The year's 2024. With the birth rate declining and the economy still stagnating. Japan was facing crises that seemed unavoidable.

Back in the Showa and early Heisei era, the country might have been known for its excesses, that's all but gone now, even juvenile delinquency was only a thing of the past.

The days of young people with high-tech automobiles running amok the numerous road network both on the inner city expressways and in the mountains, participating in the highly dangerous and illegal street racing, was something only uncool uncles get nostalgic for.

There was no chance that aspect of culture could've survived when even the sports car that enabled the culture to exist got culled due to lack of sales.

Only the fringes of society would still be interested.

Technological advancement in the internet network and computer chips had led to mobile phone features that people only 20 years ago would only gasp with bewilderment.

An application package for Android phones suddenly appeared out of nowhere on a certain webpage that couldn't be accessed via search engine. Its name, Geo Timer, was quite cryptic and seems irrelevant, and there's a weird apricot looking icon that seems to have been drawn quickly in Microsoft Paint. But once you've installed and opened it, for a certain group of people, the use and intention of this app was quite clear.

It was early April 2024. Wednesday night. Close to 10PM. Spring was now upon us.

A nondescript looking silver Toyota Yaris was driving slowly up a quiet mountain road in Ibaraki Prefecture. This road was just like any other mountain pass around here. The locals called it the Fruits Line, apparently because historically this road had many fruit stalls. A creative naming that deserved no awards.

The road sign showed the speed limit of 30 km/h, and it would be very wise for any typical driver to stick to this speed, especially at night where visibility was dependent entirely on your own headlights, as everything was in complete darkness.

The curvy uphill South section would seem dangerous to most people during the day, and completely treacherous during the night. There's no street light once you go up the mountain due to lack of electricity, and the road had only been adequately maintained ever since a new bypass tunnel was completed, with disappearing road markings and overgrowth of plants, and the surface that's both rough and slippery.

Once that small compact reached the peak, its young driver slowed down to observe a gravel parking lot on the left side of the road. He's looking for 'Course Marshall' who very rarely would appear there, but today there's nothing that could be seen, as with most days.

The car rolled along for a few hundred meters more and stopped by the side of the road near an intersection, the road started to go downhill around this point. The sign indicated turning left would lead on the Omote Tsukuba Skyline.

The young driver made a voice call to his friend with the Line messaging application.

"Oi! Chikara, the course's clear!"

"Okay, thanks Jiro."

Down the mountain at a FamilyMart convenience store. Once the young man received the message, he gestured to another 3 of his friends to let them know. They stopped whatever they were doing and got in their vehicle. Chikara, being the leader of their group, led the way in an old Orange Toyota 86.

Being only 4 km away, it didn't take long for the convoy of cars to reach where the silver Yaris was parked. Once there, everyone parked their car in line on the side of the road as well. Then they get out to reconvene.

"Are you sure the course marshall isn't here?" Chiraka asked Jiro with a suspicious look on his face.

"Why do you even have to ask? You cannot see them yourself! It's not like we've even ever encountered them!" Jiro replied. There's clear annoyance from his tone.

"Hey, Ichigo-chan, want to sit here while we run?" Another friend of theirs, Haruki, asked a young girl sitting on the passenger seat of the 86.

"And getting eaten alive by bugs? I'll stay in the car even if it's scary!" Ichigo replied.

"So, can we start? Who's going to lead?" Chikara asked his friends again.

"You can lead, Chikara, since you have the fastest car." Haruki replied.

"Yeah," Another young man, Yoshimoto, chimed in. "You haven't ECU tuned it yet? It seems quick"

"It only seems quick because you guys are in a bunch of slow ass compacts"

Chikara turned and looked at the other cars there. Apart from the silver Yaris, there's a green old shape Demio and a pastel blue Wagon-R. None could even be remotely called a performance machine. As most of them were first and second year students at Tsukuba University, it's clear they were merely small fry within the car enthusiasts circle.

Did that matter one bit? Of course not. They believed that on the Mountains, only the skills of who's behind the wheel was important. And with that, the Tsukuba University Car Club was formed with Chikara being the head honcho.

"So can we start?" Jiro, who'd been waiting for them for quite a while, asked again.

"Yeah, sure"

For the Fruits Line North Section awaited.

The Fruits Line North had been famous with the street racer since the 1980's, especially the downhill section after the intersection. It got especially popular due to an appearance in an extremely well known street racing manga of the bygone era. But for normal motorists, this road served no purpose since the Asahi Tunnel opened in 2012. It got worse when a landslide hit in 2014 which closed the road entirely. It wasn't reopened until 2018.

