off to the races (3/?)
off to the races (3/?)
~ 4107 w, r, (krystal/kai) l part i. part ii.
Tao chimes in with his mouth full of salt and vinegar chips, “Sleeping with the enemy is hot.”
■ that took long /whew
■ fanmix/soundtrack
■ um wait what sexual tension between krystal and more boys? whut?! (no I won't tell you where this is heading)
■ now I'm off to read all your 2013 fics meme!
Krystal’s filing her nails with great concentration in the back seat, it’s gradually becoming harder for her to get them back to its right shape - almond shape, round with sharp tips. Lately they’re almost persistent in returning back to its old square shape with the rough edges, which she hates, they’re never sharp enough to claw her out of sticky situations.
Kris is secretly displeased in the driver seat, shouty cursives in his mind that he speaks in delicacy, if he does. Though she’s unsure of the subject of his annoyance, her capture undeniably put a dent in their well thought of plan but well, hey, she made it out without as much as a scratch. The same can’t be said for the boys of the West side. By now, Jongin would have just recovered from his stunned state, nothing deadly, just a little drowsiness to accompany series of headaches.
“You could have given us a ring as soon as you got out of there, Krys,” Luhan says gently, arching his head back to give her a pleasant smile from the front seat. “We would have come and get you straight away.”
“If she had called us using their cell, they could have easily tracked her location and the location of the receiver.” Yixing states in his typical ‘know-it-all’ tone, nose buried in his new found literary love, ‘Crime and Punishment’.
Luhan almost seems to retreat back into his shell of shyness at Yixing’s ability to make even Einstein himself feel dense.
Krystal offers the doe eyed boy a confirmation of his intelligence with a reassuring smile. “Thanks, Lu, you’re always much more considerate than these guys.”
“Oh, cause you’re so considerate, are you?” Yixing butts in snappishly, irritation written across his features. “Running off to school without so much as a word.”
Luhan winces at his words, eyes lowering and leaving Krystal to serve her usual quips to the older boy seated beside her. “Education is very important,” leaves her mouth in casualty with a matching shrug to go with.
Fortunately for them all, Yixing’s explosion of fuming words were dodged when the car smoothly slides into the warehouse, the engine’s hum ending with a halt as Kris parks the van directly on one of the few empty platform. Not being able control his eagerness to leave, Luhan hops off at an inhumane speed and fades into the shadow.
Kris swivels around, seat belt loosens and his questioning looks taking turns at Yixing then Krystal and again, until tolerance towards their stoic forms runs its course.
“Lock the doors when you’re done.” Kris says with a retreating sigh, tossing the keys into her lap before leaving the two of them behind to their own game of silence.
Beginning on her left hand, Krystal carefully examine the nail beds, deciding that it’s best that she starts on her index finger as it seems to be the most damaged. The sight of such jarring imperfection staring back at her bugged her a great deal - the tip is no longer there and the sides are appearing to be uneven. Yixing does not look at her, he seems to not be even the slightest bit effected by the speechlessness that seems to drag on between the two of them.
Finally, fingers back to perfect. Krystal whispers quiet enough for his ears only, “I’m okay,” and leans over to press her lips against his cool cheek, holding still for longer of what is traditionally known as a simple peck.
He nods, still a sight of tranquillity, turning a page in his book but not in theirs.
Krystal leaves first, hoping he’ll follow.
It’s not many steps away from where she was previously when the sound of the door sliding open and closed comes in satiating echoes.
He always follows.
-
They all look considerably relieved when she walks through the door with only a hole in her stockings.
“Oh great, you’re alive,” Tao lets out the breath he had been holding in, “Now I can kill you myself, you stupid idiot.”
Xiumin chokes on his soda, sputtering, “Stupid idiot?! Man, who’s really the idiot here?”
“Clearly you,” Yixing replies in a crisply cool voice, discarding his leather jacket on the couch. “It’s almost hard to believe how much of a moron one has to be not to notice that the only other person in the same room with them is gone.”
“And for almost an hour too,” adds Chen, stuffing a handful of popcorn into his mouth with his eyes glued to the television set.
“Ooh, Spongebob!” Krystal exclaims in joy at the sight of her favourite show and flings herself onto the couch next to him. “Did you record this?”
“No, sorry,” Chen huffs in distain then proceeds to playfully throws a blanket so it lands over her head. “Welcome back and very proud with your work this morning, by the way.”
Without taking her eyes off Patrick Star, Krystal covers her lower half with the thick piece of wool and offers Chen a fist bump which he enthusiastically returns. “Did you hear about the whole Poison Ivy thing?”
“Kiss of death, nice!”
“He didn’t really die,” interjects Tao who has just enters the room with a bowl of chip in hands. “Whatever-his-face-is was just paralysed for a couple of hours.”
