cohoenut

But still, Kang Yeosang, with his hair bleached blond and wearing tattered jeans and a pair of ratty sneakers made his way towards ‘Little Ducklings Preschool’ with his hands stuffed into his hoodie. With each step he took, his heart pounded so violently against his ribcage that he felt a little pathetic. I mean, what mafia member trembled like a leaf while walking towards a place filled with toddlers?

It wasn’t quite the slimy toddlers he was afraid of, but the woman who taught them, his darling mother.

Yeosang and his mother used to be really close growing up and she was the only one to support him when he said he wanted to pursue computer science as a major and eventually started a career path of becoming a hacker. However, they had a falling out 8 months ago when she found out that he wasn’t exactly a lawful one.

No, he worked with a mafia gang named Ateez as a hacker and IT specialist. To say his mother was not pleased would be an understatement. She threw him out of the house and refused to see him ever again, horrified that the son she raised had gone so off the right path no matter how much he tried to convince her that while some of it was unethical, he did some good too.

As a last resort, he tried to contact her using an encrypted thread of messages, but she ignored them. He was hurt, but still respected that this drift was a cause of his own actions. He knew she wouldn’t have supported it but agreed to do it anyway and now he had to deal with the fallout.

They went months without any contact until one day he received a message on the thread he had forgotten about a long while ago from his mother, asking him to meet her today and that was exactly why he was headed to her preschool.

The school was quaint and tiny like he expected, the ceilings were low enough for him to touch and the stairs were short enough to make sure toddlers with their tiny and clumsy legs wouldn’t fall easily. Everything was painted so brightly, with characters and cartoons drawn on the side of the walls and even the floor.

He reached the school just as it was letting out; parents were holding the hands of their happy mini humans that skipped beside him. He was used to this of course; his mother had been a teacher all his life, so it wasn’t rare that he showed up to her kindergarten just as school was ending. However, it did seem to alarm him that most of the parents looked closer to his age. Oh god, was he already that old? Were other people his age already having kids?

His mother was standing at the exit of her classroom, waving goodbye to the children, and having short conversations with their parents. As he approached her and peeked through the classroom, he noticed only one girl was left and she was calmly drawing on a piece of paper that she was given to keep occupied until she got picked up.

His mother had missed him, he could see it in her eyes and felt it in the way her hug had lingered for just moment longer, but she still resisted making a big deal about it.

“I was actually surprised that you asked to see me, mom.” He admitted and then watched her bashfully stare into the classroom, keeping an eye on her last remaining student before she steeled her expression and looked back at him.

“I still don’t support the choices you’ve made, Yeosang.” She was cutting right to business, “But you said that you could do good, and I want to believe you. That’s why I called you here today. I need some help.”

Yeosang’s brows pinched together, what could his mother possibly want from him?

“Mom, did you involve yourself in my work?” Realizing what he was insinuating, his mother rolled her eyes, offended that he would even entertain an absolutely absurd thought such as that.

“Not me, one of parents here. She’s in a bit of a situation and I told her that you might be able to help. I’m hoping you will be.”

He immediately wanted to say no. When it came to cases like this, they either wanted money or owed someone else money. It was never a good idea to get involved but this was the first time in 8 months that his mother asked to see him, willing to look past his choices in life if he could just help this one parent and he wanted to at least find out what she needed his help was.

“Mrs. Kang!” You interrupted, rushing up to the door while looking at your watch. You grimaced when you realized you were already 25 minutes late. However, she didn’t look peeved at all, instead smiled at you kindly as you approached her with an apologetic look on your face.

“Trouble getting away from work?”

You sighed, pushing away the strands of hair that managed to fall out from your ponytail in your hurry to get there, “An absolute mess. Some idiot left the fume box open and there was a huge contamination thing and even though we went through the proper procedures, my asshole supervisor—”

It seemed like you finally realized there was another person standing beside you, “I’m interrupting something. I’m really sorry, Mrs. Kang.”

“Don’t worry about it, dearie. This is Yeosang, my son.” She smiled, gesturing to the man standing beside her and your eyes widened, remembering the conversation you had with her a couple of days ago. When she said her son could help you, you didn’t think she was being serious.

“Sol-ah, your aunt is here to pick you up.” She called and you glanced into the classroom to see your niece look up from the paper she was drawing on. She was the only one left in the classroom and your heart squeezed in your chest with guilt for leaving her alone for so long. Her face lit up when she saw you waiting by the door and she quickly gathered up her things, leaving the crayons strewn about on the table as she ran up to you.

You smiled widely, crouching to her level, and gently cupping her cheek, “Sol-ah, you should clean up after yourself.” You scolded softly, gesturing to the items she left messily on the table and even though you could see she knew what she did was wrong, she didn’t want to leave your side for a while longer. She never admitted it, but you could tell she had a little fear of abandonment that festered when she was away from you for a long time.

“Oh, don’t worry about that, I’ll clean it up.”

“I don’t want to give you more work. You already looked after her for so long.” To be honest, you were still grasping at straws when it came to this whole parenting thing but so far, you were making it work and for now that had to be enough.

“Oh hush, you work hard too. I’ll handle this, you should get home.” You wouldn’t be heading home until tonight. You’d be bringing Sol to your workplace, leaving her in the day-care beside it even though she always cried and screamed, not wanting to be left alone again for the second time in the day. Even though it practically ripped your heart apart to see her face wet with tears, your work demanded you to be in the lab the entire day and it wasn’t safe to bring a child there.

While you were looking for other job opportunities, working at your current job was paying the bills, putting a roof over your head, and letting you live relatively comfortably for the time being and you couldn’t give it up no matter how much you wanted to.

You took Sol’s bag from her, kissing her cheek and like clockwork, she returned a sloppy one on yours, wrapping her tiny arms around your neck before you both held hands and walked away from the classroom. Yeosang just stood there beside his own mother, feeling a little out of place before she smacked his arm lightly and motioned him to follow you, which he did but not before kissing her cheek goodbye.

You didn’t even realize that Yeosang was following you until you got to your car, and he tapped on your shoulder. You acknowledged him with a polite nod of your head before looking back at your niece and opening the car door.

Once you were sure she was sitting comfortably in the car seat and buckled her in, you switched on the car and played the soundtrack to frozen to keep her occupied, “Sol-ah, auntie needs to talk to her friend for a minute. Are you okay with waiting until we’re done?”

She looked a little concerned for a moment before you reassured her that you’d be right outside the car and then timidly nodded, glancing at Yeosang before looking at her lap. You gently shut the door, glancing at her as she rocked her legs to the rhythm and smiled softly.

“Sorry about that. Thank you for coming here, your mother is really kind for calling you, but you don’t really have to do anything. I’ll tell her that you couldn’t really do anything to help me.”

He raised a brow, “How about you tell me what you need help with so I can make that judgement for myself?”

You seemed unsure and he could tell by the way your hands tightened around the strap of your purse before you glanced back at Sol sitting in the backseat, giddily singing along to ‘Do You Wanna Build A Snowman’ and sighed.

“It’s kind of a long story.” You admitted, glancing up at him but his stance was steady, not representing any rush to get away quickly and like this was all just one big formality.

He glanced at the girl sitting inside the car that seemed content with just listening to the songs from her favourite movies. Even though you made sure it wasn’t playing too loudly, the car was still vibrating lightly from the beats of the songs.

“She doesn’t look like she’s in a rush.”

You chuckled and nodded, “Well, first off, I’m (Y/N) (L/N) and that’s Sol, my niece. She’s my sister’s daughter. My sister and I were close growing up but when I turned twenty, she kind of went MIA. She rarely visited and barely ever called or texted. About 2 years ago, one night, she showed up at my apartment. She was a little frantic…...”

Frantic could be considered an understatement when she showed up at your house at in the middle of the night with a large bundle of blankets cradled in her arms. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her face was pale and sunken like she hadn’t eaten in months.

“Listen I don’t have a lot of time to explain but you’re the only one I could trust.” She rambled, stepping into your apartment and even though you tried to sit her down and get her to explain, she was in shambles and couldn’t even get her thoughts straightened out enough to explain her situation.

She shoved the blankets into your arms and your eyes widened when you realized that within the cloth lay a baby girl that remained fast asleep even though she was being jostled around. She threw a bag on the couch, and you noticed a birth certificate belonging to the baby among other things inside it.

“Her name is Sol and she’s my daughter.” Your head snapped towards her in shock, but she didn’t look fazed, only staring at you back with determination, “I need you to take care of her. Please.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.” You frantically said, anxiety building up from the way she was pacing and suddenly saying all these things that you couldn’t comprehend.

“Her father is a horrible person. A mafia boss. And he’s looking for her and I. I’m going far away, but I need to keep her safe. Don’t contact the police, don’t look for me, and please just look after her and keep her far away from her father. I beg you.”

That was all she said before she ran out the door and slammed it behind her. You hesitated for a second, mind short circuiting from all the information you received in the last few minutes before you thought to run after her.

Unfortunately, the baby chose that minute to wake up, screaming her lungs out from being woken up and you were left trying to calm her down. She was inconsolable, wailing loudly as her face slowly turned red from the amount of screaming and now overwhelmed and flustered, you couldn’t help the frustrated tears that began running down your cheeks as you wept beside her.

“…I tried looking for her without notifying the police but it’s like she dropped off the map and no one has seen or heard from her.” You explained.

“You know that if she’s gone off the grid for 2 years after running away from the mafia, there’s a huge chance she’s—”

“Dead?” You prompted when he trailed off, not wanting to upset you, “I’m coming to terms with that. But that isn’t the problem.”

“Then what is?” Yeosang asked.

“Her father is looking for her. There have been people poking around my workplace and apartment, asking around about my sister. I’m scared that once he finds out that I have Sol, he’s going to take her. And I can’t let Sol go to him, I just can’t. But I don’t know what to do, or to whom to go.” You explained, suddenly feeling anxious about the whole thing. Saying it aloud now was staring to make everything feel real, even though you were trying to avoid it.

So far, you were content living in the imaginary safe world that you set up for Sol, so she didn’t have to live in fear of a scary man finding her and taking her away from her auntie, but it seemed like you were also starting to believe your own act.

“Do you know who he is? Or what gang he’s from?”

You shook your head, frowning, “She didn’t tell me anything. Listen, Yeosang, I know I’m asking for a lot, and you have no reason to help me but I’m really in trouble here and your mother tells me that you can help. I’m ready to do anything to repay you, can you please just consider helping me out?”

When it came to Sol, you weren’t beneath grovelling. In the 2 years that you spent raising her, you had come to value her above anything and everything else in your life and even the thought of her being in danger could have you selling your soul to anyone that could keep her safe.

Yeosang looked at you while you were staring at your shoes while clutching the door handle of the car tightly, but he still noticed the way your fingers slightly shook from the grip. You were bearing your soul to him during your first meeting, and he would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little overwhelmed by it.

“I’ll look into it.” He said, suddenly remembering how his mother had clasped his hand so tightly and requested him to help you. He didn’t want to disappoint her again.

You breathed a sigh of relief, smiling widely as you fished through your purse and grabbed a business card to hand to him, “That’s my phone number, in case you want to contact me.”

Luckily, the soundtrack seemed to finish at that moment and Sol was lightly tapping on the window with her tiny fist, “Auntie!”

You spared one last smile at Yeosang, asking him if he wanted a ride anywhere which he declined before getting into your car and pulling out of the parking space. He watched you drive away, pulling out his phone to write down your license plate number before deciding to take his leave.

He chuckled when he noticed the little girl staring at him from the window just as you drove away from the preschool.

***

Your life was all about adapting to change. Like when you were 22 and fresh out of college and you got employed by a chemical company, you had to change your inspiration and interest in the field when you realized that your job did not in fact include blowing up things in chemical explosions.

You grew up attached to the hip with your sister and close to your family but since your parents’ retirement when they moved to the countryside and your sister cutting off contact, you had to learn to rely on yourself when it came to day-to-day things.

And then, the most important of all, when Sol came into your life, you had to change everything. Your bedroom became Sol’s as soon as she was old enough to have her own and you were stuck using the pull-out couch. You had to prepare all your meals in advance and in bulk so after a long day of work, you could immediately give her dinner, give her a bath, and then put her to sleep before tending to yourself.

You had to wake up earlier so you could get her ready and then drop her off at kindergarten. Your lunch breaks were spent driving her to day-care after kindergarten let up before shovelling down a peanut butter and jelly sandwich you made yourself and Sol for lunch. Pay checks were put into the bank for the future and her school fund and whatever you managed to save for spending were all to take her to the newest Disney movie or a children’s fair.

And finally, the most important change that happened was in your work ethic. Usually, you were on top of your work, finishing on-sight work and immediately filling out the report that very day. However, now you let weeks of reports build up and punch the clock in the lab. Then when the time finally came to submit them, you would inform your supervisor that you’d be working from home to finish them.

Sol would miss a day of preschool as well and you’d spend the entire day together, with you working on the reports before she woke up and after she slept and during any time in between.

It wasn’t the best situation, you’d admit. But every night when you tucked her in and turned off the light, you’d feel reenergised just watching her peaceful face as she cuddled her penguin plushie. Yes, your muscles were screaming and yes, your stomach had been grumbling for so long that it eventually gave up, but it was so worth it to see her grow up.

When you first met Sol as a two-year-old, she had an unattractive choppy bob, was wobbly on her feet, cried loudly and constantly. It took weeks for her to stop crying for her mother and get used to the fact that you’d be consoling her now when she woke up in the middle of the night and that it’d be you who fed her. It wasn’t like you were the only one who had challenges, no, the trauma of her mother leaving her stuck with her even as she grew up.

You didn’t know why though; you had talked to her paediatrician about it, but she said that it wasn’t your fault. You loved her enough to compensate for her mother and took care of her exceptionally but her sudden severance of her first relationship had understandably made a mark on the way she made relationships in the future.

You could tell; she was attached and feared strangers. She never let you leave without telling her how long you’d be gone and where you were going. Hence the reason you stopped going for drinks with your friends after long days of work. Instead, you met them for lunch while Sol tagged along.

Sol wasn’t very demanding, that you were thankful for. She didn’t need constant attention and rarely felt neglected when you weren’t paying attention to her. For her, it was enough that you were in the house with her, and she was laying in your lap while she watched a movie on the TV, and you typed noisily on your computer.

Today was such a day, your adorable niece was watching ‘Tangled’ while she happily munched on the fried rice with sausage that you had cooked up for lunch. You took your eyes off the screen only for a few seconds to make sure she was eating her vegetables along with her lunch and not just pushing it to the side.

Sol clumsily sang along to the songs, and you chuckled. A lot of those snooty mothers at her preschool turned their noses at you because you let her watch so much TV, but she was the only 4-year-old in her class that knew big words and developed skills for understanding the meaning of words from context just because she heard it in her favourite movies.

Considering you had no friends and Sol didn’t have any friends that could drive over here, you were alarmed when the doorbell rang. Sol on the other hand, who only ever heard the doorbell when you ordered takeout, looked excited.

When you opened the door, Mrs. Kang’s son was standing there with a blank expression and lingering slightly awkwardly in the hallway.

“Hey! You! You’re at my house! And I don’t remember giving you my address?” You rambled, not opening the door too much and he nodded, the image of cool even though you were slightly freaked out.

“You don’t remember my name, do you?”

It’s true; you had absolutely no idea. Which actually made you feel kind of pathetic considering you knew all the names of the Winx Club fairies, their elemental powers, and the magical land they came from. And yet you couldn’t remember the name of the guy who could likely help keep your niece safe.

“Sang…Yeob?”

“That’s an actor.”

“Still doesn’t explain how you’re here.”

“I hacked into the kindergarten’s database and found your home address.” He replied, acting like that was completely normal which slightly concerned you, “Don’t worry, it wasn’t difficult. Kindergartens don’t really have a firewall.”

“Yes, because that’s what I was concerned about.”

Now that you were saying it, you were kind of concerned about it. Maybe Sol should transfer? Before you even realized you were already spiralling, and you held the door almost close to turn around and spare a glance at Sol who was very calmly eating her lunch.

“Listen, I’ve got some information about the guy you’re trying to find. May I come in?” You almost thought of saying no and closing the door in his face but then you remembered how Mrs. Kang told you that her son ‘knew his way around computers’.

“Uh, sure.” Cautiously, you let him in and lead him towards the dining table. He had a bag along with him that he opened as soon as he sat down. You hovered a little awkwardly by the door and Sol seemed to notice the presence of someone new in the house.

She quickly paused the movie and padded over to you and hid behind your legs to peek at Yeosang who grabbed a thin laptop from the bag. She looked up at you with wide eyes before mouthing ‘Who’s that?’

You didn’t want to alarm her and say it was just a stranger and make her feel a little insecure with an outsider in her home, but you also didn’t want her to feel so comfortable with him that her judgment may be impaired if they ever met without your supervision.

“Uh, this is auntie’s friend, Yeosang.” You whispered, crouching down so she wouldn’t be looking up at you. She nodded contemplatively and looked back at him who continued to pretend like he couldn’t hear you talking about and staring at him. Children weren’t really the experts in subtlety.

“Like Mi-nah?” She whispered back, trying awfully hard to keep her voice low but he definitely heard her, considering the way the corner of his mouth crooked up in amusement. Mi-nah was her “best” friend at kindergarten who took Sol’s blue play-doh without asking and you didn’t like her, but you assumed you couldn’t do much about it.

You wiped away a grain of rice stuck to the corner of her mouth and nodded. Satisfied with your explanation, she went back to the coffee table in front of the television and continued to eat. You made a mental note not to let her watch TV while eating dinner because she was taking too long to finish.

When you stepped beside the dining table to see what Yeosang wanted to show you, you were reminded of the burning of your stomach in hunger. The pot on the kitchen counter with the remaining fried rice called your attention and you smiled a little shyly at the man sitting at the table.

“Do you want some lunch?”

And that’s how you both ended up eating fried rice and sausage from plastic bowls themed with the Bare Bears (Yeosang with Ice, You with Panda and Sol with Grizzly) while he discussed his plans with you. He unintentionally laughed when he realized that you cut the sausages to resemble octopi with little sesame seed eyes. But both you and Sol agreed that they tasted better when they were cut that way.

“Alright so I don’t really have much because you haven’t really given me a place to start. I need all the information about your sister and whoever this father is.” He said and you nodded, grabbing your laptop from the living room, only sparing a few seconds to chastise Sol for not finishing her lunch still and telling her that it better be finished before the movie gets over.

“I found out that the hospital that my sister had gone to during the first few months of her pregnancy was different to the one she went to from around her third trimester to when she gave birth.” You informed, recalling the time you had done your own investigation shortly after Sol was put in your care.

You found out the hospital she was born in from her birth certificate and upon asking them about your sister, they pointed you to her first hospital from where her files were transferred. The first hospital told you that she came there for monthly check-ups and ultrasounds with the father of the baby until one day she stopped showing up and a request for her file came from another hospital.

“She used to show up there with the father but since it was way before the birth, his name wasn’t logged on. Or maybe he requested for it not to get registered. Something must have happened during her pregnancy that drove them apart for her to transfer hospitals and show up alone. Then Sol is born, and my sister goes on the run for the next year, give or take before finally giving her to me.”

You made sure to keep your voice lower than the sound of Rapunzel and Eugene singing ‘I See The Light’ in the living room so that Sol wouldn’t get curious as to why you were talking about her and then not leave you alone.

You had your sister’s legal name but just the name and nothing else makes a person difficult to track so you scoured through whatever files you had compiled during your own search of your sister that came up short. You gave Yeosang the frame of time that Sol was given to you as well as your sisters social security number.

When he pulled up the servers for all the airports in the city and then something that looked similar to the source code, with countless lines of numbers and letters you couldn’t understand with a bunch of random symbols in the middle and all in the classic ‘hacker’ style font.

“I don’t know how I feel about you hacking into government servers.” You admitted, feeling nervous about all of this. He was going to do something very illegal and in your house. Wouldn’t the authorities be able to track you from your IP address or Wi-Fi or something like that?

“Don’t worry, I already hacked into them years ago and set up a backdoor for me to enter without alerting anybody and do as I please. They check the codes every once in a while, for maintenance, but I set up a polymorphic code to change its location and make it blend in so it’s undetected during checks. Pretty smart right?”

You ignored the fact that you didn’t understand a word he said and just nodded, sheepishly muttering a few words in agreement before you voiced your concerns to him once again.

“Just think of it as a library. All I’m coming in to do is read the information. I’m not doing anything to the books, just reading them.”

“If that was the case then it’d be available to everyone.” You replied curtly. You recalled a chapter from one of the many parenting books that were on your bookshelf about teaching your kids right from wrong and when to show leniency; you made a mental note to research how to deal with situations when the ends justify the means with Sol.

“Yes, but that’s the reason you haven’t found anything in two years. Now do you want my help or not?”

You sighed in defeat and nodded. He quickly opened up the database of all of the airports from the past 2 years of travel and then used a programme to filter all the saved results and find anything that might resemble your sister.

Nothing came up around the time that she left, meaning that if she had left the country then she hadn’t used a plane to leave from here. That made your heart sink; even though you definitely hadn’t kept your hopes up, you did kind of pray that Yeosang would be the key to all your problems.

He changed the frame of time to 5 years and ran the programme again.

This time a couple results came up.

During the time your sister would have been pregnant with Sol, she travelled somewhere and then came back right before Sol was born. Meaning that if she hadn’t travelled alone, her companion was most likely the father. Luckily, the flight information was still saved and Yeosang opened the passenger list from the same plane and extracted the passenger information from it. He eliminated any ineligible candidates and then showed the compiled list of people that could have been the father.

“I’ll do a background check on them after I head home.” He said, beginning to pack up his stuff.

“Why can’t you do it right now?”

“You’re sweating buckets because I hacked the airport, and I don’t want to know what’s going to happen when I hack a police database.”

So that’s what was running down your back.

Finally, you stopped hearing the TV in the background and Sol padded into the kitchen with her thankfully empty bowl and placed it by the sink. You really weren’t in the mood for her to have a fit when you forced her to eat her vegetables and then give you the silent treatment until you promised her dessert and then watched ‘Tangled’. Again.

She tiptoed at the table, peering up at Yeosang’s face with an inquisitive look and you knew what was going to come after. Damn, children are so difficult to work with; do you shut her down now and hinder her curious nature for the sake of social cues or do you let her be a little quirky and ask questions?

“How old are you?” She asked, innocently.

“26.” Yeosang answered simply and even though it was pretty normal, she gasped at his answer and her eyes began twinkling, startling him just a little bit, “Wow, you’re so big!”

You laughed under your breath and a smile grew on your face at his expression which was a mix between amused and befuddled. That was something that adults couldn’t quite understand about children, and you had been caught off guard by her questions many times before. Children were smart enough to know when things were different to what they knew and how to ask questions about it, it was just that they were a little inexperienced when it came to obvious answers.

“Did you finish school?” She squeaked out, staring up at him with wide eyes and an excited smile.

Yeosang thankfully took her questions in stride and just laughed good-naturedly before nodding. Though you could see that he was still a little uncomfortable.

“Can you sit in the front seat of the car?!”

He smirked and booped her nose with a finger, “I can even drive one.”

She gasped and scampered over to your side, patting your thighs excitedly, “Auntie, he’s so cool!”

You smiled at her and nodded, patting her head gently, “You wanna know something? He’s actually Mrs. Kang son.”

Sol gasped and looked at Yeosang for confirmation, who just nodded. Then her face scrunched up in confusion and a pout formed on her face, “I thought childrens have to be small?”

“Well, they’re small at the start but then after a few years they become big like Yeosang and I. You’ll become a big girl one day too.” You explained and you noticed Yeosang beginning to take his bag to leave. He felt a little out of place, which was understandable, so you cut your explanation short and promised to talk about this again over dinner before you led him to the front door.

“Thanks for everything today.” You murmured, opening the door for him and he shook his head, “Do you want me to come over after I get the results or just call you?”

“Depends, my schedule is pretty full. If you find out when I’m busy, then I’d prefer just an email so I can look it over after work.”

Sol lingered by your legs, letting the two of you talk without her interrupting but you could tell from the way she began shuffling from one foot to another that she was getting impatient. She was getting a little groggy, you realized that you’d have to put her down for a nap and mentally prepared yourself for the fight she was going to put up.

“You work a lot, don’t you?”

“Yeah, things in my life continue to be a little unexpected so I figure saving money for a rainy day would be good.” You explained, being incredibly careful not to mention anything that would make Sol think you’re talking about her.

He nodded empathetically and it was weird how much relief his understanding brought you. It was difficult to find someone in the same boat you were, considering your circles in your career and how you didn’t have time outside it for anyone else other than Sol. So, someone who understood that you were doing the best you could muster was something you really craved for.

Of course, Sol was worth it, but it didn’t hurt to hear once in a while. Even though he didn’t actually say it.

“I’ll be going.” He said and suddenly Sol piped up like she had been rehearsing her line for a while, “Bye!”

He spared her a kind smile, “Bye, Sol.”

Her cheeks turned red, and you shut the door after nodding at Yeosang. She was smiling shyly at her shoes, and you weren’t sure whether you were entertained or deeply disturbed by how she was suddenly taken by Yeosang. You had a crush on Robert Downy Junior when you were kid, it wasn’t weird. Except it was.

Guess you knew what you’d be researching on several parenting blogs after you finished your work.

Yeosang was still standing outside the door when he heard you call out “Sol-ah, nap time.”

A smile grew on his face before he realized it when it was followed by a loud whine, “But I don’t wanna!”

***

Yeosang had certainly gotten more comfortable with you since you had last met him. Even though you told him you had a pretty busy schedule, he usually showed up after Sol was asleep so you both could talk in privacy. So far, the search had been going pretty well, considering before you met him, you were absolutely clueless.

You were simply happy that it was going somewhere.

Out of the men that were with your sister on the plane, a couple of them had priors but not one of them had anything extremely incriminating that would make it obvious. So, he was resorting to finding other means to track down what your sister had been doing a couple of years before she got pregnant.

It was another late night for the both of you. You were drinking tea and trying to catch up on all the unopened mails and paying any due bills. Yeosang was pretending to enjoy the tea you made him while trying to track down any credit or debit cards your sister might have registered under her name.

Around one-thirty in the middle of the night, a doorbell rang, and you shared a glance with Yeosang.

“I’m not expecting anybody.” You whispered, feeling something similar to dread and panic fill in your stomach when you noticed the alarmed expression on his face. Whoever was behind the door began knocking incessantly, bordering on bangs that made the hinges shake.

“Stay with Sol.” He whispered to you before reaching behind his back to pull out a gun. Your eyes widened, “Why do you have a gun?!”

“Do you really want to know?” He replied in a harsh whisper, and you glared at him, “Have you been bringing a gun into my house while my niece is here?”

“Do you want to continue arguing about this or do you want me to answer the door?”

The barrage of knocks on your front door had weirdly tuned out when you were having a whispered fight with Yeosang. Now it seemed like it got louder, matching the harsh rhythm of your heart and you nodded before getting up and hurrying to Sol’s room. You locked the door behind you, cowering by her bed and making sure she hadn’t stirred.

It was like a horror movie began playing out in your own apartment. The door even emitted an eerie squeal when Yeosang finally opened it and you heard a couple bangs and thuds like they were fighting. You flinched at every sound, finding whatever comfort you could in the sight of Sol sleeping peacefully, relieved that she hadn’t woken up. No doubt, she’d be in tears and frightened if she saw how anxious you were.

Then it was silent.

A soft knock came at Sol’s door and your stomach churned, “(Y/N), open up.”

You sighed in relief at Yeosang’s voice, rushing to unlock the door and meet his eyes. His hair and clothes were a little messed up and his gun was still in his hands, but it was his expression that scared you; it was steely and cold with a touch of alarm. Usually, he was hard to read, keeping his expression stoic but you had gotten the hang of sensing his emotions in the few times of meeting him.

He was usually calm with a touched amused and you had yet to see such an expression from him and now that you have, you realized that something had gone very, very wrong.

“Get Sol. We need to get out of here, now.”

A thousand questions were rushing through your head. Who was at the door? What had happened to him? Why did you have to leave? Where would you go? But you kept your lips sealed, rushing to Sol’s side, and bundling in her blankets, pulling her into your arms.

She woke up now that you were carrying her, looking up at you groggily, “Auntie? What’s happening?”

“We’re going on a little trip, Sol-ah.” You told her, forcing a smile on your face to keep from scaring her, “Go back to sleep, baby. I’ll wake you up when we’re there.”

“Where are we going?” She asked, slowly beginning to fall back asleep as you rocked her gently, “I dunno. Yeosang is taking us somewhere. Go to sleep now.”

You handed her to Yeosang that was standing in the doorway of her bedroom. He was startled for a second, holding her tightly against his chest on instinct and you rushed through the apartment getting your hands on whatever you could and stuffing it into any bag you could find.

Sol’s favourite plushie and a few of her clothes, all your passports and such, grabbing a pair of shoes for her before you slipped on your own and grabbed your car keys. When you rushed out of the apartment, you took a moment to glance over the railing in the corridor and your stomach hollowed out when you saw the silhouette of what looked like a body on the ground floor.

Still, you didn’t ask Yeosang about it, not wanting to know and just led the way down to the parking garage.

You sat quietly in the front seat while Yeosang drove to wherever he was taking the two of you. Sol was buckled up in her car-seat, her blanket snug around her and you stole a glance of her before looking out the window and staring at the lamp posts that passed the car.

Yeosang called someone while you just tried to wrap your head around everything that had just happened.

“Hey, Mingi. I have a—” He spared a glance at your shaking form in the passenger seat and chose to speak very carefully, “Situation that I need you to take care of. I’ll send you the address. Try and get it done in the next hour. Yeah, thanks.”

When he set down the phone in the cupholder, he noticed the way silent tears were slowly dripping down your cheeks. You were cupping your mouth shut, trying to get yourself to calm down but you couldn’t help but cry. This helplessness, this feeling of not knowing what was coming next; it was the exact same thing you had felt when Sol was dropped off in your apartment all those years ago.

You had done everything in your power to keep from ever feeling like that again. You read a hundred parenting books, you made sure to keep Sol comfortable enough with you so that she grew up with a healthy relationship with her caretaker and you had spent every waking moment thinking about what was best for her so much that it border lined on obsession.

Because it was these moments that made you wonder why you were doing this in the first place? Why were you letting yourself go through something so terrible and taxing and putting yourself through so much grief for something you never even asked for? You never asked for this, you never asked for all these hardships to come into your life, it was just given to you.

And it would be so easy to just give them up.

These were the horrible, disgusting thoughts that often invaded your mind when you found things to be difficult. That it would be so easy to just take a step away from this chaos and then never come back. It would be so easy to just do the bad thing.

So, overwrought with guilt and something dark inside you, you cried silently in the seat beside Yeosang, trying so hard to keep it together and not jump out of the moving vehicle that instant.

Yeosang sighed and pulled up to a drive-thru in McDonalds, ignoring the surprised look you sent him when he lowered down the window.

“Can I have like a shit ton of nuggets, fries, all the sauces you have, two hot chocolates and whatever sweet cake or donut thing you have? Oh, and please give us a lot of napkins.”

He then turned back to you, “There’s no easy way to say this—” You held your breath, “But I really don’t like how you make your tea.”

Yeosang didn’t really get to appreciate how hilarious you looked when the incredulous laugh left your mouth, face red and blotchy from the crying with sunken eyes that seemed to sparkle because of the tears that were held in them.

***

Yeosang had taken you back to his friend’s home. He lived in an apartment not too far from it, but he thought keeping the two of you in the Hongjoong’s home would have been safer. You had arrived at around 3 a.m. after Yeosang had explained what was going to happen from this point on in the parking lot of a McDonalds while you ate chicken nuggets.

