The Fairlady's engine ticked in the silence, still warm from the climb.
Its low, raspy idle echoed softly against the station walls, like a beast waiting for a leash to snap.
Riku stood with his hands in his jacket pockets, watching Koizumi through the mist.
The man didn't move like a racer.
He moved like someone who had raced too long to be surprised by anything.
"You handled Kurokawa like it was a back alley," Koizumi said, voice calm, almost conversational.
"Clean lines. No waste. No nerves."
He took a step forward, snow crunching beneath his boots.
"That's rare."
Riku stayed silent.
Koizumi smiled.
"I'm not here to recruit you. I'm not interested in building crews or chasing hype."
He pointed toward the ridgeline.
"I race for something different. Pride. Precision. The road. I heard what happened last night... and I want to see it for myself."
He paused, then tossed something toward Riku.
Riku caught it — a simple laminated card.
Sazanami Circuit | Koizumi's Invitational.
Tomorrow night. Midnight sharp.
Koizumi turned to leave, but stopped at the car door.
"Don't come if you're scared of being seen."
Then he was gone — tires whispering over the gravel, swallowed by the fog.
---
Riku stared at the card for a long time.
It didn't mean anything.
Not to most people.
But to the underground world?
It was everything.
A Koizumi invite wasn't a friendly meet-up.
It was a test.
---
Later that night, Riku sat in the passenger seat of the Prelude, engine off, lights out.
Just silence and snow.
The delivery runs were done.
The night was his.
He looked at the dashboard.
The odometer blinked slowly — kilometers layered on top of years.
This car had never asked to be fast.
It had just… become it.
Like him.
He rested a hand on the steering wheel.
The leather was cold.
So was the road ahead.
---
Back inside the garage, Tatsuya was watching an old VHS tape of street races.
Commentary blasted from a boxy TV.
When he saw Riku enter, he paused it.
"You good?"
Riku nodded slowly.
Tatsuya narrowed his eyes.
"You look like someone asked you to drive off a cliff."
Riku held out the invite card.
Tatsuya's eyes widened.
"Koizumi?! Bro — BRO — you serious?! That guy's a legend! Sazanami Pass isn't even on maps anymore!"
Riku said nothing.
Tatsuya looked down at the card like it was glowing.
"Are you gonna go?"
A long silence.
Riku looked toward the garage doors — the mountain breathing behind them like a sleeping giant.
"I don't know," he said.
---
The next day moved like a blur.
Oil changes. Brake checks. Small talk. Empty roads.
But everywhere Riku looked, something was different.
People weren't looking through him anymore.
They were watching.
Two kids on bikes stared as he pulled out of a shop parking lot.
A gas station clerk paused mid-count to glance at the Prelude.
Even Mr. Fujimoto muttered something under his breath about "young blood stirring up the mountain again."
---
That night, Riku sat behind the wheel.
Engine on.
Headlights casting long shadows down the pass.
The invite card sat on the dashboard.
It didn't burn.
It didn't scream.
But it pulsed — quietly — like a heartbeat.
This wasn't just about racing.
It was about choosing.
To keep drifting through life like fog...
...or to drive through it.
---
He reached forward, pulled the card off the dash, and slid it into his pocket.
Then he shifted into first gear.