Three laps for three hundred thousand won. Just about right.

The weather is perfect; a sunless sky, overcast in a couple of hours. Dirt stretches in varying peaks, windswept hills and patches of brown and green painting the horizon in barren solitude. A man makes a final call for the bets, his voice amplified by a megaphone. The handful of spectators at the sidelines pay him no mind. The winners always revolve around the same group of people. Every race with them becomes more of an exhibition than a competition. The only thing that matters is who finishes first.

Kim Hyunjung takes a deep breath, exhaling away the waves of heat beneath her jersey. On her right, Son Juyeon and Yoo Yeonjung are bickering about the heat. On her left and prompted by a fist-nudge is Chu Sojung, her crazed eyes glinting behind her goggles.

“Don’t push yourself too hard alright, unnie?”

Hyunjung rolls her eyes, “Tell that to yourself.” She grips the clutch, leans forward and turns her wrist, throttle held down to a quarter and a finger on the front brake. The engines rumble like an angry swarm of bees in a metal can, the pounding in her head drowned by a fine line of sound. Dust and dirt and smoke begin to swirl and toss and tumble. Heavy breaths and sheer willpower scream in anticipation.

The gate drops, Hyunjung lets the clutch go, pumps the gas, and soars forward with twelve others.

Sojung starts strong and gets the holeshot, number eleven bold-printed on her back and blonde hair sticking out under her helmet. Hyunjung starts slower but the surge of adrenaline blazes her past everyone else. She slips in between eighty-three and twenty-seven, Yeonjung and Juyeon, and before the first lap ends she’s tailing Sojung closely, anticipating an opening for a block pass by the corner.

Sojung glances back, shoulders jolting in a gasp, and accelerates the moment their eyes meet. Hyunjung swerves to the right to avoid the wide jet stream of wet soil. She manages to avoid most of it but a thumb-sized wet dirt splatters right in the middle of her goggles. A split second of confusion, eyes blown wide as she sways sideways, her upper back slams on the hard-packed sand. She gets up quick and her motorbike running again, but number fourteen on an orange KTM suddenly streaks out of nowhere and overtakes her.

Hyunjung lets fourteen enjoy the moment while it lasts.

A tilt to the left, legs ready to extend on either side. A strong grip, elbows out, shoulders square. Clutch to the third then to the second gear around the corner. Every jump sends waves of shock up her arms, the muggy air embracing her two meters up mid-suspension. Higher and faster. One lap, two, two and a half. Nothing else matters except riding the high of the thrill and tasting the familiar burn on her tongue.

On the final lap, Hyunjung speeds up to the hairpin turn, tilts to the left and jerks her back wheel against the front wheel of number fourteen. Metal against rubber against synthetic fiber against brittle bones. Fourteen goes off her motorcycle and lands meters ahead in a mess of flailing limbs. Elation surges in as the crowd erupts in a collective frenzy. There’s barely time for empathy as Hyunjung gets away before anyone catches up.

Sojung finishes first, Hyunjung second and Yeonjung third. Again.

Not that it makes a difference save for the bragging rights.

By the end of the day, everything is shoved in a black suitcase and their bikes are hauled and chained down on the same black Hummer, Hyunjung’s bright red Honda CRF250L and Sojung’s blue Yamaha WR250R, and on a separately anchored trailer bed Juyeon’s lime green Kawasaki KLX250S and Yeonjung’s white Husqvarna FE250.

Lee Luda calls them back and they all sprawl on the backseat, Juyeon riding shotgun, “Time to go home.”

“We’re good for the next three months. Rent, cafe bills, tuition fees, medical fees, all the other fees. There’s also enough for those front fork springs for Cheongju,” Juyeon turns to the driver’s seat and Luda raises an ‘ok’ sign for everyone to see. “Now please please tell me no one else broke anything or got wounded because my hip feels really bad.”

“Well, I don’t know about anyone else but Hyunjung unnie’s ego is definitely wounded,” Luda quips. Yeonjung snorts, Sojung chokes on her smoke, and Juyeon shoves Luda a little too hard that the Hummer swerves to the next empty lane.

Hyunjung frowns but she waves it off, “There’s always next time to beat Sojung,” she sticks an elbow over the open window and feels a tear on her back. Tugging a sleeve down, she turns to Yeonjung beside her, “How bad is it?”

Yeonjung hovers her hands on top of a vibrant map of purple, blue and red across pale shoulders, “We should get this checked. It’s as big as both my hands.”

Sojung holds a hand up, a -eating grin behind her cigarette, and everyone makes a disgusted noise because her middle finger is grotesquely bent the wrong way, “This too. Nasty.”

“Unnie, how could you break a finger? You just bought new gloves last month,” Juyeon mutters.

