Thursday morning. 7AM.

A phone alarm rang in a small bedroom. Its owner stretched his arm to try and stop it, struggling a bit from a clear lack of sleep. Once he could reach it, he instinctively swiped to turn it off, but still not getting up from the comfort of the futon. He didn't want to get out of it.

A few minutes went by, and the bedroom door opened with slight rapidness. A young lady in a smart office lady outfit peeked in with a very annoyed expression on her cute little face, makeup applied nicely and clearly ready to go.

She went back outside to pick up her hairbrush, a fairly substantial object but not excessively so, and threw it in the general direction of the young male who's clearly continuing to sleep soundly on that bed.

"Ouch! That hurts!" That young man shouted immediately after the brush hit his face, very startled and now awake.

"Towa-chan! Good Morning!..." The young woman said, careful not to be too loud to disturb the neighbor. "...Have you forgotten I have a meeting?"

Towa tried to open his eyes and look at his girlfriend, Sumire, who's standing there. He's still struggling a bit but realizes pretty quickly that it might actually pisses her off if he was not getting up.

He walked out the bedroom, their apartment was small but cozy, and on the dining table there's some breakfast meal that Sumire had prepared in advance.

Towa then walked past the bathroom for his morning routine, before coming out and sitting down in front of the food, opposite Sumire.

"Leftover miso is still good, huh..." Towa's voice seemed to be getting clearer, and his mind was getting clearer as well. "...What meeting are you having today?"

"Q1 summary..." Sumire replied, she sat on the seat with no food in front of her, having had it already. "...Don't you also have a meeting today though?"

"Not work..." Towa replied, his mind clearly still not operating at full capacity. "...It's Takeshi."

"Really? Takeshi?"

Towa continued to munch down on the food. He seemed a bit surprised that Sumire also appeared surprised that he's meeting with an old friend today.

"Yeah, Takeshi." Towa said again.

"You've known him for a long time right? He's coming from Tochigi?" Sumire continued.

"Since junior high school."

"Has he got a job yet? Last time I heard he's dropped out of University." Sumire wondered.

"Nope. Full time NEET."

"He's not coming to borrow your money, right?"

"It'll be a cold day in hell before that's happening. If he wanted to, he could work at his dad's company just fine. That's what Satoshi-senpai has been doing for years."

"I see..."

Towa continued to eat his breakfast, while Sumire was reading messages on her phone. He was done by about 7.30AM, which left plenty of time for him to get Sumire to her workplace in downtown Mito city.

"When are you meeting with Takeshi? Do I have to get a taxi?" Sumire asked. Towa shook his head as a reply.

"I'm meeting him at noon, I can pick you up no worries."

After a while, Towa and Sumire were ready to go out. Sumire closed the apartment's door and made sure it's locked properly.

It's a small apartment building, only 2 storey high. Located in the Eastern part of Mito city, Ibaraki. Modern and well maintained. It was surprisingly affordable and with tenants parking. There was no JR line close by so it was a necessity. Towa was always willing to take Sumire to work and back almost everyday as he's a software developer working mainly from home. Both Towa and Sumire thought that this apartment, as comfortable as it may be, wasn't really convenient for Sumire.

Downstairs, and they were in the parking lot for the residents. Most cars here were small box cars with a few exceptions being a slightly larger crossover SUV that's owned by larger families here.

Another clear exception was the car that Towa owns. Its body was low slung and sporty, finished in a beautiful, immaculate pearl white paint job. The front end had an angry expression that's unsuitable to its cute, petite dimensions. It's been Towa's dream car ever since he was in high school. The Mazda Roadster RF.

Even Sumire liked its playful aura, unlike what Towa expected when he told her what he'd bought. In truth, she'd be fine with it regardless. It's a friendly looking machine, and the roof goes down whenever the weather's suitable. What's not to like?

Both get in the Roadster, sitting on a pair of low, sporty seats, Sumire doesn't like this bit all that much, but Towa loves that this car had the White Selection trim, which meant the seats were upholstered in special white leather which goes well with the exterior.

Towa started the 2.0-litre Inline 4 engine, waited a bit for the oil to circulate a bit, before setting off slowly to warm the car up properly. He learnt from his dad who is also a car enthusiast that this would be better than warming up by leaving it idling.

