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“He’ll see you now,” the man with the clipboard says, having murmured something cryptic into his earpiece. He gives Soonyoung an unimpressed once over.
Probably wishes he could call over one of the bodyguards to pat Soonyoung down, if only he could find some excuse to do that to an established racer for the Team who’s been around longer than he has.
Soonyoung smiles. “Just to be clear, there aren’t any guns in my pockets, and I’m not pleased to see you either.”
The clipboard man snorts, brow furrowing, but Soonyoung has already walked past, strutting a little more as he moves over the desert sand, just to make the PVC of his black pants squeak.
He can project confidence. Even walking up to the Team Solar command centre, the close-parked cluster of luxury RVs and specially equipped cargo containers that get set up afresh at each new temporary racetrack; Jihoon’s kingdom.
And there Jihoon is, in his white racing leathers, presiding over some kind of discussion over pieces of paper on a trestle table. Above him and his closest advisors, a simple gazebo protects them from the worst of the swiftly rising sun.
Soonyoung’s used to seeing him at the team talks, race planning meetings when all the racers gather to hear strategy and tactics, Jihoon or one of his deputies talking them through a presentation. This, here, is where those plans get made.
Jihoon looks up, before he can have possibly heard Soonyoung approach. His expression doesn’t change, but he says something to those around him, and they quickly melt away into the surrounding vehicles and temporary workshops.
Soonyoung deliberately doesn’t hurry.
Waiting, Jihoon folds his arms.
Soonyoung walks right up the table; he’s got an impression of diagrams, on the paper, but it’s hard to focus when Jihoon is staring like that.
“You wanted to see me?” Soonyoung prompts. He hadn’t meant to be the first to make a move, it’s annoying.
Jihoon hisses in a sigh through his teeth, and raises an eyebrow. Challenging Soonyoung to keep pretending he doesn’t know exactly what this is about.
Soonyoung blinks innocently.
“I told you; I don’t care what you do,” Jihoon’s tone is measured. “Only that it couldn’t interfere with the Team. And whether you like it or not, now you’re my husband what you do reflects on me. And I am the Team.”
He says it calmly, without boasting. And it’s entirely true.
“And,” Jihoon continues, still in that same, calm voice, like he has to explain it. “Getting down a skeleton from the walls of Dovetown and waltzing with it in the arena, is not the kind of reflection I need.”
“It was a boring race! Baekhyun’s bike stalled half way through! We had two false starts anyway, and then it didn’t even go anywhere, the audience was bored!”
Jihoon levels a steady gaze on him.
“It’s not like they’re real skeletons anymore! It’s all for show.” Soonyoung sneers. “Just because you’ve never followed an impulse at any point in your life!”
Raising his voice is definitely not a good call – people nearby are starting to look up and watch them, probably that security detail will actually be up soon.
“And besides,” Soonyoung yells, “Who would even know I’m your husband? This is the most time we’ve been together since the last time you decided I’d not been dignified enough.”
“People are well aware of your status in regard to me.” Jihoon takes another breath, and glances over to the side towards where the work is proceeding on the track cars.
“Sorry for occupying your precious time!” Soonyoung spits. “There’s nothing I can do about it now, is there? It happened, people thought it was hilarious, it’s done.”
“You are correct that you can’t take back the consequences of what you do. So next time, when you have an idea,” Jihoon stops, breathes in and out. So close to just saying something, and still he caught himself, the bastard. “Next time, think first? OK?”
Soonyoung wants to laugh at the idea of being able to promise that. He doesn’t say anything.
Jihoon swallows. Clears his throat and puts his hand behind his back. “And are you well accommodated, generally? I asked Hansol to make sure you had a suitable allowance of meal chits, fitting your position.”
Soonyoung’s been hungry enough in his life, that he can’t throw any of that back in Jihoon’s face. But he doesn’t trust himself to say anything else.
“Thank you. Husband” Soonyoung bows. “Is that everything?”
Jihoon blinks. “Yes. Yes, certainly, you can go.”
Soonyoung doesn’t look back once until he’s back in the trackside, comfortably lost in the bustling crowds of racegoers, fans and vendors. He doesn’t need to see Jihoon forget him all over again.
