The money that Do Hoon had returned to me meant I was safe from the gangsters at least this week. Unfortunately, that didn't stop me from worrying about the next two weeks. I definitely needed to figure out some sort of way to make money during that time.
That was a problem for a later me. My current problem was standing in front of me, demanding an interview.
It hadn't taken long for LC to set up the first race. On Wednesday night, two hours before it turned into Thursday morning, we all got a text from LC that the first leg of the relay would begin, and the location. It wasn't New Banpo Bridge.
With the new 'meet' limited to the participants of the time attack relay, it was a lot smaller. But even then, it was less than I had expected.
"Jester J! You dog bastard. Chat's been raving over you and your drama of the last week. I think you owe me a little chat, especially since you smashed my drone last Saturday." Despite calling me out for destroying his streamer drone, clearly, Le Creuset had a spare. I briefly considered smashing this one too, but the glares that LC was shooting me when the drone wasn't turned to him told me just how close I was to getting on his bad side.
I didn't want to be thrown out of the tournament, so I had to try to humor him. "Just don't ask me any questions about why," I said.
I couldn't tell if LC was trying to give me a glare, or if he was trying to keep his veins from exploding. Finally, he relaxed for his stream. "That's alright. This stream protects the identities of all involved. I know you're disappointed by the mystery, chat, but we don't want to doxx anyone here. Feel free to speculate in the comments though!"
"But!" He continued. "If you've settled the whole conflict, why are you still all up in that get up?" LC waved over my now standard hat and mask combo. "Turning it into a signature look or something?"
I didn't want him to know I hadn't started wearing all that to hide from Taejun, but rather because I felt self-conscious knowing that thousands of eyes were on me. Sungmin had reassured me that LC's mods had ruthlessly hunted down and destroyed any evidence of my first night at the meet where I had carelessly introduced myself with my real name, but knowing that my face might be recognizable to anyone who had seen that first stream was unnerving enough. "Uh… go with that?"
"Sure, whatever. Your fanbase loves it."
"What fanbase?!"
"You showed up out of nowhere, won two races in two nights, then had a whole drama starring a literal NIS agent looking for you the next weekend! You've shaken up the scene quite a lot. Everyone's talking about you!" LC seemed pleased at my visible distress. "And now you're already competing in your first team time attack. So Fang getting arrested worked out for you, eh?"
"I didn't know Ho-Fang would go out and do that," I groaned. Why did everyone seem to think that Hoojin's arrest had been my fault? "I didn't even know he had a vendetta like that."
"Heh. Fang's fans are upset he'll be missing out. They're not too fond of you either."
Hoojin had fans? These people really were bored.
"Did you even get any practice in?" LC asked. "Make any adjustments on that new car of yours?"
Sungmin had taken us out for a practice run on Sunday night, where he had explained to me how the relay worked. But we hadn't expected that LC would run the first leg of the relay so soon. I hadn't even had time (or disposable income) to look into part-tuning my car. That did make me nervous.
"Some," I said, purposefully vaguely. I changed the subject. "I thought there would be a lot more teams competing. It looks like there's only four tonight." That number included us too.
"Since we're running each team one at a time, I've limited the number of teams called out every night. Actually, there's 9 teams competing."
"Make sense."
"Might be the first time for you, but it's not my first time organizing this," LC gloated. "Alright, that's enough out of you. I'm going to go talk to the Sunchasers." The stream drone's red eye blinked and went green. I looked at it curiously.
"I'm just recording tonight. I'll broadcast later to throw off any nosy feds,"LC explained. Before he walked off, LC poked me in the chest. "You owe a new stream drone, Baek Jaehyun."
He snickered and retreated before I could snap back.
Since I was the newest of the three drivers, Sungmin had elected to put me as the second driver in this relay. He would be the anchor, and Eunsoo would start. I was definitely curious to see Eunsoo and Sungmin in action, since I hadn't had a chance to before (other than our practice, but that hardly counts).
