be quiet this is downtown
I don’t need anything to kick up

"This is your informant?" I sputtered, stepping back in half-indignation and half-shock.

"Now, now, Y/N," Jennie smiled at me serenely, but her eyes were as hard and cold as ice. "He's valuable to us. He has a good cover, and how do you think we could've found out about your relationship with the bikers without him?"

My mouth hung open, gaze still trapped by Baekhyun's somehow entrancing expression. "You..."

"Unfortunately, yes," he smiled thinly, and straightened his jacket. "I'm sorry if it makes you feel bad, Y/N, but you of all people should've known not to trust."

Swallowing back a hurl of insults, I straightened and raised my chin. "I didn't trust," I said in a high and cold voice reminded me of my past arrogance. "And what do you mean by me of all people?"

He looked me in the eye, and there was something flat but passionate behind his gaze, a cold calculation of the sum of everything criminal. "Believe it or not, we are not so different, you and I," he said, voice dropping lower. "Even our origins, so to speak, are similar in a way that you couldn't even think of."

Frowning, I parted my lips—though I wasn't sure what I was going to say. Jennie, probably having realized that I wasn't done, stepped forward, angling her body in a way that it cut through the tension between me and Baekhyun. "We came here for information."

"Ah, yes." His posture relaxed, transforming from tense to easy with a few fluid, miniscule movements that I couldn't comprehend in my anger. "Once we can drop her off with one of the others, we should be able to talk about the bikers."

"Drop me off?" I spoke before she could, offence creeping into my voice. "Why'd you bring me here then?"

"You had to know about him, first of all," Jennie drawled, gesturing to the boy with hair like caramel and wheat. "And of course, we can't exactly let you go back. Better to show you the ropes of the business."

Her words left me almost shaking, but whether it was from the cold or the rage, I didn't know. I stayed silent, biting down on the inside of my cheek to stop myself from speaking, hard enough that I tasted blood in my mouth.

Baekhyun must have picked up on my mood, because he turned to me with what resembled an emphatic look. "It's necessary, Y/N. We'll take you there, since it's the next checkpoint anyway."

Checkpoint, huh?

I turned my eyes away from his, wondering what they were trying to achieve. The only thing I knew for sure was that they had at least an idea of what tied me to the bikers, if not the whole thing—which was why they had used me as bait. Every single one of them had known, and rather than letting me know, they'd treated me like I was a liability...

I hadn't exactly trusted them, I knew, but there had been moments where—when I had actually felt like I could belong. Like there was another haven for me, even if it was temporary.

And they'd let me believe that.

A hand ghosted over mine, not making contact, but I could feel the warmth radiating off the skin. When I looked up, I realised Jennie had already exited the room, and Baekhyun was standing right next to me, his gaze fixed somewhere in the distance.

He didn't say anything, didn't look at me either, but his touch was there. Like a phantom. Half here, half there, and I couldn't decide whether it was supposed to be reassuring or terrible. It was with a start that I realised my anger had already receded, exhaustion taking its place, just by his presence.

There was something frighteningly nostalgic about him—I'd felt it the first time I'd seen him, about the way he moved, the set of shoulders that was relaxed and alert at the same time, the manner with which he carried himself, the flatness of his expressions. I couldn't pinpoint what it was exactly, but it was there, like the moon, out of reach but painfully familiar.

His hair was blond now, white with a hint of warmth, like white chocolate. There were no glasses on his face, but he still walked with the same quiet assurance.

His fingertips touched my wrist, and he moved forward, past me and out of the room, as if nothing had happened at all.

My mind went blank after that. Sifting everything worrisome and frustrating to the back of my mind, and realized that the back of my eyelids burned with tiredness, the adrenaline of anger having faded away. The walk through the corridor seemed like a dream, or maybe a nightmare, and it almost felt like I was simply gliding along the floor. Everything I registered was like watching through a film, a haze of sorts. I was there, and I wasn't.

What if I was never here? I shook my head, pushing back the possibility. I'm just tired. Of course, maybe it was because of the overload of answers I had received, too many at once, too much, too much to be easy to interpret. And there I was, sitting inside a car, and it was dark, and darker, and kept getting darker after that...

I woke with a start, clutching the sheets in the middle of an empty room.

It was bare, and the light was dimmed enough for it to make me strain my eyes to make out anything, dark except for the bed I was lying on. My skin felt clammy and cold, and my chest heaved, though I couldn't seem to breathe.

"Are you alright, love?" Warm hands slid over my shoulders—my bare shoulders—and came to rest at my biceps. The voice was just at my ear—a chin nestled against the slope of my shoulder, hot breath fanning my neck. "Are you scared?"

I closed my eyes, body seeming to move as if it had a mind of its own, against my own wishes, and leaned back, into a firm chest. Soft skin brushed my thigh, a hard abdomen against the small of my back, lips against the side of my neck. "A little."

The voice was male, a memory, why did I not remember anything? The arms against mine were lean and muscular, and I moved my face the right, almost touching his.

"Don't worry, you're a natural." He opened his eyes, irises looking like coal with bits of gold studded in them, flecks of brown, hints of gray. Beautiful. "You'll be fine."