-
“You’d win more if you didn’t use that for the treks,” Mingyu points out, for maybe the hundredth time, gesturing at Soonyoung’s bike.
The racers travel in caravan over the desert between track meets, and the best of the cars and bikes get transported in the HGVs, protected from the uncertain conditions when there isn’t even a win to be had. Treks are for steady, patient travel.
“And get bussed at a snail’s pace like pit crew?” Soonyoung snorts. Crouching forward he gives a final blow of air to the little fire they’ve built. “You can cook on that now.”
“Thanks.” Under the shelter of the simple wayside tent he’s put up, Mingyu cracks open some dried noodles and a freeze-dried protein-and-flavour pack, then fills one of the pots with water from his supply, hanging it on a tripod over the flames. “Hey, this is a lot more fun with your extra meal chits.”
“You’re welcome,” Soonyoung waves him away. “Thanks for riding pillion with the supplies.”
“And are those new tyres?” Mingyu continues. “Perks of being married to the boss keep stacking up.”
“Shut up,” Soonyoung gets up, wandering back to the bike. A short distance away, the caravan keeps on streaming past. Soonyoung and Mingyu are just one of the many small breakaway groups that have paused on the way to rest, eat, relieve themselves or just sleep between driving stints.
Whilst Mingyu potters away with the food – “Fuck, hyung, you got the chilli beans pack! You know what you could trade for this?” – Soonyoung tests all the nuts on the bike. It’s about the one thing he can get into a rhythm to concentrate on, and pursue all the way to the end.
“Hey, do you see that?” Mingyu calls out, and Soonyoung looks up to see three red bikes coming their way, branching off from the flow.
“Hah!” Mingyu crows in triumph. “He’s even coming to visit you!”
“He doesn’t know it’s me!” Soonyoung hisses. He looks around. There’s nowhere to go – it’s open desert. It’s totally normal for a group looking to pause to join one already stopped, part of the social structure of the road. Driving away now, even if they could, would just look hostile. “I… might have been told to ride in the bus.”
“What?” Mingyu’s mouth opens wide. “Why?”
“Keep an eye on me, I suppose, how should I know?”
“Well, you could have asked him!”
“Like he told me himself! He just sent me a bus ticket and a booking for my bike on the cargo holder.”
“And where are those now?”
Soonyoung shrugs. Despite the heat of the sun, his fingers are feeling oddly cold.
The three red bikes close in. These are bikes specifically designed for trekking – Jihoon and his deputies are all car racers anyway, and those cars will be lovingly cradled in one of the trucks right now.
It’s obvious which one is Jihoon even from a distance, his smaller frame and his distinctive bright white leathers. Important for a leader to be seen, Soonyoung supposes, although it kind of seems like a risk too. The scene is better than it was ten years ago, but some wannabe gang boss could still think an assassination was an easy way to the top.
Jihoon would have that covered, though, Soonyoung tells himself. And he’s steely enough that a bullet would probably just glance off.
Soonyoung turns to focus on his bike again.
“Room at the campfire?” a voice asks, the customary greeting, and Soonyoung looks up to see Jeon Wonwoo, helmet off, swinging his legs off his bike and go to remove his driving gloves.
The other bike will be Wen Junhui – the two of them with Jihoon, on those red bikes, instantly recognisable.
Wonwoo is smiling, slightly.
“You don’t have to accommodate us,” is the first thing Jihoon says. He isn’t even looking at Soonyoung. “Jun, I told you to check and see the size of the group we were heading for, and if it was suitable.”
“They looked suitable,” Junhui says, deadpan, and takes his gloves off too. He unclips another supply pod from the back of his bike. “Our contribution,” he says, handing Mingyu an even larger freeze-dry pack. Mingyu just gapes at him.
Jihoon is pursing his lips. His helmet is still on, although he’s raised the visor, and he’s not properly dismounted his bike yet.
“It’s OK.” Soonyoung puts his own helmet back on. “I’ll go.” The heat is rising fast under his skin and it’s not from the sun. He puts his hands on the bike handles.
“Hey!” Mingyu calls out. “What about me?”