By this point, only a few old farts who remembered the 90's would come here and use it as a tourist road during the day. During the night, the road usually was completely deserted.

With the growth of population slowed down, along with poor economy, the excessive hobby of street racing was so outdated that even police enforcement became all but non-existence. The image of Ibaraki Prefecture Police in a sporty Mitsubishi Starion cracking down on bikers was most definitely only a thing of the past.

Chikara in his Toyota 86, was a young, sharp jaw handsome guy. The girl sitting beside him, Ichigo, would also be described as 'cute' by most people who knew her. They were only 19 and both pretty studious and bright Science Faculty students, like most of the guys in this group. If it's not for this dangerous hobby, they'd be the envy of many parents and teenagers alike.

The orange 86 was not modified heavily at all. With aftermarket wheels and sports type coilover suspension. Chikara, while from a pretty well off family, couldn't really spend much on this car despite spending a lot of time with this hobby. Just like all of his friends who've come today.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Ichigo had always been divided on coming with him on the mountain roads, on the one hand, she loved Chikara, so getting to spend time with him has always been enjoyable. After all, they had known each other since Elementary school, so there's a lot of trust between them. On the other hand, she couldn't stop imagining that if Chikara crashed the 86 now, they were both probably not going to survive. The guardrail feels like it's closing in very quickly, and she could only imagine what the drop beyond that would be like.

The rest of the group, Jiro, Haruki and Yoshimoto were all having the time of their lives despite the speed not reaching much above 60 km/h.

So, how did they get into driving the mountain pass, like it's Showa era once again?

It was the application. Geo Timer. Not a technically impressive phone app. Basically it's a GPS tracker like what you'd use for road maps or highly accurate speedometer apps. But this application was specific for the Fruits Line, the road known to many Ibaraki racers of the past, but nearly forgotten today.

Geo Timer included, its namesake, a timer for the driver to judge how quickly they can run the downhill, North section of the Fruits Line. The predetermined starting point was set at the Ibaraki Prefecture Flower Park sign right after the intersection on the top of the Fruits Line, and the end point was under another Ibaraki Prefecture Flower Park sign at the bottom. You parked up your car in the designated spot, then the app sent a notification up on the screen, then the countdown started. You cannot jumpstart or have a rolling start with this application.

With the time recorded, it then got immediately posted on a leaderboard. Right now, there were not many users of the app, only about 30 or so.

It was sometime during the pandemic that it was mysteriously sent around to a few people, with the top time set by 'Urasawa'. A time of 2:16.9. For Chikara and friends, they were currently trying to break into 2:40s. Way off that time.

It's no wonder that everybody who's aware of the app wanted to know who Urasawa was. The closest time to him was nearly 6 seconds off, for a 2.3 kilometers track it's a huge amount of time. It seemed almost impossible to achieve that time unless they were in something amazing, like an expensive supercar or purpose built time attack car.

The course itself was tight, bumpy, and with open rain gutters in many sections. It's also exceedingly narrow with no margin for errors.

Once a run was completed, the timer would then show the result, and if a record was broken, the personal best then got automatically updated to the leaderboard. It's exactly like in a video game, and that was why Chikara finds it so much fun to try and beat.

After that, they continued until the end of the Fruits Line, before turning right at the intersection onto the new bypass and into the 1.784 km long Asahi Tunnel. The new bypass that rendered the old Fruits Line obsolete and pointless to many. This road led back to the town of Oshito, then turned left at the intersection to run back up Mt. Tsukuba again, driving back to the start of the Fruits Line North course.

The convoy parked back at the side of the road in exactly the same place. The smiles were on everyone's face, apart from Ichigo who tried to, but still scared.

"Chikara, you almost hella crashed! Haha!"

The first thing Jiro said to Chikara after they got out of the car made Chikara slightly annoyed and embarrassed, but he could laugh with his friend. The adrenaline rush made them feel so fresh and excited.

While everyone was going to get back in their car, they heard a sound coming from behind. At this moment in time there's no way it was another typical motorists. They all braced for what they feared to be the 'Course Marshall', but the sound that the car made was far too aggressive to be that.

"Somebody's coming up here?" Chikara wondered.

"You haven't told anyone else right?" Haruki asked.

"No, of course not." Chikara replied.

They all turned around back to where they drove from. The sound was getting closer and clearer.

Coming in from darkness behind was a bright headlamp of a sports car. Low slung and shiny. Even in this darkness of the night it was pretty clear that the bright red paintwork was spotless. Chikara tried to focus and look at the upcoming car and knew immediately what it was. A red Toyota Supra.

"A Supra?" Yoshimoto said as he also noticed what it was.

