MC1
Sometimes life gets crazy. Sometimes life gets crazy while trying to write a fic with a deadline for an exchange. It's been a few weeks since I posted anything, but with life settling back down again, I wanted to share the fic I finished for the tumblr Summer TeniPuri Exchange! This was a gift for solosorca over there who was hoping for either a discworld or motorsport AU. I didn't know much about either, but figured motorsport would be a bit on the easier side. Hopefully my readers enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Title: MC1
Rating: G
Characters: Echizen Ryoma, Tezuka Kunimitsu, Seigaku Regulars
Disclaimer: Characters not mine, but you betcha I had fun with this universe.
MC1
“Echizen, I really don’t think you should be one to complain,” Fuji warned as the young, golden eyed man growled and checked the time again.
“I have always made it on time for a race, Fuji-”
“If only just,” Inui cut in as a reminder as he bent over the car’s engine running one final exhaustive check of the numbers. Kaidoh hissed like a radiator as he lugged a toolbox into the team’s hand-me-down rig. Compared to the top professional teams, the group certainly appeared slapdash and small, but their results were solid. They would not have made it this far in the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship, otherwise. Inui and Kaidoh’s car and Echizen and Momoshiro’s driving of said car had managed to plant the team solidly in the top ten of each of the last few races -- even managing to take second at Queensland.
They were at Rally Hokkaido now, back on their home turf with the fans from their homeland cheering them on. Only two Japanese drivers had ever won the Rally before, though it had been some years since, and Echizen was hoping to be the one to bring it back this time around. There had been one before his time who had been a consistent contender and had managed to snatch the Hokkaido win four times, but a horrible accident in the Chocolate II stage of the 2010 Baja Rally had torn the man from racing permanently.
Echizen would not crash. Echizen was too good to crash. But it did not matter how good Echizen was if his co-driver did not show up in time for the race. A co-driver was a requirement, not a recommendation, which meant, as useless as Echizen found much of Momoshiro’s shouting to be, he had to deal with it. With no one able to get a hold of Momoshiro, however, and the team strapped for members as it was, all they could do was pray the man would arrive in any state of preparation or they would face disqualification.
Echizen let out a growl of annoyance before stalking off. He wanted to be angry, he wanted to be stressed. He did not want Fuji pointing out he had cut it close before. At least Echizen had always arrived on time for his races, even if it was only just and even if he had missed the previous night’s opening ceremonies. He had been solidly on time this championship, anyway. As a small team, they had few sponsors and the few Fuji had managed to wrangle for them only helped cover some of their expenses. The rest was out of pocket or loans. If they did not gain a few more offers this year, Oishi was not sure the team would be able to continue.
Echizen kicked at a pebble and watched it skitter across the dirt.
Across the way, a fit man stood staring at his phone before looking around. The frown on his face spoke of annoyance of some sort and Echizen watched as he dialed a number on the phone and held it to his ear for several seconds before hanging up with a closing of his eyes and drooping of his shoulders that Echizen could imagine was a sigh.
He was likely lost. And he could not get a hold of who he was here with. It meant he would not be missed.
Echizen smirked.
There were five minutes before disqualification when Echizen shoved the stranger into the co-driver’s seat of his car. “You’re here for the rally, right?” he had asked as he grabbed hold of the man’s arm and began dragging him away, “Keep quiet and you’ll have the best seat in the house.”
The stranger’s arm had tensed in his hands at that. “Don’t worry, I’m not trying to fleece you or even charge you,” Echizen proclaimed, believing the man about to protest, but he was met with silence, instead, which was not broken until the man’s arm had been released.