And so Soonyoung has to stop, and take his helmet off again, and sit by the fire to try and force down noodles, whilst Junhui and Wonwoo make some kind of conversation with Mingyu that all three of them seem to find quite amusing, and Jihoon sits studying the next track layout on his tablet.
When time comes to strike the little camp shortly after, Soonyoung is busy squatting to scour the pan with sand when Jihoon comes up toward him and he leans out of the way, just to ensure they don’t have to make contact whilst Jihoon walks to his piss or wherever he’s going.
“You know,” Jihoon says, from his position over him. “You could have just said you didn’t want the bus.”
Soonyoung squints up at him. “When, exactly? At what point in that process did you consult me?”
“It was just an offer,” Jihoon frowns. “I take this seriously. I’m not going to neglect you.”
Soonyoung laughs, once, harsh. Stands up. “Yeah, I imagine this is exactly what ‘neglected’ doesn’t feel like.”
As soon as he’s said it, he wants to pull the words back. But he doesn’t think before he speaks, Jihoon’s right about that.
Jihoon frowns at him again. Probably thinks he’s pathetic.
“Do you mind?” Soonyoung gestures at the pot. “This won’t clean itself, and we’ve got a long way to go yet.”
Jihoon holds up his hands, and turns away.
Soonyoung doesn’t turn around when he hears the three engines rev up again.
-
“You really wanna do this?” a racer who joins the meet at Ironville hisses, pushing himself all up in Soonyoung’s face. His breath stinks of alcohol – Jihoon’s racers run clean, but that’s not the rule in every team, and Soonyoung wonders what else might be in this asshole’s bloodstream.
Not that it matters, Soonyoung is going to win anyway.
“Bring it on,” Soonyoung tells him, and thumps his chest. He’s in his favourite leathers, the ones with the tiger stripes picked out in yellow fluorescence, visible even in the desert night.
It’s the first night since this new track opened, and Soonyoung’s spent the time since the desert noodle-stop far too deep in his own head. He’s ready to go fast, fast and faster until there’s nothing left in his mind but the growl of his engine.
“You sure?” one of the asshole’s friends pushes, a smirk on her face. “Wouldn’t want to make Lee Jihoon have to buy your ass back twice.”
Soonyoung growls. His fists clench at his sides.
You can bet anything on these tracks. Money. Bikes. Cars. Property. Yourself.
The Team gets a flat fee from the towns where they stop over, and a cut of the ticket sales. There’s also the profit to be made in food and drink, and the sideshows that travel with them – knife-throwing, sharpshooting, and indeed the bookies. For racers themselves, their salary can be enhanced with the prize pots, and then there’s selling memorabilia and autographs. Steady, patient money. It’s a foolish racer who’d gamble.
Four months ago, when they’d just restarted the season after the high summer break, Soonyoung had been agitated and itching from too long off the road. He’d hit the first town determined to race, knowing he’d win.
And he had. He’d doubled his own money, put it all back in and doubled it again. He’d been clean, because everyone in Jihoon’s Team Solar always is, but he’d felt high.
Not once in the evening had he stopped to hydrate, or rest his eyes, or refuel properly.
He’d put the money back in, and raced again.
And when that got lost, he’d raced another time anyway, claiming he had more to bet when he hadn’t. And when that got claimed, he’d offered them all double or nothing, and when they asked what he had to double with, someone had started talking about indentures, and he’d agreed. Because all he could do that night, he’d known, was win.
Sitting on the track after watching the others cross the line ahead of him, he’d felt a kind of chill grip him, a panic like he’d never known.
But when he’d got up – he’d had to get up, what else could he do? – and pushed his bike over the line, Jihoon had been there.
Jihoon, and a suitcase of money. Somehow, word had got to Jihoon, and for some reason Soonyoung still can’t figure out, Jihoon had bought his indenture.
“We’ll have to get married,” Jihoon had said, afterwards, in the back of the huge 4x4 that he was using to drive them both back to the control centre. He’d kept his eyes ahead on the desert, not looking at Soonyoung at all. “That’s the only way I can void owning you. I mean I’d let you work it out, but you’re not making that kind of money.”
Soonyoung couldn’t think, but that had stuck, sinking probably way deeper than Jihoon had ever meant.
To Jihoon, Soonyoung was just another little logistical irritation to solve. The only thing Soonyoung couldn’t figure out was why Jihoon bothered.
