Ch2: Guardian

Everything in Yuuki’s mind came out muffled, as it seemed she spaced out once again. Unbeknownst to her, this came to upset her educator from across the room. She called out to Yuuki once more with assertion. 

“Yuuki?!”

“P-present!” Yuuki hastily replied.

“What is with you,” her teacher questioned. “I called your name twice!”

“I’m sorry ma’am,” said Yuuki. “It won’t happen again.”

The teacher nodded once and continued to go down the list of names. To her disappointment, a student’s name was once again marked absent, following many other marks on their record.

“Does anyone know where Tsukamoto has been?”

Suddenly, the classroom door swung wide open with an audible slam.

“Right here, ma’am!” A girl with long brunette hair and a bleached streak of hair running across the leftmost side of her bangs replied. Her school uniform of white and red was slightly stained in oil. With a frustrated sigh, the instructor uttered to the tardy student.

“Stand outside for ten minutes, Yuna.”

“Shit.”

The bell chimed an hour later, dismissing the students to lunch. As Yuuki stepped out into the hallway, Yuna dashed towards her. 

“You were late again.” Yuuki chuckled. 

“Ah well you know me,” Yuna replied. “Up all night working on projects for the fun of it.” 

“You shouldn’t overwork yourself,” Yuuki moaned. “I know we’re busy on our literature project, but we’re better off saving our energy at a time when–”

Tsukamoto quickly interrupted Yuuki before she could form a lecture out of her carelessness. 

“Oh, not on the literature thingy. I meant my car,” Yuna laughed. 

“You klutz!” Yuuki barked, “You’re unreliable sometimes, you know?”

Yuna giggled, “It was just one fixup, easy girl!”

“Did your gang put you up to this? You shouldn’t be focusing so much on your car when you’ve got grades to maintain!”

“It’s not a gang, Yuu-chan,” Yuna replied. “Come on, don’t be so cold.” 

The two students push open a set of doors ahead of them leading to the rooftop of the building. As they continued walking outside, Yuna reassured Yuuki about her aforementioned group. 

“You’ve only known them for a week, but they’re nice people. It’ll take some time to get used to this side of me, but I’m still me, y’know?”

“I suppose so…” sighed Yuuki. “I just sometimes don’t understand things you do, and it makes me mad.” 

“I’ve come to expect that, but that’s no problem. You’re the youngest out of the group, it makes sense you might not understand some things I do, right?”

“Maybe…”

“Heyo!” Yuna’s voice boomed, as she and Yuuki approached a group of similarly-aged students.

There were three among the collection of teens. The first was a girl with salmon-pink hair with a light-teal dyed streak running vertically down her hair. Despite her generally loud demeanor, her blue eyes were warm and welcoming. 

“Where the Hell have you been, Yuna?” she interrogated.

She retorted, “I was running late is all, Sakura. The teacher wasn’t too happy with my entrance.”

“So, Yuuki,” a boy with straight black hair began, “have you decided on getting a car yet?”

“I’m… working on it,” she replied. “But I haven’t thought about it much until today. Things would be so much easier if I had one.”

“Your birthday is coming up,” a second boy said. One with a lighter brunette messy hairstyle. He wore a hoodie with colors matching their traditional schoolwear scheme. “Why not tell your mom that’s what you want for your birthday?”
“Mama’s thinking about it… and that’s really all she said about it.”  

“You might get an old car if you’re not specific about what you want,” said Yuna.  “That might not be so good for keeping up with the rest of us.” 

“That’s okay. As long as I can join you guys without bothering anyone, I’ll accept any car.” 

Yuuki sighed, “I don’t really want to be the fifth racer of Counter Steer anyways. It doesn’t seem like something I’d be good at.” 

“That’s a shame,” Yuna replied, “because honestly with enough time and training, you could be a good replacement, you know?”

“Well, sixth member or not, you’re cool in my book, lil Yuu.” said the girl. She turned to Yuna, pulling a silver key from her skirt pocket. “Is your R ready or not?” 

Yuna smirked, pulling out her own key. 

“It’s not in the best condition, but I can still take you on.”

“Then let’s get going. Training starts as soon as we pass the parking lot at the bottom of Haruna Pass.”

As the two racers walked towards the door to the staircase, a sudden realization halted Yuuki. She and Yuna’s group of friends made their way to the bottom, where she would walk opposite from their direction. Yuna noticed her friend make her way towards another place. 

“Sorry, I just remembered I need to do something!” Yuuki shouted as she began to run off towards the office room. 

Yuna sighed. “Man, she forgets a lot of things.” She turned back to the girl. “Sorry, Sakura. I guess she won’t be around to watch us battle.”

“She might just not be into racing,” said Sakura.

“You kidding me? Her mom has an amazing car, no way she wouldn’t want to drive Miss Umebayashi’s car down the pass at high speeds.”

“That so? What’s special about her car?” she asked. “What’d you say it was?”

“Supra,” Yuna replied. “A80 Supra.”

As Yuuki speed-walked towards her classroom, Yuuki turned to look where she left her friend behind, sorrowful for having to miss out on her friend’s offer. As the thought sunk in, her awareness of the surrounding environment decreased, as she was oblivious to a figure around the corner, who emerged dab smack in the way of her path. 

Smack! She had run straight into the figure, a man significantly taller than her. As she almost fell to the floor, the man caught her by the shoulders and pulled her to his torso.