With a roll of her eyes, Krystal throws her arms into the air in disbelieve. “Dude, couldn’t you have just gone with Chen’s take on it?” She asks in jest, feigning an offending frown. “Sounds so much more impressive that was - kiss of death after rich stud was seduced by a mysterious vixen.”
“The ass wipe you smooch back there is no stud, my gene is superior in every way,” Xiumin shouts from across the room, “And you’re not mysterious or a vixen.”
That involuntarily forms a horrified chuckle in the back of Krystal’s throat. “This will probably be newsflash to you but the ‘ass wipe’ is what I would classify as handsome, which you’re not.”
“He’s the enemy for fuck sake!”
Tao chimes in with his mouth full of salt and vinegar chips, “Sleeping with the enemy is hot.”
“That’s sick, man, Krystal here, is not sleeping him - she’s a distraction,” Chen comments, successfully putting her in a head lock, “And a great one at that.”
She shoves against his chest, voice tingling with amusement. “No vixen, you were saying, Xiumin?”
-
Neither Yixing or Kris has made any appearances outside the walls of the lab ever since they crossed its threshold and on the fourth day, when the sun goes down, Krystal is left with a maddening want to do her own snooping and found it even more tempting when Kris implemented ‘strict orders’, prohibiting anyone from leaving the premises under any circumstances.
Though proved to be an amusing challenge for Krystal to stay in lockdown, wandering from rooms to rooms - Saturday with Chen, reading comic books and watching Power Ranger reruns, Sunday with Tao, polishing motors and eating junks in between and Monday with Xiu Min, crashing cars in 3D and doing it all over again on the same games with different names. The indoor environment is taking its toll on her and now she’s left with the feeling of suffocation and an intense desire to have a good time, consequences be damned and so there she is, trying to put down the devil in her.
But god, she needs to feel the thrill of the night life again and she needs it now.
Krystal puts on her leather jacket, blows a kiss goodbye to her own reflection.
-
“Where’s your boyfriend tonight, honey?” Siwon, also widely known as the ‘Snake’ sneers, takes a step so he is in her space.
Krystal’s lips curling into a perfect smirk, says, “Which one, baby?”
Ignoring her remark, he moves onto business, “Riding solo today, eh?”
“You bet, I am.” Krystal mumbles with a cig hanging from her mouth, leaning over to take the light he was offering her. Inhale once, twice, speaks, “How high is the stakes?”
With a nonchalance shrug, “How would I know?”
“Nobody ever knows who’s behind these races,” she drawls lazily, “But everybody knows you work for the big shot, whoever that is. You don’t race, you come and dirty talk girls. So again, how much?”
His sceptical glare shifts from her and the view of the highway that’s quickly filling up with other players. “What the hell, why not? Fifty millions won, honey, so pay up the usual thousand and piss off to the starting line like everybody else.”
Readily, she smacks the bills into his hand and swaggers back to where her bike is. Making her way into the crowd, Krystal isn’t unaware of the leering stares and wolf whistles directed at her. She had underestimated her fame amongst the biker gangs, they easily recognized her as Krystal Jung, notorious for being the only girl member to ever be accepted into ‘M’ and now, synonymous to robberies and taking out previous champions of local night races.
They’d been fast but she’s faster.
Then she hears from not so far distance, “Hey, sugar, you wanna come over here so I can take you for a ride?”
“Sure, baby, I’d love that.”
-
“I have to say I’m flattered that you came all the way here just to see me.” Krystal says coyly, batting her lashes at him just like the first time they met. “Sehun"
“He’s going to die.”
She blanched. “Who?”
“Kai is dying.”
He had made it sound so casual, so ordinary, so final - the kind that leaves no room for any hope. It’s not a question, it’s a statement of what’s to be and somehow the news leaves her throat so dry she’s incapable of inhaling the tobacco smoke even if she tries to, instead she fights back the urge to gag.
He’s lying, he has to be.
“And here I thought you were really flirting with me back there.” Krystal pushes on with the teasing, a mirthless laugh so unconvincing it makes her cringe. “No riding tonight, then?”
“If you have an antidote, now is the time you hand it over,” Sehun snarls, the picture perfect of calmness that was him, now just something of the past. “He’s going to die and it’s going to be on your head.”
“And?” she prompted, a wave of nausea flushing to her brain. “Not that I care but there’s not enough in the poison to murder, only to -“
“Dull his senses for few hours, six being the longest,” Sehun finishes, his voice replacing her own. “And it would have gone according to your plan if he didn’t have a shot of vodka less than fifteen minutes before he went into that room.”
‘Things go awry when you mix alcohol with pills’, Yixing had told her, more than once, more than twice. He had also reminded her that being in this business means taking lives to build your own. Many times, she imagined the scenarios in her head - shooting someone, running someone over with her bike, dumping their body in the river, pouring oil over dead corpses and setting them on fire and yet, none of it comes close to the real thing.
Here she is, standing at a deserted gas station with a sworn enemy with her guard down, more than exposed herself to the risk of getting attacked and no way of telling if this is a web of lies or a plea of a desperate friend.
