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24

Yuri woke me up by sprinkling water on my face.

"See? She's up," my sister said, making Vernon and Mingyu chuckle.

The ride to Lakeville wasn't that long indeed, but I could barely sleep the night before and with no caffeine for the day in my system, the moment Mingyu picked us up from Joshua's, I fell asleep in the backseat. It wasn't that bad anyway, since I knew we were up for a long night once we would get there. It was the first day of the spring race and as the others said, it would all be striking.

It was my first time here so I wasn't familiar with the place, but it didn't take an expert to realize there were far more people in the town than usual. So the spring race is that big.

Lime Rock Park was basically a huge racetrack on a field, close to a forest near the town. I could bet that when there were no races, the place was pretty empty. However, there were hundreds of people wandering around the park now. It was a bit overwhelming, but I should have expected that.

Tradition. Beauty. Speed.

These were the words written in cursive at the panel at the entrance of the racing area. Seungcheol did say this is among the oldest racetracks in the whole America, so I guess this should be impressive.

I knew that everybody was racing tonight, this first race being somewhat similar to a welcome for everybody. There were dozens of cars at the finish line by the time we arrived. It takes me a few moments to spot Jeonghan's and THE 8's cars. Yuri was pointing towards some other car, ash-blue with white lines on the sides, which I figured out belonged to Seungcheol. It was the first time I was seeing him race, so I couldn't help but be curious. I could also see Soyeon's car and immediately got really excited about what we were about to watch.

The atmosphere was somehow different from the one at the arena back home. It was obvious that most of the people around here knew what they were here for, since I could here a lot of chatter regarding the sports car competing. There seemed to be very few people who were here just for the show and that was making me feel safer for some reason.

A strong but sweet voice calls the racers to the start and the crowd starts cheering.

"All the aces are here," Vernon speaks beside me and I turn my head towards him, only to find him wearing a slightly worried expression while looking at the cars in front of us.

"I can't see Kim Hongjoong, though," Yuri points out on a disappointed tone, but Vernon shakes his head.

"He's in the third line, second car from the left," he says. "I can't believe Min Yoongi is competing, though."

My sister freezes at Vernon's words.

Mingyu was watching calmly from beside Vernon. We came together with the same car. Dino, Joshua and Hoshi came with another car and they were probably spying around or whatever their job was. We didn't even get to go to the accommodation, so we still had the luggage in Mingyu's trunk.

"Min Yoongi is competing?" Yuri asks and Vernon hums in agreement.

"Of course he is," I hear a voice beside us and I flinch slightly, turning towards the source.

A light-brown haired girl was looking at the race track with a small smile on her lips. Her eyes were sparkling and her puffy cheeks made her look really young. She couldn't be too young though. Even though there it felt like everybody was glowing around us– either due to their glitter-coated clothes, either because of their rich gestures and loud voices– this girl had her own dazzling charm. I couldn't pin-point it, but her eyes looked dreamy so maybe that was the reason why looking at her made me feel like watching a fairy in one of those movies with shadowhunters.