Partners in Speed - ver.2 (also Street Racers #2)

21. Jungkook

I thrum my fingers against the steering wheel. Yoongi and Taehyung are inside, doing the main job. Another heist. I'm supposed to drive.

They are taking a long time, and I've been in the car long enough to think a lot. Come to conclusions. Realizations. Feel things about the realizations.

Major one. I'm not necessary here. And it bothers me in a similar way I'm bothered when Yeeun deals with, for example, her co-worker's flirting by herself. Useless. I've been feeling useless recently. A feeling of having nothing to do that people would need in their lives. A feeling I've been fighting off for years. Successfully.

Not anymore, I suppose.

As much as I was able to silence it before, I can't just ignore it this time.

I can only ignore it when Taehyung and Yoongi get back into the car and I drive away. I also don't think about it when they tell me what they've done.

But I think about it again when I'm with Yeeun at her place.

I'm thinking about it when we go to sleep, when she falls asleep and I stay up.

I think about it the next day at work. Also when I pick her up from hers, and witness the same scene – Jeonsu flirting, Yeeun putting him in place.

"He only does it when you're around now," she says.

"So he doesn't like you, but he hates me."

"You've not given him reasons to like you." She chuckles. I can't say I have.

The race tonight is calm. Jimin is late, Lee is quiet, Joonjae doesn't show up. We come early. Taehyung shows up with Wooshik – they are cute together. And Taehyung smiles a lot around him.

The four of us stick together. It doesn't take a lot of time to realize how... right that setting seems. You could put a lot of people together, and you never know if they fit. We somehow do. In a specific way, but we do.

"One day," Wooshik says, "I'm gonna put myself in the Japan Race."

"Really?" Yeeun asks. She's interacting with him in a different way now. Like they are way closer than they were when he first showed up here. They are becoming friends, and – again – it makes sense.

"That's the goal," Wooshik says. "I'm gonna make a team and take part."

"Jimin told me you basically have to buy yourself the spot."

"Yeah, that's true," he says. "It does cost a bit, but at the end, if you win, you get four times that. And if your racer wins, you get money, too. You can bet with other racers, too."

"You know a lot about it," I notice.

"Yeah, I was curious how it works from the technical side."

"Remember about us when you're making your team," Taehyung tells him, poking his side. Despite what has happened at the last race, he's not trying to hide it.

"It's hard to find racers like you, you know? I'm not planning to forget," Wooshik says.

"If you were to tell the winner, who would you pick?" Yeeun asks.

"You're asking me a difficult question." He grins. "I'm biased."

Yeeun lets out a dramatic sigh. "I knew you'd choose me."

"If you're the last person on Earth, sure."

"I'm starting to support the idea you're an undercover cop."

"Never trust nobody that drives a Jaguar. Undercover cops always show off too much."

I exchange glances with Taehyung. It's either you knew they were friends? kinda look or why wasn't it that easy for us? kinda look. Or a bit of both.