Chapter 33

Comet didn’t listen.

He lost control of his car on the first hairpin, and hit a tree.

The scene of the crash had us all wide eyed and slack jawed in shock, but surprisingly it was Ryu who looked the most stricken.

He gripped his hair and squeezed his eyes shut. His best friend Eunsoo reached over and put a hand on his shoulder.

“This isn’t your fault,” he said.

“It is,” rambled Ryu. “It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have—“ his words suddenly swapped to Japanese, and I had no idea what else he was saying.

“He goaded you, not the other way around,” Sungmin said firmly. “We warned him.”

Eunsoo was speaking to Ryu now in Japanese as well.

I was too shaken to try to follow the conversation. It was the first time I’d seen someone crash in the races. I had known it was dangerous, of course, I’d always known. But the consequences had always seemed far away, the chances low.

But here was the reality.

You could crash.

You could be hurt.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen despite my horror. Wait. The door on the GTR swung open forcibly, as though it had been forced open. The frame was probably warped.

Comet stumbled out. It was hard to see on the overhead camera (the in-car cam had been unmounted in the crash, and was now filming under a seat) but he looked mostly ok.

He stood up straighter, and yeah, he was ok. He flipped off the drone camera.

LC’s chat was going crazy.

“He’s ok,” I said. “Doesn’t look like he’s hurt too badly.”

Ryu’s head snapped up. “Thank god,” he said weakly.

Someone had a truck, and when Comet and his GTR were retrieved, he came back to a hero’s return. Everyone was relieved he was ok.

Someone handed him an icy can of beer, but instead of drinking it, he held it to his forehead.

Despite the reception, Comet looked sullen. Wrecking his GTR meant he couldn’t continue to race, and Ryu had won by default. (He probably would have won anyways.)

They had only raced for pinks, and that meant that GTR, smashed as it were, now belonged to Ryu.

“Bet you’re real smug about this,” he grouched at Ryu as we approached.

Ryu shook his head. Between Eunsoo and the realisation that Comet hadn’t been seriously hurt, his shock from earlier had significantly subsided.

“I’m not,” said Ryu, so earnestly that it melted the scowl off Comet’s face. “And I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have driven like I did today.”

“You went all out,” said Fireball. “It’s what we all do.”

“Yes. But I still want to say sorry. If I hadn’t taken the challenge, Comet wouldn’t have crashed tonight.”

“It’s not the first time he’s done it.”

“Hey!” Comet was peeved by Fireball’s comment, but he was looking a bit less antagonistic after Ryu’s apology.

“How’s your head?” Eunsoo asked, nodding at the beer can.

“Haven’t had any complaints,” Comet replied. I didn’t really get it, but Eunsoo snorted. If it amused Eunsoo, it was probably a dirty joke. Comet grinned, then cracked open the can, rewarding himself with a drink.

“Yeah, I’m alright,” Comet admitted after chugging. “Thanks for asking.” He was looking a bit sheepish. Comet tossed his keys to Ryusuke. “I guess he’s your problem now.” Despite throwing over the keys so nonchalantly, Comet still looked downright miserable.

Ryu caught the keys but immediately held them back out to Comet, who looked at them suspiciously. “I know you love that car,” the former said. “I don’t want or need it.”

Comet hesitated, but ultimately the draw of keeping his precious GTR won him over, and he took the keys back. “What’s your motivation here?” he asked.

“Proving myself tonight was all I wanted to do. This was a race for my own pride. The past, the resentment, the fight… Let’s leave it all here tonight on the track.” Ryu held out his hand to Comet.

“I scrapped your old car,” Comet said hesitantly.

“What’s gone is gone.”

Comet’s expression was unreadable to me. He clasped Ryu’s hand finally. “Maybe you’re not such a shit driver after all.”

“I’m a very good driver,” Ryu corrected him. “But you have my respect as well.”

“This is just like a scene from the Fast and the Furious,” sniffed Eunsoo. “Are you getting this?”