He had been surprisingly responsible and ready to take you and Sol in. You don’t remember ever being able to rely on someone in the last 2 years. Hell, some of your co-workers were unable and incompetent when it came to their own jobs, so you had been bearing the brunt of work independently for a long while.

But now, Yeosang was starting to become a supporting figure in your life, and you were trying so hard not to rely on him completely because you knew that one day the rug would be pulled out from under your feet, and you would end up just as unprepared and burdened as you were the first time when your sister had dumped Sol on you in the first place.

You didn’t want to take that chance.

For the moment, you were going to stay in Yeosang’s assigned room in Hongjoong’s house where he sometimes stayed over. It was a pretty empty and minimalistic room aside from the arrangement of computers in the corner and the extendable desk that extended till the bed so he could quite literally work until he fell asleep.

He woke the two of you up bright and early, well it was early for you but since Yoon-ah had a good night’s rest, she wasn’t nearly as tired as you were. You wanted to sleep in, emotionally exhausted and extremely dehydrated from all the crying you did last night but Yeosang didn’t let you, going as far as to yank you in a sitting position and force feeding you a cup of coffee while Sol cheered for you to wake up.

It wasn’t until after you washed up (where Sol threw a tantrum about brushing her teeth because the toothbrush that Yeosang bought from the convenience store wasn’t the same as her own with the Disney princesses on it) that he told you that he was going to introduce you to his friends. You had quickly understood that his friends did the same kind of work as him.

“Are you sure Sol should be meeting them?” You fretted as he showed you around the entire mansion. This place was so unnecessarily big that you couldn’t even imagine ever being able to find your way around. Luckily, the bathroom and kitchen were not too far from it so hopefully, you’d never have to venture any place else without Yeosang.

“They’re not scary people, (Y/N). And besides, this is more for Sol anyway. She should know their faces at least in case they would ever need to pick her up.” He told you, leading you back to the main room that was beside his own.

“Why would they ever have to pick her up without me?” You asked pointedly, widening your eyes at him at his implication. He didn’t reply and you sighed, making sure that Sol wasn’t wandering around and getting distracted by the other rooms.

When you entered the room to find nine new faces staring at you, Sol ducked behind your back, clinging onto your coat. It was no surprise that she would react like this, she was very timid and reserved when it came to people her own age but being in a room with so many people that she didn’t recognize that were way bigger than her made her feel scared.

“This is (Y/N) and her niece, Sol.” Yeosang introduced, and you tried your best to give them a smile, bowing your head at them. You had already met Hongjoong last night when you entered his home. He, along with his wife, had seen you with bloodshot eyes and a runny nose after sitting outside the car in the cold and crying for nearly an hour.

The hacker introduced them all by name to you and you had to admit that he was right. You were expecting giant men with huge scars and face tattoos and machine guns and leather jackets but if you hadn’t known any better, they just looked like random dudes. The beanpole, who was named Yunho, was even wearing a fluffy lavender sweater and you were reeling at just how normal they looked.

You heard your phone ring in the other room and realized it was probably your boss who was calling to find out just what emergency had you using all of your vacation days without any notice. You gave the rest of them an apologetic smile before excusing yourself.

Sol, who had been hiding behind your back, had now been exposed to the rest of them and upon realizing that they were all looking at her, scrambled behind Yeosang’s legs, wrapping her arms tightly around his thigh and smushing her face against his jeans.

He chuckled awkwardly, shooting a glare at Mingi and Wooyoung who gave him teasing grins before looking down at the girl who seemed close to tears. It was the first time you had left him alone with her, no doubt you were still out of it, considering everything that happened in the past few days.

He gently pulled her away from his leg before kneeling to look her in the eye with a tender smile, “You want to meet my friends? They’re nice, I promise.”

She looked uncertain, holding onto the front of his shirt in tiny fists as she glanced back at the rest of them. They all gave her the warmest smiles they could muster but she still looked a little frightened.

Yeosang gently patted her head, “It’s okay. I’ll be here the whole time.”

With that reassurance, she silently nodded, holding his hand tightly as he led her to the rest of them.

***

“His name’s Logan Nam.” Yeosang informed you, turning the computer to show you the screen. A picture of a man who couldn’t be more than 5 years older than you stared back. At first glance, he looked put together, with his hair slicked back neatly and his clothes were crisp and clean. He looked more like a rich, mysterious CEO type character that you would see in a drama.

But something insidious was hidden in his dark eyes that made your skin crawl as you felt like he could somehow see you through the screen.

“The guy that came by your apartment was a criminal for hire. I got his phone and most of the communication was deleted aside from a significant amount deposited to his bank account before it happened.” He told you, passing the phone so you could look over the text message. You kept your hands tucked underneath your thighs, not willing to touch something that was most likely stolen from the pockets of a dead man.

The memory of his cold body at the bottom of the balcony had your food creeping up your throat, leaving a sick burn of acid behind. You knew it wasn’t your fault and he more than deserved it, but you just couldn’t believe that you were okay with killing somebody. Your stomach curled and twisted with guilt.

You nodded at him with a stoic face.

“The money came from one of Logan’s burner companies. I can’t confirm if he’s Sol’s father or your sister’s partner but there’s a huge chance that it’s him. His accounts are so encrypted that I can’t check anything myself, but I cross-referenced any police charges he has. He got a ticket for a fender bender in Thailand the same time that your sister travelled there. Then he got charged for a DUI a couple months later after she was back here.”

If this was Sol’s father, then it relieved you that they looked nothing alike. No, the sweet girl in the next room had taken after your sister with cute, round features and wide eyes that made you think that she had stars suspended in them. She looked nothing like the emotionless man that you had just seen.

The thought of him getting his tainted hands on her precious, pure skin made your stomach fill with sticky, molten, disgust.

“So, what now?” You asked meekly. You now knew the face of the person behind your life ending up in shambles, but you still had no idea how to fight him. If Logan Nam was a missile, you were a pen; completely unrelated, worthless, and weak and yet you had more responsibilities and expectations.

“We figure out his schedule and plant a marksman? Sooji’s been getting pretty good at sniping lately.” He wondered out loud and your eyes widened.

“What?! No! Have you lost your mind?! I’m not comfortable with killing another person, Yeosang!”

He looked perturbed, like you were suggesting something completely illogical when all you were asking was to follow the law. ‘No killing people’ was a pretty big rule, and the mere thought of someone losing their life at your command had your skin pricking with cold sweat and your heart racing.

It was too much because you knew that this wouldn’t be it. How could it be? The weight of what you had done would swing over your head for the rest of your life. You’d always be looking over your shoulder and this one decision could even be a can of worms. You knew, if you went through with this, your life as you knew it would never be the same and it would be like watching your entire world erupt into flames before you.

“(Y/N), we need to fight fire with fire.” He replied.

“No, you fight fire with water.” You replied haughtily and even though you were trying to keep your cool, you were realizing that you were on the verge of a panic attack. Your sweaty hand gripped the fabric of your skirt tightly and you could feel the tremors you were trying hard to ignore.

“(Y/N) …” He prompted gently but you shook your head, feeling sweat bead at your hairline. Your pupils were shaking and the more you tried He reached for your hand that was clasped tightly by your side and his skin felt cool against yours.

You scrunched your eyes shut, “Please, let’s have this conversation later.”

He nodded before whispering to you, “Okay.”

***

Kids can really take some things for granted. You realized that when Sol suddenly started regarding to Yeosang as the smarter one between the two of you. It was downright insulting. Here you were, putting a roof over her head for the better part of her life using money that you earned from a job that you earned after putting yourself through many years in university and she didn’t think that you were capable of reciting the names of the planets.

It wasn’t that she thought you were stupid, you realized that, but rather just thought of Yeosang as extremely smart and you’d be lying if you said his smug smile every time, she asked him a question first wasn’t frustrating. But you tried to reason with yourself, saying that it was just because he was new and pretty, that Sol was fixating on him. You were sure, that he would turn into old news soon enough.

You were making the bed after breakfast while Yeosang typed away at his computer. He had insisted that there were staff that could handle the housekeeping, but you were beginning to get a little stir crazy, and you needed to keep moving or it felt like you would just die.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you sound jealous.” He said and you could practically hear the smirk in his voice and rolled your eyes, tucking the sheets in tighter.

“I know you think you’re so smart, but you’re sadly mistaken.” You replied haughtily.

“Oh, so you’re not upset that Sol thinks you’re an idiot?” He quipped with such an infuriating gaze that made you want to chuck a pillow at his head, but you scoffed instead, spotting Sol as she strolled back into the room. Like expected, she went straight into Yeosang’s arms.

“Yeosang! I have another question!”

“What’s up, sweet pea?” He asked, placing her on his lap and ducked your head to hide a smile, pretending like you were smoothing out any wrinkles in the sheets. He was getting so much more comfortable with Sol, even looking after her while you showered or needed some alone time and every time you looked at them together, your heart felt just a tiny bit lighter. Like maybe, even for a few seconds, he could hold onto some of your burdens and make it just a little easier for you.

“Where do babies come from?”

The look he shot you was all the retribution you needed, and you couldn’t stop the blatant laugh that left your mouth when his expression dropped. Sol, who thought you were making fun of her, pouted before turning back to Yeosang and tapping his shoulders insistently.

“Who’s the idiot now?” You cackled.

***

“Since I couldn’t hack into his bank account without alerting him, I had to hack the bank and do a manual check of all his transactions.” Yeosang told you, pushing up his glasses that slid down the bridge of his nose. You realized a little late that you had gotten distracted by the view of Yeosang with fluffy hair and thin glasses that you hadn’t been processing anything he was saying.

“And, well, he makes a monthly payment and I wondered what could possibly require monthly payments but also would be done using legal banking.” He rambled on and you nodded, not quite understanding why he was telling you about this.

When he was wearing cute sweaters and shuffling around the room in socks with a cup of coffee in his hands, it was hard to believe he was part of the mafia. He always looked so domestic, you often found yourself feeling like a small family when you would walk into the room to find Sol asleep in his lap while he typed away noisily.

It was moments like those when you tried extremely hard to snap yourself out of it. This wasn’t a game, and you couldn’t trick yourself into pretending to be his little wife. He was the only thing stopping your life from crumbling apart before your eyes. The last flimsy string that remained strong on a tearing rope as you hung helplessly off the side of a cliff.

You weren’t letting yourself rely on him too much, you wanted to remain strong so that when the moment came, you’d be able to part ways and go back to normal. It only made sense, he was never here for you to begin with, he was doing this as a favour to his mother and even though you knew his fondness for Sol and empathy for you made him work hard, you knew that once Sol was safe, you wouldn’t be in each other’s lives anymore.

You still let yourself keep that little bud and glimmer of wistful longing in your heart. As long as you kept it to yourself, you could admire him for his hard work and his intelligence and his beauty. You hadn’t felt about anyone this way in years. When Sol had come into your life, you had continued to date for a while, but no one wanted to be in a relationship with ‘a single mother’. You tried to argue that she wasn’t yours and you were no mother, but you could understand why to them it would make no difference.

That had been the last fragment of your old life that you had been hanging onto with a tight grip; that Sol wasn’t yours. She wasn’t your child, and she wasn’t your responsibility. You were just looking after her in your sister’s absence but as it became harder and harder to ignore that just because she wasn’t your child, didn’t mean you weren’t her parent.

So, you slowly let go of things that reminded you that your life wasn’t the same. You stopped seeing guys, stopped meeting friends, stopped going on little dates by yourself. Your life slowly became completely and totally Sol’s possession and any semblance of your own identity melted away.

But on those lazy mornings when you aren’t quite awake yet and Yeosang hands you a mug of coffee before you even leave the bed and looks over your shoulder to make sure Sol hasn’t stirred, you could just picture him as a boyfriend you met in your college years and stayed with. You could picture that your biggest problems were that Yeosang would rather play video games than go on a date.

But you’d keep that little piece of delusions to yourself.

Because if there’s one thing that hadn’t let you down in your life, it was the safety of your own mind when you needed a moment to breathe.

“Yeosang,” You interrupted him in the middle of his long-winded explanation, “What exactly are you trying to say here?”

He gave you a pained expression, “(Y/N), he’s been making monthly payments to a columbarium.”

***

With Yeosang insisting that his friends weren’t as bad as you were expecting, you agreed to loosen the reigns a little, allowing him to invite them over while he looked after Sol. Such was the case today. While you were away, Yeosang and Sol were joined by Wooyoung and one of Sooji’s three dogs because Sol just loved animals.

They weren’t doing much, just sitting around the coffee table with pieces of paper in front of them. Sol was working on her own, drawing a house while Wooyoung and Yeosang played tic-tac-toe. When Yeosang lost the game for the fourth time, Wooyoung looked up to find him staring at the piece of paper with more concentration than necessary.

“You okay man?”

Yeosang looked up at him, realizing that he had been pointlessly scribbling the O till it was just a huge dot. He sighed, leaning back on both his hands, “Yeah, just worried about—” He stopped himself before saying your name, glancing at the girl beside him and relieved that she didn’t notice.

So far, she hadn’t begun missing you yet, too wrapped up in her drawings to even realize that you were missing from the house, and he tried hard to make sure it would stay that way, distracting her quickly whenever she began wondering where you were. He let Sol watch whatever she wanted during breakfast, spent nearly an hour messing up the kitchen while cooking chocolate chip pancakes because neither of them knew your special recipe. He even watched the same Winx Club movie with her twice in a row because apparently kids have no sense of monotony and tedium.

He was already making plans to take her to the backyard after she got sick of drawing so she could play with the 3 dogs and tire herself out, but he knew that if you weren’t back in time to put her to bed, she would throw the world’s biggest tantrum.

“You’re getting awfully involved with her.” Wooyoung brought up casually, drawing the box to start another game.

“I mean, I’m just trying to help.” He murmured, knowing just where this conversation was going but for some reason, he couldn’t stop himself from pussyfooting around the topic. His best friend gave him a look, “No, you’re going way beyond ‘just’ helping at this point.”

He rolled his eyes in response though he knew what Wooyoung was accusing him of was true. He didn’t think he would end up getting this attached to little Sol and you. His mornings used to start out the way his nights ended, sleep deprived and half unconscious at his computer. Yeosang’s life was very much bound by his screen, and it was often that he would go weeks without interacting with anyone.

This was what was expected of him, when he had a job, he had to put himself into all of it and more often than not it felt like this was the only purpose in his life. Sure, his friends were so close that they were practically family, but he had no one relying on him and his existence felt very virtual and temporary. There were many times while he was trapped in between four walls when he would just think if anything in his life was worth it.

He pushed himself very hard, but he felt like he had nothing to show for it, no meaningful rewards to reap from it.

But something as small as you are smiling at him first thing after you woke up or Sol involving him in conversations as though you were a family had his stomach pooling with honey-sweet sustenance and belonging. It was crazy, he knew that. He was an outsider, looking into your perfect little family from beyond an invisible boundary. He was just here to help you get back to that perfect place and he couldn’t let himself be deluded into thinking that maybe there would be a place for him.

Even if he wanted that, it wasn’t the best for you or Sol. He was a mafia member, the very reason his mother stopped speaking to him in the first place. Even though he knew you held no bad feelings against him, Yeosang would be lying if he said that he didn’t see your hands shake from fear and anxiety whenever he spoke of this part of his life.

He sighed, drawing another hash after he lost the game for the sixth time, “Just drop it. It’s just a passing feeling, it’ll go away.”

He didn’t know what exactly he was talking about, the feeling of inexplicable love every time he looked at the little girl beside him or the desire for nothing but your happiness whenever he looked into your eyes. Sol innocently watched them playing tic-tac-toe and an idea struck her, flipping over the paper to use the blank side, and trying to draw the hash so she could join them.

She attempted to draw a straight line when her hand trembled and it came out bumpy and crooked. She erased the line and tried again only to come out with the same result. After a couple more tries, Yeosang glanced over when he heard a sniffle, startled to find her wiping tears from her eyes.

“Oh, what’s wrong?” Wooyoung looked up at the surprisingly soft tone, thinking he was talking to him and was even more surprised to see Yeosang quickly pull her into his lap and wrap his arms around her. He was concerned for his friend. This was the first time in years that it looked like he was actually taking care of himself.

Wooyoung knew that Yeosang wouldn’t admit it but when his mother had cut ties with him, it had hit him hard. This was the first time that he had ever seen Yeosang look so fulfilled and he wasn’t sure what worried him more, that it could be ripped very quickly from him once he was done helping you and you would walk away, or that it could be ripped even faster from him if he couldn’t help you.

“I wanted to draw what you were drawing and play with you, but I can’t do it!” She whined into his neck, and Yeosang cooed, patting her back.

“It’s okay. We can still play the game together. I like your version better anyway.” He said, patiently waiting for her to stop crying before he delicately wiped away her tears, “You want me to teach you how to play?”

When she nodded, he turned her around in his lap, still keeping an arm around her and grabbed her pencil.

***

You stared at the marble urn in the shelf with an empty expression. A small, framed picture of your sister was beside it. She was smiling brightly, taunting you with the carefree look in her eyes. The sun glimmered like gold in her hair and her skin glowed like honey.

“You selfish bitch.” You choked out, feeling like you were sinking. You tried to look at her face while saying it, but all your eyes could focus on was your pained reflection staring back at you from the glass.

And all at once it felt like you were breaking. The dam had collapsed. The seams had ripped. Your knees were far too weak to support you and you tumbled to the ground, clutching your head as you wailed into your lap.

“I’m sorry! I’m so so sorry! I tried! I really did!” You sobbed out, not even bothering to wipe the streams of tears that were leaving your eyes. Why bother when they were quickly replaced.

“I just— Sometimes, I— I feel like—” You tried to tell her, but the words kept getting caught painfully in your throat. You couldn’t admit it to her, no matter how hard you tried. You knew she couldn’t hear you, couldn’t respond and couldn’t do much to help but still you couldn’t admit it.

Your heart felt like it was tearing itself into shreds, your stomach twisting so tightly that you could feel acid climb up your throat. You could barely breathe in between sobs, and it felt like every single cell in your body was hurting.

You had grown apart from your sister when you both had become adults, it was inevitable that you did. You weren’t teenagers that shared a room anymore, you both were now grown-ups who had to live their own lives. You got busy with your own career and your sister was the same. You would see each other at family dinners and special occasions but eventually those became few and far between.

Looking back, you couldn’t really put all the blame on her, you had missed many dinners due to work and your heart clenched in your chest at the thought that your absence might have pushed her to this person.

Regardless, she was still your sister and you loved her. And now, she was just, gone. You thought back to the last time you had seen her, she was so haggard and worn. Did she die in the same way? Tired, desperate, and alone? She had so much to live for, a daughter, your parents, and even you and it killed a part of you to know that someone you loved was now reduced to a pile of ash in an urn.

You cried for what felt like forever before leaning against the opposite shelves and staring up at her column. Your head was blank for the first time in years, and you couldn’t think of anything no matter how hard you tried to. There were things that needed your attention, like how you would break the news to your parents, how you would keep Sol safe but every time you thought of either, it would evaporate into nothing until you were just blank.

You had no more fight left to give, nothing more to provide, nothing left to give away. Whenever you cared for Sol, looked after her, loved her, you had been borrowing energy from your future elf. Somewhere, deep down, you kept hope that your sister would one day return, and you could just go back to being her aunt. But now it felt like there would never be an end and you had hit a wall.

It was sick, you knew you were, that you felt some sort of resentment towards a small, innocent little girl. She had done nothing wrong, and you knew that but sometimes whenever you looked at her, all you could see was something that was holding you down. Sometimes you thought about giving her up for adoption or handing her to her grandparents and when things got really bad you would think about packing a bag in the middle of the night and just leaving.

You loved Sol, so much but you were always trying to keep her at arm’s length and now that you couldn’t justify it anymore, the horrid, disgusting feelings of resentment, of rejection came bubbling up and you couldn’t help but feel repulsed by yourself.

“I don’t know what to do...” You whispered helplessly, looking at the picture of your sister. She was a splitting image of Sol, looking more mature and her features were more angled, but it was still her.

When it felt like you had cried it all out, you stood up once again, ready to leave. The sun was setting outside which meant it would soon be time to put Sol to bed and you’d rather do it yourself than force Yeosang to do it.

You looked at the ground as you were leaving the building, emotionlessly staring at the tiles when a pair of glossy, black shoes came into your vision. Startled, you looked up and realized you were an inch away from a broad chest. When your eyes met the man’s, your blood froze in your veins, and you took a step back.

Logan Nam smirked at you and your eyes widened in fear.

He took a step closer, and you mirrored him, putting as much difference as you could between you.

“When the reception notified me that someone was visiting my wife’s ashes, I had a hunch it would be you.” He said, taking another step toward you. Your heart was beating madly in your ears, and you swallowed thickly.

“I’ll make this simple; I want my daughter.”

Your heartrate ticked up, breath stuttering in your lungs, and you were overwhelmed by the sudden urge to just cry. You still couldn’t bring yourself to say anything, your throat constricting painfully. Immediately, you were filled with hostility. You didn’t know why; you had never met him before and had no reason to mistrust him other than your sister’s words, but you would never go against the last thing she told you before you died.

Whatever she had felt about him, whatever he had done wasn’t important, but you die before ever considering

“Not happening.” You finally replied, finding your voice.

“I wasn’t asking.” He replied coldly and before you could even blink, his hand was around your throat, and he slammed you against the wall. The wind was knocked out of you and the back of your head throbbed so hard that your vision had spots. He wasn’t even applying much pressure, but the hit was so powerful that you had trouble breathing.

He was crazy, downright psychotic. You gasped for air and thrashed around but he didn’t loosen his hold on your throat, pressing down harder until you felt your windpipe collapse from the pressure. Then the panic got real when you couldn’t take any more breaths. Your eyes filled with tears in response, and you tried prying his fingers off you, but he was too strong.

“Maybe I should kill you right now,” He murmured, more to himself than you. His gaze was steady on you, but it looked like he wasn’t seeing you, “I’ll be kind, you can have the spot next to my wife.”

You struggled in his grip, wanting to throw up from the force on your throat but he didn’t relent until you scratched your nails down his face and poked his eyes as hard as you could. The grip on your throat loosened and you took only a moment to catch your breath before running down the hall and trying to get out of the building.

His footsteps picked up behind you and your frantic eyes darted around the halls, spotting a fire extinguisher that hung off the far war and immediately sprinted towards it. He was faster than you expected and slammed you into the wall just as you reached it. The extinguisher hit you badly in the ribs and you groaned in pain but grabbed onto it with a vice-like grip.

It was too heavy for you to throw at him, regardless of how much the adrenaline pumping through your veins was pushing your body and, in a panic, you pushed down the lever and were startled when foam sprayed out of the nozzle with such a high pressure that it was enough to knock him off you. You managed to catch him off-guard, throwing him offbeat and didn’t wait for him to gain his senses before you dropped the cannister and ran.

You made at out of the building, nearly giving yourself a whiplash as you tried to spot a taxi, not stopping your sprint for even a second. You could hear him behind you but to your relief, he was farther than he was last time. Just as you were about to leave the enclosure, you heard a gunshot and shrieked, ducking away from the shards of glass that exploded from the streetlamp that he shot.

Your heart getting tired, and it was beginning to hurt from how hard it was beating against your ribcage. You were panting heavily, and a cold bead of sweat darted down the length of your back. You made out Logan’s silhouette against the blurring of tears in your eyes, recognizing the smoking gun he was pointing directly at you.

“That was a warning shot. Move and the next one won’t be.”

There was a beat of silence where you contemplated what to do. Your body flinched and you involuntarily took a step back and you saw something flash in his eyes as dread set into your bones. He was going to shoot. You ducked away, almost missing the police car that raced at you with blaring lights and a loud siren and screeched to a stop between the both of you.

“Get in!” Screamed the driver and without wasting a second, you threw open the door and jumped in. She didn’t even wait for you to close the door before she was speeding out of there and merging into the main road.

When the driver was certain that you both were far enough from the columbarium, she looked at you through the rear-view mirror, “I’m Detective Jeong Tae Eul.”

“(Y/N).” You responded, completely out of it. Your body was shaking, and you were terrified that you’d turn around to find Logan staring you down with his crazy eyes and dangerous weapon.

“I’m going to drive you to the police station, okay? We can file a police report together.” She explained with a soothing voice, but her words only caused you to panic more.

“No! We can’t file a report!” You exclaimed and her brows raised in surprise, “Why not?”

Your hands were shaking pathetically in your lap, and you had no explanation for her. If she found out that he was Sol’s biological father and you had no legal custody over her, she might end up turning the tables against you. Sensing your fear, she put the vehicle in park at a traffic light, turning around to look you in the eye.

“It’s going to be okay. Just tell me what happened, I promise nothing will leave this vehicle unless you want it to.”

So, you told Tae Eul everything. In the end, she made a promise to introduce you to one of the best lawyers she knew and promised that her friend, Cha Young, would give you a consultation pro bono and if she thought there was a case, she’d help take it to trial.

***

It was almost two thirty in the morning when you finally got back home, and your body felt so worn out that you felt like you were so close to withering away that second. You weren’t even down the hall before Yeosang intercepted you.

“Where the hell have you been! Why was your phone switched off!” He had barely started his rant, fully intending on chewing you out with how worried he was but his eyes flickered down to your neck for a second before they completely zeroed in on the bruise around your throat.

He paused and it was like you watched all the emotion die out from his face before he was glaring at you darkly. With all the terror you had been through only a few hours ago, you couldn’t even bring yourself to feel afraid anymore, all your emotions and thoughts had vaporized and vanished like the wax of a candle.

He reached his hand out and you shivered as his fingers delicately grazed against the purpling bruise against your skin. You gripped onto his arm for stability, and he finally raised his eyes back to yours, unbridled fury swimming in the depths of his eyes. You could never picture Yeosang as a mafia member, not when he was failing in all his attempts to braid Sol’s hair or when he happily munched down the breakfast you made him, but in this instance, you could understand how he managed to fare for so long in this world.

He looked downright terrifying, and you would’ve been shaking in your boots if you didn’t know that he was angry for you, not at you.

“Who did this to you?”

Fuck. He couldn’t look at you like that and say things like that and expect you not to melt into a puddle of absolute mush. You sighed shakily, ignoring the butterflies in your stomach and the absolute state of euphoria and warmth that was rushing through you that you were finally home and safe with Yeosang.

“I ran into Logan.” You explained, trailing off when his eyes widened, and it seemed like you had just lit a fire inside him.

“That bitch!” He seethed and the veins in his neck popped out but even then, the tender touch of his fingers on your neck never got even a fraction more abrasive or forceful. A rush of things passed on his face, mostly rage but then it finally washed away, and he was the kind, domestic Yeosang you had always known.

“Are you alright? Does it hurt?”

You shook your head silently and he released a shaky breath before pulling you in for a hug. He gently caressed your hair, and you buried your face into the crook of his neck, wrapping your arms tightly around his middle and inhaling the smell of home. The material of his sweater was bunched tightly in your fist, pulling yourself so close to his body that you could be considered as one.

“You’re safe now.” He whispered, holding you and even though you didn’t believe him, you nodded and then breathed in deeply.

After a few minutes, you spoke up, not bothering to move your head and Yeosang shivered when he felt your lips brush against the skin of his neck, “Where’s Sol?”

“I put her to bed hours ago. She went down no problem.” He responded in perfect sync, and you sighed in relief.

“Thank you,” You whispered, kissing whatever piece of skin you could reach in gratitude and even though you thought he would flinch or freeze, he said nothing and rocked you back and forth like a pendulum, “For everything.”

***

You stared at Sol’s sleeping form, the moonlight peeking through the curtains being enough for you to recognize her features that you had memorized. This precious, little girl was your everything. She was your mornings and your nights, and she was completely worth all the hard work and the burdens you had to go through.

You loved her so much and she wouldn’t ever know the surface of the struggles you went through trying to raise her, but you would continue to do so.

You were trying so hard to deflect the burden from yourself, claiming that Sol wasn’t your responsibility, since she was your sister’s child but if you won full custody over her, she would forever be yours. You had always tried to run away from fully accepting her because you were scared, terrified even to the changes it would bring to your life.

But in the silence of the night, you looked at the sweet girl and realized just how much you had changed without realizing. Mornings would begin with a kiss on the cheek in greeting the same way the day would end. With Sol, even things as little as cooking or bath-time could turn into a fun activity and you remembered just how many times you could feel full just from looking at her.

Yes, you didn’t have anyone to depend on and yes, it was difficult. My goodness, it was so difficult. But you couldn’t say goodbye to the good moments, no matter how strenuous the bad ones were. You had seen her first steps, her first words and had been there for every milestone that she had been through.

You weren’t her mother, but she was your child. In every sense, in every thought, in every language, in every moment. She was yours.

Suddenly overwhelmed with so much emotion that you felt tears prick at your eyes, you leaned over to brush a few hairs out of her face before kissing her cheek, “I love you so much.”

The door clicked open, and you glanced over to see Yeosang pad in with a cup of tea. Smiling lightly, you shifted over on the bed and gave him room to sit beside you. Now with a steaming cup of tea in your hands, you were able to soothe your throat that was throbbing and scratchy from the amount of crying you had done through the day.

He was right, he made tea way better than you did.

“She’s cute, right?” He whispered and you chuckled before nodding.

“She gets it from you.”

***

You glanced between the 7 men apprehensively, watching as they awkwardly lingered around the doorway. Aside from Yeosang, of course, who made himself at home on the couch immediately, grabbing the bowl of popcorn that Sol had been hogging.

“Um, I thought you said you had a guy’s night?” You asked, biting your lip. Yeosang had informed you about their night a couple days ago and you thought it was a great idea. After filing the lawsuit for custody against Logan, any attempts of abduction had stopped as well since it could reflect badly in the legal fight. Since then, you had returned to work and Sol had been going back to kindergarten even though Yeosang’s mom had strict instructions to call him first and not you in an emergency.

You were worried that you were beginning to rely on Yeosang a little too much and though you were still living together on Ateez’s homebase, you thought he deserved the much-needed break and some time to blow off steam with his friends. You were more than prepared for him to come home absolutely wasted. You had even courteously decided to sleep on the couch so he could have his own bed back for a night.

Yunho blushed, pulling out a piece of paper from his pocket and handing it to you. When you unfolded the paper, your cheeks heated up in embarrassment.

‘Dear tall oppa, I am keeping a movy nite on Sunday nite! It’s at 7 pm so don’t be late!’

There were way too many stickers around the sides of the paper and a few of the letters were in the wrong direction. You could clearly tell that there was a lot of thought put into this, considering that the stickers were off a giraffe and a smiling puppy, which you were sure that she associated Yunho with. You ran a hand over your face, trying to hide your embarrassment and face that had darkened with a blush but doing an awful job.

“I’m sorry you guys, you don’t need to attend, you already made plans. I’m sure Sol will understand.” You said, feeling ashamed that they were guilted into attending because Sol had a cute face.

Sol, having heard what you said, immediately began protesting and climbed into Yeosang’s lap and wrapping her tiny arms around his neck. He was quick to move the bowl of popcorn away, nearly missing Sol’s foot to his crotch and cradled her so that she was sitting more comfortably.

“No! I wanna have a movie night with everyone.”

You sighed, feeling your neck heat up, “Sol, please, they all have plans.”

She whined, wrapping her arms around Yeosang tighter, and burying her little face in his neck.

The others smiled kindly at you, and you felt grateful albeit still quite embarrassed, “It’s okay (Y/N), we don’t mind.”

They all began shuffling in the door and you realized they each brought their own movie snacks and before no time they were all crowded around the TV. Delighted that everyone was there to join her, she beamed at Yeosang, practically shaking with joy in his lap and he gave her a fond smile, glancing at you and patting the empty spot beside him.

“So, what movie are we watching?”

“Winx Club!”

Everyone groaned.

