‘You ready?’

Alex went to the cafeteria, and Takumi was there waiting.

‘Seeing you are smiling, I suppose you passed the exam and got promoted.’

‘Was it ever a doubt, come on, let’s go.’

‘Of course….it wasn’t, Where are we going?’

Alex sensed the change in tone in his voice. He actually had doubt and a very serious one, but Alex decided to ignore it.

‘To your house, we have to go get ready for the race.’

Takumi thought that Alex was just offering sympathy, but when Alex came back, the student got fired up.

‘Oh, don’t worry, I even know a way to sneak out of school, I know a secret passage that can get us out, we have to crawl on our stomach though as it’s more like an underground passage.’

‘I have a permission slip signed by the principal to get us out but forget it, that sounds way better, let’s go.’

The passage was a tight squeeze. It was in the boy’s bathroom behind a toilet. The pipe of the toilet was loose, and it wasn’t heavy so you can move it easily.

The passage was rough, but it wasn’t very long, and you would surface from a hollow tree in the nearby park.

Takumi had found it by accident when he had constipation and applied a little too much force and ended up moving the toilet.

He showed Alex the passage, and then they both entered it one by one.

‘Hey, who made this passage? I can’t imagine a student doing this.’

‘You know how this school was originally a prison first, someone must have dug it back then.’

‘Oh yeah, I hope the person who worked so hard, made it out, though.’

‘Hey, I see the light, we must be near.’

They both got out from under the tree.

‘We better go to my house first, since you don’t have a motorcycle, I can give you mine, you can ride a motorcycle, right?’

‘I can ride one, but I am not a pro. One of my friends also likes motorcycle racing, and he took me to a drag racing competition, and that’s…. where I met her….’

Takumi had started daydreaming. That boy was star struck. Alex snapped his finger to bring him back.

‘Hey, come back. Come on, let’s go.’

‘We can’t.’

‘Why?’

‘Because when I challenged her, she said that I can only beat her with my bicycle.’

‘This just keeps getting better and better.’

Alex gave a sarcastic smile.

‘Fine, let’s go to your house.’

After a while, they both arrived at Takumi’s house.

‘Can I see your bicycle?’

Takumi opened the garage.

‘Sure, it’s right there.’

Takumi pointed towards a bike that looked like it was made in the 1980s.

'That lump of metal, it doesn’t even have any gears’

‘My father rode it when he went to school, and now, he passed it on to me.’

Alex started to think that maybe some people can’t be helped, but he decided to press on.

‘Do you have a picture of her motorbike?’

‘Yeah, I have it on my phone.’

Alex looked at the pic and what he saw horrified him.

‘Yup, you’re doomed.’

‘Why? It doesn’t look that fast.’

’You really don’t know about bikes, the bike she is on is a Speed Freak ninja 300, judging from here, a 2014 model, she really is a motorcycle racing fan, a hardcore one.’

‘Is that bad?’

‘Way more than bad.’

As Alex began describing the specifications, Takumi’s face grew pale.

He didn’t even understand half of them, but by the intense face Alex told them, he knew this was bad, very bad.

’The beast is a 296cc, has a horsepower of 39 hp, parallel-twin engine, 6-speed gearbox, acceleration of 0 to 100kmph in 6 seconds, 16 valve DOHC and a top speed of about 180 kmph.’

‘Ho-how do…you know all that?’

‘Because that was the one I was going to give you. My dad likes sports bike, and this one is one of his favorites’

‘We are never going to win.’

--So it hits you now?

The best Takumi could get out of his beaten-down bicycle was no more than 30kmph, and it was racing against something that could make it look like a baby crawling against Usain bolt running at full speed.

Alex was thinking as hard as he could.

‘Okay, did she give you any handicaps?’

The situation was beyond saving, but Alex still went on.

‘Only 2. One, that I can add anything I want on my bike and that I get to decide what kind of race it will be.’

--That’s not much, we need something else.

‘What do we do? We would need to fit a jet engine on my bike to even have a chance of winning?’

Takumi was scratching his head in frustration as the reality was hitting him, but then, when Takumi said JET ENGINE Alex worries went away, his eyes lit up.

‘Then that’s what we are going to do.’

‘We are?’

‘Just one thing, are you willing to risk your life and the life of your bike to win?’

‘I’m…not sure I would go th-’

‘Great, we have a lot of work to do, we only need a battery, a big metal tube, a cylinder of propane, a spark plug and good brakes.’

The preparation for the race began.