A long time ago, far away in a land called Akagi, there lived a king and his queen in a majestic castle. The royal couple longed for a son and heir to the throne, but had no such luck after several years of marriage. Finally, in an act of desperation, the king and queen journeyed to Tochigi to seek assistance from Kyoichi, the evil Emperor of Nikko.

Once the Akagi royal couple had consulted Kyoichi and his equally evil assistant Seiji, they returned home armed with a copy of 'Sex for Dummies' and the agreement to honour their promise that they would invite Kyoichi to Akagi when their future child was born. A few months passed; to the their joy, the queen was with child.

And so once the due date had been determined, the king ordered that invitations were to be issued to the neighbouring kingdoms - plus one to the Emperor of Nikko, Kyoichi. The queen's pregnancy was fortunately an uneventful one; nine months passed quickly and precisely on her due date, she experienced contractions in the late hours of the night and went into labour.

It was late next morning when it was proudly announced that the royal couple had been gifted with a son - a lovely baby boy who was particularly vocal. The king decided to call him Keisuke, but the queen called their son Keipi, since she thought it was cuter. Once the royal brat - I mean, heir, was bathed and swaddled in a bright yellow blanket, the king carried him to be presented to the other royal personages of the neighbouring kingdoms.

From Akina was King Bunta, who smiled and suggested that the boy should be driving a car at an age as early at thirteen, preferably in the wee hours of the morning. From Usui, Princess Mako and Princess Sayuki, who thought that the baby was so cute and would probably be much cuter still when he grew up. Actually, that was what Princess Sayuki said - Princess Mako was too busy mooning over an absent Prince Iketani that she was not really paying attention.

From Myougi, Prince Takepon and Prince Shinpon; from Chichibu, Prince Wataru and finally from Nikko, Prince Kai - all four of them didn't have much interest in the baby and had to come and pretend they did because their fathers, the kings of their respective kingdoms, forced them to come. Anyway, their main purpose in this tale was just to stand and look pretty, and they were terrific at that.

"But wait," cried the king, "whatever happened to Emperor Kyoichi? Didn't he get an invitation?"

Unknown to them all, the FedEx courier responsible for the delivery had mistakenly delivered the invitation to the wrong house, where the recipient had thrown it out instead of calling the FedEx people back to return it - and that was why Kyoichi was not present.

"Oh my ears and whiskers," said the king, "I'm afraid we'll just have to go on without him. Bring in the technical directors!"

It was tradition that each royal child would be blessed by the three technical directors of the land. The first technical director, Fumihiro, stepped forward to bless little Keipi; he placed one hand on Keipi's forehead and said, "I hereby bless this infant with long life, good health and drop-dead gorgeous looks."

"What kind of stupid blessing is that?" Prince Shinpon muttered under his breath before Prince Takepon kicked him.

The second technical director Kenta stepped forward to bless little Keipi. "I hereby bless this infant with great driving sense and skills, and a penchant for bright-coloured cars!"

"Oh that was stupid," Prince Takepon muttered under his breath before Prince Shinpon elbowed him sharply in the ribs.

"But wait," the king cried again, "where's the third technical director?"

"The hell with the third technical director!" shouted a loud voice as the door burst open, revealing a very pissed off Emperor Kyoichi. "Why the hell wasn't I issued an invitation?"

"Ay, carumba!" the king cried out in shock, "Emperor Kyoichi! I did issue out an invitation to you, honest!"

"Well, I didn't get it, and since I'm the evil character in this story I shall go ahead and do something evil!" Kyoichi shouted. "I hereby curse this child with the inability to clean his room, immaturity, and the most evil of all things apart from getting a garage to install Alcons and finding out that they've installed the right and left discs the other way round, he would die on his twenty-first birthday! So there!" And with a loud, evil-sounding laugh and a swirl of his equally evil-looking black cloak, Emperor Kyoichi turned around dramatically to storm out of the room and headed for his Evo III.

"Oh no!" cried the king while the others reminded themselves not to use FedEx for anything next time.

"Aa," said another voice as a teenager entered the room, scratching one cheek, "am I late?"

"Takumi!" said the king, "something awful has happened!" He then told the third and final technical director what had just occured.

"Aa," Takumi said, scratching his other cheek, "I see."

There was a long moment of silence.

"Aren't you going to do something about it?" Prince Wataru hinted.

"Aa." Another long pause. "Like what?"

There were several groans before Prince Kai suggested, "Like, perhaps you can get rid of Kyoichi's curse?"

"Aa." Takumi thought for a moment before he said, "Can't. But I can alter it." He sighed in disappointment before he went on, "I was going to bless the new prince with mechanical and technical knowledge of cars, but since"- he waved one hand in an uncertain gesture -"I hereby bless this child with a slight alteration of Kyoichi's curse - instead of dying at his twenty-first birthday, he'd fall into a deep sleep instead."

"God, now that is really stupid," all the four princes in the room muttered, and this time there was no foot-kicking or elbow-nudging.