“We’ll minimise the impact,” Jihoon had said, still talking steadily, like what was happening was normal and logical and controllable. “You can choose to live with my crew, or not. You keep your current position in the Team, you can’t have any favours there.”
“Sure,” Soonyoung had murmured, or something like that.
“But people will associate you with me, now,” Jihoon added. “So, you just have think about that.”
Now, on the freshly laid Ironville circuit, Soonyoung pulls his gloves on. “People who talk this much have gotta be afraid to get out there and race, that’s what I’m thinking.”
The asshole and his friends spit plenty of curses at him then, but not half as many as they do after Soonyoung wins.
“Best of three!” the asshole demands. His pupils are really tiny, and he’s put his face so close into Soonyoung’s that he’s got ample opportunity to study them.
Soonyoung looks at him. Putting this asshole in his place would be so fucking satisfying.
“I’ve done what I came here to do,” Soonyoung says, and takes his helmet off, beckoning over one of the waiting crew with the winner wreath.
For a moment, he thinks he sees a flash of white, in the crowd, but when he looks again it’s gone.
-
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, so they never race every day in a row. On the third and seventh nights of the week, the crews build the fires high instead, crank up the sound system.
That was where Soonyoung started, when he came to Team Solar as a teenager. He got a job running supplies between the bars on foot. He was good, he graduated up to barman. One of the older guys working bar had been a rider, he’d taught Soonyoung on his old bike, out in the open desert in the early morning after the party had finished.
At that time, Soonyoung knows now, Jihoon had already been the goldenboy genius mechanic behind the wins that were keeping the Team rich enough to keep employing people like Soonyoung. They must have met several times in the chop shop, Soonyoung thinks Jihoon repaired that first bike of his a few times, but Soonyoung had been at the centre of a social whirl, loud and boisterous, and Jihoon had kept himself to himself. Soonyoung had been far more focussed on his own journey to being a rider than the politics at the top – what difference did it make to him, who was in charge? By the time he’d won his way into the Team regulars, Jihoon was the boss, and Soonyoung had never thought that much about it, or him.
Tonight, watching the VIP box filling up, right with the best view of the fires and the people dancing near them, Soonyoung is thinking.
“Hey,” he says to Mingyu, leaning over the table where they’ve been splashing out on camel meat, ribs glistening with sauce that’s now smeared round Mingyu’s mouth. “Hey, you wanna dance?”
Mingyu raises an eyebrow at that. “You don’t need to seduce me, hyung. You can just let me digest, right here, and I’ll be more than happy to fuck you later anyway.”
“I know that!” Soonyoung slaps his arm. “I want to dance.”
“Well, can I finish these first?”
Soonyoung glances over at the VIP box. Jihoon got in a while ago, and he often doesn’t stay long, he’s not a late nights guy.
“Oh! Oh, OK, sure.” Mingyu puts his unfinished piece down, smiling gleefully. “I get it.” He wipes his hands.
“There’s nothing to get.” Soonyoung checks his outfit, smooths down his hair. “I like dancing. I like this song.”
“Of course.” Mingyu wiggles his eyebrows. “The song. One might even say you were obsessed with this song.”
“Why do I associate with you again?”
“I’m your best friend and I’m really good at… dancing,” Mingyu says smugly.
The thing is, he’s right.
Mingyu was a kid in Solar with Soonyoung, hustling just to survive, and he’d wound up in one of the entertainment troupes, the ones who perform between races, out in the centre of the track, working the crowd into a frenzy. He’s good at that dancing, but when it comes to the kind of dancing Soonyoung’s planning tonight, Mingyu is perfect.
The beat is low, regular, thrumming. There’s a dirty weight to it, and everyone moving has gotten heavy, leaning into each other.
Mingyu walks to exactly where Soonyoung planned, right in front of the box, and people just part ways to let him through – the privilege of hotness, Soonyoung supposes.
They’re good at this, both of them. Soonyoung knows Mingyu’s body, and Mingyu knows Soonyoung’s. Mingyu moves slow, dropping and rising, letting Soonyoung dance back against his chest, letting Soonyoung display himself. Soonyoung sighs, pressing his weight back, grinding his ass back into Mingyu’s hips, and enjoying the noise Mingyu makes into his ear.
