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Sum of you might already hav read this fan fic on ff.net if u havent i hope u can enjoy this as much as i hav

A fanfic by Sanae

Disclaimer: Don’t own it, so don’t sue me. Pretty please with a cherry on top.

Programmed Lives - First Stage

Prologue

After the highly dangerous but successful campaign against those would-be streetracer gangters, Project D’s founder and leader, Ryosuke Takahashi could be found in his room triple-checking the latest battle’s data. He had made it a habit in his life to analyse everything thoroughly as to leave as little as possible for fate to decide.

He was currently looking into the spreadsheets with the AE86 data. They were as impressive as usual. Takumi really pushed his car to its limits in a way that no one could ever have done. Well, that wasn’t true. Takumi’s father, Bunta, was still better than his son. Just a tiny bit better. With the right grooming, Takumi would soon surpass him.

This worried Ryosuke, after all, and even though he had to be completely impartial when it came to his two drivers, Keisuke was always his younger brother. If Takumi became too good, Keisuke’s chances to become a pro-racer would be put in jeopardy

Speaking of the devil, he heard a knock on his door and Keisuke’s voice saying:

‘Aniki, are you there?’

‘Yes, come in,’ Ryosuke replied and the door opened letting in a very tall, handsome young man with spiky bleached hair.

‘Father wants to speak to you,’ Keisuke said throwing himself on his elder brother’s bed and beginning to browse a sportscar magazine.

Taking his eyes off the computer’s screen, Ryosuke looked at his brother.

‘Did he say what about?’ he asked, trying his best to mask his concern. Talking to his father, even more so when he was being formally summoned, was among Ryosuke’s most hated activities.

‘Dunno…’ his brother replied shrugging his shoulders.

‘I better go now then,’ Ryosuke said, knowing perfectly well that postponing any meeting with his father was never a good idea.

‘Sure, I’ll stay here, ok?’ Keisuke said getting his attention back to the magazine.

‘Alright, but don’t touch the computer, I’m working on something.’

Not entirely sure Keisuke had actually heard him, Ryosuke got up from his chair and walked out of his own room to his father’s studio.

He knocked on the door and heard his father’s deep voice answer:

‘Come in.’

Ryosuke opened the door and said:

‘Good evening father. Keisuke said you wanted to speak to me.’

‘Yes. Close the door and sit down,’ the older Takahashi said.

This was definitely not a good sign, Ryosuke thought, while bracing himself for one of his father’s speeches.

Nevertheless, Ryosuke took a seat in front of the huge mahony desk, looking over it to his father’s very authoritarian-looking face.

‘I heard your team won again,’ he started, surprising Ryosuke for, as per that day, his father had shown little or no interest on his sons' racing activities.

‘Yes. We did,’ Ryosuke replied.

‘Good. Even though it’s just a hobby I think you should still do your best, son,’ his father added.

By this point, Ryosuke was genuinely confused not even remotely aware of where this conversation was heading. So confused, in fact, as to not get upset about his father calling his beloved racing team a mere ‘hobby’ of his.

Seeing that Ryosuke wasn’t saying anything, his father said:

‘However, as your finals approach, I think we should start considering the future…’

Ah, so that was the point of this conversation, Ryosuke thought. That wasn’t suprising, Ryosuke had been expecting this for quite some time. After all, it had been himself who had promised his father that he would not be involved in Project D for more than a year.

‘Of course, your future is pretty much decided. You’re going to start your residency at doctor Arakawa’s hospital next year so we don’t have to worry about your career now,’ his father continued saying.

‘That’s right,’ Ryosuke said, again trying his best to sound enthusiastic about the idea.

‘Let me ask you something Ryosuke,’ his father said.

‘Sure,’ Ryosuke replied, as if he had had any say in the matter.

‘Do you have any lady friend at this moment?’

Ryosuke would have fallen off his chair had it not been because he has holding himself on the chair’s armrests

He swallowed a couple of times before shaking his head.

‘No, I don’t, father,’ he even managed to reply.

‘Good, this way there won’t be any messy break ups,’ he said meanwhile taking a dark blue A5 sized folder from his desk and handing it to Ryosuke.

