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

Part 9 | Fate

It was a few days later, a typical Thursday evening.

In the old small village of Koibuchi on the outskirts of Mito City, situated a large, solitary house among the agricultural fields. It was the home of the Hattori family. A very traditional style house with a gravel driveway on a very large plot of land for residential. Right beside it there was an even larger plot of land, although small for typical agriculture business, that was being used for planting vegetables and other farming activities.

Norio had just finished his work and got home from Tsukuba, which was an hour drive on the Joban Expressway, quite a long commute by usual standard. Norio usually got home at nearly 7PM due to the distance.

Norio was observing if the small Suzuki Carry truck that his mother usually used was there in the driveway, and saw that it was indeed there. Sometimes his mother would still be out in town, but usually she'd long be home before he would. He just parked his yellow Swift there right beside it.

"I'm home." Norio announced as he walked through the door.

His mother peeked out from the kitchen as she heard Norio. She was a typical middle aged woman who works in farming.

"How was work today!" Norio's mother said with a joyful voice, her hand was holding a spatula and she was wearing an apron as she's cooking.

"It was as usual." Norio replied while removing his shoes.

"Miyagi-san gave me a lot of radish today. I'm making soup."

"Eh, that's nice."

Norio's mother went back to whatever she's doing and let Norio relax in the living room. As always he looks exhausted and miserable. She kept asking Norio to quit his office job at the university and come back to help her run the family farm that his dad left for them a few years back after he passed away.

Norio was just lying there on the sofa, in his hand was his phone fidgeting with stuff, it was then he noticed a notification appearing on the screen which made him perk up.

'Notice : Fruits Line Course Maintenance Completed!'

It took a while for the police to finish their investigation after a car went into the guardrail at a high rate of speed, despite expecting the area to stay broken for a while, the road maintenance department quickly went and replaced the guardrail, somehow it was a high priority fix for them despite normally the government taking years to even started considering fixing something.

This meant Norio would be able to run the course again, perhaps tonight. Right before Golden Week as well, which Norio never liked leaving the house on because of traffic, so he got a few days running before that.

Despite Norio getting the 2nd place on the leaderboard, he knew 'Azusa-san' would be trying to get their 2nd place back immediately after the course reopens.

Norio really wanted to know who this 'Azusa-san' was, and knew what this person drove to be able to match his time in his Swift Sport. In Norio's imagination, the person probably was a man similar to himself, and sensing that he's probably a bit older to be able to afford nice parts for a relatively sporty car.

There was no easy way for them to meet though. Norio never met any other Geo Timer user on the Fruits Line itself. Mostly because he's avoiding doing it on the weekends and especially during what he thought would be the peak time of 10PM. It'd be a bit awkward with other cars running.

The mountain roads had always help Norio blow off a massive steam brewing with his everyday life. It was something he had been doing for a decade by this point.