“I got it all on stream,” LC sniffled back.

“Man, you guys have really been putting this car through the wringer,” LC said, after finishing up his post race ‘interview’ with Ryusuke.

He looked at the Nissan Z as he packed up his drones. “But it’s been a monster in these races. Maybe we’ll call this car the new Devil Z,” he said with glee.

“That’s… a terrible joke,” Eunsoo said.

“What? Don’t tell me you don’t know where it’s from— oh. Sorry, dude.” Before I could figure out what was happening, LC scuttled off.

We checked under the hood to ensure the car was good to drive. The engine had been dangerously hot after Ryu’s race, and that clutch really was on its last leg already.

“I can’t believe you let Comet keep his car,” I said to Ryu.

“Nah. It was good for me,” Ryu said. He really did look like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

I looked at him. I felt like there was a long backstory that I didn’t know, but I’d never really been one to pry. Despite that, Ryu could tell I had questions.

“I’ll tell you about it over some drinks some time,” he promised.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I said. The Z was fine to drive, and the clutch could probably suffer through the last race if it was as short as the previous ones. “Do you want to drive it back?”

“I think I’m just going to go back with Eunsoo,” said Ryu. Now that the tension of the last two days had gone out of him, he was looking a bit tired.

“Sure,” I said.

I watched him walk back over to Eunsoo’s BRZ and exchange a few words with his friend before getting into the passenger seat. As Eunsoo was getting into his car, he saw me still watching, and he waved at me.

I waved back, and they drove off. I’d always been so consumed with my own considerable list of problems, I never really stopped to consider anyone else’s. For the first time in a long time, I thought about someone else. As I got into my own car, I wondered what had happened in Ryusuke’s (and probably by extension, Eunsoo’s) past that made him so nervous all the time. And I wondered what Comet had to do with it all, or if he was just some side villain in that storyline.

I remembered Ryusuke mentioning troubles with his own family. He’d always advocated for me to try to make things up with my brother. Maybe I’d give Taejun a text.

Of course texting Taejun had led him to insisting on getting dinner together sometime during the week. I remembered that he had no idea how to make food for himself but also supposedly had no time to eat lunch most days. I wondered how he was getting on without me. Another one of my instances of forgetting about other people’s problems.

Monday was here, but we’d confirmed with LC off stream that the final leg of the tournament would be later this week.

“I gotta think of something big,” he had said. “Plus, I think everyone needs to wind down after that last race. Me and my team are going to be hunting down clips for the next few days for sure.”

I did have to hand it to LC, he and his team were good at finding and deleting anything that could be incriminating evidence to anyone involved. If only he had decided that my idiot face saying who eats ramyun at 2 AM was incriminating evidence too. At least the meme had long died down. It wasn’t that funny.

Halfway through lunch I got a text from Jung Hana asking me to come to her shop as soon as I could for a possible job. I chuckled to myself. I had a pretty good guess just whose car it was.

“You can’t be serious. This guy?” Comet was not happy to see me driving up in his old car.

I greeted Jung Hana. “Good afternoon, Jung-ssaem.” I grinned at him, enjoying his obvious discomfort. “Comet.”

He growled at me like a dog.

“Ugh, none of that nickname stuff here. Call him Yoo Seunghyuk-ssi.” Jung Hana turned to Comet/Yoo Seunghyuk, who was glaring at me. She told him, “You want this done in a week, I’m going to need his help.”

“You’ve gotta have someone else. He’s literally my competitor in the upcoming race,” Yoo Seunghyuk complained.

“Heh. Afraid I’ll tell everyone what’s under the hood of your GTR?”

“Worse. You could secretly be fucking with what’s inside,” he fumed.

“Don’t antagonize him, Jaehyun. Seunhyuk, he’ll be working with me, but mostly on the outside of your car. And I’ll make sure he doesn’t fuck with what’s inside,” Hana said diplomatically.

