Chapter 36

Taejun convinced me to stay the night. Not that I needed much convincing. The couch at the Tigers’ place was nicer, but firmer by far. This couch (that didn’t belong to Taejun) was soft. Once you sunk in, it was a proper effort to dig yourself out. In my apparently concussed state, I simply couldn’t muster up the willpower to do so.

Despite my nap, trying to do anything made me dizzy, so I just had a long night of sleep. I needed to catch up on the sleep I had missed after the post-tourney party.

When I checked my phone in the morning, I saw that Seolhee had texted me. Hmm. She hardly ever reached out first.

[ you left me >:( ]

That was surprising. She had definitely left me with the impression that she didn’t like waking up with the guys she had slept with. And I no longer had any illusions of being her one and only. Sometime later, she had also texted,

[ are you ignoring me? ]

The timestamp was well after Jungho had had me taste his table. I hadn’t looked at my phone all day after that. I typed up a reply that I thought sounded neutral enough.

[ no. sorry. got caught up in some stuff yesterday ]

[ were you looking for me? ]

“Who are you texting? Your girlfriend?” Taejun asked, coming out of the bathroom. Every single hair on that head of his was perfectly coerced into place.

“Something like that,” I said.

Taejun frowned. “That’s a weird answer.”

“It’s nothing serious.”

Taejun looked at me. “I didn’t think you were the type to have casual relationships.”

I don’t know why Taejun thought he knew me at all. I just shrugged. “She’s the one that wants it to be that way.”

“Sounds like a bad one,” he said, disappearing into the kitchen. I heard the coffee machine start. He’d already had one this morning.

“You don’t even know her,” I said peevishly. Everyone seemed to think Seolhee was a bad one, even Taejun, who hadn’t even met her.

My brother emerged from the kitchen with a thermos. “No, but I know that some girls are just the type you’re better off staying away from.”

Was Seolhee that type? My phone buzzed.

[ just thinking of you thats all ]

“I’m off to work,” Taejun said. At the doorway he stopped. “If you call her over while I’m gone, just do me a favor and don’t do it on the couch.”

I sputtered. “What?! I wouldn’t call her over here.”

“And always, always use protection,” he added.

“Hyung! Go the fuck to work already!”

—-------------

[ i dont want to cook > n < ]

[ im going to get takeout ]

[ what should i get? ]

[ chicken ]

[ ugh why guys always say chicken ]

[ its the first thing anyone thinks of when someone says takeout ]

“Quit looking at your phone,” Taejun said. “You shouldn’t be texting so much while you’re concussed, it’ll make you feel worse.”

“I feel fine,” I said.

I hadn’t called Seolhee over. I wasn’t really feeling like calling or seeing anyone. Now in addition to my black eye, I also had a purpling patch on my forehead. I was truly becoming more and more attractive by the day. I’d already decided that I’d hide out at Taejun’s place for a few days until at least my forehead one faded. It felt like a safe place to wait out Han Jungho’s randomly inspired wrath.

Despite my resolution to not see anyone (other than the unavoidable Taejun), Seolhee and I had spent most of the day texting on and off. It was the first time in a long time that I’d had any sort of free time that was also free of worries and pressing issues, and it felt like a vacation after so long.

Seolhee just made it so much better. Speaking of, she just texted me back.

[ what are you having for dinner? ]

I looked into the kitchen. Taejun had seemed happy to see me still plastered to the couch (that didn’t belong to him) when he returned home from work today. I’d lost track of time talking to Seolhee and had forgotten to start making a dinner, but he told me not to worry about it.

“Just stay down.” He had given me such a pointed stare that I felt self conscious of my marred face.

The tell tale smell of spicy ramyun was wafting through the house. How did my brother survive so long? The only thing he was able to cook was ramyun and eggs. And ramyun barely counted as cooking.

[ ramyun i think ]

[ without me? jerk ]

I stifled a laugh, remembering the first time she had offered me ramyun.

“What are you smiling about?” Taejun returned with a pair of steaming soup bowls.

“Nothing,” I said, eagerly putting away my phone to eat.

“That girl again?”

Innocently I took an experimental sip of the bowl Taejun had put in front of me. It was scaldingly hot and I burned my tongue.

Taejun laughed as I struggled not to spit it all over the table. “That just came off the stove,” he reminded me.

