Partners In Speed - ver. 1 (Street Racers #2)

5: Taehyung

The only job I've ever had was a mechanic. I repaired Sanghoon's car, then his friends' cars, then mine, and then rented my first garage for the repair shop. Without much thought, I've done this, because I liked digging under the hoods, sliding under the cars, getting dirty, even the smell.

I've been fixing cars for a decade, yet it's never been a reason to be proud of. All I do for work is play around with cars and their insides. I had opportunities that I never took, opportunities to study, to be a doctor, a businessman, to be... someone significant in the world. To be useful and matter to the society.

The fault always lied in my choices.

I should find a better job. Maybe I should actually quit racing. I should tell Jimin that the best one out there is Jungkook and then leave the environment.

I love it, I really do, but if this is the only good thing about it, then maybe I should let it go. No matter how much I love something, it's not always going to be good enough, something I should be pursuing.

But where to search? What to look for? Fuck, I have no idea what it is that would make me better. I'm 25. People my age are graduating college, some of them are starting their careers.

And I am exchanging a flat tire.

I've wasted so much time. So many days, nights, summer breaks, winter breaks. So many opportunities to be somebody. All I have now is cars and no clue how to change it. How to go after anything that is not cars.

I've been thinking about it again, for the whole day. Any client that came around, any car they left, it all brings me back to the same thing. Doing that doesn't make me good enough for the world. For anyone. The way I created myself was wrong from the beginning.

As I finish putting fresh oil into this girl's car she left here in the morning, I have to stop drowning in my own thoughts as another car comes around, halting front first at the opened gate to my garage. A Nissan I've fixed not a week ago, crashed yet again at the front.

Minho steps out of the car.

"What the hell happened?" I ask, putting the lid on the bottle of oil. I may love fixing cars, but it doesn't mean crashing one that I have just fixed is a way to go.

He chuckles, scratching his head, and I want to swing the bottle straight into my face. "I was, kinda, practicing what you told me about and... did it."

I hate the feeling of my insides jumping around like that whenever he does something normal. Like talk or laugh. Everyone does that, why does my stomach have to be do giddy when he does? Like, yeah, maybe he is a bit more attractive than people I did a double take for before, but God why?

"Can you do something about it?" Minho asks, apologetic look on his face.

Not ideal, but if I do it, I won't be as much of a waste of space as I'd be if I said 'no'.

"Sure," I say. "Leave the keys on the hanger, I'll move it later."

As he does that, I close the hood of the girl's car, and walk around it to pick up the tools I've scattered around. No one says anything, but he's not leaving either, and my lungs begin to tighten. When I stand straight, he's looking at me.

Right on time, I remember all I have on myself are denim overalls, because it's boiling hot in the garage today and it's my fourth car. My hair falls messy over my face, sweat dripping down my temples, neck and shoulders.

And he stares.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?" I chuckle, but the sound goes through three different octaves, making it the most awkward chuckle in history.