“Let’s make a wager,” he offers in a deadly snarl, slowly twisting to face her. “If I beat you to the finish line tonight, you and only you, bring me the cure -“
“There’s no cu -“
“A sample of the poison so we can make a cure.”
She considers this for a moment, then questions, “And if I win?”
“Me,” he says, a fearful look in his menacing eyes. “Me as a hostage to bargain for anything you want.”
Krystal mulls over his words, knowing full well the benefit her side would gain if the victory belongs to her. The winner would take it all, they could have everything they ever wanted - all of the cars, motorbikes, stocks, trust funds money, everything.
“I’ve never come second before,” she reminds him, draping one leg over the bike and hopping on.
His lips twitch with skepticism. “We’ll see.”
-
It’s never been a strain for Krystal to overtake her opponents and still finish at the same spot she’s always been at from the very get-go - the top. Her strong suit is pacing, she knows when to hit hard, when to slow down and when to stabilize her speed. Sehun, however, is the opposite, a strategist. He’s got sharp eyes for accidental holes left empty for one to slip through, corners to swerve around to get closer, which moves to pull to put the oppositions of his or her game.
One minute she was flying far ahead in the lead and the next, she’s fighting to rid of the two bikers sandwiching her in the tail end. There’s no going slower or turning left or right, she was jammed pack in the middle and no escape any time soon. If she was even to make the slightest move that’s not forward, it would be over, she’d crash.
At the rate this race is going, Krystal knows she’s in trouble and the trouble is Sehun. He had been pushing the rivals up so far that they too, had no choice to speed endlessly for the last twenty minutes of the race. He had his ways of controlling their moves and now they are controlling hers.
Pushing the face shield up enough to bare her mouth, Krystal barks over the engines, “I’m dropping back, move! NOW!”
Taken aback by her command but under the impression that this is the moment, that for the first time Krystal Jung will admit defeat, the biker makes an abrupt turn to the opposite direction and watches as she falls back to second place. The diminished pride of hers had been self-inflicting and yet it had stung, to not be the best for once had twisted up her insides. Taking a deep breather to clear her mind, like a hawk, she scans the crowd for a glimpse of Sehun and is rewarded with nothing but a sea of strangers.
Then it comes to her, like getting slap across the face and seeing the light of day for the first time - he’s racing off course.
A puff of breath is released, sights are blurring, the end is so close she could almost see the checkered flag racing and hear the thundering cheers…
“No”
Disengaging her clutch, Krystal kicks back the shift lever so hard she could almost feel it bruise and hands working at the throttle, twisting and releasing it like a maniac on the run. There’s not enough time, not nearly enough to get her where she needed to be and no matter how quick she is, this time she won’t be quick enough.
Tearing her eyes away from the road and looking down at the indicator, she skims over all the things she’s learnt through the years, desperately searching for anything that cou -
“The gas tank” Krystal murmurs, licking her lips to moisten it before doing the unimaginable - she holds the gas wide open.
It’s a feeling of euphoria - like flying and not knowing when you left the ground in the first place, the breeze passes through her like a ghost possessing her whole - bones aching under her skin, eyes watering and heart hammering so hard against her chest she thinks it might burst stars and adrenaline.
Then it all dissipates, crashing down from an all-time high and into her down fall.
Her head is still spinning into an eternity of dizzy spells when Sehun removed his helmet, announcing with a strain voice, “There’s always a first time for everything.”
-
“If you come in with me, they won’t let either one of us out,” she hisses, glazed eyes shifting back between Sehun and the window, “One of us will be dead and trust me, it won’t be me.”
Sehun’s still looking unconvinced after ten minutes of pointless banter and Krystal’s just about over this night. Not only had she lost the first race in her life and to an amateur but collide her bike into the tail of his motorbike, knocking it right off and denting her own beyond repair.
“I always keep my promise, for fuck sake, please!”
“I want you back here in ten minutes, on the dot - not a second later than that or I will hunt you down and drag you out myself.” He stubs out his cigarette with a growl, stamping on it with his heels so hard, the fire dies instantly. “Take my bike, it has a tracker on it and I trust that you wouldn’t want me to know where you went off to.”
Krystal doesn’t falter, she nods in definite and gets to it.
She’s backed herself into a corner but he’s the one who caged her in.
-
The back door always creaks and the night time does to the house what it does to her, brings out unwanted surprises so she takes the front door, sliding her knee boots off and tip-toes through the kitchen then pass Chen and Tao’s room before reaching her room. Krystal takes her time with turning the knob, twisting it at such a frighteningly slow speed when there’s finally a big enough gap for her to slip through; she falls onto her bed and shuts off sight for a moment, letting the scent of what she knows as home envelops her.
