The winds of change are blowing. With the solstice behind them, spring creeps closer and closer to Japan, eager to thaw the icy veil over Sapporo. Soon, the snow will recede, the grass will grow, and the sakura trees will bloom.
Aikawa Auto, too, is starting to transform. The usual maintenance and winterization mask something else brewing behind the scenes... Slowly, steadily, the status quo is giving way. What becomes of this change, the heiress apparent doesn’t know quite yet...but there’s nowhere left to go but forward. One way or another, the company will change.
“Morning, Reina!” Old Man Takashi welcomes the shop’s rising star.
“Morning! Looks like you’re already working on that car there?”
“Yup, just a standard service here. We did get some emails for part orders this morning, you mind handling those for me? Never was good with that newfangled computer stuff.”
“No problem!”
Reina’s been a lot more chipper lately. Equipped with a cushion to outlast the winter, she’s been able to put the company’s immediate budget concerns to rest, and focus instead on more long-term projects. For the first time in an age, Aikawa Auto can look to the future again—and who better to lead the charge than Reina herself?
(I think I’m getting closer... I’ve got something here.)
To aim for the future, Reina must first master the past. What was Aikawa Auto, really—and what was it that brought them their fame and fortune in the golden years? The more Reina dives deep into the company’s past, the more she gets the idea that it wasn’t just lightning in a bottle, nor just the right product at the right time... There was something else that propelled their success back then. An underlying concept... An idea that put Aikawa Auto in a class of their own.
If she can just distill that concept, and translate it to the modern day...
*DING!*
“Oh!”
This time, she’s the one startled by the chime.
“Hey there.”
“Yuzu! What brings you here?”
Yuzu, meanwhile, is swept up in her own changing times. She’s been accepted into Hokkaido University, but she’s yet to commit to the campus—she’s got a lot to consider, with her rookie Formula 4 season rapidly approaching. There’s a certain other wrinkle in her plans—one she didn’t see coming—that brings her to the shop today...
“Well, uh...long story short, I have a car now. I got my license last month, and then a friend of mine told me about this car somebody wanted to get rid of in his neighborhood. They didn’t even want anything for it, I think they were gonna send it to a junkyard otherwise.”
“Huh, really?”
“Yeah, one thing led to another and it just...became mine. So I was wondering if you could take a look at it and see what kind of shape it’s in.”
“Well, sure, I can do that! Is it here in the parking lot?”
“Yeah, I drove it here from his place. It, uh...barely made it, though.”
“Oh. How bad do you think it is?”
“I don’t really know the first thing about mechanics, buuut...” Yuzu recalls how much of a pain in the neck it was to make it here. She and her friend spent upwards of an hour just getting the car started and moving.
“...I think it’s pretty bad.”
“Well, let’s get it in the garage and see what we can do.”
With her curiosity piqued, Reina hollers to Takashi to open the garage door before heading out into the lot with Yuzu. It’s unseasonably warm today, and thank God for that, because if she ends up having to push this thing, she’d rather not do it in the snow.
“That’s it, right over there.”
Finally, the curtain rises over the mystery car, and Reina’s eyes widen with intrigue.
“Ohhh, it’s a Silvia! S...12, I think? Looks like a mid-80s model.”
“Yeah, that’s what my friend was saying. He knows a lot more about this stuff than I do.”
“Well, it’s not what I was expecting. These are pretty sought after... Who the heck would throw one away?”
“Someone’s disgruntled wife, apparently.”
Yuzu doesn’t have all the details of the story, but from what she heard, the Silvia had a somewhat acrimonious departure with its former owner. It was his life, his dream, his baby...and, alas, his undoing. He was spending far too much on mods and upgrades for it, drawing the ire of his wife. Then, on one ill-advised mountain run, he did quite the number on the engine—and his insistence on shelling out yet more cash to repair it was the straw that broke her back. She dumped it on the first willing driver she could, summed up with a sign on the window reading “PLEASE JUST TAKE IT.”
The sunk-cost fallacy is not to be trifled with.
“Well, it doesn’t look like it has any crash damage, at least. It still looks pretty straight.”
“Yeah. The engine, though...that’s kind of a disaster.”
“How was it running?”
