[exo] Arbitrage (3/3)
Arbitrage
exo // kai/kyungsoo (tiny sehun/lu han/kai) // nc-17 // 22,000 words
[street race AU... or is it.] There are three tracks to Do Kyungsoo's life. Track A, trader at an investment bank. Track B, new recruit of a race crew called EXO. Track C... track C involves someone named Kai and a whole lot of bad decisions.
<<
He's making fried chicken and tomato soup, because that's Kai's favourite, and Kai has been quiet all evening. It unsettles him, how the younger man keeps wandering aimlessly around the apartment, stopping every once in a while to stare at him, then stare out of the window.
Kai still wanders over and hovers over his shoulders while he's making dinner though. He sees Kai shifting through newspapers and supermarket coupons on the table out of the corner of his eyes, deft fingers flipping through the pages. He sees Kai picking up his key ring and wallet, weighing them in his hands, spacing out. It takes him a few seconds to realize Kai is going through his wallet.
"What are you-"
Kai absently pulls out a polaroid, and Kyungsoo snaps his mouth shut. Kai stares at the polaroid for a really long time, his face expressionless. They are both quiet for a long while. "So." Kai throws his wallet down to the table, raising the polaroid up so he can see as well. The picture shows Kai and him together, grinning widely. Kai's face is smooshed against his, one arm wrapped around Kyungsoo's shoulders as always, the other reaching out towards the camera - he's obviously the one who took the picture. The background shows them leaning against a car. A red Ferrari, brand new and shining in the sun. There's nothing unusual about the picture, except...
"I'm pretty sure I have never taken a picture with you. Ever. And I definitely don't remember this polaroid." Kai says, waving the little piece in the air. "So."
Kyungsoo stays silent.
"You can't be the Kyungsoo I normally meet, because you tell me you're only hanging out with me when you're Kyungsoo Double having your little vacation, living the normal timeline. So I guess you're the Kyungsoo from the future. Kyungsoo Prime, isn't it? But if you're Kyungsoo Prime, aren't you supposed to be at your fancy Gangnam apartment suite or your glass tower office, trading financial securities and making profit out of the future?"
Kyungsoo winces. "Well, that's because I'm not... Kyungsoo Prime. And obviously not the normal Kyungsoo Double either. But I am... from the a point of time way ahead of this moment, you could say."
"I thought so. I was starting to think things didn't add up. I followed you... okay, normal Kyungsoo, back to his apartment last night, but it was a place several blocks up north from here. Nearer to the garage. I asked around, and he'd obviously lived there on and off for a while. That guy went on 'long business trips' a lot, the neighbours said. But I still don't get it. How many Kyungsoo are running around this city exactly?"
"At this moment... if your normal Kyungsoo is in a loop... well he must be since he's living in that apartment now instead of the Gangnam one, I'd say... three of us." He glances down at the boiling pot of soup and turns the stove off.
"Three. Really." Kai raises a head to rub at his forehead. "Okay. When did you get here and what are you doing here exactly?"
"This loop of mine started about... seven months ago." He bites down on his lips. This is going to take some long explaining. At least the chicken is already done. "Seven months ago, I got thrown back in time to right around the first time we met at the Incheon race track, eight months away from my original point. That's... the furthest I've ever traveled in one go, actually. I'm not sure how it happened, but it did. It was... an unplanned move. I actually had no plan, so I've just been... living here. Waiting for my point of origin to come. That's the day that polaroid was taken actually."
Kai stares accusingly at the polaroid. "And when was this taken?"
He glances at the calendar. "A few weeks from now, actually. Seven months ago for me, a few weeks from now for you."
"...This time frame shit is getting really confusing to me." Kai groans, walking away and throwing himself down to the couch. "When did we first meet?"
"Over a year ago for me - that's the night at the Incheon race track when you nearly rammed me off the road. But the first time you met me after I got thrown into this loop was seven months ago, that time at the grocery store and you ended up following me back here."
"So I've been seeing two Kyungsoo alternatively." Kai looks distinctively put out.
"Yeah. I thought you'd catch on sooner to be honest. I didn't expect to run into you in this loop again. I wanted to stay away, letting you meet me like how I remembered it happening, but you ran into me first." He remembers contemplating just walking away when he saw Kai stumble in that morning at the grocery shop. Out of all time and space, it seemed ridiculous that they would just stumble into each other's way again. "Then you kept coming back to this apartment." And he just couldn't push Kai away. He has never been able to. "I figured it would be okay, because I'd never taken you back to my place before, all those months I knew you before this loop."