“Whoa, be careful Umebayashi.” the tall man said. “Have you been spacing out again?”

“I-I’m fine”, she stuttered. The man still held onto Yuuki with a gentle grip. Noticeably, he hadn’t let go of her even as she regained her balance. Flustered at this prolonged gesture, Yuuki spoke up.

“You don’t have to do that, Fuji-Sensei.” She chirped.

“Sorry, sorry,” he chuckled. “Your mother gets worried sick about you.”

He exhaled with a breath of reluctance.

“She’d give me an earful if she saw a scratch on you. I’d be the one getting hurt,” he laughed.

“Yeah… Mama is so overbearing sometimes…”

“Not as if I can judge her for being that way,” Fuji spoke. “It’s just a sign of how much she loves you.”

He gave Yuuki a quick yet gentle headpat, as he straightened his uniform out. A handful of students had been watching the exchange between the two, giggles emerging from left and right of the crowd. Mr. Fuji gave them a cold stare as Yuuki did nothing but watch them depart collectively. 

“Sorry about that… those nosy kids,” Fuji sighed. “Don’t worry about them, they don’t understand the relationship between me and your mother.” 

“You’re like a husband to her, right?”

“Moreso to being your caretaker,” he replied. “I can’t say she feels any connection like that to me.”

Yuuki looked down, feeling a bit blue for having mentioned that so callously.

“Anyways,” Fuji began, “be careful next time, alright buddy?”

Yuuki blushed in embarrassment.

“O-of course.”

Yuuki straightened herself out before saying goodbye to her sensei, as she continued to pace herself toward her classroom once more to speak with her instructor. After a few halls and climbing up the stairs, Yuuki finally reached the front of her teacher’s room only to be met with no one in sight. 

“Oh…” she sighed to herself. “It’s lunchtime. Right.”

As she turned around to descend the stairs again, Yuuki was stopped by a distant voice calling to her. A student with jade green eyes and straight brunette hair waved to Yuuki as she ran towards her. Her classmate. 

“Eimi?” Yuuki began.

“Hey, I meant to ask you something,” she said.

Confused as Yuuki was, she replied to her classmate with curiosity.

“What is it?”

“I thought maybe Akira was just running late, but…” Eimi sighed.

“I didn’t see him in class earlier,” she said, “I'm not sure if you did?”

“No… I didn’t,” Yuuki replied. “What about his phone? Did you try to call him?”

“I did. No one picked up.”

“What?”

With a vocally distraught tone, Eimi punched the wall with the bottom of her fist, raising her voice with a frustrated cadence.

“He didn’t pick up! I called three or five times today and didn’t get anything out of him.” 

Yuuki said nothing as her friend kept going.

“As his girlfriend, I should always know where he is,” she exhaled. “But I haven’t been able to get a hold of him through anything…”

The girl begrudgingly kneels, sitting on the hallway floor. She pulled out her phone, desperately glancing over the dimly lit screen, hopeless to find a message from her partner.

“I just hope everything is going okay with Mrs. Haruyama.” 

Yuuki crouched next to her distraught friend while trying to reassure her. She couldn’t find the right words to muster until a minute of thought.

“Maybe he just needs a moment to himself,” she said. “I don’t think it’s right to handle it like this though…”

She sighed upon the memories of her mother being quite clingy, similar to parallels she could draw with Mrs. Haruyama.

“Mom can get a bit too worrisome,” Yuuki added. “When I was little, she was super protective of me.”

As Yuuki continued to think about her own relationship, she smiled at the thoughts of her mother, grateful for having the bond that she shared to this day.

“But that’s what a mom does. She will never stop thinking about you.”

“She’s right to worry about Akira,” said Eimi. “You know how he is, don’t you?”

“I kind of do. There’s always something missing in his family,” Yuuki replied. “Something that can’t be replaced no matter what you do.”

“I wish I could understand him better,” Eimi sighed. “But I guess you would know him better as his best friend.”

“Right… maybe I can talk to him if I see him.”

Eimi smiled.

“Thank you, that would mean a lot to me if you can.”

The two students stood back up, with a new sense of reassurance.

“Do you want to grab lunch?” Eimi proposed. “I know a nice place that sells tofu if you’d like that.”

“Sounds neat,” Yuuki replied.

As they descended the stairs, Eimi sighed a breath of relief. Further down the hallway, the two made their way to the back exit of the facility, walking towards a Bayside Blue coupe in the schoolyard parking lot. 

“I don’t get what’s the deal with this thing,” Eimi said, “but Akira seems to like it.”

They briefly stared at the piece of machinery, with a design boxy yet angular silhouette. A 1993 Skyline GT-R.

“He’s a fan of cars, isn’t he?” Yuuki asked. “I don’t understand it either.”

“Akira’s kind of obsessed with them,” Eimi replied. “Every time he brings it up, he’s almost mesmerized by the people that drive on the mountain roads fast.”

“Like how mom is…” Yuuki pondered.

“No, not like that.” Eimi giggled. “They’re super fast from what he said.”

Eimi climbed into the driver’s seat with Yuuki following into the passenger’s. Yuuki recollects the times her mother would clear the turns of Haruna at breakneck speeds. She struggled to imagine anyone accomplishing a similar feat to Rina’s.

Not as fast as Mama, Yuuki thought to herself.

With a turn of the key, Eimi ignited the engine as the car purred to life. She put the car in reverse and the GT-R slowly strolled out of the parking area.