Raw Line| SVT

05

Mafia.

My mouth goes dry as I take in Joshua's words. I couldn't breathe properly and my heart was beating faster. Why am I surprised? I should have expected something like this, I should have seen such news coming. However, I figure it's not surprise, it's fear.

Why am I even afraid?

Before I can realize what's the actual answer, I hear the boy next to me chuckling.

"You should've seen your face," he says and I frown.

"What?"

He looks at me with one of his warm smiles, which only annoys me more this time.

"Kidding," he says simply.

I cross my arms over my chest and turn away from him to look at the racetrack in front of us. There were six cars at the start, surrounded by a lot of loud supporters. I didn't really have any knowledge regarding sports cars, but I could tell those were some illegaly expensive ones. So that's what they're into. But how can they afford all of this?

"The forth car is Jeonghan's," Joshua says, but I choose to ignore him, still a bit upset about his terrible joke.

The forth car was a metallic-black with a painted red line on the side. It looked much like something Jeonghan would drive, indeed. There were a lot of people around his car, but I figured he wasn't exactly interested in talking to them, at least not for now. He must have been in his driver's seat already.

"Racers, get ready!" A powerful manly voice is heard in the giant speakers on the sides of the racetreack.

The supporters back away from the start, leaving the six drivers to get ready for the race. I had to admit, the cars looked nice. One of them in particular was catching my eye everytime I was looking at them though. A matte all-black car that roared like a beast was weirdly interesting. How was Jeonghan going to win against a car like that?

A girl dressed in a short black skirt and a red crop top steps towards the start, a colourful flag in her hand. Despite the fact that the flaggers we usually see in movies are mostly really-fake looking, most likely wearing too few pieces of clothing, the flagger girl in front of me looked really interesting. She looked almost weird in this context.

She looked normal.

I squint my eyes as if trying to find something off about her. But I couldn't find a thing.

This is something else.

She raises her orange flag and looks at the cars with a determination that made me shiver. If she weren't a flagger, I could swear she was a racer.

"Ready..." the manly voice in the speakers is heard again. "Set... GO!"

The girl lowers her flag and in a split second, the six cars fly past her, fluttering her long brown hair. She doesn't even flinch.

Who is she anyway? I wonder unconciously.

"You might want to close your mouth, there is a lot of smoke in the air," Joshua speaks softly beside, reminding me of his presence.

I close my mouth shut, almost bitting my tongue, and take a deep breath. There were so many things I would have wanted to ask Joshua, but I didn't really want to get over the fact that he made fun of me. I wasn't ready to step on my pride for him, even though he was slowly but surely making me willed to do so.

"Jeonghan might win this, if he wants to," he says, answering one of my questions.

"If he wants to?" I ask incredulously.