Alice finally dyed Sugimoto's strand of hair after a few hours. Sugimoto brightened up as he saw his new hairstyle. Alice felt a bit proud seeing him happy with the result.

"This actually suits me a bit. It's actually good." Sugimoto told her.

"See? Didn't I tell you I was a pro?" Alice said as she smirked.

As Sugimoto was admiring his hair, Ghazali went inside the break room and told them some news.

"Alright drivers, we've finished most of the things on your cars. They're ready to drive."

Ghazali noticed Sugimoto's dyed hair and was visibly confused.

"What's up with Sugi?" Ghazali asked Alice.

"He said he wanted to dye his hair to match the livery. So I decided to help him out." Alice explained.

"Ah, so that's the surprise you were on about." Ghazali told.

"So, were you surprised Gaz?" Alice asked Ghazali.

"Well, it's surprising to see Sugimoto like this, it's kinda cute." Ghazali said to her.

Sugimoto was surprised when he heard Ghazali call him cute and began feeling a bit flustered.

"Hey, it's not cute. It's supposed to be cool." Sugimoto told him as he got defensive.

Alice noticing Sugimoto's flustered face began teasing him.

"Come on Senpai, it's pretty cute." Alice said teasingly.

"I'm beginning to regret doing this." Sugimoto told her sarcastically.

After a few laughs, they all went to the pits and met with the manager. The crew prepared the cars and drove them to the front of the pitstop garage.

"The cars should be ready, go warm them up and begin the test session." The manager told them.

"You got it Chief." Sugimoto told him.

"Will do!" Alice said with a cheerful expression.

The drivers got in their cars and drove onto the track. Alice with her BMW M6 GT3 and Sugimoto with his 911 GT3 RS began doing warm-up laps around the track. As they crossed the finish line, Alice began picking up the pace. Sugimoto noticed her speeding up in front and began chasing her.

"So she wants a fight huh? Let's see if you can lose me." Sugimoto muttered.

"Time to leave him in the dust." Alice muttered to herself and smirked.

They enter the hairpins of sector 2 and Sugimoto suddenly starts aggressively tailgating her. Alice looked into the side mirror and noticed his Porsche trying to squeeze on her inside as they fought on the hairpins. Alice defends against his attack brilliantly and exits the hairpins and unto the straights of sector 3. Sugimoto got into Alice's slipstream and they began to approach the chicane.

"Crap. he's going to overtake me here. I'll let him pass and overtake him back on the second straight." Alice muttered to herself.

Sugimoto exits Alice's slipstream and gets beside her as they approach the chicane. They both slow down and enter the chicane. As planned, Alice lets Sugimoto pass her on the chicane. As they get on the second straight, Sugimoto feels something wrong with his car. He felt his car was oversteering more than what he was accustomed to.

"Damn, the Porsche is a lot oversteery now. What did they change?" Sugimoto muttered.

The race continues as they approach the right-hand corner of sector 4. Alice wants to lunge on Sugimoto's inside but doesn't have enough speed to get alongside him. They turn into the corner and that's where things change. Sugimoto suddenly felt the rear coming out. He began correcting the car and successfully saved it from spinning out. Alice sensing the opportunity overtook Sugimoto.

"What the heck happened? This is not normal!" Sugimoto angrily muttered.

Sugimoto watches as Alice passes him and takes the lead. He's a bit annoyed by the car's sudden nature to oversteer. They continue racing each other, Sugimoto falling behind Alice in corners and losing a lot of time because of the problem he's experiencing. After a few laps, Alice pulled ahead of Sugimoto with a 10-second gap. After the initial testing, they got back to the pits. Sugimoto and Alice climbed out of their cars, Alice had a noticeable smirk on her face.

"Looks like I won, tough luck for you." Alice teases Sugimoto.

"You got lucky, kid. The only reason you won was because my car was acting weird and you managed to pull away." Sugimoto told her as he folded his arms.

"Excuses, excuses. Maybe you should try getting better Senpai." Alice teased.

"Fine, but only because there were issues with my car." Sugimoto huffed, admitting defeat.

