On one random Friday in the evening, Shigehiro was merely slacking off at the hospital. He was incredibly bored, but he thought that it was better than the hospital being chock full of cases that made him unable to even sit down.

In a moment such as this, Shige couldn't help but reflect on the event that transpired. There was some news on the usual channel about the death of Kenji Kumamoto, but not exactly widespread talk outside of the racing world.

Shige thought, even with all the achievements in Kenji's life, in the end, in the grand scheme of things, only few remembered him.

Shige was so lost in his forlorn thoughts that he was very startled when his phone rang, the number was unusual and he hesitated picking up, thinking it might be a cold caller, but the phone screening application didn't warn him of that, so Shige just picked it up.

"Hello?" Shige answered.

"Good evening, is this Shigehiro Yamamoto?" The man at the other end asked.

"Yes?" Shige was still wary. He was expecting a phone scam at this point.

"Okay, my name is Masayoshi Yamada, I'm an attorney at ◯ Law Office, and I have an important news for you."

Shigehiro was quite shocked when he heard that, if it was not because he knew Masayoshi was Iori's husband, he'd probably put the phone down thinking it was actually a scam.

"Masayoshi Yamada-san? Eh?" Shigehiro sounded confused.

"Yes, Yamamoto-san, do you happen to know a person named Kenji Kumamoto?" Masayoshi was still oblivious to Shige's confusion.

"I did, he was a patient at my hospital." Shige replied without divulging much.

"Right, it's going to sound a little unusual, so bear with me. Considering you work at the hospital where he passed, you probably already knew the inheritance process was happening. You were named as a beneficiary of an item in Kumamoto-san's will."

"Eh? What is it?" To Shigehiro, it was getting weirder and weirder.

"It's a..." Masayoshi paused, as he gathered his thoughts, "it's a car."

"A car?!"

Shigehiro shouted so loud that Ikeda-san who just walked in to submit a report was startled.

"What car is it?" Shigehiro asked, he was very curious and truthfully, quite wary still.

"It's apparently listed as a 1984 Toyota Corolla... I obviously had to notify you first as a due process, but our team will contact you later and advise on how to proceed. Do you have any questions?" Masayoshi replied, still formal.

Shigehiro hesitated for a moment, contemplating if he should let his thoughts out.

"Yes, I have a question, Yamada-san." said Shigehiro.

"I'll help answer any question you may have, please ask away." Masayoshi was still saying everything as professionally as possible.

"Aren't you Iori-san's husband?"

Masayoshi went quiet for what felt like to Shigehiro for a full minute, even if it wasn't that long in actuality.

"You know Iori?" Masayoshi was stumbling on his word as it was really unexpected.

"Yeah."

Shige's reply made Masayoshi go quiet again.

"I'll... tell her I called you." Masayoshi quickly moved on from this personal matter, "Do you have any question regarding Kumamoto-san's matter?"

"I have so many questions right now, yes, I wouldn't even know where to start." Shigehiro replied honestly.

"The paralegal will contact you within a few days, and we'll fill you in with the details..."

—

On Monday, Ippei took a day off from school on order of Mizuho, as he wanted him to get a driving permit on the same day as his birthday.

Ippei was kinda annoyed, but deeply, he wanted that to be the case as well. It took the whole day, but Ippei passed with flying colors. It helped that he went through lessons at the local driving school, paid for by the wages from his summer job.

It felt weird, holding out one's own driving permit for a regular class car that was exchanged from the motorcycle one, it was the ticket to freedom that somehow was much more versatile than the motorcycle permit that Ippei had, despite serving the same function.

Suddenly, the possibilities and the places he could go that he couldn't before, it was becoming a reality.

"Thank goodness you passed." Mizuho said, as they were walking back to his red Lexus.

"It wasn't too difficult, to be honest..." Ippei said, almost proud of his achievement, it took one try.

Ippei was confused as to why Mizuho walked to the passenger side of the Lexus, and physically pushed him towards the right side of the car.

"Eh?" Ippei exclaimed, still very confused.

"You got your permit, now you drive." Mizuho stared at him and ordered, and it made Ippei scared shitless.

"I'm not driving your 10 whatever million yen car!!!"

"What? You got a permit to drive anything. You can even drive your grandfather's Ferrari if you want to."

Ippei was even more scared by whatever image Mizuho was having of him right now, even if he took necessary lessons and passed the tests with no issue whatsoever, it didn't mean he wasn't nervous about driving such an expensive car right now as he was very much a newbie...

"Look, if you manage to drive home, I have a present for you." Mizuho tried carrot dangling, but it annoyed Ippei even more.

"It's my birthday!" Ippei retorted, to which Mizuho conceded he had a point, but still, it wouldn't be fun then...