“I think it walked more than ran, really.”
As if daring the old Silvia to prove her wrong, Yuzu opens the door and sits herself down behind the wheel to drive the car into the garage. She slots the key in the ignition and gives it a twist...
*RRRrrrRRR-POP!*
“...Oof.” That sickly backfire tells Reina all she needs to know.
Yuzu quickly tries again, her cheeks flushing red. This time, though, the car doesn’t even have the decency to misfire, whining endlessly as it refuses to move. Yuzu gives up with a sigh, removing the key and releasing the parking brake so they can get to pushing. Figures that those band-aid fixes would get her to the shop and not a turn of the tires further.
“...You mind helping me push?”
“Yeah, that was probably asking too much of it.”
Thankfully, the Silvia weighs about as much as a piece of paper. With some elbow grease, Reina and Yuzu are able to heave the ailing car into the garage, where Reina can pop the hood and get to work.
“Alright, let’s see what we’ve got here...”
The SR20, in its un-natural habitat. The turbocharged inline four might as well be JDM’s bread and butter, and this offering from Nissan helped set the standard. They didn’t come with this model of Silvia, though—it must’ve been swapped in by the owner. That lends credence to the spendthrift theory.
Alas, this particular engine is not a good ambassador for the breed. The more Reina looks, the more she finds wrong with it—the engine bay is littered with evidence of abuse and dodgy aftermarket work. All signs point to an owner with no idea what he was doing...and a waste of a perfectly good motor.
“I’m gonna be honest, it’s a miracle this thing even got here. How far did you drive it?”
“Hrrmm... 20 or 30 kilometers, maybe?”
“I would’ve expected it to blow up after 10.”
“Yeah, it sounded like it wanted to die pretty much the entire time. I don’t think the turbo was working at all—and it might’ve been down a cylinder too.”
“Some first car, huh?”
Yuzu can’t help but chuckle. “You’re telling me.”
A cursory glance confirms that the turbocharger is all but toast. There’s a chance it can be salvaged on its own, but that’s about where the positives end. It just keeps getting worse.
“Geez, it’s like a crime scene in here...” Reina steadily peels back the layers of the engine, like she’s performing an autopsy. Oil seeps from the broken ceiling of the engine as she lifts the valve cover off, giving her a grisly look at the head inside.
“Well, whatever the previous owner did to this thing, the engine did not like it.”
“That... There shouldn’t be that much oil there, right?”
“No. No, there shouldn’t. That is some awful sludge right there.”
What follows is the arduous process of decoupling the cylinder head from the bare block beneath it. Reina needs to get deep into the engine to survey the extent of the damage, and for that, the head’s gotta come off.
“You mind lending me a hand here? Just hold this flashlight for me.”
“Oh, sure.”
“Great, just hold it steady there...” Yuzu’s extra pair of hands prove handy for helping Reina with all this fiddly work. Yuzu herself feels quite out of her depth, but at the very least, she’s glad she can help Reina out with what limited ability she has. It’s almost relaxing, in a way.
(Huh... I can see why she likes this. It’s like puzzle pieces.)
Time slowly marches on as more and more pieces of the engine come undone. Reina makes it all look like a walk in the park, despite the sheer complexity... That’s what years and years of experience will do for you.
“Alright, stand back a bit!” With a heave, Reina finally removes the cylinder head, which proceeds to drip oil all over the engine and the workshop floor. That brings them to the bare pistons and bores...which, like the rest of the engine, are in truly desolate shape.
“So you said it felt like you had a cylinder down?”
“Yeah, I think it was...” Yuzu trails off, noticing the horrific condition of one of the pistons.
“Ohhh...”
“Yeah, I’m thinking it’s this one. It looks really, really bad here.”
“Aaaand that’s a bad head gasket too. So you weren’t down just one cylinder, you were effectively down two. These two cylinders here were leaking into each other.”
“You pretty much drove here with half a car.”
“...Huh.” She’s not sure whether to be impressed that the engine still made it here or disgusted that it got this bad in the first place.
“You mind if I go ahead and lift it up? I’m gonna drop the oil pan. I have a pretty decent idea what happened to this engine, but I wanna see what comes out of it first.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Go ahead, you’d know better than I would.”
