Blue Moon

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?

“Y/N! You need to be more genuine with your words,” he suddenly exclaimed, flipping the pages aggressively before spinning the script in his hands to show you his notes. “The way you move across the stage is great! But your tone is matching with your actions. You need to put more effort into what you’re saying.”

You strain a smile as he spoke, pressing the script close to your chest as you tried to argue with him, “then what am I supposed to do? I’m saying the lines exactly as the stage directions say… what do you want me to do, go off script?”

“No! Not going off script, I just need more… emotion. Watch this!” Kevin exclaimed, turning the script back to you and making direct eye contact with Jacob. He rolled his eyes for a moment before entertaining the eye and matching the same energy that the boy was giving off.

You sat and watched as Kevin performed your part with much more energy than you’d ever allow yourself to give while Jacob gave back the same amount. They looked like they were having fun making fun of their parts in the play and you wanted to have the same feeling but you couldn’t find it in yourself to do so.

You weren’t ever the most active person out there and auditioning for the school play had been a last minute joke you had done with your friends. Yet when the casting was released and you found yourself landing the role of Juliet in the iconic Shakespearean play, your entire schedule had been flipped upside down.

No more running home as soon as the day was over and sleeping to your heart’s content, now you had to report to the auditorium almost every day of the week until late in the day. You were tired all of the time now, an excruciating amount of tired!

Even worse? Jacob had ended up landing Romeo out of everyone who had auditioned and each day you found yourself growing fonder and fonder of him like a fool. Maybe if you go ahead and drop out now you won’t have to deal with this anymore…

“Y/N, are you even watching?” Kevin complained. You jumped out of the just as the boy threw the script at you, sliding across the stage like a flying frisbee.

“Sorry! I was… and then I wasn’t. Listen, you seem like you enjoy playing Juliet! Why don’t you take my part and I become a part of the stage crew?” You offered, your mischievous grin appearing on your face as you attempted to hand off the script to him.

Though to your surprise, it wasn’t Kevin that had stopped you. “Oh, come on Y/N. You can’t back out now, you’re doing great as Juliet!” Jacob complimented, handing the script back to you with that wickedly kind smile on his face. The sheer sunlight it was beaming made your mischief burn out in a heartbeat, unwillingly taking the script as he continued, “if you’re struggling with the lines… I’ll help you. Since we are both the leads we should practice on our own time, right?”

“Woah… that’s pretty slick, Jacob. I see what you’re doing,” Kevin teased, poking at the boy’s arm to get a ride out of him. He didn’t seem phased though, only laughing off Kevin’s comment and shaking his hands away from him. “Maybe with a little bit of Jacob’s help, Y/N can truly perform with genuine emotion.”

“What? No. I mean—!” You struggle, unable to defend yourself from the boy’s teasing. Luckily for you Kevin had been called by one of the members of the stage and was forced to leave you alone. Unfortunately that also meant you were left alone with Jacob instead. “Listen, Jacob, I didn’t mean no as in I don’t want to work with you. You’re very good at playing the role of Romeo—“

“You think I’m charismatic like Romeo?” He couldn’t help but ask, his eyes wide with curiosity and flattery.

“Yes,” you answer immediately, not even thinking about the words that escaped your mouth for a moment. “Wait! I mean— no. Well actually, you’re charismatic, don’t get me wrong… and don’t take that to heart either, I just meant you are really good at acting! Yeah…”

Jacob only laughed at your malfunction, though you were unsure of whether or not it was because he actually thought you were joking or because you had made an absolute fool out of yourself. “I think you’re really good at playing Juliet too, Y/N. Now let’s try the balcony scene again before Kevin comes back and really takes your part.”

You nod your in response, mentally cursing at yourself for crashing and burning so hard. There goes even more of your sleep erased off of your schedule… but maybe this was a good thing? After all, it was Jacob who was going to practice with you.

And he liked the way you played Juliet! But was that really something you should be getting excited over…?

The day only got better when someone in your class had yelled out in sheer glee that it was snowing outside. The entire group of children had jumped out of their seats and pointed at the small snowflakes that were gently falling to the ground. You and a few other teachers had decided an early recess was the best way to go about it, helping them into their large coats and overbearing scarves so that they could enjoy themselves.

You thought nothing else could top that moment, watching students of all ages run around the icy playground rolling around in the snow or throwing snowballs at each other.

