Heartbeat

The car held. Ryoji tightened the last clamp, wiped his hands on the rag, and shut the trunk with a muted thunk. No dramatics. No fist pumps. Just that quiet nod he always gave machinery when it obeyed.

We got back on the road. The AE95 slipped into rhythm. The sun dipped behind the peaks, streaking gold and blue across the mountainside. Matsumoto was still a hundred kilometers off, but somehow it felt closer—the air itself had shifted.

We passed a series of sharp turns, and then—

“There,” Ryoji muttered.

Parked just ahead on the shoulder, half in the gravel and half on the road, was a sleek, obsidian-black Toyota Supra. The paint gleamed like a mirror even in the fading light. It was spotless. Brand new. A ‘93 model, no plates. The kind of car that made your heart skip if you were into machines… or even if you weren’t.

Ryoji’s lip twitched—barely a smile, more like muscle memory from a time when he used to grin for real.

“No way,” he murmured, shifting down.

He pulled the AE95 over beside it, engine still idling. I craned my neck. “You know this car?”

Before he answered, the tinted side screen of the Supra slid down with the faintest electronic whir.

A young man leaned forward—maybe my age, maybe a little older. Clean-shaven, fresh-faced, short ponytail tied just above the nape. He looked like he was trying to channel some kind of slick, underground menace, but the attempt crumpled under how normal he actually seemed.

“Finally,” the guy said, dragging the word out with mock irritation. “You took your sweet time.”

Ryoji stared at him for a full two seconds.

“What are you doing this far out?” he asked, voice tighter now—definitely not pleased.

The young man grinned, completely unfazed. “Reika told me to bring the car. So… I brought the car.”

He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

And weirdly, he sounded… friendly.

He stretched his arms overhead, cracked his knuckles, then gave the car’s steering wheel a casual pat—more affection than most people gave their pets.

“She was getting stiff, you know,” he said, as Ryoji approached. “Hadn’t been taken out in over a year. Couldn’t just leave her there, neglected.”

Ryoji stopped beside the Supra, eyes flicking over it like he was scanning an old scar. “You touched the dampers?”

“Just enough to keep her temper in check,” the guy replied. “Reika would’ve done it herself, but someone had to bring her out here. I volunteered.”

Natsumi frowned from the passenger seat. Wait—Reika?

She leaned toward Ryoji’s side, voice low. “Is he talking about that Reika?”

But Ryoji wasn’t listening. He was staring at the Supra’s glossy black frame, his brow tight. A moment passed.

Then: “You tuned her again, didn’t you?”

The guy shrugged with mock guilt. “She was sulking. I had to.”

“You didn’t reset the ECU curve.”

“I calibrated it. You’re welcome.”

Ryoji shook his head like someone silently cursing the existence of younger siblings. Natsumi, still confused, whispered again, “Wait—is that your car?!”

Ryoji didn’t answer.

The young man leaned on the open window. “So… we doing this, or what?”

“No,” Ryoji said immediately.

“Come on,” the guy grinned. “Just one run. You left her in the garage like a widow. This is her revenge.”

“Don’t be dramatic.”

“You named her Reika.”

Ryoji sighed. Deeply. “You want a race?”

The younger man gestured toward the winding road ahead of him, a stretch of mountain valley that dropped like a serpent. “You used to do this blindfolded.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Come on. For Reika’s sake.”

Ryoji paused. Then, reluctantly: “Fine. Go ahead. Take the lead.”

The guy blinked. “Wait, seriously?”

“You’re gonna need the advantage.”

He didn’t have to be told twice. With a triumphant laugh, the young man revved the engine—once, twice—and then launched forward. The car snarled as it tore down the slope, tires biting into the curves with practiced grace.

The AE95 remained still. Just the low growl of its engine idling beneath us.

Natsumi was half-staring, half-bracing herself. “Okay, what just happened?!”

Ryoji calmly reached into the center console. Click. A cassette slid into the deck.

A split-second later, the beat hit.

Fast, synthetic, thunderous—high-octane eurobeat, pulsing at an impossible BPM. Something out of an underground club wedged into a Tokyo tunnel. The kind of music that made your blood want to race the speedometer.

Ryoji gripped the wheel.

The AE95’s engine wound up with a metallic howl, and then—

SCREEEEEECH.

Rubber met road with violent grace, the car fishtailing just long enough to kiss the edge of control before straightening into the first corner, the chase snapping into motion like a lit fuse.

The AE95 launched down the mountain like it had been locked in a cage for years.

My whole body jolted into the seat as we plunged into the first drop, the road tightening around us in coils and switchbacks.

A few curves ahead, the Supra’s taillights flared—angry, red, and way too far away. Trees blurred past like we were falling through a tunnel of shadows.

There were no guardrails. Just gravel, air, and a lot of very fatal-looking cliff.

And the music.

Oh god, the music.

The stereo blasted a high-speed eurobeat track—snare drums like machine guns, synths like sirens. The car wasn’t driving. It was dancing. Breathing.

Ryoji hadn’t said a word. Hands moving like clockwork—gear shift, wheel flick, gas. Muscle memory and madness.

I clutched the doorframe. “Wait—wait, you named your car Reika?!”