“He’s staring at you,” Mingyu whispers, after, and Soonyoung feels a rush of heat.
“Might be you,” Soonyoung points out. He could look, he could just turn his head and look, except all of a sudden, he can’t.
“No, it’s always you, haven’t you noticed?” And Mingyu’s hands are on him, one steadying his hip, the other creeping up his chest, pulling his shirt down and to the side. Soonyoung gasps, tilting his head, trying to stay on rhythm.
“You could have got us into the box,” Mingyu points out. The warm grip of his palm on Soonyoung’s hipbone is just shy of everywhere it would be nice to be touched. “I bet they always have meat there.”
“Like I was asked!”
“Maybe he doesn’t want to tell you what to do.”
“He’s always telling me what to do. ‘Soonyoung, don’t play around’, ‘Soonyoung, don’t disappear into the desert without telling someone where you’re going’, ‘Soonyoung, get your water refill orders in on time’.”
“Well,” Mingyu murmurs, and undulates in a way that makes Soonyoung’s hips stutter. “That’s all pretty good advice. And none of it relates to him. Don’t you remember, when we were teenagers, what he was like? You know he’s shy.”
“Shy?” Soonyoung breaks the rhythm, and can’t help but dart his eyes to the box.
Jihoon is sitting alone in the front row of seats. His companions are behind in the bar area and the tables, milling around, but Jihoon is just watching.
There’s a red flush on his face, unless that’s just the fire light.
“If I had a husband who looked at me like that,” Mingyu murmurs again, and gets the rhythm restarted when Soonyoung’s too dumbstruck to manage it. “I wouldn’t be in your bed. No offence.”
Soonyoung reaches behind them, brings Mingyu’s hips closer, grinds back. “None taken, but if I don’t get fucked tonight I will probably set something on fire, just to be clear.”
“Oh, obviously tonight, this has been way too horny to walk away from.” Mingyu’s hand slips lower, cupping him for just a moment, and Soonyoung hears a sudden, strange noise from the direction of the box, but he doesn’t think he can cope with looking over there any more just now.
-
“You should bring that over to the shop, afterwards,” Junhui tells Soonyoung, once the practice is done, gesturing with his pen at Soonyoung’s bike. “And you shouldn’t ride it to trek.”
Soonyoung makes a face behind his back, which makes some of the other racers titter, but he takes the bike slowly over to the control centre all the same. It does have a funny rattling he’d like to get to the bottom of. Whatever jokes Mingyu makes, the change in Soonyoung’s status doesn’t make any difference to the kind of access he already had to the chop shop as one of the racers, but it does kind of feel like he gets to the front of the queue faster.
“Hey, so, when I get into second, I’ve noticed…” he begins, and then stops, looking up at the mechanic who’s come over to him.
“Soonyoung-ssi,” Jihoon prompts. “Please go on.” He’s cleaning his hands with a bit of rag, and his overalls are open all down the front, showing pectoral muscles that Soonyoung was honestly not expecting.
Soonyoung swallows, looking away. Go on. Right. What was he talking about?
“Why are you here?” Soonyoung hears himself say.
Jihoon’s expression barely changes, but Soonyoung’s getting a bit more familiar with it at this point, and that, he thinks, is just a little hurt.
“I like to keep my hand in. I’m on the rota with everyone else.”
“I’m not complaining,” Soonyoung points out. And winces. “I mean, it’s not worse than anyone else. I mean…”
“What’s wrong with the bike?” Jihoon prompts, briskly.
“Did Wen Junhui know you were on rota today?”
“Probably, he has an uncanny ability to keep track of information it can’t possibly benefit him to know. Why?” Jihoon pauses. “Would you rather I got him instead?”
“No! I just…” Soonyoung pauses. Takes a breath. “It’s rattling when I get into second,” he begins.
After that, it gets easier. Jihoon, like all the leaders, is a car racer first, and familiar with all the vehicles the Team uses, but he’s got an impressive knowledge of bikes too and he treats Soonyoung’s darling with the seriousness Soonyoung does. They discuss carburettors and intake valves for quite a period of time, and then Jihoon starts in with a spanner, and Soonyoung realises at some point that they’re lying side by side, squinting at a tiny sprocket together, perfectly relaxed.