"So what happened that day you got thrown back in time that made you go into an eight-month loop? Did you crash the Ferrari in this picture?" Kai is staring at it again, fingers tracing over the paper.
"Yeah, we did." He walks over to the couch as well, sitting down next to Kai.
"We?"
"We did it together. You and me."
"In the same car?"
"You said you wanted to try it. Sharing the experience, or something. Me into the past and you into the future at the same moment in time." He remembers the childish glint of excitement in Kai's eyes. That night seems like eons ago.
"Maybe it's because we did it together that you got thrown back so far. Joined time-traveling forces or some shit. Maybe I got thrown forward that far, too."
Kyungsoo sighs. "Yeah. When my point of origin comes again, you wouldn't be there. You'd be, I don't know, eight months into the future or something."
"You sound like you'd miss me." Kai smiles, leaning over, cupping Kyungsoo's cheek with his hand. "But yeah, that does sound like something I'd want to try."
-
They all go out to the Incheon track one night. It's nearly time for Race War, everyone is gearing up and trying to gauge the rivalling crews and their preparation, Chanyeol says. The track seems more crowded and noisy than usual, flashy tuner cars rolling in more often than stocks. Baekhyun spends the night pointing out pretty girls with gorgeous legs in hotpants and miniskirts to him. Kris hangs around with two kids who look like brothers, until Sehun laughs and calls one of them noona and Kyungsoo does a double take. Chanyeol and Yixing have a mini snack picnic on top of Kris' GT-R, gossiping about the other crews in the upcoming Race War.
"I heard the SJ crew just got a new recruit this time, too. Some giant Chinese guy. I heard their team is really strong this year."
"So who's driving for SNSD this year, do you know?" SNSD has a rotating crew, Chanyeol told him, since it's only five per team and they are a group of nine. It's a bit of a mystery how they even got together a racing crew of nine girls with exceptional legs, but the SNSD crew is always the pearl of the race track every year.
"Uhh... I only know Yoona, Yuri, and Sunny for certain. Oh, I heard Jessica pulled out, too." Baekhyun chimes in from the other side.
"Ooh, Yoona is scary."
"Baekhyun is only in Race War for the SNSD girls to be honest." Chanyeol laughs when Baekhyun reaches over and punches him in the shoulder. "What, it's true! I really hope Taeyeon isn't in, or we'd have to kick Baekhyun off the team because he'd be too busy staring at her to operate a car. True story, last year Baekhyun broke his nose on the spoiler of some asshole's Honda because he tripped over his feet when Taeyeon said hi to him."
"Hey, the SNSD girls are really scary okay! And I didn't break my nose, I just-" Baekhyun punches Chanyeol again when he reaches down and pets his hair. "Don't touch my hair, I spent an hour styling it this evening!"
"Is Amber driving for f(x) this year, too?" Sehun suddenly jumps over out of nowhere, plucking the bag of chips out of Chanyeol's hands.
"Yeah, she told Kris." Joonmyun nods. "Henry is in for SJ, too. Having Kris with us is really good for information about the f(x) and SJ crews because he hangs out with them."
"Henry can't shut his mouth, that's true."
"Is DBSK coming to the race this year? Nobody has heard anything about them for a long while. It's like they've dropped off the face of the earth or something. I heard there was a split or something? I hope they're not up this year though. They're super scary." Baekhyun purses his lips.
"Ehh, ask Lu Han. Lu Han would know."
Kai doesn't come to the race that night, but he's there waiting for Kyungsoo in front of his apartment at four in the early morning when he gets back. He doesn't ask how Kai even knows where he lives. He opens the car door, and Kai climbs in, sliding into shotgun. They drive down to Gangnam, just following the endless stretch of empty streets and listening to the hum of tire treads against the asphalt. It's five twenty in the early morning. That's when people either begin or end their day. Waking up for passing out on the unmade bed. He's thinking about it, but they keep on driving. Headlights on. Kai is sprawled all over his seat. He looks tired, and Kyungsoo catches him pressing the heel of his hand to his temple more than once.