I took a sip of water, hoping it would soothe the pain. I shook my head. Taejun smirked at me. I glared at him pettily. “You’ve got to learn how to make something other than ramyun.”

“If a guy like me can cook as well, that would just be unfair to everyone else in the world,” Taejun said loftily.

“Aish! You’re incorrigible,” I scoffed at him. He just laughed in reply. The conversation faded as we cautiously nibbled at the molten ramyun noodles.

“Since you look like you’re holding up ok, there’s a few things I’d like to talk to you about,” Taejun said. I remembered him saying so last night as well. He eyed me but I didn’t offer any resistance. Now that our family’s debt was sorted, I could work with Taejun a little more.

“I’ve been working towards a higher position at work,” he started. That was nothing new. Ambitious and driven Taejun seemed to be always working hard to climb upwards in his career.

“I remember. International Criminal Affairs or something.”

“That’s right,” he said brightly. He seemed pleased that I had remembered. “I’ve been doing good work on my cases here and have distinguished myself in my department. There’s a particular placement I’ve been thinking of trying for. But if I did get it, I’d have to relocate.” He looked at me to gauge my expression. “Internationally.”

I blinked. Taejun leaving again? Also nothing new, but I was surprised at how disappointed I felt. Maybe I’d been looking forward to trying to spend more time with him.

“Oh,” I said. “Where to?”

“To France,” he said.

“That’s so far,” I burst out. Europe?! Busan, which was only a few hours away by train, had seemed so incredibly far just a few months ago. France was literally halfway around the world. It was an inconceivable distance. And there were certainly no buses or high speed rails there. If Taejun went off to France, there was pretty much no chance I’d ever be able to visit him. I wouldn’t see him unless he came back to Korea.

“It is,” he said. “The transfer process is a long one, but I really hope I’m successful.” Taejun looked wistful. “But leaving you here in Korea doesn’t sit right with me either. So I just want to ask you if you’d ever consider coming with me to France. If I get the placement.”

Taejun wanted me to go to France with him? It was definitely an overwhelming thought. I’d never been outside Korea. Hell, I’d only been outside of Seoul once (and that had been a pretty shitty experience). The idea of living elsewhere made me feel a little dizzy.

My face must have betrayed my queasiness. “Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up so soon. You are still a little concussed,” Taejun said quickly. “It’s probably too much for you to think about right now.”

“What would I do in France?” I said in bafflement. Not that I had much going on for me here. At least here though I had the Blue Tigers.

“Be my cook.” Taejun grinned at the expression I made. “I’m kidding. But there’s plenty of opportunities in Europe. Or you could just use that time to go back into education and get yourself a fancy European education.”

He hesitated before continuing sheepishly, “And, well, it might just be a pipe dream, but motorsports, proper ones, are quite big in Europe. Remember Monaco? That’s in the south of France. And there’s lots of–”

“Wait, that’s in France? I thought it was its own country.”

“It’s a principality – a sovereign state – within France’s borders,” Taejun said disapprovingly. “You should have stayed in school…”

“As if they teach stuff like that in school,” I said with a wrinkled nose. I couldn’t remember the last useful thing I’d learned from my final years in school except maybe math. And yet the only time I ever did math was calculating my debt. Now I didn’t even need to do that. Ryu had set me up with some sort of a spreadsheet that calculated it all for me.

The first few options hadn’t been very tempting to me compared to what I would be leaving behind here. But Taejun had offered the idea of going into motorsports and that was a very exciting (if unrealistic) idea. I didn’t know what all you needed to do to get into professional motorsports. But I didn’t have to go right into driving. I’d watched the little gangs of mechanics running around at the pit stops on TV. That could be me, too, I thought with amusement. But aside from that, I had one major pressing issue.

“I don’t speak French,” I said. “Wait, do you?!”

Taejun made a wiggling so-so hand motion. “I did a bit of it in university.”

“Really? Say something in French!”

“Quelque chose.”

“What did you say?”

His mouth twitched with amusement. “Something.”

I gave him an exasperated look. “Lame. Say something else.”

He thought about something to say for a moment then replied with, “J'ai entendu dire que Paris est magnifique à cette période de l'année.”

My jaw dropped. “So cool,” I said in awe. It was so surreal to see my very Korean looking brother suddenly spouting off in an incomprehensible (to me) European language. Belatedly I remembered that my impressed reaction would just go straight to his oversized head.

