Ao no Sumika [Initial D - Keisuke Takahashi | Novella}

Natsuo: 1

Natsuo

(Birth of Summer)

~*~

The purring engine brought a smile to his ears. Keisuke looked out of the window and grinned at the head mechanic who worked on his yellow FD and said, "she sounds like she's ready to kick ass! Come on, let's go on a test run!"

"You go on ahead with him, I'll tail you both up to Akagi," Ryosuke told Motoko. Though his face did not have the biggest smile, anyone close to Ryosuke knew he was happy with how the modifications on the yellow FD turned out and to see his brother sitting there as his number two driver.

It was about a year ago when Keisuke left his gang and came back home to the Takahashi family and to their little trio. Motoko was in Tokyo when the whole ordeal happened, working with here parents as they expanded the business in Shibuya. While Soshiro handled most of the business parts of Sasaki Technologies – since he graduated with Business Operations Management – Motoko was mostly with the research and production team. While she came back home, driving her blue MR-S, she received a call from Ryosuke saying that they needed to meet up at their usual spot. It was a café that sold all of their favorite pastries. Upon arriving, Motoko was surprised by the sight of the brothers sitting across each other at their usual spot.

She thought it was a confrontational meeting, the question if Ryosuke had enough of Keisuke's rebellious stage and decided to confront him then and there rang through her head, but then Keisuke stood up. No longer wearing his gang jacket nor that troubled look on his face. This Keisuke looked lighter, the same Keisuke she remembered meeting in their middle school days.

It was Keisuke who greeted her first with a tight embrace and whispered "welcome back," then Ryosuke who did the same before pulling a chair for her to sit. Then Keisuke told her everything that happened, that he left the gang and found his real goal which was racing, and he knew that to reach that goal is by joining his brother and their little group of street racers setting records at each mountain in Gunma.

After that meet up in the café, and a ride up to Akagi with Keisuke riding with Motoko in her MR-S to watch her go full-out, they agreed to start looking for a car that Keisuke would like and begin their work. It took them a while to get his FD to shape, then Keisuke had his first run, learning how to race with his brother, and only until he beat Motoko was he racing for real with them, and the Akagi Redsuns was born.

After changing out of the jumpsuit, Motoko joined Keisuke in the yellow FD and told him all of the modifications done on the car that would improve his speed. Once Ryosuke was ready, they were driving up Akagi in this time of night, and the entire time, Keisuke was howling like a dog excited with his new toy.

"You're welcome, by the way," Motoko told him when he drifted flawlessly at a corner. "And your mechanic will very much appreciate a tip for all of this."

"You can order whatever you want in any place you want after this," Keisuke said, his grin reaching ear to ear.

"You're gonna regret that, Keisuke," Motoko held onto the handle just above her head and watched the road ahead.

"After this improvement? You deserve it – it's like it's a totally different car but it's the same too. We're gonna beat those suckers at Myogi."

Seems humility still isn't part of his vocabulary, Motoko thought. But as she watched Keisuke drive with a smile on his face, she knew that he has found his path and was working hard to reach his goal. All she's got to do is to make sure he's in check, her and Ryosuke, and remind him to enjoy life and not just race cars. And her first step to do that is to make him go home and sleep in an actual bed and not the driver's seat of the FD (she swears she saw him one morning sleeping in his car).