A bead of sweat rolls down Kang Kyungwon’s cheek, pupils shaking from the adrenaline pumping through her veins– she swears she can feel it physically. The rain splatters heavy against her windshield like gunfire, and her fingers around the steering wheel are as tight as ever– as though it’d come flying off if she didn’t hold onto it like how she did, nails digging into the leather grip.

A myriad of thoughts flew in and out of her mind– how there was so much at stake on that very evening, the precision of the movement of her arms, her gaze constantly to and from the road and the rear view mirror. She bites her lower lip, completely out of bad habit, as she makes a sharp left turn across the curve around six hundred miles away from the finishing point agreed upon. Though she’s in the lead, she can feel her opponent hot on her trail, finding that perfect opportunity to overtake– but not on Kyungwon’s watch. She wasn’t called the Foxes’ top racer for nothing. The title of Vixen among all, she continues to prove, is well-earned.

The unexpected screeching of her rubber tires against the rigged cement causes panic for a split-second, but she knows better than to get agitated by the unforeseen. It’s a feeling she’s familiar with, but never really got used to. Shaking away the teasing thoughts instead, she swiftly moves her hand to switch gears.

Crisis averted, her car is back on track– or her baby, as she calls it. Upon recovery, she literally stomps against the gas pedal, and her engine revs up a sweet symphony to her ears. The light material of the car as if pierces through the air. Victory was literally seconds away. She sees a crowd of people holding up flashlights– waving them, coaxing her over to her rival’s ultimate demise. She holds her breath for the next few seconds before, again, making a sharp turn and simultaneously pulling up the handbrake, doing her best to avoid everybody on site.

When her car makes a full stop, she finally resumes stability in her breathing, but there’s a salty and bitter– somewhat metallic– taste in that she only notices in that instance; a sharp pain defined right where her teeth had sunk into prior.

“.” Kyungwon cusses under her breath as she brings her fingers up against her lower lip, not at all surprised to see blood drawing from the slight cut there brought about by her teeth. And that was when her senses as if snapped back into reality–– the crowd cheering around her– a cacophony of chattering, the shriek of her opponent’s tires as he makes a full stop as well, the unnecessarily loud music blaring through the three foot tall speakers sitting in somebody’s trunk battling it out with the sound of rain plummeting hard against everything and everyone, and two knocks against her window. She turns to see who it is, and it’s no other than Jung Eunwoo. Though most know her as the Foxes’ top mechanic, Kyungwon knows her as a best friend.

“Cut your lip again?” She read the way Eunwoo’s lips moved, and saw her pointing at her own jut out lower lip. Kyungwon shrugs, using the back of her hand to wipe off any drops left, wanting to seem nonchalant despite the slight sting. Eunwoo rolls her eyes. “Come out here,” she orders briskly, genuine concern evident in just the way her eyes widened, and how her her brows furrowed together.

“No umbrella?” Kyungwon’s lips quiver slightly, uncontrollably so, as she gestures opening up an umbrella with both her hands like how a child would.

Eunwoo couldn’t help but roll her eyes yet again, groaning thereafter. She brushes her strawberry blonde locks (that clung to her forehead and her cheeks due to the heavy downpour) back with her fingers, obviously exasperated. “Can’t you see I’m soaked, too? No. Umbrella.”

And Kyungwon laughs because she’s once again reminded of how child-like Eunwoo can render sometimes, albeit the fact that nearly everyone else in their gang looks up to her for being quite smart and knowledgable on a lot of things, the latest technology in street racing included. She was the only one who knew how to send her baby flying, but there was a vulnerability that Eunwoo showed only to select people– a side of her that Kyungwon found most endearing. “Alright, alright.”

Eunwoo steps aside as Kyungwon opens the car door and steps out. A cold breeze passes by, and she’s completely wet in an instant. There was no time for the drops of water to cascade down her windbreaker, nor down her jeans. Rain was coming in from all directions, primarily due to the erratic winds.

