couple of streets, drawing nearer to the base of Akagi, and finally spoke again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be harsh. Just drop the subject, okay? I think you’ll be fine in a technical high-school. If you want to go, I’ll approve.”

“Thank you, Keisuke-san. I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean to put you into a bad mood. I know you need to focus on your practice.” She watched his face as he drove, and she knew he was more annoyed than he meant to show.

“Oh, I’ll be fine,” he grumbled, but she did notice that he took the uphill with a bit more vigor than usual. Ryosuke noticed, too. He gave Keisuke a sharp look as Yasuko exited the car, but Keisuke just turned around and started down the hill again without comment.

“I’m sorry, Ryosuke-san, that was my fault,” Yasuko explained in greeting. “I asked him something about dating, and he started talking about a girl he likes, and then he just kind of shut down and got into a mood.”

“That’s a pretty sensitive subject for him,” Ryosuke commented. “I’m a little surprised he opened up about it at all. It’s alright, Yasuko-chan. I’m sure you meant no harm.” But even though he no doubt meant to comfort her, Ryosuke sunk noticeably into a dark mood of his own, and Yasuko didn’t think it was the right time to discuss her thoughts or questions. So she joined the mechanics instead. Matsumoto was a little quieter than usual, but the others all seemed to be in a good mood. They presented her with a gift - an Initial D jumpsuit and work gloves in her small size. That thrilled her and restored her own mood, which had started to drop in sympathy with both brothers. 

As the evening continued on, Keisuke shed his bad mood, but Ryosuke still seemed distant. Yasuko knew that she needed to speak to him anyway, so she gave him as long as she dared before stowing her gloves in her pocket and leaving the others to approach him. He stood near the course start, but not too near the timekeepers, just quietly watching as one car or the other reached the top and turned around for the downhill. “Ryosuke-san, I needed to speak to you about something,” she started.

He turned to face her and took a moment to put his own thoughts aside. “Of course, Yasuko-chan. What do you need?”

“I’m interested in entering a technical high-school and learning how to design engines,” she told him straight out.

“Did someone else put that thought into your head, or did you come up with it by yourself?” he asked, surprised.

“Someone else mentioned it,” Yasuko admitted. “But I’ve had a few days to think about it, and the more I learn about it, the more I like the idea. I know I like driving, and I like going fast, driving or riding. It untwists something in my head that gets twisted up now and then.” The Eight-Six sped into sight, did a neat one-eighty spin, and started heading back down again. She pointed to it as it sped off. “But what really makes me happy is looking, and listening, and seeing in my head everything that’s happening in a car when it goes. The more I learn, the more I realize I still don’t understand, and the more I want to know. Plus… maybe this is weird to say. But I feel like it’s a path that isn’t anybody else’s. Like, I know there are obviously other people out there who design cars. But it isn’t running a mechanic shop like… like him, and it isn’t street racing and maybe going pro like you and Keisuke-san. I don’t want to be quite like anybody else.”

“You aren’t quite like anybody else,” Ryosuke told her. “Your reasoning is sound. Do you need any help to get in?”

“I don’t know yet. I think Yuichi-san has already talked to my tutor, because she gave me twice the math homework today.”

“There’s something I need to warn you about, Yasuko-chan. I admire your spirit and your willingness to give this another go. But the battles in Kanagawa heat up from here. We’ll be spending more time there, and neither Keisuke nor I will be on hand to help you if things go wrong at school.”

Yasuko had considered that, too. “Yuichi-san was still new to me when I called Keisuke-san at the public high-school. When I saw the two of them together in the administrator’s office, I realized that I really could have called either one. Yuichi-san would have been my champion, too. I’m still glad that Keisuke-san came for me when I asked him, just like he promised he would. But if I get into trouble like that again, especially if I know you are hours away, I will call Yuichi-san.”

“You’re a good girl, Yasuko-chan,” he told her.

“How can you say that?” she exclaimed.  “I ran away…”

“From an abusive situation.”
“I stole a school laptop.”
“No, you returned it late. That’s been handled.”
“Dyed my hair an ‘unnatural color’.”
“With permission.”
“Disobeyed my guardian in court!”
“Delayed obedience, and you apologized without being asked.”
“Then I almost ran away again…”
“But you didn’t, because you took direction from Keisuke, of all people.”
“And ran away at school!”
“Again, from an abusive situation.”
“Spun out and scratched the bumper on my guardian’s car.”
“Not a crime.”

Yasuko couldn’t help it. She started laughing heartily at his quick responses. Ryosuke didn’t laugh, but his smile did become truer, and his own dark mood seemed to temporarily lift. “Tachibana is going to call soon,” he told her. “I’m going to send you down with Fujiwara when he does, and I’m going to head down myself with Keisuke. Have you talked to them about this yet?”

“Yes, Yuichi-san was there when the idea was raised, and I told Keisuke-san on the way here.”

“That’s all of us, then. We’ll take it from here.”

Taking it from there was not quite as simple as Yasuko had hoped. She toured the technical high-school and loved it immediately. Her tutor ran her through some testing and remarked that her academics were already strong enough for her to join. Everything seemed to fall into place, except for one thing. They hesitated to bring her in when she had an outstanding penalty on her record from the previous school. Yuichi broke the news to her as they sat together on the couches near the television at the gas station. “They’re sympathetic, actually. They agree that the other school should have been more flexible, considering your situation. But they also want some sort of reassurance that you won’t refuse correction at the technical high-school, too.”

Yasuko made her decision at once. “I’ll do it, then.”

“Do what, Yasuko-chan?”

“I’ll do the lines. I’ll sit down in a classroom and I’ll copy out the rules and hand them in. I won’t do it for the sake of the public high-school. But I’ll do it to get into the technical high-school. Please let them know that I’ll do it… but I want to do it quickly, before I change my mind.” She already felt shaky. “I don’t want to have enough time to think about it. This afternoon, if I can. That should prove to the technical school that I’m willing to take a penalty.”

“Alright,” Yuichi answered thoughtfully. “I’ll make the call. Why don’t you go back to working on your assignments? Focus on them to avoid working yourself up over this.”

He returned a few minutes later to let her know that she could arrive that very afternoon to write her lines. It didn’t take her long to realize that she would probably not make it back to the gas station by the time that she was usually picked up for practice. Now, it was her turn to make a call. She let her second guardian know that she would be delayed, where she would be, and why. “That’s alright,” Ryosuke replied. “I’ll let Keisuke know. Depending on the time, he may be able to just pick you up at the school. But even if you have to skip a day, I think it’s important for you to get closure on this. That, and it’s been over a week, so you won’t be in the room with that bully Kana.”

That reminder made her feel much better. Yuichi made a stop at home so that she could change into her barely-used school uniform, which she bore with by reminding herself that the technical high-school would allow her to wear slacks. She could not help feeling a spike of nervousness as they arrived at the old school itself. Yuichi rested his hand on her shoulder. “You’ll be alright, Yasuko-chan,” he told her. “I’m proud of you. If you don’t make it to practice afterwards, I’ll be sure to take you out for ice cream.”

The idea of ice cream buoyed her courage. After all, this was just one session, and then she would never have to go back. She gave her guardian a big hug, exited the vehicle, and held her head high as she entered the building. She was directed to a classroom, where an elderly, severe-looking teacher offered her a paper and pen. The teacher pointed to the rules written up on the chalkboard. Yasuko settled down at a desk on the far side of the room and took a breath.

Then, the door opened, and the first on her list of people she did not want to deal with anymore entered the room.

Then, the door opened again, and the last person she’d ever expected entered the room.

Chapter Text

Yasuko was willing and ready to write those stupid school rules down as neatly as she could and clear her record, so that she could leave this place and take off that stupid skirt and never come back. She had not been prepared for Kana, the bully who had slapped her, to enter the room. The girl took a pen and paper from the teacher and glared at Yasuko. Yasuko turned her gaze away and fixed it resolutely at the teacher’s desk. She didn’t think this girl was quite stupid enough to try to talk to her or hit her in front of a teacher. She half-watched just out of the corner of her eye, noticing as Kana took a seat in the middle of the classroom,  and sighed slightly. On the one hand, things seemed stable for the moment. On the other, she did not like having this girl’s energy in her space when she was trying to stay calm and brave. Then, the door opened again. She glanced over and froze, astonished. The teacher looked up and also froze in place at the very unusual sight of Takahashi Keisuke, wearing an old school uniform that was nearly, but not quite, too small to pass the standards for the school.

“Wait,” the teacher objected, rising to her feet. “You can’t just come in here. You’re not a student anymore.”

Keisuke seemed untroubled. “Neither is Tachibana Yasuko.”

“But you’re an adult, and a student’s guardian…” The teacher seemed to have no problem stating the obvious.

In response, Keisuke turned on the charm. “Well, you’re right. You’ve got a couple of choices here. You could throw me out. Just say the word, and I’ll leave. Or, you could consider the opportunity. I’m here to write lines. I’m sure you can think of at least one incident you’d love to see me punished for. This is your chance. I won’t start any trouble.”

Their eyes met. Yasuko, fascinated, watched the teacher’s expression change multiple times. Keisuke kept his face carefully blank, but Yasuko could read him pretty well by now and she knew that he was very pleased with himself. Finally, the teacher’s expression settled in grim satisfaction and she held out a paper and pen. “Takahashi Keisuke, you will neatly copy the rules written on the board and hand them in.”

He offered her a polite bow, took the materials, and seated himself directly between Yasuko and Kana, blocking both girls from seeing each other. Without a glance at either girl, he simply lowered his head and began to write.

With such an example to follow, Yasuko could hardly do otherwise. The bully couldn’t bother her anymore. She couldn’t even see what the bully was doing. She bent to her own work, Keisuke’s spirit fueling hers. She decided that she could not let him write these rules more neatly than she did. The room remained silent except for the scratching of pens. All three finished at about the same time. As she handed hers in, Yasuko saw to her chagrin that he had managed to write the rules more neatly than she had, and he had signed his paper with a flourish instead of merely writing his name. The teacher’s mouth twitched. “Good job, all three of you. Set the classroom in order, and then you may leave.”

“I’m glad it meets your expectations,” Keisuke told the teacher dryly.

“Meets?” The teacher allowed herself to smile. “I’m planning on framing this. It’s as good as an autograph from Project D’s uphill specialist.”

That clearly startled Keisuke, but he didn’t answer the teacher right away. Kana slipped out as soon as she dared, so he and Yasuko finished setting the room in proper order together. Yasuko, eager to leave, stepped out as soon as the work was properly done. Keisuke and the teacher lingered behind, starting a friendly discussion as Yasuko hurried ahead. All she had in mind was to get out and away from this place for good. She didn’t realize her mistake until she found herself out in the clear, facing Kana, with no adults nearby. Yasuko stopped short and stood still, uncertain, not wanting to make a fuss. If the bully was willing to let this last encounter remain peaceful, Yasuko certainly wasn’t going to initiate anything.

Unfortunately, this didn’t seem to be the case. “Well, I guess you finally realized that you weren’t getting away from this,” Kana declared smugly. “It’s time you learned that I rule this school, and the best you can do is to find your place in my shadow.”

“You’re wrong,” Yasuko retorted. “I’m leaving, and I’m not coming back. I just cleared my record. This isn’t my school anymore, and you’re not my classmate.”

“Yeah? You’re running away, then. Figures that you couldn’t stand up to it. You’re weak, that’s why,” Kana taunted. But Yasuko realized that the girl was disconcerted by her announcement. She studied her bully for a moment in silence, and she thought she had it. This girl sought dominance by taunting potential opponents. If she could get them to fight her, she could dominate them by winning. If she could get them to avoid the fight, she could dominate them by intimidation. Yasuko had refused to engage, which kept her in an ‘indeterminate’ status. She could still refuse to engage, she thought. Keisuke would certainly catch up to her soon, and he’d put a stop to anything Kana tried. 

But even as she realized this was an option, Yasuko felt her own spirit rise and object to inaction. “So why were you in that classroom?” she responded. “It’s been over a week. Did you manage to get in trouble with the teachers again that quickly? You’re trapped in your own cycle. I’m not running from you, I’m exceeding you. Feel free to stay here and keep getting in trouble. I’m moving on.”

She might have known that Kana would not respond well to that. As before, when she was merely ignoring the girl, Yasuko was not the first to resort to physical violence. Kana’s hand swept up, like before, like Outosama’s, every time when Yasuko had learned from painful experience that she must let it land. But today, Yasuko decided suddenly, was different. She flashed back to the hospital, when her father raised his hand and Itsuki stopped him. She found her hand, not quite under her conscious control, sweeping up in the exact same way. She knocked Kana’s hand aside. It was so like Itsuki’s action that she even heard his voice in her head, remembering his words. “You don’t get to touch her. Not anymore.”

Then, in the infinitesimal moment of shocked silence that followed, before either girl had even finished their actions, Yasuko remembered her phone call with Keisuke. She remembered telling him that Kana had struck her, and she remembered his immediate response. “How many times did you hit her back?” His follow-up resonated inside her. “Well, why not?”

The next few minutes were a blur for Yasuko. She wasn’t fully aware of what she was doing. She just knew that she’d had enough, and her body was responding directly to her emotions. She became dimly aware that her opponent was falling back. Then, it seemed to her that her opponent had changed size and become much larger than before. Just for a moment, a detached part of her wondered if she was hallucinating that moment that she’d thought about more than once in secret, the moment when Outosama struck her, and she fought back, and it worked. But her attempt to fight back didn’t work. In a moment, her mystery opponent had slipped behind her, and she realized that she was being held still no matter what she tried to do. After a moment of ineffectual struggling, her head started to clear. She realized that she recognized the person who was restraining her. Her fury rose again. “Keisuke-san! How could you? You’re not supposed to be on her side! You’re supposed to rescue me!”

“You didn’t need rescuing, Yasuko-chan. She did.” His voice was tight from the effort he had to put into maintaining his hold.

“What?” Yasuko looked up to see the bully lying on the ground several feet away, the teacher checking the girl’s injuries. The teacher spoke quietly to Kana, who very carefully sat up and cast a plainly frightened look in Yasuko’s direction. Yasuko felt her body relax as she regained her control, and Keisuke slowly released her. She looked back at him, caught between triumph and horror.

“You won’t have any more trouble from her,” he told her gently. “You fight scary, Yasuko-chan.”

Yasuko started to wonder if she really had been hallucinating when her opponent was replaced by a larger one. “Did I fight you, too?” she squeaked timidly.

“Sure. You landed some good hits. But it didn’t last long.” He smiled in response to her horrified expression. “It’s no big deal. You couldn’t hurt me, not like that. I didn’t have to hurt you, either. That happened before I got to you.”

Yasuko realized that she felt a trickle up near the side of her face. She reached for it, but Keisuke captured her hand. “Don’t touch it, you’ll just make a mess. It’s not bad. I’ll patch you up in the car before we leave.”

“For practice?” she asked him. “Is it too late?”

“Not at all. But we’ll stop at your place first so that you can change. You’re not wearing that to practice or anywhere else. I already brought a change of clothes for myself. I’m not going to practice in my old school uniform, either.”

But there was one matter to settle first. Yasuko approached Kana and the teacher. “Look,” Yasuko told the girl. “Here’s the deal. You walk away, and I walk away, and neither of us make anything of this. I’m transferring to a different school, so you’ll never have to deal with me again. But if you do decide to make something of this, if you try to get me into trouble, maybe you think that you don’t care if you have to serve more punishments as long as you can get me punished? I’ll make sure everyone in both schools knows that I beat you so easily that we had to be separated for your safety… and I can do it again, anytime. Maybe you’d succeed in making me sit in the same room with you and write lines again. As you just saw, that doesn’t have to scare me. But you’d hurt your reputation far worse. Then I’d be gone, and you’d still have to rebuild.” Kana opened her mouth, but Yasuko didn’t let her respond. “You don’t have to tell me. I’ll know your decision by what happens next. Leave me alone, and I will leave you alone.” With that, she simply turned and started walking away.

She could hear the teacher speaking to Keisuke as she headed for his very identifiable yellow FD. “Just get your ward out of here and don’t come back. If this is investigated, we both become witnesses, and we both know who hit first. Neither girl will benefit from the fallout.”

Once both of them reached the car, Keisuke pulled out his first aid kit. He cleaned and bandaged a cut above her eye and another on her knee. He also cleaned a few more scrapes that were not serious enough to merit a bandage. The process gave Yasuko time to realize that her school blouse was torn and both it and the skirt were marked with a couple of blood stains. “I’ve ruined my outfit,” she remarked. “I must look terrible.”

“No, you look like you’ve been in a fight,” he consoled. “Don’t worry about the blouse. If Tachibana doesn’t make sure it’s replaced, let me know and I’ll do it with my own personal money. But I don’t think it will come to that. He’d be a hypocrite if he got mad at you over fighting back when she hit first.”

“And that’s why I need to stop at home and change, isn’t it? Because my outfit is a mess?” she asked him, as he walked around to his side of the car. He stowed his kit, then pulled off his jacket and unbuttoned the top two buttons on his shirt.

“No,” he told her, starting up the FD. “It’s because you’re much more comfortable in pants, and it’s far more suitable for doing mechanic work. I’d already planned the stop before you got into a fight.”

Yasuko now had two distinct groups of people with whom she socialized on a near-daily basis. She knew that the Speed Stars at the gas station would crowd around her and ask all kinds of questions, if she showed up with light bandaging over one eye and sore spots that she knew from long experience would form into bruises by next morning. They were hard-working, but very casual. The Project D mechanics were friendly, but they had a very professional demeanor. None of them asked her about her appearance when she showed up. She had thought that she would have to explain it to Ryosuke, but he wasn’t even there. Someone did finally ask about it, but it wasn’t anybody she had expected. Fujiwara Takumi approached her while Matsumoto worked under the hood of the Eight-Six. “I don’t mean to pry,” he told her. “But are you alright? Did someone hurt you?”

“I’m alright,” she told him. Yasuko wasn’t uncomfortable with Fujiwara. He’d taken her down the hill many times and had never been anything but calm and as friendly as he could be without actually speaking to her. “The girl who had bullied me tried to hit me again. This time, I hit her back.”

“Who won the fight?” he asked, slipping his hands into his pockets in a moment of relaxation.

“I don’t really know, Fujiwara-san. Keisuke-san pulled me off her before we could stop.”

He glanced away from her. “Sometimes, everyone tells me that I won a race, but I don’t feel like I really won. What did you want out of the fight?”

“The only thing I ever wanted out of her!” Yasuko burst out in frustration. “I wanted her to leave me alone! I didn’t want to get into a fight. But when she raised her hand to me, I realized that I wasn’t going to take it anymore.”

“Do you think she’ll leave you alone from now on?” Fujiwara asked, glancing back in her direction.

Yasuko sighed, but she couldn’t help smiling grimly as she thought about the way things had ended. “I think so, yes. Keisuke-san said that she was the one who needed the rescue, so I’m pretty sure I had the upper hand.”

“Then, I think you can say that you won,” Fujiwara told her. “What does Tachibana-san think?”

“I, uh, don’t know if he knows about it.”

“Well, he’s going to.” At that moment, his mechanic called him back, and he gave her a polite nod before walking back to his car.

Fujiwara had a point. Yasuko sighed, took a deep breath, and pulled out her little phone. She brought up the first name on her contacts list. It didn’t take him long to answer. “Hey, Yasuko-chan! Good news! The public high-school let me know that your record is clean, and I just finished talking to the technical high-school. You could start tomorrow if you’d like.”

“Oh, well…” Yasuko admitted, “I’ll need at least one new blouse, Yuichi-san. The one I wore today is wrecked.”

“Why, what happened to it? Are you alright?”

“I’m alright. That bully made one more try. I probably should have ignored her. But when she taunted me, I taunted her back, and then she tried to hit me again, and this time I hit back.”

“How many times did you hit her back?” he asked, just as Keisuke had before.

And this time, Yasuko had a different answer. “I don’t know, Yuichi-san. I wasn’t counting. Keisuke-san stopped me and told me that she wasn’t going to give me any more trouble. I’m sorry, I really shouldn’t have been fighting…”

“It’s not as if you started it, Yasuko-chan. The blouse was sailor style, right? I can pick up two more on my way to get you. Are you hurt? I would think Takahashi Keisuke would take care of you, if you were…”

“I’m alright, there were only a few minor injuries that he treated with the first aid kit in his car. All I really need to do is replace the blouse. But…” Yasuko was learning more and more that she could trust her guardian. “I think the sailor style looks silly. I like the one I got for the trial, with the smaller collar that ties into a bow in front.”

Her faith was, once again, rewarded. “I’ll get those, then. I’ll call when I’m on my way to pick you up, like usual.”

That reminded Yasuko of the other unusual event of the day. “Ryosuke-san isn’t here. You usually call him, but he didn’t go to practice today.”

“Hm. He didn’t tell me to call anybody else, so I’ll try to make contact. If I don’t get through for some reason, I’ll call one of the drivers - are they both at practice?”

“Yes, they’re both here.”

“Alright. I’ll see you after practice, Yasuko-chan.”

Apparently, Ryosuke’s physical absence did not indicate a lack of presence at all. About an hour later, the Eight-Six pulled up into the parking lot instead of simply turning around at the top, and Fujiwara rolled down his window halfway. “Ryosuke-san called and told me to bring you to the bottom of the hill,” he told Yasuko.

Usually, neither of them spoke whenever he was driving. This time, though, Yasuko did have something to say. “Thank you for reminding me to let Yuichi-san know about the fight today. He wasn’t upset, and he’s going to replace the blouse with the type that I prefer.”

“You’re going to the technical high-school now, right?” Fujiwara asked.

“Yes, Fujiwara-san. Probably starting tomorrow.” She was a little surprised to get this much conversation out of him, but she certainly didn’t mind.

He also didn’t seem to have any problem talking while working his way through a full inertial drift. “That’s good. Oyaji thinks that’s the most sensible thing for you.”

Yasuko glanced back at him, startled. “Do you really call your father that? He lets you get away with it?”

“Sure. He doesn’t mind. Your… former father, I’d heard, was a good deal more formal.” He paused for a moment. “But did saying outo-sama actually make you respect him more?”

Fujiwara did have a good point. “Not really,” Yasuko admitted. “But even more than respect, I just wanted to be able to love him like I had before, when I was younger.” She looked up at the road and fell into a momentary respectful silence as he started another corner. “You’ve been a little different today. More open. More… I shouldn’t say ‘friendly’, because I could always feel that you were friendly enough. But more ‘awake’ about it.”

And he surprised her again by smiling openly. “It’s been a good day. Here we are.”

Sure enough, Tachibana was just pulling over as Fujiwara reached the bottom of the hill. Yasuko thanked her driver and hurried to her guardian’s car. Her first thought was for the guardian whom she had not seen all day. “Did you tell Ryosuke-san that I could start at the technical school tomorrow?” she asked as she started putting on her seatbelt.

