A Hybrid of Life and Gasoline | 命とガソリンのハイブリッド

Part 3 | Crash

Friday morning.

Towa couldn't sleep at all. He got back to his house at around 2AM after witnessing that amazing car on the Fruits Line. He could only lie awake in his bed with Sumire sleeping soundly by his side.

Even if it was his first time running the course, and that he only got to look at it for about 6 corners, it was very obvious how good the driver of that Probox was.

No, not just good, exceptional would be more appropriate. The driver, whoever they were, clearly had familiarity with the course that's only possible if they had run it for hundreds, if not thousands of runs, along with complete confidence in the ability of the car itself.

This was also the exact reason why Towa couldn't really shake off the thought of it.

The Probox was not, and had not ever been, a performance car by any stretch of imagination.

It was a compact commercial vehicle designed primarily for business use. Usually driven on the expressway at above the speed limit due to the uncaring nature of its occupant, there was a reason why they were usually referred to as being powered by 'twin turbos of delivery deadlines and customer complaints.'

In some way, that made the whole encounter more surreal to Towa. Had it been an old, legendary sports car, something like a Fairlady Z, or an RX-7, maybe he'd have thought it was a spirit, or a myth, but with its box-shape bodyshell with rounded corners that actually gives a slight whimsical feeling, it just made the whole encounter more confusing rather than creepy.

Another thing that Towa couldn't stop thinking about was the Geo Timer application itself. From little information provided by Takeshi, along with its amateur-ish appearance both on the homepage that hosted it and with the app itself, lent it some mystique that made the user base seemed like a league of degenerates, including Takeshi who introduced him to it. This made Towa unsure if he really should be using it.

One thing Towa's sure of though, was that driving at the best of his abilities on the Fruits Line was a whole lot of fun. The adrenaline after each successive run was the one thing that Towa realized immediately would be addicting. However, he wasn't sure why the simple inclusion of a timer that easily shows the progress of his abilities made him keep wanting for another go.

"Are you awake, Towa-chan?"

Sumire suddenly asked. Towa was startled because he didn't realize at all that it's already near 6AM, which usually was the time Sumire wakes up.

"Yes." Towa replied, almost a whisper.

"What time is it?" Sumire asked again

Sumire got up to look at her phone, seeing that it's 5:50, so she slowly got out of the bed. Still sleepy and not quite sure why Towa was lying there but not sleeping.

By the time Sumire got out of the bathroom at 6.20, Towa had already come and sat quietly at the dinner table in the living room. Sumire wasn't sure if she should ask what's on his mind. She knew him well enough to realize that something's definitely bugging him, but guess that maybe it was work related, which had happened before. She decided that it was not worth prying.

Like every morning, Towa later drove Sumire to work, and he didn't mention anything at all.

—

In the opinion of Ippei Noda, Tsuchiura, where he was born and raised, was the most boring place on earth. If you thought the neighboring area of Tsukuba was dull, that's nothing compared to Tsuchiura.

In 2023, Ibaraki again was voted the least attractive prefecture in all of Japan via independent survey, beating nearby places such as Tochigi, Gunma and Saitama. It held this position for nearly a decade by this point. In fact, when it managed to rise up to 42nd a few years back it made national news.