(ty for reading :) this book got featured on a Wattpad Ambassadors' AsianFantasy Cultivation Month recs ! which i am so very ecstatic about :D so the little star is grateful for your presence. [this chapter has cheosnun but for context, it's pronounced 'cheotnun', just for ease of reading.] now let's see what this chapter holds)

(EDITED)(Note to readers: Some chapters ahead may not be in line with the new edits.)

Cheosnun is first snow in Korean. Nun. Snow. Nun. Eye. A strange coincidence, if you will.

My mother held a plate of leftover rice, a plate of kimchi beside it. Our dinners, especially in the winters, were never much to behold, usually nothing but old banchan and stale leftovers since my father's people didn't like to travel through the snow to deliver food.

I sat propped up, facing the window, my little hands against the glass. White flakes fell in droplets to the ground and pasted themselves on the window. I pressed my thumb against one. A perfect crystalline beauty. I smiled. I saw it in the reflection; my mother's face.

"What are you doing?" she said behind me.

"Umma, look," I said, pointing outside. White dusted the ground outside, and the Han River's edges froze from the cold. The world was pale, ashen, a gray nothingness. Empty and beautiful. Sleeping soundly to the slowing beat of Incheon's heart. "Look outside."

She set the food down on the seat and sat beside me. She pulled her blue cardigan tighter over her body, winding her bones and thin skin up in the wool. Her face glowed under the white scenery outside. "Cheosnun," she said, pulling me into her lap.

I touched my eye. "But I have two eyes."

She laughed. "No, no. First snow." She touched my eye, her fingertip brushing my lashes. "It's confusing though."

"Cheosnun," I repeated.

She smiled. She turned her face towards the window. I stared at her instead. "My mother told me that they did that on purpose., 'eye' and 'snow'. She said she thinks it's because the first snow means it's winter, things are going to change soon, that everything is going to look very different, very quickly. Like you're seeing the world for the first time." She smiled, brushed the bangs from my face. "Everyone says things change in spring, huh? But I say that it's in winter. I think that's when you really see the world differently."

"Why?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Sometimes, the end is more honest than the beginning," she said. "So, cheosnun." She pointed out the window. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

I stared out. I watched the snowflakes spin and flutter, dance to the beat of an unknown song, the winds carrying them far away where I couldn't ever go to follow. The world was different, was new, was the end and the beginning all at once. And all I could do was watch from behind the glass, letting the world go on as it was without a trace of me to witness it.

I blinked in the gray light of it. "Yeah, Umma," I murmured, hugging her arm, the plush blue wool soft on my cheek. "It's beautiful."

You have survived, despite what everyone and everything has determined. You have always found a way to survive. You have always found a way to win, even in a world that does not want you to.

Don't fear something more than you want it, Echo.

So my mother and I sat nestled together in the cold of our final snow and watched the world end in white nothingness, waiting for the day we could see it begin anew.

_______________________

It was a Thursday, three days into a wintry December, two days out of the rainstorm, and one day before the final match of Red Diamond, when it all went to Hell.

Corvus had returned readily enough, bounding through the doors with their distinct boisterous bickering and armfuls of things brought from home, from fresh pots to new dishes to sparkling clothes to renewed detergent to replenished soaps to little wrapped boxes marked with dancing golden trees. Meredith raised a finger. "Christmas has officially begun, in my book." She gestured at her IKEA bag full of gifts for emphasis. "I even brought a tree."

"I brought the tree," Zahir gasped from behind her, a green thing weighing on his back.

"Zahir brought the tree," she corrected.

"Why do we need a tree?" I said.

"Better be a fake tree. Keep those pine needles off the floor," Rosalie said. "It'll be in our room. You men get all the fun."

"That we do," Diego said with a wink. She batted him on the head and he piped, "I brought ornaments! Team decorating?"

"We let you decorate and this whole place will look like the Target holiday bargain bin exploded," she snapped. "Someone help Zahir with that goddamn tree."

"Why do we need a tree?" I repeated.

"Shut up, Yun."

"All right, then."

And so on.

Ramos had stopped by with a gift bag and a lunchbox of medicine and food for Kane. She handed the bag to me. I said, "I don't need a gift."

"Oh, who needs a gift?" she asked, waving me away. "It's just a little something."

