Chapter 29

315 seconds. That was our time. It seemed high when compared to last week’s times. But going first, we had no idea how it would stack up against the other teams. I could only hope that the seconds I had lost recovering from my wipeout hadn’t cut out any chance of our winning.

The bottom two teams for times on the first relay had already dropped out. Their end times had been so bad they ruled that they wouldn’t be able to make up the difference in the next two races. It must have been disappointing to them, but it was a smart decision not to risk more damage to their vehicles when victory was that uncertain. Even without crashes, racing puts a lot of stress on cars.

Speaking of…

“You’ve really messed up your car,” Ryusuke commented.

Looking at the damage all along the side of my car where we had crashed into the guard rail had quickly sobered me off the high of the race. Long scratches had cut through the vinyl wrap and even scored the paint underneath. It looked like an angry tiger had clawed it. The side panel was warped and dented from the impact.

I stared at it unhappily. I was thankful that I hadn’t gone off the road and down the mountainside and had been uninjured, but I wondered how I was going to deal with this.

“It just looks bad,” I said. “She can still drive.” That was what was important. It didn’t make me happy that I’d have to drive my car around with those scars, but I didn’t have any expendable income to think about repairs, and the side panels would be costly to repair, let alone replace.

For such powerful things, cars were also so fragile.

“I think you should still take it into Jung Hana later. She might know a guy who does body work.”

“You know I don’t have the money for that,” I said wearily. “I was a mechanic for three years, too, I’ll just do some work on it.” I was excruciatingly aware of what my car needed. My clutch was starting to feel all the abuse I’d been putting it through, and the stock brake pads would soon need to be replaced.

“You’re a mechanic with no connections. At least Hana knows where to get parts,” Ryu reasoned.

“I’ll consider it.” It was the best I could do.

Surprisingly even with the crash our times were close to the other teams. Eunsoo’s masterful run was definitely the best of the night so far. Every other middle car had struggled with so many turns. The second team to race tonight hadn’t adjusted their strategy and had left their weakest driver in the middle. She didn’t have the confidence to attempt a fast drift, so she had taken the turns slowly. The third team’s driver almost messed up his first turn, then was extremely cautious on the next few.

No one else had crashed like I did, so that was a bit embarrassing.

We beat out the second team by a second. The third team, however, beat us out by six.

Min’s team, Team Thunder, was the last to race tonight. Like me, Min was his team’s anchor car. Despite the audience being only his rival teams, he was ushered into his car to take his start position with a round of rousing cheers.

He waved and thanked everyone with genuine sincerity. It was clear why he was so likable.

“Fuck that guy in the nicest way possible,” Eunsoo said, even as he was waving him off with a loopy smile.

Ryu tsked at him. “Tch! You wish.”

I was curious to see how well he would race. He might be a nice guy, but he had also expressed an interest to race me, so I had to scope out my possible competition. After the first section of the relay, Team Thunder had been in second place, missing us only by one and a half seconds. They hadn’t even had a hypercar like we did. They were clearly a favorite to win in the competition with LC’s chat. They had the biggest share of bets in the pot.

Min drove a Toyota GR86, the twin to Eunsoo’s Subaru BRZ created in the Toyota-Subaru collaboration. With how well Eunsoo was able to drift with his BRZ, Min was sure to put on just as much of a masterclass. I wondered why his team had decided to put him in the anchor position rather than the middle.

It soon became evident why. Their first driver had done well, as expected of Team Thunder. But their second driver was clearly a master at the drift. He had approached the first turn with frightening speed.

“There’s no way,” I had said.

Eunsoo shushed me.

It should have been impossible at that speed, but I watched with unbiased awe as the back of the car on screen swung out gracefully. Having done it now, I knew the stomach dropping feeling of the car sliding out. But the car seemed to be floating like a windblown cloud. It lasted for a fraction of a second before it had stepped out and left the hairpin, still with that same ferocious speed as before.

“Can’t beat the Silvia when it comes to drift,” Ryusuke said. He and Eunsoo looked enraptured.

“Since when did you two know so much about drifting?” I was curious.

“Ryu and I lived in Tokyo for two years,” Eunsoo said. Neither of them had peeled their eyes off the screen.

The conversation was distracting, and the driver was about to come up on his second turn. It really was incredible to watch. Each turn was made with the utmost precision and efficiency. The Silvia seemed to align itself onto the most efficient path as soon as it entered each turn, and wasted no time with each step out. For this driver, whoever he was, these turns were nothing. He made them look as effortless as driving down a straight expressway.

“Who is that guy?” I had to ask.