But as that was all Takumi could manage, the king accepted it. And so Prince Keipi was raised and spoiled by his parents, since they only had him for a limited amount of time before he fell into a deep sleep on his twenty-first birthday. Years passed; Prince Keipi grew up to be a tall and handsome young man, and like the curse stated, he had a very messy room and was rather immature for his age. He had also grown up to be a pretty good driver with some good racing skills, and he had also bleached his hair blond and occasionally wore green contact lenses.

"Mom, Dad," Prince Keipi said curiously over dinner, "why are you guys crying? You should be happy - it's my twenty-first birthday tomorrow."

"That's precisely the reason we're crying!" wailed his parents.

"Huh?" Prince Keipi muttered in puzzlement, as he was unaware of the curse that had been placed upon him. "Oh, are you going to nag about me not being able to clean my own room at my age again?"

"Waaaaah!" wailed his parents again.

"Sheesh," the prince shuddered as he headed for his room, "I guess I really should start cleaning out my room if it upsets them so much." He opened the door and easily avoided all the piles of magazines, books, dirty laundry, spare parts and other junk scattered on the floor and plopped himself into bed, where he immediately fell asleep.

He was still asleep the next morning, then the next, and then the next... and saddened by the whole incident, the king and queen moved to another castle, leaving their son behind in the old castle.

A long time had passed; Prince Keipi still lay in his bed blissfully asleep, trapped in enchantment that fortunately kept him young, but unfortunately did not do anything to prevent him from snoring.

One fine day, a white Savanna RX-7 happened to pass through the area, where the driver noticed the fuel warning light on his dashboard was blinking. "Damned rotary engines," Ryoupon muttered, "bloody things burn up fuel like no tomorrow."

He noticed a huge building not far in the distance; he thought that it was best that he headed there in the hopes of purchasing some fuel, or at least be allowed a phone call to get a taxi. He reached his destination precisely the moment his fuel ran out. Shaking his head, he got out of the car and knocked on the castle door.

"Excuse me," Ryoupon shouted, "anyone here? I need to make a phone call!" As there was no answer, he cautiously opened the door and stepped inside. "Looks deserted," he said to himself, noticing the huge amount of dust and the giant cobwebs. Curious, he went ahead to explore the castle and soon came to a room with a door that had a poster of the Matsumoto Kiyoshi GT team on it.

"Hello?" he said as he opened the door and stepped inside. "Is there any-oof!" He tripped over a Recaro seat and fell forwards, whereupon he landed smack on the bed and on the bed's single occupant. A small plastic container fell out of his pocket as he stumbled; the container broke open due to the impact when it landed near the bed's occupant's nose and -

"Whaa?" the bed's occupant jerked awake, and immediately blinked at Ryoupon, who was sprawled on him. "Who are you?"

"Uh," Ryoupon said cautiously, "Ryoupon. Who are you?" He stared at the blinking young man beneath him.

"I'm Prince Keipi, and this is my castle - whoa!" the prince looked around, startled at the sight of cobwebs and thick dust. "What happened?"

"Prince?" Ryoupon nodded. "Ah, you must be that Akagi prince who got cursed at birth." He then explained to poor Prince Keipi what had occured all those years ago, when Kyoichi did not receive his invitation and stormed inside the castle to lay a curse on the prince as revenge.

"I see," the prince said, nodding, "but how did you wake me up?"

Ryoupon gathered the container that had fallen out of his pocket and showed it to the prince. "Smelling salts," he stated, "I'm a med student, and I always carry these around since a lot of girls faint whenever they see me." He shrugged. "They think I'm cute."

"I see. But..."

"But what?"

"Waaah!" Prince Keipi wailed, "what am I gonna do? I can't live here anymore! Where are my parents?"

"Err... well, they sorta emigrated to Europe. And," Ryoupon took a deep breath, "they sorta died a few years ago."

"Waaah!" Prince Keipi wailed again.

"Um, you can come and live with me if you'd like," Ryoupon offered, taking pity on the poor prince, "I have a pretty decent place, and since I'm studying to be a doctor, I'd be making loads of money in a few more years once I have my own practice." He smiled at the prince, and noticed just how cute the young man was.

"Really?" Prince Keipi asked; seeing Ryoupon nod, he smiled and agreed.

"Now all I need is some fuel for the car."

"There are some fuel pumps down in the garage," Prince Keipi said helpfully, and also noticed just how cute Ryoupon was. "I'll show you."

The two then headed for the garage, where Ryoupon filled a bucket with some fuel and headed off to his car to pour it in the tank. Once he got his car moving again, he drove it to the garage and filled his tank. Prince Keipi had gotten his yellow RX-7 out of the garage and filled his tank, and two drove out of the castle compound and headed for Ryoupon's home.

The two soon settled down nicely; Ryoupon would write his thesis and occasionally, try to explain to Prince Keipi about the more technical aspects of racing but failing every single time. He also failed to get the prince to learn how to keep the house neat, but he didn't really mind much since Prince Keipi was pretty good in the sack.

And the two lived happily ever after.