"Have you ever met your body doubles, your other selves?" Kai asks, and the question sounds like it should be teasing, but Kai isn't smiling. He looks contemplative, maybe.
"No, never. And I don't really want to. It's kind of creepy."
"It'd be interesting." Kai's lips twitch up in a smile, but he doesn't say anything else. "You drive like a man dying for a crash on a race track." Kai says this somewhere between Hyperion and Benecity. "You're so uptight all the time, but when you're behind the steering wheel of a car, you just... let go."
"Funny, someone used to tell me the same thing about you."
"I'm not uptight." Kai frowns, looking deeply offended in the rearview mirror.
"No, just stupid." Kai goes quiet after that. When Kyungsoo glances over again, he's leaning back, his face titled upwards to hold another nosebleed in. Kai's fingers are smeared with blood. "Has it been getting worse?" They have never talked about this. Kai hums low in his throat. Kyungsoo fixes his eyes on the road. "Sometimes my ears bleed, too. Or I get migraines for days. Always after a crash, after I wake up in a different time."
"You can't write." Kai suddenly speaks up, his head still tilted up, eyes staring at the dark ceiling of the car.
"What?"
"You can't write anymore. Can't draw in a straight line. I know the characters in my head, but my hand doesn't want to make them happen. Left hand, right hand. Everything comes out illegible."
Kyungsoo is quiet for a while. "I forget things. Just small things, like where I went last weekend or what I had for lunch. But it happens more often than it should."
"That must drive you crazy, Mr. Life Planner. I can't remember half of my childhood by now," Kai says. "I don't even remember Sehun's last name." The nosebleed has stopped. He slowly leans up again.
"I've been thinking about getting a new car." Kyungsoo says, more of a mindless topic switcher than anything, his hand reaching out to brush the bangs of Kai's hair. Kai is quiet for a long while before suddenly jumping up in his seat.
"Hey, get a Ferrari."
"What?"
"C'mon, you've got the money, right?" Kai is suddenly all bright eyes and excitement. "All that money in your bank account, for what? You could always make more, buy the right lottery ticket, bet on the right horse, something. Go all out. Forget boring little black BMWs, show off your money's worth. Get a Ferrari. Get the 458 Italia. It's stunning. It has a history of road accidents and bursting into flame."
"What? You're crazy." He laughs at Kai's childish enthusiasm, ruffling the other's hair.
"Kyungsoo, be a little exciting! Get a black one, so shiny we could see the sunset off it, or see ourselves in the reflection when we fuck on top of it. Or maybe a classic red, that's really hot, too. I don't mind fucking on top of a red Ferrari either." Kai grins, unabashed.
"You're shameless and crazy," Kyungsoo says, but he's thinking about it. Kai spread out against the shiny red surface of the car, all sweaty dark skin and lithe muscles. Something of his own.
-
He doesn't see Kyungsoo, normal or otherwise, until a couple of weeks later. He's walking to the bus stop when he sees the Ferrari first, gorgeous little thing with sensuous curves and sweet humming engine. Everyone stares and whispers when it crawls slowly along the sidewalk, a stunning fiery sunset against the monochromatic street, and he stares, too, until he realizes the car is following him, and everyone is staring at him as well. Kai stops short on his tracks when he looks through the half-lowered car window.
"Holy shit," he stares in shock when he realizes the driver of the Ferrari is no other than Kyungsoo. "You really did it. You really went and got the fucking 458." He thought he'd probably get a job to crash a Ferrari when the time came; he was only joking when he told Kyungsoo about getting the car that morning, but Kyungsoo really did go out and get one.
He slides into the passenger seat to the stares of envy and curiosity from passers-by, and Kyungsoo is grinning widely at him. His hands are stroking over the butter-soft white leather and the flawlessly smooth carbon fiber interiors, but his eyes are fixed on Kyungsoo, staring as his heart skips several beats in his chest, because Kyungsoo is wearing a fucking suit. All pressed white shirt and dark cashmere, black tie and silver cufflinks, shiny leather shoes and a slow smirk on his lips. This is the Kyungsoo that belongs to high-rise glass towers and flashing coded numbers across computer screens.
"I just got out of work," Kyungsoo tells him, smiling as if he can read all of Kai's thoughts. He tugs at his collar, and Kai bites down on his lip.