“I’d never screw around with your car,” I said in astonishment. The very thought was abhorrent to me. I would never maliciously intend harm on someone else, even for my own advantage. Messing with his car could lead to an even more serious accident than the one he had last night.

The tone of my voice made Seunghyuk waver. I pressed on. “Besides, I thought you and Ryusuke agreed to leave all our conflict on the track last night.”

“That was between me and Sato, not you,” he said. He was still irritated, but at least he didn’t seem so suspicious.

“Consider it extended to me too,” I told him. “I’ve got nothing against you if you’ve got nothing against my friends.”

“Very cool,” said Hana impatiently. “So are you ok with this or not?” she asked Seunhyuk.

He stared at me hard. “Fine. But–”

“Alright then, Jaehyun and I have a lot of work to do, and you need to go get those parts I told you earlier. Let’s wrap this conversation up and get to work.” Jung Hana shooed Seunghyuk. It was pretty amusing seeing how bossy and direct Hana was to the supposedly tough street racers despite her tiny stature. I liked her spunkiness.

“You better not fuck it up,” he growled at me.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll take good care of Ryu’s car for you. Or… is it mine?” Despite making amends with him, I couldn’t resist getting one little jab in at him. The swelling had gone down, but I’d still be wearing the black eye he had given me for at least a couple of weeks.

“Wow. Fuck you, dude.”

The front end of the car had been pretty severely damaged. The bumper, hood, and headlights needed complete replacements. The entire front end, radiator included had been pushed in, damaging the air intake system and the ac system (and also, less severely, the windshield wiper fluid reservoir, oh no). The frame had been warped badly, and with it, the steering and front suspension. One strut tower had been forced upwards, ruining a particularly nice looking custom ionized strut bar.

“Driving those shitty mountain roads with a strut bar, idiotic,” muttered Hana irritably as she flung it aside.

The fender on the side with the dislodged strut tower had dented badly, but at least the other side wasn’t.

We put the car on a jack stand to look under it.

“Ssi-bal, the transmission’s fucked too,” Hana cursed as she slid out from under it.

Just another thing to add onto the list. Despite my conviction that I would never personally cause or wish harm on someone, at the end of the day, the more issues Comet’s GTR had meant more money in my pocket.

It took us all afternoon to take out everything that needed repairing and replacing, and by the time Jung Hana let me go, I had to rush back to get changed and ready for my dinner showdown with Taejun. He wasn’t a fan of the smell of motor oil.

He was already there at the bunksijip he had decided we were meeting at. With how often he ate out, I felt certain Taejun knew half the restaurants in Inner Seoul.

His smile of greeting instantly flipped upside down when he caught sight of–

“Ssi-bal! Your face! What happened to you?” he said in alarm. Crap, I had forgotten about that.

“Er, fell down?” I tried, settling into a seat.

That didn’t fly with Taejun. “You got into a fight, didn’t you,” he accused.

I was suddenly incredibly interested in the menu. I flipped it up to get a better look at it.

Taejun rudely interrupted by flicking it back down to continue to ogle my face.

“It’s not going to go away the more you look at it,” I grumbled. I really was picking up Eunsoo’s sass.

Taejun closed his eyes and sighed dramatically. “Every time I see you, I regret telling you that you can keep doing what it is you’re doing. You’re making it very, very hard for me here.”

I wished he’d just act less like some sort of weird half-parent, and just be my brother again. It was irritating having to constantly be on my best behavior around him to get his approval. Sure, some of the dumb stuff I did my friends didn’t approve of either. But they didn’t nag me or guilt me over it day after day. I regretted texting Taejun in my sentimental mood last night.

“Can we just have dinner?” I grouched at him. I was actually pretty hungry after lifting heavy metal objects around a garage all day. I didn’t know why Taejun was making such a big deal out of this. Since the time I was a kid, I’d always had some amount of bruises anywhere. Even when I had outgrown my dad in height and he had stopped beating me to reinforce his will on me, I’d gotten them just from working in an auto shop. This wasn’t anything new.