"It's an Automatic, it's easier to drive than even whatever piece of junk you drove at the driving school!"

Ippei knew that arguing further would be pointless, so he begrudgingly stepped inside the Lexus on the driver's side, and Mizuho got on the other side.

This red Lexus might as well have been a spaceship, for none of the controls were the same as the Mazda Axela he drove in the driving school, nor was it the same as the Probox.

It was intuitive though, the start button, pedals, gear stick, premium feeling steering wheel. It felt like a Toyota product, but Ippei still couldn't wrap his head around the fact that this car cost more than 10 million yen.

Ippei pressed the brake and pushed the start button, and the engine roared into life.

"Try rolling around the car park to get used to the gearbox, I understand you won't get it immediately." Mizuho said, but Ippei knew how the automatic car worked so he just rolled his eyes.

Ippei set off, slowly, watching both sides to make sure he won't scrape this Lexus, he simply cannot, or he imagined he'd be dead meat. The visibility was somehow pretty shocking, and it was difficult to judge how wide the car was which Ippei didn't know why.

Ippei was pretty comfortable with driving now though, he got used to it really quickly and with the lessons he became a pretty competent driver, if agonizingly slow for Mizuho's taste, but he knew enough not to comment on it as it might make Ippei resent him more.

"See, it's good, right?" Mizuho asked, as Ippei was concentrating on the road ahead.

"Yes." Ippei couldn't answer much, as his mind was occupied.

"You can relax a bit, the more relaxed you are, the safer you will be."

Once Ippei heard that, he was extremely confused as it sounded counter intuitive as hell.

"Huh?" Ippei turned to Mizuho, once they reached a red light.

"I know it sounded wrong, but trust me, holding on for dear life on the steering wheel and looking only at the end of the bonnet wouldn't help you shit," Mizuho couldn't hold it anymore and said it out loud, "sorry."

"But I am relaxed, dad! I'm looking far ahead, and I'm holding it 9-3 like I'm supposed to. The school taught me all of that!"

"Still, what do they know, huh?"

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"YOU chose the school!"

"They were the closest ones to the house with good reviews!"

Ippei couldn't continue talking to Mizuho further, and luckily the light was now green so he could concentrate back on the road, making sure not to cause any grief or accidents.

They got back to their house pretty quickly though, and safe.

"Right, dad, so what do I get?" Ippei said, sounding like he's exasperated, but there's a hint of proudness as well considering he successfully got home.

"Why are you in such a hurry? You don't have school today." Mizuho retorted, which annoyed Ippei even more.

Ippei didn't reply, because he was too tired to argue, Mizuho wanted to continue messing with him, but didn't find it fun anymore.

"Fine."

Mizuho then picked out his phone and sent Ippei a message via the Line application. This meant Ippei was waiting for him to actually bring it out, but only got a notification, which he thought was a coincidence.

"Huh?" Ippei asked after he stared at Mizuho for a long while, confused.

"Check your message, dammit. It's all online now." Mizuho only realized afterward himself, so he quickly clarified.

Ippei picked up his phone, and followed the link Mizuho sent him, it was an online ticket for a relatively small Jazz Fusion band concert at a livehouse.

"Eh?!" Ippei was happy, but very confused now as to why Mizuho suddenly gave him this.

"Why are you looking at it like you've never seen an online ticket before?" Mizuho jokingly asked, and it finally made Ippei actually exasperated.

"I know what it is!..." Ippei replied, realizing he might've sounded a bit harsh, "It's just... Thanks."

Ippei was just surprised and dazed, because he never got any gifts from Mizuho for a long time. Especially something that seemed as incredibly thoughtful as this, Ippei had always liked Jazz Fusion, even if not exactly to the level of obsessiveness and he never seemed to be able to play it properly.

"Also, it's not one ticket, you see." Mizuho suddenly reached over and pointed at it, "It's two. You should invite Sachiko-chan."

"Ehhhhhhh?!"

Ippei was immediately flustered by the mention of her name, it was really unexpected of Mizuho to do something like this.

"Don't mention it, my son." Mizuho suddenly said in English, before continuing in Japanese, "I hope it's not too late to support what you like."

Ippei was incredibly grateful for Mizuho, even if he felt it was weird for him to do this. Then Ippei noticed one detail on the tickets, it was the venue, Tokyo Kinema Club.

"Uh, dad, how do I go to Tokyo?" Ippei sheepishly asked.

"Train?" Mizuho replied, looking perplexed as to why Ippei had to ask.

Ippei was very nervous to do so, because he had never taken a train to Tokyo before, and he heard plenty of stories about how people got lost and everything when they have never been there.

Then, Ippei realized he was not alone anymore. Why was he worried?! Sachiko has been to Tokyo plenty of times, she can just lead him!

"Or you can just take a car there since you already got a permit..."