The sound of clock ticking is forever a reminder that she’s only got minutes, hurrying her along to get the job done and over with. Biting her lips to prevent herself from letting out a whimper, she scrambles to her nightstand, pulling the drawer open and digs through her belongings furiously. Her memory is to hell - there is no recollection of what the bottle look like, in fact her mind is a hazy cloud of smudges and smears, containing jagged bits of the race and consequently, the crash.
“Fuck” she curses inwardly as her bruised arm smacks right into the lamp when she discards the hundredth bottle of nail varnish onto her bed. “Where the fuck is it?”
There’s an urge building up inside of her - a strong need to scream but she doesn’t because she couldn’t. Instead she falls to the floor and curls into a ball, shifting into the small corner between her bed and the wall, praying it would clear up her fogged memory.
It occurs to her a minute after another that she’s sitting on something. She moves just enough to makes herself comfortable.
Krystal almost laughs when she discovers that, what’s been up her ass might just save it.
-
She tries not to think about it.
There’s still a perfect balance of a smirk and a smile on her face when she walks into the room, looking like a smug bitch she is - was a week ago. Krystal doesn’t remember all their names but the faces she finds familiar, one in particular belongs to Baekhyun and she knows this because he reminds her the moment she stuck her foot in the door, he’s got a friendly expression on his face and is not surprisingly, the only one who doesn’t look resentful.
“What a warm welcome this is.” She says light heartedly; fully aware of the sour response she received for that little remark. “Remind me, Sehun, why did I have to come all the way over to your den again?”
“So we can test if it’s a fake or not.” A boy, who’s most definitely not Sehun replies to her question with his hand out, awaiting for her to hand over the bottle.
She narrows her eyes, grimacing as she swivels around to meet Sehun’s unfaltering gaze. “Once I give this over to you and you work your science magic on it to debunk all your suspicions, my little visit, which has been lovely by the way, is over, yes?”
Without as much as a blink, “Yes.”
“And I want to see Kai,” she adds quickly, “It’s not negotiable.”
Sehun tears his eyes away from hers to meet others livid ones in the room. Then he’s back to her again, almost staring her down like he can smash her into tiny pieces if he ever wished to.
Releasing a breath that disturbs his fringe and already regretting what’s to come, he spits, “Fine.”
-
Sehun doesn’t leave her side, doesn’t even dare to let his eyes wander elsewhere, not ever. Krystal suspects his fury with her is stronger than he lets on. If only looks could kill, she thinks to herself, taking a drag of her cig to calm her quavering nerve. They say if you wish hard enough, it will come true so she wishes over and over to be out of here and back where she belongs. The rest of the boys seem to go on with whatever they were doing before she arrived - drinking booze, eating dinner, slamming doors and though strange, finishing up homework.
The lion den is much larger than hers - there are no living quarters on the first floor and seeing as there is an overtly long stair case, they must all live on the second floor and even possibly the third one, after all the house may as well be classified as a mansion. In the middle of the room is a dining table big enough to resemble ones in royal families’ possession and the boys spread out around it, various activities happening on different area of the oak wood’s surface. If anyone had stumbled upon it, this residence could be easily passed off as a group of wealthy boys shacking up together.
“The little lady here, didn’t lie,” a vocal without a face enters the room and nobody except her bothers to look for the source of the voice. “As requested, Sehun will take you to see Kai now.”
Krystal whirls around, offering her hand to him in sheer sarcasm which he rejected just as quickly, walking right passes her. She scoffs, feigning exasperation and trails after him, allowing her an arm length space between them as they make their way up the stairs. Glancing over her shoulder, she discovers that not a single individual has moved from where she last seen them. It offers some a sort solace to know that they’re not vigilance to her every move.
She isn’t aware that she’s reached the top of the steps until her heels comes in direct contact with the step, the squeak breaking the silence of the long hall she’s now standing in the middle of.
“It’s the first room to your left” Sehun says to her in a hush tone, almost as if he’s afraid someone else will hear them.
Krystal takes one last look at him and head towards the direction he had given her until she is faced with the door with hand grasping the knob. She turns it once to the right and gives the subtlest push.
She could only make out so much of his face - the light is dimmed and the room has absorbed so much of the night time that it’s like looking down at a bottomless pit of absolutely nothing. Her feet move on its own accord, bringing her nearer to his bed side and she sees every single little crinkles of his face and every strands of hair out of its place. They are painstakingly close now, only a reach away and she could be touching him and unexpected to her, she wants to touch him, wants to transfer a little warmth to his cold body. A little more and she would be standing directly over him - maybe too close.
Almost as if he could sense her, his eyes flutter open and to her, the tug at the corner of his mouth almost resembles a smile but it isn’t a smile of fondness, one that an old friend shares - it’s something completely different, almost threatening, almost like he had achieved something…deceitful -
The pain is instantaneous, shoots right to her head and shuts down her every defence against him. Table’s been turned- he’s hovering her, easing her into the mattress and sleep comes for her so quick she knows she won’t recollect any of it.
“I'm surprised," comes on the edge of a hazy dream, "For once, you're not trying to kiss me."