“He already knew,” Yuichi told her, backing up and pulling back onto the road.

She waved after the Eight-Six as it took off, even though she was pretty sure that Fujiwara couldn’t see her. “Did you tell him about the fight with that bully Kana?” she asked, settling in for the trip home.

“He knew about that, too,” Yuichi answered. He glanced over at her as she looked back at him. “Does it bother you to start school with a cut above your eye? Do you want to give it a few days first?”

“No, I want to start right away. I hope my looks won’t matter so much at a technical high-school. How on earth did Ryosuke-san know about the fight and the school record already?” Yasuko queried, astonished.

“His brother probably told him. I got the blouses for you. They’re in the back seat. Did you have a good time at practice?”

“Fujiwara-san talked to me - twice! But I don’t think it’s just because Ryosuke-san wasn’t there. I know there’s a lot of respect there, but I don’t think Ryosuke-san intimidates him,” Yasuko mused.

Yuichi shook his head, amused. “No, it’s because he’s got a girlfriend. Obviously, she’s good for him."

“Is he good for her, too?” Yasuko immediately wondered.

“She seems to know what she wants,” Yuichi chuckled. “I’m sure that, if he weren’t, she’d leave him. I admit, that’s something I hadn’t wondered about.”

They both fell silent. Yasuko had plenty of things to think about, and her guardian seemed to have a knack for knowing when she needed to sit still and think about them. They were nearly home when she spoke again. “If Ryosuke-san had a girlfriend who was good for him, would he relax, too?”

Yuichi didn’t respond until he had pulled into his parking spot and turned off the engine. He turned to look at her. “Maybe. I’ve never seen him with a girl on his arm. But if he wanted one, he’s always had his pick. I don’t think any other racer draws the girls like he does. What’s got you thinking tonight, Yasuko-chan?”

“He wasn’t at practice today. For the past few weeks, he hasn’t brought his FC, and there have been no driving lessons. Even before that, he was distracted. I know this is Project D’s last set of expeditions, but I’m sure there’s something else going on in his head. I have no clue what it is, but something is bothering him. I wish there were something I could do.”

“There is,” Yuichi assured her. “He’s got people who can take care of him, people he can rely on if he needs help. His brother would do anything for him, and he has several other friends on his team. The best thing you can do for him right now is to prosper - to grow well, gain weight, get good grades, and enjoy your life. You know that I’ll be right here if you get into any trouble at your new school. You can always call me.”

“I know.” And Yasuko resolved right then and there to not have any troubles at the technical high-school, no matter how hard it was, for the sake of her guardians.

Chapter Text

Yasuko’s first day of technical high-school did not prove to be an auspicious beginning. It started very early in the morning with a terrible nightmare. She dreamed that she was lying in bed, having just awakened in the middle of the night, all cozy and ready to drift back to sleep, when she saw Aikawa’s face clearly in the window looking straight at her. She tried to jump up, but she couldn’t move. She tried to scream, but she couldn’t make a sound. Then, suddenly, she sat up and gasped for breath. She had just enough time to look at the window and see nothing there, before the room flooded with light and she couldn’t see a thing. As she blinked and squinted, her guardian dropped down on her bed and pulled her into his arms. “It’s okay, Yasuko-chan, you’re safe. You’re okay. It must have been a nightmare,” he consoled her. She realized that he had turned the light on in her room as he had entered.

“I saw him, Yuichi-san, I saw him at the window,” she babbled out, but she couldn’t say much more without everything coming out in fragments. “It was a dream, just a dream,” she repeated. But Yuichi took her seriously, even as she kept repeating that it was only a dream. He released her and rose from the bed. He peered out the window, then checked the window itself and drew the blinds before returning to her side. “It’s locked, and I don’t see any signs of people nearby. We’re on the second floor, and there’s no sign of a ladder. I think the room is secure.” He started rubbing her back.

“I thought I saw Aikawa-san at my window,” Yasuko finally calmed down enough to explain. “And I couldn’t move, and I couldn’t make a sound.”

“Well, you did. You started screaming, and it woke me right up. Do you want to sleep in the living area?” he offered kindly. “Or do you want me to stay? I’ve got an old sleeping mat that I can just set right up on the floor.”

“Oh, I don’t mean to put you out like that,” Yasuko started, but then she saw the look on his face and realized that he was quite serious. She thought for a moment about her options. “Okay,” she assented, her voice small. “Please stay.”

He made no complaints at all. He brought her a cookie, which she nibbled on while he retrieved the bedroll and set it up in the middle of her room. Once they were ready to go back to sleep, he even turned off the light for her so that she wouldn’t have to walk back to bed in the dark. His presence helped immensely through the rest of the night. His snoring frequently woke her up, but the sleep she caught in-between lacked terror, and she got up feeling, if not quite refreshed, at least calm and ready for the day. She tiptoed over and around him to get her new school uniform. She dressed in the bathroom. By the time she ventured back to her room, there was no sign of him or his sleeping arrangement. He had cleaned up properly and gone to his own bedroom to get ready for the day.

Yasuko liked her new school uniform, and she had never mind taking a good walk even when the morning was crisp. This morning, she wasn’t quite so eager at the prospect of walking alone from the gas station to the technical highschool. The shadows of that nightmare still hung over her. She didn’t want to ask her guardian to put himself out further on her behalf, though. Yasuko turned her attention back to her outfit. She already knew she would need a sweater or possibly a light jacket. She took a look at her options for a moment, and made a decision. She shrouded herself in the light jacket that Itsuki had given her when she was a runaway. “He’s going to want this back someday,” she mused, but something about it buoyed her courage and she decided that she could very well give it back to him later. She saw him every day, after all. When she hurried out to the car, Yuichi looked at her for a moment, clearly noticing the jacket. He didn’t mention it, though.

She did feel very guilty when she reached the gas station and saw Itsuki outside in his regular uniform, including a long-sleeved shirt and no jacket. Yasuko slipped into the store and sat uneasily on the couch, waiting for the time when she would have to set out on her walk. She felt herself caught between the selfish desire to keep the jacket for her walk and the guilty feeling that she really should give it back to Itsuki right now when he needed it. Then he walked in to get himself a cup of coffee, and that made it even harder. She was about to finally speak up and offer it when he carelessly interrupted her attempt to start speaking. “Yasuko-chan, haven’t you got anything better to wear yet? Or do you actually like that old jacket?”

“I have a cute little jacket of my own and a couple of sweaters,” she confessed. “I’m sorry. I really should have given this one back to you. You’re out there this morning with no jacket at all.”

Itsuki waved off her concern easily. “I have one. I bought it a couple of weeks ago. Not just because of you - I meant to get a spare one anyway. My jacket is hanging up in the back room. I’m not cold, I haven’t been since my walk in. I’m staying busy when I’m outside.”

“I did keep this one because I like it,” Yasuko admitted. “I mean, I keep intending to give it back. But when I see it, it makes me smile, and when I put it on, I feel braver. It reminds me of the morning we met, when you didn’t even know me, but you gave me everything I needed to keep going. You must have been cold that morning.”

“Not really.” Itsuki wandered over with his coffee and sat down on the opposite couch. “Your behavior was so strange, and I felt bad about not being able to help you, so I drove straight over to talk to Takumi about it. The heat works in my car, and the tofu shop was warm. After we were done talking to Takahashi Ryosuke on the phone - because Takumi said he was looking for a runaway girl and we needed to call him right away - Takumi loaned me a sweater and his dad gave me some fried tofu for breakfast. Then the midsummer heat kicked in and I didn’t need it anymore anyway. I bought my new jacket when it went on sale in the heat, and I gave the sweater back to Takumi. See? Everything was fine.”

“And that’s how Ryosuke-san knew when to call everyone together, so that I’d feel safe enough to join them. I didn’t think for a moment that the gang people following me would go after a crowd of that size. I wonder how he knew that it was going to take me all day. It only took so long because I hid between a rock and a tree on my way up and just went to sleep for a couple of hours. The jacket kept me warm, and I couldn’t stay awake anymore.”

Itsuki gave this a moment of thought. “I think he’s just really good at planning for different outcomes, Yasuko-chan. If I heard right, and I think I did, he had Keisuke-san at the summit by mid-morning. That was probably just in case you went straight up without taking a break.”

“You know, you’re right, I remember Keisuke-san telling me that now.” Yasuko looked up as Yuichi entered from the back room. Ituski hopped up from the couch so quickly that Yasuko was impressed that he did not spill a drop of his coffee.

Yuichi gave his employee a trademarked stern look, but didn’t scold him. Yasuko knew by now that, although he maintained order, he wasn’t the sort to just start shouting at people like her father did. “Take that coffee and go back out there. I need you and Iketani to run the station for a little while. I’m taking Yasuko-chan to school.”

“I wasn’t going to ask,” Yasuko admitted, as she climbed back into Yuichi’s car and breathed a sigh of relief. “But I wasn’t looking forward to the walk alone. I think I’ll be alright coming back.”

“We’ll see,” Yuichi told her, starting up the engine. “After all you’ve been through, I don’t mind spending a little extra time and energy to be sure that you feel safe.”

For a while, Yasuko did feel safe. Her guardian dropped her off right at the door, and she started her first day at the technical high-school. She enjoyed her morning immensely. The other kids were polite or aloof, which suited her just fine. The teachers seemed dedicated, and she was pleased to find the coursework challenging. It wasn’t until lunchtime that her day began to take a sour turn. She heard something she hadn’t heard in weeks, something she hadn’t ever wanted to hear again - her original last name. One of the other first-years was talking loudly at the table next to hers. “Yeah, the trial finished yesterday. Looks like that jerk Yamamoto got only five years. They said he gave them information, so I’m guessing he ratted out the others. I’ll be surprised if he makes it through his term. They’re bound to have people on the inside.”

Yasuko froze, shocked. Was he talking about her father? She had known that he was going to go to trial after he lost custody of her, but she had simply forgotten to wonder about that. Maybe it was a different person? Why on earth would this student be talking about her father? She didn’t pay enough attention to know what the other students nearby were murmuring, but this boy’s voice was loud and clear. “Yeah, I figure that’s what he deserves, for going up against Project D like that! They’re the most amazing racers ever!”

“Hadn’t you heard any news about his daughter?” one of the other boys asked. “The one the racers rescued, right? And all this stuff came out at the trial about all these things she did for them?”

“Yeah!” the boy enthused. “And I heard they call her ‘Racer’s Angel’ now. Sometimes she posts on the forum attached to Project D’s website. I don’t know a thing more than that. I guess… Maybe family took her? Or maybe she left him completely and got adopted? Or maybe she’s stuck back at that repair shop with her dad going to prison? I don’t even know!”

“You want to date her, you’re hoping she’s pretty and about your age,” one of the other boys teased. Yasuko didn’t move. She felt entirely rooted to the spot, listening helplessly.

“C’mon! I’m not interested in the daughter of a criminal,” the boy retorted, and Yasuko felt cold anger wash down her back. “Besides,” he continued, “wherever she is, I bet she’s in trouble now. If her father was in with the yakuza, and he’s sent them after her before, I bet they’ll go after her again. I mean, I bet they can get to him in prison, but if they want to punish him for ratting them out, they could go after her, too.”

No, no, that wasn’t true, was it? Yasuko took a deep breath, trying to sort out the whirling thoughts in her head. She’d known some sort of gang members had followed her when she had run away. Keisuke had told her that they were just a couple of local toughs and that he could take them. Did he not know? How could Ryosuke not know? She realized that this bothered her even more. Didn’t he know about the trial? Or what if he did know about the trial and the yakuza connection, and he simply hadn’t seen fit to tell her?

“Hey… Tachibana…” Yasuko heard someone else speak the name, but it took her a moment to realize that he was talking to her. It was another kid at her table. “Are you okay? You’re spacing out.”

“I’m alright,” she lied. She took a moment to collect herself. “I’m sorry, I’m just feeling a bit tired.”

That drew a kind response. “Of course you are, it’s your first day, and you’re coming in after we’ve all had the chance to get settled. I felt pretty crazy by lunchtime on my first day, too.” A couple of other students chimed in, trying to reassure her. Of course, she didn’t feel reassured at all, but she smiled for them and tried to act as if she felt better. After a moment, she did start to feel better - maybe she couldn’t address her actual problem, but it was nice to be in a school with people who were actively nice to her.

“Hey.” The boy who had been talking about her father turned from his table to face her. “I’m Fujita Goro. You’re the new girl, aren’t you?”

Nothing for it but to hope that he didn’t know ‘Racer’s Angel’s’ first name, or that her first name was popular enough that he wouldn’t make any connections. “Tachibana Yasuko. Yes, I’m new, I’m okay, I just felt… overwhelmed for a moment.”

“Well, that’s understandable,” he told her kindly. “Do you need any help with your schedule? I know where all the classrooms are.” And so, rather unexpectedly, the very boy who had thrown her into utter chaos took a moment to shepherd her through the rest of her day. Even when they didn’t have the same classes, he still showed up at the door as the bell rang and showed her how to get to the next room. “I don’t mind,” he told her when she thanked him. “I never mind walking with a pretty girl. As long as you don’t mind me talking about engines and racing. I’m all into that stuff.” Anxious to keep him off the topic of the trial, Yasuko asked him a couple of bland questions about car parts and let him rattle off everything he knew with a sense of paternalistic authority that partly amused and partly annoyed her. By the time he was done, she felt rather glad that, though he might claim she was pretty, he wouldn’t really want anything to do with ‘the daughter of a criminal’.

Yasuko wasn’t looking forward to walking from the technical high-school to the gas station by herself, overthinking every suspicious-looking person she thought she saw. Thankfully, she didn’t have to. As she left the building and headed down the steps, she saw a familiar short, stocky figure waiting for her. Delighted, she hurried up to him and gave him a big hug. “Itsuki-san! I’m glad to see you! What did you come here for?”

He laughed and hugged her tightly in return. “Boss asked me to come walk you back. He said you’d had some sort of bad dream and thought you might still be a bit rattled. Here, let me take your backpack.”

“Are you sure? It’s a little heavy.” As she said the words, she realized how silly they sounded.

“Doubly sure, if it’s heavy. I’m used to it. I only graduated last year. Come on.”

The two walked in silence at first. Yasuko began to relax as she didn’t see any weird, suspicious signs of yakuza lurking around every corner. The traffic, the people, the rhythms of the sidewalk and street all seemed normal. “Hey, how was your first day?” Itsuki finally asked her.

“Tiring. But it’s a good school,” Yasuko answered. “The students are actually nice. I’ve got plenty of homework, though. Uh…” She wasn’t sure how far the gossip chain went, but she knew that the Speed Stars had a habit of finding things out. “Did anything notable happen today or yesterday? Anything involving racers? Or anything to do with racers?”

He gave her an odd look. “Nothing I heard of. Why? Did you hear something?”

“I’ve been in school all day.” Yasuko tried to tell herself that it wasn’t a lie, not really, but she felt guilty for being circumspect with Itsuki. They continued walking in silence for a moment, and she decided that she wasn’t going to do that to him. “I thought I heard something, but it might be wrong. So I’m not going to talk about it until I’m a little more sure. If you’d heard something, it might be confirmation one way or the other.”

“Okay,” he told her, puzzled. “Thanks for letting me know. If I hear something strange, I’ll pass it your way. And maybe, when you’ve got whatever it is figured out, you’ll feel like you can tell me.”

“Thanks for understanding.” Yasuko took a deep breath as they continued to walk. “When I can let you know, I definitely will. I’m glad it’s easy to talk to you.”

Ituski laughed wryly. “I don’t understand, but that’s okay. I didn’t get to be Takumi’s best friend by understanding anything he said.”

When they reached the gas station, avoiding the others was easy enough. Yasuko wanted time to think, and her homework load gave her a good excuse to settle and keep her head down. When Yuichi asked her about her day, she gave him a vague answer about being overtired and busy. He seemed to know that something was upsetting her mood, but he gave her space and let her work. As she completed each assignment, however, she found herself getting more upset instead of less. She didn’t really have anything she could process. All she had was hearsay and conjecture, with no answers. Yasuko felt the questions chasing themselves over and over again in her head: Did you know, Ryosuke-san? When were you going to tell me?

“That’s the FD,” she finally announced, packing up her books. She had been trying to study a chapter of history that she kept reading over and over again without seeing a word of it.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Yasuko-chan?” Yuichi asked gently. “You’ve had a long day, as you said. Are you up for practice? I’m sure you could skip today. I’ll take you home early, if you’d like.”

Yasuko shook her head. “No, I am definitely attending practice today.” Her words came out a little sharper than she intended. She tried to reassure him quickly. “I’m okay. I honestly want to go tonight. They’ll be leaving in just another couple of days. I’ll see you when you come to pick me up, alright?”

As before, he seemed doubtful, but let it go. Yasuko dropped her backpack on the floor of the passenger’s seat of his car, shut the door, and hurried out to the familiar yellow FD. Without fully acknowledging the rest of her surroundings, she dropped right into the passenger’s seat and slammed the door shut. “Ok, let’s go,” she urged, starting to buckle the harness without even glancing at her driver.

“Hold up. I’m filling the gas tank while I get a chance. Are you alright, Yasuko-chan?” Keisuke asked. She turned to see him studying her expression.

But he wasn’t really the one she wanted to talk to and ask her questions. “I’m fine, I just had a long first day,” she offered. One of the buckles wasn’t latching correctly, and she took a moment to breathe and focus on it.

Like Yuichi, Keisuke didn’t buy it. Unlike Yuichi, he didn’t give her space about it. “That’s not it. You’re not tired, you’re simmering. What on earth is wrong with you?”

“Don’t you know?” Yasuko blurted out.

She regretted her outburst as soon as she realized that she was winding him up. He took a breath and answered levelly, but with a hint of frustration in his own tone. “I don’t know. If I did, I wouldn’t have asked you. I don’t play those games, Yasuko-chan. I didn’t think you did.”

That stung. Yasuko turned away from him. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I don’t want to talk to you about it yet. Is Ryosuke-san coming to practice tonight? Have you seen him?”

“Yeah, he was home all afternoon. He should get to Akagi before we do.”

“Well,” Yasuko sulked, “you’ll find out when I see him, then.”

Itsuki finished the transaction and gave the customary polite bow and thank-you as they rolled out. Keisuke was right - Yasuko’s anger was simmering hot, not cold. Her heart hadn’t hardened. She made herself smile for Itsuki and waved to him as they pulled out. Then, she returned to her inner stewing. The trip to Akagi seemed to take forever, yet she also felt as though it had been barely any time at all before they started up the hill. As they drew closer and closer, Yasuko felt her own nervousness rise a notch, then another. She didn’t want to confront Ryosuke. She didn’t want to be angry with him. But the only thing she felt more strongly than that was, paradoxically, that she was angry and she wanted to confront him over it. The battle inside her reached a fever pitch as the yellow FD pulled up to the Project D vans, and she saw the familiar, tall figure standing there and speaking to one of the mechanics. Then, she couldn’t bear the pressure any longer. She bolted out of the vehicle as soon as it came to a complete stop and stormed up to him, her two questions burning in her heart. He paused and turned to face her as she stood in front of him, bristling, her fists clenched.

“Did you know, Ryosuke-san?” Yasuko had planned to ask more elegantly. She had planned to give him some sort of clue about what she wanted to know. But the words burst out just like that before she could help herself.

But he didn’t seem startled or surprised. He faced her directly. “Yes, I knew.”

“When were you going to tell me?” Yasuko demanded.

“Tonight,” Ryosuke answered evenly.

Chapter Text

Ryosuke’s quick, solid answers to Yasuko’s questions left her temporarily speechless. She realized suddenly that this was what she had needed most, what she had desperately hoped for. She wanted him to be in charge, and she wanted to be safe. Her relief blunted her anger, but she still felt all stirred up. “When did you know?” she asked as a follow-up. Keisuke had exited the car promptly and stood nearby, looking between the two of them, utterly puzzled.

“Yesterday afternoon. Do you remember meeting the detective on your case? He has been giving me updates every day once the court session closes. I called Tachibana earlier today to let him know, and I was planning to tell you all about it tonight once you got here. Where did you find out?” he asked in return.

Yasuko took a breath. She couldn’t quite make herself relax yet. “One of the students at school. He said he’s into engines and ‘all that stuff’. He was talking about it in the lunchroom. So… is it true?”

Ryosuke couldn’t help a wry half-smile as he glanced from her to Keisuke’s perplexed expression and back. “At this point, Yasuko-chan, you’re going to have to be a little more specific.”

“He said that my fath-… that my…” Yasuko realized that she wasn’t even sure how to refer to the man anymore. “Said that he was going to prison for five years, because he gave out information on the yakuza. He said that they’re going to go after… him… in prison, and that they might go after his daughter… me… for revenge… he didn’t know he was talking about me, and I was right there.” Now she felt a lump rise in her throat, and her vision blurred with tears. She tried to blink them away.

“Yasuko-chan…” Keisuke finally spoke up. “You’re not angry, you’re terrified. Of course you’re terrified, with news like that. Aniki, is it true?”

“I am angry!” Yasuko burst out, even as she knew that Keisuke had a very good point. Words weren’t enough. She wanted to hit something or someone. She looked up at Ryosuke again. He looked back at her with compassion in his eyes, and she realized anew that she could never try to hurt him. There was only one possible target. Yasuko kicked the nearby guardrail as hard as she could. It didn’t make her feel any better. It also didn’t help that Ryosuke maintained his dignified calm while Keisuke merely looked surprised and a little amused at her reaction. “Nobody told me anything!” she complained. “I spent all day looking for suspicious people! I had a nightmare-“

“I know about the nightmare,” Ryosuke told her calmly. “Tachibana told me when I called him. Yasuko-chan, it isn’t true, not exactly. It sounds to me like that student heard half the story and invented the rest.”

“Alright, then.” She wasn’t quite ready to let him off the hook, even though he was being everything she needed him to be. “What’s the rest?”

“Can you sit down for a moment?” Ryosuke offered.

Yasuko was still upset enough to kick the guardrail again, but she refrained. “No.”

“Alright.” He settled down on the edge of the van’s tailgate. “Yamamoto was sentenced to five years in prison for doing mechanic jobs and facilitating vehicle sales for the yakuza. He was cooperative in his trial, but he didn’t ‘give out information’. He didn’t have much to give out. He was, to put it bluntly, insignificant. He didn’t know anything important enough to earn retribution for him - or you - in return. If the yakuza think he can still be of use to them after his release, they might look after him in prison. Otherwise, they’ll leave him to whatever fate awaits him there. Nobody is after you.”

“What about the people who followed me, when I ran away?” Yasuko demanded. “Keisuke-san said they were just a couple of toughs. But if he sent them, and he was working for the yakuza itself…”

“I was wondering that myself, Aniki,” Keisuke admitted. “They were obviously not yakuza, and my source said Yamamoto didn’t have an ‘in’ with the street gangs. So how did that happen?”

