Welcome to Your Last Race (Street Racers #3)

13. Taehyung

When I get to the next race, it looks like there are even more people. Four more races, and it will be my turn. I know I'll win. No matter how much he cheats. I'll win, and it will be big news, and then what?

I'm disgusted at the idea of winning now. Of winning anything. Who am I to be in a position like this? I don't deserve an ounce of this. I shouldn't have won the Japan Race, either. I shouldn't be doing this.

Yet... I show up. I get out of the car, and I keep taking part in the competition. I keep proving myself. To whom? I'm not sure anymore.

Wooshik and Sue claimed that Hyoshin will not do anything tonight, just to make us believe he fully agreed to the deal. That's why Jiho goes into the race tonight, and Yeeun is the one 'keeping an eye' on everything. Hyoshin stays away from us, but even from the distance I can make out he's got a black eye and bandaged fingers and looks like someone beat the shit out of him not a long time ago. That makes me wonder who did it.

Hoseok and Sana are not here tonight. I asked them not to come. God knows how safe any of us is here.

Jungkook didn't come either. Whether because of the injury or because of what I've said, I don't know. And I'm not asking Yeeun. She's not touching on it, either. I can't blame her. I don't expect her to understand me, or to be more supportive towards me than she would be to him.

"This is no competition," Yeeun says. The three of us are together. "None of his drivers are anywhere near good."

"Besides Sue," Wooshik says. "But he didn't take her for that reason. He took her because of me."

"Which means he has been planning this for a while. Maybe even for a few years, if Jungkook was right," she says. "He must know our weak points. And we don't know his. So not only does he know how to hit now, without being violent, we don't know what would weaken him."

"And his plans have nothing to do with racing."

"But he didn't expect the race to be blowing up. So now he might want to show that he can actually win. But he can't, without sabotage."

"But he's only got sabotage. In Tokyo, everyone knows it's both – racing and sabotage. He won't win with racing."

Yeeun glances around, careful. "Do you think he might quit? Find a loophole in his plan and quit, if the race gets too famous for him to hide behind his bullshit?"

"I'm worried even if he does, he's not gonna quit for good. He's desperate, especially now that Taehyung... is becoming quite something in the community." Wooshik squeezes my hand as he says it, and for a moment it helps keeping my mind at ease. Like he knows this whole ordeal is overwhelming. Maybe he does. Maybe I'm a dumbass and underestimated how well he knows me.

Or maybe it's a coincidence.

Something that bothers me the most tonight is that what happened at the last race doesn't seem to cease. I get looks. Looks, and they all seem to fucking wonder what I'm still doing here. Why I still don't understand this is not a place for me.

"He should be doing make-up and reading fashion magazines, not get dirty with the cars," I heard earlier. Because being gay obviously crosses out certain activities for you.

It's not even that those comments get to me. I am gay, a racer and a mechanic, and they're not going to change it – I'm not one to follow stereotypes. It's not about the comments.

It's about the mental trip to the past I get every single time I hear one. And it's about other people those comments might affect. Because even if they target me, I'm not the only queer person around. Because Yeeun has gone through it already, and she doesn't need to hear shit like that twice. Because there are definitely people who aren't even out, and they will keep listening to shit like that, and it will never create a safe environment.