Sumire worked in an office located in Downtown Mito, about 10 km away from their apartment. Mito, Ibaraki not being a densely populated area, the morning traffic always flowed well and their drive never took much longer than half an hour.

"Thanks for the ride!"

Sumire said after the Roadster parked right in front of her office, which was located in a distinctively tall building in the area.

Towa smiled at Sumire, expecting her to get out of the car and go to work, instead she appeared a bit annoyed and stared at him with raised eyebrows, which confuses Towa a bit. Although he realized what was wrong pretty quickly.

"Sorry..." Towa said, before reaching to Sumire, which wasn't difficult in such a small car, and kissed her on the cheek.

"I'll message you before the work's done alright? Probably finishing at 5pm today."

After Sumire said that, she opened the door of the Roadster to step out, she then walked towards the entrance and disappeared into the building. At the same time, Towa sets out quickly in the Roadster to not block traffic and heads back home.

Without passengers, and with the morning getting more late resulting in the traffic clearing. The drive back was even quicker. Towa didn't even have time to think about the work he's planning to do today before going out to meet with his old friend.

Takeshi Sawatari. Last time Towa heard via social media, he appeared to have bought a brand new, bright red, Toyota Supra. Replacing some sort of BMW. Towa couldn't recall exactly, but believed Takeshi had a blue or maybe gray BMW 2-Series Coupe before this.

Deep down, Towa never really liked Takeshi all that much. He thought that Takeshi's family was way too rich for his own good.

Sawatari family owned a trading company operating mainly in north Tochigi, with headquarters in Utsunomiya and branches all around Kanto. It was fairly large and they were clearly very well off. That's how Takeshi could afford, or more accurately, could ask his father to afford expensive sports cars despite being young and with no gainful employment. Or maybe he used his inheritance from when his grandfather passed late last year. Towa didn't really know or care.

Towa just thought that it's why Takeshi was an asshole to most people he knew he wouldn't ever have to interact with again, Takeshi believed he himself was better than anybody, and it's been that way for ages.

They have not interacted since high school graduation either. It's only recently that Takeshi reconnected via social media, Towa recalled it's after he bought the Roadster a year back and that he updated his own location to Ibaraki. Towa thought nothing of it, they talked a bit about cars, but not much else.. Towa could only guess the reason why Takeshi suddenly wants to meet him in person...

Towa got home, started working on a project he began a few months back. It's a backroom system for a company located overseas. Towa, with skills in various coding languages, and the ability to speak English, had a lot of customers from foreign countries, which paid a lot better than local companies, especially in this struggling economy. Although he accepts those local works as well if the scale was big enough. If one's good at something, getting paid for it always would be the most important thing, right?

Towa worked until around 11am, at which time he got quite a lot of work done, but not quite as planned. Even if he's disappointed he knew he could continue later tonight if needed. So he got up and went to prepare himself to meet up with Takeshi.

The meeting was to be in Ishioka, in the city center located about 30 km to the south west of Mito, near Lake Kasumigaura. Taking the National Route 6 with light traffic, Towa got there in only about 45 minutes. Apparently Takeshi had been staying in a hotel nearby for a few nights, which seemed odd.

The meeting place was a franchise coffee shop on Route 6 itself. The city was even less densely populated than Mito, and was why Towa never really came here all that often. He parked the Roadster close to the bright red Supra that's very distinctive, especially as there were not many other patrons on a weekday.

Towa then braced himself and tried not to show contempt for Takeshi. He went to the shop entrance, and looked for a tall, yanki looking guy, which unsurprisingly was extremely distinctive as well in this near empty coffee shop.

Takeshi then waved to Towa from the table he's sitting at, a bright smile which Towa thought seemed unusual.

"Hello, Waki-san!"

Towa was relieved once he heard that. At least Takeshi remembers that he never really liked being called by his first name, and would rather go by Waki, shortened from his surname Wakisaka.

"Good day, Takeshi-san." Towa replied, while sitting down at the table.

"Won't you go grab some drinks? I'll pay for it."

Takeshi pulled out the membership card in front of Towa, who thought about it for a sec before taking it and ordering some coffee from the barista. He's not going to say no to an offer like this.

Towa then walked back to Takeshi, who's looking at his phone. Towa's not quite sure at first but it seemed Takeshi was mostly looking at Tiktok videos, but stopped and looked back up at Towa.

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"How are you, Waki-san? Still with Sumire-chan?"

