She had a bad feeling about this, for some reason...
It had been a very simple plan, all things considered. His wife's Auntie Izumi - not really an aunt, but a relative non the less - had invited the family over to her home in the mountains for New Years, and both Hiromi and Akira had thought it was about time that both Akira Mamoru got to know at least some of his relatives on his mother's side properly, too. Oh, it wasn't like Hiromi's parents didn't appear occasionally and leave Mamoru birthday presents and such, but...
How time flies. Akira smiled at his son whizzing along the highway next to them. Mamoru was six years old already...
The first sign that things were going wrong was the snow, coming down thick and fast, more then 2 days before the weather predictions.
And then...
Chiba Akira groaned, staring at the gigantic Car-Lorry on it's side, totally blocking the road. Well, at least it - he? - was still alive, from the almost inaudible groaning he could hear from 10 car length away, but -
Hiromi and Mamoru wheeled up behind him, staring at the wreakage.Well, it wasn't as bad as it might have been, since there didn't seem to be any dead Cars as far as they could see, but still.
"Where the hell is the Highway Patrol, anyway! Or the Highway Rescue Service!" Some other Car called out, irritably.
"It's the snow, there must be jam-ups all over the place..." A female large sedan covered in snowcoats said, softly. "You did call them, didn't you, husband?"
"Of course I did." A large male sedan with matching snowcoats with the female wheeled over to her, sighing. "It's as you say, Kaoru - everything's jammed up, all over the highway net..."
Akira whirred his wipers, then, trying to get a better look at that pair of Cars. They sounded familiar, somehow. Damn, it was cold...
And just what was that pile of fabric right next to them, anyway? It looked like a flat...
And that was when the 'pile of fabric' made a hiccuping sound.
"Mamaa. Can't see..."
"No, no, no, no, child, you keep those snowcoats on. I don't care what your specs theoreticallly say - a SUV you are not."
...There was a toddle-wheeler under there? Akira snickered in spite of himself. And he thought he and Hiromi were overprotective when it came to Mamoru...
And then the female sedan looked at him, and then at his wife, bending her front a little. Her window-eyes widened.
"Ahhh... Hiromi-san?"
The male sedan stared at him, window-eyes widening. "...Chiba?"
Argh. Argh. Arrrgh. Chiba Akira groaned, then.
Of all his wife's relatives that he didn't want to meet...
"Why hello, Mr Tennou, Mrs Tennou. How ...odd that we meet here..."
Tennou Haruhiko nodded at him warily, while Kaoru gave all of them a polite if somewhat frazzled smile.
Chiba Akira sighed inwardly. Tennou Haruhiko was not one of his favorite Cars, and he didn't have to search his memories very long to remember why. There had been plenty of his wife's relatives who hadn't been happy at all with the notion of Hiromi marrying a pick-up truck with plenty of dreams but no wealth to speak of, but Haruhiko -
This was the Car who had followed him all over the highway once, just to lecture him on the dangers of 'mixed-car-type marriages', after all. And the really annoying thing was, what he was saying that time really wasn't all wrong - offspring of 'mixed' marriages sometimes did turn out to be very odd indeed, and there was a slight statical increase of birth deformities.
Haruhiko wasn't very closely related to Hiromi - they were something like third or fourth cousins - but they had spent a fair amount of time growing up together, and Hiromi had called Haruhiko 'Haru-niisan' until her teens.
Akira groaned, then. It was only when he overheard some of his wife's female relatives gossiping about it wasn't like Haruhiko could ever marry a Coope, anyway, that it had even crossed his mind that if Hiromi had been born some kind of sedan like most of her family, there was a possibility she would have been considered marriageable to one Tennou Haruhiko, who was from a pretty rich family, all things considered, and...
Akira sighed, then. This was - unproductive in the extreme. As things turned out, Hiromi had married him, her family hadn't cut her off - well, not all the way, anyway - and Haruhiko had eventually married a Luxury Sedan from a good family, and had produced a child -
No. Wait. Akira blinked. What had his wife told him about...?...
In the meanwhile, Haruhiko seemed to need to at least try to make some small talk.
"So that's your son, eh, Hiromi-cha - uh, Hiromi. It's hard to tell with all those snowcoats, but he does look handsome. It's good he took after you, huh?"
"Actually, he got my engines. And my motorpower." Akira butted in. Well, actually, Mamoru's engine specs were much higher then his, but -
"Well, whatever, whatever." Haruhiko gave a airy wave. "He's healthy - that's what matters, eh? Though I'd be careful about trying to make more kids if I was you - you might end up with a truck daughter with your engines, after all..."
Kaoru groaned, pawing her wheels. "Husbaaand..."
Akira gritted his fenders together. Annoying, thy name is Tennou.
And then he at long last remembered just what his wife had told him, and smiled wider.
"And your daughter is a most healthy and a goodlooking specimen of her kind, I hear?"
If he remembered right, beneath all those snowcoats was a sports racecar that would one day race like a racing thing.
Luxury Sedan marry Luxury Sedan and produce Racecar. Car genetics really was weird, sometimes... Akira sniggered, only to facefault with Haruhiko's next words.
"Well, of course she is." Haruhiko snorted, every cm the proud papa.
Akira stared, and nearly ground his wheels into the soggy snowy mud. He could see out of the corners of his windows that Haruhiko's wife - what was her name, Kaoru? Right - was very carefully trying not to burst out laughing.
Tennou Haruhiko, made of teflon. Right. Akira sighed, then. He really didn't have any business sending barbs at people via implied insults about their children or their genetics, anyhow - even if Haruhiko had done just that. Though this being Tennou Haruhiko, it was quite possible that he really was that oblivious of the implied insult, now that he thought about it...
Mamoru in the meanwhile had wheeled nearer to the infant snowcoat-smothered Car.
"Just what is that barking noise?
He nearly fell into a slushpatch, as something small and whirring jumped on his bonnet.
"Brushie! Come baa!"
Brushie? Mamoru was going nearly cross-eyed, trying to figure out just what it was.
"Hello? Who are you and what is this little mobile brush that keeps trying to polish me?"
Not that it was working very well, with all the snow coming down and all...
"I'mm... Ruka. Haruka." A childish voice came from out of the layers of fabric. "An Brushie is m'trikie, silly!"
"A trike?" Mamoru laughed. "You're the most weird looking trike I've ever seen, Brushie..."
There was a snort at that. "Naa. Brushie is cute."
"Didn't say it wasn't." Mamoru angled himself, trying to get a look at this 'Haruka'. All he could see in the snowy gloom was snowcoats and more snowcoats.
"Are you a girl-Car or a boy-Car, anyway?"
Haruka was usually a girl's name but was occasionally a boy's name, too, depending on the kanji, he thought...
"I'm a girl! See?"
The infant Car lifted her layers of snowcoats, showing him her window-eyes.
"Right you are." Mamoru smiled.
And along the snowy road, a pair of SUVs crashed gamely through the snow and slush.
"Wait for mee, Mitsuko..."
"Hurry, Yuuki, we have to get to the Tendous, you know that - they still have Haruka-chan with her!"
" Well, thank goodness we were able to get Michiru to the Katsuragi house before it started snowing in earnest, anyhow. ... A all-weather Car our daughter is not." Kaiou Yuuki mumbled, nearly hitting a snowdrift.
Kaiou Mitsuko could do nothing but agree with that.
Pluto bit her lip.
This was going to be bad. She knew it in her body structures...
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(Posted Tue, 03 Oct 2006 19:45)
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