"Whatever you say Senpai." Alice said, still smirking from her victory.

Sugimoto scoffs at Alice's victorious remarks. As they were standing together, Ghazali went up to them.

"Hey Sugimoto, how was the car?" Ghazali asked.

"It's bad." Sugimoto told Ghazali.

"It's bad? Mind explaining?" Ghazali asked concerningly.

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"The car handles like crap Gaz. That's how it's handling." Sugimoto said angrily.

"So it handles like crap huh?" Ghazali said.

"Yeah! The car is oversteering like crazy on corners. I also find it hard whenever I turn into the corner, it's as if I was driving a boat instead of a car!" Sugimoto complained to Ghazali.

Ghazali thought for a while and began drawing in his mind the reason why it was happening. An idea came as he seemed to have solved the problem.

"It's probably the suspensions that's likely causing it." Ghazali told him.

"Eh? Why didn't you tell me you guys changed my suspicions? It was perfectly fine before." Sugimoto told him.

"We found that your rear suspensions were damaged. We ordered some parts from Porsche and replaced the damaged suspensions. We'll tune it later and hopefully, it will be back to normal." Ghazali told him.

Sugimoto breathed a sigh of relief hearing that the issue was only temporary. He gradually calmed down and joked about it.

"So much for a 'New Era of Akinabalu' heh." Sugimoto chuckles.

He smirked at Alice as he managed to prove that it wasn't his lack of skills that caused him to lose their fight.

"Told ya kid." Sugimoto said to her.

"Fine, I'll consider it another draw." Alice scoffs and folds her arms.

The rivalry continues as Alice doesn't want to kick a man when he is down. Ghazali then asked Alice if she was experiencing the same thing.

"How about you Alice? Any problems with yours?" Ghazali asked her.

"I didn't experience any problem, but I did feel that the car was more powerful than before." Alice told him.

"More powerful? How so?" Sugimoto asked her.

"I felt that the car was a bit faster than before. I think I've got a new personal best." Alice told them.

"Personal best!?" They both said in shock.

They went over to Alice's car and checked on the device that records the driver's lap time. Ghazali pulled out his computer and began running the analysis. There he found out that Alice had managed to get a time of 2:02, which would place her in the top-5 fastest lap times in ROA Cup history.

"2-2:02?!" Sugimoto and Ghazali said in a shocked tone.

"Yeah, I was shocked as well. I couldn't believe I had that time!" Alice told them.

"This is an incredible feat, Alice! I can't wait to see the manager's face when he hears this!" Ghazali told her.

Sugimoto was left speechless as he looked at the lap time. He was too stunned to even comprehend Alice's super lap. He soon snaps out of it and begins interrogating her.

"You didn't cut any track limits right?" Sugimoto asked her.

"What? No! I didn't cut any track limits!" Alice defendant herself.

"Then it could be a problem with the computer?" Sugimoto asked again.

"I don't know about that. It's a possibility." Alice told him.

"It couldn't be unless I installed it wrongly, it's usually accurate." Ghazali told Sugimoto.

"So you're telling me she set a monster lap?" Sugimoto asked for confirmation from Ghazali.

"Y-Yeah, I think she did..." Ghazali said as he fixed his glasses.

They stood there by Alice's car, not knowing what to say. They were obviously happy for her but knowing that she could be one of the fastest drivers of Akinabalu shook them to their core. Alice notices the tension of the situation and bluffs it off.

"Come on guys. It's just a test session, anyone could do that." Alice said.

"Even I couldn't do that. I guess that explains the huge time gap between us. I thought it was me but it was actually you." Sugimoto told her.

While they were still there, the manager came to check on them.

"Hello there everyone, what's up?" The manager asked them.

Ghazali swallowed his spit and began explaining.

"So, we've done a test run on the cars and there were some unexpected results. Sugimoto's car tends to oversteer due to the suspension. Meanwhile, Alice's car has improved significantly..." Ghazali told the manager.

"Ah, great work Ghazali. Hopefully, this valuable data will benefit us. Thank you drivers for coming on your day off. You may go home now." The manager told them.