~ 4107 w, r, (krystal/kai) l part i. part ii.
Tao chimes in with his mouth full of salt and vinegar chips, “Sleeping with the enemy is hot.”
■ that took long /whew
■ fanmix/soundtrack
■ um wait what sexual tension between krystal and more boys? whut?! (no I won't tell you where this is heading)
■ now I'm off to read all your 2013 fics meme!
Krystal’s filing her nails with great concentration in the back seat, it’s gradually becoming harder for her to get them back to its right shape - almond shape, round with sharp tips. Lately they’re almost persistent in returning back to its old square shape with the rough edges, which she hates, they’re never sharp enough to claw her out of sticky situations.
Kris is secretly displeased in the driver seat, shouty cursives in his mind that he speaks in delicacy, if he does. Though she’s unsure of the subject of his annoyance, her capture undeniably put a dent in their well thought of plan but well, hey, she made it out without as much as a scratch. The same can’t be said for the boys of the West side. By now, Jongin would have just recovered from his stunned state, nothing deadly, just a little drowsiness to accompany series of headaches.
“You could have given us a ring as soon as you got out of there, Krys,” Luhan says gently, arching his head back to give her a pleasant smile from the front seat. “We would have come and get you straight away.”
“If she had called us using their cell, they could have easily tracked her location and the location of the receiver.” Yixing states in his typical ‘know-it-all’ tone, nose buried in his new found literary love, ‘Crime and Punishment’.
Luhan almost seems to retreat back into his shell of shyness at Yixing’s ability to make even Einstein himself feel dense.
Krystal offers the doe eyed boy a confirmation of his intelligence with a reassuring smile. “Thanks, Lu, you’re always much more considerate than these guys.”
“Oh, cause you’re so considerate, are you?” Yixing butts in snappishly, irritation written across his features. “Running off to school without so much as a word.”
Luhan winces at his words, eyes lowering and leaving Krystal to serve her usual quips to the older boy seated beside her. “Education is very important,” leaves her mouth in casualty with a matching shrug to go with.
Fortunately for them all, Yixing’s explosion of fuming words were dodged when the car smoothly slides into the warehouse, the engine’s hum ending with a halt as Kris parks the van directly on one of the few empty platform. Not being able control his eagerness to leave, Luhan hops off at an inhumane speed and fades into the shadow.
Kris swivels around, seat belt loosens and his questioning looks taking turns at Yixing then Krystal and again, until tolerance towards their stoic forms runs its course.
“Lock the doors when you’re done.” Kris says with a retreating sigh, tossing the keys into her lap before leaving the two of them behind to their own game of silence.
Beginning on her left hand, Krystal carefully examine the nail beds, deciding that it’s best that she starts on her index finger as it seems to be the most damaged. The sight of such jarring imperfection staring back at her bugged her a great deal - the tip is no longer there and the sides are appearing to be uneven. Yixing does not look at her, he seems to not be even the slightest bit effected by the speechlessness that seems to drag on between the two of them.
Finally, fingers back to perfect. Krystal whispers quiet enough for his ears only, “I’m okay,” and leans over to press her lips against his cool cheek, holding still for longer of what is traditionally known as a simple peck.
He nods, still a sight of tranquillity, turning a page in his book but not in theirs.
Krystal leaves first, hoping he’ll follow.
It’s not many steps away from where she was previously when the sound of the door sliding open and closed comes in satiating echoes.
He always follows.
-
They all look considerably relieved when she walks through the door with only a hole in her stockings.
“Oh great, you’re alive,” Tao lets out the breath he had been holding in, “Now I can kill you myself, you stupid idiot.”
Xiumin chokes on his soda, sputtering, “Stupid idiot?! Man, who’s really the idiot here?”
“Clearly you,” Yixing replies in a crisply cool voice, discarding his leather jacket on the couch. “It’s almost hard to believe how much of a moron one has to be not to notice that the only other person in the same room with them is gone.”
“And for almost an hour too,” adds Chen, stuffing a handful of popcorn into his mouth with his eyes glued to the television set.
“Ooh, Spongebob!” Krystal exclaims in joy at the sight of her favourite show and flings herself onto the couch next to him. “Did you record this?”
“No, sorry,” Chen huffs in distain then proceeds to playfully throws a blanket so it lands over her head. “Welcome back and very proud with your work this morning, by the way.”
Without taking her eyes off Patrick Star, Krystal covers her lower half with the thick piece of wool and offers Chen a fist bump which he enthusiastically returns. “Did you hear about the whole Poison Ivy thing?”
“Kiss of death, nice!”
“He didn’t really die,” interjects Tao who has just enters the room with a bowl of chip in hands. “Whatever-his-face-is was just paralysed for a couple of hours.”
With a roll of her eyes, Krystal throws her arms into the air in disbelieve. “Dude, couldn’t you have just gone with Chen’s take on it?” She asks in jest, feigning an offending frown. “Sounds so much more impressive that was - kiss of death after rich stud was seduced by a mysterious vixen.”