‘Take a look at this,’ that was an order so Ryosuke opened the folder to reveal the picture of a girl that looked vaguely familiar to him.

‘You probably don’t remember her even though you met a few times when you two were kids. She’s the daughter of your future boss and her name is Akiko.’

‘Father…’ Ryosuke started saying, his voice barely concealing the sheer panic he was beginning to feel.

‘Keep yourself free for this Saturday evening. She and her father are coming for dinner to discuss the details of your wedding.’

To be continued…

i read this story recently. it really good. all 19(?) chapters of it. im going to read the next four stages too because i loved first stage so much...

Ryosuke's dad is gonna get him married to some girl? poor Ryosuke, I feel sorry for him.

Programmed Lives - First Stage

Chapter One

The entire conversation kept replaying itself in Ryosuke’s head, each time sounding worse. He was so distraught by the whole episode that he had even forgotten that, in his bedroom, his brother was laying on the bed still reading that sportscar magazine.

‘Hey Aniki, what did the old man want from you?’ Keisuke asked dropping the magazine on the floor.

‘What?’ Ryosuke asked still too shocked to understand anything. His confused look made Keisuke frown with concern.

The youngest Takahashi sat on his brother’s bed and said:

‘He’s not asking you to drop the project before time, is he?’

‘No. That’s not it. Look Keisuke, I’m not in the mood right now. Can you go back to your room, please?’

Please. His brother never asked him to do anything ‘please’. His were more orders rather than simple requests.

‘Okay Aniki. I’ll see you at dinner.’

‘Sure,’ Ryosuke said dropping himself on the chair in front of the computer.

As soon as he was left alone, he put his elbows on top of his knees and hid his face on his hands.

This shouldn’t have shocked him so much. After all, as the Takahashi’s heir, it was to be more than expected that, one day, he’d end up marrying some girl from one of the families from the Takahashi’s social circle.

Only that, to Ryosuke, this day had come way too soon. The sad bit was that the decision had already been taken by the two heads of the Takahashi and Arakawa families so, Ryosuke could do very little to prevent the wedding from happening.

He took the dark blue folder once more in his hands and took another look at the picture inside it. The girl wasn’t spectacularly good looking. She looked very much your typical Japanese upper class girl. Glossy, straight dark brown hair that fell all the way down her mid-back. He couldn’t tell her height but her petite frame told him she wasn’t very tall. She was wearing a kimono so he couldn’t tell what her body was like.

Her face was kind and her smile carried up to her hazelnut brown eyes. She wouldn’t win any beauty contest but she was rather decent looking.

He could consider himself lucky.

With a pang, he realised that this girl would probably have received a picture of him too. He wondered whether she was holding his picture too and was assessing his appearance the way he was doing with hers.

Not that Ryosuke had any doubts about his good looks. His brief affairs with the opposite sex had shown him that he had what it took to please any woman. But an affair was one thing, marriage was a completely different deal.

His mobile phone rang just as he had realised that with this wedding, those affairs would now have to come to an end too.

‘Ryosuke here,’ he answered.

‘Hi, this is Fumihiro. We’ve received the new part for your FC. We’ll be able to put it on and test it this Saturday.’

‘This Saturday?’ Ryosuke asked his right-hand man.

‘Yes, you had programmed a meeting to plan the strategy for our next race…’ Fumihiro said obviously surprised that Ryosuke would forget something as important as that.

‘Ah! Oh, I can’t make it, Fumihiro. Something’s come up,’ Ryosuke said.

‘Oh. I see. I take it you can’t postpone it, can you?’ Fumihiro asked, with disappointment badly masked in his voice.

‘No. I’m sorry,’ was Ryosuke’s reply.

‘Ok. What about your brother?’

‘Dunno. I think he’ll be busy too. It’s a family dinner, so I think my parents expect him to be here too.’

‘Ok. I’ll get Matsumoto to call Takumi.’

Shit. Takumi. Ryosuke had completely forgotten about him too.

‘No, don’t bother. I’ll call Fujiwara myself.’

‘Ok. Well, I’ll speak to you later,’ Fumihiro said.

‘Sure thing,’ Ryosuke said and then he closed his phone.