He didn’t even blink.

The next curve came like a trap.

Downshift, wheel flick—and the car went sideways. Tires screamed. G-force slammed into me. Trees spun.

I heard Ryoji’s mouth move. I didn’t catch a word. Only the sound of death and eurobeat.

Panic slammed me. The road was too narrow. The world outside a blur of cliff edges and speeding trees. No ballerina from Tokyo should be here. No girl with dreams of the stage should die in a Corolla.

The car snapped straight. I pressed a hand to my chest. My heart wasn’t there.

The sun had dipped below the ridgeline, casting the valley in this eerie, bluish glow. The next corner was even tighter—and we drifted again, harder. Wheels spat gravel. Headlights caught trees.

I screamed.

“DID YOU NAME YOUR CAR REIKA?!”

“No,” Ryoji replied, so dry, so casual, right in the middle of shifting gears like he was reading a weather report.

The engine snarled, dragging us out of the turn like we were being pulled by a monster on a leash.

I grabbed the dashboard with both hands, gritted my teeth, and screamed as loud as I could over the music:

“THEN BEAT THAT LITTLE PUNK’S ASS!!”

Ryoji didn’t respond.

But the way he slammed the pedal told me everything.

I couldn’t breathe.

I mean, I could, technically—but every time I sucked in air, something outside made me forget how lungs worked. The car was vibrating like a missile strapped to a blender, and the road just kept unraveling under us like we were skating down a coiled ribbon of death.

We were gaining on the Supra.

Fast.

“OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, WE’RE GONNA DIEEEE!”

That was me. Definitely me. I had no control over the volume of my voice anymore. Or my limbs. Or my spine. I might’ve left those on the last curve.

The music, for some reason, was still blaring. It was some insane eurobeat track with synths trying to punch a hole through time. My brain caught one line, just one, somewhere between near-death experiences—

🎶 dance to the heartbeat… 🎶

I screamed: “WHAT IS THIS SONG?!?! WHAT HEART?! I LEFT IT AT THE LAST CURVE!!”

Ryoji didn’t answer.

Of course he didn’t. He was smiling—not fully, but that awful serene face he made when the world was on fire. He didn’t look human. He looked like the eye of a hurricane.

I glanced out the window, and there—next to us, for a split second—was the Supra. The black beast that started it all.

And I could see him.

The ponytail kid. Jaw clenched, eyes wide, hands gripping the wheel like it owed him money. He was drifting hard, struggling to keep control, and his ponytail bounced with every micro-correction like it had its own stress response.

Three turns.

Three brutal, razor-tight drifts.

We took them together. Like synchronized swimmers in a demolition derby. Metal howling, tires shrieking, engines roaring in harmony like a duet from mechanical hell.

I saw him glance sideways at us, sweat at his temple. He looked like someone who’d just seen a ghost pass him on a skateboard.

And beside him—Ryoji.

Still.

Expressionless.

He wasn’t even sweating.

We slipped out of the last curve and hit a stretch of straight downhill. The trees peeled back. The wind screamed louder. And just ahead—just one more curve ahead—the end of the valley.

We overtook.

We overtook the Supra like it was parked. The AE95 surged with a low, angry growl—and just like that, we were ahead. I opened my mouth to yell something—anything—but my voice just dissolved into air.

Then—

Then he did it.

The thing.

The stupid, insane, illegal-in-every-country thing.

At the last curve, with the end of the valley in sight, Ryoji spun the car.

SPUN THE CAR.

The entire world turned sideways.

I didn’t even know what was happening. One second we were going forward, the next the trees were behind us, the headlights slicing backwards through the dark.

“NO NO NO NO NO NO—WE’RE SPINNING! WE’RE FALLING OFF! I KNEW THIS WAS HOW I DIE—BACKWARDS, TO EUROBEAT!”

And yet… we weren’t dying.

We were—drifting.

Backwards.

Through the curve.

Like it was on purpose.

The tires screeched. The car tilted just enough to scrape the edges of physics. We slid around the curve backwards—like some lunatic ballet move. And for one terrifying second, I saw the driver of the Supra again, from the passenger-side window—

His jaw was hanging open.

Actually open.

He looked like someone had just pulled a rabbit out of his carburetor.

And then—before my heart even finished its delayed reaction panic scream—Ryoji re-spun the car, a full 180, just before we hit the exit line of the downhill.

Smooth. Perfect. Like the entire thing had been choreographed.

I pressed my back into the seat, blinking rapidly, trying to remember how thoughts worked.

My hands were shaking. I looked down and realized I was still gripping the door handle like it was a lifeline. My legs weren’t even under me anymore; they’d migrated up to the seat like I was a cat during an earthquake.

I tried to speak.

No words came.

Just breath. Just that white-hot buzzing behind my eyes. My heartbeat hammering in my throat, off-beat from the music.

What kind of man does a backwards drift down a mountain pass?

Who even thinks of that?

What kind of life had I stepped into?

What kind of dance was this?

And why—despite everything in me screaming panic—was some tiny part of me electrified?

The music was still blasting, merciless and euphoric, like the car itself had a heartbeat—and it was laughing.

And somewhere between that backwards drift and my next breath, I realized—I’d never be the same again.