stuck in my fantasy like
dreaming it to be real life 

Seulgi stood next to me, her shoulder just brushing mine.

On another day, I wouldn't have hesitated before moving away from her, since the memory of the night in the club was still fresh in my mind, as bitter as the juice of a lemon. However, I stilled my impatient hands and stayed put, knowing that even a single move I made away from her would be taken as a sign of weakness.

From the corner of my eye, I could still see a faint smirk on her face, as if she knew exactly what I was thinking about. It was irritating, to say the least, but I didn't take the bait, focusing on Taeyong instead.

Thankfully, his injured leg had healed fast enough that he was able to walk by the end of a week. There was still a slight limp in his gait every time he moved, though, which made me wince. The races were off again, and though the racers had left him alone in the hospital (with Jungkook, who I still didn't have any idea what to make of) they needed to question him to identify the threat.

So we were all gathered around his bed, some sitting, some standing—simply because we were too jittery to rest—watching him with intent eyes.

The idea that Taeyong might be personally connected to Jungkook was troubling. I had barely seen the manager, and it gave me chills to imagine him sitting in the room with Taeyong, talking for hours on end about something I didn't know. Maybe that was why the redhead had looked so cut-off from the rest of the group when Jungkook had been missing.

Maybe they were much closer than I had thought. But how close? What was the manner of their relationship? Was it friendly, or based purely off business?

If so, what kind of business?

It had been hard enough staying away from him for so long, guilt eating at me for having argued with him just a couple of days before his accident. This was the first time I was seeing him in a week, and I drunk in the sight of him, safe and sound.

I had been, admittedly, scared to lose him, too.

Every now and then, his eyes flickered to mine, a look that was discreet but held volumes. Pain, warmth, desire, gratefulness...love.

Every time he looked at me, my heart jumped into my throat.

"Do you remember anything about what the person who crashed into you looked like?" Vernon asked, a deep frown pulling his eyebrows together. "Anything, even the model of the car. Was it too dark?"

"Not much," Taeyong answered, voice gravelly. It was weird seeing them interact, two people who were supposed to be at opposite poles of my universe. Two people who were supposed to be against each other, I thought as I noticed Vernon being oblivious to the dark looks Taeyong gave him every two minutes. "It was painted dark, I think. Deep blue or purple."

"No faces?" Vernon questioned.

"No." Taeyong sat up, looking broody. "It was too dark for faces, and that wouldn't have been able to help us, anyway. But it doesn't matter."

Seulgi's arm brushed mine again, and I almost flinched when she smiled. From across the room, Jennie's dark eyes locked with mine, her expression unidentifiable.

"We could have asked Byun to tell us if any of the wolves had one like that," Jinyoung spoke up, low voice carrying like a weight over the conversation. Wolves was a term that some of the racers, Jinyoung and Taehyung in particular, used to refer to the bikers. Every time I heard the term, I shuddered, remembering the wolf tattoo splayed across Lay's shoulder, snarling, as if daring someone to come closer.

I had. And I regretted it now.

Taehyung and Jinyoung shared a long look. For a minute, everyone was silent.

Baekhyun had not been present at the gathering, in fact, I hadn't seen him since a couple of days, and I had a feeling that no one had. For some reason, this disturbed me. He was an informant. He was supposed to be present for meetings like these.

Vernon turned his attention back to Taeyong, whose face had darkened at the mention of Baekhyun, almost imperceptibly so. "It wasn't the bikers," he said, his already deep voice deepening, strung with an emotion I couldn't quite discern.

Vernon's frown deepened, but Jungkook looked at Taeyong again. Another look, the same one I had seen them share when he had asked me to leave the room a week ago, passed between them. I looked away, shivering, as if something had blown over my skin like a stray wind.

I turned, walking out of the room that had now fallen deathly silent.

When my father had shown up, I had believed, for a fleeting moment, that everything would be okay. It was a childish fantasy, a reflex thought that I hadn't been able to get rid of. Dad is here. He'll fix everything. It'll be okay.

He had known everything, having worked beside Jungkook for much longer than I had known. Apparently, his used car salesman job had been more criminal than I'd thought, involving him having dealt cars to the racers for a long time.

Only Jungkook and his right hand—whoever it was—had known about this, but it didn't lessen the sting of betrayal. My dad had explained that all of this had been to protect me, though I didn't see how it had worked. Maybe I should have reacted to the statement, maybe I should have lashed out, but when he broke the news, I had felt nothing.

Nothing at all.

For a few days, the thought had been like a wall I hid behind. Believing that I was going to escape, that everything would be different after he showed up. After having been alone for so long, I'd finally had someone I could lean on properly, someone who i had thought could guide me through the most perilous roads.