I pulled out a pair of fuzzy white socks with Kitty White's face on the heels. I threw my head back in a laugh. "Where do you get these?"

"Secrets, Echo."

"Thank you."

She ruffled my hair. My heart was boldly light.

Corvus shoved their own gifts and trinkets into my arms, some with more ferocity than others. Diego plopped a large box on top of everyone else's, which was its own issue.

"Stop bragging. You don't get brownie points," Wynter said.

"Don't be jealous because I got the bigger gift."

"Bigger is not always better."

Diego glanced at Zahir, then shrugged. "Says you."

Wynter made a face and Zoe clapped her hands together to draw the attention back to me. "All right, all right. Go on, Echo, open them."

"Can I at least...set them down?" I wheezed.

Kenzo took them from my arms with ease and set them on the coffee table. "Go to the gym," he sighed.

I stared. "You didn't have to get me anything."

"Shut up, man." Wynter waved me off. "Stop keeping us waiting."

Zoe had gotten me an extra large thermos "for all the caffeine you drink". Wynter had gotten me a pair of brand new headphones because mine were apparently "hanging on by mere copper threads". Zahir had gotten me a pair of sweats with a matching hoodie, the inside soft with flannel and cotton. Diego had gotten me a new duffel bag, black as Corvus colors, and seemed plenty happy about it too, saying something or other about me having more to carry around now. Meredith had gotten me a stackable lunch box with a little CORVUS RACING sticker attached at the corner, something about me eating real meals by New Year's. Kenzo had gotten me a single crow keychain, silver and mid-flight. Rosalie had gotten me a five pound bag of gummy bears, and a thick, black booklet, the words CORVUS written on tape over the cover.

I frowned. "What's this?"

She considered me. "A gift, obviously," she retorted. "Your room's so goddamn boring, like a Kenzo duplicate. Put some life into it, rip those out, paste them up."

"Paste them up?" I repeated, puzzled.

"Just open it, man."

I opened it.

Page after page after page, was all Corvus. The only difference that separated all the photos I'd seen on Kane's wall, on their socials, on newspaper clippings, was I was there. Across LA, through matches, during getaways, on long nights, early mornings, I was there. I was there.

"I know you don't have many memories with friends," she murmured. "I figured this isn't a bad place to start."

I closed the booklet. It wasn't a bad place to end either.

My smile ached. "Thank you."

She waved me off, then snapped her fingers. "Cake for breakfast, anyone? King! Get that cake out, I know you still have some!"

Kane stood in the kitchen, pancakes halfway done, his eyes watching the gifts from afar. His smile was sweet. "It's in a Tupperware in the fridge."

They went racing for it.

I gathered the gifts and deposited them on my bed. As I put Meredith's down, a thin paper slipped out from between the lunchbox lids. 

Happy 20th Echo Yun!

You made it through an entire season w/Corvus. Yay! Many more to come, don't you think?

I hope you know we're always here for you no matter what. You're family now. So don't be scared to talk to us.

Let's have a real party next birthday, okay?

-Meredith J. Ross

I pressed my thumb into the ink until it stained my skin. I tucked it into the booklet.

Family.

I put it in my drawer, and closed it shut.

Neither Kane and I nor us with Corvus had talked much about what happened while they were gone over break. If they had any suspicions about it, they didn't say so. If I had any comments about it, I didn't say so. And if Kane wanted to hear either, well, he didn't. He said so.

"Are you—"

"Say 'awake' or nothing at all," he murmured, turning over to let his arm fall onto my stomach. He yanked me into him, my cheek to his heartbeat, the chilly winter a blue thing over the messy bedroom.

"—awake, then," I finished cautiously.

"No," he replied. "It's break. Go to sleep."

"It's nine AM."

"It's seven AM somewhere."

"You're starting to sound like me."

"Don't wound me so early in the morning," he muttered and let his chin rest on my hair. I stayed in the space of it, his arms and the sky, for as long as time would allow.

It was Monday evening that Coach called me.

"What's wrong? What happened?" I said.

"I don't like that that's how you people pick up the phone," she said. "Calm down, it's good news. None of your 'responsible' teammates bothered to pick up, they're probably at class or some other bad excuse."

"Oh?"

"The victory for tomorrow's been released. Eighty five. Thought you'd all like to hear it."

I said, "Eighty five what?"