“That’s actually one of the simpler parts of the whole mess, but we never would have known if not for the trial,” Ryosuke explained patiently. “Yamamoto wasn’t important enough to the yakuza for him to ask a favor like that, and he was virtually unknown to the street gangs as well. Aikawa was the one who called the gang members down on Yasuko-chan when she ran away. At least he had the sense to not pick the same people. I doubt that would have gone well for him, after last time.”

“Last time wouldn’t have mattered,” Keisuke asserted. “My old crew would never have gone after a little girl like Yasuko-chan. They do have their honor.”

Now it was Yasuko’s turn to look between the two brothers in puzzlement, but neither of them elaborated. Instead, Ryosuke turned back to her. “When I spoke to Tachibana this morning, I advised him to move your bed so that you could not see out your window, and anybody looking in your window would not see the bed. He’s going to take a couple of other precautions as well. I know it was just a nightmare, and there’s no evidence that anybody could have been there. But I intend to take it seriously anyway. I take your safety seriously, Yasuko-chan. I always have.”

“Wait. Who was looking in at Yasuko-chan’s window?” Keisuke had clearly fallen behind in the conversation again. Yasuko didn’t want to hear the name again, and she didn’t want to think about the nightmare, so she turned away from both of them.

Fortunately, Ryosuke had her back. “Nobody. I’ll explain later. You’d better start your runs, Keisuke.”

“Alright.” Keisuke headed back around the front of his car to the driver’s side, then paused. “Come with me, Yasuko-chan. I’m driving fast, and that usually helps you when you’re riled up.”

Yasuko glanced from him to Ryosuke. Ryosuke nodded, so she hurried over and climbed back into the FD. She buckled the harness and took hold of the handle above the door. “I won’t talk,” she promised. “I know you’re practicing.” Keisuke gave her an appreciative nod in return. He pulled out onto the course and accelerated down the straightaway.

There was nothing like flying up and down a mountain pass while listening to a well-tuned engine to settle Yasuko’s thoughts. About a half hour later, she finally spoke up as they neared the summit. “Okay. I’m okay now. Thank you, Keisuke-san.” He let her out with a cheery acknowledgment, and she watched his yellow FD zoom away before heading over to find Ryosuke. He had just finished having a discussion with Fumihiro and was looking up at the sky thoughtfully. She hurried over and started by giving him a big hug. He startled slightly, then chuckled and hugged her back. “I’m feeling better now,” she told him. “I’m sorry for getting mad at you like that. I should have known better.”

“Don’t ever apologize for that, Yasuko-chan,” Ryosuke told her, as they both settled down on the edge of Van One’s tailgate. “You were upset, so you brought your concerns straight to me and told me plainly what was bothering you. That’s the way I want you to handle any problem you have with me. I don’t mind if you’re a little rude in the process.” He looked back up at the sky again. “You have a strong spirit. Keisuke noticed it immediately, as soon as he met you. But you’re also open and affectionate. That’s a rare gift, after the abuse you withstood.”

He did seem to be in a good mood, so Yasuko decided to ask. “Why weren’t you here yesterday, Ryosuke-san?”

“I had something I had to attend to,” he replied, glancing back up at the sky yet again. She realized quickly that he wasn’t going to tell her anything more about it.

“Did Keisuke-san tell you about the fight I got into yesterday?”

“He did, and so did Tachibana. I knew Keisuke was planning to join your little rule-writing endeavor and keep an eye on you.”

That reminded Yasuko of something that made her giggle. “The teacher knew that he was part of Project D! She said she was going to frame his written work as an autograph. I think that really surprised him.”

Ryosuke seemed to return to the present. He smiled slightly. “I heard about that, too. You never know where you’re going to find a fan. All of this reminds me - I haven’t been giving you driving lessons, and the people here haven’t reported any requests from you for a run. Have you driven at all since you spun out?”

“Just once. I helped deliver tofu for Fujiwara-san. I mean, Fujiwara-san’s father, who told me that I could call him ‘Fujiwara-san’ too. But it was sort of a test of my driving. I’m pretty sure he put the wrong air filter in his car on purpose, too, to see if I would find it. In some ways, I think he kind of reminds me of you.” She hadn’t thought of it before. Now, thinking about Fujiwara Bunta while looking at Takahashi Ryosuke, the similarities seemed obvious. “And then he had me drive back to the gas station, and told Yuichi-san that I should attend a technical high-school and become a designer eventually. But I haven’t driven since.”

“You should drive again,” Ryosuke told her kindly. “Tonight, if you feel like you can. If not, then some time before we get back from our expedition this weekend. I’m sorry that I stopped giving you lessons. We won’t be holding regular practices once Project D disbands, but I’ll keep teaching you in the FC. Alright?”

Yasuko found that she felt reluctant to drive Yuichi’s car again. “I’ll try, Ryosuke-san,” she replied hesitantly.

Ryosuke seemed lost in thought again, but Yasuko got the feeling that his thoughts were a bit more present and had less to do with his mysterious ‘something’ that he’d had to attend to. She was right. He straightened up suddenly and ordered his crew to stop the Eight-Six. Then he led her over to the car, and Fujiwara rolled down his window. “You’re doing well today, Fujiwara,” Ryosuke told him. “I need a favor. I’d like you to take Yasuko-chan for a spin - literally. Let her see for herself how you handle it. I’d do it myself, if I had the FC tonight.”

Fujiwara had to make sure he understood. “You want me to spin out, on purpose, with Yasuko in the car?”

“Yes. Do it a few times if you can. She’ll be as safe with you as she would be with me. I’m not asking you to crash.”

“Alright.” Fujiwara wasn’t the sort to complain, question, or argue when he understood what he was being asked to do. “Get in,” he told Yasuko. “I’ll start my first spin after I pass Keisuke-san. There shouldn’t be anybody else on the course.”

Yasuko hesitated at first, reminded of her annoyance with the mechanics when they passive-aggressively discussed techniques to handle spin-outs the first day she’d shown up to practice after her mishap in Yuichi’s car. Then again, she had to admit, there was really nothing passive-aggressive about Ryosuke’s request. She buckled herself into the passenger seat and dedicated herself to learning from the experience. To her delight, it was very enjoyable. She got to startle Keisuke by waving at him as their paths crossed, since he had a habit of glancing at the Eight-Six every time he passed it. Then, Fujiwara started his unusual task. His driving was less aggressive and more stable than Keisuke’s. He was able to spin around in a perfect circle without losing control at all. “Guess this isn’t what Ryosuke-san means,” he finally pointed out, and took her for a couple of faster spins which resulted in an actual stop at the end. He didn’t explain what he was doing, and he didn’t really need to. Yasuko watched in fascination and utter silence through each spin. “Got it?” he asked her, and she nodded. Finally, as they started to near the end of the course, his expression turned thoughtful. “I want to try something new. Are you up for it?”

“Yes, go ahead,” she told him. She was pretty sure that he didn’t intend to take any serious risks with her in the vehicle. That said, she really didn’t expect what he did next. He accelerated hard, hitting a high rate of speed, headed right for the next corner. Then, he suddenly started the slide by switching off the engine! This spin was much rougher, wilder, and harder to correct. She watched him working patiently with the vehicle, slowing it and stabilizing it, until it was rolling slowly downhill under nothing but its own inertia. Then, he braked, and came to a proper stop. “Why did you do that?” Yasuko asked in a squeak. Usually, the maneuvers of Project D racers didn’t frighten her at all, but that was a fair bit more intense than she’d anticipated.

“About a year ago, I blew my engine in a race,” Fujiwara explained. “Nearly wiped out entirely. I wanted to see if I could do a better job now. Did it scare you? I’ve got something else to try, but if it scared you, I’ll wait until I drop you off at the top of the pass.”

“It scared me a little, but I’m okay,” Yasuko told him. She felt that she had learned more by watching his maneuver than she had with any of the prior spins. “Do it!”

“Hold on.” He paused, head turned to listen. She heard it too - the approaching squeal of tires. “We had better get moving, or Keisuke-san will stop to see if we need help.”

He kept his pace slow. Yasuko got to watch as the yellow FD hurtled around a corner and slipped into a full inertial drift to avoid them quickly. Keisuke didn’t glance in her direction this time. She could see him, just in a flash, concentrating hard, and then he was around the next corner and gone from view. “He improves every time I see him do that,” Fujiwara mused. “Alright, let’s go.”

“Something else” turned out to be another spin initiated with the engine shut off. This time, though, Fujiwara controlled it one half-turn early. The Eight-Six wound up wandering slowly backwards down the hill before he hit the brake and stopped it. “That’s interesting,” he murmured. “Thanks. I’m not going to do this any more tonight. I don’t want to damage anything. Are you still alright?”

“I am,” Yasuko told him. “But we’re nearly at the bottom of the hill now. I wonder why Keisuke-san hasn’t passed us on his way up yet.”

“That’s why,” Fujiwara told her casually, pointing with one hand as he worked the wheel with the other, drifting around the last corner. The FD sat at the bottom of the hill, pulled over to the side, its driver leaning against the side of the vehicle and looking disgruntled. “He’s waiting for us. I think he’s annoyed because he had to go around me.” Fujiwara neatly spun the car in a one-eighty turn and immediately accelerated back up the hill.

Yasuko blinked, astonished, glancing back. “You’re not going to stop and talk to him?”

“Not when he’s in that mood,” Fujiwara answered easily. “I’ll bring you back up to the vans and let Ryosuke-san handle it.”

“I’ve been told - and I can hear for myself - that this car has a modified engine,” Yasuko commented. “But the FD is more powerful. He can probably catch you on the uphill.”

Fujiwara offered her a wry half-smile. “But Keisuke-san won’t try anything risky while you’re in the car with me.”

Sure enough, though Keisuke followed them closely, he did not attempt an overtake. Yasuko peeked back as they passed the halfway point. She couldn’t see him very well in the twilight, but he did seem a bit grumpy. She waved to him. He didn’t change his demeanor, but he did wave back. As the Eight-Six pulled up beside the vans, the FD pulled up beside the Eight-Six, and all three vehicular occupants exited at the same time. Ryosuke stepped out from between the vans, took one look at them, and sighed slightly. “What is it, Keisuke?”

“It was Fujiwara, idling right in the middle of the road around the corner with Yasuko-chan in the car. I could have hit them!” Keisuke declared.

“You’re a better driver than that,” Ryosuke replied coolly. “You were a better driver than that months ago. Fujiwara, you followed my instructions?”

“Yes, Ryosuke-san. I did eight spins, two with the engine off.” Fujiwara remained utterly calm in the face of Keisuke’s irateness. After what he’d said in the car, Yasuko wasn’t quite sure she wanted him to get away with looking more professional than her favorite racer.

Ryosuke apparently picked up on her reluctance. “Yes, Yasuko-chan?”

She told it straight. “Fujiwara-san annoyed Keisuke-san and then used me as a human shield to keep Keisuke-san from harassing him, instead of stopping and working it out with him at the bottom of the hill.”

“Traitor,” Fujiwara murmured so quietly that Yasuko wasn’t really sure she’d heard him. She knew well how to pick up on danger signs of anger and annoyance, though, and Fujiwara wasn’t giving off any of them.

Ryosuke sighed. “Tomorrow is our last practice day before our next expedition. The last thing I need is for the fifteen-year-old to be the most mature person on the team. Get back to your practice. Keisuke, you first. Fujiwara, wait a couple of minutes.”

Keisuke stuck his tongue out at Yasuko, his good humor returning. Yasuko stuck her tongue at at him in turn, then giggled as he climbed back into his car. Ryosuke pretended to not notice as he turned back to Fujiwara. “Do you think you learned as much as you taught Yasuko-chan?” he asked, as the yellow FD set off down the hill.

“I did,” Fujiwara acknowledged. “I’ve spun out before, but I’ve never tried to do it. It was an interesting exercise.”

“Alright,” Ryosuke told him. “Take a moment, then resume your regular runs.”

“Wait, did you tell him to do that for me, or for him?” Yasuko asked Ryosuke, following him back behind the vans.

“Yes, I did,” Ryosuke answered, finally allowing himself a half-smile of his own.

By the time Yuichi arrived to pick up Yasuko for the night, she felt much better. She didn’t feel up to asking him if she could drive, but the lingering fear about her safety had dissipated. She chatted freely the whole way home, confessing her earlier fears and telling him about practice. “I knew whatever was bothering you would come out sooner or later,” he told her, as they pulled into his parking spot at their home. “That’s why I didn’t push while you were working it out. So you’ll be willing to go back to that technical high-school tomorrow?”

“Absolutely,” she assured him, and she meant it. The two of them worked together to move her bed out of the window’s ready view, and Yuichi drew the blinds before bedtime. Whether it was the talk she’d had with Ryosuke, the change in her bed’s position, or anything else that she might not have guessed, she slept peacefully and awoke the next morning without any nightmares of Aikawa at all.

Chapter Text

“Two schools in a row,” Yasuko muttered to herself, as she pulled out her little cell phone and flipped it open. “I’m never going to hear the end of it.” She quickly switched to the third name on her contacts list and tapped the call button. It didn’t take long for her to get an answer. It never took long with him.

“Yasuko-chan, hi. I expected you to be at school… is everything alright?” He sounded awake and alert, so she hadn’t caught him sleeping in. Yasuko sighed in relief.

“Everything’s alright, Keisuke-san, but I need to ask a favor. It’s, well… it’s not that important, I guess. I’m sorry.” She was already starting to second-guess her decision to call. She stood at the lunch table, a small group of fellow students standing around her and watching her. She realized anew that she could be horribly embarrassed if she didn’t follow through. “It’s important to me,” she added quickly.

“Yeah. Okay, what do you need?” Keisuke asked. Yasuko’s courage rose.

“Can you come and pick me up from school?” she asked.

“What, now? You haven’t run off again, have you?” he returned.

Yasuko realized that this wasn’t exactly an unreasonable assumption to make. “No, no no no no, everything’s all fine, it’s just… can you pick me up at the end of the school day? In your car? Promptly at the end?”

“Yasuko-chan, what’s going on?” Keisuke asked plainly. “I’m supposed to be at practice before then, we’re leaving for our expedition tomorrow.”

“I know, I know, I just…” Yasuko took a breath. “You remember that student I mentioned yesterday? He says he knows engines and a bunch of stuff about racing?”

“I’m listening,” Keisuke replied patiently.

“Well, he’s totally convinced that ‘Takahashi Keisuke’ drives an FD with a single turbocharger,” Yasuko declared.

“So? You know he’s wrong, you know it’s got a twin turbo on it.”

“Yeah, I know that, you showed me the very first time we met. But…”

Suddenly, Keisuke sounded more alert, as though he had figured something out. “But he was all arrogant and certain and wrong about it, so you spoke up and corrected him before you realized what you were doing. Of course, he didn’t believe you. He doesn’t think you know nearly as much about racing as he does. So he said, ‘Prove it’, and you said, ‘I know Takahashi Keisuke, and I’ve seen the engine on his FD for myself’, and then he said, ‘I don’t believe you, there’s no way a girl has met him when I haven’t,’ and you said, ‘Well, I see him every day, and he would come pick me up if I asked him to’. Am I getting close?”

“The words were a little different,” Yasuko admitted. “But the meaning was pretty much the same. I’m sorry, it sounds really silly when I hear you say it like that.” It didn’t help, of course, that he had made his voice higher when mimicking her and lower when mimicking Fujita Goro.

“Yeah. Hold on a moment.” There was a pause at the other end of the call, followed by a heavy sigh. “Alright, Yasuko-chan. I’ll be a couple of minutes late and make a big entrance. Doesn’t that school have a driveway with a roundabout in front of the building?”

“Yes,” Yasuko babbled in relief. “It’s a full circle, there’s a fountain in the middle, it’s tighter than the corner I saw at Myogi.”

“I remember it.” Now, Keisuke sounded amused. “You get this once, Yasuko-chan. Understand?”

“I understand, Keisuke-san. Thank you.”

“So make sure I’ve got an audience.”

That, she hadn’t quite expected. “What do you mean?”

“I’m going to sweep in, make an entrance, show off my FD, and pick you up from school, right? So get an audience. Anybody who’s willing to come watch. They don’t believe you now, but I know you trust me to come through for you. So let them know, as many of them as you can, that the Project D racer Takahashi Keisuke is coming to personally pick you up in his fancy, yellow, twin-turbo car. Okay?”

“I will! Thank you, Keisuke-san! I’ll see you in a few hours,” Yasuko squeaked. He acknowledged, and she ended the call. Then, she turned to the students who were surrounding her, paying particular attention to Fujita. “He’s coming to pick me up right after school, a couple of minutes late, to make sure anybody can see him who wants to. Then you’ll be able to see for yourself that his turbo is a twin,” she announced triumphantly. “Anybody who’s interested in seeing a racer should come to the front steps of the school and watch him come in.”

Fujita still didn’t believe her. “It’s the fake. I heard there were a couple of fakes going around, pretending to be Project D, and I bet that’s who it is.”

But now, Yasuko was very certain of her ground. “It’s not the fake. I heard about them. He’s real, and he’s coming. You just watch and see.”

As she set her lunch tray in its proper place and shouldered her backpack, he continued to follow her, asserting his position. “We’ll see, and I won’t be fooled. I heard about the fake. He’s short, fat, and ugly. And he thought he could just put a ‘Project D’ sticker on his car and fool everybody.”

“I know,” Yasuko told him, starting to get fed up with his continued chatter. “And Project D doesn’t use stickers on their car. They just marked the vans. Keisuke-san and Ryosuke-san are really tall, and neither of them are a bit fat. Shut up for a moment, will you? You’ll see for yourself that I’m not lying, and I’m not mistaken. At least, as long as you can tell the difference between a single turbo and a twin by looking at them. I’ll give you a hint. ‘Twin’ means that there are two of them.”

“You know, you get really snarky when you’re angry,” Fujita remarked, but then he left her alone. “See you in a couple hours! I’ll be there when the fake Takahashi Keisuke shows up!”

“Yeah,” Yasuko muttered, watching him go. “You’ll see.”

Yasuko had nearly forgotten to try to assemble an audience, but Fujita did most of the work for her. On her way to her next class, a couple of the students whom she had not yet met approached her. “You ought to know that the loudmouth kid who loves racers is going around telling everybody that you’re claiming that the famous Project D uphill specialist is picking you up from school today.”

“It’s true,” Yasuko told them. “He’s going to be a couple of minutes late, and told me that anybody who doesn’t believe me should be there.”

“Tachibana, this is serious,” one of the students warned her. “Fujita doesn’t always know what he’s talking about. But he’s not the only guy here who likes cars. If you have some guy pretending to be a real racer, people are going to know. You’re being awfully bold for a newcomer.”

“Fujita challenged me!” Yasuko objected. “He started it. Well, I’m going to finish it. Watch and see.”

When school let out, Yasuko found the front steps so badly crowded that she had to find a spot near the back. She was one of the shortest students in the school, so she couldn’t see a thing at first. Luckily for her, everyone finally settled down and sat on the steps as they waited. The minutes dragged on, but it never even occurred to Yasuko to question whether her favorite racer was coming as he’d promised. Finally, Fujita spoke up loudly from near the front of the crowd. “You see? We’re wasting our time. I’m going.”

Just then, Yasuko heard a familiar and welcome sound. “Wait!” she called out. “There’s a rotary engine approaching.”

Nobody else heard it at first. Then, heads lifted across the crowd as the yellow FD pulled onto the straightaway. The engine roared. “He’s going to drift,” Yasuko announced, recognizing the pattern.

“He’s coming in too fast,” Fujita objected. Yasuko knew that he’d be correct if the driver were almost anybody else. Sure enough, the rear wheels kicked out at just the right time as the car pulled into a careful, precise drift. Yasuko heard one student holler that he was going to ‘do a one-eighty’ and another insist that he was ‘doing a three-sixty’. Fujita actually guessed correctly this time. “It’ll be a two-seventy,” he insisted. Sure enough, the vehicle stopped neatly at the three-quarter mark. Then the driver’s side door opened. Yasuko was gratified to see Fujita, down near the front of the group, actually turn white as Keisuke stepped out. There was a stunned silence for a moment, then a couple of the students started to cheer and clap and the others joined in.

For the next several minutes, Yasuko hung back and watched in satisfaction as Keisuke raised his hood, showed off the car, and patiently signed autographs. Faced with evidence he couldn’t deny, Fujita actually straightened up and behaved very respectfully. Finally, Keisuke straightened up and spoke loudly enough for everybody to hear him. The crowd of students quieted down very quickly. “Alright! As much as we’ve all enjoyed this, I didn’t actually come here for any of you. I’m here to pick up The ‘Racer’s Angel’.”

Fujita quickly leaped onto his statement. “That’s how you did it, Tachibana! That’s how you got him here. You lied to him! Of course he’s here for ‘Racer’s Angel’, she’s practically famous with them! But she doesn’t attend school here!”

“Uh…” Yasuko rose from the steps, shouldered her backpack, and took what felt like a very long walk through the crowd. They parted to let her through, watching her in astonishment and making her feel more and more nervous. “Keisuke-san!” she scolded as she reached him. “Why did you have to do that? I wasn’t planning on telling anybody about the title!”

“Hey. Once you asked me to come in and perform for you in front of the entire school, you gave up any right to secrecy,” he responded easily. “Are you ready to go, Yasuko-chan?”

“More than ready,” she told him wholeheartedly. She wanted to disappear. She hurried over to the other side of the car and dumped her backpack right onto the floor of the passenger’s seat. She climbed in and looked through the window hesitantly. Most of the crowd seemed surprised, but nobody was glaring at her. Fujita, however, looked positively thunderstruck and horrified. Yasuko wondered if he was thinking about what he’d said the day before. She wondered if he felt sorry for it. She couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. He might have been the only person in the group who felt as awkward as she did at that moment. So she tried to offer him a kind smile and wave, so that he’d know she wasn’t angry. It would have been more accurate to say that she merely felt he’d been punished enough. After all, his arrogance still grated on her nerves. He hesitantly waved back, and then the students cheered again as Keisuke started up the engine and drove away.

“I’m not so sure that was a good idea,” Yasuko mused, as they put distance between them and the school. “Tomorrow is going to be really awkward.”

“Well, now is a fine time for you to think about that,” Keisuke muttered. “You owe me, Yasuko-chan. An hour off my practice time, just to play celebrity for a bunch of kids.”

“You couldn’t have completely hated getting all that attention,” Yasuko pointed out.

He paused for a moment. “You still owe me.”

“I didn’t intend to bring up the whole ‘Racer’s Angel’ thing,” Yasuko grumbled. “Like Fujita was talking about just yesterday. Now the whole school knows. So now they know all about my… my ex-father, and me being removed for abuse, and him being sent to jail, and the whole thing about Shingo and his seatbelt, and everything that came out in the trial. I kind of wanted to start new, and now my entire life has just followed me into that school.”