The tires lift off the ground, the black box beneath the car waiting to be revealed. It’s like they’re watching it ascend to the great parking lot in the sky. Reina’s almost tempted to salute the fallen car as it slowly rises on the lift...a tradition she inherited from Old Man Takashi, who himself is saluting from the other side of the garage. They do things differently here.
“Ooookay...” Reina quickly gets to work.
(Man, she makes all of this look easy.)
Never before has Reina felt this kind of...dread during a routine oil pan inspection. She can just tell there’s something truly awful awaiting her on the other side of that big slab of metal...and indeed, she audibly cringes as she gets her first look. Oil, metal shavings and God only knows what else have mixed at the bottom of the pan to create an abominable slurry of mechanical malpractice.
“Yeeeah, that’s not great. You see those shiny little specks in there?”
“Yeah?”
“Those are bits of the engine that have chipped off and mixed into the oil.”
“That’s, uh...wonderful.”
Yuzu lets out a defeated chuff. She didn’t think the car had that much life left in it anyway, going by her driving experience, but now Reina’s confirmed it beyond a shadow of a doubt. That mess speaks for itself: this motor has all but given up the ghost.
“So man, what the hell happened to this thing?”
“Well, it’s hard to say for sure without knowing the full story, but...” Reina gives the oil pan another disgusted look.
“I think the previous owner was just driving the car way too hard. This has all the symptoms of an overheat—and not just one isolated event. He was regularly pushing the engine hotter than it could handle.”
“Mm...” Yuzu’s inclined to agree. From what she heard, he was a real adrenaline junkie.
“All that heat was just breaking the engine down bit by bit, and he either didn’t know or didn’t care. At some point, the turbo and the head gasket blew, and that ironically stopped him from doing any more damage. He’s honestly lucky he didn’t break it even worse—he could’ve thrown a rod or dropped a valve or something, with how hot it was getting.”
“So the engine’s pretty much toast.”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
That gets the gears in Yuzu’s head turning...but she has to justify it just a little bit more.
“Are there any individual parts worth taking out?”
“Mmmm... I’m leaning toward no? Like, the cams didn’t look terrible, for example, but if the whole engine was getting exposed to crazy high temps, then every single part got worn out to some extent. It’s only a matter of time before they all fail too.”
“Yeah...”
“You might be able to send this to a shop specializing in SR20s, they might be able to figure out what parts are still good and what parts aren’t, but that’s a bit out of my wheelhouse. Personally, I don’t think this is worth fixing at all—you’d pretty much have to rebuild or replace the entire engine.”
It’s a shame, really...but in another sense, it’s exactly what Yuzu was hoping to hear. Sans engine, this car would become a total blank slate—and with it would come an opportunity Yuzu’s been waiting for.
“...And if I wanted to just keep the car itself, I’d have to find a new engine entirely?”
“Yup. You could go to a junkyard, or try and find a used engine online for cheap.”
“Well, I think I’ve got a plan for that.”
Yuzu turns to Reina, a flare of purpose in her eyes.
“You build engines, right?”
“I... Hold on, you’re not implying that, are you?”
“And if I am?”
Reina’s taken aback. If Yuzu’s serious with this, it would be the first new engine order for the shop in years. Reina’s been there for plenty of builds in the past, but she’s never led the charge herself before...and yet here Yuzu is, giving her an offer she can’t refuse.
“I’ve been thinking about that ever since I ended up with this car, if I’m being honest.”
“I... I’d be honored! Really, though, are you sure? Ordering a whole new engine isn’t cheap.”
“Well, neither is university...and that’s sorta what started my train of thought.”
Yuzu knows she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth—after all, you need some amount of money to make it in the cutthroat world of racing. But she can’t help thinking about the cost of things anyway...and how it all relates to her wider goal.
“There are a lot of things I still need to learn if I want to become a better racer...and engineering is a big one. For all my results, I don’t know the first thing about mechanics, and I think that’ll really come back to bite me if I don’t get a feel for it soon.”
“I see...”
“And when I look at uni...I just don’t see it doing much for me. It’s a million yen per year, but the coursework doesn’t seem like it would be all that useful.”