"NO!"

—

A few days later.

Masayoshi was driving his Honda N-One down the Joban Expressway as today he had an appointment with a client. The wife and children of Kenji Kumamoto who recently passed away. He was already dreading it a little bit, because there was a dispute raised.

For whatever reason, a car was left to a doctor completely unknown to the family, and the youngest son, Toshihiro, objected.

Of course, the dispute was not submitted to the authority yet, Masayoshi, who was the drafter of the will itself, would have to mediate and hopefully solve it without the inheritance process being drawn out.

The dispute because the division was not equal between the siblings was more common, but this one was not exactly unheard of. So, before the heirs had to go back to their lives, this must be solved.

Masayoshi arrived at the residence of the Kumamoto family in Tsukuba, it was a large and quite old mansion, and yet, the front courtyard was filled with cars, not only the cars of the family, but also cars that used to belong to Kenji and was now given in the will to a few people. Masayoshi had no idea what any of them were.

Masayoshi held his breath as he walked into the house itself, where the brothers were gathered. The widow was not there today, as she was just as old as Kenji was and pretty frail at this point.

"Who is this guy, exactly?" That was the first question raised by Toshihiro.

It was a question that made Shigehiro quite agitated by how dismissive the guy was, as he sat there opposite the table, but he knew if he was in the same situation, he probably would raise the same question even if not with such rudeness.

Masayoshi kept glancing at the doctor who Kenji Kumamoto entrusted a car to, one thing kept coming back in Masayoshi's mind, and it was that this guy somehow knew Iori and she never mentioned him once.

"The will was written with 4 witnesses who confirmed that Kumamoto-san was able." Masayoshi has been explaining this for a few times now, "Including Sanae-san."

Toshihiro couldn't dispute that, as his mother was actually there.

"Hey, Toshihiro," Toru interjected, "it's just one car."

"Still, if it belongs to the family, wouldn't it be wrong even if it's just one car?" Toshihiro continued.

Tomoya was just sitting there, equally irate by Toshihiro's nickel and diming this matter. Because in the grand scheme of things, one car wasn't much at all.

Toru got the Tsukuba house, which was worth a lot but not exactly liquid, still he was content with it. Tomoya got the collection of cars and motorbikes, which was way less than the house but so much easier to turn into cash. Toshihiro only got other assets. Mostly objects, arts, jewelries, and the like, which was somewhere in between. That, and all of them got a pretty equal amount of cash.

That's the reason why Toru and Tomoya were annoyed, if anyone should be disputing this it was Tomoya, but he didn't care, because it was merely an old Toyota Corolla, who cares?

"Why did dad keep a 40 year old Corolla around anyway? It doesn't make sense." Toshihiro was still speaking his mind, "Is it valuable?"

"It's insured at 3 million yen, Kumamoto-san." Masayoshi explained.

"An old Corolla is worth 3 million yen?" Toshihiro was pretty surprised.

"Hey, look, it's not even worth 1-2% of the estate, yeah?"

Toshihiro kept huffing and puffing for a while, and the meeting went nowhere, until the other two brothers literally pulled him away from the room to verbally beat him down that he gave up. Neither Masayoshi nor Shigehiro knew what was said, but it was clear Toshihiro was still not happy at all by the end of it. At least Toshihiro eventually gave up, even with a bit of animosity.

Masayoshi sighed hard after the meeting was over, he walked back to the N-One which was parked outside, but he saw Shigehiro was smoking beside his Subaru BRZ and immediately took notice of Masayoshi.

"Hey, Yamada-san!" Shige called for Masayoshi.

"Oh, what is it, Yamamoto-san?" Masayoshi asked, curious and confused.

"I don't quite get it while listening, the brother will not be able to object any further, right?"

"Yes, the will is going to the notary office today." Masayoshi answered.

Shige thought Masayoshi seemed like a reserved, timid guy, and he was probably right. While Masayoshi thought Shige was a geeky looking guy, the same sort as his wife but actually looks it.

"That's good then..." Shige nodded, even if he didn't get much of what Masayoshi said.

Masayoshi stared at Shigehiro for quite a while, there was something he was wondering about and he decided he had to ask.

"How did you know Iori?"

Shigehiro raised his eyebrows from that question, it came out of the blue a little bit.

"Ah, eh, it's just," Shigehiro wasn't sure how much he should say, as he didn't know how much Iori allowed Masayoshi to know, "I met her while driving."

"On the mountains?" Masayoshi asked, but he didn't seem surprised at all so Shige was more at ease.

"Yeah, on the mountains."

Masayoshi seemed to be contemplating something, which Shige was wondering as it appears he was curious about something.

"The car that you're receiving, it's in that garage," Masayoshi pointed to an enclosed garage in the premise, "do you want to see it?"

