He used to be terrified sitting behind the wheel.

Most people never learned how to drive. The roads were almost always congested in Seoul and it was much faster and cheaper to travel with public transportation. Driving lessons were extremely costly and most people failed their driving exams, so trains were the most popular method of transportation. All one had to do was enter the train station, pay, and wait until their destination came into view.

Trains were romantic in a way. One could easily compose poetry on the train out of sheer boredom while their watches spun forward.

Minhyun was a tall male who would often attract the eyes of many strangers, and whenever he boarded a train, people would get out of the way to make space for him. He would stand in the corner of the train, not wanting to touch anyone, and he would wonder about the people on the train.

Who were they? What made them happy? Where were they going?

He had these thoughts quite often whenever he was on a train.

It was either school or work.

Students went to school to get a job so they could have money to live. And sometimes, they would have time for themselves.

To see other people, to go shopping, to make memories.

But despite always being scared of driving, he finally saved up enough money from his numerous part-time jobs over the years to buy a used car.

Admittedly, he was a very bad driver in the beginning. Like almost every other person in the world, he suffered from driving anxiety and would panic whenever something happened while he was driving.

Luckily for him, his friend, Jonghyun, had the patience of an angel as he sat next to Minhyun in the car. Jonghyun had probably feared for his life as well, but as the calm person that he was, he didn't say a word to Minhyun. Instead, he encouraged him whenever Minhyun made a mistake and took the time to calm him down whenever he was panicking.

At first, Minhyun was even scared to drive around a parking lot in fear that he would hit a parked car.

Then, he was scared whenever there was a car driving in the opposite direction on the other side of the lane. He needed to learn his alignments and how to adjust his car without swerving widely.

Later, he was still scared when he was learning how to park into parking spots whenever there was a car waiting for him. And he was even more scared when he was learning how to parallel park in between two cars and the car behind him would honk him, signifying their frustration that he was taking too long to shove his car into the spot and get out of the way.

Eventually, driving became easy for him. Parking was the trouble.

Due to his anxiety, he was always rushing into parking spots in parking lots, which made him always miss parking his car in between the two white lines. Parallel parking was mostly fine for him except if there was another car behind him, waiting for him to finish parking.

But when he finally became average at parking, he had to conquer a new fear that all new drivers shuddered to think about.

Driving on the freeway.

Merging at high speeds, watching out for drivers who were incapable of doing lane changes, and doing lane changes himself. Being able to read signs while driving at high speeds, being able to swiftly change lanes quickly enough to avoid missing his exits.

But when he finally forced himself to enter a freeway for the first time while Jonghyun told him to speed up to match the speed of traffic, he finally felt like he understood why people would spend so much money to learn how to drive. As he exerted more pressure on his gas pedal and did his first lane change, safely merging onto the freeway, he laughed as the wind blew his hair into a million directions. Jonghyun was laughing, he was laughing, and the cars behind him were ignoring him as they continued to drive past him.

It was summer that day, and the sunset was beautiful as the sky slowly transitioned from a bright blue to a light wash of pink. Minhyun was wearing a blue sweater, Jonghyun was wearing a black hoodie, and they both could not understand why the other was wearing what they were with the AC being broken.

A small smile was on Jonghyun's face as he fiddled with the AC button and kept his eyes off the road, trusting Minhyun with his life. "What are you going to do in the fall, Minhyun?"

A small shake of the head. Minhyun's lips crooked a little to his right side, a habit that he had whenever he felt vulnerable and lied when his trusted friends were around. Although really, there was no point in lying to Jonghyun. He was like a brother who knew Minhyun better than he knew himself.

"I don't know," he answered truthfully as he swerved a little too quickly to the right lane, forcing the driver behind him to slightly brake for him. They both waved their hand in the air as an apology. "Do you know?"

"All I know how to do is write," Jonghyun said as he placed his hand down. "And I suppose that is what I will continue to do when summer is over."

The two were silent for a long time as they both sat next to one another, listening to the radio and watching the sunset fade away tonight. Summer was leaving soon and Minhyun, a man who was already twenty years ago, had no idea what to do with his life.

He only had the courage later to say what he was thinking when he was parking in front of Jonghyun's apartment, with his head turned back to watch his car reverse next to the curb. He was avoiding the eyes shining in the dark.

"When summer is over, I'll live."