"So it's just you."
"It's just me. I'm not in any loop this time."
Well, that isn't quite true, Kai thinks, but he doesn't comment on it. He lets his eyes trail over the shift of Kyungsoo's shoulders underneath the fabric of his expensive suit jacket when he grips the steering wheel of the Ferrari, making a smooth turn over a corner. He's driven so many cars like this, Kai thinks, but this is a whole other world of feelings. This is not the abandoned dream of some bitter old man, soon to be forgotten on the side of the road. This is Kyungsoo's.
Kyungsoo presses him against the car later, the sunset glowing behind his back as Kyungsoo sucks him off, slow and dirty. His hands twitch and claw against the smooth shiny surface, because it's too fucking hot, Kyungsoo kneeling in front of him in his obscenely expensive suit, the knees of his dress pants dirty on the ground, his full swollen lips wrapped tight around Kai's cock. Kyungsoo makes small gasps in the back of his throat as Kai's hips keep twitching up, eyes wide and pleading, and it's impossible for him not to come into that mouth, tracing come across swollen lips, Kyungsoo's tongue flicking out absently.
They kiss later, Kyungsoo still pressed between the car and his body, endless pecks and nibbles of swollen lips and hot tongues. He scratches his teeth lightly against the side of Kyungsoo's jaw line, feeling drunk on sated pleasure and the taste of Kyungsoo's skin. "Maybe Jongin died in that first crash, you know... Maybe I am meant for you." Maybe Jongin ceased to exist, and Kyungsoo brought Kai back into time. It would explain the perfect fit of their bodies pressing flush together.
"Jongin..." The name sounds foreign on Kyungsoo's tongue. "Is that your name?"
"Not anymore." He sighs against Kyungsoo's lips.
He makes Kyungsoo make a detour to his apartment, shouting at Kyungsoo to wait for him downstairs as he rushes up and down the stairs in record speed, feeling as if there is a fever running hot and bright under his skin. Kyungsoo is leaning against the car when he returns, and he raises an eyebrow at what Kai is holding in his hands.
"Why do you even have a polaroid camera?"
"Shut up and smile." He loops his arm around Kyungsoo's neck, smooshing his face against the other man's, still panting slightly against Kyungsoo's cheek. They smile wide for the camera, and Kai reaches out to snap the picture. He waves the little piece of paper in the air, waiting for it to develop. He smiles when it comes out looking exactly like he remembers from the polaroid in the other Kyungsoo's wallet. They look nice together.
"Keep this, okay?" He reaches for Kyungsoo's wallet and shoves the polaroid in. "So you can look at it when you miss me."
"...Okay." Kyungsoo accepts his wallet back with a bemused look.
They are driving up the mountain again, just to look at the Seoul night view from above when Kai starts telling Kyungsoo about it. Kyungsoo expectedly glares at him, looking both amused and shocked.
"No, what, no! I'm not going to crash this brand new car just because you want to do a little experiment, Kai! I bought it, I didn't just pick it up by the side of the road!"
"No, c'mon, why not! Us together in the last moments before the crash, you going to the past and me going to the future! You can just come back to the past and convince yourself not to do it later, then crash another car together, so the end result remains the same, we would still travel out of time, and you'd still have the Ferrari! I've thought this out, okay?"
"What are you doing?" Kyungsoo shouts as Kai suddenly grabs his hand and pulls a pen out of his pocket.
"Writing the date today. So you remember." He turns the palm of Kyungsoo's hand upwards, tracing the pad with Kyungsoo's own black ink fountain pen. "It will be moments for me, but it could be a really long wait for you. What's the date today again?"
"November 30th. And I never said I would do it!" Kyungsoo doesn't pull away when he presses the pen down, carefully forming the shapes of numbers even as his fingers don't seem to cooperate. He knows Kyungsoo would do it, because Kyungsoo did it for him the first time around. "Your handwriting is terrible."
"So are yours." Kai hums, finishing the last stroke of the 0. He's smiling too widely, his cheeks are starting to hurt. "Hey Kyungsoo, let's do it together, let's go out of control together! Just let go!"
Their fingers are intertwined over the gearbox, their shared warmth heating up the palm of his hand. It has never felt like this before a crash, he thinks, his heartbeat thudding loud in his chest and blood rushing in his ears, making him almost dizzy. Laughter bubbles up from his chest, and he squeezes Kyungsoo's smaller hand in his.