“That should be it, now,” Jihoon says eventually. “You can take it for a test run. But you know, it would go longer between fixes if you didn’t try and trek with it. It’ll stall right up on a track one day.”
That’s so much background noise to Soonyoung at this point, and he mounts up eagerly, then stops. Looks back.
“Well?” he prompts.
Jihoon frowns. “Well?”
“Well, aren’t you coming to see how good your work was?” And Soonyoung pats the seat behind him.
The look Jihoon gives him, Soonyoung wishes he could memorise for ever. It’s such a perfect mixture of outrage and surprise and fascination. But he doesn’t say anything, just comes over and slides into pillion, behind Soonyoung, his arms settling warm around Soonyoung’s waist.
He’s got a lot of muscles in his arms too.
Soonyoung kicks the engine alive.
It runs perfectly. Soonyoung can tell that within a minute or so, and Jihoon probably can too, but he doesn’t call Soonyoung out for keeping going for a while, taking them out to the nearest sand dunes, to where you can see the first oasis outside of Ironville.
Jihoon’s arms stay, firm, around Soonyoung’s waist. They don’t loosen or tighten. And Soonyoung is aware of them with every breath.
Jihoon doesn’t say anything, until they are back at the shop, and dismounted.
“It’s a nice bike,” he says, like it’s a confession that’s been ripped from him.
“Thank you for helping me with it.” Soonyoung says, because any mechanic deserves that. He doesn’t say ‘did it take you all that time to come up with that’, even though it’s sitting there in his mouth.
He remembers what Mingyu said. Shy.
“You really do care about all this, don’t you?” Soonyoung is figuring it out himself even as he says it. “Not just the winning, but the Team, the cars, the bikes, making it work. For all of us.”
“I take care of my things,” Jihoon remarks, and gives the bike a pat, and there’s something about that touch, the gentleness of it, that twists ugly in Soonyoung’s brain, making every memory leave at once.
“Except me,” Soonyoung points out.
“Excuse me?”
“You don’t take care of me,” Soonyoung repeats. He raises his hand. “I don’t mean food and petrol and all that stuff, I’m in the Team, I’d get that anyway. But I’m your husband, aren’t I? I’m yours. And you never give me even a quarter of attention you’ve just given my bike.”
Jihoon stares at him. He licks his lips.
“You’re not mine, Soonyoung-ssi,” he says slowly. “That’s the whole point. You’re free. You could leave any time, you can do whatever you want.”
“I get why you’re telling me that, I do,” Soonyoung takes a deep breath. “But how do you think that makes me feel? That you don’t even care, whether I’m around or not?”
“You’re a valuable racer,” Jihoon begins, “the last thing the Team would want is…”
“Not the Team. You.” Soonyoung bites his tongue for a moment. “Look, if you acted like you’d bought me, if I thought for one minute you’d take advantage of that, I wouldn’t be here wanting you to…” He stops, biting down again.
Jihoon is silent. Absolutely still.
“You didn’t have to do this for me,” Soonyoung starts. He runs a hand back through his hair. “Don’t you get it? I know I’m not much, I know I’m more trouble than I’m worth, but after you did all that, it would be nice if I was worth even any of your time.”
Jihoon’s mouth opens.
“Boss!” someone calls, another mechanic running up to the shop, waving her arm. “Boss, I’m sorry I’m late for my shift, I’ll make it up in overtime, I promise! So sorry I kept you, I can deal with this racer, don’t worry!”
“Thanks,” Soonyoung tells her once she’s finally reached them, with a broad smile, all teeth. “Thanks, but we’re all done here.”
-
Soonyoung’s fixed up bike is just perfect for the tracks at Blue Mountain, the Team’s next stop.
This time, for the trek, there was no invitation to the bus. Soonyoung rode his bike through the desert exactly the way he likes, Mingyu pillion and not asking questions once he’d seen Soonyoung’s expression.
And sure, people can say using this bike for the trek is a mistake, but the fact is that Soonyoung knows his ride better than anyone else, and tonight he’s winning and winning.