Even then, it was only broken by a shaky breath as the man rolled his shoulder and flexed his elbow for a few seconds before turning eyes Echizen swore burned on him as he slipped into the driver’s seat. “I believe this spot is typically reserved for a trained, experienced co-driver,” the bespectacled stranger commented with an eyebrow raised in askance. Echizen shoved a balaclava and helmet into the man’s lap with a scowl. “It’s up for grabs when he disappears,” he informed before throwing his own balaclava on. “Don’t worry, it’s not like I can’t finish this race without the notes, so sit there, hold tight, and enjoy this once in a lifetime experience.” He missed the frown on the man’s face, if only because it was fleeting and small enough to make it difficult to discern from his already stern features, but when movement brought the rustling of clothes, Echizen looked over and smirked at seeing the balaclava and helmet firmly in place, the man adjusting a cheekpad the slightest bit to make the fit comfortable.
“You found Momoshiro, Echizen?” Oishi asked at seeing the second person in the car and Echizen nodded. He knew well enough to remain silent through any attempted lies after having been caught a few too many times in excuses that were deemed far too unlikely to be true. “He’s not in his tracksuit, though…” Oishi began with concern and Echizen snorted as he shoved his own helmet in place. “I won’t crash and Inui and Kaidoh would never let their car catch fire in an actual race,” he waved off the accounting manager’s worries, just glad no one had brought up Momoshiro’s apparent change in fashion as displayed by a lavendar button-up the co-driver currently sported with a pair of charcoal pants. Inui’s tests had certainly caught the car on fire a few times during practice runs, but Kaidoh always made sure everything was back in place to match race regulations and safety concerns by the reconnaissance or initial stage.
“Don’t worry too much, Oishi,” Fuji spoke with a sly smile and twinkle in his eye as he peeked through the windshield at the co-driver and chuckled, “I have a feeling Echizen will drive better than ever today.” While the comment drew a glare from Echizen and surprise from Oishi -- along with questions as to why from Kikumaru -- it at least distracted the team -- and silenced them where it mattered -- long enough for Echizen to grab the pace notes from Kawamura and toss them into the unusually quiet co-driver’s lap. “Don’t worry about reading them,” Echizen called to the stranger as the two of them were waiting for their start time at Main Control 1, “You likely won’t be able to anyway and hearing your stumbling is only going to distract me.”
Echizen liked his comment being met with silence rather than shouting and flailing, even if his passenger’s annoyance at it was tangible. Echizen could swear he saw the man’s glasses flash in the overcast light.
-----
Echizen was, honestly, surprised. Rally cars were road legal and made to drive under traditional road regulations -- even did so while traveling between special stages -- but the special stages themselves could get hairy. While it wasn’t like the driver had been expecting his reticent second man to scream at the top of his lungs like some girl who had a caterpillar dropped on her, he also had not expected the man to move with the vehicle so easily. Not even that, he was even comfortable enough to be looking through the notes while they were flying sideways off a jump and Echizen knew very well he had exactly 3 seconds upon landing to get the vehicle back under his control before the road sent him into a quick sequence of turns.
It was as he was correcting his turn radius through a Scandinavian Flick that a low but piercing voice crackled in his ears. Echizen jumped at its suddenness, his speed dropping slightly as he sent a glance at his passenger who was currently reading out the pacenotes. A stern, “Echizen,” and a flash of the man’s glasses sent the driver’s widened eyes back towards the course before him as he readjusted his speed. So the man could read pacenotes. Well, at least his way of doing so was not near as intrusive as Momoshiro’s. So Echizen drove and the stranger continued to read. Most of the notes, Echizen ignored. He did not need warnings for any curve ranked below a three. Hills that would require a jump if they were to maintain speed were generally visible long before the vehicle’s tires left the ground, but he remembers there being a hazard they had penned into the notes after one during the recce the day before and Echizen gave a small nod when the stranger even managed to translate Momoshiro’s scribbled sidebar, keeping to the inside of a turn to avoid a boulder that could threaten to clip a car that meandered to close to the outside of the track.
