Actually, mornings when Sehun had to be awake were the worst.

 

Actually, mornings where Sehun was awake and he had to be at work and he had to drive there were the worst. Actually.

 

He didn't mind being an accountant; it's not like math was hard or anything, and the pay was good enough for him to buy and upkeep his precious black Audi, so there was that. Indeed, his Audi was precious to him, but particularly when he got to see it sitting pristinely in his apartment garage, and not when he had to get to work by it. In other words, very rarely. Sure, an accountant's life was a relatively easy one, but Sehun hadn't exactly factored in early morning commutes into the cons of taking this job, and now getting up early enough to miss the traffic and not be late was the bane of his existence and the worst part of his day.

 

"What the hell is wrong with these people?" Sehun often muttered to himself as yet another person would swerve way too close to his vehicle and cut him off without bothering to signal—or even look.

 

He hated it, all of it, so about a month into the new job he'd had enough and came to an inevitable crossroads. Did he quit? Not possible; he still had student loans, not to mention car payments. Did he start taking public transportation? Ew, no; besides, if he was paying all that money for a car, Sehun wanted to use it—just not in the early morning on his way to work.

 

When he thought he'd considered all his options but still had no solution, Sehun posed the question to one of his work sunbaes.

 

"Dude," Chanyeol sunbae had exclaimed, "just buy a pass for the ring roads. It'll take a little longer coming from where you're living, but it shouldn't be any more than the length of your commute now."

 

"And think of it this way," Sehun's boss, Tao, had contributed as he stopped by their set of cubicles, "even if it takes no more or less time, at least there won't be traffic. I've seen the way you look at your car," he'd added with a raised eyebrow at Sehun, "no traffic means no scratches, right?" Sehun nodded; he'd grown more enthusiastic the longer he'd considered Chanyeol sunbae's suggestion, but he made sure to hide that as best he could until Tao walked away with a parting command of "Get back to work!" over his shoulder.

 

And so Sehun pushed aside thoughts of quitting, of the illnesses one could contract from riding even the cleanest of subways—of which, Shanghai's was not one—and forked up 1500 RMB to get his pass for the luxury of the ring roads. Driving on those elevated freeways really was a luxury too; even on just his first day as a proud ring road permit holder, Sehun had already been able to tell from the lack of ambient noise that the roads were newer and the traffic fewer. The speed limit was higher, too. Basically, that was driving, exactly as he liked it.

 

Of course, he'd still had to wake up at an ungodly hour so that his new commute would get him to work around the same time as his old one had, but Sehun tried not to think about that as he cruised along each morning. He'd been basically the only car on the road for almost a week, but then that first Friday had rolled around and he'd caught a glimpse of a bright green sports car approaching in his rear view mirror. Sehun thought about getting over so the driver could pass legally, but his Audi and the other's Mustang were the only cars around, so Sehun hadn't done anything, figuring that if the guy wanted to get ahead of him, he was welcome to.

 

Except the other car didn't pass him at all. Sehun's view of the Mustang had transferred from the rear view mirror to the right side one, but then the car had entered his blind spot and had slowly—for a sports car at least—pulled up next to the Audi so that Sehun and the other driver were matched in speed and side by side.

 

Sehun hadn't known what was going on, what the other driver wanted, what he was supposed to do. He'd watched a movie about Hong Kong triads the night before, though, so he did briefly imagine the Mustang's window rolling down slowly as the driver killed Sehun with an illegally acquired firearm, but then he'd brushed that off as absurd and had gunned his own engine, trying to get away as peacefully as possible. At first Sehun had thought that maneuver actually worked—until he'd looked out of his passenger window again to find that the other driver had followed his lead exactly.

 

So Sehun had tried honking. He did it once, but the only driver had only returned the signal before revving his engine. Not one to back down from a challenge, Sehun had done the same and ended up unintentionally shooting his Audi forward as his speed increased from 60 km/h to almost double that. Apparently, though, high speed was a language the guy in the green Mustang had understood and appreciated, so he sent his car flying forward as well, and had ended up beating Sehun's by less than half a second as both cars reached the transfer exit off the ring road by Sehun's apartment and onto the one that took him to work.

 

The other driver had honked once more as he got the Mustang moving again, and Sehun had done the same before turning off and going to work. He'd been high of the adrenaline of that encounter for the rest of the day, so when the same green had appeared in his mirrors that next Monday morning, Sehun knew what was coming, and he was ready.