Of the four teams running tonight we had drawn third. It was better than first, but going last would have been the best. That way you knew what time you had to beat, if you even could. LC had set up a private stream so we could watch the race progress from his high speed drone. It must have been an expensive drone to be able to be flown that far. Each driver had to drive two kilometers, meaning it was a six kilometer track total.
I watched the first team with churning excitement from the tablet that Eunsoo had lent me. The track today was almost a complete straight shot, making it basically an extended drag race. But in these relays, LC had designed an interesting caveat that made it so that supercars (not that there were too many in this competition) didn't just dominate the competition. Each car had to tag in the car going next with physical contact. That meant that the driver had to carefully balance the time of their acceleration and max speed to the time of their deceleration to safely tag in the car in front. Failure to make that contact meant a 15 second deduction in time.
"That's the part I hate," Ryusuke had laughed, when Sungmin had explained the rule. "I don't know how many bumpers I've had to replace because of Hoojin."
Fifteen seconds didn't sound like much, but in a six kilometer race, it was definitely a make or break time. Even though being in the middle of the relay was supposed to be for the weakest runner (or driver, in this case), not only did I have to be tagged in, but also I had to tag in Sungmin. That honestly seemed particularly dangerous.
The first team today was the Sunchasers, which happened to be Ice Comet's team. His teammate, Fireball, was the one with yellow Huracan. As expected, it would be going last, so it didn't have to worry about the end deceleration. Despite being first, they were definitely going to put out a tough time to beat.
Comet's GTR (that I had rightfully won) was first. We watched with bated breath as the flag girl teased him by holding the pose longer than usual, causing him to rev at her impatiently. When he did, she dropped it with a laugh.
"Bad start for Comet," Sungmin commented, as Comet missed the exact right moment to come out of the gate. Now that I was on the road, I could actually focus on his GTR in action. Despite Sungmin saying it was a bad start, it leapt into action easily and in a matter of seconds he was already well into his first kilometer. He must have been going well past 200 km/h by the halfway point, but now he had to focus on timing his slowdown.
Even though he was my rival, my heart jumped as I anxiously watched him eating up the distance between him and the Sunchaser's second driver. I couldn't imagine what that second driver must be feeling, hearing that GTR's roar approaching at high speed.
Soon that would be me.
"He's crazy!" Someone exclaimed, as Comet seemed to show no sign of slowing down. But a second later, Comet's tires screeched as he slammed the brakes. Sungmin had made me practice a precise tap, but it seemed that Comet had no such plans. Comet's tremendous speed had slowed down considerably, but he still slammed into the back of his teammates' car, causing it to jump forward.
Loud whoops and exclamations broke out throughout the crowd. But the RX-8 had planned for this. It had been temporarily installed with a thick rubber back bumper like… well, a bumper car. The initial push kickstarted its momentum. Its tires howled for traction for a moment before it shot forward. I watched it with bated breath.
As it approached the Huracan in front, I noted that the Huracan had not installed that same thick bumper. There was no way that the Huracan's driver would tolerate the approaching Mazda RX-8 slamming into it. What would he do? I thought excitedly.
Apparently, the answer was to take a false start. The RX–8 was almost to its heels, but before it made a full contact, the Huracan screamed like a mountain cat, and quite literally left the RX-8 in a cloud of dust.
"That's idiotic," Ryusuke gasped. But the Huracan didn't have any of the restrictions of needing to decelerate, and Fireball gave it full throttle. Even the high speed drone couldn't keep up, and instead had to gain altitude to keep it in view. There was no doubt that the Huracan had long breached the 250 km/h mark. I breathed in jealousy.
It blurred past the finish line at a breathtaking 34 seconds. Even though I was only a spectator, the hair on my arms was standing on end from the thrill. The crowd was going wild, even though we were all competing.
"Incredible," LC was screaming. For the moment we had all forgotten that they had also taken a fifteen second penalty.