The stranger’s reading of the notes was easy and comfortable, unlike Momoshiro’s shouting and cursing whenever Echizen took a turn faster than he would like or flew over a bump, sending each joint in their body jolting against each other at impact. Echizen found Momoshiro’s reading energizing, the loud voice raising his adrenaline. He liked scaring the man even while proving how great of a driver he was by doing what others say cannot be done. With this person, though, Echizen found himself calmed. Rather than rushing through the course with a grin like the devil, his speed was still topping out and he knew he would take one of the first five spots in this stage, at least, if not the entire course, but his breathing was calm and he felt like he could see more of the road before him. When a hairpin turn he had been worried about came up, Echizen slammed on the clutch, threw on his handbrake and drifted through the turn before throwing his car back into gear and jumping back up to his earlier speed with a finesse lacking in previous runs.
The stranger’s reading began to slow and, at the start of the third and final stage of the morning’s round, Echizen realized he was only giving the notes Echizen would have listened to in the first place and even those seem shorthand in comparison to what pacenotes tended to contain.
“L3 over crest, 100 square right, 50 double caution jump into KL4 don’t cut, flat for 500.”
Echizen knew that flat 500 had several notes. Momoshiro had been screaming them in his ear during the recce while Echizen had been rolling his eyes and arguing over their pointlessness, but this stranger apparently knew rallying well enough to recognize what information truly was necessary. He had even adjusted to Echizen’s driving style through the first few stages and was giving notes accordingly. If it had not been for his clothes, Echizen would take the man for a professional, but there was no way anyone with a co-driver this good would not be participating.
-----
When they finished the final stage of the morning rounds, Echizen knew he had done his best time yet. The pride was there in his glowing eyes and the smirk on his face and the way he rolled his shoulders and stretched once the car was parked back in the service bay. The pride of the team was there in the way the surround the vehicle, opening the door for Echizen and his co-driver, drumming excitement on the hood and the roof and claiming Ogier was the only one with a better time, and even then it was close.
“I’ll beat him in the afternoon,” Echizen replied with an easy swagger as he pulled off his gloves, helmet and balaclava.
“But what I don’t get is who you were riding with,” Inui questioned with a curious frown. The man never liked it when he was wrong or did not know an answer to something and the annoyance from this one was clearly beveled into the lines on his forehead.
“Echizen, Momoshiro called us two hours ago, saying he just woke up and had a horrible hangover,” Oishi continued and Echizen scowled at the man with the spikey hair hiding at the back of the group and still looking a little green around the edges. Echizen and his passenger had already been in the middle of the first special stage at that point. “How did you find another co-driver? There was nothing signed or notified,” Oishi continued to spout physical concerns after legal concerns and financial concerns until Echizen sighed and shrugged. “I don’t know who he is. Just grabbed him and promised him a good seat if he kept quiet,” he explained before looking back at the man who was only now just removing himself slowly from the car, gloves on the dash.
Oishi’s jaw hit his chest and began flopping about like a fish with half-sounds and not-words spilling out in aghast. Kikumaru’s eyes were the size of saucers at the implication and he screeched, “Ehhhh? Ochibi kidnapped someone?!” which only made Oishi’s face go pale as he rushed over to the man who still wore his helmet.
Fuji beat him to the punch, smiling at the stranger and reaching towards the helmet. “Shall I give you a hand, then, Tezuka?” There was no visible or audible answer, but Echizen could picture a flash of glasses and a frown in his mind’s eye as Fuji’s smile grew and he chuckled while pulling off and setting aside the man’s spectacles. “I hope your arm isn’t bothering you too much,” Fuji continued as he unfastened the helmet.
The group was silent at this point, including Echizen who had escaped a flabbergasted Oishi and Inui’s questions to pester Momoshiro as to just how he had managed to drink enough to get sick the night before a race. He had managed to get out something about a cute Ann and some jerk with red hair getting in his way before the name Fuji had called the stranger caught his attention.
Tezuka?
As in Tezuka Kunimitsu?
The Tezuka Kunimitsu? The Japanese rally driver who had won four of the Hokkaido Rallies in a row? The driver who had taken the 2009 APRC? The one who had wiped out with a mudslide during the Chocolate II Stage of the 2010 Baja Rally after making the world over question if it was possible that one day -- not that year, but maybe the one after -- a Japanese may hold the position of WRC World Champion?