Now, reality was beginning to set in again, like a doomed sun rising over a glassy fog.

Ever since the night of the race, the nightmares had come back with an even higher intensity. Often I woke up at ungodly hours in the night, screaming for someone to run.

It was always fire. Tongues of flame licking up sides of buildings, cars, motorcycles, laying waste to everything that I considered home. Sometimes it was Yoongi who was bleeding out. Sometimes it was Taeyong. And as scary and unwelcome the thought was, it was, sometimes, Lay.

Two more days. Just two more days of this, and you can finally be free.

I just hoped I would somehow be able to make it through those two days, alive and well.

"Hey." The hand on my shoulder was gentle, the voice even more so. Even without turning, I could tell who it was, but I wasn't sure if I wanted him to be by my side at that moment.

I sat down heavily on one of the long metal benches lining the sides of the hallway. The walls were old, chipping paint and marked with who-knows-what. Vernon sat down next to me, quiet.

"You don't think it was the bikers?" I asked, finally, voice small in the seemingly endless corridor when I finally spoke up. "Who crashed Taeyong?"

He looked at me, eyes betraying nothing, but filled with a warmth like that of dying embers. Much better than actual fire. "I don't know for sure," he said. "It could have been his own problem. Everyone around here has one of those."

My mind wandered back to the night I had argued with Taeyong in his car, moments before the fight when he had mentioned the Lee clan. "What's yours?"

I had thought it would take him a moment or so to understand what I was referring to, but he appeared to understand my question immediately.

"I handle other problems so people can focus on their own," he said, looking away, but his hands were still in his lap. His body language spelled out hopelessness, though I wasn't sure why. "Sometimes, I help out with problems other people aren't brave enough to solve themselves."

A half-hearted smile pulled at my lips. "Then you're lucky."

"I wish." His voice was breathy, low. "Sometimes, the stuff you see makes it harder. Doing things that you wouldn't have wanted to do before, when you're forced to change a part of yourself to be someone you're not, it's much worse," he said softly. "When you're taking care of things no one else will touch, because you don't have a choice—when you don't want to choose."

Though I didn't know the context, his words rubbed me the wrong way. There was something dark about his tone, so different from his usual voice that it made me wonder what his reason was.

Slowly, he lifted his hand, bringing it to the space between us, where my own hand rested. His fingers ghosted over mine, not quite touching them, making it feel like there was a barrier between our skin.

Something tugged at my heart, like a flutter in my chest. I leaned into him, grasping his hand and intertwining my fingers with his.

Vernon's skin was cold, but it still sent a current through next when his cheek brushed against the top of my head. I could smell the smoke on him, the scent of pine and shampoo. A sudden, delirious laugh threatened to pull me under.

I'm going crazy.

Ignoring the thought, I closed my eyes and leaned even closer into his side. With my free hand, I could feel the pale, raised scars on his forearm and knuckles, my touch making him shiver.

"Where's Baekhyun?" My voice was hoarse.

He didn't tense, but there was a certain sadness to him when he let out a breath I hadn't realized he had been holding. "We found his body in the car."

Something burned at the back of my eyelids. Hot tears. Whether they were from frustration at the unfairness or the anger that this had happened or the defeated awareness that he had probably deserved it, I didn't know. I was probably going to die, too, at the hands of someone I had probably trusted once. I deserved it, too.

I deserved worse.

Vernon didn't speak any words of consolation, but the pressure of his hand that tightened its grip over mine gave me a strange sense of comfort. I didn't even know if I cared about the papers, all I knew was that I had grown to depend too much on the blond. Maybe I wasn't going to leave Seoul.

Baekhyun was dead.

Maybe I deserved that. To see everyone I cared about bleed in my arms before the bullet got to me.

"Was it quick?" My voice was a whisper.

"We don't know, but there was a bullet wound on his forehead, and no marks on other parts of his body." His tone was factual, but the sigh that followed was hopeless. Just like him. Just like me. Just like us. "So, it probably was."

"Good." At least I had the satisfaction of that. It was a sick thing to be happy about, but I was content with whatever snatches of happiness I got. "Vernon?"

"Yeah?" He sounded tired.

"When will this end?" I whispered.

His thumb rubbed circles against the back of my palm, the gesture repetitive, the feeling like slowly waking from a fever.

"I don't know."

──────

yes, the baekhyun thing happened after a time skip.

also

the wayv teasers ;-; they look so good, it's a whole RACER/BIKER CONCEPT FOR LUYANG, I AM: CONTENT