“The ass wipe you smooch back there is no stud, my gene is superior in every way,” Xiumin shouts from across the room, “And you’re not mysterious or a vixen.”
That involuntarily forms a horrified chuckle in the back of Krystal’s throat. “This will probably be newsflash to you but the ‘ass wipe’ is what I would classify as handsome, which you’re not.”
“He’s the enemy for fuck sake!”
Tao chimes in with his mouth full of salt and vinegar chips, “Sleeping with the enemy is hot.”
“That’s sick, man, Krystal here, is not sleeping him - she’s a distraction,” Chen comments, successfully putting her in a head lock, “And a great one at that.”
She shoves against his chest, voice tingling with amusement. “No vixen, you were saying, Xiumin?”
-
Neither Yixing or Kris has made any appearances outside the walls of the lab ever since they crossed its threshold and on the fourth day, when the sun goes down, Krystal is left with a maddening want to do her own snooping and found it even more tempting when Kris implemented ‘strict orders’, prohibiting anyone from leaving the premises under any circumstances.
Though proved to be an amusing challenge for Krystal to stay in lockdown, wandering from rooms to rooms - Saturday with Chen, reading comic books and watching Power Ranger reruns, Sunday with Tao, polishing motors and eating junks in between and Monday with Xiu Min, crashing cars in 3D and doing it all over again on the same games with different names. The indoor environment is taking its toll on her and now she’s left with the feeling of suffocation and an intense desire to have a good time, consequences be damned and so there she is, trying to put down the devil in her.
But god, she needs to feel the thrill of the night life again and she needs it now.
Krystal puts on her leather jacket, blows a kiss goodbye to her own reflection.
-
“Where’s your boyfriend tonight, honey?” Siwon, also widely known as the ‘Snake’ sneers, takes a step so he is in her space.
Krystal’s lips curling into a perfect smirk, says, “Which one, baby?”
Ignoring her remark, he moves onto business, “Riding solo today, eh?”
“You bet, I am.” Krystal mumbles with a cig hanging from her mouth, leaning over to take the light he was offering her. Inhale once, twice, speaks, “How high is the stakes?”
With a nonchalance shrug, “How would I know?”
“Nobody ever knows who’s behind these races,” she drawls lazily, “But everybody knows you work for the big shot, whoever that is. You don’t race, you come and dirty talk girls. So again, how much?”
His sceptical glare shifts from her and the view of the highway that’s quickly filling up with other players. “What the hell, why not? Fifty millions won, honey, so pay up the usual thousand and piss off to the starting line like everybody else.”
Readily, she smacks the bills into his hand and swaggers back to where her bike is. Making her way into the crowd, Krystal isn’t unaware of the leering stares and wolf whistles directed at her. She had underestimated her fame amongst the biker gangs, they easily recognized her as Krystal Jung, notorious for being the only girl member to ever be accepted into ‘M’ and now, synonymous to robberies and taking out previous champions of local night races.
They’d been fast but she’s faster.
Then she hears from not so far distance, “Hey, sugar, you wanna come over here so I can take you for a ride?”
“Sure, baby, I’d love that.”
-
“I have to say I’m flattered that you came all the way here just to see me.” Krystal says coyly, batting her lashes at him just like the first time they met. “Sehun"
“He’s going to die.”
She blanched. “Who?”
“Kai is dying.”
He had made it sound so casual, so ordinary, so final - the kind that leaves no room for any hope. It’s not a question, it’s a statement of what’s to be and somehow the news leaves her throat so dry she’s incapable of inhaling the tobacco smoke even if she tries to, instead she fights back the urge to gag.
He’s lying, he has to be.
“And here I thought you were really flirting with me back there.” Krystal pushes on with the teasing, a mirthless laugh so unconvincing it makes her cringe. “No riding tonight, then?”
“If you have an antidote, now is the time you hand it over,” Sehun snarls, the picture perfect of calmness that was him, now just something of the past. “He’s going to die and it’s going to be on your head.”
“And?” she prompted, a wave of nausea flushing to her brain. “Not that I care but there’s not enough in the poison to murder, only to -“
“Dull his senses for few hours, six being the longest,” Sehun finishes, his voice replacing her own. “And it would have gone according to your plan if he didn’t have a shot of vodka less than fifteen minutes before he went into that room.”
‘Things go awry when you mix alcohol with pills’, Yixing had told her, more than once, more than twice. He had also reminded her that being in this business means taking lives to build your own. Many times, she imagined the scenarios in her head - shooting someone, running someone over with her bike, dumping their body in the river, pouring oil over dead corpses and setting them on fire and yet, none of it comes close to the real thing.
Here she is, standing at a deserted gas station with a sworn enemy with her guard down, more than exposed herself to the risk of getting attacked and no way of telling if this is a web of lies or a plea of a desperate friend.