He could tell that Fumihiro had noticed that he wasn’t being his usual controlled self. Ryosuke counted up to ten, took a deep breath and dialled Takumi’s number.

‘Fujiwara Tofu,’ the deep, slightly raspy voice of Bunta Fujiwara replied.

‘Good evening Fujiwara-san. This is Takahashi Ryosuke. Is your son home?’

‘Sure, I’ll get the brat for you,’ Bunta replied.

After a while, Ryosuke heard Takumi’s monotone voice say:

‘Ryosuke-san, what’s up?’

‘I’m calling to cancel this Saturday’s meeting. I’m sorry for the short notice.’

‘Ah. That’s ok. I’ll take pop’s Impreza out for some training then.’

‘Yeah. That’d be good. Well, I’ll call you whenever we can do the next meeting. Ok?’

‘Sure,’ Takumi replied. It was obvious to Ryosuke that the younger man had not even noticed anything strange going on with his team’s leader. It was typical Takumi behaviour to be oblivious to anything that didn’t have four wheels or was called Natsuki.

Lucky him. He would probably end up marrying her or whoever he chose. Despite his docile look, Takumi had this thing of doing exactly what he wanted whenever he wanted. Takumi, unlike himself, would probably never allow anyone to tell him what to do with his life.

Except street racing, everything else, from his career choice all the way through his marriage, had been programmed for him by his overcontrolling father.

Street racing. His so-called ‘hobby’. His escape valve. The only thing that truly made him happy. It would have to end once he started his job at the Arakawa’s hospital.

If it hadn’t been because Ryosuke Takahashi never cried, he would have done it in that precise moment.

To be continued…

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aiight mybad

Hello Perry,

this is Sanae, the author of the fanfiction and, when I wrote 'Disclaimer: Don’t own it, so don’t sue me. Pretty please with a cherry on top' at the beginning of my story it's just because it's pretty common for the fanfiction.net writers to use disclaimers because, when we write our fanfictions we have to make it clear that we know we don't own the works upon which we base our stories...

In any case, thrett has kindly asked for my permission before uploading the story on your MB.

Thanks for your attention,

Sanae.

PS: To the rest of you, I hope you enjoy the story!

This post has been edited by Sanae on Dec 14 2006, 08:01 PM

So now the other members of IDW can enjoy this great fic.

This post has been edited by Meteor on Dec 14 2006, 11:35 PM

Programmed Lives - First Stage

Chapter Two

‘They can’t possibly think you’ll do that! There is no f**king way!’ Keisuke shouted angrily.

‘Keisuke, keep your voice down,’ Ryosuke hissed, acutely aware that their parents were coming to the dining room to join them for lunch. Maybe telling his brother to give him some warning had not been such a great idea.

‘How can you be so calm? If they did something like that to me, I’m as sure as hell I’d go completely ballistic,’ Keisuke said, making a visible effort to keep his voice at a reasonable level.

‘I’m not so calm Keisuke. I have a plan though, and I hope it’ll work. We just have to see how things go tonight…’

Keisuke shook his head in deep disbelief.

‘Whatever, I just hope you know what you’re doing…’

‘So do I,’ muttered Ryosuke under his breath. Thankfully, their parents arrival prevented Keisuke from hearing that last remark.

Keisuke kept himself unusually quiet during lunch, trowing angry glances at his father whenever he was sure the old man wasn’t looking at him. Ryosuke was grateful that none of them went anywhere near the subject of that night’s dinner with the Arakawas for, he knew, Keisuke would simply explode.

At seven o’clock sharp keeping an admirable punctuality, doctor Arakawa and his daughter were welcomed to the Takahashi’s house.

Doctor Arakawa, a short man with greying black hair, dressed impeccably with a dark grey suit, bowed briefly at Mrs Takahashi and then moved to greet his long-time friend and colleague, doctor Takahashi.

‘Oh, it’s been so long since I last came to your place, Takahashi.’

‘It’s been long indeed, Arakawa, you’ve met with Ryosuke during his job interview but you may not recognise my youngest son Keisuke, after all, he’s changed quite a bit since you last saw him…’ doctor Takahashi said, using the slight disapproving tone he always used when speaking about Keisuke.

