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

Part 30 | Carburetor

Saturday morning, Ippei was preparing to go on a date with Sachiko, as they decided they'd go to an exotic petting zoo today.

Despite this, Ippei wasn't feeling all that great today. The mid-term exam which ended on Friday was better than he expected from his worries beforehand, but that was not the issue here.

The problem was when Ryoji went to Akira after it was finished, and he confessed that he won't be staying at Tsuchiura First High School after the summer break. That broke Akira, hard, and it broke Ippei as well. Just because he was there at the time and Akira was so upset about it.

There was some hope when Ryoji came back to class, but Ippei knew beforehand it wasn't right. Even if he had some time to prepare for the inevitable, once it was brought up again, the same feelings came back even if it's not as bad as before as he had time to process it.

Anyhow, Ippei didn't want to appear gloomy to Sachiko. After playing his Electone for a couple of hours, around 10 AM, Ippei got out of his bedroom, walked downstairs, and out the living room. His father was out in the PC shop workstation as always, playing games, Stardew Valley was the choice today apparently.

Ippei didn't pay much attention to his father, but he had his motorcycle helmet in hand and was dressed pretty nicely, so of course Mizuho noticed.

"Going somewhere today?" Mizuho turned his head and asked.

"Yeah." Ippei replied.

"Oh, need some petrol money?" Mizuho seemed to be more caring today.

"The moped got plenty of fuel." Ippei didn't even turn to look at his father to answer.

"You can use the money to buy gifts if you want."

Ippei didn't even respond to that, he just walked out of the shop in a hurry.

"What's wrong with the guy?" Mizuho couldn't help but say that to himself. 

Mizuho noticed that Ippei had been down for quite a while now, and yet he didn't have a clue how to find out the reason if Ippei was not going to tell him.

Ippei pulled the Gorilla bike out from the storage space behind the house, he then put his Arai helmet on, turned on the fuel tap, and kick started it, which the bike did beautifully with only 2 kicks. The familiar sound of the 4-stroke 1-cylinder engine ticking away, ready to run.

Ippei rode the Gorilla to National Route 125, before turning left to head south towards Okazaki. He was now pretty familiar with the area that he didn't even need to think about directions, despite having rarely been around this part before this year.

The white Gorilla was running great as always before this point, but as Ippei was crossing the bridge over the Hanamuro river, he felt that the engine misfire slightly as the exhaust sputtered, and there was no acceleration for a moment, but it was gone once he twisted the throttle a bit more.

Then, at the intersection leading to Sachiko's house, he was sitting at a traffic light waiting for it to turn green, the Gorilla engine suddenly died. That made Ippei pretty shocked, as it has never happened before.

Ippei tried kick starting it, but even after 4-5 kicks, it still didn't do anything, luckily on the 6th kick it started back up as the light was turning green, so he quickly accelerated away turning right.

Immediately after, there was a pretty steep hill, and Ippei knew the Gorilla wasn't running properly as it had no power compared to before when he rode the same path. It was still climbing though, if clearly very labored with a lot of throttle needed.

Another intersection, the light was turning yellow and Ippei didn't want the bike to die again, so he just quickly turned left towards Sachiko's house. He had to lean quite a lot in order to make the turn as he didn't want to slow down and lose speed. Something was very wrong.