“Let’s make a wager,” he offers in a deadly snarl, slowly twisting to face her. “If I beat you to the finish line tonight, you and only you, bring me the cure -“
“There’s no cu -“
“A sample of the poison so we can make a cure.”
She considers this for a moment, then questions, “And if I win?”
“Me,” he says, a fearful look in his menacing eyes. “Me as a hostage to bargain for anything you want.”
Krystal mulls over his words, knowing full well the benefit her side would gain if the victory belongs to her. The winner would take it all, they could have everything they ever wanted - all of the cars, motorbikes, stocks, trust funds money, everything.
“I’ve never come second before,” she reminds him, draping one leg over the bike and hopping on.
His lips twitch with skepticism. “We’ll see.”
-
It’s never been a strain for Krystal to overtake her opponents and still finish at the same spot she’s always been at from the very get-go - the top. Her strong suit is pacing, she knows when to hit hard, when to slow down and when to stabilize her speed. Sehun, however, is the opposite, a strategist. He’s got sharp eyes for accidental holes left empty for one to slip through, corners to swerve around to get closer, which moves to pull to put the oppositions of his or her game.
One minute she was flying far ahead in the lead and the next, she’s fighting to rid of the two bikers sandwiching her in the tail end. There’s no going slower or turning left or right, she was jammed pack in the middle and no escape any time soon. If she was even to make the slightest move that’s not forward, it would be over, she’d crash.
At the rate this race is going, Krystal knows she’s in trouble and the trouble is Sehun. He had been pushing the rivals up so far that they too, had no choice to speed endlessly for the last twenty minutes of the race. He had his ways of controlling their moves and now they are controlling hers.
Pushing the face shield up enough to bare her mouth, Krystal barks over the engines, “I’m dropping back, move! NOW!”
Taken aback by her command but under the impression that this is the moment, that for the first time Krystal Jung will admit defeat, the biker makes an abrupt turn to the opposite direction and watches as she falls back to second place. The diminished pride of hers had been self-inflicting and yet it had stung, to not be the best for once had twisted up her insides. Taking a deep breather to clear her mind, like a hawk, she scans the crowd for a glimpse of Sehun and is rewarded with nothing but a sea of strangers.
Then it comes to her, like getting slap across the face and seeing the light of day for the first time - he’s racing off course.
A puff of breath is released, sights are blurring, the end is so close she could almost see the checkered flag racing and hear the thundering cheers…
“No”
Disengaging her clutch, Krystal kicks back the shift lever so hard she could almost feel it bruise and hands working at the throttle, twisting and releasing it like a maniac on the run. There’s not enough time, not nearly enough to get her where she needed to be and no matter how quick she is, this time she won’t be quick enough.
Tearing her eyes away from the road and looking down at the indicator, she skims over all the things she’s learnt through the years, desperately searching for anything that cou -
“The gas tank” Krystal murmurs, licking her lips to moisten it before doing the unimaginable - she holds the gas wide open.
It’s a feeling of euphoria - like flying and not knowing when you left the ground in the first place, the breeze passes through her like a ghost possessing her whole - bones aching under her skin, eyes watering and heart hammering so hard against her chest she thinks it might burst stars and adrenaline.
Then it all dissipates, crashing down from an all-time high and into her down fall.
Her head is still spinning into an eternity of dizzy spells when Sehun removed his helmet, announcing with a strain voice, “There’s always a first time for everything.”
-
“If you come in with me, they won’t let either one of us out,” she hisses, glazed eyes shifting back between Sehun and the window, “One of us will be dead and trust me, it won’t be me.”
Sehun’s still looking unconvinced after ten minutes of pointless banter and Krystal’s just about over this night. Not only had she lost the first race in her life and to an amateur but collide her bike into the tail of his motorbike, knocking it right off and denting her own beyond repair.
“I always keep my promise, for fuck sake, please!”
“I want you back here in ten minutes, on the dot - not a second later than that or I will hunt you down and drag you out myself.” He stubs out his cigarette with a growl, stamping on it with his heels so hard, the fire dies instantly. “Take my bike, it has a tracker on it and I trust that you wouldn’t want me to know where you went off to.”
Krystal doesn’t falter, she nods in definite and gets to it.
She’s backed herself into a corner but he’s the one who caged her in.
-
The back door always creaks and the night time does to the house what it does to her, brings out unwanted surprises so she takes the front door, sliding her knee boots off and tip-toes through the kitchen then pass Chen and Tao’s room before reaching her room. Krystal takes her time with turning the knob, twisting it at such a frighteningly slow speed when there’s finally a big enough gap for her to slip through; she falls onto her bed and shuts off sight for a moment, letting the scent of what she knows as home envelops her.
