Wanna Make A Bet?
by Ju

chapter one

The dark-haired man sat in front of his computer, completely absorbed in memorising every bump and every curve of the road on the screen. He ignored the soft ticking of the clock on the wall, the slight itch on the back of his left hand, and even the horrible, off-key warbling of his brother as he walked into the room carrying soft drinks and more bags of potato chips than two people could possibly eat in one sitting.

Dumping his dinner on to the immaculately made bed, Takahashi Keisuke decided to take pity on his brother’s sanity, and exchanged his ‘singing’ in favour of conversation. “So, aniki, you’re finally going to challenge Akina’s Hachi-Roku tomorrow night?”

“Whyever would you think that?” Ryousuke answered the question with a question, rather absent-mindedly, without lifting his gaze from his laptop.

“That’s just what I heard from the other guys. So, you’re not?” Keisuke asked, confused.

“Actually, yes, I am.” Ryosuke gave a slight shrug of his broad shoulders, a barely perceptible gesture.

Keisuke groaned in exasperation at his brother’s sly evasiveness, usually a characteristic that he admired, but right now it was just irritating. Nothing irritated Ryousuke, though, or confused him, or surprised him. He was as close to perfect as anybody that Keisuke knew. Nothing got to him.

Well, maybe with the sole exception of Fujiwara Takumi.

That kid had done nothing but irritate, confuse and surprise them since the RedSuns had first challenged the Akina SpeedStars. The Mt. Akina team was so pathetic that it should’ve been like stealing candy from a baby. And a skinny, anaemic baby, at that. Instead, Keisuke himself had been humiliated on the downhill, all thanks to a mere boy who hardly looked awake enough to keep his eyes open, let alone drive.

“I assume that you’ll be there to watch how I do it?” Ryousuke asked coolly, in a way that made it less of a question, and more of a command. Keisuke didn’t take offence, and simply shrugged in agreement.

To which Ryousuke pointed out, “You can’t shrug at my back, I can’t see your answer.” His eyes never left the computer screen.

Keisuke just laughed.

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“Itsuki, you did say that Takumi is coming tonight, right? Right?” Iketani asked the younger boy for the tenth time that hour.

“Yes, Iketani-sempai. Geez, would you relax? If that idiot said he was coming, he’ll be here,” Itsuki declared with a confidence that he didn’t really have in his friend, but hoped that nobody would notice. Truth be told, he was as anxious as Iketani to see that familiar, droopy-eyed face, driving up in the white Trueno. After all, tonight was going to be the first ever battle between the superstar of the Akagi RedSuns and Akina’s own infamous Hachi-Roku. Itsuki could feel the excitement building up in and around him, as more and more people turned up to watch this exhilarating showdown. He sighed happily, before closing his eyes and easily transporting himself to the shiny imaginary world in his mind, where he and his Hachi-Go raced alongside Takumi and his–

“Hey,” Iketani nudged his companion, who had a somewhat creepy smile on his face. “You’re not daydreaming about your little ‘Hachi-Go and Hachi-Roku Super Pair’ thing again, are you?”

“Uh… I… of course not!” Itsuki chuckled weakly, before quickly changing the subject at the sight of Iketani’s disbelieving expression. “Look! There’s Takumi now!”

And surely enough, the Hachi-Roku was speeding its way towards them, and by the time its driver was unfolding his long legs from the car, the two of them had walked over to greet their friend.

“You really have a thing for late entrances, don’t you, Takumi-kun?” Iketani joked. His pale face, though, belied his easy-going tone, and it was obvious that the man was about to break into a cold sweat at any given moment. After all, Takumi would once again be racing for the pride of the Akina SpeedStars, and nothing made Iketani more anxious than the thought of losing a battle. Well, that and getting a scratch on his beloved S13.

Takumi blinked. Barely resisting a yawn, he shrugged.

“Stupid Takumi!” This was accompanied by a stinging whack to the head, which Takumi gingerly rubbed afterwards. Itsuki folded his arms and scowled, mumbling crossly, “Never looks at his watch… always late… no consideration for his friends… Takahashi Ryousuke’s been waiting, even though some people thought you weren’t gonna show.”

At this, Takumi’s brown eyes immediately glanced around, searching for his opponent. They touched upon face after face, until finally, they landed on a cold, cutting and distinctly familiar gaze. The two drivers stared at each other over the hoods of their cars, neither willing to be the first to break the staring contest. Takumi could feel his cheeks heat up, although he wasn’t quite sure why. Ryousuke noticed this, of course, and merely responded with a small smirk.

“Fujiwara-kun,” the older man greeted, his voice smooth and perfectly rounded. Takumi wondered distractedly if the other driver had had speech-modulating lessons, before realising that Ryousuke was actually expecting an answer of some sort.

“Uh… yeah?” Takumi mumbled, that infernal blush rising up again. Damn it. He hated his pale skin; whenever he was the slightest bit embarrassed (not that it happened often) he would light up like a tomato. Not that tomatoes lit up, exactly. Or maybe mutated tomatoes that were grown close to nuclear reactors might have some super lighting-up power…

His smirk widening at the sight of Takumi’s not-quite-there expression, Ryousuke inquired, “Can we talk in private? I have a few conditions that I’d like to add to the match rules.”

This caused Iketani’s eyebrows to shoot up, but he only just managed to keep a hold of his tongue. Technically, if the RedSuns driver wanted to change the rules, he should also be informed, seeing as he was the leader of the SpeedStars. But more than that, if there was no one to supervise the proceedings, God only knew what Takumi would agree to, considering how clueless he was about… well, everything.

Iketani shook his head, watched as the two drivers walked a fair distance away so that they wouldn’t be overheard, and wished that he had spoken up after all.

Several metres away, Ryousuke’s dark eyes never left the younger boy’s face, but for some reason Takumi was staring intently at the ground, as if it held all the answers to the mysteries of the universe.

“Fujiwara-kun, are you feeling alright? You look kind of distracted.”

Takumi’s gaze lifted in surprise. “Takahashi-san, I–”

“Ryousuke.”

“Huh?”

“Takahashi-san is my father. Call me Ryousuke,” the older man smiled, in what he knew to be his most charming manner. “And I’ll call you Takumi.”

Takumi blinked. And, after a few more seconds of blinking, he finally remembered to ask, “Uh… what were those conditions that you wanted to discuss?”

“Oh, nothing special.” Ryousuke’s tone of voice was casual. “I was just thinking of adding a little side bet, to make the race more interesting.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing serious, like if I won I’d own your soul for all eternity,” Ryousuke said, wryly. Takumi’s expression of blatant relief made his lips twitch, but he curbed the impulse to laugh and continued smoothly, “Let’s just say… the winner gets to own the loser for a day. So the loser has to do anything, within reason, of course, that the winner wants. For just one day.”

Silence met his proposal.

Takumi’s head was spinning. On the one hand, if he won, he, a plain old high school student and son of a tofu shop guy, could ‘own’ Takahashi Ryousuke, superstar and superstud of street racing everywhere, for a whole day. The possibilities were endless. On the other hand, if he lost… just the thought of being ‘owned’ by the other man made Takumi feel kind of strange inside. It was something that he couldn’t put a name to, something indefinable.

But, when Takumi’s tongue finally managed to unstick itself from the roof of his dry mouth, he heard his own voice, as if from a distance, declaring impulsively, “You’re on.”