Final race

"Yes Yes Yes."

"I got this in the bag now."

Jaki stands up intensely as she secures the lead after the race had just begun.

Its okay, I think to myself. This is a long map so an early lead doesn't mean much here.

I simply try my best to follow Jaki and not fall too far behind.

"Are you kidding me?!"

A blue shell suddenly hits Jaki. It wasn't from me so it must be from one of the bots.

This is the risk that comes from being in first place. You become the target of everyone that is on the race course.

"Hehe that's why you should never get too cocky in the start, you never know what's going to happen next."

"Hmph, I'll catch up again in no time."

After Jaki was hit by the blue shell I managed to over take her. Though I know that its not necessarily the best thing being in first place right now.

All the risk that comes with being first is now transferred from Jaki to me. In addition, I also have to watch out for attacks coming from Jaki.

If she gets any shells I'll be in big trouble. The same goes for fireballs and other offensive items.

"Bingo!"

And just like that it seemed like my worst fear has come true.

Jaki has acquired a boomerang from the item box.

God damn it! Out of all the items it just had to be the boomerang. This means she'll have multiple chances of hitting me.

"Hmm I wonder who I should use this boomerang on."

"Oh look isn't that Sandy in front? My oh my I think I just found my perfect target, hahaha."

I can feel cold sweat rolling down my neck as Jaki approaches my kart with malicious intent.

Her evil laughter echoing through out the living room.

I grab tightly onto my controller.

"You can try all you want but I'm gonna be anything but an easy target!"

As we drift into a tight corner I can see Jaki's calculating eyes and I know she was going to try to hit me when I am mid drift.

I see the boomerang fly towards my kart, however my fingers were fast enough to stop the drift early and I narrowly dodged the boomerang.

"Damn it."

"Hehe you got to try better than that if you want to get me!"

I can feel the pressure slowly being lifted after I dodged the first attempt by Jaki. Now the pressure is on her.

For her next shot Jaki was too hasty and I dodged it with ease.

"Well looks like I'm gonna be grabbing another easy victory."

"Hmph!"

I couldn't help myself but to rub it in her face, and the cute pouty reaction that followed only made me want to tease her more.

Jaki turned quiet after missing her second shot like she is recalibrating her brain. Her expression has turned dead serious.

Seeing the serious Jaki has once again made me feel the pressure of this race.

Jaki followed closely behind me as we race closer towards the finish line. This time the bots were also following us closely, posing a much bigger threat than they were last time.

Finally I see Jaki make her move. It was the same maneuverer as before, she threw out her last boomerang while we are both drifting.

However just like last time I stopped my drift early to dodge it.

But then something else flew towards me, a green shell.

Crap! There is no way I can dodge this since I already stopped my drift early.

Bam the green shell hits my kart and flips me over.

Jaki races by cool and collected.

"All part of the plan."

This time it was Jaki blowing the smoke off her finger guns as she races past me.

Damn it. I got too comfortable thinking that all Jaki had was the boomerang. I didn't event notice that she had a green shell as well.

She also made sure to do it in the corner so I would have been sandwiched between both projectiles and doomed to get hit by one of them.

I hate to admit but that was good. She waited for her moment and struck perfectly.

If I lose then so be it.

However in a cruel twist of fate just as Jaki passed me to become the first in the race, a blue shell quickly followed.

I guess this is part of the beauty of this game, at the end of the day no matter how good you are a rogue blue shell can change everything.

"Well well well, looks like lady luck isn't on your side."

I casually race passed Jaki and her flipped kart. This is really unfortunate but I'm definitely gonna take advantage of this.

"Noooooo! That's bull!"

"I had the perfect plan and I executed it perfectly! I'm not gonna let some dumb bot ruin everything."

Jaki seemed to have lost her cool after being hit by her third blue shell of the day, which to be fair is very understandable.

"Whatever I don't care I'm winning this!"

"Hey hey, w-what are you doing!"

Jaki started tickling me as a last resort. Causing me to lose focus and drop the controller on to the couch.

In my moment of weakness from all the tickling, Jaki raced pass me, along with all the other bots.

"Oh no you don't!"

If I'm going to lose because of this than no one is gonna win today.

I jump onto Jaki returning all the tickling ten fold.

"Hey, hahaha, stop."

"Tickle, tickle, tickle!"

"Yeah, how do you like this."

Now Jaki has also dropped her controller from all the tickling. Leaving both of our karts way behind.

"Ok now you've done it. I'm not going to hold back anymore."

With one easy push Jaki pushed me down with her on top of me on the couch. It was then that she unleashed all her tickling prowess.

"Hahaha,Oooa, stopppp!"

"Nope! I might as well enjoy this if I'm not going to win the race."

I laugh out in hysteria as Jaki continues her brutal tickling attacks on me.

Her tickling is only stopped when the race has ended and we both turn to the screen to see who has won.

To our surprise it was toad.

"Whaaaat!"

Jaki exhaled in shock.

"Guess us losing to each other wasn't the worst thing that could happen, haha." I said while laughing at this ridiculous result.

"Rip! Guess we'll have to both live with the shame that we lost to toad out of everyone."

Both of us start laughing out loud, losing to each other was one thing but losing to toad? Now that was unexpected.

After a while our laughter dies down.

I lay down on the couch looking closely at Jaki's face which is alarmingly close to mine as she is still on top of me.

Her lashes are long with her eyes shinning as brightly as the stars.

Suddenly I realised what sort of position we were in.

My heart begins to beat faster with a strange tightness forming in my chest.

It seems like Jaki has realised this too.

With the laughter gone all that remains is the tension. We stare deeply into each other.

The both of us remain still. Neither of us willingly to yield and move.

It's like we are playing a waiting game, hoping for something to happen.

My heart can't take it anymore and I decided to close my eyes. Trusting my body to do the right thing and move on instinct.