“This, though?” Yuzu motions toward the Silvia. “This could help me learn about all sorts of things. I learn by doing, and having my own car to work on would be perfect.”
“So I don’t just want to buy an engine from you—I want to see how it all comes together. If I can learn more about how cars actually work, that’ll do more for me than any university degree could.”
That’s a lot for Reina to take in all at once...and a lot for Yuzu too, really. She lets out a deep exhale, like the weight of that decision has been lifted off her chest. Reina takes a moment to gather her thoughts before finally speaking up:
“Well, I’ll talk it over with Mom. I can’t say for certain how much you’ll get to see of the full build, but I’m sure she’d love to talk your ear off about how all the little parts and pieces affect performance.”
“And I’ll be sure to go through as much as I can when we’re putting it all together.”
“I-It’s not a no?” Yuzu was fearing the worst. She knew she was asking for a whole lot from the company—especially when she’s asking to just barge into their workshop and shadow a big job like that—but Reina seems receptive to the idea, as does Takashi listening in.
“This’ll be my first time actually building one of our engines myself, so this’ll be just as much of a learning experience for you as it is for me.” It’s a daunting task...but the sheer excitement of getting to cross that off her bucket list gives Reina an unavoidable smile.
“But I promise you: I’ll build that thing as best as I can!”
“That’s the spirit!” Old Man Takashi chooses his time to chip into the conversation, giving Reina a pat on the back. “And you’re not alone just yet—you’ve got the rest of the crew to help you out if you ever get stuck.”
“Thank you...!”
It’s a deal, then—tentatively. Yuzu still has some nagging hoops to jump through, questions she’s yet to answer. But at the very least, her foot is in the door now.
“I’m just glad that idea doesn’t sound completely stupid to you...”
“Not at all! I think that’s a pretty reasonable take on things.”
“I feel like this was almost a practice round for when I have to justify this to my parents. I just feel...more comfortable talking about this stuff with you.”
Reina can tell all that was weighing heavy on the girl’s mind. “I’m sure they’ll understand.”
“Yeah... I’ll call you back to give you the go-ahead when I work things out with them. Thank you so much!”
“Thank YOU for trusting us with your new engine~!”
“Heehee... Yeah. No problem.”
You never can tell what each new day will bring. As Yuzu bids the shop farewell, getting back on the train for the ride back to Obihiro, Reina feels the pressure of what she’s just done slowly mountain on top of her. This will be the first big Aikawa Auto project in years, with the potential to break them out of the doldrums...and she will be leading the charge. There’s a lot at stake, both now and in the future...but unlike the financial burdens she’s had to bear in the past, this pressure feels different. It feels...good.
After all, pressure is what turns coal into diamonds.
“Oh man, she’s gonna flip when she hears this...!” Reina makes for the front desk and picks up the phone. She’s got one big call to make before she can seal the deal...
*BRRRRING!*
“Reina! How’s it going?”
“Funny you should ask!” Reina beams. Sami can practically hear her smile from the other side of the call.
“We’ve got ourselves a job.”
***
Three hours is far too long. By the time the JR train pulls into Obihiro, the sun has set on the snowy hills of Hokkaido—and Yuzu has been left to scrutinize her every word from earlier in the day. For all her confidence, all her conviction, she still worries that she might be straying too far from the beaten path. What is she to do if she gets lost? Who will set her back on the straight and narrow?
...Is she alone?
“Okay...” She knows she can’t hide this development from her parents...and she knows they mean well, but she can’t help feeling awkward about the mere thought of bringing this up. They’ve always been there to guide her—and without them, she literally couldn’t afford to chase this dream of hers. But will they be so easily convinced that this is a good idea?
Alas, Yuzu concedes, there’s only one way to find out.
“Welcome back! Just in time for dinner.” Yuzu’s parents have just finished setting the table. The girl’s disarmed in an instant.
“Thank you!”
“So, how’d it go out there? I didn’t hear you come in with the car, so...”
“Yeeeah, it’s not great. The engine’s completely shot.”
Her dad clicks his tongue. “Ahhh, that’s a bummer. So what are you planning on doing with it, or are you still deciding?”