“She knows she couldn’t win against me if she doesn’t give her two hundred percent,” Hyunjung grins.

“Five hundred percent,” Sojung barks a laugh, white smoke exploding overhead and out by the open windows, “Unnie, you know I love you, but I don’t want to be anywhere near you out there. If I fell second instead of that fourteen, you would’ve taken me out instead.”

“You think I really would?”

“You know you would.”

“No need to tell everyone that you just got lucky this time. Antagonizing me won’t help either.”

“But really, Hyunjung unnie did that fourteen nasty. Really really nasty and dirty,” Yeonjung remarks as she clears herself of injuries. “I kind of feel sorry for that fourteen. DNF. Taken out, clearly. Sprained ankle, I think.”

“Broken leg,” Luda corrects, “Juyeon also gave her a sick roost during the first lap.”

Juyeon turns, and her eyes have in them something trapped between arrogance and worry, “Whoa. That was the same person?”

Hyunjung frowns and dangles an arm out the open window. Everyone was in such a hurry to go home she wasn’t able to talk to that number fourteen. Maybe next time.

“Ha! Nice.” Yeonjung clears , “I mean, the roost part not on the broken leg. A broken leg isn’t nice at all. Juyeon unnie, what happened to you? You were right beside me in the first lap.”

“She attempted a wheelie again and failed,” Luda says, “obviously.”

“Stupid,” Sojung jeers, “Why the hell would you do that? Look what happened to your hip.”

“That fourteen was quick, sure, but it’s her first time here in Andong. Someone’s going to take her out one way or another, and it’s either me or Yeonjung for third,” Juyeon says, “and that was not a wheelie! I’m trying a new angle for a triple whip jump. You laugh at me now but when I get the hang of it...”

“So it’s Hyunjung unnie’s back, Sojung unnie’s finger, and Juyeon’s hip,” Luda grumbles, “and here I thought we’d be able to finally skip the hospital on the way home. I’ve been waiting for four years.”

“Who are you kidding? You know it’s a war zone out there,” Sojung scoffs.

They are children tempered to the nit and grit of off-road circuits and unforgiving terrains. Crashed against rock walls, thrown into the dirt and flung into trees countless times they lost count. From the trails their nerves steeled against the harsh mountains, and from the tracks they had screamed about holding on and letting go before everything explodes in either a sickening crunch or a strong blast of wind.

It’s the pulsating freedom in their veins that gets them up no matter how many bones they break. It’s the world responding to the curl of their fingers and the pressure of their legs. It’s the liberation of the self, a few minutes of absolute control.

It’s tangible freedom for the price of one healthy body.

Hyunjung catches Sojung staring at her from the other side of the Hummer, tapping on her temple repeatedly. She answers with a thumbs up and looks out the expressway.

Just about right.

-

They get themselves checked in a hospital in Daegu, mud-splattered jerseys swung over their shoulders and too-wide grins with traces of adrenaline. The doctor does rounds on them. Sojung’s finger x-rays turn out good, Juyeon is luckily two seconds away from a cartilage tear, and Hyunjung’s bruises need nothing more than cold compress and a good night’s sleep.

The nurse comes back alone with a bag of ice. Between hard scribbles on the clipboard, she introduces herself as Kim Jiyeon. Dark hair, glowing skin and the brightest of smiles. Easily the prettiest nurse Hyunjung has ever seen.

“We have a lot of off-road riders checking in this season,” Jiyeon says.

“Yeah, well, we normally break a lot of things,” Juyeon replies with bravado.

“It’s better if you don’t break anything. Take care of yourself out there.”

“We’re trying, alright, but that’s part of the sport.”

Sojung whispers in Hyunjung’s ear, grinning, “Should we tell her to expect that number fourteen with a broken leg soon?”

Hyunjung nudges her with an elbow and hisses, “Don’t be rude.” Then her right hand goes numb. Static from the wrist to the tips of her fingers. Talk about timing. If it happened during the race, she would’ve suffered more than a bruised back. She shakes her arm and takes the ice bag from the nurse with her functioning hand, “Thank you. I can do this myself.”

Jiyeon pauses to look at her, at Sojung and Juyeon, and finally at Luda and Yeonjung who just got back with a handful of snacks, judgment passed from a gaze of  starched scrubs and compassion. “You’re all very cute,” she says, flatly, “but please get a new less dangerous hobby.”

The shock stuns them into silence as Jiyeon saunters out of the room. Juyeon falls uncharacteristically quiet. Luda bends down to grab the choco pies that slip between Yeonjung’s fingers.

“I think she just offended her entire profession,” Hyunjung scowls in disbelief. She reaches over her shoulder to press the ice bag on her upper back, “wow. What a nurse.”