That accident had left both driver and co-driver seriously injured and news had stopped coming in about the two unless you searched for it. Ryoma, whose focus was only on those who could drive, at the time, had been disappointed and turned his attention elsewhere. He had been fourteen then, following news and results and driving on his family’s private plot of land in their four-wheeler. Back then, he’d looked up to the driver Tezuka Kunimitsu whose name would appear next to the Japanese flag time and again in the first five places. His father had called the up and coming driver a kid and not worth half of the great Echizen Nanjiroh, but Ryoma had liked the idea of someone else taking the World Championship title his father had retired before ever claiming. Thinking back, the Echizen Ryoma of now realized he’d never seen much of the renowned Tezuka Kunimitsu’s face. Pictures had always had him with his helmet still on and interviews had always been short and stilted. “You gotta make the crowd love you,” his old man would complain, “He won’t get anywhere. That’s why I say he’s still a brat.” The Ryoma back then never would have imagined the Echizen of now would unknowingly drag the man on the television screen into his own car to be a mere second body.
“I hope your arm isn’t bothering you too much.”
Echizen’s eyes caught the shiver of protesting muscles in Tezuka’s left arm. He had retired from racing because the injury was one that would never allow him to race again. Was it one he could not recover from, then?
The man Fuji had called Tezuka reached up to pull off his balaclava before replacing his glasses. “Fuji,” he spoke and Echizen suddenly remembered how piercing the voice had been in the speaker against his ear, “I assume this is what you invited me for?” It only sounded clipped now. Stilted. Pained. The awe in Echizen’s eyes hooded.
“Well, not so up close and personal,” Fuji mused with an innocent grin, “though I imagine you did not mind too much. It certainly would have given you a better idea than just watching and listening, as we have been.” The helmet he had been holding on to was placed on the car’s roof. Kaidoh had already raised the hood to allow the engine to cool faster. He and Inui would do a once over as soon as possible to make sure everything was in order for the afternoon rounds. “I do apologize for the suddenness of it all, though,” their Public Relations manager continued to grin and Echizen suddenly realized Fuji had known exactly who had been in that car next to him from the very beginning. “Our co-driver apparently didn’t make very good friends with Jack Daniels yesterday. It is a good thing you did show up when you did. I’ve never seen Echizen drive so well.”
“I have a feeling Echizen will drive better than ever today.”
Echizen remembered Fuji’s words before the race had started and scowled because, somehow, the man really had known exactly who Echizen had pulled into the car from the start.
The silence extended between the two as Tezuka failed to comment on anything Fuji said and it melded with the silence the rest of the team had as they stared at this fallen legend in shock and curiosity.
The silence came to an abrupt end as Fuji chuckled. “So, after a run with our dear Echizen, what do you think?”
Echizen’s eyebrow raised.
Tezuka’s did as well and Echizen stood tall when the taller man looked in his direction. “I think he needs to learn to listen to his co-driver,” he chided and for all the answer was to Fuji’s question, Echizen knew Tezuka was speaking directly to him.
So of course Echizen threw his arms behind his head and yawned, walking over to where his lunch was sitting -- a simple bento Kawamura made for everyone on the team on race days -- and began to eat, purposefully ignoring the conversation.
“Are you going to be the one to make him?” Fuji confirmed as he reached fingertips out to brush against Tezuka’s left arm, “I doubt your arm is going to behave if you try for the afternoon round, as well, though.”
Tezuka frowned at the touch and withdrew his arm, sparing Fuji only the slightest of glances before turning his attention back on Echizen. “It looks like you will still need a co-driver for the afternoon run. Your team’s official navigator seems to still be working off his hangover,” Tezuka replied. His hands clenched and Fuji’s smile, while it grew, took on a sharper appearance.
“Oh, no,” Fuji waved off with a chuckle, “He’s recovered from that.” The rest of the team went a little green except for Inui, who smiled. “The sickly look is from Inui’s favorite cure-all.” Where he sat, Momoshiro gagged and Kikumaru and Oishi and Kawamura sent him looks of sympathy. “Once the side effect wears off in about ten minutes, Momoshiro will be all set.”