In a sense, that moment didn’t get topped. It only got worse from there.

After bringing all the students back into the building, the snowfall only seemed to come down harder than before. The snow was beginning to pile up on the sidewalks and streets and the temperatures kept dropping with every hour they ignored the growing dangers of the outdoors. Parents started calling into the elementary demanding they either close the school for the rest of the day and let their children come home or they’d come up to the school and take their children themselves. The amount of calls the principal had gotten was atrocious, so eventually they conformed to the former.

So they had started sending home children as fast as they could, wanting to get them all to their parents safely before the snow quite possibly snowed them all in. Luckily, they were successful in getting every student out before the snowfall got any worse. Now they were facing another problem.

“Don’t you get home by bus?” Yunho asked you, making you turn a little faster than you’d like to admit. You opened your mouth to question him on why he has such information before closing your mouth immediately, mentally knocking yourself in the head. Of course he knew that information, you had told him that yourself.

Earlier within the year, Yunho had politely asked you on a date thanks to your troublesome little students who had recognized his awfully large crush on you before he could. You had agreed to go and had to tell him about your rather unfortunate transportation situation since you didn’t exactly drive yourself to the school every day and there’s no way you could have met up because of it.

You were lucky that Yunho was kind enough to offer to drive you to the coffee shop he had spoken about then but after that date nothing really happened. The two of you got closer, sure, but you definitely didn’t start “dating”. Personally you thought it would be a little awkward to date your fellow colleague anyways.

“Yeah I do,” you respond, slumping down into one of the seats that hadn’t been stacked and put away for the day. “I don’t really want to walk to the bus stop in this weather, will the buses even be running by the time I get there?”

Yunho thought about it for a moment, before shaking his head. “The roads are getting iced and snowed over because of the snowfall and cold. It’s too dangerous for a vehicle of that size to be on the road, so… I don’t think so.”

“Oh fun,” you groan, letting your head fall into your hands in frustration. How were you going to get home then? “My friend is out for the holidays—“

“Wooyoung?” Yunho pipped in, remembering the small conversation the two of you had during your date. It was a quick topic about family and friends, nothing important. Honestly you were a little surprised that Yunho even remembered that was his name.

“Yeah, Wooyoung, he left a week or two to be with his family for the holidays and he was usually my ride home when the weather got like this,” you confirm, lifting your head up to look out the window again. It didn’t look like the snowfall was going to let up any time soon to let you leave, it was a lot more believable to think that it was going to continue till the night came around. Who knows, maybe it would be even longer than that. “But if he’s not here, I’ve got no way to go home.”

“Are you serious?” Yunho gasped, his face drenched in a deep pit of worry. “You don’t have any other friends here? Or maybe… family that lives here?”

You shook your head in defeat, “my parents live too far and I don’t want them to drive in this weather. And most of my other friends are busy given the fact that it’s still work hours for adults. I’ve got no other options other than walk all the way home or hope there is a bus that dares to drive in the snow.”

When you finally turned to give Yunho your full attention, he seemed to be panicking. He paced around in place for a second as he tried to think of a solution to your problem but you couldn’t help but smile at the hint of red that’s as dusted across his cheeks. It grew deeper in hue as he stopped in his tracks and turned to look at you, “what about the staff? Maybe one of the teachers can drive you home?”

“Almost everyone in this school is married or has a significant other, Yunho,” you clarified. “They’re not going to bother with me when they are too busy making sure that they get home safely to their loved ones.”

“Then… I’ll do it!” Heat spread across your face and ears and Yunho tried to remain calm, his hands clutching the side of the desk as he continued, “I’ll drive you home so you don’t get hurt! If that’s alright with you? Don’t think of it as like a date or anything, it’s just me wanting to help you.”

You hesitated for a moment, you haven’t really been left alone with Yunho in a while and it’s very clear that he still harbored unreciprocated feelings for you. But was it really unreciprocated if you were just as embarrassed and jittery as Yunho was? “Are you sure about this? I mean… you must have other things to attend to. It’s fine, I can just walk—“

“I will not let you walk in such horrible weather,” Yunho declared, “you will either let me drive you home or I will find someone who can drive you home. It’s your choice.”

You finally admit defeat, spinning in your chair to hide your face and distract yourself from the intense beating of your heart. “Fine! You can take me home then. Just… grab your things quickly or I’ll leave you behind and walk home on my own, got it?”