Sungmin hadn't. He was grinning at us. "They shouldn't have taken that fifteen second penalty."
The time came back. Two minutes and twenty three seconds, or 143 seconds total. Even with the penalty, it had definitely set the pace for the night.
The second race wasn't as thrilling. They made clean passes, and didn't have a supercar as their anchor. Even with their anchor car flooring it the entire way, they made 147 seconds, coming in well behind the Sunchasers.
So the Sunchaser's strategy with the Huracan was effective against other teams, especially if they were running their usual tuners. Even the most well tuned cars simply couldn't compete with the sheer power of an expensive hypercar.
But unfortunately for the Sunchasers, Sungmin was driving the Tsunami tonight.
You'd think Comet would have learned his lesson after the first time.
Eunsoo's tablet was mounted to my dashboard so I could watch him start. I also had a borrowed (thank you, Ryusuke) earpiece connecting me to a group call, so Ryusuke and Sungmin could call the shots for us.
Seol-hee (whom I still hadn't spoken to since Saturday) was our flag girl. I couldn't really see what was happening from the overhead view from the drone view, but unfortunately, I could hear it through the earpiece.
"Kiss on the cheek is fine, jagi," Eunsoo was saying. Next came an exaggerated sound of disgust. "EUweG!"
So even Eunsoo wasn't immune to Seol-hee's overt physical overtures. Even knowing that Eunsoo had no interest in Seol-hee, I felt a pang of jealousy.
Fortunately for us, Seol-hee held no ill will for the start car, like Comet's flag girl had. I watched anxiously as she took up her pose. I had no idea how powerful Eunsoo's Subaru BRZ was, but I knew that in 35-45 seconds, I would soon be starting my leg of the race.
She dropped the flag, and Eunsoo's BRZ shot forward like an arrow from a bow. I knew Eunsoo spent every minute not playing video games or being an ass (which was the majority of the time, really) running incomprehensible (to me) programming simulations and playing with an ECU tuner. He had even "reflashed" my Nissan X. His explanation for how it worked to adjust variables in the On-board Diagnostic Systems made sense, but I could never make sense of how he and Ryusuke could interpret the numbers and squiggly lines on the screen connected.
But it must have made perfect sense to him. The carefully chosen pieces under the hood and Eunsoo's obsession with optimizing their output had meshed together to create a veritable homemade supercar.
That kind of sheer takeoff from a dead start should have never been possible with a BRZ. I couldn't tell if it was just because I was watching from a drone feed instead of on the ground, but even the experienced drone pilot let Eunsoo's BRZ slip from the frame for a moment. The drone was desperating trying to keep up with the BRZ's acceleration, and the ground below it was a dark blur.
Holy shit, was all I could think. It was just a straight shot, but seeing Eunsoo behind the wheel gave me so much more respect for his abilities as a tuner.
My palms were sweating. I tried to rub them off on my pants. Only twenty seconds had passed, and already I could see Eunsoo's headlights coming fast at me.
It was incredibly hard to hold my nerve as those headlights grew brighter and brighter with every passing second. Now I could hear the roar of his engine too. That roar was primordial. It shouted at me to get out of the way, to hide or fight or flee. But I had to hold my ground.
"Eunsoo!" Ryusuke's voice suddenly broke in. "Get ready for the pass off!"
On cue, I could hear that roar choke angrily as Eunsoo must have engaged his clutch. The now familiar sound of tires squealing in protest broke in. Even though I knew I had to focus on having a clean start, I couldn't help throwing a quick, terrified glance behind me.
I shouldn't have.
Eunsoo's headlights nearly blinded with how close they were, and the sight sent an electric shock through me. I nearly slammed down on my throttle with the natural instinct to get out of the way. But on a manual that would have just choked my engine. I forced myself to focus and revved my X.