Towa was not quite sure if Takeshi ever properly talked to Sumire in person. Have they even met?

"Yeah." Towa replied dryly.

"That's nice isn't it?" Takeshi mused. "...You guys met at Tsukuba U, right? She's from around here, right?"

"That's right." Towa replied.

"That's cool, man." Takeshi takes a sip of the coffee again.

To Towa, the rest of the conversation was mainly pointless meandering, and he couldn't remember much. Takeshi was not close to him back when they were studying in Tochigi, and that had not really improved by this point. Towa could only bide his time before he could go back home and do something actually more interesting than talk to this overgrown spoiled brat.

"Hmm. Nice Roadster you got. Why RF?" Takeshi then started talking about Towa's car.

"Because I could only get the 2-liter with the RF. 1.5-liter isn't enough even for such a light car."

"I agree. More power is always better isn't it?"

Towa could only keep it to himself as to what a load of shit this man was spewing out.

"You work in computers right? You know how to install APKs onto a phone?" Takeshi suddenly spoke in lower volume, which made Towa a bit suspicious.

Towa could only stare at Takeshi, wondering what the hell he's going to say next. If it seemed scammy he's out of there pronto.

"You drive on the mountain roads up Mt.Tsukuba pretty often, right?" Takeshi continued.

That was a correct observation. Whenever Towa's mind was muddled, usually when working, he would step away from the computer and go out to drive the Roadster up the network of mountain roads, and he would take pictures to post on social media as well.

"You know the Fruits Line right?" Takeshi was still speaking, while Towa is confused about everything.

Towa replied by shaking his head and wondering where Takeshi was going with this.

"Say, there's this phone application which makes driving the Fruits Line exactly like in video games. Isn't that amazing? I want you to try this. I have been coming here often ever since I got a Supra..."

"Why should I?"

This question from Towa did make Takeshi a bit taken aback, but he continued on.

"You really got to try this application, man. You won't regret it."

—

Towa drove home after the meetup, and continued to work until he had to pick up Sumire from work.

Takeshi gave him a download link for the APK of something called Geo Timer. Takeshi explained to him that it tracks course time using phone GPS, which to Towa, was something extremely simple and known to be widely used in track driving. He probably could code something similar in a few hours if needed. Towa was even slightly nervous to install an unknown app onto his phone, so he let it slip his mind for a while.

"How was the meeting with Takeshi?" Sumire asked, while both were preparing dinner in the kitchen of their home.

"He's still a bit of an ass." Towa's reply was extremely honest and it made Sumire burst into big laughter.

"Why so judgmental?" Sumire asked. Which made Towa consider the reply.

"Absolutely no awareness of how annoying he really is."

"But you still went to meet him right? You could just make some excuses up and not go."

Sumire had a point, which Towa conceded in his mind.

That night, after Sumire went to bed. Towa continues to work in the living room. He's a workaholic who's extremely punctual which is the reason he's highly regarded in the industry, despite being only 25. However, after coding away for quite a few hours. Towa was getting a bit of a mental block which annoyed him to no end.

Towa then started pacing around in the living room, like he usually did. Be careful not to disturb Sumire who always had to go to work in the morning.

Towa's mind, weirdly, was racing pretty hard. He couldn't really go back to working, and definitely not sleeping. it's something else that makes him restless.

Why would Takeshi come from Tochigi to drive the badly maintained roads of Ibaraki? Towa knew of the Fruits Line before Takeshi mentioned it, but he hadn't really been to it yet because there are so many other good roads in Ibaraki.

Also, why would he need an application with absolutely basic functions that didn't seem necessary?

Towa snuck to the bedroom door, opened it to look at Sumire. Once he saw that she's sleeping very soundly, he decided to head out.

Curiosity killed the cat, but Towa was not a cat. He's going to see for himself what the deal was about the Fruits Line. Installing the application took no time at all, and registering an account for use was simple as well.

Towa got in the Roadster, the clock on the infotainment screen shows 22.00. It would actually take around 45 minutes to drive to Mt. Tsukuba so Towa hesitated, but would go ahead regardless. Before setting off, Towa put the map up the screen via Android Auto function, which also played his favorite music via streaming app.

The white Roadster got to the nearby Mito-Minami toll gate quickly as it's very near Towa's apartment. Once the car's on Kita-Kanto Expressway, Towa could speed up quite a bit which hastened this journey nicely. Even if the 180 km/h governed speed had not been removed.