His gaze trapped me, overlooked me, divided me, and I couldn't feel my own thoughts as I reached over and brushed my fingertips over his high cheekbone. "What if I can't bear it?" My voice came out like a whisper, without my command, like a recorded tape being played the thousandth time. "What if I can't stay?"

His lips brushed mine, ever so slightly, and the silken sheets around us shifted, revealing most of his bare torso. Scars and veins mapped his skin, and blackened lines like runes peeked over the curve of his shoulder—

His thumb brushed my lower lip. "I'll find you."

You're dreaming.

My eyes flew open, breath drawing inside with a powerful gasp, as if I'd just been drowning. The side of my head hit a cushioned surface, and my sides ached.

I was in a car.

A Chevrolet.

"Whatever you saw, it wasn't real," Taeyong repeated simply, gaze straight ahead. "You were dreaming."

"I..." I reached up to touch my face, and my fingertips came away wet. Embarrassed heat crawled up my face, and I quickly wiped the back of my hand against my cheeks. "Where am I?"

"What does it look like?" He said softly, and when his he glanced at me momentarily, his eyes were flat. Too flat. "In front of a strip club."

"A what?"

A hint of a smile tugged at his lips. "Just a place." His long fingers tapped at the wheel, and I realized that he wasn't driving. The car was parked. "You'll see."

I pursed my lips, and looked ahead. Outside the windshield, the place was definitely a parking lot with tall beige columns, relatively empty. There were other cars—not half as fancy as the Stringray, but not too shabby. And if the Stingray was illegal—"We're still downtown, aren't we?"

He nodded. "Before you start asking about why we're still in the car, we're waiting for someone. Not like I wanted babysitting duty—"

What the fuck?

"Okay, shut up." My jaw clenched. "What is it with you and so persistently annoying me?"

"I'm not annoying you, just stating a fact," he said. Now he was looking at me, and not very nicely, either. "Not everything is about you."

"I—" Cutting myself off, and I shook my head and looked away resolutely. "You're the one who always thinks everything I do is about you."

"That's news."

"Taeyong." I glared at him, my hands fisted at my sides. "There was no reason to start this shit again, you know? I don't know why you have some kind of problem with me—maybe it's because of the bet, maybe the bikers, but I don't care. I don't understand why, no matter what the situation is, you always have to bring up something about—"

I stopped short. Taeyong was looking at me, in a different way than he had been before. There was something sad about it, the way the corner of his lips was turned down like a dog-eared page, the way his face was still, holding its breath. "What?"

He laughed silently; a sad, breathless laugh. "That."

"That...what?"

"That look." His lips curved upwards, just a little bit, and his hand reached forward, pausing just as he tried to raise it from the steering wheel. "That's why."

I frowned, slowly, not sure if he was mocking me again. "Is this about the tear tracks on my face?"

"I just..." He swallowed, Adam's apple dipping against his throat. "Do you remember what I said the time I took you to the cliff?"

My frown deepened. What was he trying to get at? This was hardly the place to have a reminiscing session. "If I didn't stay away, at the right time," I spoke slowly, "it won't be good for anyone?"

His eyes were faraway when he looked at me, like he was in reality looking through me, straight into the past. "Just when...when I said that everyone had a reason. A reason for being a part of this group." He hesitated—or maybe he was gathering the strength to speak. "When I said that you didn't belong... I knew that I wasn't like them, either. Everyone in the racers is a part of the central circle, the ones who know the true status quo, run errands and participate. No, I didn't join because I was supposed to be at the core, not like them."

It was as if something had opened up inside him, between us, one of the rare moments when he wasn't Archie or a racer or a bitter boy. This was, I felt, something more than that...something private, an intimate part of him that no one was supposed to see.

My voice was stuck in my throat.

"This was, probably, why I felt so drawn to you. I've been...I've been watching you sleep." He studied his hands, his hands like a map of lines and callouses, veins and skills. "The reason I truly don't belong in the circle—why I'll never belong in the circle—is because my reason was to keep a secret."

His tone was distant, and his gaze on me was heavy. He reached forward, finally, leaning over in his seat, reaching out with his hands, and wiped away the last of the dampness of my cheeks. "So, yes," he said, eyes level and stable, hand still under my chin. "This is about the tear tracks on your face."

I stared at him, wide-eyed and confused. His fingers brushed my jaw, and then my cheekbone, and I tensed—and it broke.

The light went out of his eyes again, and he leaned back into his seat jaw setting and face going cold, withdrawing from me hastily until there was enough of a distance separating us. No, it wasn't just the distance that was separating us—it was a wall, a wall that wasn't there before. My lips parted. "Taeyong—"

"It's time." His voice was a void again, nothing of the previous warmth that had been there just moments ago. "You have to go."

"But I—"

"My shift's over, you can have one of your other toys to play with," he said, and my jaw dropped open. His eyes found mine, emotionless, bored. "Out of my car, Y/N. Your Vernon is here."

──────

i'll give you a hint: the cast is horribly incomplete.