chapter twenty-four

shut up and drive

We followed Nakaoka up a rickety flight of red metal stairs and into a caged-off area lined with the kind of metal shelves that my stepmother kept in the cold storage room in the basement of their house in Tokyo. In the middle of it all, was a familiar face spraying down a green helmet that he had pulled out of a bin marked helpfully as 'worn helmets'.

"Oi, Futa!" Nakaoka shouted, practically bouncing over to the Daruma Baby that he had bonded with post Bordertown Battle.

"What's up little man?" Futa laughed, giving the younger boy a fist bump. "Welcome to the greatest go-karting track in all of Japan."

Fujio snorted; hands tucked neatly into his pockets. "That's a fucking lie."

"I have to admit, it has been a while since anybody older than twelve has had a birthday party here." Futa snickered, inspecting some of the karting helmets that were on the shelf closest to him. "And where is the birthday girl, dare I ask?"

"I'm right here, dumbass." I said with an eyeroll, weakly raising an arm as Yasushi nudged me in the small of my back, urging me to approach the Daruma Baby who was handing out helmets.

Behind him, a teenager not much older than us frowned at his phone, the uniform bowling shirt hanging off his muscular frame as if it was four sizes too big.

"Fujin!" Futa shouted, snapping the younger boy to attention. "A little help would be nice here, mate."

Fujin rolled his eyes, pocketing the cell phone before he started helping Futa hand the helmets out. I took off the tiara that Yui had given me and passed it to Shizuka, who was going to stay at the table and keep Arata's dog company. Shizuka, rightly so, had been left in charge of food, so while we zipped around the track, she was going to sort out dinner.

Yui meandered around the metal cage, a lemon yellow helmet on her own head as she held up her disposable film camera. She had brought a shopping basket full of them to the party, and she was circling around to make sure that every aspect of the night was well-documented.

"Smile for the camera!" She shouted, creeping up on me and Tsukasa as I was helping him to do up the chin strap, securing the helmet around his beautiful face.

"Yui, the helmets cover our mouths!" I laughed, one of Tsukasa's arms coming up to wrap around my shoulders as the camera flash went off.

One by one, we all finished getting suited up. The Ebara Arcade Complex was too cheap to spring for even the worst quality racing coveralls, so we gathered against the cage wall in a mismatches assortment of street clothes and helmets, flecks of paint chipping off some of the bigger helmets that had clearly seen more use than others as Fujin used Yui's camera to get a group picture.

We were unable to see what the pictures looked like until Yui got the film developed, so after taking two shots, Fujin handed her the camera back and she stowed in the fanny pack that she was wearing across her chest. Futa unlocked the cage door, waving us all out into the track with a dramatic flick of the wrist, as if he was a magician revealing his most renowned trick.

"I call dibs on number forty-four!" I shouted, unsure how the karts were even numbered. The electric go karts were lined up four wide and ten deep, so there were more than enough karts in the pit lane for all of us.

"Any particular reason? I wanna be at the front." Fujio decided, grabbing the kart closest to the cage (and the end of the pit lane). The back brandished a large number six. Nico Rosberg and Nicholas Latifi's number.

"It's Lewis Hamilton's number, duh. You're a petrolhead too, you should know this. You've got the same number as Rosberg." I laughed, continuing my inspection of the numbers before finally finding a kart brandishing the legendary number, two rows back in the second column.

Tsukasa took the kart next to me, marked as number eighteen (Lance Stroll's number, but continuing to blurt out F1 stats didn't seem like a smart decision). After doing up his seatbelt, he reached over to squeeze my hand, a moment captured on film by Yui before Fujin scolded her for having the camera out on track. The youngest Ueda sibling stuck her middle finger up at the boy before getting into the go-kart in front of mine, and coincidentally next to Fujio's.

Fujio Hanoaka may have liked victory, but Yui Ueda craved it more than even he did.

"Let's get this show on the road!" Madoka shouted from her kart, the third one in the row closest to the outside wall, which was painted to make the pitlane look like Rainbow Road. "I'm ready to race!"

After inspecting our seatbelts and determining that we were all ready to drive, Fujin and Futa circled the pitlane to activate all of the karts and unplug them from the chargers dangling from the ceiling.

"I want a nice clean race, yeah I'm lookin' at you Nakagoshi!" Futa joked, pointing at the younger boy, who had found himself at the back of the pack. "After you guys head out, we're closing the pitlane. We'll open it again after you begin the final lap. There will be no crashing, no bumping, no yellow flags. If you end up in the wall, it's your own fault."

"Charming." Arata hummed from the go-kart on my other side. "Any other things we should know?"

"It's just like driving a car." Futa insisted. "Just follow the track, brake responsibly. There's no team radio, unfortunately, and it's every man for himself. Ladies are allowed to team up because I want to see some of these Oya punks get their asses kicked."

"That was uncalled for! Not cool, broski!" Nakaoka whined.

Fujin was the next to speak, looking dead inside from working in the most energy-draining, child-dealing job possible for the last five hours. Three hours before the group had arrived, Fujin had been in charge of cleaning up the wreckage left behind by a group of seven year old boys who had commandeered the MotoGP simulators in the arcade.

Seven-year-old boys can do a lot of damage.

"Right, when you guys leave Rainbow Road, I want you to turn left to the other side of the cage, running just underneath the stairs you came up. Clearance should be fine since the staircase was built around the karts, but mind your heads anyways, I don't want to get sued. Line up behind the lines marked out on the track, we're doing a standard Grand Prix start for those of you who actually give a shit about real racing."

Fujin couldn't have sounded less interested if he tried.

"Remember what Futa said and wait for the green light." He jumped down from the tyre wall, grabbing the red-and-white checkered flag adorned with Super Mario characters and waved it, signalling for the formation lap to begin.

The karts were faster than I had expected, and with the four initial rows trying to condense into two to line up, we were all jostling each other to get up front. It was almost messier than turn one in Bahrain. Madoka and I came out of the turmoil victorious, with Fujio and Tsukasa lining up directly behind us.

"You ready, babe?" Tsukasa shouted up from his fourth-place grid position. I was starting second, so his kart was parked just behind mine.

I smiled, reaching behind to squeeze his hand before we began. "Always. Ready to kick Fujio's ass?"

Tuskasa grinned. I couldn't see his mouth, but I could tell from the way that his eyes curved. "Always."

"Good luck." I said sweetly, blowing him a kiss before turning back to the lights suspended above the track. Over at the cage, Fujin and Futa were closing off the pit lane from all sides, and opening up the wider, better version of the track.

The lights glowed red, and I could hear Yasushi revving his engine excitedly from where he was lined up next to Yui in sixth. I had a feeling that Yui wasn't going to stay that far behind for long.

Futa had left cage, standing behind a small podium that looked like it had been set up to act as a commentary box. He flipped on the microphone, leaning over to make one last announcement.

"The race will last for exactly half an hour, or the length of a Formula 3 race, which is longer this year than I thought since budget is tight and we need to close the track down for the night after you guys are done, sorry, that's just what management told us."

Half an hour was more than enough time at the speed that these bad boys could go. There was also the arcade, so it's not like the track closing for the night after us was such a bad thing. I was sure that Futa and Fujin wanted to leave anyways.

The large red lights turned to amber, and the Orochi brothers let out a war cry from the back of the grid. It had taken Shinya a minute to figure out how to get the kart to accelerate, and that had bit him in the ass when he lost out in the midfield during that initial first-corner scuffle.

"Ready. Set."

There was a beat of silence as we all waited for the lights to change.

"Go!"