Turning left on Tomobe junction onto Joban Expressway, heading towards Tokyo sign. Finally getting off the expressway at Tsuchiura-Kita Interchange going towards Tsukuba. It really wasn't that long of a journey.

Towa then turned right onto Route 199 heading Kasama/Ishioka as appeared on the road sign. He pressed on, and instead of going north up to Asahi Tunnel, he turned right at the intersection to head up the Fruits Line route. The road suddenly got twistier and narrower. It was also climbing up as it's now a proper mountain road.

It's a decent road, Towa thought, but it's not exceptional. He's doing way above the speed sign suggesting the car going 30 km/h. Despite darkness and narrowness, it's not actually that challenging to experienced drivers, used to performance driving or not.

Towa noticed the road has reached the peak point, with gravel parking to the left of the road. Slight turning left and sure enough the intersection with Omote Tsukuba Skyline was there. The road sign pointing to Ibaraki Prefecture Flower Park was also illuminated by the headlights.

The Roadster creeped slowly before stopping exactly below the sign, and the Geo Timer application suddenly sent a notification up Towa's phone screen.

Ready to Go? It asked. With a big red button appearing in the middle of the phone screen.

Towa wasn't sure this was a good idea. But he thought there's nothing to lose. He already set up the account with the name "TowaWaki39" before he set off from home. So he just pressed the red button.

It started to count down. Towa revs up the engine preparing to take off.

5 4 3 2 1 Go! And the white Roadster launched with rigor.

It's a slight kink to the right on the starting point which Towa thought was a bit of an unusual decision.

Despite not being really that powerful, the slight downhill did help make the car go quicker. Soon enough Towa headed towards a right turn, the first of many on this course. It's a bit dark out so Towa was not going full out especially as it's the first time he's ever going to drive on this course. He braked quite early and not really aggressively. Before encountering the next turn which was a much tighter left.

Immediately after that, the road turned right into a pretty tight hairpin. Towa's heart rate at this point was already shooting up. It's clearly getting much twistier than the road coming up here. But he's summoning all the courage he could get to drive this road quickly.

Why? He had no idea. He absolutely did not have to do that.

The next corner was a left, immediately after the hairpin right. Before turning right again and a very tight, deceptive, hairpin left. Towa couldn't really even think, he only reacted with instinct from what little he could see out of the window, illuminated by the bright headlamps of the Roadster.

The next corner was a slightly higher speed right turn, followed by a tight left which tightened at the end, an incredibly scary turn when Towa realized the guardrail was very close to the right, before snaking right, similar radius left, and into an extremely tight right hairpin turn.

After this, the car could speed up a little with a slight straight. But soon there was a higher speed left turn which was actually the first corner Towa could gather up his thoughts. He notices that it's about 75 km/h which actually feels like 200 with how tight the road was.

The downhill also helped with the speed, but totally did not help alleviate how terrifying the next right turn braking zone would be. Towa was still cautious as it's a tight hairpin right again.

Then, there was a less twisty section, which meant the car could pick up some good speed. Towa was not sure how fast he should go as he could only see not far out at all, but he still had the courage to put the pedal to the metal and go as fast as he could. The Roadster got up to about 110 km/h before Towa noticed another corner coming up, and coming up very quickly.

It was the first panic braking Towa had to do with the run. He didn't know how tight the corner was, but glad he was cautioned. It's an acute left followed quickly by a sickle shaped right turn, which nearly caught Towa out at the exit.

Another relatively high speed right corner then turned immediately to tight, hairpin left making Towa fully brake again. It did make the next right turn less scary. Another short burst of straight followed up by a tight looking right which immediately turns into left that seems fast but tightens up at the end. Leading immediately to another hairpin right.

A long, fast left turn follows, which Towa was really suspicious of by this point, turns into a hard hairpin right, and immediately another sickle shape curve that seems to never end.

There, Towa saw a sign saying Ibaraki Prefecture Flower Park was 4 km away. This marked the end of the run.

Continuing on a bit, there was a hard shoulder on the right side of the road after the end. So Towa parked the Roadster there with hazard lights on. After everything ended, he found himself shaking and terrified. His heart rate was still through the roof.

Despite all of that, Towa found the experience to be absolutely exhilarating. It's the same feeling you get when riding a roller coaster.