He doesn’t feel good, though. It doesn’t matter how fast he goes, or how many times round the track, or how many winner’s garlands he receives.
His bike is carrying him to victory, each and every time, and all he can think when he looks down is how it felt, having Jihoon on the seat behind him. The way Jihoon worked the bike, the careful, thorough labour of his hands. The interest Jihoon had to fix it up, to get it exactly right.
Soonyoung wants to stop thinking.
“Hey, yeah you!” Someone calls at him, as he walks away from the ceremony for his sixth race. It’s deep into the night, now. Beyond time that the best riders should have gone home.
“Hey you!” The voice repeats. “You not too pussy to race me today?”
It’s the Ironville asshole, with another or possibly the same selection of friends. Soonyoung wasn’t exactly paying attention the last time. They’re stumbling through the night towards him, laughing and raucous.
Soonyoung takes a deep breath. “I’m good, thanks.” He goes to turn away.
“I don’t think you are,” Ironville asshole calls after him.
He turns back around.
“I’ve been watching you tonight,” Ironville says, and he walks over, once more closing the distance between them. “No one races like that when they’re feeling good. So, you want to really get out of your head?” He reaches into his pocket, brings out a little plastic box, rattles it. “You man enough to race me on unlimited mode? Fast as the stars?”
Soonyoung pauses.
“Come on,” Ironville calls. He gestures back at the track, where the cars are going at the moment, Jihoon somewhere out there in his V8 Interceptor. “Just because your boss is some goody two-shoes with a stick up his ass, doesn’t mean you have to be boring.”
“My boss,” Soonyoung repeats. He tilts his head on one side.
Takes another look at his bike.
“My boss,” Soonyoung says slowly. “Knows how to look after things. Bikes. Cars. Supply chains.” He walks a bit closer to Ironville, and closes his hand over the box. Then he shoves it down, pushing it back towards Ironville’s pocket, and lets go again. “He knows how to look after people. If being kind is boring, I guess we can live with that.”
“What the fuck are you even saying?” Ironville’s face twists. “Look are we racing, or not?”
“Not.” Soonyoung turns on his heel again, before he can say anything else. Any remnants of good feeling he might have had tonight are gone now, but at least he can walk away from this one without…
“Oh yeah?” Ironville calls, and then he’s running past Soonyoung, faster than Soonyoung can figure it out, because he climbs onto Soonyoung’s bike. He starts it on the first try, because it’s running so well since it got fixed, and roars off towards the official track.
“Fuck!” Soonyoung looks around. The nearest bike is Ironville’s. And fuck knows what he might have done to it, but he was riding it earlier OK, and how else is Soonyoung going to keep his bike safe? His bike that Jihoon fixed up for him so carefully?
It starts nearly as easily as Soonyoung’s, and Soonyoung is moving again.
It’s hard to see where Ironville is, because he hasn’t turned the bike’s lights on. But Soonyoung can hear him, catching him in his own beams, and although Ironville’s nearly at the track itself now, he hasn’t slowed down at all. A hundred, a hundred and twenty, a hundred and forty miles per hour.
Soonyoung bends down into the bike he’s riding, and flashes his own lights, trying to warn the cars that are still slamming round in their own circuits.
Jihoon is on this track, Jihoon is somewhere on this track.
Soonyoung’s lights pick out Ironville up ahead, suddenly getting closer fast - he’s stalled, the bike has stalled, and Ironville is in the middle of the track, unlit, arms raised in useless terror, with the cars bearing down, with Jihoon…
The impulse is there, fully formed, and Soonyoung acts on it.
He slides sideways, trying to shield his own body as much as possible, and with all the force of the bike he’s riding, pushes Ironville and the bike off the track ahead of him, moving and moving with nothing in their way but the barrier.
-
It’s dark.
Everything hurts.
Soonyoung’s head aches, and then someone takes his helmet off and it’s momentarily better, cooler, and then much worse. There’s a bright light from somewhere, a lot of noise and talking.
“…were you thinking? What were you thinking?” someone is saying. Someone who’s holding Soonyoung, propping him up in their arms. It’s comfy.
Soonyoung sighs deeply. “Is Jihoon OK?”