Sojung waves her splinted finger like a trophy and begins to laugh, “Please get a new less dangerous hobby. I like her already.”

Hyunjung frowns. She knows where this is going. Sojung is good at everything she does, especially at drawing people in. There’s just the right amount of intimidation, a flicker of a gaze, and a flash of a mischievous half-smile that could mean anything before everything hits home.

It’s a foolproof snare she uses on everyone except Hyunjung, who's already immune to anything that is Chu Sojung.

But the nurse, Kim Jiyeon, isn’t, so when Hyunjung catches Sojung talking to her on their way out of the hospital with a clean smile and not her usual smirk, there’s an unsettling chill on Hyunjung’s lower back. A dawning horror of resentment several horizons ahead.

-

Hyunjung resets the counter on her phone. Another fresh start for a rotting soul. Rewind then play again. Maybe this time fate will play a different song.

Her neuro-oncologist stresses that she shouldn’t ride anymore. The risk is too great, a second too dangerous should her vision or body coordination fail her. She doesn’t usually listen (Hyunjung never listens) but this time she takes the precautions a closer to the heart.

When they work their shift at the cafe she tells Luda to chain her bike in the garage. “I’m quitting for good,” she proclaims before everyone could jump in with questions, “I’m not going to let anyone else use it. Just keep it there for display. Maybe auction it off on the internet after a few decades. It’ll be vintage.”

“You said that about ten times for the past three months,” Yeonjung counts with her fingers, “No, that was more than a dozen.”

“No, really. I’m quitting.”

“Kim Hyunjung, a quitter? Unnie, it’s not realistic. What are you going to do, then? You’ve been racing for ten years. It’s the only t—”

“It’s the only thing I’ve been doing and good at, yes. But I’m serious this time. I could manage the cafe while the rest of you are out.”

“Sojung unnie won’t let you. And you also said that last time. That you’re serious.” Yeonjung hums.

“Forget what I said.”

“I’ll give her a week,” Juyeon whispers too loud in Luda’s ear, “three-thousand won.”

Luda stares at Hyunjung before stretching her fingers in front of her face, “Five days. Five-thousand.”

“Call.”

Sojung looks up from the espresso machine, doubt strewn over her features, and looks back down without saying anything.

“Fine. Don’t believe me,” Hyunjung says. So what she does is add some more locks to her bike and throw all the keys away; stashed in a trash can in a mall, dropped inconspicuously in an open manhole by the sidewalk, thrown out in the urban blur between Seongnam and Gangnam. She gives the bike’s keys to Sojung, who doesn’t need to be told what to do with it.

But it doesn’t even take Hyunjung five days before she tries busting the locks with a wrench and a hammer, breaking nothing but her resolution. Sixty-four hours, she had counted. Almost three days before she swallows her pride like a metal ball of spikes and begs Sojung to give her back the keys.

In the periphery of her vision, she sees Luda shoving crumpled money in Juyeon’s eager hands.

-

At the highest peak around the mountains of Cheongju, a single lap consists of a dangerous downhill of hairpin turns and blind curves with old cherry blossoms and sparse shrubs fencing the cliff fall and into the forest. Two sets of one-on-ones via elimination. First one to reach the mark at the bottom gets exempted from a week of duties from the coffee shop and the last gets to clean all their bikes.

“Vision, check. My hands and fingers are good, as well as my legs and feet. No numbness at all.” A thick elastic band of black and red careens right in front of Hyunjung’s face. She holds her hands up just in time to catch the goggles. “What was that for?”

“Reflexes, check,” Sojung grins in her helmet. She looks over the cliff, “Oh, she’s here. Unnie, I hope you don’t mind me inviting a friend.”

“Which friend?” Hyunjung secures the goggles over her helmet. Past the scrunched faces and chilling breeze, she sees someone talking with Juyeon and Yeonjung by the Hummer, “Who’s that?”

As if on cue, Kim Jiyeon looks up at them through a pair of binoculars and waves. Sojung waves back.

“Kim Jiyeon? The nurse? You like her this much that you invited her here— in our private place— without telling me?” the smile on Hyunjung’s lips turns sour. She doesn't realize that she’s been grinding her teeth too hard until Sojung raises an eyebrow, “Please get new less dangerous hobby, huh.”

“Temper, no check,” Sojung clicks her tongue, “Look, unnie, all she did was ask us to find a less life-threatening hobby. That’s not even half-bad when you think about it. Everyone was fine with it.”

“I’m not like everyone else.”

“It’s unreasonable for you to dislike her so much in such a short time. You’ve been around each other for five minutes or something,” Sojung relaxes her back and leans away from her dirt bike, “she’s just a friend.”