“Well, we managed to get it over to Reina’s...erm, the Aikawa shop, actually. Reina took a look at it for me.”
“Oh! Well, that was nice of her.”
“She said the engine that’s in it isn’t worth fixing, but well...” She briefly fumbles.
(Dammit, Yuzu, get it together!)
“...They do custom engine builds over there. She gave me a quote for putting an Aikawa engine in it.”
Both her parents cock their heads. They already have questions about her plan, but they will try and reserve their judgment until she’s done talking.
“From what she was telling me, it wasn’t much worse than a year at Hokkaido University.”
“That’s still quite expensive, of course...”
“I know it is, but...it just got me thinking about what I wanna do after high school. I know university is important, and I know it’s a good backup plan if racing doesn’t pan out, but...what would I even be going there for? Racing is all I know—it’s all I’ve wanted to do.”
“With this, though...she said I could shadow her for the build. I might even be able to help out with the install a little. And I think that would give me a lot of really valuable insight into how cars work. I feel like that’s something I need if I wanna become a better driver.”
“I see...”
“I just don’t want you spending a ton of money on something I won’t get much use out of, you know?”
“But you’re sure you will get use out of this car project?”
“More than I would out of university, yeah. I mean, I don’t know anything about car mechanics. I’ve learned about brake bias, suspension setups, stuff like that, but I only know the surface-level stuff.”
“Well, why not study that at university, then?”
“Because I think learning by doing just works so much better for me. I mean, you know me...” She sheepishly glances off to the side. “I’ve never been good with the hard sciences at school.”
Yuzu’s father ponders her pitch with a long, faint exhale. There’s a lot of risk in this... A lot of variables, a lot of unknowns. And it marks a shift in Yuzu’s priorities somewhat. Until now, she was almost paralyzed with indecision about university—and as a result, her parents were convinced inertia would eventually nudge her into the lecture halls anyway. But something’s changed...and it causes the both of them to make the same mental note:
It’s not often she makes up her mind like this.
“And well, you don’t have to pay for it. I’ve got that prize money, and I can do a part-time job or something...”
“Well, I think you’ll have enough on your plate already once your racing season starts. You just worry about that, alright?”
“Y-Yeah...”
Her father can’t argue with one point: she’s always learned by doing. He knows she has a good head on her shoulders, but some parts of school have been a struggle for her... She has trouble finding classes and projects she can really engage with—that’s how she learns best. Maybe a change of scenery really is what she needs to put those brain cells through their paces... Maybe what she truly needs is something that’s more relevant to her dream.
“I will say, this is a lot to take in tonight, so if you don’t mind, I’ll go ahead and call the shop for some more details tomorrow.”
“That’s fair... I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it before. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing...”
“Oh, that’s alright. We’re happy you feel comfortable talking with us about this.”
“We can tell you’ve done a lot of thinking about what kind of future you want—and at the end of the day, that’s your choice to make, not ours. We’re just here to make sure you’re on the path you want.”
“Yeah...a-and I’m not trying to say I’m not thankful! I’m really grateful for how much you’ve helped me. I wouldn’t be where I am without you...”
“Aww, honey... That’s just what good parents do. And besides: you’re all grown up now. You’re an adult, and you’ve got the smarts to make those decisions for yourself. If you’re confident that that’s the best path for you, then I think it’s only fair we trust you.”
“And y’know...you’ve got finals coming up next week.” Her father flashes her a faint grin. “If you do well on those, then I think we’ll be able to work something out with your new car. How about it?”
Yuzu’s eyes widen. “I... You mean it? Thank you...!”
“No problem, sweetie... Now let’s eat! Don’t want dinner to get cold now.”
Yuzu ends her weekend relieved and resolved. For the first time, she feels like the different threads of her future are all moving in the same direction... Her direction. There’s no doubt nor disagreement over who or what she wants to be anymore—not from her parents, nor from herself. She is who she is, nothing more and nothing less.
In a few days’ time, Yuzu will make good on her end of the deal—and as the academic chapter of her life ends, a new one begins. A chapter with a more pointed purpose, chasing a dream on four wheels.
So too begins a new era for Aikawa Auto: the heiress apparent is stepping up at last. Reina Aikawa’s first big job begins now.