It was even weirder when they noticed that this red Supra had a Nasu license plate.

The engine of that red car stopped, and the driver stepped out. The man driving the Supra had a tall, muscular body. There's a yanki aura with his dyed blond hair and gangster demeanor.

"Good evening?" Chikara said to the man from Tochigi with a bit of nervousness.

This tall guy had one look at them with almost an indifference, slightly annoyed expression.

"I thought the road would be clear..." The tall guy said nonchalantly. "...What's your username?"

Chikara was quite cross by how rude this Tochigi guy was in his greeting. He just wanted him to go away immediately and considered not replying. However, it's quite clear that this person was also another Geo Timer user, and even Chikara was quite surprised to learn that people from Tochigi would be coming here to have a go.

"You are another app user huh?" Chikara said.

"What's your username?" The man from Tochigi asked again, slightly more aggressively.

"Chika86"

At that point, the man picked up his phone from his pocket and opens Geo Timer app to check where on the leaderboard Chikara was placed.

"2:51, 26th out of 32..." The stranger scoffed before he continued. "...Well, don't get in my way, okay?"

That man started to walk back to his shiny red sports car, while Chikara was seething.

"Hey you!" Chikara suddenly shouted, which startled everyone there. "...You think you can come here with your fancy car and disrespect us locals like this? What's your time?"

"It doesn't even matter." The man said flatly.

"Why don't you put money where your mouth is and we can have a race huh?"

"What's the point when you're nearly 20 seconds slower?" The tall guy said with his back turned.

The realization did deflate Chikara quite a lot. Even though he's the fastest in this little group of street racers, obviously he would be nowhere near what that man in an 8 million yen car.

Dejected, Chikara could only stand by, while the Supra drove off to do its run with Geo Timer app, like what they did.

At least, there's nothing stopping them doing the same.

"Everyone. Try to catch up to him alright?" Chikara said to all of his friends, who all seemed to feel defeated as well.

"Like he said, Chikara, what's the point?" Jiro said.

"We're here to have fun don't we? Even if we don't catch up, that doesn't matter one bit does it?"

What Chikara said did ring true to all of his friends. They agreed to the delight of Ichigo, who's the most nervous of all during this time. She was so nervous that she couldn't say a word and was only sitting quietly, shivering with fear in the passenger seat of the Orange 86. What if this altercation led to Chikara driving too dangerously? If doing this wasn't already way too dangerous.

Tonight, Mt. Tsukuba echoed the sounds of screaming engines and tortured tires. Almost everyone here has a goal, and they wish to achieve that goal.

Despite what Chikara said to others, which was what he truly believed is the purpose of what they were doing. Having fun. The encounter with that person from Tochigi did leave him a bit miffed about all of it. It's the exceptional rudeness of him that's the main reason and was something he never experienced on the mountain pass. He may have been doing this with his friends for less than 6 months, but it made him feel disappointed and even a bit sad.

The winding course of Tsukuba Fruits Line, darkness encompassing everything. One wrong move and it could be all over.

Despite everything, Chikara knew one thing, and he's totally sure of it.

He could not stop.

Not when it's this exhilarating.

It might only be an 86 with Bridgestone RE004 tires and some cheap second-hand Enkei RPF1 wheels, but this was all you need to have fun.

Chikara knows he would never be the fastest, ever. He cared too much about his life. Like most of his friends who had a long life ahead of them. Could they really throw away everything in the pursuit of speed? Of course not.

The imperfect road surface constantly kept everyone on their toes. Trying not to overpowered the tires, which slips with lateral load and loud roar. Yet, when everything's going right, nothing else comes close.

Right until Tsukuba University Car Club decided to go home, they did not encounter that Supra from Tochigi on any of the runs, only each other. This was a good thing because there's no risk of running into slow moving traffic. That could only mean Chikara and friends were not too slow.

It was an unwritten rule that when doing time attack runs, you always staggered the car in intervals. Like in rally racing so most entries would not be catching up. The Geo Timer application took this into account and warned the user of how far away the car ahead doing the run was. This allowed people to wait a little bit before starting their run.

Once Chikara dropped Ichigo at her home. He was about to drive back home when he realized that he could not stop thinking about tonight's encounter. Even right now he's starting to get more furious again with the Tochigi man. Why did he have to be that rude?

To Chikara, the car community connects people with the same interests, that's what he reckons was the reason street racing subculture became such a huge deal back in the days. But today it seemed all that was merely a thing of the past, and this was now the reality.

Chikara was conflicted. He's thinking about the person who introduces him to the Geo Timer application, a man he has known for a really long time. Maybe he should give that person a visit...