"Kyungsoo, just let go!" He laughs, and the car makes an abrupt swerve to the left. He meets Kyungsoo's eyes in the last moment, and they go down.
The blinding pain is almost too fast to register.
-
Call it sentimentality or a sense of foreboding, but Kyungsoo makes his way back to the site of their last crash early that morning. He is standing at the feet of mountain, staring at the crowd surrounding a barrier. There's a large car in the distance, a metal wreck crumpled down the side of the mountain, broken and splayed open like some kind of Frankenstein monster. People are whispering and staring, because what kind of crazy rich asshole would crash a Ferrari? People are talking, because-
They found someone in the car, already dead of course - who would survive that kind of crash? But he's in the passenger seat, a curious thing. There's no sign of the driver. Just one body mangled and bleeding all over the passenger seat, over the broken glass and the crushed metal frame. Bones broken. Lungs crushed.
He sees them pull out a body on a stretcher, white plastic covering up skin and bones. He sees a hint of dark hair matted with blood.
He throws up on the side of the road on the way back to his apartment.
He calculates the dates in his head, and comes up with-
Kai died eight months ago. And it's just happened again.
His body flashes hot and cold. His hands are shaking. There's this shivery feeling under his skin he can't claw off.
He spends an entire sitting on the ugly couch, just breathing. In. Out. It gets harder trying to breath every time.
His thoughts go in circle, too fast to grasp.
Was it his presence in this loop that influenced the crash? He remembers Kai trying to convince him to get the Ferrari and then crash it together. At the time he only thought Kai was being his normal crazy self, but the Kai of this loop might have done it because of him, because of that polaroid he'd found in his wallet. Could there have been another Kyungsoo influencing Kai's decision that first time? Or would Kai have suggested the same thing with or without the influence? He doesn't know. His thoughts go in circle. He only knows that now he has to somehow fix this.
There's suddenly loud knocking on the door of his apartment. No one ever comes visit him here but Kai. Kyungsoo almost trips twice on his way to the door, his legs feeling like jelly.
His heart is pounding loudly when he yanks open the door, but it isn't the one he's expecting. It's Jongdae, holding out a key ring in his hand. Kyungsoo takes a step back, taking a deep breath as another wave of despair crashes over him.
"What-?"
"The key to my car. If you need a ride." Jongdae pushes the key ring into his grasp.
Realisation dawns on him. Something he has always known at the back of his head, but only acknowledges now. "You knew. You knew who I was. From that very first time you picked me up by the side of the road."
"Not exactly. I just knew what you were. The bleeding, the writing on your palm."
"Who are you? Another Crasher?"
"I used to be. A backward Traveler, like you."
"What happened?"
"The same thing that happened to Kai and you. It takes a lot for our bodies to jostle out of the time stream, Kyungsoo. I just stopped in time before it got too late."
"Why him? Why him and not me?" This wasn't how it was supposed to go. Kai was supposed to be in the future. Kai was supposed to be in his future. Not broken and dead on the side of a mountain. "Why not both of us?
"I don't know. We don't know how these things work, Kyungsoo. Things just happen to us. Accidents, one after another. Maybe you were never meant to crash at the same time. Maybe one path was blocked by the other. Maybe he simply ran out of time." Maybe there's a limit to everything even when you learn to cheat time, Jongdae seems to say.
"Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you stop us?"
"I didn't know, Kyungsoo. I can't read the future nor plan the presence anymore. I thought you were sent back in time to fix something. I thought you had a plan. I didn't want to interfere with your timeline." No one wants to rewrite someone else's history. The weight of responsibility, the weight of what-if and could-have-been.
It was an unplanned crash. It was Kai who told him, "Let's do this, Kyungsoo. Just let go." Then Kai ended up crushed under the metal sheets, and he got thrown back to the beginning of their story. Kyungsoo's grip tightens around the car key. He could have a plan this time. Jongdae is still standing on his doorway, his eyes wide and solemn.
"There is no guarantee where the next crash will send you, Kyungsoo. Maybe a few months, maybe a few weeks, maybe even less. You might have to make several jumps backwards, or wait for a really long time. But you have to remember - our bodies are not meant to be jostled out of time continuously like this. The bleeding, the memory loss. We can't even write or draw a straight line anymore. What if you can't change this one accident because it's been set into motion by a chain of previous events? Even when you get back to the very beginning, what if you forget what you're there for? Rewriting a whole life path is not so simple, Kyungsoo."