The sound of clock ticking is forever a reminder that she’s only got minutes, hurrying her along to get the job done and over with. Biting her lips to prevent herself from letting out a whimper, she scrambles to her nightstand, pulling the drawer open and digs through her belongings furiously. Her memory is to hell - there is no recollection of what the bottle look like, in fact her mind is a hazy cloud of smudges and smears, containing jagged bits of the race and consequently, the crash.
“Fuck” she curses inwardly as her bruised arm smacks right into the lamp when she discards the hundredth bottle of nail varnish onto her bed. “Where the fuck is it?”
There’s an urge building up inside of her - a strong need to scream but she doesn’t because she couldn’t. Instead she falls to the floor and curls into a ball, shifting into the small corner between her bed and the wall, praying it would clear up her fogged memory.
It occurs to her a minute after another that she’s sitting on something. She moves just enough to makes herself comfortable.
Krystal almost laughs when she discovers that, what’s been up her ass might just save it.
-
She tries not to think about it.
There’s still a perfect balance of a smirk and a smile on her face when she walks into the room, looking like a smug bitch she is - was a week ago. Krystal doesn’t remember all their names but the faces she finds familiar, one in particular belongs to Baekhyun and she knows this because he reminds her the moment she stuck her foot in the door, he’s got a friendly expression on his face and is not surprisingly, the only one who doesn’t look resentful.
“What a warm welcome this is.” She says light heartedly; fully aware of the sour response she received for that little remark. “Remind me, Sehun, why did I have to come all the way over to your den again?”
“So we can test if it’s a fake or not.” A boy, who’s most definitely not Sehun replies to her question with his hand out, awaiting for her to hand over the bottle.
She narrows her eyes, grimacing as she swivels around to meet Sehun’s unfaltering gaze. “Once I give this over to you and you work your science magic on it to debunk all your suspicions, my little visit, which has been lovely by the way, is over, yes?”
Without as much as a blink, “Yes.”
“And I want to see Kai,” she adds quickly, “It’s not negotiable.”
Sehun tears his eyes away from hers to meet others livid ones in the room. Then he’s back to her again, almost staring her down like he can smash her into tiny pieces if he ever wished to.
Releasing a breath that disturbs his fringe and already regretting what’s to come, he spits, “Fine.”
-
Sehun doesn’t leave her side, doesn’t even dare to let his eyes wander elsewhere, not ever. Krystal suspects his fury with her is stronger than he lets on. If only looks could kill, she thinks to herself, taking a drag of her cig to calm her quavering nerve. They say if you wish hard enough, it will come true so she wishes over and over to be out of here and back where she belongs. The rest of the boys seem to go on with whatever they were doing before she arrived - drinking booze, eating dinner, slamming doors and though strange, finishing up homework.
The lion den is much larger than hers - there are no living quarters on the first floor and seeing as there is an overtly long stair case, they must all live on the second floor and even possibly the third one, after all the house may as well be classified as a mansion. In the middle of the room is a dining table big enough to resemble ones in royal families’ possession and the boys spread out around it, various activities happening on different area of the oak wood’s surface. If anyone had stumbled upon it, this residence could be easily passed off as a group of wealthy boys shacking up together.
“The little lady here, didn’t lie,” a vocal without a face enters the room and nobody except her bothers to look for the source of the voice. “As requested, Sehun will take you to see Kai now.”
Krystal whirls around, offering her hand to him in sheer sarcasm which he rejected just as quickly, walking right passes her. She scoffs, feigning exasperation and trails after him, allowing her an arm length space between them as they make their way up the stairs. Glancing over her shoulder, she discovers that not a single individual has moved from where she last seen them. It offers some a sort solace to know that they’re not vigilance to her every move.
She isn’t aware that she’s reached the top of the steps until her heels comes in direct contact with the step, the squeak breaking the silence of the long hall she’s now standing in the middle of.
“It’s the first room to your left” Sehun says to her in a hush tone, almost as if he’s afraid someone else will hear them.
Krystal takes one last look at him and head towards the direction he had given her until she is faced with the door with hand grasping the knob. She turns it once to the right and gives the subtlest push.
She could only make out so much of his face - the light is dimmed and the room has absorbed so much of the night time that it’s like looking down at a bottomless pit of absolutely nothing. Her feet move on its own accord, bringing her nearer to his bed side and she sees every single little crinkles of his face and every strands of hair out of its place. They are painstakingly close now, only a reach away and she could be touching him and unexpected to her, she wants to touch him, wants to transfer a little warmth to his cold body. A little more and she would be standing directly over him - maybe too close.
Almost as if he could sense her, his eyes flutter open and to her, the tug at the corner of his mouth almost resembles a smile but it isn’t a smile of fondness, one that an old friend shares - it’s something completely different, almost threatening, almost like he had achieved something…deceitful -
The pain is instantaneous, shoots right to her head and shuts down her every defence against him. Table’s been turned- he’s hovering her, easing her into the mattress and sleep comes for her so quick she knows she won’t recollect any of it.
“I'm surprised," comes on the edge of a hazy dream, "For once, you're not trying to kiss me."