“I’m not fluent by any means, but I can have a bit of conversation. Most everyone in Europe can speak English, though. That I am fluent in.” Despite saying so, Taejun looked smug at his little French demonstration. “Speaking of, how’s your English?”

I innocently slurped my noodles. I’d been a pretty terrible student, but English had been by far my worst subject. “I’m conversational,” I lied.

Taejun saw through me immediately. He groaned. “I guess it’s time for cram school then.”

“I never said I’m going to France with you,” I retorted. Even though I was interested, there was still a lot to consider, even without the language barriers.

“Well, I don’t have the placement either. But you can still prepare. Just in case.” Taejun pulled out his phone. “I’ll sign you up for a class.”

I sputtered and stared at his phone. “Are you doing that right now?!”

“No,” he chuckled. Just a text then. “But I will tonight. And you better go to them,” my brother added sternly.

I grumbled but to be honest, I didn’t have much else to do. Being idle all day didn’t suit me well either. “Just don’t sign me up for weekend night classes.”

Taejun looked at me. “That’s a perfect transition for what I wanted to ask you about next. I know you spend your weekends … driving.” He turned his attention back to his phone for a minute. “There was a big event in Inner Seoul last Friday.”

My stomach dropped but I kept my expression neutral. “What happened?” I asked.

Taejun gave me a hard look. “Three sets of races took place in the city, on the city streets. They caused dozens of minor accidents. You’re saying you didn’t know anything about this?”

I let just the right amount of nervous creep into my expression. “I-I did hear about it,” I said. Internally I patted myself on the back for the stutter. “But I didn’t think they’d do it. Did anyone get caught?”

“No. Police pursued at least five different cars, but all of them evaded capture.” Taejun continued to give me that hard interrogator’s stare. “You weren’t one of the participants?”

“I don’t race in the city,” I lied. “Only on empty roads.”

Taejun persisted. “This wasn’t the tournament your pot guy has been streaming?” he asked. The oppressive energy coming off him was difficult to resist.

I almost panicked. I had forgotten the Taejun had had access to the stream. I forced myself to keep calm. If he was asking that it meant he didn’t watch the streams anymore.

“No. We already finished it.”

The steely eyed looked my brother was giving me would have had my friends spilling their guts. I had a hard time keeping eye contact. But with such a hard look it was normal to be nervous. Acting too cool would be just as suspicious.

“One last question,” Taejun said. He held his phone out to me. “The racers had scramblers that ruined all video footage from traffic cams. But this was taken from a security CCTV just out of range.”

It was a video aimed at a street. A few blocks down the street, a car, moving so fast it was mostly a black, pixely blur, shot through an intersection. A moment later, a police car followed through. My skin crawled. Even at that speed and distance I recognized the car. It was Comet’s beloved GTR.

Was Taejun about to ask me to narc on him? As much trouble as Comet had caused recently, I didn't know if I wanted to be the one to turn him in.

Taejun swiped his finger across the phone. The next image was a still from the video, zoomed in and enhanced somewhat.

“The make is Nissan. Is this you?” he asked.

I almost laughed in relief. Thank god Taejun was car illiterate. “That’s a GTR,” I told him. “My car is a Z.”

My brother sighed in relief and his stance relaxed significantly. Despite saying he only had one last question, he asked another. “Do you know whose car this is?”

I shook my head. I even managed a little laugh of convincing disbelief. “It’s none of my friends’. But one in five guys has a GTR at the meet. I couldn’t tell you who it is. But I wouldn’t tell you even if I knew,” I said, adding in a little bit of rebellion to sell the lie.

Taejun took his phone back. “As long as it’s not you, I don’t really care. This isn’t my case, or even the NIS’s. This event is for the local law enforcement to sort out– if they’re even deciding to look into it.”

“I would never do something so idiotic,” I promised. Internally I was celebrating. It seemed that I had passed Taejun’s interrogation. It was the first time I’d been able to convincingly lie to him.

Taejun shot me one last warning look. “I hope that’s true,” he growled. “Because I’m the idiot here letting you do this at all. You promised me you’d be safe and at least somewhat smart about it. So hard as it is for me, I’m choosing to trust you.”

I swallowed my guilt. Taejun got up to take our finished bowls back to the kitchen. He gave me one last look. It was a serious look, but there was no anger or aggression in his eyes.

“I hope you can respect that enough to never lie to me when I ask you about these sorts of things.”

Well hyung, I thought, it’s already too late for that.