‘Yes, I have had the pleasure of meeting Ryosuke, he’s a really impressive young man. If he keeps working this hard you’ll have every reason to be proud of him,’ doctor Arakawa said and Ryosuke couldn’t help both detecting a hint of jealousy in his voice and noticing the way his future boss had completely ignored Keisuke.

His younger brother ‘helped’ the doctor notice him by clearing his thoat quite loudly.

‘Ah, yes, Keisuke,’ he finally said acknowledging him. The doctor took a look at Keisuke’s bleached hair and, rather malignously, said, ‘tell us, what is it that you study?’

‘Keisuke is taking a break from his studies. He’s carefully considering what to do with his future…’ Ryosuke said, relieving Keisuke from having to answer.

‘Ah, I see,’ doctor Arakawa said giving Keisuke a look that neither him nor Ryosuke liked too much.

‘This lovely lady must be your daughter,’ Mrs Takahashi said taking a step towards the young woman who, up to that moment, had been quietly standing behind her father.

‘Yes, she is,’ he said noncomittantly. Mrs Takahashi exchanged a very brief, confused look with her husband who, to save the situation said:

‘We’re very pleased to have you back Akiko-chan.’

‘Thank you, Takahashi-sama, I was happy to come back to Japan,’ she said after bowing in a very elegant manner.

Ryosuke was surprised to hear such a firm voice coming from such a tiny woman. She was in fact much smaller than he had expected. She was some twenty centimeters shorter than he was and her petite frame made her look even smaller. That said, she seemed to transmit an inner strength that left Ryosuke almost speechless.

‘It’s also a pleasure to see you again Ryosuke-san, even though I doubt you’ll remember me,’ she said looking up to him and offering him her hand for him to shake it.

‘I’m devastated to say that I couldn’t remember you at first, but now that I’ve had time to think, I remember you used to come here to play with us when we were kids,’ he said giving her what he hoped was his best smile.

‘Yes, I did, but it’s ok if you couldn’t remember, after all, it was ages ago,’ she replied smiling back at him.

While she proceeded to greet Keisuke, Ryosuke remembered the picture of her he had seen. The truly happy smile she had worn in that photograph had now been replaced with an obviously fake one. All the happiness in her eyes was gone. Rysouke highly intuitive nature told him that this arranged marriage wasn’t all there was behind her unhappiness.

Meanwhile, Akiko handed Mrs Takahashi a small bag that she’d been carrying in her left hand:

‘I’ve just come back from Hokkaido where I’ve visiting some friends and I got some of their traditional sweets, I thought you may like them.’

‘Oh, that’s very kind of you!’ Ryosuke’s mother said as she started ushering everyone towards the dining room where the table had already been set by the housemaids who were now waiting for a sign from the lady of the house to start serving dinner.

Mrs Takahashi did that as she quickly handed the bag to one of them so she could take her seat at the table, next to its head where doctor Takahashi sat, leaving the other tablehead for doctor Arakawa.

Ryosuke sat next to Keisuke opposite their mother, leaving Akiko to seat next to Mrs Takahashi so the two women were left facing the two Takahashi brothers.

During the meal, Ryosuke found out that Akiko was just two months younger than him. She was also a last year medical student who would start working at her father’s hospital at the end of the academic year. He also found out that she had spent a very large part of her childhood at a boarding school in England and that she was fluent in French, Spanish and, of course English.

In short, Akiko was your typical upper class girl with excellent education and exquisite manners. She had been brought up to be the perfect wife for the heir of a rich family such as the Takahashis.

Keisuke, who had been looking at both Akiko and at his brother alternatively, finally decided to get involved in the conversation:

‘Say Akiko-chan, what do you think of streetracing?’

Doctor Takahashi threw a look full of disapproval at his youngest son, Akiko, however, didn’t even flinch.

‘I don’t know much about it. I enjoy watching the WRC though,’ she said, nonchalantly.

‘Really?’ Ryosuke asked, his surprise obvious in his tone of voice.

‘Yes, I’m a huge fan of Sebastien Loeb...’ she started saying, her face brightening up. Then her father made some noise that made her stop speaking and lower her eyes to the plate in front of her.