"Grass-fed free-range cattle," she drawled. "Eighty five million. Biggest victory to date in the Diamond Prix."

Eighty five million US dollars.

It was enough money to sweep me clear off my feet and send me tumbling down the side of the building. I had to sit down just to catch my breath.

"Eighty five...million?" I repeated. "You're kidding. You're crazy."

"Not kidding. Probably crazy. Let Gupta know when you get the chance, tell him to contact me and we'll talk real numbers." Edwards took a long pause. She sighed. "Listen, the real reason I'm calling you is because of who we're versing."

I paused. "What?"

"Wildcard matches were last week," she said. "It's been a long time since anyone has ever displaced an opponent from one, but NYU went up against Oregon in the last round." My body went cold. "They kicked them out of the running. Oregon is in for NYU."

My chest caved in on itself. Dread was too familiar and highly unwelcome. I breathed, "You're kidding."

"I tried to talk to the board, but they've got no control over it, it's dependent on the NCAA's board's decision. And it is in the rulebook," she said. "The team is under a lot of stress as it is, we shouldn't go adding more to it. I'm telling you and King ahead of time, but I'll tell the rest of the team tomorrow."

"Coach. Oregon. After what happened at The Eclipse?" I asked, keeping my voice hushed. "What if Luan's there?"

"I can't control that, we can only hope he's not," she said. "I don't like it any more than you all do, but we don't have a say. We either drop or we race."

"Kane is hanging on. This could kill his chances of even having a choice in the first place."

"I have faith in Corvus," she said. "The most you all can do is trust yourselves and each other. We've got subs for a reason."

But there was barely a silver of a chance I'd be a sub by the end of this. There was barely a chance I'd be alive by the end of this. Corvus would be as though I never existed at all. I wanted them to go out on a high note, to end the season happy and prideful, to leave them in celebration, not in mixed frustrations. And if the Ducks were there, and Kane was there, and I wasn't...

I clenched the phone. "You can't be serious. We beat Oregon out of the running, they shouldn't be allowed back—"

"Yun. Trust me. I've tried to negotiate." She sighed. "This is what we have to do."

"Please," I said. "There's got to be a way they verse NYU instead."

Edwards went quiet. "We're versing Oregon, Yun," she said, emphasizing the "we" with something almost like confusion. "The most we can do is prepare to see them. I know it's not ideal. But you need to trust each other that you'll get through it. It's one match."

I closed my eyes. Everything depended on us winning this match. If I won, my brother would have no shot of going after me afterwards. If our chances were spliced because of Luan or his friends, if Kane didn't manage to pull through the match...

It was one match. But one match could be all it took.

Still, Edwards was right. There was nothing else we could do, but race.

I said, "All right."

"All right," Coach echoed. "Talk to your team about what I said. Leave the Ducks out until tomorrow. And get some rest, we can discuss more at Red. It's at the Corvidae, that's a plus, right? We'll win right at home."

Home.

I said, "Yeah. Yeah, okay."

The call clicked to an end. I took in a deep breath.

When I let it out, it sounded like a whisper, a signal to begin the end.

The clock struck ten. My phone rang with an unknown number. Mercy always had the worst timing.

My lungs clenched. I could hear Corvus outside, walking back and forth between rooms, between units, the girls chattering with the guys, the guys chattering with the girls, the city muffled behind glass walls, the sound of dishes being done, TV being watched, conversations being had. I could drown in it. When had I become so comfortable?

I picked up the phone. I stared at the answer button.

There is no chance.

Only choice.

I clicked it and raised the phone to my ear.

"Ghostie, Ghostie, the man himself," Mercy sang in my ear. "Up so late on a Thursday night?"

I hesitated. "What," I said carefully, "do you want?"

Mercy hummed. "You know, Ghost. A little birdie told me the last Red is tomorrow, is that correct? Eighty five million delicious dollars, how about that? Oh mon Dieu! Je n'arrive pas à y croire! You're about to pay off your debt, darling."

My heart stilled, stuttered. I pushed myself off the bed to stand in the moonlight sliver in the center of the room. My head spun. It wasn't over yet. Why was she calling me now? I still had to win Red. I still had a chance to win. Why was she calling now?

"I am," I stated.