"Eh? Can I?" Shige was surprised by the offer.

"Yes, I have access to it as I need to inventory everything. I can show you."

"If it's a problem you don't have to..."

"It's not, actually." Masayoshi reassured, "I need help with something anyway, and if you're one of those 'car' people, you can help me a little bit."

Shige contemplated for a moment, before replying.

"Sure, if I can be of help I'd be glad to help." Shige accepted, and Masayoshi was actually quite happy about it.

The garage was big enough for 4 cars, it's completely filled and there were 2 others right outside. They all looked dusty, but Shige noticed immediately that all of them had a current inspection sticker, despite them not looking like they'd been driven for a while.

The car that Shigehiro was receiving, was parked blocking another car, and it was a quite well known model which surprised Shige quite a lot.

"A 1984 Toyota Corolla... as in a Levin, huh." Shige said, looking at that exact car.

It was a red Toyota Corolla Levin, the AE86. The car was made famous by racers and drifters, and its popularity spread like wildfire by a famous manga/anime which even you may have heard of. It's so famous that it didn't need much introduction even to a layperson like Masayoshi.

"Is it the same one as in Initial D? The one that Takumi drives?" Masayoshi asked, and it bemused Shigehiro.

"Kind of," Shigehiro corrected him, "there were 2 models, pretty much the same basic car but with key differences. It was due to how car dealers operated so they used to have specific models for each dealer network."

"Uh huh." Masayoshi nodded, he was listening intently.

"So, these cars are known collectively as the AE86, or in short the 86. The 86 had 2 models and 2 body style, the Sprinter Trueno, and the Corolla Levin, you can tell them apart by the headlamps," Shigehiro walked closer to the car, and pointed to the front, gesturing as he go on, "The Levin has fixed headlamps, while the Trueno had popups."

"And 2 body style?"

"Yes, the hatchback and the notchback, this one is the hatchback where the rear end slopes down and the hatch opens wide."

"Uh huh," Masayoshi nodded, "and apparently it's worth around 3 million yen?"

"One in this condition, and such prominence? Being owned by Kenji Kumamoto? Its monetary value is nothing compared to its cultural importance."

"You say that like the car is some sort of national artifact, this is what I don't really get."

It was at this moment, Shigehiro realized that the 'help' Masayoshi was talking about, may not be for the legal reason, but the more personal one.

"You want to know why people coveted these things, huh?" Shigehiro pretty much took the words out of Masayoshi's mouth.

"Yes, pretty much." Masayoshi nodded fervently, "I don't understand why Iori cares so much about, like, when I decided to learn how to drive, and was buying a car, she insisted that I buy nothing but a Honda, so I got the N-One, why do people have this connection to car brands, or the car itself? I don't get it."

Shige couldn't help but chuckle, thinking from an outsider perspective, of course it'd not make sense.

"And this old, obsolete car, sorry if it's bothering you for me saying this since it's pretty much your car at this point." Masayoshi continued, and Shige shook his head assuring him.

"It's fine, I get it." Shige replied.

"It's a 40 year old Corolla, right? It's a normal car. Why is it worth, according to the insurance, 3 million yen?"

It was at this point, Shigehiro remembered something Iori told him, and Norio was also there when she was retelling it. About Masayoshi's obsession with guitars, and that he had quite a collection despite playing them maybe once or twice a month.

"Well, I guess the best way to put it is that I have to ask you why your Gibson guitar was worth 600,000 yen?"

What Shige was saying finally made the previously unflappable Masayoshi flustered for the first time, as it was the conversation he had with Iori A LOT, and he didn't expect Shige to bring it up.

"Eh? Iori told you?" Masayoshi was really embarrassed by it, which made Shige laugh.

"Yeah, she told me about it often." Shige replied.

"Ah well, I get it now..." Masayoshi conceded, "It's the same feeling, huh."

"Yup."

"I see..."

Shigehiro and Masayoshi stood there for a bit, awkward silence abound.

"So why was your guitar worth 600,000 yen? It seemed like a lot." Shigehiro suddenly brought it up again, but Masayoshi was more ready to talk about it.

"It's a vintage Southern Jumbo, exactly the same as Masayoshi Yamazaki's guitar."

"Who?"

Shige looked genuinely perplexed, and Masayoshi couldn't believe it. How the hell did this person not know who Masayoshi Yamazaki was?!

"One More Time, One More Chance? Yawarakai Tsuki? Celery? Christmas in August?" Masayoshi started listing the well known songs, and pretty much immediately Shige realized it.

"OH! I've heard of his songs." Shige answered, it's just he forgot the name of the guy, as he's not really into Blues.

"Well it's no difference from me wouldn't know any difference between a Corolla and whatever you said before, right?..."

"Yeah..."