The smell of hot rubber reached me now. I prayed that Eunsoo had managed to choke his momentum off, and that he wasn't about to just crash straight into me. I braced.
Suddenly everything seemed to go quiet. I couldn't hear anything, not Eunsoo's BRZ's engine, nor its tires. And I felt a light nudge.
Go.
I gave my Z full throttle. The clutch vibrated dangerously, but I held it tight for a moment. If I didn't, the car was sure to spin out. I felt my Z buck like I was riding a wild horse, and we were gone.
I struggled to keep the car under control as I let off the clutch. I couldn't reach full acceleration with it engaged, but I had needed it for the initial stability. Fuck it, I thought. I let it go.
My car jerked to the side dangerously, and I fought the urge to overcorrect. "Please," I breathed. My Z seemed to hear me, and in the next moment we were stable again. As stable as one could be while chasing that red zone, at least.
My heart was working hard as hard as my engine was, and I could feel that adrenaline I craved pumping through me now. I think Ryu had been saying something, but I hadn't heard him at all. For now I just relished in the feeling of being pushed back against the seat back as I pushed my Z's engine to its limit.
"Don't go over 240," Ryu advised.
Ryu could take his advice and shove it.
My speedometer was going for the moon. It had easily reached 200, but now the climb upwards was slower going. I wasn't in the Tsunami anymore, but I wanted to see that hand reach 250 again.
"Jae!"
I think that was Sungmin, but I didn't care. My rational mind was gone, left behind somewhere near Eunsoo. I wanted to chase the powerful launches of Eunsoo's BRZ and the Huracan.
"Jae! You need to decelerate!"
But I was so close. I needed to see it one more time.
"Jaehyun!"
With one final push, the red arrow touched 250, as gently as a lover's kiss.
I slammed the brakes. My Z did not appreciate the interruption, and I nearly slammed my own nose into my steering wheel before I caught myself. I hadn't even registered Sungmin in the Tsunami ahead of me while I was accelerating, but now I was overly aware of just how quickly I was approaching it, even with the brakes nearly locked.
My engine neared the in-gear idle. I popped the clutch and dropped the gear all the way down. Now all I could do was hold the clutch and brake down hard and hope I had given myself enough time to stop.
The red brakelights of the Tsunami glared back at me like a demon of judgment. But I, the reckless fool, was rushing towards it all the same like I was a warrior riding forward to slay it. My nerves were screaming. The Z's tires were screaming. The engine, choked off from the wheels, sputtered its protest. If it were up to me, I told it mentally, we would never stop.
But we did. To my surprise, we had come to a full stop before even touching the Tsunami. I only had a moment to register that, even as Ryu was shouting at Sungmin not to go.
Quickly, I put the car back into gear and gave it the lightest of taps on the throttle. And then I felt that contact.
The Tsunami had been ready and waiting. As I was heaving a sigh of relief, it was already speeding away. It kicked up gravel and dirt that pelted my Z with a chorus of worrisome pings. I sank back into the seat. I had no idea how long I had taken for my leg of the race, but I felt like every nerve inside me had stabbed me from within from their tension. My skin prickled painfully.
I watched Sungmin on the feed, and let out a mad laugh in pity for the drone pilot. The Tsunami was a blue blur, and the camera couldn't even begin to focus in on it. I would have loved to see the Tsunami compete in a straight launch against the Huracan. I felt like I had barely caught my breath before Sungmin streaked past the finish line, with no hint of stopping.
"What's our time?" Eunsoo was asking anxiously.
Ryusuke was quiet, waiting for the confirmation from the feed.
"Our time?" I couldn't help asking despite knowing that he was still waiting for the final calculation. Eunsoo's anxiety was infectious.
"125," said Ryusuke finally. He repeated, with an excited vigor. "125!"
For a moment, both Eunsoo and I forgot we were connected to the earpieces. He let out a ear splitting whoop at the same time I shouted in victory.
"Aish! My ear!" Sungmin cursed.