“I’m fine,” the person tells him, which is not what Soonyoung asked, but, like, he’s glad this person is OK too. “But you can’t ever do that to me again, you hear me? You’re worth too much, do you understand? You’re worth far too much to me.”
“Ha ha,” Soonyoung laughs, because he’s never even met this person, and then it goes dark again.
-
Soongyoung wakes up, and feels cool.
It’s almost never cool, in the desert, but right now he feels his whole body at exactly the right temperature to enjoy the light weight of some silky cover over him.
Under his head, the pillow is smooth too.
His mouth is dry. Something aches, or possibly everything.
Soonyoung looks up and around him, blinking in the light coming from the window.
He’s in an RV bunk, rather than a tent. There’s another bunk opposite where he’s lying, and it’s strewn with maps and bits of machinery. There’s water by the bed and he reaches for it.
“You’re awake,” says a voice, and Soonyoung looks up to see Jihoon in the doorway from the body of whatever RV this is, something white in his hand.
“Is that a cold compress?” Soonyoung asks. “That would be amazing right about now. Also where am I and why are you here?”
“The answer to both those questions is that this is my bedroom,” Jihoon says calmly. A few minutes after, though, a pink flush creeps over his skin. He clears his throat. “The air conditioning is best in here, and the medic said you’d be better if you were kept cool.”
“Shit, the medic.” Soonyoung moves again, carefully, and winces, feeling the heavy weight of bracing on his ankle.
“It’s just a sprain,” Jihoon tells him. He comes over, and then stops before awkwardly offering Soonyoung the compress in one outstretched hand. “Rest for a few weeks, and do the exercises, and you’ll be riding again in no time.”
Riding…
“You’re OK?” Soonyoung asks, trying to sit up and then wincing again. “You and… the other cars? And Ironville? Did he make it?” He pauses. “And my bike?”
Jihoon laughs. “Your bike is in a state, but nothing we can’t fix. And that idiot from Team Lodestar has two broken arms, which is less than he deserves.” Something crosses Jihoon’s face that makes Soonyoung suddenly remember what it means to be a leader. Jihoon’s the best marksman on the circuit, even if Soonyoung’s only ever seen him do tricks.
“And I told you I was fine,” Jihoon adds. He hovers, for a moment, and then sits carefully on the opposite bunk, bending some of the paper.
“Good,” Soonyoung says, a little helplessly. He takes another sip of water.
Jihoon watches him.
Soonyoung remembers the smell of the bonfire.
“So, if that’s where here is, and that’s why you’re here, why am I here?”
Jihoon looks away for a moment. Then he sits up, shoulders square.
“Because what we do is noticed, and I should be seen to look after my husband,” Jihoon says slowly. “Because the medic recommended it. Because you’re too valuable a rider to take a risk on.” Then he takes another, deep breath. Before he speaks he’s already pink. “But not really for any of those reasons. Really, it’s because I want to look after you, Kwon Soonyoung.”
Soonyoung feels pink too. Warm, suddenly, despite the whir of the A/C. His chest tightens.
“You do?”
“I do.” When Jihoon puts his head up like that, determined, frowning, Soonyoung wants to climb him like a tree. “In fact, I have done for so long that I’ve been… troubled. By why I helped you, that night you tried to sell yourself to the highest bidder. By whether I should have done. By whether that was fair, when I want you, the way I do.”
Soonyoung stares at him.
“You’re still free to leave,” Jihoon points out. “Or, I guess in the immediate term, I can leave, whilst you can’t walk. But you can leave this marriage, or even this Team. If you want to get in with another team, I’ll give you references.”
“But I’m a valuable rider.” Soonyoung repeats, half under his breath. His hands clench the edge of the cover.
Jihoon stares right at him. “You’re worth the world,” he says, slow and steady and firm. Then he sighs, and shrugs. “Whatever you want.”
Soonyoung opens his mouth. The impulse is right there and he takes it like always.
“I want my husband,” he says, just as firmly, and when Jihoon’s mouth falls open, like he’s frozen in place, Soonyoung reaches over and grabs his hand.
“I want you,” Soonyoung repeats, and kisses the back of Jihoon’s knuckles, gently, carefully, urging him closer, until Jihoon gets there with him and offers his mouth instead.