“Good race, Kang.” She hears a male voice call out to her from behind despite the nearly-deafening music being played, and the sound of rain crashing. She turns her head, and she instantly puts on her PR-practiced smile, coming face-to-face with Shin Wonho— just the Ghouls’ (the supposed rival gang to the Foxes– though the latter sees them as no apparent threat, really) top racer who she had just so recently defeated.

“Likewise, Shin. But it seems like we’re keeping your downtown turf until your group of pretty boys find a better racer than you. And it seems like I have a new toy for Eunwoo to play with in the garage, too.” Wonho loses the smug look on his face when he hears such words from Kyungwon. “And mind you, I sandbagged.” She quips, and takes a few steps forth, giving Wonho’s pallid cheek two light pats before walking past him, blindly pointing back at Eunwoo with a thumb. “Leave your keys with her, by the way. I have no interest in that piece of trash.”

Though dejected, Wonho swallows his pride (along with the saliva pitting in his mouth from being astounded by how blunt Kyungwon had been) and throws the car keys towards Eunwoo, who catches it with ease, using both hands.

Lightning splits through the darkness of the night sky, followed by a loud boom of thunder. And in that second, the Ghouls scramble out of the venue in their quiet defeat. Come morning of the following day, Wonho would most probably be stripped of his title as a Ghoul altogether.

The following day for Kyungwon, however, was a low ceiling, a hard pillow underneath her head, and rough linen wrapped around her petite frame. The sound of rain is still ticking, but lighter this time– and against the window pane. Soon, her senses wake up along with her, and the soft breathing of a certain Jung Eunwoo, passed out on the poor excuse of a couch by Kyungwon’s feet, becomes apparent.

The vibrant blue skies she saw in her dreams has reduced to the muted teal of her apartment’s wallpaper. At night, she was Vixen, a valued member of the Foxes but come day she was regular ol’ Kang Kyungwon. Just like how Eunwoo would be nothing more than a university student taking up mechanical engineering to the eyes of everyone when the sky was lighter than that of an evening’s.

But it’s nothing that Kyungwon isn’t used to.

Trying to make as little noise as possible, she gets off her bed– curses at the squeaky flooring that foils her initial intent– and drags her feet across the wooden floorboards and out the room. She gazes at the calendar and groans in realization that it was Friday. On Fridays, she was on bathroom duty in the left wing of the hospital she’d been assigned to just weeks ago. She hated the left wing, the left wing was for monochromatic geriatrics who couldn’t aim for .

Fridays also meant that Eunwoo had classes at 11 o’clock in the morning. Kyungwon takes a quick look at the clock, and finds that her attempt of being quiet had been futile in the first place– it was about time the younger girl got up and got prepared for university anyway. But if she wasn’t going to wake up on her own accord, then Kyungwon thinks to herself that she should let her be. Last night was rough, after all.

But not for her. She had toilets to clean up.
 

The rain hadn’t stopped since last evening, but it did get weaker. All that’s left is a drizzle– merely a memory, a fraction of last night’s harsh and heavy rainfall. The sound of raindrops against glass follows her even to work, as she’s clad in her unflattering jumpsuit of a uniform and inside the bathroom she had been assigned to– the first out of the twenty she had to clean up, at least.

As she’s forcibly attempting to unclog a certain toilet with the use of a plunger, she feels her phone vibrating in her back pocket. One look at the screen and she sees it’s from her stepmom. Wordlessly, she stares at it for a few rings more before sighing, pulling down the mask covering , and placing the phone to her ear.

“Yeah? I’m kind of busy right now.” The pungent stench of the bathroom gets to her, and she’s forced to push the mask back up to cover again. “Is it going to take long?”

“N-No!” The older woman stammers, and Kyungwon swears she can hear her stepmom’s knees shaking from the other end of the call. “It’s just… the–” She gets cut off. Kyungwon chooses to address the elephant in the room, and shorten her stepmother’s misery.

“I’ll transfer the funds later tonight. Sorry it’s late, this ty job isn’t paying well at all. I’m trying to find better paying jobs” Out of instinct, she gives the wooden handle of the toilet plunger a little kick, huffing thereafter. They share silence for a little while, but neither ended the call. They both knew there was much more to speak of, but didn’t quite know how to go about it.