"I have to try." He's good at this - fixing his past, planning his presence, calculating his future. Reshuffling his own timeline. He remembers the heat of Kai's body warm against his back. The weight of his arm. Kai telling him, "We could be outside of time together." Kai kissing him, pressing him against the smooth surface of the Ferrari. Kai whispering into his ears, "maybe Jongin died after that first car crash, maybe I am meant for you."
"Good luck," Jongdae tells him as Kyungsoo climbs into the driver's seat of the blue Hyundai, his eyes sad and wistful.
"Have you ever tried to change a person's life path?" Kyungsoo asks, turning on the ignition. The car rumbles into life.
"I am," Jongdae says, and waves him goodbye. He has always thought Jongdae looks older than he really is.
Kyungsoo drives all the way up to the Bukak Mountain Skyway. The winter winds are harsh and biting. The view of Seoul is beautiful from all the way up here. The crash to the ground down below is shorter than he remembers.
-
Seoul in springtime is all cold drizzling rain and bleak grey clouds. This is the kind of rain that has been going on for days and weeks. Cold, musty, and weary. Spring rain. It hasn't rained like this in Seoul for a long time. Do Kyungsoo wakes up on the side of the road with his face smashed against the asphalt, limbs aching and forearms scraped raw. His face hurts when his skin drags against the asphalt as he twitches and struggles to pull himself away from the ground. The pavement feels wet and cold under his fingertips. Rain drops sprinkle on the back of his head. His cheeks feel raw and tender. His bones ache. When he finally pulls himself up to a sitting position, the ground is mottled with dark spots and smears that don't quite look like rain. They seem to match the long bloody scratches on his hands. Kyungsoo hisses when rain drops hit the scraped open skin.
He can still hear the echo of his pounding heart, loud and insistent in the quiet air of the early morning. It's still early morning, he decides, looking at the pale grey colour of the sky. The streets are empty, doused with lingering sleep. It takes a while for his limbs to work again, fingers still curling in the last dredges of adrenaline. He has to take a few deep breaths, trying to decide where he is. The streets look familiar. A few blocks away from the garage. A few blocks away from his apartment. He keeps stumbling on his feet, but the walk doesn't feel all that long. The early joggers and salary workers barely glance at him when they pass by. The drizzling rain isn't enough to soak him through, but the cold dampness sends chills through his body.
The windows of the first room from the right on the second floor of his apartment building are open when he gets there. Kyungsoo stands at the feet of the building, looking up, staring at the open windows, feeling slightly bewildered and lost. There's a black Genesis Coupe parked just outside on the street. Some version of him must already be staying in there. Kyungsoo walks over to the car, leaning against it, going over his options. His hand fumbles, taking out the wallet from his back pocket. Cash, cards, the polaroid Kai took of them posing in front of the Ferrari, a stack of receipts. His thumb swipes over the edge of Kai's smile. Kyungsoo peels himself off the car, sparing one last glance at the open windows before turning and walking the other way.
He passes by a newspapers stand on his way. He picks up one, glancing over the headlines, and his grip falters when he looks at the top right corner of the paper, just above "Income Tax Rising by 2.4%" and "Mass Car Pile-up In Incheon's North Port". The date on the newspapers reads April 6th 2021, a whole eight months away from his starting point. He blinks - that's the furthest a crash has ever thrown him back in time. Kyungsoo sighs, thinking about the long months ahead, waiting for the Kyungsoo of this time to find his way to the EXO garage, and then meet Kai...
Kyungsoo looks down at the palm of his hand. There's a string of numbers in Kai's awkward squiggly handwriting. The date reads 2021.11.30.
His ears are bleeding.
---
a/n:
1. oops sorry i lied. it's actually time travel au.
2. for anyone who's confused, here's a graph of how time travel works in the story. pls excuse my horrible drawing skills. probably worse than kyungsoo's.
3. inspired by the books Rant by Chuck Palahniuk, Players by Don DeLillo, and the movie Primer by Shane Carruth.
4. gotta go fling myself off a cliff now omg wat is this monster.