"What a relief, I'm sure. You must be bouncing off the walls, you and your little crows. Must be a regular Thursday for them though, yes?" she said with a snicker. "A busy time, I'm sure, getting ready to be a champion. How melty, how malt! As if you're a real person in real time. How about that? And they say there are no miracles in this world."

"What," I gritted, "do you want, Mercy?"

"I thought you'd want to bask in your glory for a little longer," she said. When I gave no answer, she hummed. "No? Well, rip the Band-Aid off, why don't you? Hey, Ghostie. Aren't you scared?"

"Cut the bullshit, I'm not playing with you," I snapped, but even I could hear the franticness clawing up my throat. I pushed my palm against my chest. "Just tell me what you called me for."

I felt every heartbeat like it was the last. Each chamber. Each valve. Pulmonary. Mitral. Tricuspid. Aortic. Choking, seizing, closing, dying. One and. Two and. Three and. Three and. And. And. And.

"Your brother called," she sang. "So did your father."

AndAndAnd.

"Byungho bit the dust last night. Turns out his organs were doing worse than usual. I would've gladly handed some over, of course, but you know how that'll go. Maybe you can consider me generous." Atlas. Axis. Coccyx. Cracked down the center, rendering my body limp. "'Course that helps me, not really you. Your brother's gone on a bit of a rampage because of it. Kids! Champions! Kids that are champions! A true damnation."

The world sang static. "He's...dead?" I breathed.

"Well, yes, in less words, that's what that means," she said plainly. "Where was I? Oh, yes. Your big brother. Plans shift, think on the fly!" My whole body flinched. "Seems as though he wants to see his twin flame in action. A big, happy family reunion, all on your brand new soil. I warned you about the clock, Ghostie," Mercy murmured. "Now, look at that. All out of time. With your father's unprecedented death, we had to cut some frames short. It means we've got to know which twin to take down. Which world are we in again?"

This was it. This was the part that counted.

"He's betting I'll lose," I said. "He thinks I'll have to face him."

"I suppose someone is always anticipating your downfall, no?" she said. "I suppose that's only fair, given your record."

"I'm in your world," I replied. "Corvus has never lost a Red before."

"Ah, but that captain of yours, no?" she said, and giggled. "But I guess we'll have to hope for that one. A bunch of amateurs, a sickly captain, a street-racing Stirling. Oh, what a line-up! Corvus has never looked so...un-Corvus before, haven't they? The last time they made such a splash, Miss Wilder wasn't very long for the trend." I flinched at that. "Let's hope you have better luck, yes?"

"But if I win," I began. "If I win, I won't have to face him, right?"

She laughed into the phone. "Ghostie," she sighed. "I didn't take you for an optimist."

"You said I wouldn't have to," I snapped. "You said if I win—"

"I said you'd have a chance to negotiate," she corrected. "I never said I'd protect your precious little fairytale life from your crows."

Everything stuttered to a halt. "We can't meet," I tried. "If he finds me, Mercy, if they find out about me, they'll never let me back—"

"How is that my problem? I agreed not to kill you, and not to play favorites. I never agreed to cradle your heart and play dress-up like you did. You have known all along how you'd have to end this year, Ghost. Don't act so surprised when you reap the consequences of what you've sewn. You are not the only thing on the line here. Don't get so hasty with me," she snapped. "But, if you're so partial to this life of yours, then I suggest you make a choice on how you'll salvage it."

"Please," I whispered. "Please, Mercy."

"Your time is up, Ghostie," she sang. "Better go out with a bang."

With that, the call clicked dead, leaving me alone in the shadows with the dial tone in my hear.

Your time is up. My heart wouldn't start, at the same time it wouldn't stop, like it was getting ready to give out, too. I raked my nails into my scalp, my wrists, tried to get my head to stop spinning like a helpless weed against a tornado's gusts. But it spun, spun, spun, and I could do nothing but fall.

Corvus, Coach, Ramos ran through my mind in blurs. Kane. The silver. The timing of it all. My mother. My mother. My mother. I wasn't ready. I'd spent a whole year learning how to win, how to be a champion. I couldn't lose it or them all now. Whether we won Red or not, whether I escaped my brother or not, he wouldn't leave me that easily. He wouldn't let me go without having something to say. He'd break every delicate lie I'd built with Corvus with an iron fist.

I wasn't ready.

"Echo!"

I closed my eyes. Salt ran over my lip. All the sweet things rotted.