"Uhm, chief, I think you need to see thi-" Sugimoto was about to say before Alice cut him out,

"No problem manager! It's a pleasure!" Alice told the manager.

The manager nods and leaves them alone. Sugimoto and Ghazali looked confused by Alice's action to silence them.

"Yo kid, what's up with you? We were about to tell the manager about that." Sugimoto told you.

"Yeah, the manager would be static to hear it!" Ghazali told her.

Alice stood there for a few seconds and clenched her hands before speaking out.

"No, he doesn't need to hear it. I want you two to keep it a secret from now on." Alice told them.

Sugimoto and Ghazali didn't understand what she was saying.

"What do you mean kid?" Sugimoto asked.

"I don't want anyone to hear about it. This isn't about me, I want you to promise not to tell anyone. Got it?" Alice told them.

They were still taken aback by her unusual behavior, so they followed her instructions and promised to keep it a secret from everyone. They packed up their stuff and waved goodbye to each other. Alice and Sugimoto walked out of the building, Alice decided to ask him something.

"Hey Senpai, mind if you could send me back home?" She asked Sugimoto.

"Oh, sure! Did you forget about the bus schedule again?" Sugimoto asked.

"Y-Yeah, I forgot the bus leaves early." Alice told Sugimoto.

They went inside Sugimoto's Impreza and began driving back home. Sugimoto stays silent before finally speaking up.

"Hey kid, why didn't you want to tell the manager about that?" Sugimoto asked her.

Alice thought for a while before answering him.

"I don't want to get anyone's hopes up, especially when it's the manager. I want to slowly morph into whatever people think I am as a driver rather than some one-shot wonder. This is still a team sport and I don't want to take the spotlight." Alice explained to him.

Sugimoto began feeling sorry for her. He understands the pressure Alice is going through and accepts her explanation.

"I see, I guess we'll wait and see kid." Sugimoto told her.

The conversation was beginning to be cold again, as they reached a red light, Alice decided to ask Sugimoto about something.

"Hey Senpai, why did you really dye your hair?" Alice asked him.

Sugimoto was taken aback by the sudden question about his hair. There he answers her.

"W-Well, it is a new era of Akinabalu Motorsports, right? I just thought it would be a nice change with the new car livery and all." Sugimoto told her.

"Is that all?" Alice asked.

Sugimoto stayed silent, he took a deep breath before answering honestly.

"Well, it was also kinda for you." Sugimoto told.

Alice perked up when she heard Sugimoto say that to her.

"Is that so? Why?" Alice asked.

"I noticed that you were down and I thought I could cheer you up with a joke. Then suddenly your entire mood changed and now I have this orange thing." He said as he rubbed the dyed strands of hair.

Alice stayed silent for a bit before she began chuckling again.

"Y-You really did all of that because of a lame excuse! You really are an idiot!" Alice chuckled as he playfully punched Sugimoto's arm.

Sugimoto noticed that Alice was beginning to come back to her normal self again and began chuckling slightly.

"Yeah yeah laugh all you want." He said to her.

"I will! But it did cheer me up." She told Sugimoto.

"Well, at least it's not for a lost cause. It's my pleasure." Sugimoto told her.

Alice felt happy knowing Sugimoto's decision wasn't based only on the team's interest. She built up the courage to tell him something.

"The reason why I cried was because it reminded me of someone very special to me." Alice told him.

Sugimoto was caught off guard when she told him that was the reason she was crying. He thought that Alice didn't notice him but it seemed like it.

"Ah, so you realized I was there huh? So who was this special person?" Sugimoto asked.

"My father. He was the main reason I got into this sport. When I sat in that seat, with my very own helmet, my very own custom livery, my very own car! I couldn't take it and let it out!" Alice said as tears rolled down her eyes.

"I see, he must be a great person huh?" Sugimoto asked her.

"No, he was the best." Alice replied.

Sugimoto hands her a box of tissues and she blows her nose. After a while, Alice finally arrived home. She waved goodbye to Sugimoto and went to rest after an exhausting day.