“He goes by Tofu.”

“What? That’s the worst nickname yet.”

My comment finally made Ryu turn to look at me disparagingly. “Majide! You really haven’t watched Initial D.”

It was time for the passoff to Minso. Something cold dropped on me from above, and to my irritation, I missed the pass while looking up.

“It’s… raining?” Almost as soon as I had asked, the skies seemed to open in a hefty downpour. The clouds had been thick today, but rain hadn’t been in the forecast at all.

Everyone was staring upwards now in astonishment.

Then panic set in as everyone realized what was happening.

Even if racers loved the thrill of danger, racing in rain as heavy as this was straight up suicidal.

“We need to call off the race,” someone said.

LC flapped his arms like a chicken at the Team Thunder’s coordinator. “Call it off. Tell him to stop!”

The coordinator for Team Thunder was trying. “Dammit! I think his earpiece is busted, I can’t reach him!”

“Why isn’t he stopping?” I asked.

Eunsoo was desperately trying to see the screen that Ryu was holding. “Maybe it’s not raining as hard where he is yet,” he said.

“I don’t think it is,” Ryu said.

That was a relief, but with how suddenly the skies had opened up here, that could still spell disaster. Min was approaching his first turn.

“Is it safe to make a handbrake turn in the rain?” I asked anxiously.

“A damp track is fine. Good, even. But too much water…”

To our relief, San Minso cleared the first turn without issue. He wasn’t as good as (ugh!) Tofu, but at least he knew what he was doing. All we could do now was hope he could finish his race before the rain caught up to him.

The crowd had scattered either under the scant cover of the trees or back into their cars. But everyone was still watching the screen. A heavy anxiety hung over us all, suffocating the usual whoops and cheers.

Even though I hardly knew him, and he was even our rival in this competition, I found myself urging him on and praying he’d get out of it safely.

Only two more turns left. Even under the cover of the trees, fat drops of rain found their way through the canopy to splash onto the tablet screen. Ryu kept using his sleeve to wipe them off, until Eunsoo grabbed his arm and told him to stop.

Every moment counted.

One more turn.

“Go Minso,” someone said. Someone else repeated it, and then it spread infectiously among those of us who hadn’t gone into the cars. “Go! Go Minso!”

We could tell the road where he was was getting slippery. On the feed the asphalt was turning dark grey to black as it hungrily drank up the water. We sucked in our cheers as we watched San Minso enter the turn.

The feed was silent but we could see a small white halo of water flying off his wheels as they spun hard. The back of his GR86 swung out with frightening speed. Was it too wide?! The front wheels were churning and desperately trying to keep their purchase. Minso’s first few turns had been clean and smooth, and already we could see that it wasn’t going to be the case for this one.

His car swung out wide, missing that perfect inner corner cut. The back end of his car painted its trail with an arc of water.

Just inches before he hit the guardrail, his GR86’s back wheels regained traction. He propelled forward, pulling along a white tail of rain behind him.

We were stunned and silent. Then the crowd burst into cheers of relief and appreciation at Minso’s control over his car.

He crossed the finish line seconds later and then he was safe at last.

San Minso seemed genuinely embarrassed at the warm reception he received when he regrouped (driving slowly and safely in the rain). Despite being competitors, everyone was applauding him and showered him with congratulations and exclamations.

“Why didn’t you stop?” LC’s sharp voice somehow cut through all the ovation. “That was dangerous!”

“Er… racing’s always a bit dangerous, isn’t it?” Despite Minso being almost as tall as two LC’s stacked on top of each other, he looked sheepish at being accosted by him. “It wasn’t so bad downhill.”

“That’s true, but you should have stopped. We would have redone the lap a different time!” LC insisted.

“But Tofu had such a good run,” Minso protested. “All that effort would have been wasted.”

“You say like I can’t do them again,” Tofu said disparagingly. He spoke Korean awkwardly. He must be Japanese, like Ryu (but Ryu’s Korean was much better). “We’re happy you got fine.”

The first driver, who was actually a girl, flung herself at him and whacked him with her little fists. “Minso, you idiot!” she wailed. “You could have been hurt!”

Minso stood there good-naturedly taking in the beating. “Noona, you know I’m always careful,” he said appeasingly. “I would have stopped if I thought I couldn’t do it.”

His older sister thumped him one last time. “You scared us all,” she said.

“Sorry everyone, for making you worry,” he said, rubbing his hair with an awkward laugh. “Ah, actually noona, I have one more sorry to say to you.” He peeled her off and ducked into his car and produced a cake box with a very disheveled cake inside.