“That didn’t happen because I called you ‘Racer’s Angel’,” Keisuke told her. “That happened the moment you let slip that you knew me personally and I would pick you up from school when you asked me. You did this to yourself. I just supported you.” He paused for a moment as they passed through a couple of busy intersections. “And you did it to yourself because you heard someone else being wrong, and you had to correct him.”

“Then it’s his fault,” Yasuko replied sourly.

“He didn’t make you speak up. If you hadn’t, so what? He would have been wrong. Like he was yesterday, and the day before. Did it really matter that much what type of car he thinks I drive?” He turned off the main road and started heading for Akagi. “Look, I’m not scolding you, Yasuko-chan. I get it, I honestly do. I was like that. I’m still like that. I’ve been learning when I need to speak out, and when I’m better off shutting up and letting Aniki handle it. I had to learn that when I faced off against Aikawa.”

“Him again! I’m tired of hearing his name. I’m tired of being reminded that he exists,” Yasuko burst out, frustrated.

Keisuke sighed. “I don’t blame you. I think I’m going to take my own advice and let Aniki explain it to you better. The other price of having me pick you up now is that you’ve got to do your homework at the vans instead of the gas station. I don’t think anybody has a runner to spare until this evening when you get picked up.”

“That’s not a big problem. I don’t have much homework. My class is doing field trips tomorrow and the next day. We’ll be visiting a bunch of shrines on and around the Three Mountains.”

“Oh, I remember doing that in school. I found it really boring, but I never paid half as much attention as you do in class. You might find it interesting. Anyway, it gets you out and about while we’re gone. I know you get itchy for adventure when we go off on our excursions. Ok, hold on, here we go.” They had reached the bottom of Akagi Pass, and the FD roared again as he started up the course.

“So, are you a proper celebrity now?” was the greeting Yasuko received, as she climbed out of the FD and shouldered her backpack. She whimpered in dismay.

“Oh, Ryosuke-san, you too?”

The Project D leader stepped over to the driver’s side window, which his brother obligingly rolled down. “Did you perform well, Keisuke?”

“Yes, I did everything just the way you told me to. It made for good theater. I found it pretty boring.”

“Wait,” Yasuko protested. “I thought Keisuke-san came because I asked him to. What’s this all about?”

“Good job. Start your runs,” Ryosuke told his brother. He led Yasuko back to the vans as the FD sped away. “I hadn’t actually planned this. I knew that your identity and history was going to come out at one point or another, probably through the rumor mill. I knew that, depending on how it happened, you could have suffered a good deal of harm. I didn’t have a plan to mitigate that… not yet. When Keisuke muted the phone call and told me what you’d asked for, I saw the opportunity. Now everything’s been revealed cleanly, and you’ll be able to weather the fallout. The next couple of days are probably going to be difficult.”

“Maybe.” Yasuko set her backpack in the corner of Van Two’s trunk space and sat herself down on the edge. She repeated what she had already told Keisuke. “Tomorrow and Saturday are both field trips to the shrines on the mountains. We start at Akagi tomorrow morning, and finish Saturday afternoon at Myogi. So there will be more teachers about, and we’ll be expected to behave ourselves and travel quietly.”

“I remember doing that in school,” Ryosuke remarked thoughtfully. “I enjoyed it. I should take a moment and tell you all my favorite parts.”

The rest of the day passed much more pleasantly. Ryosuke seemed more ‘present’ than he had in a while. He sat with her and talked about the shrines that she was going to see. He listened to her talk about school and about her reluctance to drive again after spinning out. “This weekend starts the most intense period that Project D will ever see,” he told her, after receiving the call from her guardian that he was on his way to pick her up. “Give everybody their hugs now, and keep an eye on the website. We’ll call you when we can.” He paused for a moment, then turned his full attention back on her. “Wait for us to call. Tachibana will have to handle everything himself for a while. But when we do call, either of us, if you have had any more nightmares, I want you to tell me. Or tell Keisuke, and he’ll tell me. Alright?”

That made Yasuko feel better. They weren’t just disappearing off into the mountains as if she did not matter. Ryosuke was thinking of her and preparing her for their absence. “I will, Ryosuke-san,” she told him. “Thank you.” And he got his hug first.

Ryosuke chose Keisuke to bring Yasuko down to her guardian. “Remember, I do want you to drive again,” he told her. “Make a decision. If you want me to keep teaching you after this coming week, when we’re done with our expeditions, then I want to see you up here in Tachibana’s vehicle tonight. Do you understand? I don’t care how slow you are, which gears you use, or where your RPM’s are, as long as you don’t blow his engine. And nobody cares if you scratch the bumper,” he added kindly.

Yasuko had made her decision by the time they reached the bottom of the hill, and she announced it to her guardian as he pulled up. “I’ve got to put my backpack in, but then… please, Yuichi-san, may I drive the pass once?” He obliged enthusiastically, and she realized that he really had been waiting and hoping for her to start trying again.

“I’ll spectate,” Keisuke warned her. “It won’t be like last time. I’ll hang well back. It’ll be a good exercise for me. If I’m bothering you, flash your lights twice and I’ll back off and disappear. Don’t be afraid.”

He was as good as his word. Though she could often see his car in the rear view mirror, it was not nearly close enough for her to feel the energy. She started out slowly, but she pushed the pace cautiously until she reached the top at her usual, comfortable speed. She waved to Ryosuke and he waved back. Then, she pushed the pace again on the downhill, taking the corners wider, but always staying in control of herself. Keisuke praised her when they reached the bottom of the hill, and she realized for herself just how much she’d missed the way that a good drive cleared her head and made all of her problems feel more manageable. “I might have a rough weekend,” she told Yuichi, after explaining all the events of the day to him, “but I think this crazy time is finally coming to an end.”

She had no way of knowing how wrong she was.

But she also had no nightmares that night, nor the next.

Chapter Text

It didn’t happen that night. Yasuko slept well and awakened ready to take on a day of visiting shrines with her classmates. 

It didn’t happen the next day. The fallout from being revealed as ‘Racer’s Angel’ wasn’t as bad as she’d feared. Many of her classmates had figured it out before Keisuke’s arrival, due to the calm assurance she showed in her assertion that he was coming and that he was the real thing. Most of them didn’t even care. They had no interest in street racing anyway.
 
The visits to the shrines around Akagi went well. Yasuko did look for the things that Ryosuke had told her about. As she found each one, she felt a small connection to him and the other Initial D members she missed. Fujita had mostly left her alone, but that afternoon he started trying to ask her questions quietly about all the things he’d ever wanted to know about the local street racers. Yasuko scolded him for not staying quiet, and then one of the teachers scolded both of them for not being quiet, but she didn’t get into any real trouble. Keisuke called her that evening before his practice to ask about her day and let her know that everything was going well.

It didn’t happen that night, either. Yasuko had no nightmares, no premonitions. Yuichi had no weird feelings the next morning, as he brought her to the school in time to catch the travel bus.

It happened just before lunchtime, at the plaza next to the largest shrine on Myogi.

The class was in momentary disarray. Students were being herded from the bus into the plaza. Some bought their lunch from the nearby restaurant, while others had brought theirs from home. Yasuko hung back for just a moment, letting one of the teachers know that she needed to use the bathroom. She slipped in to settle her business. She was just stepping out the door and starting to glance around for signs of the other students when it happened. A large hand closed roughly over her mouth, and then she saw the knife.

“That’s right,” the voice told her quietly. “Don’t make a sound, and don’t struggle, or I’ll use this. Did you think I had forgotten you? I was just waiting for the right time. Even if you’re stupid enough to call out, none of your teachers will hear you. They just all went back inside to gather the other kids. We haven’t got long, but we’ve got long enough. Now come with me.”

Yasuko didn’t dare resist. She had felt the cold terror descend upon her as soon as she heard that voice. She looked up and recognized the only man she hated and feared even more than her father. Aikawa released his hand from her face, but she could feel the sharp point of the knife touching her side and she knew that she had no chance of fighting him, not here, not now. He walked her away from the bathrooms, along the side of the parking lot. Yasuko glanced around, hoping to spot a student or teacher who might recognize her, but he was correct. They had all apparently vanished. There were only a couple of other people in the lot, leaving or returning to their cars. None of them would know that there was anything wrong, not as long as she walked politely with him. Then, just as she started to despair, she saw a familiar sight. A young man perched on the edge of the parking lot, almost behind the bathrooms, finishing up his own lunch. His skin was browner than most people’s, his hair parted like curtains and still managing to always fall forward. Yasuko recognized him like a jolt of electricity shooting through her, and she hoped that she hadn’t actually twitched. She risked a quick glance up at Aikawa, whose focus was on the rest of the parking lot. Then she turned her head just a little to look back at the man she’d recognized. He was still looking down at the rest of his lunch. She stared straight at him, hoping against hope that he’d glance up. Just a moment would be enough. Just an instant… And it happened. He glanced up, possibly feeling her gaze directed at him, and their eyes met. Yasuko took a breath and tried as hard as she could to express her mute plea for help through her facial expression.

Shoji Shingo rose to his feet, startled, dropping the remainder of his lunch.

Aikawa apparently hadn’t noticed. He pulled her over to the same grassy verge, several yards away from the Night Kids racer’s lunch spot. “Drop your backpack here,” he ordered. She didn’t have much in it today, just her lunch and a few personal items. She shrugged it off and dropped it. “And your wallet,” he told her.

“It’s in the backpack,” she replied truthfully. He took a moment, holding the knife carefully in place, and checked to find it in the front compartment.

“And your phone,” he asserted. “I know you keep it on your person.”

Yasuko had honestly forgotten that she had one. She felt frustration that she hadn’t realized it earlier, maybe turned it on, maybe managed to use it somehow. But now it was too late, and she wasn’t even sure if she could have made it work even if she’d thought of it. “Do it,” he reminded her. “Or I’ll have to search you, and you won’t like that.” The threat was enough to cow her spirit again, and she meekly dropped the phone on top of her backpack. Surely this was strange enough behavior to attract someone’s attention, she hoped. She realized that he was blocking her view from the rest of the parking lot with his bulk. But surely Shingo saw it, right? He had to know something was wrong. She risked another glance around as Aikawa herded her across the lot towards his car. Shingo was indeed approaching the backpack. When she risked another look, he was moving in parallel with them across the lot. So far so good, maybe. But there was no way he could reach her before she reached Aikawa’s car.

She had to turn her attention back to her own situation as they reached the white Lan Evo. Aikawa opened the passenger door for her, then pushed her as she was climbing inside. She stumbled and collapsed into her seat. “You didn’t have to do that,” she protested. “I was getting in.” In response, he slammed her door and locked it. 

In a moment of desperation, she reached out and unlocked it. Maybe she could bolt from the car while he was walking to the other side. Maybe she could outrun him. At least he didn’t have a knife poking into her side right at this moment. But he had anticipated her, and he re-locked the door with his key fob before she could open it. She tried again, but he was just too fast. He climbed into the driver’s seat and slapped her across the face. “Your father was never tough enough with you,” he snarled. “You’re going to learn better with me. Put on your seatbelt.”

Yasuko obeyed, trembling in fear and anger. She tried to calm herself and think clearly. Whatever was going to happen next, she was pretty sure she could not escape the car as it was moving. “You’re taking me to him, then,” she guessed. “He got out somehow. Where are we going?”

Aikawa wasn’t quite stupid enough to answer that question. “No, your worthless father is still in jail. You’re mine. You’ve been mine for a long time. He can’t deny it, and he can’t delay it anymore.”

The Lan Evo pulled out of its spot. As it headed for the road, Yasuko saw a red Honda Civic pull out of another parking spot, and part of her courage returned. She hoped that, as they passed the museum and reached the route, Aikawa would make a right-hand turn. He did. She remained silent for a moment as he worked his way around a corner and into a straightaway. She saw another road approaching to the left. He didn’t turn, and her courage rose a little further. He was taking her right down Myogi Pass.

“You won’t be able to keep me hidden,” Yasuko spoke up. “You should know what they call me around here. My guardians aren’t the only people who know who I am. They won’t be the only ones looking for me.”

“I’ve heard,” Aikawa growled. “’Racer’s Angel’. Takahashi Ryosuke thinks he can save you by making you into a celebrity. But racers stick to their own. Your fancy title won’t mean anything outside of Akagi, and we’re a long way from there.”

“You’re wrong,” Yasuko asserted. “There’s a racer following us right now. He won’t let you go.” She remembered Aikawa and Ichigo talking and arguing with each other in her father’s shop. Ichigo had claimed that Aikawa was a bit of a coward, and that his driving worsened when he was nervous. If she could make him nervous, especially by telling him the truth, maybe… it would help somehow. He raised his hand to her again, but she spoke up before he could take the swing. “If you’re not a total fool, you’ll listen to me instead of shutting me up. I know all the racers in Gunma, and half of them in Saitama. And by now, nearly all of the racers in Gunma know me.”

He didn’t like that, not at all, but he held back and dropped his hand back to the gearshift. “Alright, then. Tell me. Not that it matters, see? He can’t keep up with me. A little Civic like that couldn’t match me for power or speed.”

“It does matter. That’s Shoji Shingo, fastest racer in the Myogi Night Kids. This is his territory. What’s more, we’re at the upper end of his home course. We’re going uphill now, and that’s why he’s falling behind. But soon we’re going to crest the highest point, and it’ll be all downhill from there. He’s the team’s downhiller, and that’s when he’ll catch up. What’s more, it’ll be sooner than you’d think.”

“Yeah? Why are you so sure it’ll be that quick?” Aikawa sneered. “It’s daytime. There will be more oncoming traffic to dodge.”

Yasuko kept her tone calm. “Because Shoji Shingo drives recklessly.” She took a breath. “He also races dirty. He’ll bump you if he thinks it’ll give him a win.”

“He can’t take me out like that,” Aikawa muttered, but he had started to sweat just a little. “I’m not driving some crappy FD or Eight-Six with rear wheel drive. Besides, if he really does know who you are, and if he does care, he won’t try his tricks while you’re in the car with me.”

That was a good point, Yasuko thought, as they crested the hill and plunged down. She had thought for a moment that Shingo might be able to rescue her by forcing the Lan Evo to a stop. But would he take that chance? Would he risk a crash? And if he did, would it even work? Still, she did not find despair returning. She watched Aikawa drive for a moment while she considered her options. He really wasn’t very good. She wasn’t surprised that Keisuke had beaten him handily, even with a borrowed car. She was pretty sure that Shingo also drove faster than Aikawa did. Sure enough, as they came out of the next corner and started down a straightaway, the little red Civic appeared in the rear view. Aikawa swore. A moment later, Shingo had closed half of the gap between them. But he didn’t move closer. Maybe Aikawa was right, Yasuko thought. She turned to look through the rear windshield. Sure enough, Shingo seemed helpless. He could keep up with them while they were headed downhill. But what else could he do? What else would he do?

Aikawa reached out, intending to hit her again, and Yasuko suddenly decided that she would rather crash than risk spending the rest of her life with him. She ducked the blow, reached across the center console, grabbed the steering wheel, and pulled it down towards her as hard as she could. The Lan Evo lurched roughly to the side and started to skid perilously toward the outer guardrail and the edge of the cliff beyond.

It didn’t work for long. Aikawa quickly switched both hands to the wheel, ripping it from her grasp, cursing, sweating, countersteering a little, letting his car right itself. She noticed that he relied on his four-wheel traction control and ABS. She was used to the Project D racers, who relied almost wholly on skill instead. “You’re going to be sorry for that once we get where we’re going,” Aikawa snarled at her. Ignoring his threat, Yasuko dared to turn and look out the rear windshield again. Shingo’s expression had changed. His eyes met hers, and he gave her a short, grim nod. She realized that he understood her intentions. Turning back to face front, Yasuko let out a breath and grabbed the handle above the door.

She couldn’t help the short shriek that escaped her as she felt the powerful bump from behind. Her momentary alarm quickly faded into elation, even though Aikawa was able to recover from this skid even more quickly than the last. Now that Shingo was ready to play rough, Yasuko was sure that it would only be a short moment of time before the chase ended… one way or another.

Chapter Text

Yamamoto Shinji’s opinion aside, Shingo was no fool. He was a lot of things, and he would admit to being a lot of things, many of them uncomplimentary. But he wasn’t a fool. A fool, after all, wouldn’t work out ways to handicap races in his favor and then succeed in manipulating other racers into accepting the terms. Of course, he didn’t do that anymore. He had come to realize the value of struggling during a race and even losing now and then. But he was still no fool. As soon as he had glanced up from his lunch and seen Yasuko being herded away, quite easily recognizable with a bright teal hair dye job that was only starting to show dark blonde roots, he knew that something had to be wrong. By the time her abductor had forced her to drop her things in the grass and walk away, Shingo had already made up his mind to follow and do what he could to help her. He took a moment to grab her backpack and phone, quickly stuffing the phone into his jacket pocket, wondering to himself why such a spirited girl would allow herself to be taken like this. Then, just for a brief moment, he saw the flash of a knife held to her side and he understood completely. If it came to that, Shingo wasn’t exactly enthused at the idea of fighting someone who outweighed him and carried a knife. But he had to do something, and he would never reach her in time for a physical confrontation anyway, so he made for his car instead. He considered calling the police while climbing into the car, but he heard the other car start and didn’t think he’d have enough time. If he lost them, nobody could reach her in time. Tossing her pack carelessly into the back seat, he started up and pulled out of his parking spot as quickly as he could. He put his seatbelt on as he turned onto the road, following the Lan Evo. The click of the latch reminded him of that twisted piece of metal that Yasuko had made for him out of her mother’s brooch. Shingo put his pedal to the floor.

As the white Lan Evo started on the downhill part of Myogi Pass and Shingo got it back in his view, though, he began thinking seriously about the situation they were in. Sure, Yasuko’s kidnapper couldn’t lose him on the downhill. But once they reached the end of the pass, where would he go? If it involved an uphill, that Lan Evo would easily out-accelerate his Civic. And then, what? He would lose them. Could he maybe overtake it along the pass and then block it somehow? He could cause an accident doing that, or the Lan Evo could just turn around and start back up the hill where it would clearly outpace him, or her attacker would exit the vehicle and he’d have to figure out how to deal with the guy who had a knife. Granted, at least he’d have a chance to grab something from his car that maybe he could fight with. Any idea he came up with, though, definitely raised the risk to Yasuko’s safety and well-being. Some of them raised the risk considerably. What was Yasuko willing to do to get away from this man?

That question was answered sooner than he’d anticipated. Her sudden lunge for the wheel startled him, and he had to adjust quickly to avoid hitting the Lan Evo as it swerved and skidded. As the driver fought the car back under control, she peeked out from behind the back of her seat and looked back at Shingo. His eyes narrowed, and he nodded slightly. “I understand you, Yasuko-chan, I understand completely. You’re ready to fight dirty. I’ll see what I can do.”

What could he do? That was another good question. He knew just how to nudge a rear-wheel drive car mid-turn and knock it into a spin. But this was a pretty hefty vehicle. It had better traction control than he did. It was heavier, and it had a more powerful engine. On top of that, Shingo could tell just by the appearance of the vehicle and pattern of its movement that it was being driven by a street racer. He tested it first, bumping it on the straightaway and watching the driver recover. As they entered the next corner, he bumped it again, in just the right place to destabilize a rear-wheel drive vehicle. This time, it took the driver longer to recover. When he did straighten out and start down the next straightaway, Shingo noticed that his driving style had become a little more erratic. “You’re not very good, are you?” he muttered, thinking out loud. “You’re depending more on the car than on your skill. And you’re not brave, for all that you were willing to pull a knife on a child. I bet I’m making you sweat.”

Just bullying the man, though, wouldn’t get Shingo the results that he needed. Even if he bumped the Evo in a tough corner, he wasn’t sure he could block it in. Even if he managed to get Yasuko to pull the wheel again, that wouldn’t do the job by itself. A combined effort, though… Shingo began to plan quickly. Most of Myogi Pass was straight, and the biggest risk was the narrow road and steep cliff. But there was one terrible corner coming up, over halfway down. If they struck together with the right timing, and if they did it in that tricky corner, he just might be able to get the vehicle to spin out entirely. Then, perhaps, he could get past it and box it in before the driver could turn it around. Maybe it could even hit the guardrail hard enough to partly or fully disable the vehicle. It was worth a shot. More than that, it was probably the only shot worth taking.

The first thing he needed to do was to draw his co-conspirator’s attention. He surged forward, then controlled his speed very precisely. He delivered a light tap to the Lan Evo’s bumper, something that the people inside would surely feel, but nothing like his previous attacks. The target car fishtailed slightly as the driver panicked despite his gentle touch. Shingo smiled grimly at the sight. Yasuko peeked out from behind her seat again, startled. “Good.” Shingo reached up with one hand and mimed pulling at the wheel. Yasuko’s eyes widened. She nodded, then started to turn back. “No, wait!” Shingo protested. He held up his hand quickly. “Not yet. Wait. Wait.” Then he had to drop his hand back to the gearshift, then to the wheel. Yasuko nodded and remained in place, watching him. After about a minute, this behavior earned her a backhanded slap from the driver. Shingo felt his fury rise at the sight. “Knife or no knife,” he decided, “you’re going to pay for that once I get you stopped.” They were nearing the corner now. He quickly calculated and hoped that Yasuko had a good sense of timing. Any girl who could tune an engine by ear had to have a good sense of timing, right? “Okay…” He shifted gears and held up his hand again. “Okay. Five.” He closed one finger. “Four.” He closed another. “Three.” Then he had to drop his hand to the wheel again. Yasuko nodded and turned away, settling into her seat again.

“Two.” The Lan Evo entered the corner.

“One.” Shingo surged forward and hit the bumper at an angle, forcing it further into the turn and across both lanes of traffic.

“Zero.” And at the exact correct moment, Yasuko surged out of her seat again. She grabbed the wheel, which her captor held with both hands this time, and pulled with all her strength. She couldn’t force it as far to the side as before, but she didn’t have to. Shingo saw the angle change and he knew that she had done just enough. He delivered one more decided push to the stricken vehicle, and it started to spin wildly. In a sudden panic, Shingo took in the sight ahead of him, speeding up, seeing only one possible line with enough space for his Civic to avoid an impending accident. He sailed past the vehicle just as everything began to go either terribly wrong or horribly right. The Lan Evo slammed into the guardrail, and its driver did all the wrong things to try to control it. As it rebounded, it tipped past the point of no return.