Maybe Taejun was regretting acting like my pseudo-parent too, because surprisingly, he just relented and said, “Fine.”

But then even after we put in our orders, Taejun kept looking at my eye sullenly. “Did you at least win the fight?” he asked.

“Does it look like I won?” I grumbled. I could pretty easily admit that. I had been completely outmatched against Comet. I tipped my head down so the bill of my hat covered my face a little more. All this scrutinizing was making me uncomfortable. Even though it was just my brother looking at me, I felt as self conscious as I did on LC’s stream.

“No it doesn’t,” Taejun said, with an amused huff. “Do you get into fights a lot?”

I wanted to say no, but that wasn’t very truthful. I’d basically gotten into a fight (though the ones with Hoojin were so short they shouldn’t have counted) every week since getting with the racers. I realized I’d paused too long before answering, so I hastily said, “No.”

I winced at how untruthful that no sounded. Taejun, an investigator for the NIS, didn’t buy it at all. “Sounds like a yes to me,” he said. “Do you even know how to fight?”

“Punch the other guy,” I grumbled. There really wasn’t much else to it. Well, sometimes you could kick them too.

My answer pulled a laugh out of Taejun. “Maybe I should teach you. Or at least teach you how to defend yourself.”

I looked at him hopefully. I knew Taejun had trounced Park Hoojin. He had disabled me in our scuffle almost instantly (though I was just kind of punching at him in a panic). He knew how to fight.

“You’re looking like a dog with a bone,” he complained. “Why do things like this make you so happy?”

“Because I’m young and stupid?” I said, remembering what Jung Hana had said to me.

“True. But I never pulled any of that shit you’re doing now when I was your age. Are you sure you won’t consider university?”

When I was younger I dreamed of it. But I’d dropped out of school way too early. Taejun jumped at my hesitation. He knew I hadn’t finished high school, but he already had a solution for that. “Cram school is always an option.”

“That sounds lame,” I complained.

“Nothing lame about building a solid foundation for your future,” Taejun said in a chipper tone, like he was a TV advertisement. I couldn’t help it; I laughed. He did too. Laughing with Taejun again was a rare occasion now. Even though it wasn’t that funny of an impression, I laughed a bit too much, trying to keep the moment going.

“Ultimately it’s your decision,” Taejun said amicably. “You’d just hate it if I forced you to do it. You’re basically a legal adult now.”

“What if my decision is to keep being young and stupid on the streets for a little longer?” I asked tentatively. I was making good progress on that debt. After I paid it all off, I’d have time to think about a further away future.

Taejun wasn’t as disappointed in my answer as I thought he would be. He had made some progress tonight in convincing me to consider making future plans. “Then I guess your scary NIS agent hyung is just going to have to teach you how to punch other young and stupid idiots on the streets.”

I grinned at him, and he smiled back. The night had started off poorly but at least we were getting onto the same page. “You really liked being called a scary NIS agent, huh,” I scoffed at him.

“It’s more accurate than narc.”

I’ll never understand what things Taejun considered compliments. “You’ll really teach me how to fight?”

“How to defend yourself,” he corrected. “But in return, let's keep having dinner on the weekdays.” He interrupted my protest before I could start it. “Doesn’t have to be out every day. We could just have dinner at home.”

“You don’t ‘have time to cook’, so what I’m hearing is you want me to cook dinner for you again,” I snorted.

He grinned at me.

“Fine,” I said. It wasn’t that much of a hassle to cook. And maybe if I saw Taejun more on the weekdays, he’d stop plucking my hair every time he saw me. I tried my luck with one more request. “Will you teach me how to shoot?”

Taejun’s grin disappeared. “What?! A gun? Absolutely not.”

“Why not?”

“You, you yangachi, can learn that in your military service.”