“(Y/N) if I have to watch this movie again, I’m going to shoot myself.”

***

You couldn’t remember the last time you had let loose this way. When you got home after winning the custody case, you were immediately handed a drink that Wooyoung called his ‘Magic Potion’. A few magic potions later, you were giggling madly into Yeosang’s neck.

Thankfully, Seonghwa was looking after Sol for the rest of the evening, so he was able to give you his undivided attention just as the fourth drink began to hit you. You had already played hide-and-seek and even hidden many things like Chayoung’s briefcase and Wooyoung’s Apple watch.

“Okay, I think you’ve had enough drinks.” Yeosang said, grabbing the glass that Wooyoung was holding out to you and immediately you pouted, wrapping your arms around his neck, and releasing a pathetic whine.

“Nooo, I want to drink some moreeee.”

He could smell the alcohol on your breath, and you could barely take a step without stumbling. With a steady arm around your waist, he guided you away from Wooyoung who began chanting that he was no fun since he became a dad (Yeosang promptly ignored that part, even though his neck was getting uncomfortably hot). While he did want a drink too, he really thought that only one of you should be hungover the next day.

“You can have a glass of water.”

“But I don’t want water!” You exclaimed, stomping your foot and he sighed, mentally comparing you to Sol when she threw a tantrum but you were still easy to manoeuvre toward the bedroom so he could put you to bed before you ended up passing out.

Your energy level plummeted the farther you walked and by the time you both entered your room, your head was lolling, and you were breathing deeply as though asleep standing upright.

“Did I ever tell you how much you mean to me?” He heard you ask quietly and froze in his steps. You turned to look at him with a sober gaze that startled him. You looked so damn serious about it, like you were genuinely asking him rather than just going off on some drunk tangent.

You gave him a wobbly smile, “I’m sorry that I’ve been relying on you so much lately. It feels really one-sided, and I’m actually terrified that you’ll think of me as a burden.”

He didn’t know what to do. You were definitely drunk, and it was most likely the reason you were suddenly bearing your heart to him but with each word that came out of your mouth, another nerve began buzzing with electricity.

“Maybe if everything was normal, I could just ask you out like I want to, but I don’t have the balls because I’m worried it will ruin everything.” You laughed at yourself, running a hand down your face and his stomach hollowed out, hundreds of flurries of butterflies flapping incessantly so far up his throat that it felt he couldn’t breathe. You wanted to ask him out?

“And isn’t it so funny that I can only tell you how I feel when I’m drunk out of my mind?” You laughed out but your voice was tight. He knew you were scared but your inhibition was hindered, he knew that.

“Because I know you’ll pretend like it never happened the next day if you don’t feel the same. Because I wasn’t in the right state of mind. Hah, even when I’m telling you that I love you, I’m selfish. I’m so pathetic.” You laughed brokenly and his heart tightened in his chest.

Yeosang stared at you with widened eyes, watching the way your eyes glimmered and the slight tint to your cheeks from drinking too much.

“W-What?”

You giggled at his startled face and took a clumsy but deliberate step toward him before raising a hand to cup his cheek, “I’m in love with you. And it’s not only because you’re the only one who supports me. It’s because you’re funny, and you’re nice but in a funny, backhanded way, and you care about me like I care about you, and sometimes when I look at you, I feel complete. Like how I feel when I look at Sol. I’m very happy when I’m with you.”

The way you were looking at him. The things you were saying too him. It was all too much. Too much for his frail little heart to handle. Yeosang was undoubtedly the least emotional one from Ateez, it was easy for him to emotionally disconnect. In his line of work, it was important for him not to get extremely sensitive toward something.

But the way you were touching him, like he was a tender flower instead of the burdened steel he has always been made his heart race in his chest. It had been way too long since he had felt so adored and had been even longer since he had adored someone as much as he did you.

Too dazed from your confession, he didn’t quite react when you leaned in to capture his lips in a soft kiss before pulling away. You looked at him with a steady gaze, “I’m in love with you.”

You kissed him again and this time he returned it. His arms coiled around your waist, holding your hips firmly and you threw your arms around his neck, kissing him eagerly. Yeosang sighed against your mouth, his heart getting bigger with each second that your lips touched his. You were sweet, so sweet that he felt dizzy but wanted to taste more of you.

He gently teased his tongue against yours until you were short of breath, and you raked your fingers through his fluffy hair just as he sucked your bottom lip into his mouth.

The two of you stumbled back in a daze, not breaking the kiss until the back of your knees collided with the bed and you tumbled to the mattress, pulling him down with you. His reflexes worked quickly, keeping himself from crushing you with his arms framing your body as he continued to graze his tongue against yours.

The lingering taste of alcohol on your tongue reminded Yeosang that you were still drunk, and he pulled away with a sigh, knowing that he couldn’t let anything happen if you weren’t in the right state of mind.

“Sang—” You whimpered, trying to pull him back to you by wrapping your legs around his waist and his resolved weakened just a bit when he felt his stomach drop with need and his neck get hot, but he gave you one last kiss before he pulled away just enough to kiss your forehead.

“You’re drunk.” He replied, expecting that to be enough of an explanation but your head was still spinning from the heavenly kiss and all you wanted was to be close to him. He tried to move off you, but you panicked and grabbed his shirt before pulling him closer.

“Don’t leave me.” You whispered, distressed. He kissed your temple before pressing another one to your cheek, pulling away again so he could look you in the eye.

“I won’t. I’ll be right here.”

“I’m sorry.” You apologized and neither of you were sure for what, but he silenced any fears you might have, pulling you in for a hug before he lowered your head onto a pillow and pulled the duvet up to cover you.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for. Just get some rest, I’ll be here in the morning.”

It was dark, but he could still see your features despite it. Yeosang briefly wondered if it was because he spent every waking moment thinking of you. Of your bright eyes, of your glowing skin, of your gorgeous hair, of your sweet lips.

Now that he had finally gotten a taste of them, a taste of you, he couldn’t begin to dream of letting you go. He just couldn’t. A part of him churned with uncertainty, fear, and insecurity. Did you really mean what you said? Or was it the liquor talking? While he wondered about that, he tried pushing down those horrible, intrusive thoughts that would trouble him whenever he had something good.

Those awful thoughts that would remind him that it wouldn’t be too long until he ruined it.

You were so beautiful, so pure, how could he even think of tainting you with his own colours? It killed him to think that if he pursued something with you, it would only end badly. You and Sol had become such a big part of his life, would he be able to survive without you?

Those thoughts that he struggled to push away no matter how hard he tried reminded him that he wasn’t asking the right question.

Would he be able to live with himself if anything ever happened to you?

***

It was well into the day when you were rudely awakened by the insistent sun. Your head was throbbing lightly from how hard you fell asleep, but you didn’t feel too hungover. Sighing and groaning, you finally found the willpower to sit up straight and when you glanced at the nightstand you couldn’t help but chuckle at the ‘Feel better auntie!’ written on a post-it note with a heart drawn beside it. Yeosang must have told her you weren’t feeling well when you didn’t wake up to drop her off at kindergarten.

After brushing your teeth, you returned to the bedroom even drowsier than you were when you first woke up and considered pulling up the covers and falling asleep again when the door clicked open and Yeosang poked his head through.

And in that instant, everything from last night came flooding back to you. Suddenly, it felt like every nerve ending sparked alive, rushing through your body like a wildfire as images flashed behind your eyes faster than you could process. Your lips tingled with the memory of the kiss, and you felt shocks crawl up your waist where his hands were.

You could only faintly remember the feeling of his hard body pressed against yours and immediately you were filled with immense longing to feel it again. God, it had barely been 20 minutes since you had woken up and you were already craving for him like a hormonal teenager.

It was hardly your fault though, how were you meant to concentrate when he was wearing a tank top that revealed his distracting arms and with the neck cut low enough to see his chest? Honestly, he was too attractive for his own good.

A steady heat climbed up to your cheeks when you realized you had been staring at him for a good minute and you pursed your lips, trying to kill the sparks that began to sting.

“Hi.”

He smiled gently, handing you a bottle of water along with an aspirin and you took it without qualms, “How are you feeling?”

“Not too terrible, that heavy dinner really helped.” You replied, patting your stomach and he scoffed, “You’re welcome.”

It was silent again and even though you could simply pretend like last night hadn’t happened to make the atmosphere bearable, you felt the need to set things straight with him.

“About last night, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or anything.” You told him, staring at the bottle in your hands and playing with the wrapper.

“I half expected you to have completely forgotten about last night.” He admitted and you almost laughed. The kiss had been everything except forgettable. It was the type of kiss you’d think about even in a couple years and still feel something.

“I didn’t drink that much.” You replied, trying to bring a little mirth in your voice and he chuckled before nodding, “Yeah, but my luck usually turns out to be like that.”

There was another beat of quiet, an awkward tango where you weren’t sure who should speak first but eventually you opened your mouth again, “We can forget about it if you want, I really don’t want things to get awkward between us.”

He remembered the words you told him last night, how you confessed that you were terrified that you’d be a burden to him. He felt the same way. You both had such important things in your life right now that another priority might feel burdensome, he could understand if you felt that way about him.

But Yeosang never thought of you as a burden, more like a rewarding anchor to the world when he felt like he might be sinking down too far.

The silence was beginning to get awkward, and you shifted in the bed, tempted to take another sip of water, “It’s really not a big deal, Sang. We can just forget about the whole thing—”

“Are you drunk right now?”

You paused.

“Excuse me?”

“Are you drunk right now?” He repeated, just as plain as the last time and your brows pinched together, trying to figure out just what angle he was playing.

“……No?”

“Good.” He said, leaning in so he could cup both your cheeks in his hands, and you stared at him wide-eyed, “Because I sure as hell want you to remember this.”

And then he was kissing you like he had roamed the desert, and you were a glass of cold water. He kissed you like a fresh rain shower after a year of drought. He kissed you like every song you had ever heard and every book you had ever read.

Kissing Yeosang was all too much and at the same time not enough. You felt his tender lips against yours and the air in your lungs managed to disappear in a quick second, but you didn’t falter for a moment, tightly wrapping your arms around his shoulders just as his hands slid down to your lower back.

Your breathing stuttered as his tongue gently traced your mouth and your stomach lurched with such undeniable need that you felt your head get foggy. It hurt, it physically hurt from how much you needed to be close to him at the moment. So much that your body trembled with pent-up energy.

With a hand to the back of your head, he lowered you down to the plush pillows, not wanting to part from you for even a second. Everything was getting fuzzy in the best way possible and when Yeosang broke the kiss for a moment to pull his shirt off, it felt like something in you just snapped.

To say he was startled when you suddenly wrapped your legs around his waist and rolled on top of him was an understatement, but he didn’t even get to say anything before you were kissing your way down his neck, nipping, and licking at every spot you could.

He squirmed underneath you, now very aware how close your heat was to his dick and moaned shakily when you sucked at his pulse point.

His hands ran down your back and grabbed your ass, “W-Wait, I want you to have fun too.”

You raised your head from his neck, smirking at the light marks that began to form, “Who said I wasn’t having fun?”

You were both surprised at the loud moan that left his mouth when your teeth sank into the spot where his neck met his shoulder. Soothing the mark with your tongue, you moved a little lower, kissing down his pecs. Even though you were nowhere near finished, you let him guide you back into another kiss.

He flipped the two of you over, giving you a smirk that had butterflies erupting up your throat and hiked your shirt up his wrists, delighted to find that you hadn’t put on a bra yet.

“My turn.”

Breathy moans left your mouth as he teased your breasts with nimble fingers while his talented mouth left pretty red marks along them. One of his hands pressed against your back, arching your chest into his mouth while the other left featherlight touches along your stomach on its way to the waistband of your pants.

Tufts of his hear peeked from between your fingers as you gently tugged and he groaned, reaching to kiss you again when he began tugging your pants and panties down the length of your legs. You helped him throw them off you and shivered in excitement when he grazed your inner thighs.

You were sure there would be more times for him to be rough and for you both to be captured in moments of intense passion but for now you both were taking it slow which had your heart beating in your chest so hard from anticipation that he could hear it.

You let out a content sigh when the tips of his fingers caressed your lower lips. Yeosang was occupied with sucking on your tongue when his thumb began rubbing slow circles against your clit. You gasped, throwing your head back against the pillows and mewling.

He chuckled, “Feeling good?”

“So good.” You whined, brows furrowing together when a finger poked at your entrance. Your thighs would have clamped tightly around his wrist if he wasn’t holding them open.

“How many do you think you can handle?” He asked you and even though your eyelids felt like they were magnetically shut, you wrenched them open to see his soft smile at your confused expression.

“Fingers?”

He huffed out a laugh, “No, orgasms. Don’t wanna overstimulate you if you aren’t ready.”

You inhaled sharply when he shallowly thrust two fingers into you, gripping his biceps tightly, “To be honest, I don’t think I can take more than one today.”

The smirk on his face turned a little dark and he felt your pussy clench around his fingers, “I can do that.”

He swallowed your loud moans with a deep kiss and moved his fingers quickly, alternating between thrusting into your dripping hole with a breaking pace and rubbing his wet fingers against your clit. The knot in your stomach wound tighter and tighter with each flick and you felt yourself getting closer to the edge.

You were so close you could practically taste it, squirming in his grip as you inched closer to ecstasy when he stopped his movements.

Yeosang pulled away from the kiss specifically to hear you groan while he peppered kisses against your neck, “Why’d you stop?”

He licked at the hollow of your collarbone, “You said you’d only be able to handle one. Gotta pace yourself, baby. I’ll make you cum.”

“But I was so close.” You whined, the end of your sentence coming out as a moan when he moved spread his fingers slightly, feeling your plush walls push back against them.

He kissed the spot between your brows, making you aware of your scrunched up face and you relaxed, “I know but you’ve only given me one chance to rock your world and I’m not letting you cum anywhere but my cock.”

A hot blush crept up your face at his frank words and you stared up at the ceiling in embarrassment.

He laughed, and sped up the pace of his fingers slightly, “You’re naked in my bed and you’re feeling shy from my words?”

You hid your face, “Now I’m feeling embarrassed about both.”

His nose nuzzled your cheek lightly, thumbing your clit until you were close again and then abruptly pulled his fingers away from your heat while you whined in disappointment. When you peeked at him between your fingers, he popped the soaked digits in his mouth, growling at the taste of you.

“Fuck, can I eat you out?”

You narrowed your eyes at him, “If you plan on making me cum.”

He shrugged, “Next time then.”

You felt the weight of his body disappear while he pulled off his pants before he crawled back over you, using one of his arms to hold his weight while he reached in his nightstand to pull out a condom.

You raised a brow at the silver packet, wondering just why he had a supply of condoms in a place that wasn’t even his, “How many girls have you brought here?”

“It was a gag gift from Wooyoung. Who’s laughing now?” He muttered in an explanation, hissing as the rolled the rubber on. You giggled when he leaned over you with a wide smile, pecking your cheeks quickly and you cupped his face this time before bringing him in for a sweet kiss.

“Ready?” He whispered against your lips, and you nodded, gently playing with the short hairs on the back of his neck. You panted against each other’s mouths when he finally pushed in, groaning in unison.

The way he stretched you open when he buried himself deep inside you had your eyes rolling to the back of your head as you moaned his name wantonly. The deep groans he was letting out reverberated through his chest and you could feel the feeble vibrations against your own chest pressed to his.

Yeosang felt dizzy at the sound of your sweet moans, at the feeling of your nails scratching lightly at his scalp, at your perfect body and your perfect curves pressed against him. Suddenly overwhelmed with so much stimulation, he shakily exhaled into your neck, pausing for a moment before he began moving his hips and by reflex, your legs wrapped themselves around his waist, sending his head spinning even more.

He rocked against you steadily, quickly licking away the bead of sweat that rolled down your neck and you whined at the pleasure, gasping when snapped his hips with more power. Eager from the long wait, he began relentlessly thrusting into you, groaning loudly at your pussy clenching around him at random beats.

You swore you saw stars attached to the white ceiling when the head of his cock brushed up against that one spot and you released a high-pitched moan, “Fuck right there, please.”

He pulled away from you for just a second to readjust the position of your legs before he continued pounding into you and it felt like your soul had left your body for a second when he hit that spot perfectly each time and you were sent hurtling over the edge, cumming with a loud moan.

He finished soon after, keeping his pace until you both came down from your highs, kissing you sweetly. He didn’t pull out just yet, waiting until you both had caught your breath before he did.

You automatically curled into his side when he lied down beside you, placing your head on his chest and his arm wound around your waist. You didn’t speak for a while, didn’t sleep, didn’t move, just stayed there, pressed against each other, and basking in the afterglow.

“Are you sure you want this?” Yeosang finally asked and you raised your head with a confused pout, “Kind of late to ask that question, don’t you think?”

He rolled his eyes, “Not that, I meant me. Are you sure you want a relationship with me?”

“What do you mean?”

You tilted your head in the most adorable way that his heart began racing again. His mind willed him to be just silent, to just enjoy the sight of the gorgeous, naked girl in his arms but he spoke once again, “I’m part of the mafia, (Y/N). And you’re part of the tax-paying, righteous, beautiful public. Are you sure you want that?”

You paused and it felt like time had stopped for a year for Yeosang. He made up his mind then. Whatever be your answer, he would accept it, no follow-up questions, no attempt to convince you and he swore that he wouldn’t make you feel bad for it. Afterall, you both had made your choices about the kind of life you want to lead.

He was determined not to make you feel guilty for rejecting him. Afterall, you were just trying to do what was best for your family.

But then you smiled at him, kissing the corner of his lips, “I used to think that everything was black and white, but you’ve showed me differently. And I want this with you, I really do love you, Sang.”

His heart squeezed in his chest, all the questions he wanted to ask you disappeared like weightless clouds in the sky and he pressed his lips to yours, “I love you, too.”

You sighed happily, gently tracing figures onto his bare chest while his fingers drummed a random pattern on your hips, “I wish we could just stay here forever.”

He spared a glance at the clock and groaned internally, “We have to leave to pick up Sol in like an hour.”

You abruptly sat up, holding the covers to your chest, and stared at him with wide eyes, “We have to change the sheets!”

With a mischievous grin, he scooped you up in his arms and ran to the bathroom while you let out a startled laugh, “Shower first!”

***

As soon as you stepped outside the car to pick up Sol, you had realized that something had gone incredibly wrong. You stopped Yeosang before he could take another step, turning to him with a panicked gaze, “Call the others.”

“What? Why?” He questioned but still pulled out his phone without missing a beat and sent an alert to the others.

“Hear that?”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly.”

It was then that he realized what you were saying. It was absolutely silent, no sound of the excited children chattering with their friends, or of the teachers fondly saying their goodbyes to the students, no honking from the cars of the other parents as they tried to find a parking spot.

You shared a wide-eyed gaze before sprinting to the door. Yeosang pulled out his gun, signalling you to keep quiet before you both entered the building and you nodded, breathing in deeply as you both stepped past the door away as silently as you could.

You stayed behind him as he crept towards Sol’s classroom and just as his hand inched toward the handle, the door slammed open and there stood Mrs. Kang, staring at you with a pained smile. Yeosang started, straightening up when he realized he was still pointing the weapon at her.

“Mom? What are you doing? Where is everyone? Where’s Sol?”

She smiled nervously and you could see her body shake, “I sent them all home early.”

Your brows furrowed, “What? Why? Where’s Sol?”

She stepped aside and if your body hadn’t frozen with horror, you would have screamed.

Logan Nam sat sinisterly in Mrs. Kang’s seat like a throne and perched in his lap was Sol, face stricken with tears and duct tape plastered to her mouth. Your eyes immediately glossed over, and you swallowed painfully at the sight of her terrified face and the knife that he held to her throat.

Yeosang stepped in front of you protectively, aiming the gun at Logan. His hands were clenched so hard around the Glock that you could see them shake with absolute fury. It looked like he could light this whole place on fire with a single glare and if looks could kill, Logan Nam would have been mutilated right before your very eyes, “Let. Her. Go.”

He laughed, “Why should I? She’s my daughter. I have the right to do this.”

There it was, that beat of helplessness masked with fear that you felt when you saw his arm tighten around Sol and a fresh wave of tears streamed down her cheeks, cries muffled by the tape.

You clutched your hands tightly at your sides, biting your tongue to keep yourself from crying at the sight of her weeping in terror.

“This is why you should have given her to me when I asked you so nicely.” He said, stroking her hair and you almost scoffed at that. He hadn’t asked, he had demanded, and when you refused, he almost choked you to death.

“She deserves this, you know.” He said nonchalantly but you knew of his psychotic tone. It was the same tone he used when he threatened to kill you and your body shook with emotions you couldn’t explain, “She took her away from me.”

You clenched your jaw so tightly you could swear that you felt a tooth crack.

“We used to be in love, she was my soulmate. But then this bitch was conceived.” He said with such sick hatred and Yeosang bristled at him cussing at Sol, “And little by little she loved me less, her attention was taken from me. Suddenly it was all ‘the baby this’ ‘our baby that’, she took her away from me, she deserves this.”

“You’re sick!” You spat, eyes burning with fury and your nails dug so hard into your palms that it hurt.

His eyes widened and he laughed, in a crazed, manic way that had your heart stuttering in fear. You needed Sol out of there, no matter the cost, no matter the sacrifice, “I just wanted to love your sister, my wife. We loved each other more than anybody else but then she changed. She began loving ‘this’ instead. She took back her words to only love me, so I made sure she wouldn’t make any more mistakes. I killed her, so that she couldn’t love me less.”

You had never felt more wrath than you had now. Your body was trembling with anger and your hands itched to wring his neck, but you stayed in place, extremely aware of the knife that he held loosely. Yeosang didn’t have a clear shot at him, he feared that any move he made could hurt Sol, so he kept his finger on the trigger, hoping for a miracle.

“I’m going to get my revenge.”

There was a moment of static silence where neither man made a move, but you pounced quickly.

You grabbed Yeosang’s wrist and pointed the gun at the ceiling above him, shooting at the light and a loud bang echoed through the halls. Logan was startled just enough for his grip on the knife to loosen as the ceiling tiles nearly crushed him and Sol.

Sol rushed out of his lap, running toward you and you saw her kidnapper attempt to grab her again, but you ran and slammed into him. The knife clattered to the ground and the both of you collided with the wall. You yelped when he grabbed a chunk of your hair and slammed your head against the corner of the desk. You groaned in pain, trying to kick him off you but he would not budge.

“(Y/N)!”

“Sol first!” You shouted back and he wasted no time in complaining, scooping up the wailing child in his arms and wrapping an arm around his mother, taking them out of the building.

The man in front of you attempted to follow them but you stood up once again, ignoring the spots in your vision and jumping at him. Once again you both crashed into the wall, ricocheting against multiple surfaces like pinballs while he tried to rip you off him. The breath was knocked out of you as he violently slammed your back against the chalkboard, but you didn’t relent.

He used his strength to pry your arm off him, twisting it so painfully that you felt something pop and you screamed in pain, tumbling to the ground. He turned to face you with an expression that you would continue to see in your nightmares for the rest of your life and you backed away in fear.

“I should’ve snapped your fucking neck when I had the chance.” He whispered darkly and your hands tried to search for something, anything and your palm grazed against the handle of the knife he dropped earlier.

Your hand wrapped tightly around the blade and your resolution hardened like cold metal. The next few seconds passed by in slow motion. Logan charged for you, but his hands did not get the chance to touch you.

Blood splattered on your face and clothes.

You had slit his throat open.

***

When you arrived at the hospital where Mrs. Kang had taken Sol, you were frantic to see your baby girl. You had wiped as much blood as you could on the car ride there while you filled in the rest of Ateez on what had happened. They were filled with a newfound respect as well as pity for you when they found out what you had done.

You and Yeosang rushed to one of the cots in the emergency room, having heard Sol’s loud and panicked cries as soon as you entered, and your eyes were flooded with tears at the mere sound. You ripped open the curtain and bundled her up in your arms along with the blanket she had wrapped around herself.

Sol wailed and screamed into your chest while you wept in utter relief and despair that she had been through this. The waves of fear were still passing through the both of you and even though you wanted to pull yourself together for her sake, you couldn’t stop yourself from crying along with her. Just as you had the night you first met her.

Strong arms wrapped around your shoulders and your head rested against Yeosang’s neck. He pulled Sol to his chest, cradling her tightly against his body, closing his eyes and thanking whatever god that had been listening. If the knife hadn’t been there when you needed it, if Logan had been faster, if he hadn’t waited for the both of you to come before killing Sol; those were thoughts he didn’t even want to venture.

Instead, he screwed his eyes shut and raked a gentle hand through your hair as your cries died down. Eventually, the both of you began to soothe Sol, holding her in between the both of you so she could finally feel safety now that she was back in your arms.

Mrs. Kang glanced at the small family on the hospital bed. She watched the way her son tenderly pressed his forehead to yours before kissing you lightly and the way you held onto him for dear life. And then she glimpsed at the frail, little girl sandwiched between the both of you. Her tiny fingers were clutching onto both her parents’ hands tightly while she cried.

She watched her son who she had only then realized had grown up so much as he pulled his little family into a tight hug before she slid the curtains shut, giving you the privacy that you deserved.

***

1 year later

Family vacations used to be small outings that you could afford to take along with Sol. You didn’t need to keep track of much since you only had a small girl to take, and she was usually satisfied with simply going to the fair or even the beach.

But since revealing her existence to your parents, you had made many trips to the countryside, so they had time to meet and play with Sol. She was ecstatic that she had grandparents who lived on a farm, always going with her grandfather to pick fruit and vegetables or with her grandmother to look at the animals.

You had taken Yeosang along with you this time to spend the weekend along with your parents. He had mentioned it to his mother without thinking much of it and she had immediately called you to see if she and her husband could join as well.

And before you knew it, you were having a big family vacation at your parents’ house. It hadn’t been this full since you were a child and a part of you was overjoyed to have that lively environment and energy.

You were curled up on the patio couch beside Yeosang, both of you keeping a close eye on the little girl who was currently coddling a baby cow. The atmosphere was relaxed, your mother was baking a fresh pie and your father was crocheting a beanie for his darling granddaughter. Mr. and Mrs. Kang were also content in their own seats, smiling at the sight of Sol giggling when the calf licked her hand.

“Are you two planning on getting married soon?” Asked Mrs. Kang and you laughed at the immediate groan that left Yeosang’s lips, hiding your giggling face in the crook of his neck. The topic had actually come up after a family dinner when Sol had proclaimed that when she grows up, she wanted to marry him. You had never seen Yeosang more embarrassed in his life.

You both had agreed that you would want to get married sometime but there wasn’t any rush. Afterall, you lived together, raised a child together and spent every waking moment in each other’s company. It wasn’t like much was missing from your life.

“Mom…” Your boyfriend groaned, tilting his head back and missing the way you stared up at him in adoration, but his mother certainly noticed the sparkling stars in your eyes as you looked at her son.

“What? I want more grandbabies.” She defended, watching as Sol began running back to all of you, satisfied with the amount of animal cuddles she had gotten. She climbed into her teacher’s lap, happily telling her all about the cows and wrapping her arms around her neck.

“Sol-ah, don’t you think your auntie and uncle should get married?” Mrs. Kang asked and you almost burst into laughter when she turned to you with a betrayed look on her face.

Nothing happens, the volume of the television in the living room stays the exact same and you hear no hasty footsteps and an angry ‘okay!’ echo through the room either. It seems as though you are alone in your home this time.

It prompts you to get out of the bed yourself, snatching up whatever hoodie you could find at the time and shuffling out of the room to do it yourself. The sun from the open blinds in the living force you to close your eyes for a second to adjust before moving forward, not fully prepared to take on the day and its sunlit weather. Eventually you get used to it, finding the energy to search for both the remote and your housemate.

A few seconds of searching lead you to find a ripped piece of paper on the door of your housemate’s room stuck there with fingerprint marked tape.

Sorry for the sudden disappearance! Slept over a friend's house because my car broke down yesterday and I came over to grab a few things before going to work since I was already late, hope you don’t mind! — your favorite housemate

You snort reading the letter to yourself, snatching the note off of the door. “Don’t mind my ass,” you mutter, shoving the paper into your hoodie’s pockets to be abandoned and searching for the television remote again, “If you were already late then you should have turned the tv off while you were at it.”

You weren’t always this agitated in the mornings, in fact when you and your housemate first met you had specifically told them you were a morning person! But then you learned more about your housemate's little bad habits and started working a night job, only then your morning personality began to change. Now instead of being a morning person, you were much more of a night owl and it was killing you.

“Where is this remote?” You mumble, digging through the couch cushions in search of the troublesome device. You couldn’t handle this volume for a whole day, you’d rather unplug the television than be annoyed for the rest of the day— especially when you worked at the worst hours.

“This just in from a devastating fiasco from last night, a collision on one of the major streets occurred while the city slept,” the headline caught your attention, turning your head from the clawed away cushions to the television screen. There was the newscaster being phased out of view as it showed the nastiest car crash you have possibly seen to date, making you audibly gasp at the sight.

There were two cars on screen, one with its windows shattered into pieces and bending like a willow tree in the spring. Its doors were propped open and hanging about while one of the front tires had rolled off somewhere without the vehicle. The other car was practically fused together with a street lamp, the entire front half of the car crushed by the street lamp and the remaining back half of the car damaged by what seemed like the front bumper of the other one.

“Two cars, one identified as a blue Jaguar F-Type, crashed yesterday night around midnight, fatally killing one of the drivers in the incident. The owner of the Jaguar seemingly fled from the scene after the destruction of first and police are still searching for the suspect. Officers say that this happened as a result of the illegal street racing that has become a frequent activity, this being the fifth crash to occur since the month began.”

Shivers run down your spine at the words the newscaster delivers, finally feeling the remote under your hand and turning off the television immediately. You could never understand how street racing has become such a highly demanded activity nowadays. How badly of a thrill did you need to risk your life not only by being chased by the police but possibly ending yours or someone else’s in a crash that could have been prevented?

It seemed the more prevalent the activity became, the more severe the crashes were becoming too. There was no way you could personally understand someone’s reasoning for it.

“Ugh, just thinking about that crash makes me feel sick to my stomach,” you shiver, shaking your head as you turn to walk back to bed for the needed rest you were craving. “I never want to see it again.”

With that you slump straight back into the bed where you belonged, not even bothering to take the hoodie off even though you know wearing it to sleep makes you sweat. Though the image of the collision was still clear in your mind, refusing to fade no matter how many times you shut your eyes.

Street racing, you wonder why it is becoming such a popular activity in your city. Well you didn’t care too much but the crash wouldn’t leave your head so you couldn’t help but think about it. How does one even get away with keeping the whole street racing thing a secret from family and friends? From the police? From the media even?

It appeared so randomly one day and has been growing continuously since then and yet not a single person could tell you where it was happening and who could possibly be participating in it.

Maybe it was kinda like a fight club type thing, ‘what happens in fight club stays in fight club’! That’s how that movie goes isn’t it?

“Whatever I don’t care,” you tell yourself, pulling your hood over your head and rolling yourself up tightly in between your covers. “That’s not my problem and it doesn’t need to be my problem. People can do whatever they want as long as I’m not involved with it.”

And yet that image of the collision shown on the news won’t leave your head. You are not getting any rest before your shift for sure.

II.

“Y/N!! You have to look at the video of the collision that was posted! It’s so sick!” Changmin shouted, eagerly trying to get your attention.

You grimace to yourself, who decided to send a demon from hell to be your friend?

Changmin had never been one to be phased by gruesome and gory videos seeing as he was an avid horror movie enthusiast, in fact his eyes would go wide with awe every time he came across one he was intrigued by. Unfortunately this one was no different, even if it was a video from something that happened in your daily lives.

“No way am I looking at that video,” you refuse, blocking your view of the phone before he could even get the chance. “Just looking at the aftermath of the crash on the news this morning made me squeamish, plus I’m currently at work right now.”