"Yun, for fuck's sake, I know you can hear us!" Rosalie called. "Come on, we're getting dinner at Nancy's. Did Coach talk to you?"

I gathered myself up. I walked for the door, leaving my phone on my bed. Mine. Mine. Mine. I closed the door, still facing it.

"We forgot to let you know about our dinner res. Not The Little Crow, but just as nice—and not a steakhouse," Meredith said sheepishly. "It's a Corvus tradition to go after every Red Diamond."

"Because we always win," Diego added with a scoff. "It's a big ol' fancy place that looks like it's from the sixties or something. They don't serve crow."

"Shut up, man," Wynter said.

"Hey, rookies' first time for victory dinner," Zahir said with a laugh. "A step-up from the Birdhouse, I imagine."

"Not rookies," Zoe reminded. "Right, Yun? Not after tomorrow, at least."

"You all will be grade A Corvus elites, for sure," Diego promised. "But dinner is a must, everyone has to be there."

"Corvus tradition," Meredith agreed. "We'll talk about it on the way. I'm starving."

Kane said, "Echo?"

I hadn't moved from my station facing the door. I tried to soak in every last word, the sounds of their voices, the feeling of them at my back. Busan's summer in my bones, the Talon on my skin, the Corvus jacket on my back. Greed was a voracious beast in my stomach, a rabid wolf, claws out for Corvus; I wanted them all to myself, to call them my own. I wanted to sink right into the moment and stay absolved in it forever, as if nothing was wrong, as if I really was Echo Yun, disgraced rookie, Class III Stirling with a know-nothing family and a know-nothing past. Not a ghost, not a champion. Just, someone lucky.

Kane said, "Echo."

I couldn't ever have Corvus for myself. Even if I survived past this year, they would never give themselves to me again. I was too far from them. I'd been too far for a long time. I didn't have a somebody, and I wasn't going to be anyone's somebody. 

But, Corvus had done something for me I couldn't ever give back, and Kane had given me a chance, a wall of defense, an open hand. I had nothing to my name but the truth to repay them with. And I'd be damned if Elias took that from me, too.

I turned around. My eyes found Kane. I willed myself to hold onto his silhouette, the space he took up, the mole by his brow and the rings on his finger. I touched my hand, like the one he'd given me was there to match.

I had a promise to fulfill.

"I can't go with you after Red," I said. 

Corvus frowned. Rosalie said, "They have a lot of vegetarian options, you know."

I shook my head. "No, no, it's not that."

"You say you're busy with someone else, cobayo, better cancel. It's a mandatory team outing, right, King?"

Kane stared at me. There was a knowing in his eyes. Like he could hear the end of the world in my whisper.

"I can't come back with Corvus," I said.

Kane tilted his head to the side. "Why not?" he asked, brow furrowed.

You make me feel real.

You make me real.

"Because," I said, "I have to see my brother first."

Corvus went deathly quiet. Kenzo's eyes snapped to me, then to Meredith. No one spoke for a very long time.

"Your brother," Rosalie repeated. She opened her mouth, closed it, then tried again. "You have a brother? Who?"

I clenched my fists. Maybe just to hold on.

"Elias," I said. "I owe him a talk." 

Corvus descended into chaos.

"Elias," Diego repeated. "Elias—wait, Elias Yun? As in Elias Yun? Tell me you don't mean that Elias."

I just nodded. Rosalie cursed. Zahir gaped at me. He stood up, but he wasn't as angry as he was shocked. "You're joking," he breathed. "You're kidding, Echo. Tell us you're kidding."

"Your brother is Elias Yun?" Zoe breathed.

Rosalie recovered with an unsteady breath. She craned her head at me. "You're not Stirling," she said.

I pursed my lips. "No," I said. "I'm not."

"You're not from California," she went on. "You're not an amateur. You're not Class III."

I shook my head. "No."

She threw her hands up, muttering to herself in desperate French. Wynter stood very still behind her, her black eyes boring into me.

"Then," she began coldly, "who the hell are you?"

The world fractured, crumbled, every lie and secret peeling like poorly-pasted wallpaper off the edges of my vision. Still, I looked at Kane. Kane, who had gone the quietest, suddenly unreadable, and suddenly miles and miles away.