“Serves you right,” Echizen muttered around dashimaki, still annoyed at Momoshiro’s late arrival.
“I hope you don’t mind, Echizen,” Fuji called out from where he was introducing Tezuka to the rest of the team, “Going back to Momoshiro for the afternoon.”
“Haaah,” he sighed with a roll of his eyes, “I guess I’ll have to put the earplugs back in.”
“Echizen, you can’t say that, you know? You just can’t!” Momoshiro cried from his seat, “I’m your co-driver, after all.”
“I don’t get half of what you say,” Echizen replied with a focused expression on his lunch and Fuji laughed.
“Well, don’t worry too much. If Tezuka agrees, he will still be part of the team, but as a coach for you and Momoshiro, instead,” the Public Relations genius replied and Tezuka frowned.
“I told you, if you want Atobe’s sponsor, I’ll talk to him,” the retired driver sighed as he pushed his glasses back up his nose, “There’s no need to drag me back into all of this.”
“But don’t you want to be dragged back in, Tezuka?” Fuji questioned with a soft smile and, while he did not explain himself, Tezuka’s silence sounded more like an admission than a question. “Anyway, while Atobe’s sponsorship would certainly be helpful, you proved yourself quite helpful today with Echizen. The times prove that much, as well as his listening to your pacenotes.”
“Any driver should be able to do that much,” Tezuka replied, but Fuji ignored it to continue his own commentary. “Well, Echizen’s always been a fan of yours, so I guess it’s not that much of a surprise. Wouldn’t you like Tezuka as a coach, Echizen? He was your goal as a teenager, wasn’t he?”
Momoshiro and Kikumaru were laughing and Echizen stared at Fuji with wide eyes, chopsticks halfway to his mouth, the clump of rice that had been held between them tumbling across the floor. His jaw slammed shut and his lips pursed into a scowl. “Me? For some old man who can’t even handle a round in the co-driver’s seat?” he bit at the inside of his cheek and lowered his head, his bangs damp from the heat of the race falling over his eyes. “I’m going for gold,” he added, raising glowing eyes back up in Tezuka’s direction, “I’ll rise even higher than you.”
“And what do you say to that, Tezuka?” Fuji queried, “A challenge if ever I heard one.” “And considering I can no longer race, that is a challenge he is likely to win,” Tezuka argued, much to Fuji’s annoyance. “Then how about being the one who boosts him that much higher, that much faster? He can use the guidance, as much as he acts like he knows it all.”
“The job won’t pay much, at least not yet,” Fuji added, believing he had finally fully caught Tezuka’s attention, “This is a make or break year for us, though, and I think we have the team to make it. With you as coach, I know we can do even better.”
Tezuka looked around the service bay, at Inui smirking, his glasses glinting as he said something that made Kaidoh hiss and scowl and at Kikumaru who was jumping with his arms wrapped around Oishi, talking loudly about the newest member in this oddly sing-song voice. Kawamura appeared to be stepping in, one hand rubbing the back of his head, as Kaidoh began to shout and point at the car and Inui continued to grin. Momoshiro...looked marginally better and was apparently now at least well enough to eat. Tezuka looked at Fuji who continued to stare right back at him with piercing eyes and then Tezuka looked at the Mitsubishi Lancer -- an old model with only a small number of sponsor logos painted along the vehicle’s sides and nothing particularly renowned. Anyone who looked at the bunch would never give them a fighting chance -- not against professional European teams, but then Tezuka looked at Echizen, the young driver now eating in nonchalance and he remembered that morning’s stages and how quickly Echizen had improved from an already skilled starting point.
“Tezuka,” Fuji invited once more, “how does World Champion sound to you?”
Three days later, Echizen and Momoshiro stood on the roof of their car in the winner’s circle, spraying champagne on each other, the audience and their new coach.