If anyone found this odd, no one commented on it, nor on the fact that father and daughter had not exchanged a word during the whole time. In fact, doctor Arakawa seemed to pretty much ignore his daughter.

‘So, darling, do you think it’s the right time now?’ Ryosuke’s mother said, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had been created.

‘Yes, I think so,’ doctor Takahashi replied.

‘Alright then. Ryosuke, give this to Akiko-chan,’ his mother said, handing a small box over to him.

No one needed to guess what was in the box. As he felt himself getting paler, Ryosuke noticed that Akiko was getting rather white herself. He felt sorry for her since it was more than obvious that she wasn’t too pleased about the whole deal either.

‘Oh…’ was all she could manage as, having taken the box from Ryosuke, opened it to reveal an engagement ring with a huge diamond set on it.

‘The wedding planner I’ve hired says a month should do to organise the event, what do you think?’ doctor Arakawa asked, smiling.

‘Yes, that’s about the right amount of time. The house should be ready by then,’ doctor Takahashi agreed.

‘House?’ Ryosuke asked, his voice sounding a bit more strained that he intended.

‘Yes, of course. The house your mother and I have bought for you two. Surely you don’t expect to be living here with us once you’re married, do you?’ his father said almost amused by the mere thought.

Ryosuke didn’t know what to say. He just looked at Akiko, who was still looking at the ring, obviously too stunned to even allow herself to lift her eyes to look at anybody.

Keisuke was the only one who, as usual, reacted staying true to his feelings: he got up and left the table without paying any attention to his parents’ protests.

‘I’ll go and talk to him,’ Ryosuke said getting up to follow his brother.

To be continued…

Thank you Sanae and thrett. My apology for sounding rude earlier.

Keep up the great work, I am liking the story so far.

Programmed Lives is a series of fanfics that you won't get tired of for a loooong while. FF.net already has 5 stages. The 5th stage wasn't finished yet (the last time I checked) but even after 4 stages, it still hasn't lost its charm.

Thank you Sanae and thrett. My apology for sounding rude earlier.

No need to apologize Perry: you were just doing your job!

To Meteor: you've rendered me speechless with your extremely kind words...I just don't know what to say other than to let you all know that I've just completed the Fifth Stage, in case you guys want to go to ff.net and finish reading the story...

Once more, thanks to thrett for the amazing work he's doing with all the copy and pasting!

Bye for now,

Sanae.

Here are all the stages for Programmed Lives

First Stage

Second Stage

Third Stage

Fourth Stage

Fifth Stage

Enjoy

be warned ppl... i started reading this couple days ago, and i ended up reading all the way to the end of each stage in less than a day. not that its a short story, but that its addicting. n now ive just finished third stage in less then ~5 hr... n i had alotta shit planned to do today too

^^ thats the same way it started for me
by chance i found it and couldnt stop reading it

I've just finished first stage, and OMFG!!!!! hell million thumbs up for that!!!! *favourites and plans to print* this is the shizz!

has anyone else read the fan fic and if so do u like it

i finished all five stages in ~3 days.... shits that good. be warned tho, there are some twists takumi fans wont like... im still feeling the effects of it, but it turned out nice in the end, so go read it already.

for those who would like to know
6th stage will start sometime in January(Hopefully sooner)......HUURRRAAAAYYYY

This post has been edited by thrett on Dec 22 2006, 10:30 AM

That's awesome news. Thanks for the heads up.

Hi there,

just wanted to let you know that I've already uploaded the prologue of the Final Stage in case any of you want to go and check it out:

Programmed Lives : Final Stage

Like I say in the A/N, I hope I'll have the first chapter ready sometime during this weekend.

Happy reading and Happy New Year to you all,

Hmm. Hiroki's in for some trouble.

great opener for your last stage for prgrammed lives(theres going to be some drama) cant wait for the next chapter
and thanks for letting us know that u started your your final stage

This post has been edited by thrett on Dec 29 2006, 10:51 PM

excellent! you got me hooked!

Thanks for that FinToy-83 and sorry for the delay replying to your post. I've been busy writing the final stage for which I'm hoping I'll have chapter nine up sometime in the next two or three hours...

Thanks to all of you who've read the series!

Take care,