"I left Incheon when I was seven," I said. "But it's because I moved to Seoul until I was thirteen. My mother never planned to have twins, so when she did, my father took my brother because he was an Alpha, and my mother took me. But I failed all the tests, and when my mom died, he sent me here for one of his people to kill me outside of Korea, where I couldn't be traced. But she wanted someone for her dirty work and decided to borrow money from my father instead and use that to keep me alive, as a ghost, until I entered university. By then, if I didn't repay that money, my brother would come to find me, and we'd have a rematch, and I'd likely die by his hand instead. He knew that if he didn't beat me for good, he'd always have the threat of being a ghost over his head. I'm a loose end to him.

"If I repay it, I'd live," I continued. "So I did street races to practice under the radar, and I did jobs for the leader to keep my head. I came here because this is the only university with a decent team that she had connections to, and I came to Corvus, because it was my last resort to get my debt paid. It felt like my only chance. It was my only chance.

"I'm sorry, about everything, about having lied to you all about me and my history," I tried, although it sounded so futile. "I didn't think—I thought I could win my life back, without having to get anyone else involved. I thought I could just race and nothing else and that I'd either go out racing or I'd find a way to leave quietly. But I never meant to make such a mess, to rope you all into so many things. I know how it sounds, but I never did this to take advantage of you all." I sighed shakily. "I just wanted to race," I said. "But, I'm sorry, for all of it. For everything."

The room was dense enough to drive a knife through it, bruised enough to see it bleed. I forced myself to look at Kane.

His jaw was set, his arms crossed. His eyes were blocked up with steel and glaciers, opaque and unyielding, cracked with black. He looked at me like he'd looked at Luan: like a wolf on the defensive, teeth to teeth with an enemy. Him or me. Him or me.

"Oh, God," Rosalie breathed, sinking down until she sat on the floor. She buried her face in her hands. "Oh, God. Oh, God."

No one dared to speak to me. Zoe and Wynter wouldn't look at me. Zahir and Diego murmured quietly to each other, burying their faces in their hands, ill with the words. Kenzo watched Kane. Meredith watched me.

Kane turned around, and walked away.

He grabbed his keys and phone that were set on the counter, ready to leave for dinner. He headed for his room.

I grasped his arm. "Kane."

He pulled away from me. 

"Kane, wait," I said, my voice fraying, breaking at its corners. I grabbed his shirt. "Please. I'm sorry, I never—"

"Stop. Saying that." Kane wrenched himself away from me, whirling around to stand face to face. His eyes were broken things, spilling glass fragments over his cheeks, black bleeding into storm clouds. He pressed the base of his palm against his forehead. His scoff was half-hearted and damp. He looked up at the ceiling. "Just, please. Stop."

My heart frayed. "I didn't know a different way," I tried. "I just wanted a way out, but I never—hurting any of you was never part of the plan."

Kane glared serrated knives right into me. I felt it tear at my innards. "So you just hoped to lie low on this team, leech it for what it had, take the money and run?"

I hesitated. "At the start, yes, but—"

"And it was just by miraculous convenience that I was here," he snarled. "Who my parents are, who they know, that wasn't in your plan either?"

"I didn't know anything about you when I joined," I tried. "I didn't know who you were, I promise."

"You promise?" he said, incredulous. "And I'm supposed to believe you?" Kane scoffed, but it was broken and bitter. "I'm supposed to believe any word that comes out of your mouth when all you've done is lie to me?"

"How could I tell you?" I cried. "I couldn't say anything, or do anything, because of who your parents were. The negotiations—"

"You knew about the negotiations."

"I...I'd heard about it."

"Unbelievable." Kane covered his face, wiped the tears off his cheeks. His laugh was all rock salt. "No file, no record, failing that stupid Eval on purpose, all those nights, your fucking work, I thought..." He bit his lip. "Every word you said, I just trusted you were telling the truth."

I tightened my fists. "Racing was my only shot," I said.

"So we were all just your stepping stools to get to the money?" he snapped. "Is that why you decided to take us all up, to get close to all of us, to me?"

"I never did it to use you, any of you. It gave me a chance to stay here in the first place, with Corvus." I gestured at them, although it felt helpless. "I wanted to stay."