“I smashed your cake,” Minso said apologetically.

“EH??? You had a cake in your car?!” Various other echoes of the same sort of exclamation rippled through the crowd.

“I wanted to surprise you, ah, for your birthday tomorrow, eh, technically today! It’s your favorite cake from that bakery you love.” It was past midnight now. “Happy birthday, noona.” The surprised and pleased audience echoed the sentiment. “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”

His sister sniffed and hugged him tight. Minso held the cake up above her head (for no reason, it was already pretty crushed). “Next time,” she said weepily, “put it in Tofu’s car.”

The experience of watching San Minso race in the race had been a harrowing one. I barely knew the guy and yet I had almost been overwhelmed by the tension of watching what could have been an impending disaster.

His sister at the end, even though she was a racer herself, had been so overcome with worry that she had cried upon his safe return.

It made me think of Taejun. I wondered if that was what he would feel if he ever watched me race.

Of course Team Thunder came away with the best time, at 301 seconds. With their previous time of 126, their total relay time was 427 seconds.

Ours was 441 seconds. We had dropped from first place to third overall. The gap between Team Thunder and us was 14 seconds. It was definitely decisive.

One more team had dropped out after the last race, leaving only 6 left in the competition.

The difference between us and the now current first place was extremely disheartening to me. I tried to distract myself with my job search, but it continued to be fruitless, and only contributed to my low mood. Despite Eunsoo’s performance, with their driver Tofu, Team Thunder probably would have beat us out even if I hadn’t crashed, but the severe gap between us was entirely my fault.

Sungmin told me not to beat myself up over it. Even though he had told me to stop racing, he had been secretly pleased that I had gone and finished anyway.

“You did ok in the end,” he said. “We’re still in the running for placement.”

Because tournaments were so big, with a bigger pot and even less payout to the betters, the winnings were split among the top three, with of course the lion’s share going to first place. They got a whopping 50% of the pot. Second place got 30%, third place got 15%, and then LC took a neat little 5% for organizing it. LC’s 5% didn’t sound like much, but the pot was swelling to almost ten times that of my first race, and LC would be walking away with a fairly decent chunk of change.

It was a lot of money for doing little more than sitting on the sidelines.

I desperately wanted that first place, but the decisive gap Team Thunder had meant they were sitting pretty to take first overall. It would take a miracle time for the third and last leg of the relay for us to overtake them now. Or, even less likely, if Team Thunder screwed up massively in the last race.

I ran through my problems over and over in my head. They were really building up. First, the damage to my car. Second, the pressure to make up for my poor performance to take first place in the tournament. Third, finding a day job. Fourth, my debt payment for this week.

That last one was the most worrying. I had no idea where I was going to get the money for this week’s debt payment. Even though Eunsoo had told me to tell him if I couldn’t make the weekly interest payment, I didn’t feel like dropping that burden on him. I needed at least 3.4 million won this week. I had about a half of that left in my bank account.

The only issue I knew with a certainty that I could fix was the damage to my car. I had a pretty decent amount of experience with body work from Do Hoon’s shop. Most of his customer base in Outer Seoul were the middle class who could actually afford a car. These guys were frugal and preferred to attempt a repair over a full replacement.

Even though the damage was pretty significant, I should be able to repair most of it. I just needed some extra tools. The first shop I went into, I immediately walked out in disgust. These Inner Seoul automotive shops were truly ripping off their wealthy, presumably unknowledgeable clients.

I took the train (instead of my poor damaged car) to Outer Seoul, to a shop where Do Hoon had bought his tools and materials from. I felt a little jumpy being around there, even though the possibility of running into my old boss was pretty insignificant.

The shop owner recognized me almost instantly. “Baek Jaehyun! Haven’t seen you in a while! Here to pick something up for Do Hoon-ssi?”

“Good morning Hyeon-ssi,” I greeted him formally with a little bow. So he hadn’t heard that I was no longer working for Do Hoon. Maybe I could use this to get the discounted pricing he gave to my boss.

“Always with the good manners,” Mr. Hyeon said happily. “What are you looking for today?”

“Rubbing compound and polish,” I said. I also picked up a slide hammer set from his display.

“Got some fender bender repairs, eh?” He went into the back to get both. “How many cans is Do Hoon needing today?”

“Er, just one of each.” Do Hoon usually bought several every time he restocked, but I didn’t need more than one.

“Only one?” Mr. Heyon was a bit surprised.

“Uh, it’s actually for a personal project,” I said awkwardly. “Could I also get a can of black paint?”

