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

Souai: 3

Motoko was called to be in Tokyo for the day so there was no reason for Keisuke to hang out in the shop. But as if she knew he wasn't planning on showing up for his shift, he received a call from her telling him to get his ass to the shop and do whatever Fumihiro tells him to do. He was slightly pissed with her tone, and the fact that she was ordering him around like that, still Keisuke grabbed his keys and went ("He whines but then does it anyway," Ichikawa noted as she and Ryosuke watched him leave the table with a frown). Arriving at the shop, Fumihiro greeted him by the door and asked that he go with them to visit their next race in Saitama. Usually it was Kenta who did so but he couldn't get out of work.

It was just in time for their trip to Saitama once again when Motoko returned from Shibuya. Her trip there was longer than usual, which reminded Keisuke of her deadline with her parents. It won't be long when her blue MR-S won't be a sight he'll see in Gunma or at his house. It was that realization that made him want Motoko to ride with him whenever they went to their destinations – it didn't matter if they were quiet the whole time, her being there was enough.

"I visited a university in Tokyo," Motoko began out of the blue.

"Yeah?" Keisuke glanced momentarily at her. "Studying again? How many degrees do you need to feel smart anyway?"

"I need enough to start my own thing and be recognized in my field. I plan to take Hajime Auto in the levels of Sasaki Tech."

"Nothing hard for you. Your folks will help you out."

"They won't..."

"No offense but your parents are a bunch of conservative and traditional dicks," Keisuke shifted the gear in his car. "Which says a lot since your grandparents are more laid back."

"They're not... they're just practical. My father was raised that way. I remember what my father told me when I said I wanted to stay in Gunma for a while and run Ojiisan's shop – he said that how grandpa was with me and Soshiro-niisan wasn't how he was raising him. Grandpa was a strict man, and I guess that changed when he saw how harsh he was with Soshiro."

It was hard to imagine Sasaki Hajime being a harsh man towards his kids when he was always so nice to him and the others. Motoko even told him and Ryosuke that he saw her grandfather more like a father than her own.

Motoko sighed and continued, "I guess it was his way to correct his mistakes. Show my father that he was wrong... there were rumors that he and grandma told our parents to leave me and Soshiro with them to raise while they focused on the company. That way my brother and I would still have a childhood and learn to be human. It was their penance."

After shifting the gear, he reached out to Motoko and took her hand to squeeze it. "I can't say that whatever your grandfather did was right, but that still doesn't mean your father has the right to be such an ass. Do you still want to go to Tokyo and run the businesses with them?"

"I do, but only because it's my step to get Hajime Auto set. I need connections to help me with it."

"Then you will. You'll get to do all of that. I know you will. I'll just miss seeing you around the place when you leave."

Arriving at the resting point on the mountain, Project D parked their vans and two cars. Their opponents were already there when they came and Motoko and Fumihiro went to greet them. They ran their practice runs, but Motoko already had an idea how the FD would look like with its lap. The road wasn't smooth, and after listening to it – after asking Keisuke to turn off the radio so she could listen to the ride – she knew the state of it when he went full out in the practice.

Even the 86 was having issues with the road, and Motoko and the others were trying every setting they could make to fit the two cars to the track's environment.