He rolled his eyes as the last statement fell out of your mouth, putting the phone down for just a millisecond to point out your surroundings. “Are you sure you want to call this ‘working’? Because it sure doesn’t look like it to me.”

And the boy had you there, the small pub you worked your night job in wasn’t as active as it usually is. There were one or two regulars sitting at the bar enjoying a drink by themselves but that was it, there was no one else in the establishment's ambient lights except beside you, Changmin, and the bartender. Even your manager had left for the day because of how slow the night was, maybe it’s because it was a Monday that things are so slow.

“My point still stands,” you continue, crossing your arms and pressing your back deep into the booth seat. “That crash looked like it came from hell itself, why would you ever want to look at the video?”

“Uh… to understand how exactly it happened? Duh!” Changmin grinned, rewinding the video so you could get the full experience. “You can even see the guy before the crash happened! The car started to wobble out of control so out of nowhere he just decides to jump out and then the car spirals—“

“—Stop it!” You hiss at him as he slides over onto your side of the booth, reaching out to show you the video as you simultaneously shove his face away from you. All you could hear was the screeching of tires before the inevitable collision with the Jaguar and then the street lamp. “I don’t know how you can stomach something so… sickening. Even the devil would be scared of you.”

“Y/N, it’s literally just a car crash,” Changmin argued, “it happens all the time, so there’s no reason for you to be so weird about it.”

“Just a car crash?” You scoff, your voice raising a little higher than you intended it to. “Someone died in the video, it’s not something to over analyze and take notes over!”

“Oh are you talking about that crash from last night?” Both of your heads turn toward one of the regulars at the bar, raising his glass of beer to his lips and pulling on his wrinkled tie before speaking again. “Oh, no need to have sympathy for those people, they always have it coming to them.”

You stared back at him in shock as he stepped out of his seat and walked over, gesturing over to an equally surprised Changmin for his phone. You never had full fledged conversations with the regulars like the bartender you worked with did so you don’t know their personalities very well, but was what he said not just extremely insensitive?

You can’t even manage to let out an offended ‘excuse me’ as he looked at the video, nodding his head in agreement with himself. “Yup, just as I thought. Those little menaces are doing it to themselves, they know exactly what they’re getting into when they start doing stupid stuff like this.”

“I don’t think I’m following—“

“Just because you get in a crash doesn’t mean you get sympathy anymore, that’s the price you pay for street racing around the city like a bunch of hooligans.”

Oh that’s right, the newscaster this morning did say that the crash happened because of street racing, didn’t they?

“If they wanted to race so badly, they could have just joined Nascar like normal people instead of joyriding around the city and putting people in danger! But instead they just sign their life away to some stupid street racing gamblers and off they go,” the regular complained, his free hand mimicking the speed of a car zooming down a street. “I’m surprised the police haven't arrested those deviants already…”

“Just because they decide to street racing instead of professional racing doesn’t mean they still don’t deserve sympathy,” you argue, seeing why the regular may feel that way he does but still your morals are firm. You thought the same thing earlier this morning, but the longer you had thought about it the more sympathetic about it you became.

Yeah, street racing is illegal and they shouldn’t be doing it, but if they really just wanted a sense of thrill in whatever mundane life they lived you couldn’t blame them for that. “They are still people who have normal lives during the daytime, you might not even know why they decided to pick up street racing in the first place—!”

“Drop it, Y/N,” Changmin urged, a frown growing evident on his face as you continued to fight back. “It’s just a difference in opinion, it’s okay.”

“But—“ you started but the boy shook his head. You slink a little lower into your seat as Changmin received his phone back from the regular and he politely departed from the conversation. Once the regular was out of ear you leaned over to him and whispered, “what was that about dude? I was totally about to win that argument.”

“I just don’t think it’s worth fighting.” He answered, eying the regular down before continuing. “There’s no way you’re just gonna change someone’s opinion on the street racers in this current climate, you were in a losing battle anyway.”

Soon you shared Changmin frown, crossing your arms against your chest in frustration. You weren’t losing the argument, you were just getting started. Plus what the regular said was extremely offensive to the deceased and their family, you were in the right to get into a fight with him.

There was an awkward silence between the two of you as the television hooked up over the bar took over as the main source of noise. Whatever sport that was playing surely wasn’t that interesting, as you would hear the two regulars who were watching weren’t reacting very much.

“Anyway-“ both of you said at the same time, trying to shake off the weird tension from a moment ago. You gestured to Changmin to go first and he visibly brightened up, a complete switch from his dejected demeanor about the regular’s opinion on the street racers. “Are you busy this weekend? Because I have just the plan for you!”

You think to yourself for a moment about your schedule, you weren’t one to often get out of the house often especially on the weekend since that’s when your sleep schedule really caved in itself.

But you haven’t really hung out with Changmin in a while so…, “Hit me.”

Shaking with excitement, the boy sat up in his seat and began scrolling through his text messages, starting his rambling with, “So Chanhee, right? He doesn’t have the party bone in him because he’s so much more reserved around new people when he’s not with friends. But he got invited to this party happening at this nightclub called the Prism Prix and it’s really hard to get in—“

“—how hard?” You couldn’t help but ask.

“Extremely hard. I’ve only been inside like… twice only because I knew people that frequented it that vouched for me,” he answered in a heartbeat, sliding you his phone to see the text messages between him and Chanhee for proof. “But he’s saying he can bring a plus two and wants someone to watch his back for when his social battery disappears.”

“It sounds like my social battery would die just being ten feet within that place,” you hiss, going from looking through his text messages to looking the night club up.

It seems fairly new, a little cyberpunk with all the neon lights and fancy futuristic furniture, but it looks decent over all. The only problem is that its energy wreaks trouble and that’s only from just looking at the pictures on the website.

“But don’t you wanna have the ability to say you’ve walked into the Prism Prix?” Changmin pushed, “Even if it is just walking up to the door or leaving after ten minutes because Chanhee can’t handle too many people talking to at once.”

“He can barely even handle you,” you offhandedly comment, “so what do I get after attending with you too?”

“Bragging rights?”

“Besides bragging rights.”

“Uh… Chanhee’s friendship and loyalty?”

You roll your eyes as you sit up in your seat and face him completely. “Now you know good and well that those aren’t good enough reasons for me to waste my perfectly good sleep schedule for some stupid party.”

“You better lock your doors people!” One of the regulars suddenly called. When you lifted your head to look at them, both regulars were peering through the window of the pub on the street, their faces pressed up against the glass to get a better view. “Looks like those little racers are going to pass this way!”

“They’re what?” Both you and Changmin call in unison, scrambling over to the window with the regulars to catch sight of the street racers. While you never wanted to be involved with the racers, that doesn’t mean you didn’t want to catch sight of one.

There were no videos, no pictures, no social media posts, about the street racers that were starting to run rampant in the city. The best chance you had at learning about street racers is hoping that you someone knew one offhandedly or catching them actively on the road. No one really wanted the ladder of the options because you never know if you’re going to witness a traumatizing crash or not.

But you take what you can get at this point.

There was faint rumbling off in the distance that slowly became louder as it approached the pub’s general direction, along with bright neon orange, blue and red lights as well. The lights started coming into focus as it got closer and the silhouette of the car was becoming easier to see with every passing second.

“And just as it appeared,” the car zoomed straight past the pub in a flash, only leaving behind a streak of neon orange and black against the moon’s light. “It disappears.” The regular sighed, squinting their eyes to see if they could catch one final glimpse of the vehicle before returning to their spot at the bar. Not long after they left did the police sirens come blaring through the streets, their red and blue lights flashing as they moved at a much slower pace than the first car in an attempt to catch up with them.

Heart pumping with adrenaline you couldn’t help but scramble over to the pub doors and push through them to reach the outdoors. You weren’t satisfied with that, that was such a quick encounter—if you could even call that an encounter at all! “It’s like they just disappeared into thin air,” you breathed, the cold night breeze seeping through your clothes as you stood outside.

Changmin joined you outside, hoping his height would help him see a little farther than you but being met with the same result. “That’s how it is sometimes I guess. It’s almost like trying to see a mythical creature at this point.”

The two of you stood in place for a moment, debating on whether or not you wanted to retreat back into the pub after your failed attempt to catch sight of a street racer.

After debating it in your mind you turned to leave first, not wanting the nighttime weather to get the best of you with the thin uniform you wore. Just as you did though, the revving of an engine from nearby signaled that it was still around and was followed soon after by a neon orange silhouette appearing in the distance again.

“Holy shit, it’s back,” you breathed.

“Get back, get back!” Changmin called, grabbing you by the shirt sleeve and yanking you back as the car from earlier screeched to a sloppy halt right in front of the pub, leaving black tire marks deep in the asphalt road and you and Changmin’s ears ringing.

It disoriented you— the screeching of the tires, the bright orange leds illuminating your faces, and the loud music that was blasting from the car’s speakers. Yet all you could do was stare in awe as the driver’s door opened vertically rather than horizontally and the driver stepped out of his vehicle.

You couldn’t see most of his face since you were practically blinded by lights on his car, but you can tell he was frantic. He barely even stepped away from his car door as he yelled at both of you. “Hey you! You know a shortcut out of the city from here?”

“Shortcut?” You repeated, trying to think clearly enough to give him the answer he needed, “uh… I think if you take the back streets of the city it’ll lead you to a bridge over some river and then straight from there is out of the city? I don’t drive often, but it's just what I’ve noticed.”

“Thanks!” He doesn’t bother giving a proper goodbye, by the time his words even reach your ears the boy is already closing the scissor doors on his car, slamming his foot on the gas pedal and driving straight away with the directions you gave him.

You and Changmin coughed for a moment, the dust his tires had kicked up finally making its way into your nostrils. “Y/N, That was a Mclaren Spider,” Changmin couldn’t help but mention, cautiously stepping out onto the street now that the driver had left.

“Is that an expensive car?” You couldn’t help but ask.

“Y/N, that car cost over two hundred thousand dollars. I literally drive a used Honda Civic.”

III.

So you know that the street racer you had obviously helped earlier in the week hadn’t got caught thanks to you. The police are definitely still actively searching for because apparently he’s a several time offender for street racing and on their wanted list, but they just don’t have the power to catch him.

Every car chase always ends up with the Mclaren— you know now since Changmin identified it for you —getting away in a sick twist of fate. Not only that but they also don’t know what the driver's face looks like or even what his license plate is. Every time they try to go after them the police always look like bumbling fools in the end.

But that’s not really your problem was it? It was a little amusing to know that you had helped someone who was infamously known for escaping the cops though, who knows what might have happened if you and Changmin weren’t standing outside that day to see if you could catch sight of him again. But, like stated before, it’s not really your problem.

The problem ahead was this party you had gotten yourself wrapped into and you needed to focus.

“So why’d they invite you to the party?” You asked Chanhee, leaning against the driver's seat where Changmin sat. You totally went back on your word about going to the ‘stupid party’ the boy had invited you to once the subject of money came out of Chanhee’s mouth.

Now you don’t consider yourself a money grubber but Chanhee gets paid significantly better than you so you’ll never waste a chance to take one of his generous offerings.

Chanhee shrugged in response, fixing his hair in the sun visor mirror before turning in his seat to look at her. “I don’t know, but I think they like my car,” he smiled, his black hair falling perfectly in front of him as he responded. Something about his answer sounded fake, but you couldn’t exactly pin it on what it really was.

But you do know that the boy did in fact have nice cars, thanks to all that money he has tucked away somewhere. They’re all new and shiny and definitely more expensive than the Honda Civic you all were sitting in right now. How does he get it? You don’t know and honestly don’t care, you just want a sliver of it when you get the chance.

“Okay, people! Here’s the plan,” the boy announced as you all got closer to the nightclub in question, its neon lights becoming more prevalent the closer you got. “This is a quick get in-get out— we stay for a little bit, have a drink or two, have fun, then I’ll go greet the host at the 30 minute mark of us being there, and then we book it out of there before I get aggravated and anxious.”

“Don’t forget we need to take a picture outside of the building before we leave,” you added on, “my housemate will kill me if I don’t get a picture, who knew they wanted to go to the Prism Prix too?”

“Change of plans then,” Chanhee nodded, “we stay for a little, I greet the host, we take a picture outside of the building with the sign, then we leave.”

You grin as you peer out the back seat window, the building of Prism Prix coming into full view for all of you to see together.

Chanhee wasn’t surprised by the building since he had been here on numerous occasions, but you and Changmin sat there dumbfounded as the car slowed its pace down into a cruising state to look at the building.

The building was ginormous, covering much more area than you thought it did compared to the pictures on Changmin’s phone. It was practically glowing against the moon as a neon sign of ‘PRISM PRIX’ flashed in big bold letters, lights illuminated the entrance of the night club like it was a lantern in the middle of winter.

There was a large crowd outside of the club doors too, some begging bouncers to let them inside and others simply standing in the long line just to gawk and swoon at the young people who were able to get in. “Every time I come here I feel underdressed, even though it literally is just a nightclub.” Changmin mumbled, his ears turning red with embarrassment of his used Honda Civic.

“You think you feel underdressed?” You couldn’t help but shoot back at him, “I would have loved a warning from our resident frequenter of this place of what this place feels like in person! The pictures didn’t do it justice at all. In fact maybe we should have arrived in one of Chanhee’s cars…”

“You’ll be fine, don’t worry about it! Plus, we are only to be here for like an hour and then we are leaving.” He assured them as Changmin stopped in front of the entrance, “don’t forget to give your keys to the valet so he can park your car.”

With that Chanhee opened the car door and hopped out, leaving the two of you to scramble out of your seatbelts to follow after him. “A valet? Seriously, who are the people who are hosting this party? At this point I want to meet them myself.”

“Trust me,” Changmin sighed, “you don’t want to.”

While the outside of the building was rather overwhelming for people of much more normal status like you and Changmin, the inside felt more familiar to you. It did look and feel like the pictures on the website this time, except for the loud music and flashing neon led lights everywhere. There were people dancing in the middle of the room and there were some people scattered out around the bars and countless tables just having the time of their lives.

The second floor of the building looked a lot quieter compared to the first, sectioned off into a large balcony for those to look over onto the first floor and several rooms that also hung over the first floor with a window to see all the action down below.

It seemed like that’s where Chanhee was heading, slipping away from the two of you and walking the spiraling stairs going up.

“Did he just leave us without a second thought?” You question Changmin, holding onto his shirt sleeve so you don’t lose him within the crowd of people.

“I guess this is the part where we have fun?” He shrugged, frowning to himself as he started to wander about the place. “But it doesn’t look like anyone I actually like hanging around is here right now, after I made an effort to be a little late too…”

Within seconds you had lost sight and control of Changmin, leaving you alone in a nightclub with people you don’t even know. Have fun, he said, well you sure weren’t having fun right now.

But it’s only for an hour, you were only going to be in the Prism Prix for an hour and then you could leave. And even if it ended up being longer than that, Chanhee has the social battery of a cat, he’ll never last the whole night around this crowd.

So in the end you decide to take a seat in the nearest chair you could find, a circle booth, making sure you sat at the very edge so you wouldn’t be trapped there if someone tried to approach you and people watched.

The more you watched the more you realized the group of people that were present in the Prism Prix were a part of a specific clique. The way they spoke, the way they moved, the way they acted, even the way they dressed is something you’d never see in your daily life. Even your housemate would have a hard time fitting in with this group because of how particular it was.

The atmosphere held the scent of money to it, old and new money to be exact. Those who had come into power through whatever means even if it meant to sell their soul and those who simply grew up with it and felt the need to spend it on the first thing they deemed as interesting. And then there was the niche group that was accepted into this clique, not the plus ones or twos: but those who earned the money of the new and old money.

In fact, there was a distinct difference between the two even more than that: One smelled of money and one smelled of diesel gasoline.

But why was it diesel gasoline specifically?

“I’ve never seen you before,” you jump clean out of your skin, getting out of your seat and turning to face the unfamiliar voice. There leaning against the table with his head resting in the palm of his hands was a boy, looking around the same age as you and looking at you with his moonlike eyes. “You new here?”

“Yes,” you compose yourself, still shocked you hadn’t even noticed him approach you while you were people watching. You looked him up and down for a second, taking note of the black on black clothes and studded leather jacket he adorned— and also the distinct smell of gasoline that was almost intoxicating being mixed up with whatever cologne he had put on before arriving.

“My friend brought me here as one half of his plus two, but as you can see,” gesturing to the empty booth you were sitting at. “My friend and the other half are currently nowhere to be found.”

He let out a low chuckle, his pink lips curving into a smile as he listened to you. “So you’ve been ditched, huh?” He questioned, tilting his head to look at you through his curly hair, his face glowing against blue and purple led lights flashing against his skin.

“Ditched?” You nearly choke, the words sour on your tongue and echoing through your skull. “No I wasn’t ditched, I’m just waiting for them to come back. There’s a difference.”

“Sure, keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better,” he teased, sliding into the seat on the other side of you now that he was invested in your conversation. “When they come back later saying they forgot all about you then that’ll be a different story to tell.”

You weren’t enjoying him poking fun at the fact that both Chanhee and Changmin and both abandoned you in an instant, but you could brush it aside for the fact that he was stunning to look at. Even with all the flashing colors distorting your vision and the music forcing the both of you to raise your voice just to hear each other.

It’s not like you’d ever see him again either, so you were going to enjoy this moment while it lasted.

“My friends aren’t those kinds of people, we have a plan devised just for being here. This is just…,” you started off, trying to think of the right word, “phase one of it, the part where we are supposed to be having fun.”

The boy slid over to your side of the booth, his breath hot on your neck as he leaned in and whispered, “are you having fun then?” Your senses essentially deactivated themselves when the scent of gasoline and cologne become entangled with yours and his voice is ringing in your head so hard that you can barely make the formulate your next sentence in your head.

Your flustered expression is all he needs for an answer as he leaned in again with a cheeky grin settled upon his face, his distinct smell flooding your space once again like a poison. “What’s your name?”

The universe doesn’t let you answer him. Once you open your mouth to respond, blinking your eyes furiously to not get drowned in the way the boy looked and spoke, the words don’t exactly go tumbling out of your mouth. Instead the speakers of the night club started blaring a record scratch in the overhead music before switching songs and a new voice booming over the music to address someone in the crowd.

“Well look who decided to show their face!” The DJ exclaimed, drawing everyone’s attention toward him as he parted the sea of people at the dance floor just by waving his finger. “It’s the illusive wildfire driver, never once caught by the cops and never once backed out from a challenge.”

Everyone turns toward the boy you’re sitting with and cheering and hollering at the top of their lungs, nearly deafening you with their volume. You put your hands over your ears and brace yourself for a horrible sleep tonight— and possibly your housemate not having the television on the highest possible volume they can make it in the morning.

The boy pulled away from you once he realized he was being spoken to, sliding onto the other side of the booth in a flash. “How nice of you to call me out like this,” he grimaced, unable to hide his annoyance with the DJ after having his conversation with you rudely interrupted. “I’d love to have a nice chat with you right now but I was clearly doing, oh I don’t know, something else?” The boy answered, gesturing toward you and him.

Immediately the crowd gets the wrong idea, whistling and jeering at the two of you like you had something actually going on between the two of you. “Oh? Is the wildfire driver backing down from a challenge for a new girl he’s met? Everyone, please, give him a round of applause, our boy’s got game!”

Both you and the boy sink into your clothes a little bit, severely embarrassed by the scene that seemed to be setting up without your consent. You cover your face with one hand and feel like you’re going to melt into a puddle under all this unwanted attention. Oh what you wouldn’t kill for a distraction to get the attention off of you.

“Hey, cut it out,” he managed to get out of his mouth, but was unable to control the crowd’s rowdiness. You catch the side of his ears burning a flushed red and turn your head to see a group of boys dressed similarly to him approaching with devilish smiles on their faces and you’re prepared to dig yourself your own diy grave. “I said cut it out!”

When you finally get a good look at the boy sitting in front of you, his face is practically fuming red hot, but not with anger, but with embarrassment. Eventually he even ends up letting his head fall completely to the table and scratching the nape of neck to try and calm himself down.

These people really have no mercy when it comes to teasing their so-called “wildfire driver”.

You swallow your pride and turn to face the DJ, mentally psyching yourself to tell them to back off when the shrill shriek of someone going “the cops are coming!!” echoes through the Prism Prix building.

And it sparks chaos around the entirety of the Prism Prix as the statement settled into the club goers minds.

It’s not like they had been doing anything illegal or life threatening, but it still freaked out everyone to the point where the unanimous decision was to flee the building immediately.

There’s so much screaming and running around that you can barely process what the sudden warning was. Everyone from the attendees to the staff inside the nightclub is fleeing for their lives and pushing aside anyone to make it out without getting caught. You leap to your feet once you gain at least a semblance of the situation and scan the crowd for both Chanhee and Changmin.

They are your ride home, if you can’t find them then you’re stuck in the Prism Prix or will have to walk all the way home and you are very far from home.

Everything is starting to phase together into one ugly blurry color and you can't figure out one thing from another. It’s even louder than it was earlier with the music and teasing and it’s making your head spin like you’re on a carousel ride that just won’t stop twirling. “Oh shit.”

“No time to wait,” the voice of the boy echoed through your ears before you could register what was happening. He had grabbed your wrist and pulled you alongside him toward an exit of the Prism Prix so you wouldn’t be found stumbling when the police arrived.

“Wait but my friends—“ you stop in your tracks to turn the other way, but the boy doesn’t let you even risk it.

“Do you want to be caught by the police?” He asked you, and you shook your head no. “Then I’m going to have to get you out of here myself, you’ll have to find them later. Just tell me where to take you so I can get you out of here.”

You let him drag you along now, he clearly knows this place a lot better than you. You would have instinctively gone searching for the front door and been caught by the police once they arrived, but it seems like the boy was leading you toward one of the back doors of Prism Prix, where all the staff escape through instead.

You two take a sharp turn around the corner the moment you push the double doors open, the boy slowly letting his grip on you loosen as he searches for something behind the building. The only thing you can do is follow him and hope he’s not leading you to either your imprisonment or death, you literally have no other way to get home right now.

“Oh by the way,” he begins, taking several deep breaths to regain his stamina from running out of the building, “I don’t think I ever caught your name because of that mess in there.”

Is this really the time to be sharing pleasantries with each other? Regardless, you answer, “Y/N, and yours?”

He stops in his tracks to face you, almost like he’s embracing your name so that he can remember it for later. A valet rushes to his side at the same time, stopping half way to toss him the keys to a car before dashing off for safety. “Sunwoo,” he introduces, grabbing the keys and pressing the unlock button behind him, “Kim Sunwoo, it’s nice to meet you, Y/N.”

You squint at the sudden bright flash of light stinging your eyes before turning fully toward the vehicle he gained access to with escalating levels of shock. It was the McLaren Spider that Changmin had identified earlier in the week that was on the run from the police. Sunwoo was the owner of the black McLaren car, the sports car that costs over two hundred thousand dollars.

“What are you standing there looking stupid for?” He asked, gesturing to the opened scissor doors. “Get in.”

You nodded your head in your dazed state, slumping down into the low riding car’s leather seats as soon as you gained control of your body and pulling the door closed. The moment your mind registered the fact that you were in the car your eyes started to wander around the car’s interior.

It was very obviously a convertible, given the way the roof of the car looked like it had been recently attached on, and the inside matched with outside with an onyx black layered around the leather seats. There was no stick shift, just a few buttons in the middle where it usually would be found.

As soon as he put the key into ignition the vehicle roared to life. It growled fiercely as the inside of the car lit up with a low dim neon orange lining the entirety of the interior from the dashboard to the spoiler of the car outside.

There was no music this time either, there wasn’t any time to turn it on when they needed to get out of Prism Prix’s premises as soon as possible. “Hey, how do you feel about roller coasters on a scale of like… one to ten?” Sunwoo asked, finally settling into his car and putting his hands on the steering wheel.

“Uh… I don’t know, like— uh, six?”

“Good enough for me!” Without warning he revved up his engine and pressed the drive button where the stick shift should have been, slamming his foot on the gas pedal.

Both of you lurched forward as the car sprung into action, shooting toward the wall of the next building over. You’re practically holding a scream as he hard turns the steering wheel, the tires screeching against the concrete as the back of the car just barely misses the wall of the next building and dashed out toward the main road.

“Oh my god, you’re crazy,” you just barely get out, holding onto your seatbelt for dear life. You will yourself to look out the window to catch sight of the Prism Prix, watching as all the people scatter like roaches to not get caught. A few stop and stare at the car that appeared from an alleyway, but ultimately choose their livelihood over gawking.

“Don’t worry we are just getting started!” Sunwoo grinned, doing an unceremoniously large u-turn to get the car on the right side road and speeding down it in a flash. Everything outside of the car whizzed by in a blur of colors as the speed dial on his dashboard only continues to rise in numbers.

Any sort of attractiveness you’ve held with this boy is completely gone now, you’re only thought now is if you should write a will while you’re still alive in the passenger’s seat. The way Sunwoo takes every sharp turn in existence has you being thrown on either of the convertible each time it happens.

His sudden brakes literally send the car jerking forward and make you want to vomit out of the window.

The way he bobs and weaves through the other cars on the street like they are traffic cones makes you nauseous and your head spin.

The way he will drive in literal reverse just to taunt the people behind him like he isn’t wanted by the police makes you want to pull your hair out.

Sunwoo isn’t only a hazard to people around, he’s a hazard to himself!

“If you don’t start driving like there is a second person in this car sitting in your passenger’s seat,” you threatened, one hand gripped tightly on the boy’s leather studded jacket and the other on the neon illuminated door handle, “then I will crash this car and take both of us out myself.”

“Don’t worry, there’s no more speeding to happen. We are almost there!” He gleamed with an unusual sense of excitement radiating off of him. “This is your apartment, right? I’ll just park—”

“Do not park in front of my apartment!” You shout without thought, your whole body shaking with such vigor you were sure that the boy would be able to see it. “Just park right here and I’ll go the rest of the way on my own.”

Sunwoo didn’t argue with you, only shrugging his shoulders and doing exactly as you asked. Finally the hell machine was slowing down and you felt your soul fly back into your body. This would be the last time you’ll ever ride in the car with Sunwoo, no, the last time you’ll ever even have your interest piqued by street racing! This isn’t a lifestyle or a hobby you could ever find yourself indulging in, you didn’t have the heart nor the soul to try it again.

When the boy finally parked next to the curb not too far from your apartment, you jumped out of your seat in a heartbeat. You swayed on the ground for a second, your body teetering from left to right and resisting the urge to puke up everything you had eaten in the day, but you didn’t.

You stood back up on what you could only assume was two stable legs and closed the door behind you. You were leaving this lifestyle to those who chose it, you were never going to see the boy again. Now whether it was a good riddance moment or not, who knows.

“Hey Y/N!” You heard him call and nearly topple over from exhaustion. You look at him and catch the boy leaning over the center console with his window rolled down to talk to you. “I hope next time we meet it isn’t so chaotic. Running from the police isn’t my idea of—“

“Sunwoo,” you manage to muster, though your look at sheer displeasure conveys all you need him to know. “Go home, now.”

IV.

“Can you believe we’ve gone a full two weeks without a terrible collision!” You hear your manager exclaim from behind you, basking under the light of the moon at the news. “Gosh, I can’t believe this city is finally getting an ounce of peace for once!”

It was another slow night for the pub, a few of the regulars coming by for their drinks and a couple of new faces appearing with their friends ready to experience a new place. But besides that it was rather quiet, leaving you and your coworkers amble time to sit around and chit chat with each other until your shifts were over.

The bartender was never one to talk much so he’d simply listen in as you and your manager did all the talking just like you were now. “We haven’t had a car crash in awhile but they still haven’t caught the person who was driving that Jaguar from the last one,” you pointed out, the image of the crash still vivid in your brain despite it being behind old news.

“Well yeah, but what can you do about all of that? No one even knows where the street racing even starts,” she shrugged, brushing off your comment to ramble on about something else. “If they could just find out where they hold those little meetings then I can drive my car around in peace!”

It’s amazing how secretive the people who partake in street racing were, loyal to the cause of keeping information outside of the media’s hands. It was the only reason the whole activity still wasn’t shut down despite the two weeks of no crashes. Maybe they had just decided to become a little safer on the road to get the police off of their backs but you highly doubted it.

After all, the last time you got in the car with a street racer he didn’t seem to care about the fact that there was an innocent and inexperienced passenger in his car.

“The officer thought Prism Prix was the place,” the bartender mentioned, nodding toward you since it was already known that you had been present at the nightclub when they came. “But when they searched, it was just a regular nightclub.”

“That’s right, Y/N!” Your manager gasped, spinning on her heels to face you. “I never even thought of asking you, how do you get out of that place?”

You let an awkward laugh roll out of your mouth, fumbling with a strand of hair as you tried to come up with a white lie. There was no way you were going to tell your coworkers you left speeding with one of the racers in the passenger seat of McLaren.

“I went with some friends so we met up outside and got into his car before the police arrived,” you lied, though there was a little bit of truth to the statement. “Honestly, I don’t remember a lot about what happened, it all happened so fast and I was tired from all the noise.”

“Oh that’s right, you’re not very fond of noise are you,” your manager frowned, letting out a long and strenuous huff as she stepped away from the two of you. “I really thought I hit a gold mine of information about the Prism Prix! This sucks!”

You roll your eyes at their reaction, looking to the bartender for some semblance of agreement with you. Though the moment you turned your head to look at him he had already turned his back on you and was attending to one of the regulars sitting across from you.

You don’t blame them for wanting to get information on what exactly happened in the Prism Prix because it wasn’t being fed to the media like most news does.

All that news outlets were able to provide to people was that late that night the police arrived on the scene to shut the place down for having dealings with the organizers of the street races, but when they got there everything was proven false. Most people felt skeptical of the conclusion, however, but there wasn’t a way for people to actually know if someone was lying or not.

Yet here you are with the first hand experience of what exactly happened at the Prism Prix two weeks ago and the excuse you threw around was that ‘you left with friends before the police got there because it was too noisy for you’. If you were on the other side of the boat, you too would be rather irritated that you couldn’t get your hands on the full drama.

“Woah, do you see what just parked on the curb?” You overheard someone say, your nosiness getting the best of you and looking at a pair sitting in one of the booths by the window.

One of them gasped in shock as she pressed her face against the glass of the window— something seem to enjoy doing here —and eagerly waved at her friend. “Someone literally has my dream car out there!”

Cars, street racing, driving! You were getting sick of hearing about anything related to driving.

Though, just because you were getting sick of hearing about cars doesn’t mean you weren’t curious enough to look at what they were talking about.

You could easily identify the car that the woman was talking about, catching sight of a shiny yellow Camaro that was parked in front of the pub. You weren’t one for cars but man was that a nice looking vehicle, making you wonder what kind of model it was specifically and why the hell it was parked outside the tiny little pub you worked in.

Changmin could probably tell you the model like how he identified the McLaren, but you were left to wonder the answer to your second question yourself.

You stayed by the window for just a bit longer before slowly backing away, your eyes slowly getting wider and wider as more cars began to pull up beside the yellow Camaro and their drivers getting out to finally greet each other. “Oh no, I’m not dealing with that,” you ultimately decide, walking backward until your back collides with the bar table behind you.

You claw your way behind the bar to be greeted by the bartender staring down at you with the most amount of emotion you’ve ever seen on his face since you started working at the pub.

“What are you doing,” his statement doesn’t even come off as a question, only filled with slight disgust that you’d even dare try and invade his space.

“The people who are about to come in,” you explained, “I can’t serve them, there’s no way I can. I’d rather die than have to face them.”

“What do you mean you can’t serve them, that’s your job.” His tone was getting colder by the second, leaving you with little hope for getting any sympathy from him. “Get up and get to work before our manager sees you hiding like a child.”