Before he knew it, Towa decided to set off to the end of Fruits Line, turning right towards Asahi Tunnel, and he went back up Mt. Tsukuba again.

Towa was completely hooked. He gets why Takeshi had been coming here to run after just one attempt on the Fruits Line.

Turning left at the intersection and going back up, Towa couldn't wait to try running the course again. The time he did during his first run didn't matter one bit. He's new to the course so he was going with a lot of caution. He knew there are many improvements to be made, and he wanted to do so.

Throughout the nights, Towa ran the Tsukuba Fruits Line, using Geo Timer app to track his progress in doing faster and faster runs. It helps that each run would take no more than 15 minutes including cooling down and going through Asahi Tunnel and back up to the start line.

The Roadster also responded extremely well. It's pretty much the perfect car in Towa's opinion to run this course. The lightweight, agile, and direct response supposedly were tuned with this purpose in mind.

The quiet mountain roads, the driver, and the car, together in perfect harmony.

Towa didn't realize how many runs he was doing, but after the fifth run he did tonight, he decided to go back up for the sixth.

Going past the gravel parking lot on the left, through to the left turn before the starting point. Towa noticed a red tail light in the distance.

Another car?

The Roadster creeped slowly towards the back of that car, which Towa couldn't really make out as to what it actually was. He got a bit creeped out by its appearance to be fair, but realizing pretty quickly that it's likely another runner.

Takeshi did warn that sometimes there would be police parking nearby, but that's extremely rare and somehow the Geo Timer app would warn the runner beforehand. So this wasn't what was on Towa's mind.

As the Roadster got closer to that parked car, Towa was extremely surprised and completely befuddled.

It was a small, extremely common car, something that you'd see everywhere in modern Japan. A very box-like car, with tall, vertical taillights. The body finished in dull white and words that could describe it would not be sleek and stylish, but pudgy and... boxy. There's a little script written on the right side of the tailgate.

Probox

An off-white, battered looking Toyota Probox. That was not a car Towa would expect to be popular with street racers.

The thing that confirmed it's not just a random civilian car was that the Geo Timer application was now telling Towa that there is another car waiting at the start line. It's very clear that whoever's driving this fridge on wheels was also a Geo Timer user.

Suddenly, a notification sound very much startled Towa. With a message appearing on his phone screen which he puts on the center console.

User : Urasawa. Challenge? With a little Y/N button in corresponding colors.

Towa was very confused and a bit hesitant, but somehow, he's drawn to pushing the Y button. Without any expectation of what'll be happening next.

Towa could read the number plate of that Probox. A Tsuchiura plate. That was more local than his Mito plate. Also there was a small sticker on the back window of an anime character that he didn't know. Before he could remember the number sequence of the plate, the timer suddenly started counting down from 5.

As soon as it got to 1, the Probox, which revved up with surprisingly rorty sounds, set off very quickly. Towa nearly set off with it, but slow reaction meant he only bogged the launch a little, but not jump starting.

The Probox launched very quickly, surprisingly quickly. The Roadster was not a powerful car, but being the ND2 2.0 with 184hp, Towa expected to catch up despite launching badly. That didn't really happen, however, and the Probox pulled away even on acceleration.

Coming up to the first corner, Towa was again surprised by how quickly that Probox took the corner. It was blatantly obvious that this was not an ordinary work van, driven not by not an ordinary salaryman as would be expected.

Despite trying to copy the line of the Probox, and despite getting practice runs which helps Towa memorize the course a little bit. That Probox was getting away at an alarming rate.

Towa glanced down to his phone in the cubby hole, and realized that there was a distance counter along with time intervals. It increases very quickly from 20 meters to 100 meters within a few corners.

By that point, Towa couldn't even see the red taillights of that Probox.

Once the counter reached 200 meters, which was about a 12 seconds interval. Another notification popped up on Towa's phone screen. Saying that he lost, with a little cartoon stock character that Towa couldn't really work out what it was, crying.

Towa at this point was shaking badly. The way that Probox moved was unreal. Almost like it's gliding rather than driving on the road. After he got to the return road, he decided not to go back up Mt. Tsukuba, but to head home immediately.

The thought of that white Probox would still send shivers down Towa's spine as he got home.

That night, Towa couldn't really sleep, with the image of that Probox fresh on his mind.