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Three hours later, I was in the Dragon's Tail. Baekhyun had excused himself, saying something about how he had important business to attend to, leaving me sitting alone at one of the tables.
I felt completely cut off from the rest of the racers. In the beginning, thy had been sort of welcoming, but after the sort-of meeting they had shown their hostility towards me openly. My chest felt hollow yet heavy, but I couldn't even cry. It was as if I had no tears left anymore.
After having revealed my past to someone, I had expected to feel like some of the burden had lightened, but it only felt like the opposite. I was panicking internally, wondering how the other racers would react to this. Maybe Baekhyun would make it sound less horrific than it actually was, knowing him and his way with words, and Taeyong was definitely not going to say anything. It was obvious that he wasn't as friendly with the rest as the others.
The bar was empty, due to the day still being relatively young. The sun was still high in the sky, casting dark stripes and shadows across the driveway of the building. My throat felt closed up, rendering me unable to speak.
At that moment, I felt so isolated that I almost flinched when soft footfalls sounded in the otherwise empty bar. It was Vernon, looking more preoccupied than usual as he walked in.
When he saw me, his face first brightened, then darkened when his gaze fell on my shoulder. Even though I now had a leather jacket on, the area around my upper bicep and neck seemed bumpy and raised, giving the impression that I was injured.
Which, granted, I was.
"He told me you'd been shot, but I didn't think it would be that bad," he muttered as he sat down next to me, frowning as he studied the wound.
"What did you think it would look like?" I joked. "A band-aid sized scratch?"
He rolled his eyes, but there was a faint smile on his lips. "Take off your jacket," he ordered, then, hesitating, "please."
I shrugged it off obediently, making sure not to put too much strain on my left shoulder. Vernon's frown deepened as he observed it, though he didn't make any move to touch it as it had been with the others.
"That's some bad piece of luck," he commented, eyebrows raised. "You sure it wasn't because you got into a fistfight?"
His statements weren't even that funny, but the effort he made to make the whole thing seem like a joke brought a smile to my face. It was nice to actually have someone who cared, or even pretended to care, about me not having a mental breakdown.