You tug on your hair in frustration, grabbing hold of his shirt sleeve and pulling him down to your level so you can whisper to him. “Listen, this is extremely important. Can you please just handle them until they leave? I can't serve those people.”

“Y/N—“ your coworker began but you hushed him as soon as you heard the door to the pub open up and a group entered, disrupting the calm atmosphere with their loud voices. Instantly you get the scent of gasoline hitting your nose and you’ve become desperate to get out of the pub.

“One of the people in that group I met at Prism Prix,” you whisper to the bartender, watching as his unamused glare suddenly began to turn into a look of subtle surprise. “Some interesting things happened and I really don’t have the energy to face this situation right now so just do me a solid just this once? You know I’m the best coworker you have here.”

The bartender seemed as though he were deep in thought for a second, making it hard to discern what he was thinking through his facial expressions. Yet he lifted himself back up to his full height and quietly greeted the group that had entered the building.

“Welcome, take a seat wherever you like.”

You weren’t banking on your coworker being that interested in your personal drama during your time in Prism Prix but you’re so glad he is.

You peered from behind the bar table to see if anyone had any wandering eyes and thankfully that didn’t seem to be the case. The group seemed to be preoccupying themselves as they took a seat wherever they wanted, laughing and talking about whatever they had been doing just before arriving. You could hear him— the boy that had driven you that is —practically full body laughing at whatever his friends had mentioned.

You didn’t bother trying to eavesdrop on their conversation, whatever they were talking about wasn’t as important as staying hidden and not having to face the boy waiting on the other side.

After all you said it yourself, there was no way you’d get yourself involved with street racers again. It was just too much to handle for your faint heart.

So that’s where you stayed for the next twenty minutes or so, cowering behind the bar table with the bartender while the group of boys stayed and chatted the time away. Luckily it was getting later into the night so they were the last people to even walk into the pub, you couldn’t imagine how awkward that would have been for you to get up from your hiding spot and awkwardly serve them while they were still there.

Every so often you’d tap your coworker’s leg, asking for a drink to help keep your sanity and he'd give you an irritated scowl that would hold over your thirst for the next few minutes. The group you were hiding from would get rowdy from whatever conversation they were having and you’d have a small panic attack every time they called over the bartender for more of whatever they were ordering but eventually it stopped.

At last, the group had finally paid for themselves and left around the same time the pub was closing for the night.

You jumped up from your spot on the ground, letting out a long and deep sigh of relief now that you were free. “Thank you so much for doing— Oh my god!”

You nearly tumble straight into the bartender's wares behind you as you are greeted by a smiling Sunwoo, biting on the straw of whatever drink was in his hands and sitting at the bar table. “So it was you who gave me directions outside the city that one time? Who would have known we’ve already met each other.”

“How— how did you know—?”

“I saw you from the window when I first arrived with my friends,” the boy nonchalantly answered, gesturing his head toward your coworker as he spoke, “I could only guess where you had disappeared off to, but the delayed reaction of the bartender to our presence let me know exactly where you were hiding.”

There goes not getting involved with street racers again.

“Is he the…?” Your coworker alluded, both to the street racer that passed by the pub two weeks ago and your situation at the Prism Prix.

“What— no! I mean, well— have a goodnight! Close up for me, thanks!” You spluttered out, side stepping out of the bar table with a strained smile on your face. As you walked away from the bartender you grabbed a hold of one of the several chains that hung on Sunwoo’s neck and pulled him away against his will.

Not that he was really fighting it though, he simply let you drag him and gave the bartender a friendly wave before being shoved outside of the pub doors.

There was the McLaren you had rode parked a little further up the curb, all of the familiar neon lights turned off and shrouding the black car in darkness. Why couldn’t he have just left with the rest of the group like a normal person? “What do you want?”

“That’s a rude way to greet a friend after you haven’t seen them for a week.” He commented, “or at least I hope we’re friends, I liked your personality when we were talking back at Prism Prix.”

“No, we aren’t friends,” you spit out immediately, regretting it when Sunwoo recoiled from your tone of voice. “No— I mean… we barely know each other, you can’t really consider me a friend.”

“Acquaintances?” He perked up instantly, his eyes swirling with anticipation.

You hesitated for a second before ultimately caving in and rolling your eyes, “Sure I guess acquaintances work, but that’s not the point! The point is, don’t take this the wrong way, I don’t really want to be involved with you so I’d rather not see you again, ever.”

The boy blinked a few times as the words settled in his mind, his brows knitted together in confusion. “You don’t want to be… involved with me? Did I do something wrong? Oh, did I say something wrong? I was so sure that we are on the same page back at Prism Prix—“

“— we were definitely on the same page,” you interrupted, the words coming much more naturally than you would have wanted it to come off. “But you have a hobby that’s… how do you say… off putting and I don’t have the heart to handle it.”

The two of you stared at each other for a moment, unsure of whether or not you could understand what the other was talking about until a lightbulb switched on in Sunwoo’s head.

“Oh… are you talking about how I’m a street racer?”

“Yes! You drive like a maniac, it's terrifying!” You shout, hoping that your desperation is getting your point across. “I don’t want to be friends with someone who drives like they aren’t a walking hazard sign, that’s scary! I thought I was going to die.”

The boy scoffed at your accusations, crossing his arms against his chest as he got in your face, “well that’s not very fair of you to say! I don’t always drive like that, in fact when I’m racing I’m even more careful than I am driving normally! I’m just one of the most wanted offenders on the police's radar so of course I drive a little recklessly when they get involved.”

“That’s not an excuse!”

“Yours isn’t a very good reason to not like me either!”

You both stood there in silence, huffing and puffing while being red in the face with frustration. You had gotten so engrossed in your argument that you didn’t even notice that Sunwoo was deep within your personal space that he was hovering over you, his moonlike eyes twitching with anticipation for your next retort and his curly brown hair dangling over his forehead.

Not to mention that infuriatingly intoxicating smell of gasoline and cologne that clung to him like it was his own skin.

You took a moment to step back, any closer to him and you might actually hear his heart beating in his chest. “Prove it to me then.” You demanded, pointing over to the parked McLaren car to divert his gaze elsewhere. “Show me that you don’t actively drive like a psychopath and then I’ll consider us friends.”

Sunwoo glanced between you and the car, thinking about his options and their possible outcomes before making his decision. “Okay then, you’ve got a deal! But you have to let me prove myself in my own way, not by whatever standards you already have in your head, got it?”

You nod without hesitation, “deal.”

V.

This was the single worst decision you think you’ve ever made, and that’s saying a lot.

Let Sunwoo prove himself in his own way instead of through your standards? Why would you let him do that, he’s literally supposed to prove that he’s a careful person to you so why would he do it on his own accord? That’s doing the opposite of what you were asking of him.

Now he’s got you out here standing on the curb side of your apartment waiting for him to pick you so that you could do whatever he planned with that mischievous grin of his. “I should just go back inside,” you hissed, glancing behind you at the apartment building you lived in then. “This is a waste of time.”

As if you could actually just waltz back in there like everything was fine. Your housemate was home today, they watched you walk out of the house after lying to them and saying that Changmin and Chanhee were coming to pick you up. If you walked back in there now you would definitely be bombarded with prying questions.

Those two aren’t the type to just abandon their plans! Trust me, they just don’t give off that vibe. What’s actually going on right now?

You shook your head in frustration, you really weren’t left with a lot of options were you? Now you are going to be stuck in a car with that lunatic again—

The sound of an engine's low hum flooded your thoughts, bringing your wandering mind back to reality as you watched an unfamiliar car pull up to your side of the road.

Although you have seen the car before, it just wasn’t familiar in the sense that Sunwoo’s McLaren was familiar. It was the yellow Camaro that had just pulled up to the pub the day before, right before the rest of the cars and Sunwoo arrived on the scene.

Your face contorted with confusion as the window rolled down to reveal a brown haired boy in the driver’s seat, playing with one of the blond streaks dyed in his hair before turning to you with a wide childish looking grin. “Are you, uh,” he paused for a moment to glance over at his phone in the cup holder, “Y/N by any chance?”

“Yes…?”

“Ooh, alright! I’m a pretty good guesser!” He gushed, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel to make a tune and urging you to come with him. “Hop on in! Sunwoo sent me to get you.”

“He couldn’t just get me himself?” You questioned, compelled to sit in the passenger seat by the boy’s puppy dog demeanor.

“That’s what I was saying,” the boy complained, laying his head down on the steering wheel and frowned, “but he was like ‘no Eric, I need you to get her because she doesn’t trust me!’ or something like that. It’s such a hassle to drive all the way out here the way we are going is out of the city.”

Huh, you guess that makes sense. After all, you were the one who told Sunwoo you didn’t want to be associated with him because of his street racing hobby. “So… your name is Eric?”

“That’s me!” He grinned, switching the stick shift into driving and stepping on the gas. You were wholeheartedly expecting the Camaro to jolt forward with unforgiving speed, but the two of you were placed in an easy going cruise down the road. “Sunwoo’s best and closest friend, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Despite being Sunwoo’s ‘best and closest friend’ he drove a lot differently to the street racer.

Eric drove with complete control over his race, sure it was certainly a speed faster than let’s say… Changmin and his Honda Civic but there was a sense of control and easygoingness that the boy just didn’t possess. His turns were a little wide but not as starkly sharp and his eyes were constantly watching out for the other drivers on the road and not just himself.

Not to mention that Eric’s car wasn’t illuminated by any neon lights. There were barely any personal customizations made to it, it simply looked like a nice yellow Camaro. He kept the inside of the vehicle looking brand new too, barely any markings that made it look like it had been used beforehand.

Well, beside the evident dirt footprints made at the bottom of the passenger seat’s door.

If Sunwoo could drive like this then maybe you wouldn’t be so bothered by him.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” you began, staring out of the window and noticing how you were beginning to leave the city behind you. “Where are we going exactly?”

Eric opened his mouth to explain but then quickly slapped one hand over his hand mouth, an expression of concern donning his face. “Sunwoo didn’t tell you?” When you shook your head in response, you could hear the boy quietly cursing and as his eyes darted in between you and his phone. “Okay so… that complicates things.”

You blinked a few times at his words, “I don’t think I’m following you?”

“I’d much rather you hear this from Sunwoo than me,” he tried to explain, the Camaro slowly accelerating in speed as he started to ramble, “I mean he’s the one who decided this was the way he wanted to handle his situation with you so it's only fair that you hear it out of his mouth and not a second hand person!”

“Eric—“

“— I mean I don’t wanna get in the middle of whatever you have going on, you know?” He continued on ranting like his life depended on it. You snake your hand out to hold the roof handle with a tight grip, nervously staring out at the long stretch of road you two were on as he got faster. “You may not trust Sunwoo all that much but I’m a pretty decent guy! I don’t want you to make me prove myself. I want to be on your good side.”

“Eric—!”

“—I really don’t want you to hate me so I really think you should just wait until we get there so Sunwoo can explain. I know it sounds like I’m just throwing him under the bus but I really just—“

“Eric!” You finally shout, your head spinning from the boy’s non stop talking and the Camaro’s roaring engine. “Pay attention to the road, you’re going way too fast!”

“Okay fine, I’ll say it!” He finally owned up, slamming his foot on the brakes as the car came to an abrupt stop. Both of you lurched forward due to the sheer force of the Camaro, thankful for the invention of seatbelts that kept you tied down to your seats. “Sunwoo told me to take you to the Thrill Ride because I thought he told you already so I wouldn’t have to do it!”

“What are you talking about?” You breathed, struggling to keep up with Eric’s words and thoughts as they were flowing out of his mouth. “He’s taking me to what? And why didn’t you want to tell me? I’m so… so lost right now.”

The boy slumped up against the steering wheel and ran his hands nervously through his hair. “The Thrill Ride is where all those street racing events start and we’re members of it but we’re not usually supposed to tell people about it because it’s, of course, illegal and most of the people who participate are wanted by the police.”

Eric gave you his best puppy dog eyes in an attempt to lessen the potential outburst that you could lash out on him. You blinked once, then twice, before a laugh threatened to spill out of your mouth once his words finally settled in your mind.

The Thrill Ride was the organization that held the street races that plagued your city? The Thrill Ride was the organization that let their participants crash and die several times in one week just for a bit of fun? The Thrill Ride was who the police were searching for at the Prism Prix?

And Sunwoo, with all the little things swirling in that thick skull of his, decided he was going to bring you to the Thrill Ride in order to gain your trust so you could be friends?

You can’t tell if you’re going to have a panic attack or a manic episode, maybe something that’s right in the middle of it.

“I’m going,” you begin, starting to bite your nails as a weak smile spreads across your lips, “to lose my mind. This man is purposely driving me insane.”

The rest of the car ride to the Thrill Ride is eerily quiet, both you and Eric too engrossed in your own thoughts and worried to even try and make a conversation with each other. The boy was too embarrassed to even look at you through the corner of his, his eyes glued to the road and his hands gripped onto the steering wheel with a nervous shake.

You were simply trying to calm yourself down before you faced the boy, not wanting to absolutely punch him in the face the moment you saw his moonlike eyes at the Thrill Ride. Every single intrusive thought a person could think of was rattling around in your skull and you couldn’t find a clear thought you could reach out and grab yet.

You hoped that once you arrived at the Thrill Ride Sunwoo wasn’t surrounded by any of his friends, you were bouncing between the ideas of slapping him as hard as you physically could muster or cussing him out as soon as his hair came into view.

“Y/N, we are here.”

Eric’s voice sends you spiraling out of your thoughts, snapping your head up to take a look at your new surroundings.

There was no sign to signal that it was Thrill Ride, just a large washed out white building with multiple floors and windows. It looked rather old, like the building had been standing in that place for much longer than you’ve been alive, but it still had a taste of life to it. After all, there were cars parked sporadically outside of the building and people walking in and out of the double door entrance.

Some of the floors of the building had their lights on and movement could be seen through shadows in the closed blinds and somewhere in the area the snarling revving engines rumbled in the distance with muffled cheering in the background. “How have the police not found this place…?”

“The cops think that street racing is being centralized in the city,” Eric explained as he parked in the grass not too far from the Thrill Ride building. “But what they don’t realize is that outside of their own city’s outskirts just an hour away is this building that was left here to rot, so Thrill Ride took it over as one of their bases of operations.”

“One?”

“You think the street racing is going to stop if just one building of Thrill Ride is seized?” Eric chuckled, easing back into the playful persona he had earlier in the drive. “That’s why Thrill Ride makes its drivers and gamblers sign a contract to keep the information classified.”

You nodded your head in understanding before you turned your head to him again, “wait wouldn’t that mean you and Sunwoo broke your contracts then?”

“Well,” he shrugged, a knowing smile on his face as he stepped out of the Camaro. “There are some exceptions to the contract too. Come on! I’ll show you around before Sunwoo gets here.”

You try to rush after him, cursing at the seatbelt that refused to unbuckle and scrambling out of the Camaro’s door to catch up to him when it did. Eric was a street racer as well, so the liveliness that the building radiated was energizing him to the fullest. His strides were strong and confident while he guided you toward the Thrill Ride building and the people who around seemed to notice this fact the instant he walked past.

Just before you entered the double doors after Eric, the scene of gasoline and cologne hit your nose. You paused with the door held wide open in your hands, not even bothering to alert your current tour guide that you had stopped following after him. Your grip on the door handle only gets tighter as you hear footsteps rushing up behind you and Eric finally realizes you're not with him anymore.

“Hey Y/N!” The sound of Sunwoo’s voice nearly sends you into a frenzy, turning on your heels to face him with a low growl rumbling in your throat. And yet despite how furious you had been while sitting in the passenger seat of Eric’s car, your temper was subdued at the mere sight of him.

If there was one thing about Sunwoo that you hated the most, it's that he’s far too attractive for his own good.

He stood only a few feet behind you, spinning the keys to his McLaren around one finger while the other hand was shoved deep into the pockets of his faded leather pants. The breeze of the night time hair tousled his curly hair and the collar of his black dress shirt that was dangerously close to being one unbutton one too many times. “Did you just get here?”

You wanted to punch him, you wanted to wrap your hands around his neck until he couldn’t breathe anymore. Yet here comes that distinctive gasoline and cologne that makes your heart do its own race. “Yeah.”

Sunwoo let the keys twirl around his finger for a little while longer before they fall in his palm, slinging an arm around your shoulder as he points forward. “So Eric hasn’t even given you the rundown of the place? Well we gotta do that before we get to the main attraction of today!”

“The main attraction?” You question, inhaling the entirety of his smell and nearly going weak at the knees. You know the gasoline scent is something that all the street racers held but… his was just too strong for you to handle.

“Sunwoo is making his own unofficial race,” Eric explained, slowing his pace so that he could keep up with the both of you. “It’s just us and a couple of friends that’ll be there in the race so no need to worry about onlookers and bets placed on our names. It’s just all in some good fun!”

“And let’s not forget the real reason that I’m doing all of this,” Sunwoo stated, flicking your forehead in the middle of his sentence, “proving to you that my little street racing hobby isn’t going to stop us from being friends, isn’t that right Y/N?”

“Get off of me,” you finally hissed, shoving the boy off of you to finally get a breath of air that wasn’t poisoned with his presence. The boy only laughed at your reaction before giving you a serious tour of Thrill Ride.

It wasn’t serious per se— more like a quick rundown of what each floor is for.

The first floor acted as a lobby for all visitors and drivers. They’d watch one of the races that were being held at the Thrill Ride or sign up to partake in their events. There was a section somewhere on the first floor behind a desk where people would sign the contracts to keep Thrill Ride a secret and become drivers like Sunwoo and Eric, but that spot on the first floor wasn’t as frequented as the rest.

The second floor was for the visitors who liked to gamble on the races, it gave them a birds eye view of the drivers below before the races started so they could place their bets on who they thought would win. Eric advised you to never walk through the second floor doors, the gamblers tend to be slimy with their tactics to take advantage of others. Sunwoo also mentioned they don’t really respect the driver’s they are betting on either.

The third floor was like a smaller and less grand Prism Prix, a simple bar with some chairs scattered around with led lights wrapped around the perimeter of the walls. It wasn’t active now, but when the more popular drivers would get into races this would be where ‘after parties’ were often held. Not something you’d be interested in because of your avid hatred for too much noise.

And finally, the fourth floor of the building was used for sponsors of the drivers. They’d fund the street racers with whatever money they had so that they could afford those wild modifications and expensive cars that always end up on the street— for example: Sunwoo’s McLaren Spider and, ironically, the Jaguar that caused the crash a few weeks ago.

“Now let me introduce you to my people,” Sunwoo started, alluding to the group that had driven up to the pub the other day. “I would say that they don’t bite but… they can get a little rowdy at times, you remember those boys that were approaching me at the Prism Prix? That’s them.”

“Wait? That was you sitting next to him?” Eric shouted, though you heavily ignored his voice in order to save yourself from the embarrassment. It wasn’t going to last for long though, you were going to walk straight into the lion’s den meeting the rest of his friend group.

You pushed the doors open to be greeted by the moon’s weak glow and dim stars illuminated a man made path settled down under your feet. On either side of you was a set of shiny bleachers stacked high up against the walls of Thrill Ride in order to harbor people.

There was a similar man made path that was wider than the one you were standing on, tire markings engraved in the ground never to hold green grass again. You assumed this was the ‘track’ that they used before pulling over onto the asphalt streets and entering the city again.

“Sunwoo!” The trio turned their heads to see a group parked on the sideline of the track, waving their hands in the air to catch the boy’s attention.

“Y/N, meet my other friends,” he started, “the guy with the Corvette Stingray is Juyeon, ford mustang is Younghoon, Mercedes is Jacob, and that nice looking silver Porsche is—“

“Chanhee?!” You recognize in a heartbeat, watching as the boy choked on a lollipop in his mouth and turned away to cough. The window of the Porsche rolled down slowly to reveal Changmin sitting in the passenger seat.

“Oh, Y/N… what are you doing here?”

You stutter harshly as you try to formulate a sentence barely able to comprehend the situation as you walk up to their car only. “What am I doing here? What are you doing here! Is— is this why you are always invited to the Prism Prix? And is this why you were unnerved by the crash with the Jaguar?”

“Hey, don’t lump me in with him!” Changmin frowned, slowly rolling the window up so you couldn’t reach your hand in there and pull him out yourself. “I drive a Honda Civic, Y/N, that thing cost me too much to risk wrecking it for a joyride! But I have watched a few races, but only because Chanhee participated in it.”

When you turned your frustration glare to Chanhee, he only shrugged his shoulders and took the lollipop out of his mouth. “I raced a little bit… but it’s not often you know? Just a little fun every once and awhile! And I’m here because Younghoon invited me to watch.”

“Wow… how nice of you to pin the blame on a stranger,” the said boy laughed, rhythmically tapping the hood of his red vehicle before glancing toward Sunwoo. “I like this one, fiery and matches your energy!”

“Is there anyone else in this group that I know that I should know about?” You demanded, watching as Sunwoo and Eric fumbled their words and threw out whatever names they could think of.

A classmate you used to know well in high school, Hyunjae, also participated as a racer every so often but it wasn’t frequent that they’d ever see him around.

They threw the name Sangyeon out there as well, but you didn’t know exactly who that was. They told you he was another person with the same pay grade as Chanhee and that’s all the information you needed to know. He was clearly out of your tax bracket for you to ever meet him.

There was Kevin, who was a friend of Jacob’s, that you had offhandedly heard the name of whenever Changmin was talking about his friends outside of you. Ironically, Kevin was also the original owner of the Jaguar from the news report but it wasn’t him who was driving the car before the crash on the street.

Finally there was Haknyeon, who was close to the two boys you had met prior, but didn’t really race like they did. He was more like… Eric and Sunwoo’s voice of reason, not an active participant in their street racing shenanigans.

You slumped down onto the bleachers, so much information to take in and not enough willpower to process it all. Your head was going to be pounding for the next week now that you know so much and you couldn’t even talk to it outside of the Thrill Ride because that stupid contract!

Granted, you never signed one so you could talk about it if you wanted but now that Chanhee and Changmin were involved with Thrill Ride you felt an obligation to keep their secret.

“So…,” Sunwoo began, sitting on one of the bleachers a step above you. “Are you still up for me to prove my worth to you or do you want me to take you back home?”

“And get in that crazy death machine? I’d rather listen to all the noise in the world then do that,” you snided, not in the mood for any more games with this Thrill Ride group. Who would have known that all this time you had connections to street racers right under your nose?

If you were thinking about not getting involved with any more street racers beside Sunwoo, you no longer had any choice in the matter since fate seemed to have other plans.

“Then, I could have Eric take you home,” he reconsidered, “I don’t know if you want to be in the car with your friends in the Porsche over there, so that’s a better option than me taking you. And if Eric annoyed you on the way here I can always have Jacob take you instead. He’s much nicer and calmer than either of us—“

“It’s fine, Sunwoo,” you interrupted him, spinning around on the bench to look up at him. “Thank you for looking out for me but it's whatever. It's just… a lot to take in at once. I don’t wanna waste this whole thing you’ve set up just because I’m frustrated.”

He nodded his head slowly, though there was still a hint of concern. “You sure? I can always reschedule this whole thing, it's nothing serious.”

“I’m sure,” you promise, “let’s just get this over with while I’m here.”

“Alright then,” Sunwoo stood up from his place on the bleacher jumping down each individual step to get a few seats lower than you and reaching his hand out to you, “you ready to get this show on the road?”

You rolled your eyes at him before taking his hand in yours, a gasp involuntarily coming from you when he yanked on your hand to pull you down to him with a mischievous grin. “First things first, you have to get in the car with me.”

“Huh?”

The mischievous catlike smile spread across his face as he flagged down Juyeon and Younghoon, not letting go of your hand as he dragged you over to them. “The plan is for you to get in the car with me and sit in that passenger seat the entire time to watch how I can not only win a race but also be extremely careful about my driving skills.”

Juyeon whistled as the two of you came over, leaning up against the Corvette Stingray’s door, “those are bold words that are coming out of your mouth. Are you sure you can win and be careful at the same time?”

“Yeah!” Jacob piqued up, tapping your shoulder to get your attention. “Did you know that Sunwoo is actually one of the most reckless drivers in Thrill Ride? It's his brand, that’s why we call him the wildfire driver!”

“Quit it,” the boy hissed, shooing Jacob away from the scene before he could do anymore damage.

It was already too late, your thoughts were filled with the nearly traumatizing memories of Sunwoo’s life threatening driving from the Prism Prix. If he wasn’t being nearly as reckless there as he usually is, what was that to say about this upcoming race he was making you sit in on.

The area slowly starts to spin around you, the anxiety of the drive chewing at your stomach and forcing you to sit back down. “I’m going to die… this boy is digging my grave at this point.”

“No, I am not digging your grave,” he countered, grabbing a hold of your shoulders and standing you upright before you could collapse to the ground. “Jacob was just teasing you, you’re going to be just fine. Plus, we made it extra safe by making it so I was racing against Juyeon and Younghoon instead of random strangers! That way I’ll feel less compelled to dust them once the race starts.”

How was that supposed to make you feel any better about your situation?

“Alright hold your horses there, loverboy,” Younghoon sneered, nudging his elbow into Sunwoo’s side. “How about we stop the trash talk and get on the road, huh?”

“Lover—?” By the time Sunwoo turned around to him the boy had already slid into his mustang to retreat and take his place on the road. Juyeon did the same, laughing at the two of them and bidding you a rather mocking good luck as he disappeared into the black of his Corvette.

“Don’t get nervous Y/N,” Eric reassured you, gesturing to Changmin and Chanhee who were having at you through the front window of that sickly silver Porsche you were still made about. ‘They like my cars’ your ass. “We’ll make sure nothing happens, if you’re really that scared just remember that your friends are here waiting for you when the race is over and I’ll be tailing the group so they don't get into any red and blue trouble.”

“That’s makes me feel better by like a singular percent,” you confessed, but still give him the best smile you could muster. Too bad it looked more like a grimace than a smile though.

“Good luck!” Your heart sank deep within the bellows of your chest as Sunwoo grabbed ahold of your arm and dragged you away to his monstrous McLaren, silently hoping that the universe would give you the strength to handle the race between the three boys. Yet the moment the scissor doors of the McLaren flew up to let you in, any sort of strength you had left in your body had been sapped away.

“Have you ever thought about making this car less.. scary? Just looking at it makes me nauseous.” You frowned, falling straight into the leather seats with a sense of familiarity.

Sunwoo thought about it for a second before turning to you and gesturing toward the glowing orange lights when he placed the keys into the ignition, “But that’s the whole reason I added the orange leds? Do you want me to put a little bobble head on the glove compartment? Or maybe you want some fuzzing dice hanging from the rear view mirror?”

“I want you to shut up and drive,” you bite back, your hands shooting out to latch onto the seat belt and center console with a vice grip.

Only a laugh left his mouth as he pulled up the car beside the Corvette and Mustang, revving their engines as loud as they could force it to taunt Sunwoo without words. He didn’t reply back with the same force though, staring straight down the road ahead of him and adjusting his hands on the wheel.

For a moment it looked like he was compelled to do the same but ultimately shook his head and prepped his foot over the gas pedal.

Jacob skipped his way in front of the cars, far too trusting that they’d avoid hitting him as he stood in the middle and raised his arms to signal the drivers. He teased them for a second, jerking his hands from the air once or twice to fake out the drivers for his own pleasure.

Though after being honked at by Younghoon, the boy threw his arms down to signal them to start and dodged as quickly as he could back onto the sidelines.

Juyeon’s Corvette was the first one to take off, kicking up dirt and covering their field of vision with a fine brown dust.

It didn’t phase Sunwoo in the slightest though, slamming his foot on the gas pedal and letting the car lurch forward from the impact as he sped right after him. “Juyeon is the biggest threat in this mock race,” he stated, his eyes darting from both the speed dial and the road to catch a glimpse of the matte black vehicle. “I think he’s like, one of the fastest racers in Thrill Ride? Of course, not compared to me though.”

“If Juyeon is one the fastest racers, then how the hell are you supposed to show me you can be careful and win at the same time,” you grit your teeth in anticipation, breathing slow and calculated breaths in order to fight the anxiety that was threatening the entire reason you were here.

Sunwoo didn’t respond to your question as he took a small turn around the manmade track, not even glazing over the trees with his spoiler. It wasn’t sharp like the ones he had done when he was in the city after the Prism Prix, but it was sharp enough to throw off Younghoon who was right on his tail.

Soon enough the boys had made their way back onto the main road, no longer constricted by the greenery around Thrill Ride. Together the cars sounded like a snarl as they bolted down the strip of road being one of few vehicles that were heading toward the city. Every so often there would be a pickup truck or Toyota car casually cruising down the road with them and it was the only time you had caught Sunwoo falling behind the rest.

He had to be a lot more careful about traversing in between the cars, slowing down his speed just enough to still keep up and ride on the tails of the cars. A curse would tumble out of his mouth every time the red mustang would zoom past him with reckless speed as it zigzagged through each car obstacle but Sunwoo always regained his original position when the others were long behind him.

The closer you got to the city, however, the more settled you got into the feel of Sunwoo’s driving. Sure there would be a moment where he accelerated without warning and it would leave you concealing a shriek of surprise but he’d always apologize for it the moment it happened.

Not to mention that once you got the stomach to look out the window it wasn’t as bad as the first time around. Sure, everything outside was still a mesh of colors and blurred to the point where you couldn’t point out a tree from a utility pole, but you had the strength to look out in the first place without having a vice grip on the door handle.

“Here’s the deal,” Sunwoo’s voice broke in your thoughts, the first real form of conversation you two have had since he had started driving, “Juyeon is fast but he’s thick in the head and will alert the police of his presence almost immediately, so if we follow behind him it’ll be dangerous for both of us.”

The warning sent shivers down your spine, not wanting to be caught up in whatever mess was bound to happen. You could still remember the exact words that came out of Sunwoo’s mouth in the middle of your argument— he drives a little recklessly once the police are involved.

“But we don’t have to follow him because I know a nice little shortcut we can take.”

“A shortcut?” You grimace at the thought, there are only so many ways this situation could falter and you don’t like any of the ideas that your mind was making up. “Like a good shortcut or a bad shortcut?”

“Good one, don’t worry. Just trust in me and everything will be fine,” he urged you, taking one hand off of the wheel and holding it out to you. When you didn’t take it immediately, hesitating in how much you wanted to put your faith into him, he smiled at you. “I mean, that’s why we are doing this in the first place, right? Getting you to trust me?”

VI.

You don’t know exactly what Sunwoo is thinking but whatever it was, it wasn't helping him win the race.

Once the two of you drove into the city, Sunwoo took a stark run to the right and left Juyeon’s Corvette charging toward the heart of the city. You took a quick look into the rear view mirror to see if Younghoon had turned to follow but he kept going straight as If he didn’t even notice the McLaren taking a detour.

He turned off the orange leds of his car as he drove down the avenue, easing up on the gas pedal and shrouding the vehicle in complete darkness. The farther through the road he went the farther you two were getting from Younghoon and Juyeon. “Sunwoo, are you sure this is a—“

He hushed you, his arm shooting out to hold you back as he glanced down an alleyway between one of the buildings to the left. The two of you went completely silent as Sunwoo stared off into the distance for a second longer, whispering in the lowest tone he could muster, “it’s easier to go through this way because there aren’t as many cop cars but, there are officers that patrol this area on foot sometimes. I have to make sure they aren’t here.”

You nodded your head in understanding, subconsciously scanning the sidewalk for any roaming officers at the same time. Ironically you were a lot more content with this situation than others, as Sunwoo could easily just step on the gas for a quick boost of speed to get away instead of driving all the way out of the city to run from an onslaught of forces.