“I see! Good for you, Jae. What code?”

“BW5.” I didn’t have a paint sprayer, but maybe I could borrow one from one of the guys. Surely they did some of their own repairs. Hopefully one of them had a sander, too. The less money I had to spend, the better.

Mr. Hyeon rang me up, and I looked up in surprise. He had given me Do Hoon’s discount and thrown in a can of primer for free, even though I had told him it was a personal project and I was buying so little. He noted my surprise and waved it off.

“You’re one of Do Hoon’s boys. We’re all basically family, aren’t we?”

A little pang of guilt went through me at his words but I thanked him profusely for it.

“Just remember to come to me when you open up your own shop, eh Jaehyun-a?” Mr. Hyeon said fondly.

As I walked out, my guilt was replaced by my happiness at saving that unexpected little boon. Who said I was a mechanic without connections?

I always did hate the slide hammer. The vibrations were hard on your hands, and the dents in my car were significant. At best I could only pull out the smaller dents. Thankfully Seungmin (or someone else) had a heat gun in the garage, and that helped a little.

The largest dent along the doors would definitely need a glue pull system to get out. That was way too expensive for me to consider. I set that thought aside for now and started work on the scratches. At least it was just dented and the frame hadn’t been warped.

Unfortunately that beautiful vinyl wrap had to come off.

“I’m sorry,” I said mournfully to my Z as I turned on the heat gun.

I had just started putting rubbing compound to buff out some small scratches on the wing panel when the garage door opened.

Eunsoo’s BRZ pulled in noisily, and a moment later, Eunsoo popped out, accompanied by Ryusuke, as usual.

“Hey! I brought chicken for lunch--SSIBAL!” Eunsoo exclaimed when he saw the ragged tatters of the wrap I had balled up to throw away later. “What did you do to your car?!”

“Uh. Fixing it? The wrap was done. It had to go.” I stood up and kicked another little scrap of the vinyl back towards the pile.

“Jinjja?! That probably cost several mil!”

“I didn’t buy it.”

Ryusuke was admiring the car minus the wrap. “Honestly though, your Z looks nice even without it.” I liked it too. The base paint of the car was black with deep blue undertones. Where it wasn’t scratched its smooth surface reflected light beautifully.

“Don’t walk over to the other side,” I said. Too late, he already was.

“Whoa! You did a lot of work!” Now both Eunsoo and Ryu were looking all over my car. I had gotten most of the smaller dents out so that it was relatively smooth again (minus the one big one). The wing panel had only had a few scratches on it that I had buffed out.

“Told you I didn’t need to go to Jung Hana-ssi. By the way, do either of you have a sander? Or a paint gun?” The door panels would need to be sanded down and repainted completely after it was smoothed out, so I was embarrassed of the deep wounds still there.

“Nope,” said Eunsoo.

“I mean, you could still go to Jung Hana. Maybe she’ll let you borrow her tools,” Ryusuke commented.

Despite saying I didn’t need to go to Jung Hana not ten seconds ago, I considered it. It was worth a shot. She might even have a glue pull system she would let me use. “Hmm. I guess I could try asking.”

But first, I wanted that chicken Eunsoo had promised.

Jung Hana’s shop was small, much smaller than Do Hoon’s. The rent in Inner Seoul was pretty high, so the fact that she was her age and had her own little lot was impressive enough to me. She walked out of the garage and greeted me as I got out of the car. “Hey! Baek Jaehyun, was it?”

“That’s right.” I shook her hand. I guess she preferred modern greetings. But I remembered how Seungmin had introduced her. “Good afternoon, Jung Hana-soesaengnim.”

She seemed pleased at the formal title. Jung Hana grinned at me for a moment before taking a look at my car.

“I’ve been waiting for you to come around! But where’s that Eclipse I told you to bring? Whose car is this?” She seemed disappointed as she walked around it giving it a once over. “Yikes! What did you do to this car?”

“Er, I won this car a couple of weeks ago.”

“And you’ve already wrecked it.”

It wasn’t wrecked! It was just a little damaged, that’s all. “It’s fixable… I’m sorry to ask this, Jung-soesaengnim, but I was actually hoping to just borrow some tools if possible. I don’t have the money to pay for service,” I admitted honestly.

She gave me a wry little grin. “Well. I appreciate you telling it to me straight. What were you looking to borrow?”

That seemed like a positive response. “I was wondering if you would let me use a glue pull system, if you had one.” I decided to hold back from asking about the sander and spray for now, in case I came off a little strong. The glue pull system was already a hefty ask.