Shingo only saw the second half of the vehicle’s rollover, but it was enough to chill him. It bounced only once, on the driver’s side edge of the roof, before righting itself. It continued to tip as it twisted sideways, but the smash into the opposite guardrail forced both sets of tires back onto the road as it counter-spun. Now, the vehicle had lost most of its forward momentum, despite heading steeply downhill. Shingo took a moment and spun his own wheel, turning in a neat one-eighty, coming to a stop within a few inches of the guardrail himself, roughly diagonal and facing uphill. He yanked the emergency brake and burst out of the car. From the angle of the Lan Evo, it had tapped the opposite guardrail again. It sat diagonally across the other lane. The engine had stilled, and steam rose from beneath the hood. Shingo leaned back into his car and tapped the hazard lights, then shut his door and hurried over to the crashed vehicle. He pulled his phone out of his pocket as he ran, intending to finally call for the police or an ambulance, but he didn’t get the chance. A loud thump came from inside the Lan Evo, then another. He reached the passenger side, stowing his phone back into his pocket. The door, slightly ajar, trembled with the next blow. He realized that Yasuko was trying to kick it open. “Good, you’re conscious and moving,” he muttered. The door was stuck, but he soon figured out that he could kick in the hinge and leverage it just a little further. A couple of good kicks on his end and a couple more on hers, and the door swung just far enough for her to climb out.

His relief at her appearance was short-lived. She seemed okay at first glance, but she only managed to bolt one step beyond the car door before she fell to the ground among the spread of broken glass from windows and lights. Shingo cringed and hurried over to help her up. Before he could reach her, she pushed herself off the ground and tried to run again. She dropped back to the ground, and he knelt down and grabbed her shoulders. “It’s okay, I’ll help you, hold on… Hey!” Yasuko had twisted out of his grasp. As he reached for her again, she aimed a punch for his head. He blocked it. “Stop, stop - I’m trying to help you! Hey! Oomph!” He belatedly remembered that she had fought his friend Takeshi when they had first found her at the top of Akagi. Back then, she had been weak from hunger and fatigue, and her struggles had amounted to nothing. This time, she was well-fed and desperate, and much stronger. She had thrown him off, then kicked him right in the most vulnerable spot she could reach. He dropped helplessly to the ground, rolling away, groaning and trying to catch his breath. “That was a cheap shot, Yasuko-chan,” he muttered. Then he rolled again, looking back at her. “Hey, hey, hey, hey, stop trying to escape!” In her single-minded determination, she was half-crawling, half-rolling right for the opposite side of the road and the cliff edge barely beyond it. Unfortunately, he’d managed to get a good look at her face while she was fighting back, and he was pretty sure that she either wasn’t listening to him or couldn’t understand what he was saying.

“Oh, fine,” Shingo growled, forcing himself to his feet, his legs still a little wobbly. “You need me to be the villain, I’ll do it.” He approached her again, from the back, and tackled her as if he were the one trying to abduct her. She shrieked and struggled, but she didn’t have the strength to resist against a man in the prime of his strength who was determined to fight her. He wrestled her down and pinned her securely, less than two feet away from the edge of the cliff. Just seeing the sheer drop so close to them was enough to make him sweat and curse. That only frightened her more, but at this point, there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. He tried again. “Ok, look, it’s me, alright? It’s Shingo. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m trying to not hurt you. I’m rescuing you, remember?” But she continued to struggle the best she could, and he wasn’t sure how to get through to her. He glanced away from the cliff - any sight was better than that - and noticed his car still sitting and waiting for him. Inspiration struck. With all his might, he managed to pull her up off the ground. He half-dragged, half-carried her over to the front of the car. Shingo grabbed one flailing hand that had broken loose from his grasp and pressed it against the front bumper. “Look, here’s the car. Touch the car. Remember the car?” Her struggles started to ease, and he gently placed her other hand on the bumper. “C’mon, you remember the car. Focus on the car.” She became still and quiet, gasping for breath, and he sighed in relief as he adjusted his hold so that he could sit with her instead of restraining her. “Tell me about it, Yasuko-chan. Tell me about the car.”

She finally spoke, her voice strained. “Red… Civic… nineties… EG6… please…”

“Good,” Shingo told her firmly. “Who drives it? C’mon, Yasuko-chan. You know a racer who drives a red EG6.”

The answer came out by rote, which was fine by him. “Shoji… Shingo. Myogi Night Kids.”

“Yes!” Now they were making progress. He tipped her back in his arms, carefully, looking at her face again. “Who am I?” He checked for just a moment to make sure that he didn’t have the sun directly behind him.

It worked. “Shingo,” she replied, and he felt her relax. “I can hardly see,” she whimpered. “I hear the engine… and everything keeps turning around and around. It’s all blurry, and then sharp, and then blurry. You keep fading away…” She closed her eyes.

“That sounds bad.” Shingo took a moment to try to clear his head. He glanced back at the wrecked Lan Evo. It had remained still and silent since she had exited it. “I’m going to put you in my car, okay, Yasuko-chan? I need to get you somewhere safe where you can lie down.”

“He’s coming after me,” she whimpered. “I need to get away…”

“Actually, he’s not, and that bothers me,” Shingo pointed out. “Look, I’ll always be between you and him, okay? Promise. He can’t get past me.” She didn’t respond, but she also didn’t fight him. It took a bit of work, but he managed to carry her over to the other side of the car, open the door, and settle her into the passenger’s seat. He reclined the seat as far back as it would go and put her seatbelt on. 

Her eyes opened again as the latch clicked. “Where am I?” she asked, her voice trembling.

Shingo hastened to reassure her. “You’re in my car. Shoji Shingo’s car. The red Civic. Can’t you hear it?”

She slowly nodded and closed her eyes again. He sighed and pulled out his cell phone. This time, he had nothing to interrupt him from dialing for emergency services and reporting a serious accident with injuries on Myogi Pass, on the C-curve. From the dulled sound of the voice on the other side, this was a pretty common place for cars to wipe out. The nearest ambulance had just been diverted to the hospital on another call, she told him, but they would send one as soon as they could. Were the passengers conscious? He reported back, of course, that one was and one didn’t seem to be, and she thanked him. She wanted him to stay on the line, but he demurred, telling her that he had to do what he could to stabilize the situation while he waited. 

Ending the call, he took a moment to look around again and think about what he was doing. This was way over his head, especially with the ambulance running late and only one of them coming. Shingo stuck his hands in his jacket pockets and paused as he realized that he had another phone. He pulled out a pretty pink and mint green cell phone with a butterfly motif. Glancing back at Yasuko, he flipped it open and brought up the contacts list. He didn’t know the first name at all. The second name was far more recognizable. Shingo tapped the button and held the phone to his ear. It rang three times before it clicked.

“Yasuko-chan…” The voice on the other end was heavy with sleep. “I take it this is important.”

“Yeah,” Shingo replied wryly. “It’s definitely important.”

That earned him a pause, followed by a much sharper tone. “Who is this?”

“Shoji Shingo. Myogi Night Kids, you remember? You are Takahashi Ryosuke, right?”

“Yes, I am. You’d better tell me what’s going on.”

Shingo took a deep breath. “Yasuko-chan has been in a pretty bad automobile accident,” he deftly summarized.

“Is she hurt?”

“I think so.” Shingo glanced back at her. “She’s really confused. She says the world is spinning, and her vision keeps blurring.”

“Wasn’t she with her class?”

“No.” He took another deep breath. “Someone tried to kidnap her.” He had no clue how he could explain to Ryosuke that he caused the crash on purpose, so he didn’t try. “They wiped out halfway down Myogi Pass.”

“Who kidnapped her?”

“I don’t know! I thought I’d seen him before, but I can’t remember where. Oh.” Shingo suddenly remembered where he’d seen that evil-looking face. “That guy. I think he was at Yasuko-chan’s trial. I think I saw him in the audience. The car’s easy, it’s a Lan Evo V, a white one.”

Shingo listened to the response on the other end of the phone, impressed. He didn’t know that a classy guy like Takahashi Ryosuke even knew half the curse words he was muttering in response.

Chapter Text

One of the most useful things about Takahashi Ryosuke was that it never took him long to collect himself in a crisis and start handling things. As soon as he finished reacting to the news about Yasuko, he got straight to the point. “Alright. I need details. Where are you now? Where is everybody involved? Have you contacted any of her other guardians?”

“I don’t know her other guardian,” Shingo told him. “We’re still about halfway down the pass. I put Yasuko-chan in my car with the seat back, so that she could rest. That guy’s still in the wreck, and he hasn’t made a sound. I called emergency services, but they can’t get an ambulance up here for a while.” He heard silence on the other end for just a moment, and guessed at the reaction. “Look, I’m not that stupid. I know it’s not a good idea to move someone who’s been in a wreck like that. But she kicked her way out of the car and kept trying to get away. I had to wrestle her down and get her to listen to me before she started to calm down, and then I put her right into the car and strapped her in. It was the best I could do.”

Ryosuke started to respond, but Yasuko began whimpering again at the same moment, and Shingo prioritized. “Hold on a sec. What is it, Yasuko-chan? I’m right here. You’re safe.”

“He’s coming for me,” she whimpered.

Shingo sighed, frustrated. “He’s not. He’s not even trying. Look, I’m right here, between you and him, just like I promised. Remember? Try to stay calm, okay? I won’t let him get to you.”

“Is that Yasuko-chan?” Ryosuke asked over the phone.

“Yeah, she keeps saying that someone’s coming after her. The kidnapper, I think. I’m trying to calm her down again.”

“Did you check on the wreck yet and find out why he isn’t coming?” Ryosuke asked patiently.

“No! Look, she got out of the car, I got her into my car, I called emergency services, I called you. I’m not that keen on checking, either. The crash was worse than I’d hoped.”

Another pause on the phone. “You have your own cell phone with you, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think Yasuko-chan can hold her phone? I’ll talk to her.”

“It’s worth a try.”

“Alright. Hand this phone to her and, if she can hold it, I’ll talk to her. I need you to check on the wreck. Take a couple of pictures on your own phone and send them to me. I need the license plate, a view of the wreck, and a view of the driver, so that I can verify my guess. I also need you to check his condition. Then, come on back and report it to me.”

That sounded like orders given, and Shingo didn’t much like obeying orders that other people gave him. On the other hand, wasn’t that exactly what he’d called Ryosuke for? He sighed, fishing his own phone out of his pocket. “On it. Here you go. Yasuko-chan, here, it’s your phone. You can talk on your phone, right?” He carefully fit it into her hand and guided it to her ear. Once he had it in place, she held it there.

“Yes…” she replied into the phone, closing her eyes again. “Ryosuke-san. No. I don’t know where I am. Everything keeps turning when I try to look. Yes, I’m in Shingo’s car. I… I don’t remember why.”

Her voice faded out as Shingo advanced reluctantly on the wrecked Lan Evo. The first pictures were easy. Then, he had to actually advance on the driver and see what was up. He backed off as soon as he started to get close. The window had shattered, and the inside of the car stank. He only got a glimpse of the man himself, and it wasn’t a good one. Shingo took a breath, held it, advanced again, and took a photo. He didn’t want to even touch the man, but he did wait long enough to see the man’s chest rise and fall slowly. Then, he backed up quickly and stood at a distance while he breathed again and started sending off the photos. As he finished, he headed back to his car and dropped down into the driver’s seat. As he leaned against the back of the seat, taking deep breaths, Yasuko whimpered again. Quickly, Shingo reached out and took hold of her hand. “It’s okay. It’s me again. It’s Shingo. You’re in my car. You’re safe here. Nobody’s coming.” He realized belatedly that he was holding the hand that should have had her phone. Glancing around, he saw it lying on the floor between her seat and the center console. He leaned way over and scooped it up with his free hand. “You still on?”

“Yes,” Ryosuke answered. “Did she drop the phone?”

“Yeah, she did. I got the pictures. I think he vomited in the car, and he might’ve done more than that. Not a lot of blood, and it looks like he’s breathing, but I don’t think he’s at all conscious. Man, I don’t blame Yasuko-chan for kicking her way out. I’d be fighting my way out of there even if he didn’t just kidnap me.” Shingo shivered slightly.

“Did you take his pulse?”

“No, I didn’t touch him.” Shingo sat there and hoped as hard as he could that Ryosuke wouldn’t ask him to go do it. But after another moment of silence, Ryosuke switched topics.

“I don’t like what I’m hearing from Yasuko-chan. I think her condition is deteriorating. How many ambulances did they say were coming?”

“The lady mentioned one, and it isn’t here yet. I told them that one person was conscious and the other wasn’t.”

“Tell me about the crash,” Ryosuke insisted. “But be quick.”

Shingo explained the whole scenario as simply and quickly as he could. He told Ryosuke how he’d seen the abduction in process and followed the car. He admitted to bumping the other car. He described how he and Yasuko had orchestrated the crash, offering the details that one racer would know to tell another, details about speed and angles. He finished by recalling the parts of the crash itself that he had seen. He realized as he finished that his hands were starting to tremble, and that he was still holding Yasuko’s hand. “Her hand feels colder now,” he said, thinking aloud into the phone. “I’m going to turn my heat on. Engine’s been running the whole time, but I’ve got plenty of gas left.”

“That’s a good idea,” Ryosuke told him. “Then, I need you to drive her straight to the hospital. Watch your corners. You don’t have anything to brace her neck, do you?”

“I don’t keep things like that in my car,” Shingo protested mildly. “You know you’re asking me to leave the scene, and you know how I’m involved.”

“Sorry,” Ryosuke answered. “I’ve got some connections. I’ll do what I can for you.”

“But I might wind up spending the night in a cell. At least, that’s how it looks right now.”

“I can’t rule that out,” Ryosuke told him honestly. “But she could die.”

Shingo looked back at Yasuko’s pale face. “Yeah. Got it. Okay. So do me a favor. When they cart me off, and the rumor mill starts, make sure everyone knows I did it for her. Because she tried to save my life. Doesn’t matter if she actually did. She tried.”

“Alright. I’ll contact her primary guardian, and he’ll meet her there. Try to avoid getting carted off before he gets there. Call me when you arrive.”

With that as a response, Shingo really did want to hang up on Ryosuke. Unfortunately, Ryosuke beat him to it and hung up first. Shingo sighed, turning off the phone and closing it up. He slipped it back into his pocket. “Alright, Yasuko-chan, we’re moving. Don’t worry, okay? It’s still me. It’s still the Civic. I’m taking you to the hospital, and I’m sticking with you until your guardian gets there.”

She didn’t respond to him, so it was a lonely and tense ride down the rest of the pass. Shingo took the corners carefully, but he still drove fast. They passed the ambulance on its way up, and he muttered a quiet curse. “Wonder how long it’ll take them to bring me in.” 

But there weren’t any police waiting for him as he pulled up to the emergency room entrance and hurried in to get someone to come with a stretcher. “And a neck brace,” he told them. “She’s been in a wreck.” 

“Do you have identification for her?” one of the nurses asked. 

At first, Shingo started to shake his head. Then he paused. “I might. Go ahead, I’ll follow.” Sure enough, her wallet was in her backpack along with her lunch and a couple of random personal items. He used her identification to sign her in, noting her new last name. He told the emergency personnel a little about the wreck, to try to give them an idea of what to check for. Then they ejected him from the area so that they could run some of their tests and change her into hospital scrubs. That didn’t go well. Their actions roused her and she started crying about someone coming for her again. He tried to call out to her, to remind her that she was safe, but he couldn’t get her calmed down again until they let him back into the room. “I don’t like that she keeps doing that,” he admitted to the staff, and one of them noted it down in her record. Once they finished, though, they all walked off and left him sitting there next to her bed with monitors that he wasn’t sure how to read and a girl who seemed more asleep than awake, wondering what on earth he’d gotten himself into. Every time he heard footsteps, he wondered if it was the police coming for him. He tried to call Takahashi Ryosuke back as requested, but he kept getting a busy signal. After only a few minutes, the pressure was too much to bear. Shingo pulled out his own phone. Maybe it was time for him to get some backup of his own. He wasn’t surprised to find the voice on the other side sounding sleepy. “Waking up all sorts of people today,” he muttered quietly to himself, before turning his attention to the call. “Takeshi. I’ve run into trouble, and I could use some backup.”

“What kind of trouble could you possibly be in, that’s worth calling me at this hour, that I’d be willing to get involved in?” As Shingo suspected, his fellow racer was none too pleased to be shaken out of bed.

“Someone tried to kidnap the girl Yasuko, ‘Racer’s Angel’, at Myogi Shrine, and I stopped him. I had to leave the scene to bring her to the hospital. Her guardian isn’t here yet, and the police are probably going to take me for questioning. I don’t want to leave her here alone. She keeps freaking out about someone coming after her, and I have to keep calming her back down again.”

“Are you serious?” Nakazato asked. Granted, Shingo thought, it was a fair question.

“Completely. I have to call Takahashi Ryosuke back, but his phone has been busy. I just want to make sure there’s someone with her if I’m taken away before her guardian gets here, whoever he is.”

“Her guardian is that gas station owner, Tachibana,” Nakazato answered tiredly. “Coming from somewhere near Akina. He’ll be a while. Alright, give me ten minutes.” And, for the second time, Shingo got hung up on.

This time, he minded even less. He tried Takahashi Ryosuke again, and this time he got an answer. “We’re at the hospital,” Shingo explained. “They’ve got her in a bed all hooked up to screens and stuff. Nobody’s panicking, so I think she’s okay for now. We’re still in the emergency department. She started freaking out again, but I was able to calm her down. I think she’s just sort of resting.”

“Tachibana is on his way, but he’s going to be a while,” Ryosuke replied. “I’ve raised my contacts. You should be in the clear, but the police might need to question you. I’m not sure if he’ll arrive before they do.”

“Got it covered,” Shingo told him, pleased to have managed to put one over on the mastermind. “Nakazato should be here in ten minutes. One way or another, we’ll keep someone with her.”

“Excellent. Better than I’d anticipated. Can you read the screens for me and tell me what the medical personnel have said so far?”

“I won’t know what I’m telling you, but I can give you the information.” Shingo was glad to keep busy. He spent some time reading numbers, letters, and words that he did not understand. When he was done, Ryosuke remained silent for a while before speaking again.

“Okay, I think I have it. I’m not too concerned about the palpitations cropping up again. It sounds like they suspect a serious traumatic brain injury, a serious psychiatric disturbance, or both together. If they take her for surgery, I want you to call me right away. Otherwise, don’t disturb me. I’ll make contact when I can.”

“What do you think it is?” Shingo asked curiously.

Ryosuke demurred. “Understand that I’m just a student.”

“Yeah, I don’t care. What do you think?”

“Alright.” Ryosuke paused for a moment, thinking. “I’d say both. I suspect a concussion, but not serious enough to be life-threatening by itself. I think a severe emotional upset is causing the repeated panics. I was able to identify the man who kidnapped her. She’s known him - hated and feared him - since childhood, and he has tried to make claims on her before.”

“What do you mean, ‘claims’? What kind of claims?”

“Betrothal. He also put in a bid to adopt her.”

Shingo didn’t take long to reach several very unpleasant conclusions. He cursed. Ryosuke continued. “You rescued her from her worst nightmare. I’m not at all surprised that she was willing to crash the car and risk her life to get away from it.”

That part still bothered Shingo. “Her life. You said that the concussion wasn’t life-threatening by itself.”

Ryosuke sighed. “Remember, I’m not a doctor, and I’m not even there to see her for myself.”

“I told you, I don’t care.”

“Fine. Neither element is life-threatening alone. But I really don’t like that she keeps getting worked up. She needs to stay as calm as possible, for both her brain and her heart. The next few hours are crucial… but there isn’t much that anybody can do about it, and I have a night of racing to manage.”

Shingo belatedly realized that Ryosuke did sound tired. He looked up as a new person entered the room, then relaxed as soon as he recognized the ‘scary’ man. “Yeah. Nakazato just got here. You said Yasuko-chan’s guardian is on his way. We’ve got this covered. You go win for the pride of Gunma.”

“Thank you,” Ryosuke told him, and ended the call. Shingo closed the phone. He looked over at the girl looking small and fragile in the hospital bed. He leaned forward in his chair. He set his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands for a moment. He heard the scrape and creak of a chair, and then his friend simply rested a hand heavily on his shoulder and sat quietly with him for a moment. He needed that moment. He hadn’t even begun to really process everything when the police finally did show up, and he barely had enough time to tell his friend anything more than the most important instruction - stay with her and make sure she knows that she is safe.

The police questioning turned out to be nowhere near as terrifying as Shingo had anticipated. Of course, it was thorough and tiring. He sat in a separate area with a handful of policemen and a detective for over an hour, answering every question, not bothering to hide or soften any of his information. He didn’t usually like to be so friendly with police officers, but the sheer magnitude of the trouble he was in was enough to frighten him into candidness, and he clung to the hope that Takahashi Ryosuke having ‘contacts’ to ‘raise’ would somehow protect him. His hope was not misplaced. Although the detective didn’t display any knowledge of what was going on, he kept nodding thoughtfully in a way that made Shingo suspect that he already knew a lot of details about the case. When he had finished, the detective gave him a card filled with contact information. “Alright, Shoji. You are free to go, but I would like you to stay in the area and remain accessible in case I need to contact you again. You might have to go in front of a judge once the investigation is over, but you won’t get into trouble over this as long as you don’t panic over it and do something stupid. You’ve kept your head so far.”

Shingo really didn’t feel as if he’d kept his head. But the detective was encouraging enough that he dared ask a question that had flitted through his head more than once, since he’d left the scene of the accident. “That other guy. I saw the ambulance heading up while I was leaving. Is he…” He choked on the word ‘alive’. “Here?”

The detective looked at him grimly, but with sympathy in his eyes. “They took him straight to intensive care. If you’d tried to help him, you probably would have killed him. You did the right thing, getting her into a safe, prone position as soon as possible and leaving him to the professionals. Keep doing the right thing and stay in the Gunma area. Understood?”

“Understood,” Shingo told him. “I don’t even plan on leaving this hospital tonight.”

By the time Shingo returned to the emergency room, he found Yasuko’s area empty. A nurse directed him out of the emergency area, where she had been brought to a room of her own. This time, as he entered, Shingo saw both his friend and the man he recognized as ‘that gas station owner’ from the trial. The newcomer sat at her bedside and held her hand. “Are they going to take her for surgery?” Shingo asked, remembering Ryosuke’s instructions.

“They’re saying it won’t do any good,” Tachibana told him. “But I doubt they could risk it yet if they wanted to. She ate a couple of hours ago, didn’t she?”

“No,” Shingo replied, puzzled. “I don’t think so. She had a full lunch in her backpack.”

“Oh. I ate it while I was waiting,” Takeshi admitted. He shrugged slightly. “You got me right out of bed. I didn’t stop for breakfast. And she obviously doesn’t want it.”

“I suppose it’s just as well that it wasn’t wasted,” Tachibana mused. 

“Is she resting properly now?” Shingo asked.

“No. She’s had three more ‘episodes’ since you’ve been gone,” Takeshi filled him in. “I had to calm her down for two of them. Tachibana took the most recent one. She’s probably worn out.”