The McLaren cruised along the road for just a second longer before Sunwoo finally picked up the speed, deeming it safe to continue through the avenue since the officers were out of sight.

“Are you sure this is a good idea Sunwoo? Like seriously,” you ask him, finally breaking the tense silence in the vehicle and leaning against the door frame. “As much as I don’t want to go through that Prism Prix situation, this feels like you’re going the longer route out of the city. Don’t you wanna win?”

“Y/N, the whole reason we are doing this right now is because you said I need to prove myself to you,” Sunwoo reminded, “would I like to win? Hell yeah, winning feels good! But I also need to keep my side of the deal with you.”

You slumped down into your seat, crossing your arms against your chest as a small huff left your lips, “well yeah but now you’ve got me invested…”

“Hm, What’s that?” He teased, leaning over the armrest to be in your personal space. “Did someone just say they are invested in street racing after saying they didn’t want to be involved with it?”

“Eyes on the road, punk,” you shoved his head away from you, forcing his face forward so he doesn’t accidentally crash the car because of ignorance. You wouldn’t care as much normally but you weren’t exactly sure if a wanted man such as himself had insurance.

“All I’m saying is that you’re a little too interested in this friendly competition right now,” Sunwoo’s singsong tone echoed through your ears as if he was right back in your ear again, causing you to shuffle as far to the right as your seat would let you. “If you want me to win, would you be okay if I did…this?”

Your shriek bounced off the walls of the McLaren as he accelerated faster than you were prepared for, only to then slam his foot on the brakes to make both of you jolt forward. “Haha, very funny.” Sunwoo’s boyish laugh replaced your scream, completely ignoring the scowls you threw at him from the side. “Try it again and I’ll start driving myself.”

“Oh, so you wanna drive?” The boy pulled over onto the curb to park, snatching his keys out of the ignition and dangling them in your face. “Go ahead, be my guest! In fact I’ll even switch sides with you—“

You stopped him the moment you caught him unbuckling his seatbelt to get up, swiftly reaching out to grab his shirt collar and sit him back down. “Are you crazy? You’re in the race dude!”

“But you said you wanted to drive the car? Go ahead, I wanna see you just try and get onto the highway in this thing.”

Your banter back and forth only increased by the second, knowing very well that there was no way Sunwoo was going to be able to catch up with Younghoon and Juyeon at this point. The two of them were probably already back at Thrill Ride wondering where their stubborn friend was at this point.

He was doing a lot of big talk before the mock race even began so who knows what was going through his friends minds right now.

“Here’s a compromise then,” he abruptly announced, though still holding the keys in his hand for you to see. You already don’t trust his words, teasing nature on full display now that you two aren’t even bothered with continuing on with his mock race. “You let me be your friend, and I won’t make you drive back to Thrill Ride. Doesn’t that sound like a good idea?”

“No, the whole reason we were supposed to be doing this is because of you,” you scoffed, “Besides, I don’t even know the directions back to that place and I don’t wanna learn.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Sunwoo hummed, spinning the keys around in his finger as if he was trying to hypnotize you into doing what he asked. “I know the directions by heart, I can guide you there. It’ll be like… when you first get your driver’s permit!”

“Seriously?”

The boy nodded his head vigorously in response, “seriously. It’s your choice though! Either accept my token of friendship or do the drive of shame back to Thrill Ride. Go on, I’ll wait for an answer as long as it takes.”

VII.

“Y/N, check this out!” You dropped your dishes in the sink as your housemate’s voice called to you, careful to make sure the special plates your parents had given you wouldn’t get damaged before letting them go free. You’d hate to hear their nagging voices about how you should have been gentler if one of them broke. “Y/N, hurry up!”

“Okay, sheesh,” you groan, stepping away from the kitchen sink to step into the light living room area. You caught your housemate eagerly tapping their hand on the couch to try and reel you over like a cat, putting on their brightest and strongest puppy eyes to win you over.

With a quick few strides you slid onto their side on the cushions, your head falling onto the armrest as you gave them a skeptical glare. “What’s got you so worked up this morning? Excited that you have the day off?”

“Even better!” Your housemate answered, though hesitating for a moment and reworded their response, “well… I guess this wouldn’t really be considered better but it’s more interesting just— watch this!”

Your eyes fly over to the television screen as they press play on the remote, replaying information that you swore you could have heard earlier in the morning before you had breakfast. Admittedly you’ve started closing your door so that their volume problem wouldn’t bother you as badly in the morning so it was rather muffled.

“I am your newscaster for today and I’m being news live from your local news channel.” The woman began, the familiar voice and appearance of the newscaster resonating in your mind. “Breaking news this morning on this sunny day, police have reported there to be an accident on the road near the heart of our city.”

Both of you gasped at the video pulled up on screen, your skin crawling with goosebumps and shivers. There were two cars that collided straight into the back of each other at an intersection, windows blown and pieces of the vehicles thrown all over the street. In front of the cars were the black skid marks of tires, leading to another car laying battered and bruised as it laid there upside down with its roof completely caved in.

There was one last car, which arguably had the worst effect in your mind, that was sitting in the doorway of a small chain store’s entrance. It has yellow caution tape surrounding the area as police stood by on watch and onlookers peered as closely as they could to the wreck.

Your housemate started to turn the volume of the television up, their bad habit preserving in the strangest of moments as you both leaned in close to hear the explanation that was due.

“Tragic strikes once again as street racing continues to ravage our city. A fatal multiple vehicle collision injured two and killed three, officers say the owners of the Nissan and Mustang had been caught on the cameras speeding through the streets before inevitably crashing into each other.”

“In broad daylight?” Your housemate scoffed, leaning back onto the couch in disbelief. “The nerve of some people, did their parents not teach them anything?”

You weren’t listening. You were far too busy scanning the screen for the Mustang with your heart beating in your chest and drowning out every external noise that came along with it. You didn’t know cars and their models very well but you did remember that Sunwoo’s friend, Younghoon, owned a red mustang.

The television screen slowly panned out to a closer look of the beginning of the crash, showing officers patrolling the surrounding area and the cars that laid there as evidence. You finally let out a breath you didn’t even know you were holding when you realized that the Mustang on screen wasn’t the shiny red vehicle of Younghoon.

“Y/N?” Your housemate’s voice cracked through your skull and you turned to her with a disoriented smile on your face. “Are you even listening to me?”

“Of course I am,” you lied, trying to settle yourself back down into reality. “You were saying something about uh… the drivers, right?”

Your housemate’s facial expression didn’t change, giving you the hardest stare that you were sure they might start peering deep into your soul. Eventually they turned the volume of the television down before throwing the remote on the ground and turning on the couch to face you completely. “Okay, I think it’s about time we had this talk. I didn’t want to but I think… I think it’s time.”

You chuckled at their choice of words, getting more comfortable in your seat as you responded, “oh really? And what exactly do we need to talk about?”

“There’s this… weird vibe around you lately, something I can’t quite put my finger on.” They admitted, looking you up and down for a moment then nodding to themself. “Yeah it’s like something has changed about you. You’re a lot more secretive than you usually are and you’ve been coming home late a lot.”

“Excuse me? I’ve been coming home late?” You laughed, brushing off their concerns with ease. “How would you know that? When I get off work you’re always knocked out dead in that mattress.”

“That’s where you’re wrong! I’ve been staying up late recently, at least till ten at night!” Your housemate sounded so proud of themself for this achievement and you couldn’t lie if you said you weren’t a little impressed.

However your housemate goes to sleep at nine thirty every day, so it was only a thirty minute difference. You get home from work at twelve. “That’s not important though, what’s important is that I’ve been waking up in the night because I can’t sleep recently, and every time I do it’s been because you’re just coming back at like… three in the morning!”

You thought to yourself in a moment, piecing together your housemate’s claims and your recent schedule for the past several weeks and… she’s not wrong. You have been getting home late recently, and it’s been getting later and later every day.

And then it clicked for you. “You’ve been seeing a boy haven’t you? That’s why you’ve been coming late and won’t tell me where you’ve been going! Oh, you cheeky little thing! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” you denied, jumping up from your comfy spot on the couch to retreat to your room. “You must be delusional right now, go drink some water before you go to work.”

Your housemate cut you off in a flash, clambered their way in front of you to block your eyes through the door. “I’m off work today, but you've dressed up decently this morning.” They smirked, leaning up against your door frame to full body block your escape route. “I can see it on your face, you’ve been hanging around a boy and it’s not Changmin and Chanhee. You never get like this when we talk about them. So fess up! Who is it? Do you like him?”

“Woah! You’re getting ahead of yourself there, aren’t you!” You exclaimed, feeling your ears begin to burn like firewood at their sudden accusation. “I’m not… I’m not seeing a boy and I don’t like anyone, you understand me?”

And then your phone pings behind both of you in the doorway.

After a few moments, it starts to ring as well.

Shit. “Stop it!”

Both of you go darting into your room like a bullet, pushing and scratching each other in an attempt to reach first. Your housemate nearly snatched your phone up in their sticky hands, letting a scream of victory leave their lips just before you snatch your phone back in the middle of their celebration. Before they could even react you elbowed them in the stomach, just for good measure that they didn’t try and attack you right after.

You gave your notifications a quick glance over as the phone hung up on itself, checking if it was exactly what both of you thought it was.

And there it is in all of its glory— Sunwoo’s contact number.

As your housemate recovered from their loss you walked up to the window and peered through the curtains, getting blinded by the sun’s rays before catching sight of that familiar black McLaren parked on the curb of your apartment. The curly haired driver stood outside of his vehicle, patiently swinging back and forth on his heels as he waited.

His timing truly was something else.

“Alright well, I’m glad we had this chat and it’s so nice to know you care about me,” you call out to your housemate, shoving your phone in your pants pocket and scurrying to the door before they could respond. “But I’ve got to be going now, I’ll see you tonight!”

“Y/N—“ you don’t hear the rest of their sentence as you practically start booking it down the stairs of your apartment building as fast as your legs could take you. Your housemate could very well get up and start chasing you down if they wanted and you weren’t going to risk the chance.

Once you break through the entrance of your building’s lobby you catch Sunwoo’s face turning bright with stars in his eyes, opening his mouth to greet you as he usually does. “No time to talk! Get in that car first and drive. Fast!”

“What? But I can’t do that in daylight—“ the driver didn’t get to finish his sentence once you start shoving him toward the McLaren, your urgency to get out of your housemate's sight taking priority over everything else. You send him flying into the driver seat as you open the scissor doors for him— lucky that his car was already unlocked when you got there —and then slide into the passenger seat after him.

You let yourself finally breathe once you’re in Sunwoo’s car, the adrenaline that was pumping in your system starting to relax now that you were out of danger. Who knows what could have happened if your housemate saw the boy’s contact in your phone? What would have happened if they had even seen him outside the apartment? It was too much for your stressed brain to comprehend.

“So… you gonna explain what all that was about?” He asked, eyeing you for a moment as he began to start driving significantly slower than usual. “I mean I didn’t even get a hello! I would have thought you had the cops chasing you or something.”

“Don’t worry about it,” you shook your head, trying to ease back into your natural flow. Though something just felt off, not about you but about Sunwoo.

You didn’t know if you were just hallucinating or not so you decided to ignore it. “I am going to ask you to explain what’s up with this whole hangout thing though? I thought we could only do stuff at night so it would be easier to hide the car?”

“Ah, about that,” he coughed, one hand on the steering wheel as the other played with a curl that hung in front of his lashes. “I thought you would have liked it if we hung out during the daytime instead of just being at Thrill Ride at night. That’s what people normally do, right?”

“Well… yeah, I guess,” you shrugged. You had gotten so used to only seeing Sunwoo at night that the thought of him being around in daylight was odd. It felt like it wasn’t something that was meant to happen, like it was a glitch in the matrix that he was even here.

But there was already something off about him that you couldn’t quite place yet. “What about the police though? They know what your car looks like. If someone sees it they’ll definitely report it.”

“Fake tags and license,” Sunwoo proudly answered, “and the orange leds won’t come on either. Gotta thank Jacob for that one, he’s a slick genius. Plus! They don’t even know what my face looks like so it’ll be difficult to just—“

“—I got it! It’s the gasoline, you don’t smell like gasoline,” you interrupted without thought, figuring out what was so weird about him. “What happened to your gasoline smell? You always smelled like gasoline and cologne.”

“Did you… do you know how I smell exactly every time we hang out?”

“Huh?”

You just said that out loud. Without thinking. With Sunwoo right beside you. In his car.

“Yeah— I mean, no! But like sometimes? I’m not trying to be weird! You just—!”

“Smell weird?”

“Yes! … I mean no!” You’re falling into pieces, your head crumbling by the second as you try to recover this conversation as quickly as possible. You didn’t mean to say that for him to hear it was supposed to be a thought that stayed in your head! But here you are, blurting out things without thinking about it first.

“You do smell weird but like… in a good way? I mean who doesn’t like the smell of gasoline am I right! … I mean I like it! But in a normal way like a normal person would of course!”

You let your head fall into your hands and let out a soundless scream, your ears running beet red and your eyes unable to meet his. How could you have fumbled this badly?

“Pfft—“ Sunwoo bursted into a fit of laughter, barely able to keep himself sitting still with his hands on the steering wheel in his seat as tears threatened to leave his eyes. Your mouth curved into a deep frown as his giggles bounced against the McLaren’s walls, peering through the crevices of your hands to see his face. He was almost turning red in the face, struggling to catch his breath in between each laugh.

“Why are you laughing at me!” You shout, the embarrassing tipping over the edge. It would have been bad if he had given you a negative reaction to your outburst, but laughing at you was an entirely different level of horrible! “It’s not funny, stop laughing, you caught me off guard!”

Sunwoo wiped the tears from his eyes, rubbing his hands against his cheeks from smiling so much to soothe the aching. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’ve ever had someone tell me to my face like… I smell like gasoline.” He stretched the fabric of his hoodie, giving it a quick look down before turning to you with a smaller grin on his lips.

“But I’ve also never had anyone tell me that they liked the smell either.”

“Really? But all of the street racers have this really gasoline smell, some more potent than others,” you explained, “I noticed it when I went to Prism Prix there was a group of people that smelled like that but yours was just a lot more potent than others… plus the cologne’s smell? It was just a lot easier to notice. So when you don’t smell like those two things combined it throws me off.”

“Good to know, I just changed into clothes I don’t usually wear since I’d be out with civilians,” he noted your observation in his head, probably something he could keep in mind for future reference. There was a possibility that the people could notice the scent distinction between street racers as well. “Okay, my turn!”

“Your turn?” You instantly repeated.

“I’ll tell you what you smell like! Since you told me what I smell like it’s only fair that I do the same back.”

You shook your head immediately, rejecting the idea while you still had the chance. “Oh no, you don’t have to do that! What I said was kind of a spur of the moment thing there’s no—“

“—too late!”

Sunwoo pulled the McLaren off the street, parking on the sidelines as the rest of the drivers went on their way. Wordlessly the boy turned sideways in his seat, staring tentatively at you as he tried to think of the proper response to the ‘game’ you two were playing. You waited for him to speak first, too flustered to try and break the silence first.

And then, of course, you broke the silence first anyway. “Like I said you really don’t need to—“

“Sh, hush! I’m thinking.” The boy interrupted.

You could almost see the gears in his brain twisting and turning as he tried to come up with something just as you had. You don’t exactly blame him for having such a hard time trying to figure out how kind of scent you have off because, to your knowledge, you don’t.

People have never commented on if you had a distinct smell or not and when they did it’s because you had put on something beforehand to smell that way. That’s simply how life worked at times.

“I got it!” Sunwoo decided, snapping his fingers together and laying back in the seat to relax. A content smile on his face grew as he pointed to you, “you smell like strawberries. But specifically like… strawberries and sugar. I guess you can say it’s a bit like candy, I guess! I had to think about it for a second because there was this one really specific smell I got off you one day and I just couldn’t figure it out at first.

So to Sunwoo, you smelled like strawberries and sugar. To you, Sunwoo smelled like gasoline and cologne. What an odd combination of things to put together. You wondered if anyone else could smell it too and how strange the two seemed together. They were two completely different aromas and yet they were mingling with each other consistently. You couldn’t help that it got you thinking.

Wait… strawberries and sugar?

“Hold on. Sunwoo,” you pointed, grabbing a strand of your hair and taking a quick whiff of it. Then it finally hits you, “that's the scent of the shampoo I use.”

VIII.

“Y/N, please we’ve been over this a million times already.” Chanhee groaned, dodging every single question you threw at him. He even placed his hand in between the passenger and driver’s seat so that you wouldn’t stick your head through the free space to be in the front seat with them.

“Why not! You’ve got to stop being lame and tell me at least a little bit about your time as a street racer!” You complained, sliding down the back of Changmin's seat while he drove the boy’s lavish Porsche.

It was something that Chanhee let him do from time to time, letting Changmin get a quick taste of the prosperous life that the boy lived. The only rule was that the boy would have to come to Chanhee’s aid and pick him up whenever he desired as payment for letting him borrow the car. A small price to pay for luxury experience.

“You should tell her Chanhee,” the boy agreed, his eyes still on the road but his ears opened wide to the conversation the two of you were having. “I mean it’s not like she’s going to tattle on you for street racing, she’s kept the secret for long enough. Plus you’ve got some pretty decent stories to tell if I can recall…”

“You should,” you urged him, your hands swinging off the headrest of his seat in anticipation. “You witnessed a bunch of Chanhee’s races. I'm sure there’s one that you can remember that stuck out to you.

Changmin thought for a moment until his eyes began to sparkle with remembrance. “You know I do remember this one thing! It was one of Chanhee’s first races with Thrill Ride and he—“

“No! Stop it— stop talking!” The boy shouted, voice waning into a desperate whine as he tried to reveal his secrets. “If you’re going to talk about my life, at least talk about me in a cool light! That one wasn’t even cool!” His face slowly turned red with embarrassment, raising a frustrated fist at Changmin in retaliation.

“If you don’t want Changmin to say something embarrassing,” you urged, sliding over onto Chanhee’s side of the car to put a threatening hand on his shoulder. He swatted your hand away in an instant as a sign of defiance to your manipulation. “You should just tell us yourself! Come on dude, what are you so afraid of? We’re friends.”

“You two are so unbearable.” Chanhee groaned, unbuckling his seatbelt to turn around and face you sitting in the backseat. He rested his arm on Changmin’s seat, his regrets flashing across his face for a moment but ultimately wiping them off with a face full of annoyance. “Alright, you want a story? Fine. Here’s a story.”

You clapped your hands like a child at the boy’s sudden rowdiness, always down for when Chanhee ditched the innocent act every time you got on his nerves. You made yourself comfortable in the backseat, standing up straight and attentive to make sure Chanhee knew he had your eyes and ears.

“It was one of my first races,” he admitted, “I had just gotten into Thrill Ride as a hobby because a certain someone said he liked my car—“

“It was Younghoon!” Changmin exposed, laughing when Chanhee retaliated quickly and punched him in the shoulder. The car swerved for a moment once he lost concentration, the entire trio letting out gasps and shrieks at the thought of a crash happening while on the road.

Thankfully Changmin was quick enough to adapt to their circumstance instead of sitting there shocked. He spun the steering wheel once to straight up the wheels, the Porsche screeching slightly as he changed the momentum without time to prepare. The entire group took a moment to catch their breaths, driving slowly along the asphalt road and letting any nearby drivers pass them along the way.

“Nice save,” you finally perked up, the hair on your neck finally settling down just as your heart rate began to relax. “We could have gotten into a wreck.”

“This wouldn’t have been a problem if Chanhee didn’t decide to hit the driver!” Changmin hissed, though it slowly devolved into a high pitched scream when the boy threatened him again. If he kept messing with him, his life wouldn’t be the only thing he’d be losing once Chanhee was done with him.

“As I was saying,” Chanhee continued again, clearly his throat as he tried to remember what exactly he was talking about again. “It was one of my first races after I had been roped into it by you know who and it was up against some unknown guy in Thrill Ride. We probably had the same skill level since he was relatively new as well.”

“I think I remember this one. It was some race for drivers to gain a sponsor so they could up their ranks in Thrill Ride, right? And Younghoon just threw you into the bracket because it didn’t matter if you won or lost that race.”

You nodded in understanding, remembering the explanation you had received from Sunwoo and Eric when you first went to Thrill Ride. The sponsors helped the racers with their funds, the only requirement that needed to be fulfilled was that the racers win whatever races they’ve been placed in.

It makes sense that they have to impress a sponsor first before getting someone who would dedicate their income to them.

Chanhee, though, didn’t need a sponsor to help him purchase cars and modify them to his needs. The boy had his own source of income and was well off on his own without needing outside help. So to him, that race must have felt like every race he’s been doing since.

“I guess whoever the sponsor was popular or something,” he shrugged, “because everyone was eager to win and resorted to dirty tactics in order to win. Of course as the resident newbie at the time I didn’t know that it was allowed and paid for the ignorance. That stranger’s car? Slammed straight into my car and almost totaled the whole thing.”

“You, of all the people, got into an accident? And I didn't even notice it happened?”

The boy slumped back into the passenger seat, “the whole Thrill Ride thing was new to me so I couldn’t just say ‘hey I just got hit by a car in an illegal street race!’. Plus, you know I’ve got the funds to get a new car. Why do you think I drive this Porsche around now?”

“Barely drive it around. This car is basically mine! You only use this thing when we are at Thrill Ride.”

“Really?” You quickly spoke, scrambling back up to the middle of the front seat and taking a quick look around.

It looked nothing like Eric or Sunwoo’s cars and wreaked with the aura of wasted money but you could work with it. “I’m going to assume this is the newest model so… would you ever let me drive?”

The laugh that tumbled out of Chanhee’s mouth took you off guard, an offended glare flashing across your face as he struggled to get a hold of himself. “You? Driving? That’s the funniest thing I think you’ve ever said!”

“What’s so funny about me driving?” You spoke through clenched teeth, taking a couple slow breaths so you didn’t let the frustration get to your head. “It’s not like I don’t have my license, I even got my permit when I was sixteen!”

“That’s the thing, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drive,” Chanhee explained, covering half of his face to keep his expressions as minimal as possible. It wasn’t really helping, however, since you could hear his low giggles he was trying to suppress. “I can’t even imagine you standing next to a steering wheel!”

“I have driven before though!” You defended, frantically searching for a reason they haven’t seen you drive before. It didn’t help that Changmin was finally pulling into Thrill Ride, filled to the brim with car enthusiasts.

Chanhee left the Porsche without a word, only a smirk curved onto his innocent looking face. “Hey, listen to me when I’m talking to you! I have a real reason and everything!”

Your nearly one sided bickering continued as the group approached the entrance of Thrill Ride, onlookers watching as you made a fool of yourself trying to explain yourself. Chanhee barely reacted to any of what you were doing, taking long strides to try and leave you behind him and your words going through one ear and out the other.

Changmin, the poor boy, followed behind the two of you in a rush. He apologized to the people you and Chanhee almost barreled through during your quarrel, flashing his kind and apologetic smile before rushing to catch up again.

“Fine, if you’re so dead set on trying to convince me that you can drive,” Chanhee groaned, rolling his eyes at your unnerving persistence once the group was in the main lobby of Thrill Ride, “maybe, just maybe, I’ll think about letting you drive my car one day.”

“Come on, man! I don’t need a maybe, I need an immediate and clear yes! You’re literally—“

“Sh! You! Keep your voice down!” Eric appeared from what felt like the corner of your eye, snaking his hand to your head and lowering you under the fabric of his jacket. Every time you opened your mouth to question his actions the boy would hush you and look around the room like someone was watching, paranoia radiating off of him with intense strength.

“You look like you’re going to kidnap Y/N,” Chanhee commented, reaching his hand out to uncover you and rescue you from the predicament. “What’s going on?”

Eric refused to release you, ultimately taking off the jacket as a whole and throwing it on top of you. “Code red, Sunwoo is in trouble and Y/N being seen in this building could possibly worsen the situation. Jacob told me to hide you if you came.”

“He’s in trouble?” You piped up, throwing the boy’s hood over your head once you understood.

The boy said no more and quickly ushered the three of you away from the entrance, following the instructions given to him as closely as he possibly could. He waited for a moment once the group made it across the first floor, glancing around for any suspicious looking people and keeping your head low to the ground. Once he deemed it save he opened the door for you all and urged you out.

You could see the blue Mercedes that Jacob owned parked a little ways off from where you were, the boy’s head turned away from the four of you and seemingly talking to some who sat in the passenger seat of his vehicle. Someone else approached him with Juyeon by his side, his arms crossed and a frown etched across his face in clear frustration.

Whatever the conversation was, it seemed serious. What exactly did Sunwoo do anyway? And why were you involved in it? Sure you hang out with Sunwoo but not enough to witness his fits of mischief every once and awhile! You made sure of that.

“Jacob. Jacob! We’ve got a situation over here!”

The driver looked back at the sound of his name, blinking once or twice before registering that Eric was one who was calling him. He shot him an instinctive smile toward him before realizing you were being pushed toward him and the light in his eyes began to fade.

“So… would anyone like to tell me what’s going on?”

“I’ll tell you what’s going on!” An unfamiliar voice answered. A boy with hair the color of porcelain peered his head out of the car window, his glasses sitting at the tip of his nose as he took a quick glance at you.

He stopped for a moment to wave a cheerful hand at Changmin— letting you know that this might have been the Kevin you’ve heard about— then continued his sentence. “Mr. Loverboy got himself in trouble with the bosses and now he’s paying the price. Should have just stayed alone like the rest—“

Jacob pushed the boy’s head back into the car, his innocent smile ridden with a deep sense of annoyance as he kept Kevin out of the conversation. “Sunwoo’s sponsors called him up to the fourth floor today over something that happened a few days ago. We didn’t get very many details on what the problem was, only that it was serious and it might involve you.”

“Involve me? But what could I have even done?” Anxiety bubbling up at the bottom of your stomach as you listened to their explanation. “The only thing I remember about the last few days is hanging out with him and working. I have no time to even try and get him in trouble.”

“The only thing we can hope for right now is that his sponsors give him a warning and let him off easy,” Juyeon shrugged, his eyes darting toward the fourth floor of Thrill Ride for a moment and then returning to give the group his attention. “The sponsors have a lot more power than you’re led to believe.”

“And who are his sponsors?”

“Chariot,” the boy beside Juyeon answered for you, his hands now deep in his hair and softly tugging on the strands in irritation.

“They’re the sponsors that are most known here— they give out the most money to the drivers they put under their wing. The problem is that they handle their sponsees is so ruthlessly that most people don’t have will to stay with them. Sunwoo unfortunately thinks he’s able to handle it and has been signed with them forever.” Despite the words that came out of his mouth, the boy seemed more concerned over Sunwoo’s recklessness than the possible punishment he was going to face.

“I remember now!” Changmin gasped, clapping his hands together in recognition when he heard the sponsors name. “Chariot! Chariot is the name of the sponsor Chanhee’s first race was for! He got his car totaled for Chariot!”

Chanhee’s hands quickly flew over Changmin’s mouth, nearly suffocating the boy as he dragged him away from the group. “Woah there! You really, really don’t know how to keep your mouth shut.”

You all watched as the two disappeared back into the Thrill Ride building, watching as Changmin tried to save himself before ultimately succumbing to Chanhee’s wrath.

“Anyway,” Juyeon continued on, not even batting an eye at your friends. “Sunwoo doesn’t get in trouble often though… at least not with his sponsors. I think this is actually the first time this has happened? So I’d like to think that everything will be fine.”

“I love the optimism,” Kevin managed to get in, pushing his hand against Jacob’s to keep him at bay. “But! Chariot also drove Younghoon away from them so this could be Sunwoo’s breaking point. You never know what could happen to a person.”

“Sunwoo’s not like that,” the boy declined immediately, shaking his head no as vigorously as he could. The way he worried and jumped to the driver’s defense solidified that this was probably Haknyeon you were talking to, since Eric didn’t seem like giving the introduction that was due. “He’s too stubborn to let something like this make him drop out. If anything he’ll just be upset for a while.”

“And what do we do if it involves the loverboy’s… uh… sidekick?”

All four of them turned their heads to you, their expressions unreadable as they debated on the question at hand. You looked toward Eric for any sort of help or support, but he was looking at you just as they were. Though, his expression was filled with a little more panic and confusion than the others. The boy tended to wear his emotions on his sleeve.

“Okay then!” You exclaimed, an exasperated sigh leaving you before looking back at the drivers in front of you. “Listen, I’m innocent in whatever is going on right now okay? The most I've ever done with Sunwoo is sit in his car while he drove around and watched, like what, One race with him? We barely do anything outside of that!”

“Really?”

“I mean, yeah?” You responded, slowly beginning to second guess yourself as the interrogation went on. “Sometimes we might sit outside or hang around a store or too, but that’s because he specifically said that nobody would recognize him. Trust me, if he was recognizable outside of that car we wouldn’t be going anywhere.”

“Hey, Y/N! I didn’t know you were here, did you smell the gasoline to know I’d be here today too?” You nearly got whiplash from turning your head so fast, the sight of Sunwoo pushing the doors open to the track piecing together in your head. The savior to your attempts of clearing your name.

Though after coming back from speaking with his sponsors, Sunwoo didn’t seem upset. There wasn’t a lick of worry, frustration, or uneasiness written across his face. All he gave you was his goofy shining smile and his teasing tone you had gotten so used to seeing.

It left the entire group wondering: what did Chariot say? What was their problem?

Because it clearly wasn’t bothering him at all.

“What are you talking about?” The boy questioned, hooking his arm around Eric’s neck as he settled back into his daily life. The boy choked and nearly crumbled under Sunwoo’s weight, wrestling with him to free himself but not quite getting loose just yet. “It seemed important with all of you huddled around together.”

“We were just talking about how I’m not your little sidekick,” you told him, looking at the group of boys from the corner of your eye to make sure they agreed. They nodded their heads vigorously in response, giving Sunwoo crooked smiles and quick thumbs up to back up your claims.

It’s not like you were wrong per se, you just wanted to see if Sunwoo would tell everyone what Chariot wanted from him on his own

Sunwoo let go of Eric after a moment, letting him tumble to the ground after losing the one thing he was putting all of his weight into. “My little sidekick? What— do you think it’s an insult to be my partner in crime?”

Kevin’s muddled giggled caught you off guard, unable to direct your frustration at him or Sunwoo. “Partner in crime? Are you— what?” You scoffed, “when have I ever, and I mean ever, given off the feeling that I’d be your partner in crime?”

“All of my friends are my partners in crime.” He explained, nodding to Eric and Haknyeon who only gave you a knowing smile. “There’s no way you decided to be my friend without thinking you wouldn’t be in my trouble, did you?”

“So what’s the dynamic? Bonnie and Clyde?” Kevin spoke, his fits of giggles finally breaking out into a full blown laughter. Jacob tried to save you from the distress as he opened the passenger seat and profusely apologized in his stead, mumbling something to his friend and trying to get him to calm down.

“I mean,” Sunwoo began, leaning down to whisper as quietly as he possibly could to you, “do you want the dynamic to be Bonnie and Clyde?”

“What happened with your sponsors? With Chariot?” You finally blurted, pushing all attention off of both of you and fully onto him instead. The boy stood there stunned for a second, taken back by your sudden question and not exactly sure how to answer. “I heard from Eric— you got in trouble or something?”

Sunwoo craned his neck to give Eric a look, and the boy shrugged nervously. “Don’t look at me— look at Jacob! He told me to keep Y/N out of sight because you were in trouble.”

He turned to Jacob who gave him a smile as he leaned up against the now closed door to his Mercedes, Kevin putting his face up against the glass as the boy defended himself. “Haknyeon told me first, I was just looking out for Y/N while you were gone.”

