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For the most part of his life, Takumi did not have much experience with feeling important.
Sometimes he thinks it showed, too much, so that some others picked up on it.
Like on that evening after racing Akiyama Wataru.
Takumi had been concentrating on driving, so he only saw the familiar figures standing at the side of the track when he was on his last round up the mountain. Wataru had seen them too, and he was frowning when he approached him after the race was done.
“They came here because of you, didn’t they?”, he asked after begrudgingly complimenting him on his win.
“I don’t know,” Takumi answered, but it seemed he had already said too much with his forlorn look down the pass, with the expression he must have worn.
Wataru was silent for a moment.
“Don’t give it too much meaning.”
“Huh?”
Takumi blinked, confused what the other could be talking about.
“Them being here. You’re good, I have to admit that. To be honest, you’re really good. It’s no wonder that they’re watching you now, after you beat both of them.”
He scoffed. His tone sounded almost disgusted, and Takumi waited for more to come with a strange, uncomfortable feeling in his stomach.
“Arrogant bastards, both of them. They can put as much money into this as they want, and they think they’re above everyone else just because they went unbeaten.”
Really, I’m almost thankful that you took them down a notch. Of course they have their sights on you now, after you became a chink in their armour. Maybe they’ll even try to recruit you.”
He chuckled dryly.
“An 86 in their team, that would be a sight to behold.”
Takumi frowned at him. He didn’t like the topic of this conversation, about such stuff as joining a racing team. About the Takahashi brothers. Wataru made it clear that he didn’t like them, and Takumi sort of understood that, but somehow-
Somehow, he didn’t want to be looking at it like that.
“Why are you telling me this?”
Wataru went serious again, looking away from the entrance of the pass and meeting Takumi’s eyes.
“I just wanted to give you a fair warning, if you should happen to end up around them. They don’t give a shit about anyone. They only care for themselves and each other, so don’t get your hopes up. You’ll never be anything more than a side character in their lives, just another driver.
I’m telling you this because I respect you, Fujiwara. Don’t let them come too close to you. See it as racing advice, I guess.”
That conversation ended up sticking with him. He remembered it when he spotted Ryosuke at the gas station, he remembered it when he asked him to join his new racing team, and he especially remembered it when Keisuke waited for him on Akina, telling him that he wanted them to pursue a pro racing career together.
He didn’t end up heeding the advice very well, he often realises.
He still remembers it a lot of times when anything meaningful happens, and every time the words put a damper on his happiness. He enjoys the time with Project D, he genuinely enjoys it, and he ends up feeling guilty for that.
He’s often angry at himself for being so easy to read. He’s certain that Ryosuke can look like through his façade he tries to maintain, but at least he doesn’t seem to have told his brother about his discoveries. If he had, Takumi might have already gotten a punch to the face. Or worse, been laughed at.
It’s just- He knows it’s several kinds of foolish, but he can’t help being drawn towards Keisuke.
Keisuke is so passionate about the things that are important to him; Takumi had learned that pretty quickly after their first meeting. What started it might have been that meeting at night on Akina, when Keisuke had been shouting at him for denying being a racer, for wasting his talent.
If it had really started all the way back then, there was no wonder that Wataru picked up on it so quickly.
Sometimes, Takumi finds himself thinking.
He asks himself if his future will really be like that: Joining the pro circuit, always helplessly yearning for something that will never be directed at him.
No, he didn’t have much experience feeling important, but he knows that that is because he just isn’t.
But still, he can’t follow the advice. Not once he figured out that he wants this more than probably anything else in his life at the moment. He wants Keisuke’s attention outside of racing, and he knows he won’t get it, because he isn’t important enough.
It’s simultaneously painful and fun to imagine, though.
He imagines being important enough. He imagines quiet afternoons, less-quiet evenings, comfortable nights. He imagines more of those moments between races when they are alone with each other, and he imagines Keisuke in a nightly parking lot, him leaning down, and hearing him say This, this here is important to me, you are important to me.
It’s pathetic of him, really, how he fell into this trap.
But he knows it’s too important to him to let it go.
[What he does not know about is the many little acts and seemingly unimportant phrases and words Keisuke already uses to show him how important he is.]