"No, you wanted to win," Kane snarled, and it was a sucker punch to the gut. "The Diamond Prix, Busan, the practices, you didn't do it for anyone but yourself. Even now, you're still fucking lying to me." I watched the tear drop catch on his chin. His voice shed its anger, grew a new, desperate, frustrated skin. "Why even get close to any of us? To me? Why tell me any so-called secret of yours at all when it was all a lie anyway? Why act like you cared about us, that you trusted us, when you were never even honest in the first place?"

I flinched. I bit the inside of my cheek. Everything swam in and out of my vision, black and red and silver and blurry. I wondered if this was how all the corpses under my hands had felt when I took a scalpel to their heart, ripped it from the tissue's holds, blood and veins and all.

"I just wanted to race. You get that more than anyone."

"Stop."

"Are you different? Choosing to race until you die, not even trying to fight your family, choosing to leave this team behind and die instead?" 

His Korean was like a knife carving my back. "What the hell did you think I was trying to do with you all? I was trying to set this team up to win, with or without me. You set this team up to go on with you in it." He gestured around us. "What if we lost? What was your plan then, if you weren't going to tell us now? Never? Just leave, disappear, die without any real reason?"

"The reason I stayed was because I wanted to try," I said. "If I wanted the money so badly, I would have let you all hate me. I wanted to get out of this alive, I wanted all of you. I wanted you."

"No. No, you didn't want me, don't tell me that bullshit. You wanted a win," he hissed. The Korean felt like tearing off skin. "And you're not sorry, stop telling me you're sorry, because you're not fucking sorry or you would have never lied like this for so long, you wouldn't have let me make such a fool of myself trusting every fucking word you fed me. You, Luan, all those so-called friends, my own parents, all I ever end up being is a pawn to get your way. And I thought I'd learned that lesson with him, but all I did was walk right into the exact same dance again with you and make the same mistake of thinking you ever cared about me or anyone else in this room when the only thing you ever cared about was what you wanted your life to be." 

"This is the only thing I care about," I tried. "This is the only thing that even kept me here in the first place."

Kane only stared. Like I was nothing but a stranger. "And how am I supposed to believe that?" he said.

The door slammed shut in his wake, leaving me bleeding out in the center of cold room.

I blinked, watch the tears drip in fragile crystals and shatter on the ground. I turned my head.

Corvus watched in silence, but the anger on their faces couldn't be missed even from a thousand miles away. They had been seas away when I met them. But they were planets away from me now.

I said nothing. What was there to even say?

Rosalie got to her feet. She didn't look at me, but her cheeks were wet. She turned around and headed out the door without a word.

One by one, they followed after.

Meredith paused. She turned a broken, battered look on me, full of split skin and splitting tendons. I swallowed. I said, "Meredith."

Meredith just shook her head. She said, "Were you going to tell us? If it wasn't tomorrow?"

I searched every crevice of my brain. I closed my eyes.

"No," I confessed.

Meredith said nothing. She turned on her heel. I let her leave me in the dust.

Kenzo was the only one left. He pushed himself off the edge of the counter and grabbed his keys. I said, "Where are you going?"

He blinked. "Dinner," he said. "I'm still hungry."

I stared. I said, "Did you know? About me?"

Kenzo considered that. "I knew you were lying about a lot of things."

"Why didn't you tell Kane?"

He considered me. "Don't know," he muttered. "Maybe I hoped you'd tell him yourself."

I shut the door to the bedroom. I sunk to the floor, my back against the wood. I saw the bed full of gifts, the closet full of clothes, the drawers that had filled with precious things and the walls that were only just beginning to become mine. A fool's paradise, blown to bits like a puff of smoke in the rain. It hurt to lose, but it killed to want. I felt the knife twist now. I thought of Kane's skin at my back, his fingers on my wrist, the weight of his head on my shoulder. I thought of the race track, the smell of burning rubber and oil, the heat of sparks and blazing metal. Warm hands. Warm smile. Someone saying 'home'.

So you will get one chance to win your life back.

I let my forehead fall onto my knees.

What life would I win?

Sitting alone in the Talon, I knew I had already lost the one I'd wanted anyway.

(ty for reading! the holidays are slowly growing near and i'm hoping to be somewhat timely with the holidays in these chapters for sake of finally being somewhat festive :D hope u all are doing well, and thank you thank you for all the encouragement and the support on this crazy story. it truly keeps me writing, and makes me feel all the more happy in general :) the little star and i give a big bow of thankfulness)