The group collectively turned to Haknyeon for his answer and he simply pointed to Juyeon, who was still standing beside him. “You all are a bunch of children, you know that?” When you all nodded in understanding, he continued on, “so? What happened with Chariot. What are they mad for?”

“Oh it was nothing serious,” Sunwoo brushed off, still keeping his signature smile on his face despite his words. “Something about races, honestly I wasn’t listening to them really. I never do because they always nag about the smallest things!”

“They didn’t say anything?” Haknyeon pushed, not fully believing the words out of his mouth given Chariot’s reputation with its sponsees. “There was nothing they were talking about that we needed to know they just… called you up for no reason?”

“Yup! That’s all!” He declared, stretching his arms out with a large sigh of relief escaping his mouth and putting his hand on Juyeon’s shoulder. “Now, don’t we have a race to prepare for? Don’t want me to smoke you out on the road do you?”

“Sunwoo,” You called to him, his smile turning from Juyeon to you without a thought behind it. “Can we talk? For a quick second alone?”

“Sure, what’s—“ your hand snaked out to grab the collar of his shirt, dragging him away from the group almost wordlessly. Even when he yelped in surprise and almost tripped over his own two feet, you didn’t look back to back to check on him. You continued to march down the path to the doors Thrill Ride and pulled both of you through.

Changmin and Chanhee saw you as you entered the building, waving their hands and calling your name to get your attention. Though when they realized you weren’t exactly in a casual conversation mood they stopped.

They stood in the background as you and Sunwoo approached the stairwell of the building and disappeared inside.

“Alright fess up,” you demand, swinging the boy around so that he would be standing in front of you. The stairwell was empty, only leaving the two of you as its inhabitants for the moment, but you could still hear muffled conversations from the floors above. It specifically came from the second floor since that’s where the gamblers resided, cheering and groaning at their cash won and cash lost.

Thankfully it wasn’t enough to side track your conversation. “What’s up with Chariot? What’d they tell you?”

“Are you serious Y/N?” Sunwoo groaned, rolling his eyes at your attempt at a private investigation. “Like I said, it was nothing serious! Just something about races and— Ow! What was that for?”

You shook your wrist after flicking his forehead as hard as you could muster, threatening to do it again once he recovered. “Lie to me again and it’s going to be a fist not a flick. Seriously, what’s going on?”

He opened his mouth to answer, flinching first when you raised your hand to take aim again. “How about we put the weapon away and talk this out like adults?” Sunwoo offered, grabbing your wrist and forcing it away from him as you fought back against his strength. “Down, Y/N, put it— I’ll tell you the truth, just put your hand down!”

You backed down with a satisfied grin on your face, backing away from him and giving him the floor to explain himself. Sunwoo looked both up the stairwell and through the doorway for a moment, unsure of himself before putting his hands on your shoulders. “I got caught.”

“You got caught?”

“I got caught. No, let me rephrase that. We got caught,” he confirmed. Now why was Sunwoo dragging you into his mess? You haven’t done anything incriminating that might have gotten you in trouble. “Remember when we hung out with each other during the day a few days ago?”

“God, how could I not?” You respond, getting a little nauseous just thinking about it. You were still in slight disbelief that you had let it slip that he smelled like gasoline.

“Cool! So, when I parked both at your apartment and on the side of the road, I wasn’t watching where exactly I had positioned myself and I may…” he trailed off, struggling to use the right phrasing that wouldn’t completely incriminate him.

In the end Sunwoo leaned to your ear and whispered, “I may… have gotten caught on the security cameras and someone sent it to the cops because they recognized my car?”

“What?” The scene of his gasoline and cologne couldn’t intoxicate you with their enticing effect now, even if he was that close to you. Because what he said was probably the cherry on top of the whole situation that had happened today.

First you almost get into a crash with Changmin and Chanhee, then you learn Chanhee got into a car wreck a long time ago, then there was learning about Sunwoo’s fearsome patrons, and now he has been caught on camera and the tape has been confiscated by the police?

“I don’t think they could make your face because my windows are tinted,” he reassured you, trying his best to lessen the seriousness of the situation. “But me? Who knows, they had enough time to look at the tape to know that my tags and license plate were fake now know that I come out during the daytime so they can—“

“—They can follow your car and tail you until they’re sure they can arrest you,” you finish for him, unsure of how exactly you were going to fully process the information you received. “Sunwoo, what the hell are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know!” He exclaimed, the panic finally beginning to settle in his body. Sunwoo started to pull at the curly strands of hair in his head, his hands slowly coursing through his hair as he tried to calm himself down and pacing back and forth.

“This has never happened before— the police actively catching the racers on camera,” Sunwoo explained to you, hoping you could see the severity of his situation if he explained a little better. “Chariot is pissed off and said if I get caught again and lead them here I’ll be breaking my contract. Not just with them, but with Thrill Ride entirely! They’ll drop me as if I wasn't involved with them in the first place— they won’t bail me out if I go to jail! I’m screwed!”

This is so much worse than you imagined it being. If Sunwoo was losing his composure over his circumstances, who knows what the rest of the boys could do in order to help him. What could you even do to help him?

Was there anything you could do… at all?

IX.

There wasn’t much they could do about Sunwoo’s situation. Sure, Thrill Ride had many different buildings they could run to if the police truly followed the boy to them but there were too many things to factor in at the same time.

If Thrill Ride’s organizers suddenly decided to pick up everything they had built in what felt like their headquarters and suddenly moved, wouldn’t people start to question them? They couldn’t exactly tell their participants that the police were on their tail, it would cause widespread panic and a steady downfall of the street racing industry they had created.

But if Sunwoo and his McLaren continued to move about in the city and Thrill Ride, the police would catch them and throw everyone on the premises in prison. So Jacob came up with an idea of his own to secure Sunwoo and Thrill Ride’s freedom.

He handed his keys over.

Not to Chariot, no Sunwoo would rather die than submit the car he worked hard to earn over to his sponsors. Jacob compelled him to hand over his keys and vehicle over to Younghoon for the time being until he was out of the police's sight. The car would be placed in the car garage that Younghoon kept his own car at for safe keeping, making sure both Sunwoo and the police wouldn’t have access to it while he was away.

The keys were also given to Younghoon because he was the only one they could trust not to give them back to the curly headed driver. Eric was immediately out of the question because of the way he was so easily persuaded by Sunwoo’s fox-like nature, and Haknyeon was out of the question simply because he was too kind to not give back the one source of enjoyment he had.

Now the boy was left without a car, it had been his biggest identifier from that day— besides the clothes he was wearing that day — that the police were tracking down.

You think he was getting along just fine with his vehicle, carpooling with Eric every once awhile and even going on joy rides in Changmin’s Porsche when he was feeling fine enough. The only problem was that when the two of you wanted the hangout, he had to have someone drop him off at the destination like he was someone’s teenaged son.

You remembered that one time the two of you were going to meet up after your shift at the pub and when you had walked out to greet him, Sunwoo was being heckled by Kevin and Jacob. Despite the darkness of the night, you could easily catch sight of the way his face was beginning to turn red with embarrassment every time Kevin threw out a joke he couldn’t stand.

He couldn’t even fight back because they would simply threaten and tease him over not having a ride back home.

Honestly you thought it was cute how annoyed Sunwoo got every time, pulling his hood over his head or beelining as fast as he could away from them before they could say anything else. He’d whine with his lips pursed together in a frustrationed fashion as he’d apologize and complain about his friend’s behaviors but you didn’t mind it.

There were times where you would even join in on the teasing, though he was more lenient with you that he was with his other friends. After all, how could Sunwoo possibly curse at you when the whole reason he got dropped over here was because he wanted to meet with you?

“Clear skies this Saturday night in our city, the stars shines bright in celebration of being free of any car wrecks for almost an entire month—“

You shut the television off for the day, a sigh of relief exiting your lips as you melted down into the cushions of the couch. Despite it being your day off, you still felt physically and mentally exhausted.

Due to the decrease in collisions, people started to feel as though it was safer to begin driving around the city again. More people out and about at night meant more people clamoring into your job for a good time, celebrating birthdays and gathering for good times. It had gotten so busy again that your manager ended up scheduling more people onto your shift even.

No longer was it just you, the bartender, and the manager managing the pub, adding two coworkers you had offhandedly seen during opening time and even new workers had been hired.

Despite the amount of people working had increased, the workload seemingly got worse and worse. You were so used to everything being a quick job and getting such long breaks in between serving that you weren’t used to the sudden change in pace.

You were slowly getting used to it though, it simply just left your body aching for rest once you were finished.

The familiar ringing of your phone echoed across the nearly empty household, your hand wandering around the cushions for a moment before you made contact with it and answered, “hello?”

“Yo!” Sunwoo’s cheerful voice responded, he seemed to be in an especially good mood tonight. “Are you busy right now?”

“Not exactly, unless you call the need to lay down busy,” you told him, sitting up in your seat as you gave him your full undivided attention. Usually whenever Sunwoo called, you’d have to rush into your room as fast as your legs would take you to get away from your housemate’s prying eyes and ears. But luckily, they weren’t here today. “Why do you ask? Did you finally get the car back from Younghoon?”

“Ugh, I wish!” He hissed, annoyance pricking at the edges of his voice. “I’ve tried everything but Younghoon just won’t give in! It’s like he knows my every move at this point.”

You laugh at the boy’s frustration, imagining his dirty scowl shooting daggers at the Mustang’s owner. “You can blame Chanhee for that.” You explain to him, thinking back to a conversation you ever so happen to have overheard from the boy. “I think he’s placed a mole in your friend group so that he can know all your plans and then goes and spills it to Younghoon. He doesn’t like playing nice with others, you know.”

“A mole? But who could possibly—“ Sunwoo’s voice cut off as the gears in his brain involuntarily began to turn, the sparks from the metal practically flying at your face as he stayed silent for a moment longer. “— Eric. That dog! I should have known he would do something like this. Eric will do anything as long as you pay him in food.”

“Really now? I think I’ll have to note that for later,” you teased, the boy’s loud gasp of betrayal nearly spiking the volume in your phone. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Maybe, we’ll leave it for future me to decide.”

The two of you shared a lighthearted laugh with each other, your voices meshing together well despite being over the phone. “Like I was saying though,” the boy continued on, ushering the conversation away from his keys to the McLaren and onto something else. “Are you free right now?”

“I am, but if you’re about to take me joyriding in Jacob’s Mercedes I’ll have to decline,” you stressed, wanting to make sure you drew the line before even attempting to cross it. “Last time I was in that thing Kevin was driving that day and he either drives like my grandmother or drives like he’s trying to win a Nascar race.”

“No, no, don’t worry. I’m not inviting you on a joyride,” he reassured you. “In fact, what we are going to do requires no car at all.”

“Really? The ‘on probation street racer’ is telling me there are no cars involved with an activity he wants to do?” You questioned him. He doesn’t respond quick enough before there is a knock on the door, grabbing your attention and urging you to tend to it.

With an annoyed huff you slid off the couch unwilling to answer it. “Getting my car taken away has made me realize that there are better ways to have fun,” Sunwoo spoke. You nod your head in agreement as you unlocked the door in front you, he didn’t always need the thrill of racing to keep himself occupied—

“Do you want to join me?” You stared out the doorway as the boy stood in front you on the other side, his phone in one hand and the other waving at you. You shut the door without thinking, hearing your heart beating against your chest in a spiraling panic.

When did he get here? Had he been standing there the entire time when he had called you?

“What is he doing here,” you breathed, backing up to the window to peer through its glass down below. As per usual you didn’t see the black McLaren car parked on the sideline nor did you see the familiar sight of Eric’s yellow Camaro or Jacob’s blue Mercedes. Usually they would stick around until they saw you, sharing short greetings with you as courtesy before zooming off back to Thrill Ride.

But they weren’t there. “Did he… walk all the way here?”

“I did, actually.” Sunwoo’s voice blared in your ears, your skin jumping off its bones and scrambling to keep your phone from dropping to the ground. You had completely forgotten you still had Sunwoo on the line, the racer could hear everything you were saying. “It was a surprisingly nice walk honestly! Ten out of ten do recommend trying it sometime.”

You spammed the end call button even after the screen went black, needing to recompose yourself before seeing him again. He had caught you so off guard you weren’t even mentally prepared to have a face to face conversation with him.

After a few moments of putting yourself back together again, you dropped your phone into your pocket and approached the door to, just barely, open it again. All the curly headed boy could see through the crack in the door was the look of nervousness in your eyes.

Sunwoo flashed you that smile of his again, the sense of familiarity and safety settling into the air and luring you into opening the door completely.

Sunwoo was dressed pretty cozily, a loosely fitting denim jacket hanging over a sweatshirt he wore underneath and whatever black pants he could probably find at the time. He twirled around with the hoodie’s strings around his finger with one hand and his phone in the other, your contact information still lingering on its screen. “So is this a yes or no?”

“What?” Your mind was slowly rejoining society as you caught his round and hopeful eyes, eager to have you join him on whatever expedition he had planned this time. “No— do you even know what time it is?”

“It should be ten by now,” he answered you, looking down at his phone for confirmation and humming in satisfaction, “Yup! Perfect timing if I do say so myself. Come on Y/N, we aren’t going far.”

“I look a mess,” you declined, opening the door just a little wider for Sunwoo to get the full effect of your disarray. “I'm not prepared to go anywhere, near or far.”

A pout formed on his lips, slinking his way toward you and opening the door wide as he could whine right in your doorway. “Y/N please…,” Sunwoo begged, slumping up against the door frame with a dramatic sigh of distress, “no one else is gonna see you, it'll just be you and me! Don’t be such a buzz kill.”

You opened your mouth to object, persistent about not leaving your home no matter how Sunwoo tried to persuade you. Though your lips immediately zipped closed when a familiar hum echoed through the hallway, the tone of voice far too close to your housemate’s for comfort.

And then you realized it wasn’t just close to your housemate, it was your housemate.

“Oh shit,” without thinking you grabbed Sunwoo’s hand and dragged him through the door, panic evident on your face as you scoured the place for somewhere he could hide. The boy himself didn’t seem to realize the severity of the situation, confusion plastered against his forehead as he let you drag him around the room. “You need to hide somewhere… uh, my room! Go hide in my room!”

“Why though?” He questioned, pushing back against your strength as you tried to shove him in the direction of your open door. “What’s the problem? Is it the cops? Don’t tell me it’s the cops, I made sure no one was following me!”

“Even worse,” you answered him, giving him one last shove into your room as the door to your home began to creak open. “My housemate.” You slammed the door closed behind Sunwoo and turned with an eager smile to face your housemate as they entered the house blissfully aware that someone else was there.

“Welcome back!”

Your housemate’s face was dotted with surprise as they looked you up and down, taking note of your attire and heavy breathing as they placed their belongings on the kitchen table. “You’re actually here? In the house right now?”

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?” You replied, leaning up against the door to nonchalantly block their way from your bedroom. “It’s a Saturday night, where else would I be?”

“It’s just weird,” your housemate shrugged, their eyes narrowing as they carefully walked past you to the couch. “You’ve been spending a lot more time at home recently that’s all… what happened to your ‘hangouts’ with Chanhee and Changmin?”

You knew your housemate was alluding to all the lies and excuses you threw their way every time you went out with Sunwoo. You really should tell them the truth eventually, but you just couldn’t find the right time to do so. And now definitely wasn’t the right time, what if they got the wrong idea?

Well, what other idea could they get if you opened the door to your room with a boy they didn’t know occupying it?

“They’ve been busy. You know how Chanhee is sometimes,” you lied, a small chuckle falling out of your mouth in order to make it more authentic to them. “And Changmin doesn’t really get to spend his free time with me at the pub because we have so much to do… we don’t hang out often right now.”

“So this is definitely because everyone is busy and not because the boy you are dating dumped you right?”

“I’m not dating anyone, stop it.” You scoffed, rolling your eyes at your housemate’s attempt to trip you up. Maybe it really was best they never met Sunwoo, who knows what kind of heinous acts they would commit once they finally knew who you kept sneaking off to hang out with. It would be Kevin and Jacob but almost hundreds of levels times—

A loud thud could be heard from your room, followed by an angry shout before cutting itself off.

You didn’t move from your spot in the doorway, freezing in place and flashing your housemate the most oblivious and cheek aching smile you could possibly muster in front of them.

“What was that?”

“What was what?”

“The noise from your room.”

“What noise?” With that you finally found the strength to move again, turning the doorknob and darting into the room with panic written all over your face. Your housemate shouted behind you as you slammed the door closed to muffle their voice, begging to whatever was above or below that your housemate would not come running up to the door and opening it up.

You scan the room around for Sunwoo, finding him standing over whatever had caught down the noise with his hands covering his mouth. When his eyes met yours the amount of guilt and uneasiness was practically flooding the room as he pointed to a picture frame that was shattered on the ground and a cut on his hand was beginning to ooze blood.

He must have knocked it out by accident and cut himself on it, assuming that the loud thud was the curly headed driver tumbling down with it.

“No time to explain,” you decided, throwing on whatever pair of shoes you could find at the time, “we gotta go like now.”

“Sorry,” you paid no mind to his attempt at apologizing as you grabbed his hand and dragged him along again, cautiously opening the door to your room once your housemate’s yelling came to a close.

The two of you waited for a moment to make sure you were safe from getting caught before pushing the door open completely to run out the room.

You were met by your housemate’s victorious shriek once the two of you rushed past the kitchen, finding your housemate hiding behind the table to lure you into a false sense of safety. “I knew it! I knew you were seeing a boy! You can’t keep your secrets from me Y/N!” They lunged at the door to stop the two of you from leaving, just barely missing Sunwoo’s hood to keep you at bay.

“I can explain! Just,” you promised, opening the door and ushering Sunwoo out first and picking up your housemate’s keys off the table, “not right now. Sorry!” You closed the door in their face and scrambled to hold it back as they tried to force it back open, shouting words you weren’t even trying to process to try and coax you into letting go.

With awfully good coordination Sunwoo switched places with you, having a better time keeping the door closed while you fumbled with both your housemate’s and your keys to the door. After a moment you finally found the right copy on your housemate’s key ring and locked the door completely, trapping them in their own home so that you two wouldn’t get caught.

A deep sigh of relief washed over your body as you threw both keys into your pockets and crumbled down to the floor. You know you are never going to get them to live this down and when you walk back into the house you were in for the scolding of a lifetime. Maybe you should call Chanhee and ask if you could sleep over at his house for the night?

After all, your housemate doesn’t go back to work until Monday. They can handle being stuck at home for another day can’t they?

“Your housemate is freakishly strong, you know that?” Sunwoo couldn’t help but mention, his hair frizzing at the ends and taking off the jacket he wore over the sweatshirt to keep himself from overheating. “I mean man, that was a workout keeping that door closed!”

“I am… so sorry about them.” You frowned, glancing up at the door every so often to see if your housemate had left or not. Though the repeated banging and shouting from the other side let you know that they weren’t going to let you any time soon. “They are rather… eccentric? Concerned, probably, about me.”

“About the fact that you’re not dating the boy you’ve been hanging out with?” You hopped to your feet in a heartbeat, your ears burning in embarrassment as you tried to cover Suwoo’s mouth.

He backed away with every step you took forward and let laughter fill the hallway as he kept you at bay. “Relax, Y/N! I just think it’s funny that’s all! Who would have thought we were such a pair, huh?”

“Keep your voice down or my housemate will really think there is something going on between us!” You hissed, taking a hold of the strings of his sweatshirt and keeping him in place. “I can’t imagine what they’re thinking about right now… when I go back home my housemate is gonna maul me like a wolf.”

“Then don’t go back,” he responded, blinking a few times before noticing the baffled expression on your face. “I mean, you’re going to have to go back eventually yeah, but you don’t have to go in right now. You can, well, hang out with me for a little while since you are already out here. After all! The place I wanted to take you is not that far from here.”

You stumbled right into this boy’s trap, didn’t you? It didn’t matter how many times you had declined earlier, you were already out of the house with him.

Your face contorted into expression of disbelief just before a genuine laugh made it past your lips. “Fine then,” you caved, letting go of the boy’s jacket strings to hold your hand out to him. “Where are we going?”

The boy’s face brightened up in an instant, almost unable to control his energy as he rocked back and forth on his heels trying to contain himself.

When he was finally ready, Sunwoo threw the jacket in his arms over your shoulders and used his empty hand to grab yours. He pulled you along the empty hallway to the stairs at the very end.

Despite your initial hesitance, you let him pull you along as you followed behind him. One hand holding onto the jacket he had given you and the other trapped in his tight grip so you wouldn’t escape from him.

What he wanted to do was close by, he had told you. It wasn’t far to the point where you had to change clothes to look decent, it was close enough that you could leave your apartment with what you were wearing a jacket to keep you warm.

And close by it was. You had expected Sunwoo to start moving down the stairs to achieve his destination, but then he started skipping up the stairs that continued upward to the next floor.

Then you two kept going up, not stopping at the third, fourth, or fifth floor. Climbing the staircases felt like climbing a mountain at that point, after all your residency was on the second floor. It was much easier to take one singular flight of stairs every day than this absolute work out he was putting you through.

After a moment of complaining and Sunwoo only laughing in response, the two of you made it to the final floor provided by the stairwell. You were greeted by steel double doors and not a single window to count. This had to have been the rooftop of the building if you remembered correctly.

“May I present to you: our destination!” He chirped, pushing the double doors open to reveal the bare bone rooftop.

There was nothing up there for you to look at, unless you wanted to count the other buildings beside your apartment or the trees that couldn’t quite reach the roof just yet.

“What am I supposed to be looking at?” You questioned, crossing your arms as you glanced around at your surroundings. Maybe he had set something up and had hidden it really well?

“Maybe start by looking up?” Sunwoo offered, turning your head from looking forward to looking at the sky above you.

Your initial response was to protest the boy’s suggestion, but your brain turned to liquid the moment your eyes caught sight of the clear sky above you. When was the last time you had looked up and just saw… stars? Big shining stairs that dotted across the sky like droplets in an ocean and shining their own perfect light.

The way they lit up the sky to reveal the black and purple colors that created the space above you like abstract art, the way they clustered in one area to shine brighter to the eyes than the rest. Not to forget the moon, settling into its waning crescent as each day passed by and gently providing light to this otherwise dark night.

God, when was the last time you looked at the sky at night? It felt like such a long time since you had even thought about the world above you.

“I guess the forecast wasn’t wrong about clear skies,” you mumbled, unable to tear your eyes from the sight it had laid upon. “Who would have thought it was this nice to look at?”

“Being without a car forced me to get new hobbies,” Sunwoo started talking, finally making your head break away from the sky to give him your attention. It’s not like he wasn’t doing the same thing, his hands deep in the pockets of his sweatshirt as he sat on the ground to gaze up. “Since street racing was out of the question, I found myself looking up a lot more often than I was looking forward.”

“Do you think you prefer this over racing?”

“Oh hell no,” he shook his head vigorously. He glanced between you and the stars for a moment before a laugh rolled off his tongue, urging you to come take a seat next to him. “Having other hobbies is fun and all but I don’t think I’ll ever get over the exhilaration of racing. Nothing will ever amount to it in my book.”

It makes sense, street racers were addicted to the feeling they got when racing against their opponents. That feeling of speed and exhilaration of doing what your heart said first instead of listening to the mind. Even with all of the crashes and issues that come along with being a racer, you don’t think you’ve ever heard any of the drivers say they hated street racing.

To them, this hobby was a lifestyle worth losing your life over.

“So… off topic but on topic question.” You can’t help but speak, your own thoughts jumbling up in your brain as you struggle to put together sentences in your head. It didn’t help that Sunwoo turned to you with eyes wider than the moon, a hint of wonder and interest playing in his irises and a small pout forming on his lips from the way he laid his head against his knees.

Your brain shortcruited for a moment just looking at him, staring blankly and blinking slowly as you tried to reboot your brain. Wow, how long has it been since that happened to you in his presence?

… You don’t want to know actually.

“Uh… the races,” you manage to continue, throwing an amalgamation of words to the wind to keep the silence at bay between the two of you. “Do you really think once you go back to Thrill Ride and compete again, everything will be fine? I mean the police will only be off your tail for a little bit, who knows when they’ll find you again.”

Sunwoo thought to himself for a moment, practically hearing the gears in his brain turning as he tried to give you a solid answer. “I don’t know... But it’s not like I’ve ever had to be cautious about them in the first place.”

Oh right, Sunwoo has always had to make sure the police wouldn’t catch him even before he had met you because of his street racing hobby. This entire situation wasn’t something new to him, it was just a little scary that Chariot had threatened to drop him from their sponsorships and then ban him from ever returning.

He just had to be a little more cautious than others when it came to driving out on his own.

“Right, sorry I just,” you panicked, picking at your nails as you tried to maneuver the conversation elsewhere, “this whole thing was just kinda my fault for you know… distracting you when you should be watching your back so…”

Not exactly how you planned to maneuver the conversation.

“I don’t know why you’re apologizing, it was just human error.” Sunwoo smiled, nudging your shoulders to keep your spirits high. “It was more of my own fault than anything and you just happened to be in the crossfire. Don’t worry though, I’ll make sure that this won’t happen when I get my car back.”

You nodded in understanding when Sunwoo turned his head back to the sky, reveling in the cool breeze that brushed past your skin. “When do you think you’ll get your car back? It’s been well over a month since you were last racing at Thrill Ride.”

“Who knows,” he shrugged. “I’m hoping sometime next week, Thrill Ride is getting ready for a tournament that’s got all of the sponsors racers going against each other and as Chariot’s only racer that’s willing to put up with their antics, they’ll need me to show up eventually.”

Sunwoo went quiet for just a second before a mischievous glint appeared in his eye and he leaned toward you to whisper. “You’ll be standing at the finish line for me when the time comes, right?”

Even without the gasoline and cologne scent he carried, he still found a way to send your mind reeling with butterflies. All he had done was whispered, but his breath on your cheek and his proximity to your face was enough to make you squirm.

You were almost sure he didn’t do it on purpose either, there was no way he knew that his words and his actions could leave your heart banging its chains against your rib cage. It was almost a natural reaction at this point; it was simply something you couldn’t help.

And then a lightbulb flickered on in your head.

“Y/N?”

Oh, it makes so much more sense now. It wasn’t normal for a person to merely walk past and get you drunk on their scent. It wasn’t normal for a person to change their style of clothing and make you swoon at the sight of them. It wasn’t normal for a person to cave so easily and put aside their troubles just for you!

You were down bad for Sunwoo and somehow he hadn’t fully realized it for himself either.

“Are you even listening to me?” He joked, waving his hand in your face before laughing. “Wow, have you already gotten tired of me talking about Thrill Ride? I haven’t even mentioned a race with them since my car got confiscated by Younghoon.”

With your brain running on autopilot, you forcibly turn Sunwoo’s head toward you so you could both look at each other. His eyes bore into yours as he gave you every inch of attention and endearment he could possibly deliver— with a hint of confusion sprinkled in it —that it almost toppled you over.

His gaze was knocking the wind out of your lungs and making you struggle to figure out your next move. Sunwoo sat in front of you cluelessly and very slowly began to remove your hands from the sides of his face.

“Y/N? Is there a problem or...?” Your name was like a feather on air when he spoke it, sending you over the edge as you leaned in and planted the quickest and most fleeting kiss on his cheek as you possibly could have done.

Your lips probably felt like nothing but a light brush of air on his skin, but the evident rising temperature of Sunwoo’s skin and burning red of his ears was enough to know he felt the contact of it.

“Good luck on your next race when you get your car back!” You shout at him, hoping your words of encouragement somehow pushed past the buzzing of his brain. “Make sure you don’t crash and the police don’t catch you and… make sure you win!”

With that you hopped into your feet quicker than you had originally anticipated, your heart beating like drums in your chest as you turned on your heels to book it down the stairwell. You wouldn’t even be able to tell anyone what possessed you to do such an open gesture but it was too late to take it back now.

You were practically running down the stairs and mentally shouting in your mind about what you had done, cursing whatever intrusive thought or sudden impulse that had taken over your body at the moment. Usually those types of things were never a problem for you but your body wasn’t processing what your mind was saying.

Not to mention how long you had been wanting to take such an action but kept putting it on the back burner for so long because you didn’t realize how much you actually liked Sunwoo.

“It was just a cheek kiss,” you repeated over and over again, “it was just a cheek kiss. It was nothing serious! It was nothing to get worked up over, it was literally—!”

“Y/N!”

“I’m sorry!” You stopped in your tracks and turned around to give Sunwoo the most sincere apology you could handle. “I literally don’t know what came over me, you can just pretend like it never happened. Actually, if you want to get a restraining order and never see me again that’s fine too!”

You kept rambling on as Sunwoo descended the stairs, getting closer with every word that was being spit out of your mouth. You were so engrossed in your own panic that you almost didn’t realize that he was just as frazzled as you were, the only difference being that he wore the biggest disoriented smile across his face.

“Can I kiss you too?” He breathed the moment he jumped the last two steps of the staircase, stopping in front of you and nearly toppling both of you over as he tried to regain his balance. “Can I kiss you too, Y/N?”

Your delayed reaction gave the both of you time for the words and actions you two had taken to finally settle into your minds completely. “You want to…?” You asked and he vigorously nodded his head again, almost like a dog waiting patiently for his trigger word. You could feel the way Sunwoo’s hands were shaking as he held tightly onto your shoulders, jittering and trembling with anticipation.

Oh, he’s serious. Sunwoo was completely serious.

Well if he was being serious then why should you be anything else than?

You pull the boy down the last step he was standing on, your hands moving from the collar of his shirt to the sides of his face as pressed your lips against his. The boy caught himself on the wall for a second before the two of you almost went falling down the stairwell once more, a gasp of surprise coming from his mouth at your sudden sense of vigor.

Sunwoo recovered from the shock in an instant, returning the surge of passion by kissing you back with the same, if not stronger, need to taste you on his tongue. Even if you weren’t intoxicated by him at the time, the way he kept his hand in your hair was enough to let you know your strawberry shampoo was intoxicating him.

In fact, he was practically eating you alive at that point.

It’s like Sunwoo was drowning in his own selfish desires, his hands like superglue as he kept your body and lips stuck to his without leaving you a chance for air. When your hands fell from his face, Sunwoo’s own hand would reach out into your hair and leave you no choice but to keep your hands wrapped around his neck.

Every time you would pull away from him just to take a breath it would be cut short by him hungrily closing the distance between you with the most greedy desperate kiss Sunwoo could muster.

And the two of you stayed like that for much longer than you had anticipated. Of course, you stayed like that until your phone’s ringtone began to chime in your pocket.

You ignored it at first, but each time it rang the phone would hang up the call midway through the chime only to restart the incoming again. And it happened over and over and over for the next minute or two. Until finally, you had enough with it buzzing in your pocket.

Thankfully it seemed Sunwoo was just as annoyed as you were, willingly letting you go when you separated from him to answer the call. Whoever it was, they had completely ruined the atmosphere between the two of you and had replaced it with an odd awkward silence.

“Who is calling you this late at night?” He breathed, the irritated tone in his voice a lot more evident than he had probably planned on it being. “Someone better be dying.”

“I don’t know, you sure did the same thing not even twenty minutes ago,” you answered without thinking, not even looking up to catch the boy’s hurt expression dancing on his face.

You only grimaced at the sight of Chanhee’s contact information flashing on your phone’s screen and begrudgingly answered it. If he was calling you right now instead of getting his beauty sleep, that meant something urgent had happened.

Or at least, you hoped it was something urgent and not him calling to tease you about whatever he wanted to at the time. You never really knew what he wanted. “Chanhee, is now really the time?”

“Y/N, what the hell!” Chanhee’s voice blared through your phone’s speaker, loud enough to the point where even Sunwoo could hear the boy shouting at you. You became alert immediately at his angry tone, instinctively started running the volume down and turning your back on Sunwoo. It seemed Chanhee was in the mood to chew you out and he was going to be brash about it.