That alarmed him. “Takeshi, how many more of these can she take?”

His friend didn’t answer, but Tachibana Yuichi glanced up from her side and shook his head just a little.

The afternoon passed into evening, and evening passed into night. The gas station owner didn’t exactly present the appearance of a skilled or intelligent man, but there was no denying that he could soothe Yasuko’s fears more quickly than anybody else there. Shingo paced and watched the clock. Takeshi sat quietly in the corner and just waited. Neither of them understood what the monitors were telling them, but they could see indicators dropping and wobbly lines becoming more wobbly as time went on. Finally, late in the evening, Yasuko opened her eyes and seemed to stare far past the walls of the room in a way that made Shingo’s skin crawl. “Hey…” her guardian asked. “What is it, Yasuko-chan? Stay with us.”

Her voice was faint and weak. “I think I have to go, if I’m going to stay.”

Tachibana glanced at the other two, confused and alarmed. Shingo glanced at Takeshi, who shrugged.

Yasuko spoke again, her voice sounding far away. “There. There he is.”

“Who, Yasuko-chan?” Tachibana asked gently, but he didn’t get a response. Shingo felt that same weird, otherworldly sensation that had freaked him out when she had first arrived at the top of Akagi.

“He’s frightened. But he’s controlling it. He’s mastering it. Show me.” She closed her eyes. “Show me how you control your fear. I need to know.” The room remained silent for a moment. Suddenly, Takeshi shifted in his seat, and Shingo realized that the wobbly lines on the monitors were starting to ease in their intensity. “I see it,” she whispered. “I understand now.”

Then she began to speak again, her voice just a little stronger. After a moment, Tachibana grabbed part of the paperwork spread out on the nearby tray, turned it over, and began to jot down notes.

Chapter Text

The fog still settled across the mountain in patches. The uphill race had finished, and the downhill race was nearly over. Fujiwara’s victory had become all but certain. Keisuke sat in his driver’s seat, the door swung open, resting and drinking some water. “Won’t be fun,” he mused, “getting all these vehicles back down the hill and to our hotel in this fog.” He heard footsteps and looked up to see his brother approach. The mechanics had wafted closer to the vans, waiting for his teammate to reappear. Keisuke waited for Ryosuke to tell him what was up, but he just stood there for a moment beside the FD and didn’t speak. Keisuke had noticed that his brother had seemed more and more distant and burdened as their Kanagawa expedition continued, but tonight the dark mood hadn’t even been lifted for long by Project D’s double victory. As the silence continued, Keisuke started to feel uneasy. “What is it, Aniki?”

“I need to coordinate. I’ll have to talk to the other team and organize our return to the hotel.”

That seemed like an odd thing for his brother to come all the way over just to tell him. “Like usual,” Keisuke replied.

“I need you to call Tachibana meanwhile and check on Yasuko-chan.”

That was definitely an odd thing to ask, and his brother sounded strangely reluctant to venture more information. “In the middle of the night? Are you sure?”

“Yasuko-chan was injured in an automobile accident earlier today. They took her to the main hospital in Myogi. I haven’t got time to give you more details right now. Tachibana might, or I can tell you everything later.”

Keisuke froze, horrified. “Today? While I was sleeping? While we were racing?”

“Yes.” Ryosuke simply dropped his answer like a heavy weight. Keisuke started to ask why his brother hadn’t told him, but he already knew the answer. His job today was to race and race well, not to worry about a teenaged girl who didn’t live in his house anymore. Still, he felt his temper rise. He was her third guardian, and he should have known, even though it could have damaged his ability to race.

He wanted to curse, but he held it back. “She’s hurt, then? What was her condition?”

Ryosuke suddenly looked years older and very tired. “Deteriorating,” he admitted. “Please call and get an update, Keisuke.” He turned and walked away, leaving Keisuke sitting there and holding his water bottle half-poised, stuck for a moment, his anger tempered by the cold realization that his brother was absolutely right to bear the burden that he did. There was no way Keisuke could have won tonight if he’d known.

Finally, he forced himself to move. He flipped open his phone, scrolled down his contacts list, and hit the call button. Tachibana answered almost immediately. Keisuke wasted no words. “What’s Yasuko-chan’s condition?”

“She’s stabilizing.” The middle-aged man sounded very relieved. “She’s improving by the minute. The doctor won’t say too much too soon, but she may be out of danger. You’ve finished your race.”

“Yeah. What happened?”

But Tachibana didn’t make himself immediately useful. “Did you feel anything.. strange.. while you were racing tonight?”

“No. What happened?” Keisuke repeated patiently.

“But you couldn’t see. Right? You couldn’t see anything. You were controlling your fear. You couldn’t see that it was safe, but you knew anyway.”

That was both strange and unexpected. “What on earth are you talking about?” Keisuke demanded.

“Am I right?” Tachibana asked.

“Well, yes. The weather turned foggy. I ran into a complete white-out and did a blind overtake after getting a call from Kenta to let me know that the way was clear. I found the blindness unnerving, but I handled it. Are you going to start being useful now?”

Tachibana didn’t start by answering Keisuke’s repeated question, not the way he had hoped, but at least the man started filling in the gaps. “Yasuko-chan was wearing herself out. She just kept getting worse and worse. Every time she regained consciousness, she would become very agitated, and we’d have to try to calm her down. About a half hour ago, she went into some sort of trance. She started talking about someone controlling his fear. She asked ‘him’ to show her how ‘he’ was doing it. That’s when her readings all started to stabilize. She talked on for a little while about how ‘he’ couldn’t see that it was safe, and then she smiled and told us that it was alright, because ‘he’ already knew. A couple of minutes after that, she said, ‘He won’, and she went to sleep - a proper sleep, instead of drifting in and out like before. She’s been improving since. She didn’t tell us who ‘he’ was. I thought it might have been you.”

Keisuke sat silently in his car for a moment. He had no idea what to think of that. “I don’t really believe in things like this,” he admitted. “And I didn’t feel a thing. But she was describing my race, and I have no clue how she could have known any of that information.”

“If she had the ability to control the way she was ‘riding along’,” Tachibana pointed out, “and she could have avoided distracting you, she definitely would have.”

“That’s a lot of ‘if’s’,” Keisuke told him, his irritation starting to return. “Do I get to find out what actually happened to her now?”

“Yes, that’s a good idea. Give me a moment.” Then, Tachibana finally started giving him better information than before. “I didn’t want to be in her hearing when I told you about it. Yasuko-chan was kidnapped from her school group at Myogi Shrine. The vehicle crashed. The doctor still has a bunch of testing to do, but he suspects that she suffered a concussion coupled with emotional shock.”

“What? Who kidnapped her?” Keisuke demanded. “How did they crash?”

Tachibana stopped being useful. “That’s a bit complicated. I’m not sure how to explain it.”

Keisuke had no patience for this. “Uncomplicate it,” he ordered flatly.

That worked. “The Lan Evo racer from Saitama, Aikawa, threatened her with a knife and took her into his car. One of the Myogi Night Kids saw it happen. He followed them and harried Aikawa into a skid he couldn’t recover from. Then, he took her from the crash site to the hospital in his own car, on your brother’s recommendation.”

“Who harried him into the crash?” Keisuke got a moment of silence on the other end. He couldn’t really blame the guy. Keisuke was just about ready to strangle whoever it was. His mind flashed through the list of Night Kids racers. “Was it Shoji? I know he’s got a reputation.”

“Don’t try to kill him over it. He feels badly enough already. He never meant for the wreck to be that severe,” Tachibana pleaded. “This was a Lan Evo against a Civic. If Shoji hadn’t tried, Aikawa would have lost him eventually, and then we’d have had a terrible time trying to track Yasuko-chan down.”

Somehow, that made Keisuke feel better and worse at the same time. It did nothing to ease his anger, but he felt the emotion becoming sharper and more directed, easier to control. “So Aikawa took her. Abducted her at knife-point. Shoji followed and crashed the car to rescue her. Then, obviously, she got locked into a panic cycle, because she hates and fears Aikawa more than anything else in her life and even has nightmares about him. But supposedly she went on some kind of spiritual journey and learned from me how to control her fear, and now she’s sleeping and doing much better. Is this what I have to try to tell Aniki with a straight face?”

“I suppose it wasn’t that complicated after all,” Tachibana responded.

“Okay. Never mind the weird trance for a moment. You’re out of her hearing now, so you’ve probably left her room. Tell me you didn’t leave her alone where Aikawa could get to her again.”

“Of course not.” Tachibana sounded insulted. “She hasn’t been left alone for a moment. Itsuki and one of the Night Kids, the leader, I think, are with her right now. Aikawa was taken right into intensive care. I haven’t been getting updates on him, but I understand his condition is much worse than hers.”

“Nakazato’s with her. Shoji isn’t?” So that the jerk who had sabotaged his race, tried to call a gang down on Project D, threatened Yasuko, and finally tried to kidnap her was lying in a hospital bed with his life hanging from a thread. That did make Keisuke feel a little better, even if the jerk who had formed a habit and reputation of knocking racers into crashes had abandoned Yasuko after putting her into the hospital.

“Once they closed the gas station for the night, the Speed Stars came right up,” Tachibana explained patiently. “Shoji had been here the entire time. Iketani and Kenji took him home with orders to make him eat and rest. They left a few minutes ago. Really, don’t beat him up when you see him again, alright? He doesn’t need the help.”

Keisuke felt the weariness descend upon his own body and soul. “No promises. Okay. We’re probably going to stick to our schedule and drive back tomorrow. I’ll give Aniki the update. You know what, let me speak to Yasuko-chan for a moment. I don’t mind if she doesn’t wake up.”

Tachibana returned to the room and let Keisuke know when he was holding the phone to her ear. It took just long enough for Keisuke to compose himself and make his voice gentle as he spoke into his phone. “Yasuko-chan, hey. It’s me, it’s Keisuke. I’m calling to let you know that I won. I heard you’ve had a rough day, so just rest, okay? I’m about to go to bed. We’ll be back tomorrow afternoon, and I’ll come see you right away. Rest up, so you’ll be awake when I get there. Okay?”

He fell silent until Tachibana spoke again. “She’s smiling now, just a little. I think she’s going to be alright. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

Keisuke didn’t know what the rest of the team knew, so he didn’t walk up and just start talking. Instead, he simply exited his car and made himself visible. As soon as Ryosuke saw him, he left the rest of the group and walked over. “She’s stabilizing,” Keisuke told him simply. “May be out of danger, but it’s early to tell. There’s more, but it’s kind of…” He hated himself for using this word, after having hated Tachibana’s use of it. “Complicated.”

“Thank you, Keisuke.” Ryosuke turned to the rest of the team, assessing their condition. “Matsumoto, take Fujiwara and the Eight-Six to the cabin. Tomiguchi, take Van One. Kenta, take Van Two. I’m going to bring Keisuke back in the FD.” He held out his hand. Reluctantly, Keisuke gave up his keys.

Once the two brothers were alone in the car, Keisuke delivered the entire contents of the phone call. Then, he waited for his brother to respond. He needed the break to calm himself down. Just talking about the whole incident got him angry again. Finally, Ryosuke responded. “I don’t generally believe in spiritual presences and journeys, as a rule.”

“I don’t, either,” Keisuke declared, though Ryosuke’s wording seemed a bit less absolutist. “I don’t know what to think of that, so I don’t plan to. If it absolutely happened the way Tachibana seems to think it did, I suppose I wouldn’t mind anyway.”

“Yes. You did tell her that she could always come to you. It will be interesting to see if she remembers anything about it when she awakens.”

“If she doesn’t, that means nothing happened, right, Aniki?” Keisuke hadn’t been happy about handing over his keys, but he was secretly glad that he wasn’t driving. He felt tired and keyed up at the same time, neither quality ideal for taking a racing car through the fog in the dead of night.

“If she doesn’t remember it, I’d be more inclined to think that there’s something to it,” Ryosuke told him. “But either way, as you said, it doesn’t really matter. The important fact is that she controlled her fear, ended the cycling, and is improving instead of deteriorating.”

“Well, yes, but since she’s improving, the important thing is that we were blindsided. Shouldn’t we have known that Aikawa would be up to some kind of funny business, with Yasuko-chan’s father in jail? We’ve told her that she’d stay safe. How could we have missed this?”

Ryosuke sighed, pulling into the parking lot and parking the FD next to the Eight-Six. “We can’t anticipate everything, Keisuke. Nobody can promise complete and perfect safety to anybody. We did the best we could. I deliberately set up her nickname to make her a legend in the Kanto street racer community. You and I can’t be everywhere, but all of us can. Seeing that Yasuko-chan immediately drew an ally and Aikawa’s attempt was foiled by a local street racer within minutes, I’d say it worked. Even if we’d lost her, he couldn’t have held her for long before being spotted by somebody. But just a few days of captivity could have done her much worse damage than this.”

“If you were trying to make me feel better,” Keisuke sulked, “it isn’t working. Whatever could have happened, right now she’s in a hospital, and we’re on the opposite side of the entire Kanto region.”

“Just until tomorrow. We’re not leaving until we’ve all rested. You have to sleep, Keisuke. You have to be able to drive back and still have enough energy to visit her. But if things go the way I have planned, the visit will be easier than you think.”

Keisuke was too tired to figure out what that meant. He didn’t sleep well, despite his exhaustion. He kept waking up, his own imagination bringing Tachibana’s explanations to life. When he finally dipped into a proper deep sleep, it was late enough that everyone else’s commotion woke him out of it. He knew he still looked tired and readied himself to protest if his brother decided to drive his car again. But Ryosuke decided to go with the vans. “I’m already getting ready for the next race,” he remarked, as he climbed into the back and left Keisuke to lead the entire group home.

Once they reached their home, Ryosuke made Keisuke shower, change, and sit down to eat. Just as he thought they were finally going to leave, Ryosuke told Keisuke to call Tachibana first. He didn’t see the point, but he did it anyway. “Tachibana. It’s Keisuke. We’re home, and we’re about to leave to go to the hospital.”

“Good, I’m glad you called. We’re at the big hospital in Akagi. Let me give you her room number.”

“Wait, she’s where?” Keisuke wondered if the long trip had addled his brain. “She was taken to a hospital in Myogi, right? I thought she crashed on the pass.”

“They moved her early this morning. I don’t know why, but it was a good call. It’s closer, and I can already see that they’re doing more testing.”

“Okay, we’ll meet you there, then. See you in a couple of minutes.” Keisuke got the room number, ended the call, and turned to his brother. “She’s in Akagi. Did you arrange that?”

Ryosuke didn’t answer directly. “It’s closer.”

“And our father administers it. He met her in person and approved of her.”

“I’m sure she’s getting the best of care,” Ryosuke pointed out. “Come on. We’ll take your car.” Keisuke was starting to wonder why the FC seemed to be less and less available, but he decided that this was not the time to push the issue.

Once they reached the hospital, Keisuke made a beeline for his little ward’s room, not checking to see if his brother was keeping up with him. Groups parted and people stepped aside to let him pass. As soon as he entered, he was hit with the almost dizzying sight and scent of multiple vases of flowers strewn across the room, filling flat surfaces, the larger ones set on the floor near the window. Pushing the sight aside, he focused on his target and made for the bed. Tachibana was sitting at Yasuko’s side and holding her hand, but he quickly rose and made way for her new visitor. Keisuke dropped down into the chair and took hold of her hand instead. Her eyes were closed, and her face was very pale, except for a couple of bruises on her cheek and forehead. At the sight of the bruises, Keisuke swore before he thought about where he was or what he was saying.

His odd greeting drew a response. “I know that’s you, Keisuke-san.” Yasuko’s voice sounded flat. As she opened her eyes, her gaze seemed dulled, her spirit quieted. He didn’t like that at all.

“Sorry,” he told her. He paused, not entirely sure how to approach this subdued creature. “How are you feeling, Yasuko-chan?” He thought that was a rather silly question to start out with, and hoped that she would tell him so.

She didn’t. “Less dizzy now. Tired all the time. I know you won. Yuichi-san told me. I’m glad. I didn’t want you to be distracted.”

Well, at least she showed some level of coherence. “I told you first, over the phone. I guess you don’t remember,” he told her. “What have they been doing to you?”

“They gave me some medicine to make the dizziness stop,” she answered. “And everything is a little clearer. I know where I am now. They moved me to Akagi. I remember parts of the ambulance ride.”

“They gave you medication? It must have been something pretty strong.” He reached over with his free hand and brushed her hair off of her forehead. “Yasuko-chan, how much do you remember about what happened?”

“Oh, Keisuke-san, please don’t ask me that.” There it was, just a slight lift in her voice, a hint of emotion. “It hurts to try. Everyone keeps telling me to relax.”

“Okay. You’d better do that, then. I’m right here. We’re both here.” Keisuke finally took a moment to look around the room again and focus on all the flowers. “It looks like you’re pretty popular.”

“Am I? I know someone has always been with me. Often two, like before. It makes me feel safer.” She drew in a shaky breath. “Am I going to be okay?”

“That’s probably Aniki’s job to explain to you. He’s been talking to the nurse. Here he comes.” As his brother approached, Keisuke looked up, trying to hide his own worry. “She wants to know if she’ll be okay.”

As usual, his brother did have the answer. He stepped closer to the bed, requiring Keisuke to shift his chair over and make room. “You’ll be okay, Yasuko-chan,” Ryosuke reassured her. “But it’ll take a while, and you’ll have to be patient. You’ll still be here for several days, and you probably won’t return to school for a couple of weeks. Even then, you will have to take it slow. You won’t feel ‘right’ for a while longer. But all the tests indicate that you will make a full recovery. By the time snow starts to fall, you will probably feel entirely like yourself again.”

“That’s months away. Is it really that bad?” Keisuke asked.

“It’s that good,” Ryosuke explained patiently. “Even minor traumatic brain injuries are dangerous. We are going to take all precautions and do what we can to help. Yasuko-chan, if it hurts you to engage in any mental exertion, don’t. If it’s something you feel you need to do, let any of us know. You shouldn’t get any worse than this. Each time we come to visit you, you will have improved noticeably.”

“Yeah…” Keisuke started to add his own reassurance, but he got sidetracked. The room door opened and he saw Shoji Shingo standing in the doorway, hesitating. “Hold on, Yasuko-chan,” Keisuke told her, squeezing her hand gently and releasing it. “I’ll be back in a moment.” He started for the doorway. Shingo turned and began walking away. “Hey!” Keisuke called as he left the doorway for the hospital hallway. “Don’t run off. I need to talk to you.”

“I thought you might,” Shingo replied cautiously, pausing and turning around. His hands clenched into fists and unclenched again. “Are we going to have to take it outside?”

“Maybe.” Keisuke approached him, so that they would not have to call this conversation to each other down the hall, but he didn’t get within arm’s reach. He didn’t want the temptation. “Let’s just start by finding out, alright?”

“Let’s get out of the hallway, then,” Shingo offered. He stepped into one of the waiting areas, but he didn’t sit down. Keisuke followed, and he didn’t sit down either. Shingo took a breath. “I expected you to be mad at me. I still think there’s a good chance we’re going to wind up fighting.”

“Why didn’t you confront Aikawa as soon as you realized he was kidnapping Yasuko-chan?” Keisuke wanted to know. “I would have.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you would have,” Shingo replied wryly. “I was doing the best I could. I was halfway across the lot from him. I couldn’t have reached them before they reached the car. It wasn’t a good situation.”

“You could have called him, gotten his attention, maybe threatened him.”

Shingo shook his head. “He had a knife pressed close to her side. Even if he wouldn’t have used it on her deliberately, he probably would have cut her accidentally if I’d startled or upset him. I didn’t want to take that risk. That’s why I headed straight for my car. I hoped they were headed for Myogi’s downhill. It would take a very good racer to lose me there.”

Keisuke felt his frustration mounting. He tried to keep his voice down, but he knew that his tone had sharpened. “You didn’t want to take the risk? You didn’t want to take the risk of one knife wound. But you crashed his car and gave her a concussion instead. You risked her life.”

Shingo raised his hands defensively. “I figured that’s the version you’d wind up hearing. Look, I didn’t risk her life. She did. I mean, I wasn’t going to try it, because I wasn’t intending to take that risk for her. But she made it pretty clear that she was willing to take that risk, when she grabbed the wheel and tried to crash it herself.”

That froze Keisuke in place. “She what?”

“She tried to crash! I saw it clearly! And I couldn’t take down a Lan Evo with a Civic, what do you think I am? Maybe you could. I had to get her to help me. I got her attention and counted down. I bumped him, she grabbed the wheel again, and I gave him one last push. I expected a spin-out. I didn’t think the fool was going to flip the vehicle.”

“He flipped it!?” Keisuke had to take a moment and remember to lower his voice. “That idiot! No wonder she wound up in the hospital, too dizzy to stand up straight.”

“Well, not being able to stand didn’t stop her for long,” Shingo told him wryly. “She left that car as soon as she could and headed right for the cliff. I had to tackle her and drag her away from it. Look, I had to, alright? She was too disoriented to recognize me and tried to fight me off.” He sighed. “Yasuko-chan fights crazy, you know.”

Keisuke shook his head. “Yeah, I know. I’ve seen it.” Even though he had less to fault Yasuko’s rescuer for after hearing his side of the story, Keisuke’s frustration had not subsided. “If I’d have been there…”

“Well, you weren’t.” Shingo’s blunt response hit hard and brought Keisuke up short. Even Shingo seemed a little taken aback. “Sorry. That was harsher than you deserved. But it’s true. You and I have the same problem with this whole mess. You weren’t there. I was. Yasuko-chan didn’t get the famous Project D uphiller with an FD and plenty of fighting experience. She got me. I did the best I could, but there’s no way you couldn’t have done better. She deserved better.”

“No.” Keisuke finally understood why Tachibana had told him not to beat up Shingo because ‘he didn’t need the help’. “No, she could have done much, much worse. You were there, and you saved her. If only he’d just spun out like he was supposed to. That’s not your fault.” He took a deep breath. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t do it for you,” Shingo told him plainly. “I did it for her, because when she thought I needed rescuing, she tried to rescue me. I owe her. That reminds me.” He reached into his pocket and produced the butterfly brooch. “I didn’t want it to get lost when they changed her into the hospital scrubs. I found it pinned on the inside of her jacket where it wouldn’t break the uniform code. You ought to make sure she gets it back.”

Keisuke shook his head. “No. You should go back in there and give it to her yourself. I’ve got no quarrel with you.” He turned away, unwilling to see Shingo’s reaction, and realized that Tachibana was standing only a couple of feet away. “Are you checking up on us?” he asked wryly.

“Yasuko-chan sent me,” Tachibana explained. “She asked me to make sure you two didn’t fight each other. I think she’d like to see both of you come back in with me.”

“Alright,” Shingo agreed. “Looks like we’ve got a truce. I’ll stay.”