“You know how to use one?” She seemed amused and mildly surprised. Maybe it was a little sexist, but I felt amused at how the roles were reversed. Usually the man was the one asking the woman if they knew how to use tools.

“Yes ma’am.”

“That’s right, you used to work for Do Hoon. Alright, pull her into the garage.” She herself went first, hopefully to bring out the glue pull.

I pulled up the car. I hadn’t seen anyone as I was driving up, but I had assumed she would have had at least one person working with her hidden away in the garage. It didn’t seem to be the case.

As she rolled up the trolly with her kit, I thanked her. “Thank you, Jung-soesaengnim. I’m sorry I can’t pay a service fee, but if you want to me pay a rental fee–”

She waved it off. “I’d like to see you work.” But then Jung Hana shot me another one of her little grins. “If you end up messing it up even more, that just works out for me.”

Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. Even though her system wasn’t the exact same as the one Do Hoon had, they all worked on basically the same. I took a few minutes to familiarize myself to the kit before I started.

Jung Hana must not have had anything to do because she didn’t move off, and just stood there watching me as I lined up the glue tabs carefully. Her eyes watching me made me feel a little self conscious. As I attached the K-beam, I hoped I wasn’t about to mess up horrendously.

I gave it a firm tug. To my relief, I had chosen the spots for the glue tabs well, and with a satisfying pop, the panel pulled outwards and almost back to its original shape. I’d need to do maybe one more pull, then smooth the rest out with the heat gun and slide hammer, but it was not bad for a first pull.

When I was done, I stood back and admired my handiwork. If not for the scratches, it looked just as good as perfect. I ran my hand down the side of it.

“You did a good job,” Hana said, making me jump. I had forgotten that was watching me.

I awkwardly thanked her.

“You going to fix those scratches by yourself too?”

“Hopefully,” I said.

She pointed at a sander hanging on the wall. “Go for it. You have paint?”

I affirmed. Again, I thanked her for her generosity.

I set up for sanding and went to work. It was going to be a tedious process. Some of the scratches had gone all the way down to the body, so I’d need to take it all off. I felt Hana watching me in the beginning, but eventually a customer came in and she went off to help them.

She turned on the radio. Though I could barely hear it over the sander, it was nice to listen to it as I committed myself to this relatively mindless but time consuming task. Even though I had come over right after lunch, I hoped I could get it all sanded down before I left. It would take some time to paint so many layers, so I would probably have to get myself a sprayer so as not to inconvenience Hana. But at least I had saved out on the sander. Every won counted.

I finished faster than I expected. I winced at the look of the bare panels. It wasn’t a good look, but at least now there was a smooth surface for the paint to go on. With the scratches off, now I could see how well the dents had come out. I was a little pleased to see how good of a job I had done.

Hana was elbow deep in a car hood so I returned the sander to its spot and walked over to thank her for letting me borrow her tools.

“You’ve already thanked me a dozen times,” Jung Hana said with good natured exasperation. She wiped her hands and went over to my Z for a look. “You work fast! But it’s looking good. Still a couple of hours before shop closes. Do you need a paint sprayer?”

I did. “Could I take it back to my garage?” I asked tentatively.

“Just do it here.”

“Er, I have to prime it. I’d need to let it dry for 24 hours,” I said with a little uncertainty. It definitely wasn’t ideal to drive around with wet paint.

“Do you live far? You can leave it here,” Ms Jung insisted.

I don’t know how I felt about that.

“I’m hoping to have you come back tomorrow,” she said slyly.

“Why?”

“Maybe you’d like a job,” she said. My ears perked up. Jung Hana laughed to see how easily she had gotten my attention.

“I can’t employ you full time, but I’d like to see how well you do with the paint tomorrow. If your work is up to standard, maybe you could do some body work for my clients sometime. I’m just one person, and some of those jobs take up just a little too much of my time,” she continued.

I had nothing but time these days.

“I have a client coming in tomorrow who got into a real fender bender. If I approve of your work, I might pay you to work that job. It needs a lot of paint work.”

It sounded too good to be true. Well then, tomorrow I’d do the best damn paint job I’d ever done in my life. I hadn’t expected to start painting today, but Hana let me borrow tape and safety gear. I happily started work on the primer.

The primer layer was extremely important. It had to be laid down smoothly and evenly for the pain to adhere to. Jung Hana watched me for some time. I think she was satisfied with my technique. It was as smooth as I could get it and I had taken my time with it so I wouldn’t make any mistakes.

“Looks good so far,” she praised. “Well then, I’ll see you tomorrow, Baek Jaehyun.”

Things were looking up.