“Why the hell did your housemate call me, of all the people in the world, to let them out of your house?” The boy hissed, “I don’t know where you are or why they know me and Changmin have the spare key but get back to this apartment before I lose my mind on both of you!”

The phone abruptly hung up, and you looked down the remaining staircases with a hint of embarrassment and terror in your eyes. “I should, uh… probably head back, huh?”

You didn’t want to, feeling your heart pull the strings of your body to stay exactly where you were with Sunwoo’s shining eyes staring into yours. But he only nodded his head in agreement and gave you a reassuring smile, warm like the sun with a cool breeze behind it. “Yeah, don’t want to get in any trouble do you?

you lift your eyes from the carving knife in your hand to see jun sitting across from you at the kitchen table, frowning at his pumpkin. the plastic tablecloth he convinced (begged) you to buy patterned with black cats in pointy witch hats covers the table, protecting it from the stringy orange insides of the jack-o-lanterns you’re currently decorating in preparation for the trick or treating children that’ll be coming to your door this weekend.

“let me see.”

he lifts it up and turns it towards you. it's a cat; or at least, it was meant to be. you can still make out the sharpie outline along the edges of jagged cuts, but the carving in front of you doesn’t even vaguely resemble the intended design. you do your best to stifle your laugh when you see his masterpiece, but unfortunately jun catches it.

“hey!” he pouts.

you giggle and reach out across the table, your hand finding his. his fingers automatically lace with yours, playing with your hand, rocking them back and forth. his fingers are sticky and faintly stained orange from scooping out the pumpkins earlier, but you don't even notice. all you're focused on is him.

"i think it's cute," you say, gazing into his eyes. "it's very... you."

his face lights up, mouth open wide and cheeks scrunching up the way he does when he's happy. you grin, watching with a fond smile, completely enamored by him.

"i think you're cute," he says, then erupts into a fit of giggles.

you give his hand a quick final squeeze before finally letting go, and pick up your knife again.

he gets up and comes around the table, pulling out the chair next to you to sit down.

you look over at him as he scoots closer. "are you done?" you ask, nodding at his adorable, perfect mess of a jack-o-lantern.

"yeah." he laughs. "i want to watch you finish yours."

"you could always, y'know, start cleaning up," you joke, motioning to the scraps littering the table.

"i guess," he shrugs. "but i like waiting for you."

and, really, how can you say no to that? 

"at least go wash your hands first," you laugh.

he stands. "fine," he sighs dramatically, feigning despair as he pushes in his chair. "i'll be back,” he says, then leans down to press a kiss to the top of your hair.

you roll your eyes, but smile at his affection. "you're only going across the kitchen, you know i can still see you, right?"

he laughs and skips over to the sink to wash up. a few seconds later the oven timer dings, calling both of your attention. 

"oh, they're done!" jun says, grabbing a mitt and yanking open the oven door and sliding out the metal tray.

"bring them over here," you call out to him.

"already on it," he chuckles, dumping the pan of toasted pumpkin seeds into a small glass bowl, carrying it back over and setting it on the table in front of you.

he stops behind you, wrapping his arms around your shoulders and reaching across you to grab a pumpkin seed before popping it into his mouth. "this batch is definitely better than last year’s," he says, crunching by your ear.

you wrinkle your nose at his chewing noises and elbow him playfully, making him yelp. "that's because someone didn't forget to add the salt this time!"

he giggles and reaches for another seed, holding it up to your lips in response. with your hands still occupied with the tools, you open your mouth for him to feed it to you. as he begins to pull his hand away, you give his finger a little kiss. instantly his hand freezes for a second, then moves to caress your cheek, gently rubbing his thumb along your jaw. 

you can’t see him, but you feel his smile against the back of your head. having witnessed and, to your amusement, been the cause of this smile many times, you can clearly picture his face: his smile so wide you can see it in the corners of his eyes, a hint of a dimple showing in his cheeks and his eyes sparkling as he watches you with a tender fondness. you quickly focus your attention back on carving your pumpkin, his smile becoming infectious as you feel your own cheeks start to heat up.

hours (and many little kisses) later, you’re finally satisfied with the way your design turned out, and you begin clearing up the table. 

you hold the door open for jun, his arms loaded with pumpkins, and he carries them outside, positioning them at the entryway of the porch steps. the outdoor light flickers on at the motion, illuminating your tiny space from the darkness of the evening. the cool night air sends a chill down your spine, and you shiver, your short pajamas not meant to protect you from the cold. jun notices and wraps his arms around you, pressing you close to his chest and enveloping you in his warmth. gently he pulls you towards the door and back into the warmth of the house, closing the door behind him.

“i think they turned out cute,” you say finally, still wrapped up in his arms, standing together in the doorway.

he giggles. “i still think mine didn’t look right,” he says, rocking you back and forth on your feet.

“trust me, it looks perfect.”

i hope you enjoyed this!! if you did, consider reblogging or leaving a comment or an ask :) it lets me know this is something people want to see more of and it helps a ton with being motivated to write. thanks for reading!!

taglist | @foxdaisy @tinkerbell460 @dokyeomblr @huiranghaes

You're usually not this carefree when it comes to food. You always have your meals planned for the week, the weekend, the snacks, everything in between. You've grown up this way, counting nutrients and macros and micro calories until it comes as natural as breathing does.

But you're a mess right now. You're a mess and you don't give a flying pig's fuck whether you're eating all the right nutrients for the day. Not today. Nope.

It's just... you do know that driving isn't everything. It's not. There's wars happening, there are people losing their lives, there are countries struggling to keep their finances afloat and families who are counting every penny they're making just to make it through another day. And when you put things into perspective, you can't help but think of how privileged you are to be even standing here, in a flat of your own with food you buy with your own money. Your family is safe, your family is healthy. Honestly, what more do you need?

And yet.

And yet.

That driving test had been so important to you. You'd already put aside some money to buy this second-hand toyota vitz that you've had your eyes on for over six months, you want -- no, crave -- this desire to drive. To be free.

And the worst part -- you could've done so much better than this. Than whatever had happened on the road this morning.

"What mistakes did you make? You're allowed up to three mistakes until you fail right?" Hyunjae asks as he lifts himself up from the couch, where he's been stationed for the past hour, "do you need help by the way?"

"No I don't," your scowl deepens despite knowing Hyunjae and the driving test are not related. Not onr bit, "I crossed the yellow box at the intersection. And I turned a little too aggressively apparently. And then there was stupid stuff too, like switching lanes. I was too close to the white line as I waited."

"Bullshit."

"See?! It is bullshit! I mean, the errors are so ambiguous!" Your hands shoot up in exasperation, "I don't get it! And some people pass on the first try."

Hyunjae can't help but snort, "like me."

"You don't have to rub that in my face."

You're too busy sliding in your tomatoes into the pot to notice Hyunjae's figure moving over to stand next to you, until your elbow bumps into his stomach.

"Ouch," he grimaces.

"What do you expect? You're in my way," you answer back with a roll of your eyes. You stir the pot, the aroma lifting up in the air and making you sigh in bliss. Hyunjae does the same. He's always loved your stews.

"I can help you out."

You don't look at him as you ask, "with what?"

"With the driving."

This time, you look up at him, browa furrowed in confusion, "you? Helping me with my driving? You barely even have time for yourself."

"I've cleared up my schedule for uber so I'm free on Wednesdays and Fridays. And the weekend."

"I thought you needed money," you turn to fetch two bowls from your cabinet, only to see them in Hyunjae's hands, ready to be served.

"I do, do you wanna pay me?"

You punch him lightly in the arm, grabbing one bowl at a time to serve a decent helping and of course, adding extra chicken pieces to the said young man's bowl.

"Are you serious?" You can't help but ask because in all honesty, Hyunjae ia a good driver, "I can definitely pay you...if that's not too much trouble for you."

"It'll be more fun to hear you complain while driving, that's for sure."

You show him the middle finger in response, which makes him laugh before following you to the dining table cramped with two chairs.

"So is that a yes?" Hyunjae asks with a mischievous gleam that makes him look like a little kid.

You throw him a pointed look, "I'm going to ask you again: you're sure about this?"

"Hundred percent."

"Do I get a discount?"

"No."

"Why?" You can't help but whine out, leaning over the table to give him the best puppy eyes you can muster up, "I can pay you back in free meals."

A spark lights up Hyunjae's eyes. He grins, cocking his head to the side, "now that, is a good deal."

---

"Watch out for the sidewalk--No! Don't--Don't turn!"

It's your first lesson with Hyunjae and it has been a week since the start of your small arrangement. It's Friday afternoon and you'd skipped your business management class in favour of driving around the neighbourhood with Hyunjae. Him, on the other hand, had cleared his schedule of any uber activities. And for that you're grateful.

However, it seems that your best friend has a temperament. And you're not quite sure whether that works at your advantage or not.

"Jesus Y/n," Hyunjae's breathing hard by the time you swerve back into your respected lane, chest heaving up and down and if you watch closely enough, you're certain you can spot the sweat dripping down his face, "no wonder you didn't pass your driving test."

"Thanks Hyun, that's exactly what I wanna hear right now," you retort.

"What do you want me to say? That you're an excellent driver when you're a danger hazard?!"

"Well no--but a little support would've been nice!"

He snorts at that, arms crossing over his chest, "you don't need support. You need someone to actually show you how to drive," a pause as you hit the brakes at the red light before you. That gives him a little moment to breathe. You see him turn towards you at the corner of your eye, "why didn't you continue with that driving school you used to go to?"

Instantly, your mood turns sour.

You don't answer. The light turns green and with a little more force than necessary, you swivel to the right, following the traffic crawling up one of the main streets.

"Hellooo," Hyunjae, however, doesn't pick up on the sudden change in mood, "you could at least not ignore the person trying to help you out here."

"I didn't have time."

You do know that your voice is coming out colder than expected. You hope Hyunjae is too oblivious to care.

"In any case -- oh, go. The car's moving," he directs you forward upon seeing the traffic ease up, "slowly, make sure to check out the upcoming red light. They dock marks when it turns yellow."

"That's such bull."

"Uhuh. Go right. Keep your vehicle steady," his hand rests on yours, gently turning the wheel and navigating you into the right position. You notice how big his hand is in comparison to yours.

You're turning onto another side road when you aak, "Has your hand always been this big?"

"Pfft. Honey, my hands have always been big," he wriggles his brows, "if you know what I mean."

You shove him, "dick."

You try not to let yourself think about what happened in driving school back then. The memory still haunts you even to this day, despite you brushing it off and hoping to carry this secret to your grave. There are many things you regret in life. One of them is continuing on with it despite of what was happening. How stupid--pathetic--an idiot.

Hyunjae, of course, doesn't know anything.

You meet him a few days later for another lesson in the heart of the city and you're waiting where driving school students usually do, when your eyes suddenly spot a familiar green vehicle in the distance.

You freeze.

It's him.

You blink. A shiver runs down your spine. Fear.

A hand on your thigh. You, unmoving, terror spreading like venom.

A voice in your ear. Disgusting.

The car turns and a gasp leaves you upon spotting his face. The world suddenly comes to a halt, blood freezing and air suddenlt getting sucked out of your chest.

It would have been impossible to avoid him forever. But you hadn't expected to see him again this soon.

You feel trapped. You can't breathe. Your legs feel like cement, stuck to the ground.

Your voice. You can't speak, you can't--

"Y/N."

You jump. Swivel around to see Hyunjae waiting for you with a confused furrow to his brow. He's looking pretty good, with a simple white shirt, checkered shirt thrown over the top, and dark jeans and sneakers to match.

"I've been calling your name for ages, you asleep or wha--" his words are cut off when you stride towards him, grab his arm to pull him away. Away from him. Away from all the mwntal pictures flashing before your eyes.

"Y/N?" He's calling after you, worry now lining his voice, "what-- what's wrong?"

"I--nothing I just--where's your car?"

"Y/N--Hold on. Wait," he grabs your shoulders, turning you around with a firm grip that's impossible to escape and though you avoid his eyes, drop your gaze to the ground, you know from the way he's tightened his hold that it hasn't escaped his notice.

He waits though. Until your door is closed, until you're already pulling out of the parking lot without a backwarda glance. Until you're driving down the road at full speed as if you're on the run for your life.

You don't know how much time has elapsed until Hyunjae calls your name. Once. Twice.

"Y/N."

"What?"

"Can you pull over to the side?" He points towards a free spot where another car is pulling out. You diligently slide in, and Hyunjae grabs onto the wheel for assistance. He makes sure you're well settled into your space before turning to you in a way that makes you squirm in place.

"Care to tell me what that was about?" His tone is serious, causing you to look away and swallow hard.

Of course he deserves explanations. It's just that... you don't know how to tell him.

"And don't tell me it's nothing," he cuts off your mental scramble with a finality to his tone, "you can't hide that from me Y/N. Who do you take me for?"

Crap.

"There's nothing to say," you lie. But it's useless, because Hyunjae has seen the fear stretching across your face, has noticed the terror glazing your eyes over.

His hand grasps your wrist, a familiar action he does whenever he tries calming you down, "tell me, Y/N."

You can't keep it in any longer.

You break.

You tell him everything. About how it had started with comments on your appearance at first, how pretty you looked today, how beautiful the clothes fitted on your body. You'd thought it weird but not weird enough to stop. So a polite thank you was your only response. Apparently, that had only escalated from there. His hand, venturing under the wheel to touch your knee, then slide up your thigh. And you, driving, terrified that doing something about it would be overreacting. Was it overreacting? You weren't sure. Of anything. And you were ashamed.

So ashamed.

The more you speak, the more tense Hyunjae seems to become. His jaw clenches and he fists his hand so hard in his lap that his knuckles turned white. He doesn't look at you, instead keeps his gaze on the vehicle before him and finally, when you're done and drying your eyes with the edge of your sweater while avoiding his at all costs, Hyunjae's hand slowly slips up to your shoulder and pulls you in.

He hugs you to his chest, not minding that your bodies were separated by a joystick. He tucks your head into the crook of his neck and it was only upon noticing the trail of tears on his shirt that you realize you're crying.

"I'm sorry," you attempt to pull away but Hyunjae halts you, arms locked into an iron cage of comfort that leaves you no choice but to melt even further into him.

When he speaks next, his voice is filled with silent, seething rage.

"How long has this been going on for?"

It scares you. And yet, the concern, the security that pools around you in layers of warmth in the form of Hyunjae's figure. He makes you feel safe. Heard. And most of all, not judged.

You shake your head. Time had blurred the moment this started happening. As if a recurring nightmare that would go on and on without end.

"Did he do anything else, Y/N?"

You don't answer, hiding your face into Hyunjae's neck.

"Y/N. I need to know. Did he do anything else?"

Maybe it's the way Hyunjae speaks that make you shiver. But you answer in a hoarse murmur:

"He--tried. But--I... I uhm, I--"

Hyunjae hugs you even tighter in response, though you can feel the physical tension running through his veins. He's burning, ready to explode and knowing Hyunjae, he's bound to get into a reckless fight just because of you.

"I'll kill him." He grovels out.

His words make your heart jump. You tug onto his shirt in response, "don't," you murmur, pulling back to look up at him, "don't do anything stupid."

He doesn't respond, but you feel his jaw clench. Reaching up to cup his cheek and turning his face to yours, you continue, "it's not worth it. And it's already done."

"He hurt you."

"Well, technically--"

"He hurt you, Y/N." Hyunjae's eyes darken menacingly, "I don't--I can't--" taking in a breath, he exhales shakily as though trying to regain a sense of control, "I can't let that slide."

"You can't beat him up for it. There's no proof. And you can't complain either--"

Anger flares through his nostrils, "what about the other girls he did that to? Are you just going to let it slide?"

"It's not worth it, not for you. If anything, I'm the one that should do something about it, " you try catching his gaze with your eyes after a moment of deliberately ignoring them, he does. And the anguish, the amount of emotion running, swirling through them is enough to knock the air out of your chest in one single breath.

You don't know how long you stare up at Hyunjae, him doing the same. You don't notice that his other arm has fallen to your waist, gently caressing the bit of skin underneath your shirt. Nor do you notice the way his heart speeds up as if he's just run a marathon in five minutes.

"Will you?"

"Hm?" you blink back to focus. Since when has Hyunjae been so close to you? Absentmindedly, you hear a car honk in the distance to remind you that you're still in the parking lot, and this is definitely still a public space.

"Will you do something about it?"

"I--" suddenly, it feels too hard to breathe. Hyunjae probably notices your inner turmoil, for he shushes you, hand smoothing down your back and pressing his head atop yours.

"I'm sorry I raised my voice at you," comes his murmur.

You shake your head, "that's nothing to apologize for."

"I still think you should go and report him to the driving school company he works for, at least."

Biting down so hard on your lip that you taste blood, you allow your eyes to fall to Hyunjae's collarbones and notice, for the first time, that he's got a scatter of moles across his neck. Cute.

"I will," you mumble in hopes that he'll be convinced. He isn't.

He grips your shoulders, turns you to him and says, "I know it's hard and I don't want to push you to do something you don't want to. But for the goodness of everyone else's and for the safety of the other students that are taking his lessons, you should report him."

You lower your head to his shoulder, "...I will."

How you will do such a thing, you're not quite sure.

But one thing you do know is that you haven't felt more safe anywhere else but in Hyunjae's arms and you wish this, this feeling can last forever.

As if listening in to your thoughts, Hyunjae snuggles even closer to you, dares a small kiss to be pressed upon your forehead.

"What's that for?" Your words echo against his nape.

He shifts against you without answering, though you hear his heart rate pick up through his chest.

"What?"

"You just..." your voice trails off at the last two words, "kissed me."

"No I didn't."

"Hm. Could've fooled me."

----

Nothing else was said on the matter of the forehead kiss. You did, however, pluck up your courage with two hands and, with Hyunjae's help, deposited a formal comppaint to the police station. Thankfully, both officers are kind and gentle with you, listening in attentively and assuring you that they will be looking into the matter as soon as possible.

"Since when has this been happening?" One of them asked while the other has his pen ready in hand. Outside, you can hear the bustling of police officers mixed in with landlines ringing in caocphony. It's no wonder the police are always running around the clock.

Is this a mistake? Just a waste of time?

"Hey," Hyunjae's voice brings you back to reality, one of his hands coming to a rest upon your own before he squeezes it softly.

Your eyes flutter up to meet his, and his tender smile makes your ribs contract.

"You okay?" He asks.

You croak out, "yeah."

You've never seen auch an attentive side to him before so it does surprise you, the way he coaxes words out of you as you continue babbling on about what your driving instructor had done, the way he gently guides you down the corridor, away from the policemen, away from the thought of what you'd just confessed in your own words.

He pushes open the door so that you can step outside and you take a shaky inhale, not noticing the way your best looks at you as if you've just opened up a whole entire universe to his eyes. A universe at which you're the center.

"Thank you," you can't meet his eyes. Not after everything that had just transpired.

"You don't have to thank me, Y/N."

"I do. It--that--I--" you stutter over your words as emotion catches in your throat, "I never would've been able to do that without you."

A few beats of silence pass, in which he gazes down at you, and you back up at him. Something stirs in the air, as new as a baby bird shaking its wings, as new as a butterfly breaking out of its cocoon for the first time.

His hand reaches for yours, pulls you closer until you have no choice but to look up at him, and the depth in his eyes makes your heart jump up to your throat.

"Proud of you," he murmurs.

You can't help but smile, "shut up."

"I really am," he pushes a strand of hair off your face. You feel the heat of a blush creep up your face. What? This is Hyunjae, the guy who'd make fun of you because you'd always sleep with your mouth open!

"W-We should probably head back." You stammer and proceed to side-step him. He lets you, allows the distance to grow once more between your bodies as you walk up to the said car. Nothing else is said during the drive back home and, despite the heavy realization that maybe you have a teeny tiny crush on your best friend, you try not to give that away when you say goodbye with a small sidehug.

"I'll see you around," you'te already gathering your things, scrambling to get out and away from him as soon as possible.

You don't even wait for him to say bye.

----

You could've imagined it.

The forehead kiss.

His hand holding yours.

The way he looks at you.

The more you try to push it out of your mind, the more Hyunjae seems to come haunt you.

You continue your driving lessons once per week, which does not help matters in the least. It's as if you brought your best friend back and yet, he'd do something like put his hand on the back of your seat, or place his hand upon yours to steer you in the right lane. More often than not, Hyunjae would lean over to direct you and you'd get a whiff of his deodorant. And oh my, had he always smelled this good?

"Earth to Y/N."

"What?" Your head whips up only to catch Hyunjae's eye as he strides to you. His hair is parted sideways this morning and he can almost pass as a model with those tight-ass jeans, black v-neck and metal chain hanging just above his collarbone.

The thing is, you've known Hyunjae all your life. You know that he knows how good he looks. And he'd played with those cards without fault today apparently.

" it's the D-Day," he grins wickedly, "how do you feel?"

"Like I'm about to throw up."

He takes a seat beside you, "you drive well. You just have to be careful of your turns and that you don't run over any red lights."

"But it's so hard! And you know how unlucky I am when it comes to that!"

"You'll be fine," he holds your gaze, "I promise."

You were not.

It's only fifteen minutes later that you step out of the police car, tears stinging the back of your eyes as you make your way back to the police station as shame crawls all over your tummy. The police woman recites off all your mistakes but you're barely listening, the rush in your ears so loud that you only nod in response to all her complaints and by the time you do make it out of the police office, you're disoriented, lost. Unsure of what to do.

You find Hyunjae or rather, he finds you in the middle of the parking lot, glassy-eyed and flushed to your toes.

"I'm such a loser," is the first thing you say to him, almost laughing at yourself. Except this situation is not funny at all and you soon realize that you’ll have to do this again, and again, and again, until you somehow miraculously get this stupid piece of paper that doesn’t even mean much in the real world. That fact alone is frustrating in itself and you swear you almost break down right then and there, if not for Hyunjae’s firm grasp on your shoulder, propelling you out of your thoughts.

“You did nothing wrong,” he looks into your eyes, searches your gaze until he’s sure you’re finally looking at him and not through him, “and we’ll keep trying until you get it. There’s no shame in failing a driving test Y/N. You know that right?”

“For you probably,” you mumble.

He pulls you into a hug then, as if that might solve all the problems that seem to burst out of your life. Though it does calm you down, the way his chest presses against yours, the way his warmth engulfs your entirety, like you can drown yourself in him if you really want to.

You briefly wonder whether he’s aware of the effect he has on you, but decide against saying anything. You’ve said enough for today.

So you only hold on to him even tighter if that’s possible before breathing in deep. Hyunjae’s scent fills your nose and you’d be a liar to say that it doesn’t ease your worries, because it does.

You’re not sure how you feel about that.

The more you try to push away thoughts of your best friend being what people called "boyfriend material", the more his presence haunts you. It's impossible to go five minutes without thinking of the way his body feels when he leans over you, or the way his hand covers yours, or the way butterflies erupt in your chest when he looks at you for a little too long.

To the point where it annoys you, grates at your nerves. So annoying.

It seems though, that fate isn't on your side, when you bump into him on your way home from work.

"Hello stranger," his face eases out into that mischievous grin that makes your cheeks warm. You look away, as if burnt, "you've been avoiding me."

"I've been busy," you retort, "and I have other friends."

"But I'm your favourite, right?" He wriggles his brows as he follows you to your said bus stop. It's the middle of the week, around five in the evening, and the place is void from people.

That doesn't help. That leaves you alone with him. You can't have that.

"What's going on with your driving? You haven't asked to meet up after your test," Hyunjae asks.

"Ugh I don't even want to think about it," you grumble.

"You don't want to pay me anymore?"

"Stop being so dramatic, Hyunjae. You know that's a lie."

"So you're avoiding me then?"

"What makes you think that?" You scoff, looking down at the scuff of your shoes, at the end of your road. Anything to avoid Hyunjae if you can help it.

"Well you're not looking at me, for one."

You look up, frowning, "that's not--"

Hyunjae stepping forward to trap you against the wall of the bus stop has you yelping in shock. Dipping his head towards yours with a smirk that causes you to squirm in place, his arm presses against the wall to trap you in, heat against heat. Tempting.

Your head is buzzing. You feel dizzy. Light-headed.

Suddenly, it's hard to breathe.

“What are you—“ the words catch in the back of your throat upon seeing his face up close, so close to yours. You turn your head away, only for his fingers to grasp your chin, turn you back to face him with again, that mischievous glint in his eye, almost as if he’s a five year old boy ready to tease you senseless about your unexplainable crush on him—

You do not have a crush on him. As if on cue, you take a sharp breath.

Hyunjae notices, causing his smirk to grow wider, “so,” he says as casually as you would discuss today’s weather forecast, “my dear Y/N, I’d like to ask you something—“

“Please don’t.”

“—Because I think that you and I have—“

“Shut up Hyunjae—“

“—still have things to discuss and you—“

“I said shut up!”

“—do you like me like I do?”

You’re about ready to kick him at this point, to throttle him with bare hands. That is, until the weight of his words sink in.

You blink up at him, momentarily lost. Did you hear him correctly or is that another figment of your imagination? Because in a universe tucked away from this reality, you and Hyunjae are — well, if you’re being honest with yourself — fully immersed in each other’s being. It’s a pathetic secret that you’ve merely realized was true a few nights ago as you lay in bed, wide-eyed and staring up at the ceiling, and wondered why your heart beat so fast whenever Hyunjae’s name floats to mind.

Hyunjae prods the side of your hip, bringing you out of your sudden daze, “hello? Did you hear what I just said?”

“Wha—I—Did you—I—“ you can’t help but splutter out and making him chuckle deeply as his hand reaches up to curl a strand of hair behind your ear. You feel the heat ignite within your chest, so tight and bundled up in a knot of fire that makes you squirm in place and — why the heck was he so close?!

Amused brown eyes gaze down at your flushed face, though his grip on your chin is firm, stopping any attempts for you to hide your face somewhere, anywhere. His body, his warmth, you can feel it. The heat that buzzes between you, a tension that’s been pulled tight like an elastic band and ready to pop at any given moment.

“Hey,” Hyunjae murmurs.

You bite your lip. Your eyes flit to his, then back up to his.

Your heart lurches at the tenderness swimming in his orbs.

“Wh-What?” Your heart is pounding.

“Are we…” Hyunjae searches your gaze for a moment as the tension wraps around you in a tighter embrace, “…can I…kiss you?””

You don’t know what to say. You don’t know what you can say to such words, except that there’s no denying the jolt that your heart gives, practically jumping up your throat as it tightens. Which is why you blurt out the first thing that comes to mind:

“Are you flirting with me?”

Hyunjae blinks. You blink back. Then, horror seeps in.

Oh no.

Oh no no no—

But he bursts out laughing, “yes Y/N, I am — well, no — I’m trying to flirt with you. I have been trying for ages now.”

“Stop shitting me.”

“I swear it on my mother’s head that I am not shitting you,” Hyunjae’s hand releases your chin to raise it at his side and despite yourself, you miss the warmth of his fingertips, “ask the rest of the boys if you’re not convinced.”

“Is this why you wanted to give me driving lessons?”

“Well…” He grimaces, “partly, yes. But I also genuinely wanted you to pass your driving test.”

That earns him a hit on his arm, causing him to yelp, “ouch! What? What did I do? I helped you!” He whines out like a kicked puppy and though you’re aware that Hyunjae is a little too close and that it should’ve made you more uncomfortable that he’s in your personal space, you can’t help but laugh at his expression. He joins you soon enough, all grins and smiles. His free hand absentmindedly drops to your hip to draw comforting circles.

Your small moment is broken when a bus pulls up. Your bus. And though you should’ve been more surprised when the said young man decidedly hops on to accompany you home, there’s something that shifted in the air between you. The ball is in your court now, you know Hyunjae feels and there’s a warm glow that seems to spread across your heart and tingle at your fingertips the more time you spend pondering over the thought that yes, you want this. You want this as much as he does. Maybe more.

He goes back to being your best friend during the bus ride home and it isn’t until he walks you up to your apartment door that nervousness creeps up on you again.

“Thanks for dropping me off. You didn’t have to do that,” you tell him.

He answers with a raised brow, “I only accompanied you home because I’m waiting for an answer. A positive one, hopefully.”

“What answer?” You play dumb.

“Don’t make me repeat it again. My ego’s already gone under the bus. Do you really have to do that?”

You only grin up at him.

He sighs, “fine. Y/N, I like you and I’d like to know if you like me too because otherwise I don’t think we’ll be able to be best friends anymore. On top of that, I don’t think I can keep the promise of being your best man at your wedding—“

Your hand clamps upon his t-shirt and you tug him down, cutting off his speech as your lips press against his in a short, sweet kiss.

Hyunjae’s eyes are glazed over when you pull back, looking at you as if he’s seeing you for the first time.

“Wow.” He murmurs, and before you know it he’s wrapped his arms around you, pushed you back against your front door, before his lips lock upon yours.

Wow is an understatement.

His mouth, so gentle yet firm, opens up against yours. His arms firmly press you to his chest and your hands flatten against his t-shirt, instinctively curling into the material when he parts your mouth and kisses you till your head starts spinning. You never would’ve taken Hyunjae for a gentle kisser, but the way he handles you with care — cupping your face with one hand to tilt your head sideways — causes tingles of excitement to shoot down to your stomach down to your toes.

Every color of the rainbow imaginable bursts behind your lids the more you kiss like you’ll never kiss again for the rest of your life. Pressing you against the door, a gasp suddenly falls from your mouth upon feeling his chest against yours, and that urges his tongue to slip past your lips into your mouth. You moan softly, the slightest of sounds that rumble at the back of your throat, but Hyunjae’s satisfied growl is enough to send your stomach cartwheeling with fireworks. His hands pull you even more insistently, slipping past the material of your shirt to rest against your naked skin, leaving you gasping against him as your hands slip up to the back of his head to fist into those gorgeous locks of his.

Hyunjae grunts in pleasure, tongue tangling up with yours and one hand tracing random shapes along the small of your spine. One of his legs slip between your thighs, causing you to gasp at the sensation. His only response is to drop a hand to your thigh and before you realize what he’s doing, he’s pulled your leg up to hook it around his waist as another soft growl of satisfaction rumbles from the back of his throat.

You can't hold back the whimper escaping you as he traces patterns up your clothed thigh.

"Hyunjae," you gasp out when your lips disentangle so that his dot a line of kisses down to your jaw, "you--"

You never thought of your best friend, capable of doing such things.

You never thought of your best friend, and doing such things with him.

It causes heat to spring up your entire body. It feels all kinds of wrong and all kinds of right at the same time. But one thing for sure is that it feels good. Too good.

He grumbles out something that sounds like, "don't move," mouth echoing kisses along your neck. He brushes along a sensitive spot, causing you to let out a sharp breath and grasp onto his shirt like he's the last thing keeping you afloat.

Pulling back only for air, you're met with his brown eyes filled with such naked affection that makes your tummy twist inside out.

Your nose brushes against his tenderly. With affection.

And when he gives you a smile, it is one filled with a feeling so exhilarating that it knocks the air out of your chest.

He's so beautiful.

"I--" you're at loss for words. What to say when there's nothing that can match the way he makes you feel?

And when he speaks next, his alto has dipped to a murmur:

"I like you."

Your breath catches in your throat.

"I mean, I wouldn't be kissing you if I didn't," he chuckles nervously, pulling back and allowing his hold on your thigh to fall slack, "I couldn't help myself, sorry, maybe I should've asked--"

You tug him to you and kiss his next words away, and the young man moans, kissing back hungrily, even following your lips once you pull back.

"I would've punched you if I didn't like you," you whisper.

As if unconsciously, your hand reaches up to his cheek, thumb stroking over his cheekbone.

He shivers at your touch, leans into it before closing his eyes, "so...you think we can go out for a coffee sometime?"