Chapter Text

Every time Yasuko tried to remember what had happened to her, she started to get a headache. Multiple people had told her to stop trying if it hurt, and that would have been a lot easier to do if they would just stop asking her questions about it.

At first, after she’d broken her cycle of terror at the hospital room in Myogi, she couldn’t even think back into the past at all. It was easier to treat her life as if it had just started. Then, she could bring back older memories without pain, but she couldn’t bring herself into the past several days. Meanwhile, her newer memories were just as shaky. She’d started out with great gaps, drifting in and out, never entirely sure where she was or what was going on.

Hours later, her head began to clear. She knew she was being moved from her hospital room to an ambulance. She knew that it was traveling easily and smoothly, in no rush. Her guardian stayed right by her side, reassuring her that this was all planned and she was in good hands. From the ambulance, they wheeled her bed into another hospital and set her up in another room, this one a little larger and more comfortable-looking. She spent most of that morning undergoing more testing, falling asleep in strange rooms with strange machines in them, and wondering during her moments of wakefulness why she didn’t just go back to sleep.

Back in her room, she drifted into a light doze. She thought she heard the door to her room open. She didn’t want to be taken for more testing. She hoped that, if they thought she was asleep, they might leave her alone for a while. Then the hand holding hers was replaced by another, and she heard curse words spoken in a familiar voice. Her other two guardians had finally arrived. Ryosuke immediately began demanding specifics about her condition and translating the medical terms he was given in response. Instead of hearing vague words of reassurance and sensing vague emotions of concern, Yasuko started to get a clearer picture of what had happened and what was going on. More aware of herself now, she understood that her emotions were strangely flat and she could not quite make herself care about anything, even her own condition. She did feel something stir inside her, though, when she realized that two of ‘her’ racers were about to have a quarrel, and she asked Yuichi to please follow them and make sure they came to no harm. As he left the room, Ryosuke took his place by her side. Yasuko still couldn’t feel much, but something about his presence helped her focus her mind. So she told him straight out. “I was terrified before. But now I don’t feel very much at all. I can tell where I am and things seem clearer, but I’m not thinking very well. It’s as if… what makes me into myself… has gone away somewhere.”

“That’s not so strange,” he reassured her. “You need to rest and heal. Everything will come back in time. Don’t be afraid.”

With her thoughts starting to steady, Yasuko decided to address the fear that had sent her into a cycle less than a day earlier. “I kept… I thought I kept seeing… Every time someone entered the room, I thought I saw…” It was no good. She couldn’t explain it. She took a breath and tried again. “Ryosuke-san, I need you to tell me something. I know you will know. And I know you will understand. I don’t want to hear his name. I can’t speak it. I can’t think about him at all. I can only just get my mind to touch the edges. But I need to know if he’s still out there. When I look at the doorway and I think I see… either I’m hallucinating, or…” She gave up. Either it was enough, or it wasn’t. “I’m sorry. I’m making no sense at all.”

“No, I understand,” Ryosuke answered gently. “I think I can help you. The person you’re most likely concerned about is still in Myogi. He was taken into intensive care. My latest update is only a couple of hours old. He hasn’t awakened since the crash. Anything you think you see in the doorway that threatens you is a fear-induced hallucination. They’ll stop happening over time, as your injury heals and time passes. If it bothers you too much, there is medication that might help. Let me know if you feel that you need it. But I can assure you that he isn’t coming after you again, because he is incapable of it, even if he wanted to try.”

“Did we do that to him?” Yasuko asked. A flicker of emotion started up, a mixture of relief and a little bit of horror.

“He did it to himself,” Ryosuke told her firmly, “and he did this to you. None of it is your fault. I’m sorry I didn’t anticipate it. But, like before, I always had precautions in place. I won’t leave you without help.”

There was something strange about the way he said that. Yasuko was starting to get used to seeing, hearing, or sensing things that she wasn’t sure were real. It seemed that Ryosuke was preparing to tell her something. The room appeared darker, as if a storm was beginning to gather around him. “Did someone turn the lights off?” Yasuko asked plainly.

“No. Are you alright?” he asked. He was concerned, like everyone else, but she found his detached manner reassuring.

“No less than before.” Again, Yasuko chose to come straight to the point. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

It worked. “Yes. I’ll be gone this afternoon and evening. Keisuke will be practicing tonight. He may come back tomorrow morning to visit you again. But I will probably be resting instead.” He paused for a moment. “I may be completely out of contact until tomorrow evening at the latest. Don’t worry about that. I’ll come back to visit you as soon as I am able.”

Yes, he was definitely drawing the darkness. But there was more. “I think I’m having another hallucination,” she told him, struggling to keep her voice steady. “I saw something strange.”

“Describe it for me,” Ryosuke offered. He was already holding her hand, but he laid his other hand on top of it. “I can tell you what’s real.”

“It’s like darkness. Not just in the room, but gathering all around you. You’re at the center of it. But you aren’t dark. It’s like… This is silly, Ryosuke-san. I’m sorry.”

“No, go ahead,” he encouraged her. “I’d like to know.”

She did her best. “It’s like you have a light coming out of you. It’s not enough to make the darkness go away, but the darkness is all around you without touching you.”

Ryosuke drew in a deep breath and remained silent for a moment. “There’s something I need to handle, Yasuko-chan,” he told her. “I’m as well-prepared as I could be. But this isn’t really your concern, or Keisuke’s, and it should all be settled tonight. Thank you for telling me what you saw. Even if it means nothing, I find it reassuring.”

Yasuko didn’t understand, and that made her feel uneasy. “If it will be settled tonight, don’t wait until tomorrow evening to tell me. Please, Ryosuke-san. I don’t know what’s going on, and I accept that you’re not going to tell me. But I want to know that everything is okay.”

He rose from his seat. “I’ll call, then, and let you know. I promise.” He leaned forward and gently kissed her forehead. Then, he withdrew, releasing her hand and stepping back, as the door opened. She glanced up and sighed in relief as no apparition appeared in the doorway. Instead, Keisuke and Shingo both entered with Yuichi trailing behind.

From there, private conversation was virtually impossible. Yasuko drifted in and out of sleep, constantly reassured by someone or another holding her hand, catching bits of conversations in voices that she had come to recognize and hold dear. Suddenly, after an indeterminable length of silence, she awoke and felt truly aware. She looked up to find the room empty except for Nakazato, who was patiently holding her hand while lost in his own thoughts. As soon as she started looking around, he turned his attention to her. “It’s nighttime. Tachibana is coming back soon. He left to get some dinner and a shower. The Takahashi brothers both had to leave a couple of hours ago, for practice, I think. Shingo left for work.”

“Thank you,” she told him. “That’s what I needed to know.” She started paying attention to the rest of the room for the first time since she’d been rolled in. “That’s a lot of flowers. Are they all mine?”

“Yes. Takahashi Ryosuke made an update on the Project D website early this morning, mentioning that ‘Racer’s Angel’ had been hospitalized in Akagi after a car crash. The first flower arrangement showed up less than an hour later. I’m not sure how they knew which room to send them to. I wouldn’t make that face if I were you. The title is clearly doing you some good, and you earned it.”

“Ryosuke-san.” Yasuko realized why she had awakened. “He’s gone, isn’t he? He’s disappeared.”

Nakazato shrugged. “I have no idea. I don’t track his comings and goings. Do you want me to call and find out?”

“No. Don’t disturb Keisuke-san’s practice. Ryosuke-san already told me that he would be out of contact tonight. He has something he needs to do.”

Nakazato was useful for quickly orienting someone, but he was not much of a conversationalist. He fell silent. Yasuko couldn’t get back to sleep. She lay back and tried to carefully explore her thoughts and memories, shying away from anything painful. The night wore on slowly. In the darkest part of it, Yasuko suddenly thought she heard a woman’s voice speaking clearly in the room. Startled, she sat right up. “Hey!” Nakazato protested, straightening up and quickly reaching out in case she needed help. “Take it slowly. What’s the matter? Are you frightened again?”

“No, not frightened. I…” Yasuko realized quickly that her companion had not heard a thing. “I think I was hallucinating again. I heard a voice, but it’s gone now, and there’s nobody else in the room. It wasn’t scary.” Then the wave of dizziness hit. She tried to rest her hands on her forehead, but she realized for the first time that she had weird pads and wires attached all over her body. She let Nakazato ease her back down gently. In the sterile environment, he smelled noticeably like cigarette smoke. The scent reminded her of the outside world. “Thank you,” she told him meekly.

“Was it anything you wanted to talk about?” he offered, but she shook her head. He obligingly fell silent again, and they remained that way until the door opened and her guardian stepped into the room.

“You’re awake,” Tachibana Yuichi noted in greeting, “and you look more alert.”

“She’s more than just awake,” Nakazato told him. “She sat up a moment ago. Not for long, but it didn’t seem to hurt her.” He rose and gave up his chair to Yuichi, who settled into it and took up his hand-holding duties. Then, they heard a cell phone buzzing. Yuichi checked his and Nakazato checked his, both of them perplexed. Nakazato stepped over to the neatly-folded school uniform in the corner and scooped up the cute little green and pink phone sitting on top of the pile. He glanced at it, then flipped it open and answered. “Nakazato. Yes, Tachibana just came in, I was about to leave. She’s awake. She’s been awake all evening. Yeah, she had another hallucination, but it didn’t seem to last long. I think she’s alright. Of course. Here you go.” He stepped back over and offered Yasuko the phone.

“Hello?” she ventured. She could only think of two people who would be calling - and calling her phone instead of someone else’s - at this late hour.

She was right. “Hi, Yasuko-chan. It’s Ryosuke.”

But even though she knew who it was, and his voice was very distinguishable from his brother’s, it was good that he’d announced himself. The tone of his voice was so different that she didn’t initially recognize it. He sounded relaxed, even a bit jovial. No, it was more than that. He was at peace, and she hadn’t really realized how much he had never been that way for all the time she’d known him, even before his FC had become mysteriously unavailable and he’d had his dark moods. “Whatever you were doing,” she offered, “I think you did it. It worked out, and you’re alright.”

“Did you see something in your hallucination?” Ryosuke asked.

“No. Sort of. I hear the change in your voice. You sound… happier. But I didn’t see anything. I just heard something strange. It’s gone now. I wasn’t trying to pry.”

“You can tell me,” he offered. “Even if it means nothing, I’d like to know. Especially if it has been a recurring issue.”

Yasuko glanced up at the ceiling, falling silent for just a moment before explaining, trying to gather her words. “No, it was very strange. It was a woman’s voice, and it said something I’ve never heard and didn’t think I ever would. And it’s something I really could never say myself.”

“You should know by now that I’m not easily offended, even by rudeness,” Ryosuke offered. “If it was a woman’s voice, and it has only happened tonight, I would really like to know what she said.”

“Okay,” Yasuko admitted timidly. “She said ‘Ryosuke-kun’.”

That drew a long silence in answer. When he finally spoke, he sounded thoughtful. “I’m not sure these are all hallucinations, Yasuko-chan. Many of them, yes, especially the ones that frighten you. But this one… I’ll tell you about it sometime, when I am ready to tell it and you are ready to hear it. For now, get some rest. I’m on my way back, and everything’s alright. I’ll visit you after I’ve slept. Rest well, Yasuko-chan. If I am favored tonight, and if you heard her voice, you may be favored as well. I’ll see you later.”

Yasuko closed the phone as the call ended and offered it to Yuichi. “That was very strange,” she told him. “But everything’s alright. He just called to let me know that everything was alright.”

“You’re lucky, then,” Yuichi remarked, placing the phone on the tray table next to her hospital bed. “I checked in with the gas station and a couple of other people while I was taking my break. Takahashi Ryosuke’s location has been the question of the evening. The only one not wondering where he is was his own brother.”

“He told Keisuke-san, then,” Yasuko mused.

Yuichi shook his head. “Apparently not. Keisuke just keeps telling people that they should trust his brother, and that his brother will come back when he’s good and ready.”

“Well, he’s right,” Yasuko replied staunchly. She found herself starting to yawn. “And Ryosuke-san is right, too. I’m ready to get some rest.” It felt weird, to be awake and ready to sleep, instead of just drifting in and out. She had just about forgotten what it was like. And, of course, in the hospital, it was always easier to feel separate from reality. Her last realization as she drifted back to sleep was that she had not eaten yet, and she was not hungry.

That changed soon enough. In fact, Yasuko started to suddenly improve. She could almost believe that there had been some sort of mysterious ‘lady’s favor’ hanging over her. By the time Ryosuke came back to visit her, most of the monitoring wires had been removed. She felt hungry that very evening and was given a simple meal promptly when she asked for it. She awakened for longer periods of time. After several days, she was discharged from the hospital with a long list of precautions and instructions. When Project D made its last trip to Kanagawa, all of the Speed Stars attended the race. Yasuko spent the evening on the couch in the living room behind the tofu shop, as Yuichi didn’t feel that he could monitor her properly while pulling solo duty at the gas station. His best friend Bunta checked on her regularly as he cleaned up after closing, and provided her with a lovely tea that they spent in complete silence. She didn’t get to see her favorite racer win his last race, nor the dramatic blown engine that marked his colleague’s race, but Keisuke called her and told her all about it later that very night. She was walking more often than resting by the time Project D held their picnic celebration that marked their official dissolution, but she was not judged to be well enough to attend.

By the time Yasuko returned to school, the leaves on the trees had all changed color. This time, her life had not changed much, but it seemed that everyone else’s had.

Chapter Text

Everything had changed except Yasuko. At least, that’s the way she saw it at first. Ryosuke had returned to his medical studies on a full-time basis. Keisuke had signed on as a professional racer. Fujiwara didn’t have his own car anymore. Yasuko’s classmates had taken a double hit when it came to social interaction with her, having learned that she was ‘Racer’s Angel’ shortly before her long absence due to the attempted kidnapping, and they were careful and kind with her as she started attending classes again. In fact, everyone treated her as if she were very fragile.

Of all the people she had grown used to loving and trusting, the only one willing to lay it out plainly was Itsuki. She asked him about it, as the leaves were falling and frost had started appearing on the ground in the early mornings. Ryosuke had started giving her driving lessons in the FC again, twice a week, and Keisuke had started taking her on trips now and then, offering her ice cream or just driving the old route up and down Akagi for her. But they both treated her just as carefully as everyone else did. “You are different, even if you aren’t really aware of it,” Itsuki explained to her. “You’re quieter and less excited. You don’t seem sad or upset, either. Just… there. I know you’re still getting better.”

It was true. Yasuko didn’t feel much from day to day anymore. She wasn’t unhappy, and she wasn’t fearful. But she also wasn’t excited. She just felt a sort of calm, bland contentment, undisturbed. She was given homework and she did it dutifully. When she and Yuichi were home in the evenings, she dutifully made a good supper. She kept her room clean and stayed out of trouble. After Itsuki’s explanation, she brought up the topic to Keisuke one evening as they sat in his yellow FD at the top of Akagi. “Why is it strange?” she asked him. “Isn’t this all what a good daughter ought to be? I’m finally doing everything as I ought to.”

“Yes, you are… but you seem less like yourself,” Keisuke told her thoughtfully. “Maybe this is how you’re going to be from now on. And you don’t have to change back for me to care about you. But if there’s something lost in there, I want to coax it back out again. I admit that I don’t know how. We’ve been up and down the hill for days now. Does it stir anything inside you anymore?”

“I feel… like I wish it would,” Yasuko admitted. “Itsuki’s right. Something’s missing. But I don’t know how to get it back. And I’m not sure I should. I’m so much less trouble this way. I don’t get into fights, I don’t spin out, I don’t call from school needing to be rescued…”

“I don’t mind all of that,” Keisuke told her. “Never did, even when my schedule was tighter.” And then, almost absently, he flipped his phone open and tabbed through his contacts list. He had started doing that lately. Today, for the first time, Yasuko started to pick up on his own mood, and she slowly realized that something was clouding it that wasn’t worry.

“What name do you keep looking up?” she asked him. Something must have changed in her voice, though she didn’t feel it, because he glanced up at her quickly. He hesitated for a moment, then shrugged lightly and showed her the phone. She recognized the name and filled in the information automatically, as she used to. “Iwase Kyoko. Sadamine. The black FC with a single turbo. You’re done with Project D. You turned her down because of Project D. Did you call her when you were done?”

“Thought about it. I still think about it.” With the pressure of Project D over and his dream a surety, Keisuke was more relaxed than before, like his brother. “But she’s moved on by now. I’m sure she has. She has every right. I don’t have any claims on her.”

“Do you know that she has?” Yasuko had hesitated to push before, when he had started getting upset. But somehow, other people’s emotions didn’t affect her deeply anymore.

“I’d know if I called, but that’s pretty bold of me,” Keisuke pointed out.

Yasuko did feel a small spark of something then. It took her a moment to recognize it as amusement. “I think you’re known for being bold. I don’t think you taking a chance would surprise anybody.”

He smiled at her, closing his phone and putting it away. “Maybe. But I’m putting it aside for tonight. Do you want to take another trip up and down the hill?”

But now she felt tired. “I think I’m ready to go home.”

Several days later, Yasuko’s flat mood had taken a little bit of a downturn. “I was mostly bland and content before,” she told Keisuke as they sat at the top of Akagi and he fiddled absently with his phone again. Despite the cold, they had left the car and perched on a bench at the nearby overlook. “Now I’m just starting to feel tired again… bored, maybe. Everything is the same, over and over again.”

“I’m not an expert, but that sounds like depression to me,” he told her. She waited to see if he was going to explain himself, but he didn’t. They both fell silent, looking out at the view. He was as much lost in his thoughts as she was with hers. After a moment, she slowly realized that she could actually feel some sort of energy in his presence, something simmering. “Everything’s the same,” he muttered to himself quietly. She glanced up to see him looking at that familiar name on his contacts list again. “Over and over,” he added thoughtfully. He pressed a button and brought up a dialog double-checking his request. He was about to delete the number.

Suddenly, it felt as though something broke inside Yasuko’s head. A rush of emotion overwhelmed her. She didn’t even know how to sort it out. The world threatened to end. All she could think, the only thing she could realize, was that her favorite racer was about to make a terrible mistake. She knew it with utter certainty. The horror washed over her, followed by alarm. She felt heady with the power of it. She had to do something. No, she had to do more than just something. She had to shock him. She had to make him stop. There was no time. His thumb shifted across the phone controls in what seemed like slow motion to her eyes, and Yasuko suddenly burst out in a desperate cry. “Keisuke, don’t you dare!”

It worked. He startled. As he looked up at her, eyes wide, she quickly acted. She ducked under his arm and pushed the cancel button. She knocked his thumb aside in the process, and he almost dropped the phone. “Hey! Yasuko-chan…” he started to protest, his temper starting to rise. She didn’t want to hear it.

“No! You don’t get to give up without trying!” She couldn’t hold it in. She couldn’t hold herself together. “You’re not allowed! I don’t care if it hurts. I don’t care if it doesn’t work out and that hurts even more. You’re not allowed to give up without trying.”

His moment of anger shifted to concern. He slipped his phone back into his pocket and took both of her hands into his. “You’re shaking all over. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d get upset.”

But it was too late. She could feel everything again, and she could remember everything again. It was like a dam breaking, and the rush of emotion just carried her away. “He threatened me with a knife…” She realized that she could say anything, even the name that she’d feared would make her fragile world crumble down. “Aikawa threatened me with a knife, I could feel it on my side, and then he hit me when I talked back to him, but I did it again anyway, and I tried to crash the car, because I didn’t think Shingo could track us once we left the downhill…” She burst into tears and was still shaking all over, but she couldn’t stop talking, so she didn’t. She told him everything. She remembered her desperation and the moment of hope when Shingo started giving her instructions. She only remembered pieces of the crash and aftermath. She remembered the vivid hallucinations in the hospital, and the endless cycle of fear and exhaustion. But after that, she had a gap. “I remember thinking I heard you tell me that you’d won your race and was coming back. And I think I had a hallucination already in Shingo’s car, because I thought Ryosuke-san was driving it and talking to me. But that’s… that’s all.” She started hiccuping as the sobs  turned intermittent. Keisuke had wrapped his arms around her at some point. Now that her tirade had wound down, he offered her a rag from his pocket to wipe her face. It was oil-stained but clean.

“Those weren’t hallucinations.” He kept his voice carefully calm, but he seemed about as stirred up as she did. “I did call you after my race to tell you that I’d won. Aniki wasn’t in the car with you, but Shingo called him and he did speak to you over the phone. Was there anything else?”

Yasuko felt herself calming down a little. “Yes,” she admitted shakily. “Sort of. I can feel that there are other things in my head that I can’t see. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I didn’t mean to start doing this.”

“I think you’re getting better,” Keisuke offered. “You’re coming back. But you’re in a terrible state, and I’m the one in charge of you right now. Maybe I should take you to the doctor.”

Yasuko couldn’t think of any objection to this. One of the matters that her other two guardians had settled between them was finding her a doctor and establishing her as a regular patient. The doctor took her in upon the spot, did several checks, and asked her strange questions to see if she knew how old she was and which day it was. Yuichi joined them there - she could only guess that Keisuke had called him - and he brought her home to rest. But she didn’t rest the same way she had before. She had a new thought bouncing around in her mind, one that gave her a new strength and determination. Keisuke had done so much for her. She had to do something for him. She knew what she had to do.

She was delayed, of course. She stayed home from school for two more days, and the people in her life still treated her carefully. She felt a lot more fragile and kept breaking down into tears at random times and places. But finally, she started to feel more control returning over her emotions, and she knew she had to put her plan into action. She started by cornering one of her gas station friends, someone who had never let her down. “Itsuki-san,” she told him, keeping her voice as steady as she could. “I need you to do something for me tomorrow. I know your schedule, and I know you get to leave in the afternoon. Please help me.”

“Of course, Yasuko-chan,” he agreed readily. “What do you need?”

She took a breath. “I need you to give me a ride to the racing pass at Sadamine… and leave me there.”

“Absolutely not,” he immediately replied. “I’m not dropping you off and leaving you anywhere.”

“Please, Itsuki-san…”

“No. It isn’t safe. What’s in your head, Yasuko-chan?”

She knew she would have to tell him at least a little more. “There’s someone I have to talk to there, and I need her to give me a ride back. I don’t think I can tell you the whole story yet. I’m not crazy, Itsuki-san. I know what I’m doing, and I know why. It’ll all make sense when the whole story comes out.”

He stood firm. “If you need a ride to Sadamine Pass tomorrow, I will take you. But I am not leaving you. I’ll stand at a distance and keep an eye out for you. And if things fall through, or I don’t think this person is safe for any reason, I’m bringing you back with me. That’s my deal.”

Though it didn’t seem ideal to her, she understood that it was the best she would get. She accepted. The next day, she only told her guardian that she needed to do an errand and Itsuki-san was taking her. He seemed hesitant at first. As she’d guessed, though, he ultimately did trust his employee, and he let her go with a promise that she’d stay in touch. Though her plan was not proceeding on an ideal course, she hit on a stroke of luck as they were nearing their destination. “Itsuki-san! Quick! Turn here!”

“That’s a parking lot, Yasuko-chan…” he protested, making the turn just in time and with a tire screech. But she had spotted the prize, and she pointed it out to him. In the parking area of a small diner sat a glossy black FD.

Yasuko felt more than a bit guilty as she engaged in both subterfuge and eavesdropping. She and Itsuki sat down as close as she dared to a table near the only booth with two girls in it. Yasuko had never heard what her quarry actually looked like, but somehow she looked at one particular young woman’s demeanor and knew that it had to be her. She realized, taking a couple of quick glances at the booth out of the corner of her eye, that the girl had the exact same hair color as she did, before hers was cut short and dyed aqua. The girl’s friend began by asking her if she’d enjoyed her date. Yasuko’s breath caught, and for a moment of despair she thought that Keisuke was right. But as her target began to answer, she realized that there was still hope. The date was okay, sort of, not terrible, but she’d felt no spark. She needed to feel a spark to make it work. She had tried, honestly, but there had been nothing before, and nothing since… someone. Yasuko felt certain she knew who ‘someone’ was. She took a deep breath, reached out, touched Itsuki’s hand for a moment, and rose to her feet. She needed another deep breath to reach the booth, and another to dare to speak. Both women had fallen silent as she had approached. “I… I’m sorry,” she started. She had to pull herself together and not be pitiful. She silently reminded herself why this was so important. “I know I am being impolite. I need to speak to Iwase Kyoko. It’s important. My name is Tachibana Yasuko. And…” Yasuko faltered for a moment, but Kyoko’s eyes were kind if a bit confused. “And my title is that I’m the ‘Racer’s Angel’.”

The two women remained silent for a moment. Kyoko’s companion regained her composure first. “That’s a big claim to make… whatever it means… Kyoko, what is she talking about?”

“Can you offer me some proof?” Kyoko asked, but her voice remained calm, level, even a little curious. She wasn’t angry.

Yasuko swallowed. “I don’t know. I can try.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and flipped it open. She showed her contacts list to Kyoko. “The first three are my legal guardians.” At the third name, she noticed the young woman turn pale and then blush lightly in consternation. Yasuko continued to page down the names. Nearly every single one of them were racers. She realized belatedly that they were all from Gunma, though, and she had no idea how many of them Kyoko would recognize.

“I’m listening,” Kyoko offered cautiously. “I don’t know if I’m convinced, but I am listening.”

Yasuko took another breath. “Please come back with me. Please take me back. I.. I wanted to make you do it. I asked to be brought here and left here, so that I could beg you for a ride. I know you’re kind and you would do it. But Itsuki-san refused to leave me by myself. Please take me.”

“Where?” Kyoko asked. Yasuko realized that she hadn’t done a terribly good job explaining herself. She proceeded to do an even worse job of trying to clarify.

“He’s done now. He’s going pro. And he hasn’t moved on. He says he’s sure that you have, and he says he doesn’t blame you. He turned you down, and it hurt. And now… he says you’ve moved on, but he never asked you. And he looks at your name on his phone every day.”

Kyoko stared at her, astonished. “Who?” she asked, but Yasuko knew by her tone of voice that she already knew exactly whom Yasuko was talking about.

“You know. He hasn’t gotten over you. And I heard you talking to your friend. I’m sorry. I listened on purpose. You haven’t gotten over him either. I was going to come to the pass and hope you were driving tonight. But I saw your car here and… Please forgive me for interfering. Please come back to him. Please take me to Akagi tonight.” Yasuko started feeling shaky and weepy again. She hated it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get… like this again.”

“You were in an automobile accident, weren’t you? A few weeks ago? I saw it on the website.” Kyoko started to rise from her seat. Her friend pre-empted her and moved over to offer Yasuko a place to sit. Yasuko sat opposite Kyoko, next to her friend, and tried to control herself.

“Yes. I’m sorry. It feels like I’m being emotionally manipulative. I meant to listen in, and that was a bad thing to do. And I meant to manipulate you by getting left here, but Itsuki-san wouldn’t do it. But I didn’t mean to get shaky and do it emotionally.”

“Tachibana Yasuko…” Kyoko paused for a moment, then spoke earnestly. “Nobody needs to emotionally manipulate me to make me want to see Keisuke-san again. But you’re asking me to take you to Akagi, and he asked me to stop coming to his practice. I’ve stayed away from his races, too. I did what he asked, because I respect him.”

“He needs you.” Yasuko knew her voice was stronger now, because she knew she believed it. “He’s done so much for me all the way back to when we first met. I need to do something for him. If you bring me, you can blame me. I’ll explain that I made you come, so that you could bring me home. You weren’t showing up at his practice on purpose, against his wishes, because I made you do it. Please.” Kyoko still hesitated, and Yasuko knew she had to try harder. “You’re a racer. I know you are. I know you’re a good one. You take a chance every time you drift out of your lane. You can take another chance. What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

“She’s got a point.” Kyoko’s friend finally spoke up, after another moment of awkward silence. “What’s going to happen if he turns you down again? If you think he’d get angry and violent about it, you had better be able to move on from him, instead of half-heartedly going on dates with decent men and giving up on them because they don’t measure up to him.”

“No,” Kyoko answered. At first, Yasuko thought this was a refusal, and her heart dropped. But Kyoko continued. “No, Keisuke-san wouldn’t get angry or violent. If I go and he turns me down again, he’ll do it like a gentleman, as he did before. And I will never love again.” She drew in a breath, then climbed out of the booth and rose to her feet. “Alright. I’ll go with you. I’ll take the chance, and I’ll go one more time.” Then she muttered very quietly to herself, “I must be crazy.”

Yasuko let out a sigh of relief, scrambling out of the other side of the booth. She turned to Kyoko’s friend. “Thank you, and I’m sorry for interrupting your time together.”

“If this works, it’ll be worth it,” her friend noted wryly. “Kyoko, you call me tonight so that I know you’re safe.”

As Kyoko acquiesced, Yasuko waved to Itsuki, who had risen from his own seat. “It’s okay. You can stay and finish your drink. I’ll pay for it,” she offered.

But Itsuki still held firm. “I’m not making you pay for my drink, and I’m not just going to sit here. I’ll follow you to Akagi. It’s okay.”

“Okay.” Yasuko understood that he was going to stand firm on this. “I’ll see you there.” She felt in the back of her mind that she should be kinder to the poor guy, but she was still being held in place by her single-minded determination, the first sustaining emotion she’d had since the accident. “He’s one of the Akina Speed Stars,” she explained to Kyoko, following the woman out into the parking lot. “He works for my primary guardian. He’s really sweet. I like him a great deal.”

“I think he feels the same way about you,” Kyoko mused, opening the passenger door for Yasuko. “We have a ride ahead of us. Can you tell me more about yourself and how you wound up looking for me?”

The time seemed to pass quickly, and Yasuko found herself liking Kyoko more and more. The woman was both kind and spirited. She asked intelligent questions and seemed genuinely interested in the answers. Even though Yasuko tried to be polite and return the favor, she got the feeling that Kyoko learned much more about her than she’d learned about Kyoko. Then they reached the bottom of the course, and Yasuko could tell that Kyoko had suddenly become a lot more nervous. “Go,” Yasuko whispered. “It’s okay, go on up.” To her delight, Kyoko accelerated, and Yasuko got to watch her delicate control as her FD roared up the hill. Then Kyoko’s breath caught - and Yasuko squeaked - as a yellow FD pulled around the corner nearly on top of them and narrowly missed them. It didn’t take long for him to recover, and headlights appeared in the rearview mirror.

“Okay,” Kyoko murmured. “See how I’ve grown.” And just like that, Yasuko was actually involved in her first real street race. 

It was certainly an intense first race. Yasuko could feel the energy on the back of her neck, just as she had when Keisuke had spectated her and she had spun out. But Kyoko didn’t spin out. She just got better. Every time he pulled to the side as if he were going to pass them, Kyoko eased further into the middle of the road and picked up her speed another notch. As they reached a straightaway, Yasuko squeaked as she felt a bump from behind. It wasn’t hard, just a tap, reminding her of the way that Shingo had drawn her attention with his plan to thwart the kidnapping. But Kyoko didn’t flinch, so she didn’t lose any speed. Finally, as they reached a corner that she could not take without drifting far into the outside, he entered with a better line and overtook her. Yasuko squeaked again as his car passed very, very close to them, and then he was out and ahead with only about a quarter of the course left to cement his lead. Yasuko glanced up at her driver to see how she took the loss. Kyoko smiled, tipping her head up proudly. “He’s still faster. Good. But I gave him a good run.” By the time they reached the parking lot, his FD was sitting in the middle of it, his figure outlined by the headlights, standing in front of his car with his arms folded and waiting for them. Kyoko came to a stop a few yards away, her headlights facing his.

Yasuko hurried out of the car first and ran up to him before Kyoko could finish unbuckling her seatbelt. “That was amazing, Keisuke-san!”

“Oh, now I get my respect back?” he teased her, giving her a big hug. “I didn’t expect you to be… here…” He straightened up, and she realized that he had seen Kyoko, standing still in front of her own vehicle.

“She tried to move on.” Yasuko stepped out in front of him, trying to catch his attention again. “And it didn’t work. She wasn’t coming, because you told her not to, and she respects you. I made her come. Please.” But as she looked back up at him, she realized that she didn’t have to say a word. He hadn’t stopped looking at Kyoko, and he had this strange mixture of nervousness and vulnerability in his expression. Yasuko had never seen him look like that before. She stepped back, flustered and concerned, and just watched the two people match gazes as if they were the only people present. Then Kyoko simply started walking towards him, step by step. Her measured stride suddenly reminded Yasuko of a bride approaching her husband, even though Kyoko carried nothing and both of them were dressed very casually. Yasuko drew further back, not wanting to interrupt the moment. She couldn’t quite hear what they said to each other. Kyoko reached up and rested her hand gently on Keisuke’s shoulder. Then he stepped forward, closing the last space between them, and folded her into his arms. He bent his head slightly over hers, closing his eyes, and Yasuko let out a breath of relief. 

Yasuko took one more step back, turned around, and bumped right into Itsuki. He quickly steadied her. “Is this what today’s errand was all about?” he asked her in astonishment. “You literally just went to another province and brought back a girlfriend for Keisuke-san. Is this a service you provide now?”

Yasuko giggled at that, feeling the exhaustion descend with the relief. “I didn’t just pick her out of nowhere, Itsuki-san. She already liked him. I just did what I needed to do.”

“To help a friend. I would do something like that for Takumi. You’re a good friend, Yasuko-chan.” He slipped his arm around her shoulders comfortingly. “But you’re shaking again. I think this was a bit too much for you. I’m going to get into trouble for letting you wear yourself out like this. Are you ready to go home now?”

“More than ready.” Yasuko let Itsuki lead her toward his car, taking one glance back at the couple in the parking lot. “Thank you,” she told him, as he settled into the driver’s seat and put on his seatbelt. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”

“I’m glad to help.” She could tell that he meant it. She could always tell, because he never hid his emotions, and his emotions never frightened her. As he started driving them back down Akagi’s hill, she realized anew just how much she liked him.

Chapter Text

For an unprecedented amount of time - an entire week - Yasuko did not see Keisuke in person.

This wasn’t entirely his doing. She had over-exerted herself with her little crusade on his behalf so soon after she had started breaking through the protective wall in her own mind. She spent the weekend trembling and exhausted in bed and missed another couple of days at school. Her appetite faltered, and she started to need a belt for her pants again. The long stretch of blankness had given way to multiple periods of crying as she struggled to face her recent memories.

But then, things started to improve. She started to smile more often. Ryosuke took her for another driving lesson once she felt well enough to attend school, and she felt proud of herself when he praised her progress. Itsuki’s antics at the gas station finally drew a few giggles. And she hadn’t completely lost contact with Keisuke. He called her, or she called him, every couple of days just to chat for a short time. He was busy. He had picked up a girlfriend on the same day that he had been given access to new training areas meant for professional racers. He had schedule shifts and new responsibilities to handle, responsibilities that involved less paperwork and more action.

Then he called her in the afternoon, when she had finished her homework and was about to start on the extra work she’d been given to catch up on lost time. “Hey, Yasuko-chan. I’d like to take you for a drive. Can you come tonight or tomorrow night?”

Yasuko found herself smiling again. “I can come tonight. I’ve missed you, Keisuke-san, even though we’ve talked on the phone.”

“I miss you too. I’ve got to go, I’m short on time - but I’ll be there shortly after eight.”

Sure enough, she heard the familiar engine sound in the dark of the late autumn evening, and he pulled in ‘right on time’ - that being, of course, shortly after eight. Before she could walk up to the passenger’s side, he asked for a full tank of gas and exited the car to meet her. He gave her a big hug, then drew back a little and looked at her in the gas station lighting. “You’ve gotten thin, Yasuko-chan. I think we need to take better care of you.”

“With all that happened, I think you’re doing a really good job.” Yasuko didn’t want him to feel badly about her condition. “I’m sorry. Yuichi-san keeps bringing me especially nice things to eat, but I just haven’t been very hungry.”

“Well, I think I know how to help you,” Keisuke offered. She looked back up at him. She could already see a change in his demeanor. He was more alert and more relaxed than he had been since even before Project D had ended. She was suddenly reminded of the first night they’d met, when she had crept over to his car and felt the irresistible draw of a kindred spirit. “Come on, they’re about ready with the car.”

“We’re going for a drive, right?” Yasuko wondered if this was going to be another of his attempts to waken or fill her spirit by ‘going fast up the hill’. “So I should put on the harness.”

“It doesn’t matter which restraint you use,” he told her. That left her puzzled for the entire drive, especially when she could see clearly that they were headed straight for the course at Akagi. As they reached it, being one of the last possible ideal nights for racing and practicing, she saw the usual timekeepers and course-watchers in place. He pulled up, putting the FD in neutral and engaging the emergency brake, and rolled down the window. “I need a clear course for a while. Longer than usual. We may be doing several runs tonight.” Few people could give an order like that and make it stick, but Takahashi Keisuke at Akagi was one of them. But just as he rolled up the window and Yasuko readied herself for his takeoff, he undid his harness and opened the door instead. “Come on out, Yasuko-chan.”

Wonderingly, she stepped out of the car and rested her hand on the hood as she walked around the front to join him. He gestured toward the driver’s seat. Yasuko faltered. “Me? I… I couldn’t do that.”

“Why not? I’ve been taking you up and down, hoping I could coax a bit of spirit back into you. But I started talking and thinking about the first time we met, and I realized that I wasn’t actually the one who drew you in. This car was. I’ve talked to Aniki, he says you can handle it.”

Keisuke walked around the back of the car and climbed into the passenger’s seat. He had to put the seat well back before he could fit his legs in. Yasuko traced her hand from the hood along the door as she walked slowly around the driver’s side door and peeked in. “Has anybody but you ever even driven this car? Except maybe Ryosuke-san?”

“Him and the mechanics,” Keisuke answered. “It’s okay, I’m right here. Give it a try.”

She could feel the latent power in the yellow FD even before she sat in the driver’s seat. “I think I’d need to start out really carefully in this car,” she mused, adjusting the seat. She hesitated again before reaching out to adjust the mirrors.

“I’ll give you as many runs as you want,” Keisuke told her.

“Okay…” Her voice trembled, but she realized that it was not the same weak shakiness as before. She took hold of the wheel, drew in a deep breath, shut her eyes for a moment, and stepped on the brake, easing the emergency brake off. She put the clutch to the floor, shifted into first, took another deep breath…

Yasuko took the car up the hill very, very carefully, and it obliged surprisingly well. It seemed well balanced and well tuned, very much like the FC she had become accustomed to, a calm and stable vehicle. She took her time, getting used to the feel of it… or so she thought. She took the downhill at a sedate pace. It was a surprisingly relaxing drive. Her confidence rising, she decided to increase her speed as she started the uphill again. She glanced at the tachometer and revved to pick up the pace. The engine obligingly roared, and Yasuko suddenly had a very different driving experience on her hands. 

Ryosuke’s FC was powerful enough, but it was also sedate. This beast wanted more speed. At first, the sheer strength of the car’s response daunted her. Then she realized to her surprise that she was still in complete control. It roared and howled and wanted more speed, more power, more audacity and assertiveness, but it was also fully responsive. She felt entirely safe, and she pushed the pace again. On the downhill, she felt the rush so strongly that she cheered as she cleared the last corner and pulled it back around. “Again, Keisuke-san, please, again!”

“I told you,” he replied, lounging in his seat and looking quite satisfied, “as many as you want.”

So the FD roared back into the uphill. At the top, they got the all-clear signal and she plunged back down again. All was going well. She took a corner wide, laughing, and started to pull out of it. Suddenly, Keisuke straightened up in his seat, just before she cleared the corner and saw headlights. There was a car, it looked like a normal one, and it was working its way patiently up the hill in her lane. Her brain ran the calculations quick as lightning and she knew she could never stop or swerve in time to avoid hitting it. She slammed on the brake anyway, knowing that she was just going to put herself into a skid and not knowing what else to do about it.

“Hard left.” The voice hit her with a command tone so strong that she immediately obeyed. She pulled the wheel as far as it could go. Something in her head tried to tell her that the wheel had stuck far before it should have reached its normal stopping point. The FD fell into a slide, and she heard the authoritative voice again. “Hard right.” Again she obeyed. To her astonishment, the car obligingly lurched to the other side, clearing the oncoming vehicle neatly! “Left again,” the voice commanded. This time, the wheel stuck even sooner than before. She glanced down for just a moment, astonished and confused, and saw three hands on the wheel. “Control it now,” was the next order, and she started working with the wheel and brake to bring herself out of the skid without even consciously realizing what she’d been told to do. For just a moment, a dark haze passed across her vision, and then it cleared and she suddenly realized that she was driving at a normal pace down the hill. “Good,” Keisuke told her. “That’s good. Are you okay?”

“I-I don’t know. Am I?” Yasuko squeaked. “What happened?”

He released the wheel and settled back in his seat. “Inertial drift. It was a pretty clean one, too. I’d never done it from the passenger’s seat before. Everything’s okay now. We’re well over halfway down, so this fellow must have entered after we were cleared. You’re handling things pretty well. Want to finish taking us to the end of the course?”

Yasuko took a deep breath, then another. Her pace had slowed considerably, and the FD had reverted from eagerness back to calm. “Yes. I think I can.” She had heard Ryosuke tell her more than once, as he was teaching her to drive, that he wouldn’t let her crash. Especially after having tapped Yuichi’s bumper, she had never really believed that a passenger could make a guarantee like that. But now she knew for certain that Keisuke would not let her crash. So she took up the pace a little, gaining back a small piece of her confidence, and finished the course strong. “Okay,” she told him, parking the car and unbuckling her harness. “Okay, I think that’s enough.”

They switched seats. Yasuko let out a sigh of mixed regret and relief as she buckled herself in. “That was… amazing. It was wild.”

Keisuke revved the engine a couple of times before putting it in gear and easing out onto the road. “You drove well. I think the car likes you.”

“I like your car. I always have.” Yasuko settled back in her seat, resting, watching him drive. As she relaxed, she slowly realized that something was tickling at the back of her mind. She almost remembered the shape of something. “Keisuke-san… may I borrow your phone?”

“Sure. Did you forget to charge yours?” He slipped his hand into his pocket and handed her the little device. But she didn’t open it or turn it on.

“No. I just had a strange feeling, like I remembered something that’s missing now.” Yasuko turned the phone around until the angle seemed right, then reached up and placed it on top of the dashboard. She moved it a little to the side, a little back, and then sat back and looked at it for just an instant. The motion of the car made it immediately shift and start to slide, and she caught it before it could fall. “I’m sorry. I guess that made no sense. But I just had a moment and I remembered seeing something that looked like your phone, and it was right there. But it won’t stay.”

“Of course it wouldn’t stay now,” Keisuke replied thoughtfully. “I taped it.”

“What do you mean?” Yasuko asked, perplexed. “When?”

Keisuke hesitated. “I’ll explain it later. How do you feel?”

Yasuko took a moment and thought about it. “I feel… alive. Awake. I feel like myself.”

“Good!” He paused for a moment as they reached an intersection. “Are you tired out? I’ll take you home.”

“I…” Yasuko couldn’t help smiling again. “I want ice cream.”

Keisuke grinned in return. “You’ve got it.”

Yasuko had rather liked the idea of having a ‘boring’ life for a while now, and she finally got her wish. Years went by. Nothing ‘big’ happened. Aikawa did eventually awaken to a trial and a prison sentence that Yasuko’s guardians all agreed was not nearly long enough. Fate had decreed a harsher sentence for him. Though he mostly recovered from his injuries, he never raced again. Yasuko caught up in her schoolwork and her weight gain, bouncing back as only teenagers do. By the time she was sixteen, she had started showing up at races and practice nights with her own toolkit, fulfilling her nickname by checking and working for free on any vehicle brought to her. By the time she was seventeen, she had done just what Bunta had anticipated and begun offering oil changes and other simple services out of the gas station where she worked. As promised, he was her first customer. When she turned eighteen, she could have taken her pick for her first car. Before she could choose among the various new and used vehicles available for her perusal, she fell in love with a wreck of a GT-R that she pulled out of a junkyard and restored herself. It was dark gray, and looked as though it had been hard used before it was sold away and then given up. Ryosuke gave it thoughtful looks from time to time, but never explained why. She was used to that. He rarely explained himself.

She and Keisuke, of course, stayed in touch. She attended his wedding, and he attended hers. Despite his assertion that Itsuki was eager and would likely stake his claim as soon as she grew a little older, the “Lonely Driver” had become such a good friend that he failed to see another side to her until she steered him just a little bit. It wasn’t terribly hard to give him a hint that he could take. Yamamoto Yasuko who had become Takahashi Yasuko and then Tachibana Yasuko finally wound up as Takeuchi Yasuko and enjoyed it very much. By the time Keisuke left driving for his new venture, she had completed her own education and had been working as an engineer for several years; he promptly hired her as a designer. As he grew in importance, his employees and others wondered to see this girl designer simply calling him ‘Keisuke-san’ and hearing ‘Yasuko-chan’ in return, but neither of the two ever gave up the habit.

Yuichi was doubly and triply blessed. He had gained a daughter, he had gained his most stalwart employee and likely replacement as a son-in-law, and he wound up with grandchildren as well. He never stepped out of the father role, and she did wind up transitioning from calling him ‘Yuichi-san’ to ‘Outo-san’. The Takahashi brothers, on the other hand, became “Uncle” to her children, and she considered Keisuke’s child as her cousin. In time, as ‘her’ racers began training the next generation, she gratefully faded back to her technical roles and her comfortable, happy life.