“... How’s dad holding up? I didn’t get to visit last night. I had stuff to attend to. More part time stuff.”

Another long pause. Kyungwon leans back against the wall, her free arm wrapping around herself out of habit. “I wish you had told him you weren’t coming. He spent all of last evening crying and calling out for you.”

Kyungwon sinks her teeth into her lower lip, banging the back of her head against the wooden material of the cubicle wall. She saw this coming. A sick feeling settles in her stomach, and she straight up feels like vomiting– and the trenchant funk literally seething through the mask protecting her nose was not helping at all.

“I’ll visit as soon as I can.”

She stomachs her emotions to be able to say that without faltering, but instantly ends the call. For the rest of the day, she carries on cleaning– but does so mindlessly, unenthusiastically. Nineteen bathrooms later and she feels as though she’s numbed to the smell.

Her phone vibrates familiarly as it sits in the back pocket of her sweat-stained jumpsuit, but she pays it no mind until it was time to strip out of it. Her uniform looks filthy, she notices, and makes a mental note to bring that one to the laundromat.

She takes a look at her phone for the first time in around eight hours, and there’s this barrage of messages and missed calls. She brings her hand up, lightly gripping at her jet black locks as she ponders which ones to respond to firstly. Though there’s more urgency to the ones coming from her stepmother (as emphasized by the thirteen missed calls), she opens the ones from Eunwoo first.

– [FROM.계란]

› CRAZY WHY DIDN’T YOU WAKE ME UP THIS MORNING, I’M A CUT AWAY FROM HAVING FAILURE DUE TO ABSENCES IN MY FRIDAY MORNING LECTURES

› also you didn't prepare any food before leaving ㅠ

› what time will you be coming home?

› bring dinner! (*´∀｀)

› P.S., king f just deposited our cut from last night into the account, you might want to withdraw that on your way home

› and your stepmum rang up the landline like 84839933 times today

› i knew it was her because literally nobody in this generation uses the telephone cept her (¯―¯٥)

› looking forward to a grandiose dinner, see you tonight

Somehow, Eunwoo never fails to make Kyungwon smile no matter how crappy her day has been going, and those texts alone validates that. And though the other Foxes had brought up the possibility of the two of them developing romantic feelings towards each other, the prospect of it made Kyungwon want to vomit. If anything, she sees Eunwoo as no more as a best friend– a soul mate, the one she can’t imagine life without. In a nutshell, or a term a bit more familiar, Eunwoo always seemed like a little sister to Kyungwon.

– [TO.계란]

› i hope you consider cup noodles a grandiose meal

She taps on send, and proceeds to go through her other messages. A few messages from her stepmom to call her back as soon as she can, a notification from the bank that a deposit has been made to her account, and messages from other Foxes congratulating her on a job well done on the race last night. Nothing she considered much of any value, nor anything worth replying to. A fleeting thought passes her by: she could really use a smoke then and there.

She punches in the code to her locker, opens it up, grabs her bag, stuffs her grimey uniform in it, slams the door shut and makes her way out of the hospital.

Bank, bank, bank. She repeats to herself in her mind, in between musings of how much King F– the guy in charge of the Foxes’ financial matters– had cut for her and Eunwoo this time around.

One would think she’d be making a fortune out of how amazing of an asset she was to the gang, but it’s otherwise– her crap excuse for an apartment is enough to say it all, really. It wasn’t that she was paid unjustly, it’s just that she and Eunwoo had a shared cut, and Kyungwon had always felt obligated to give most of the money to Eunwoo– for her university fees, for buying equipment to use on her baby, and getting her through life in general. It was the least she could do. The rest of her half would more or less go into keeping her father in the hospital.

Kyungwon’s father is definitely dying, but it’s been such a slow, painstaking process. He’s been bedridden for over a year, and he’s starting to look a little less human with every tube and wire attached to his body– more and more being added every time she pays a visit, she’s sure. He started looking like the blueprints of robotronics of sort Eunwoo had pinned in the walls of their room.

The thought of her dad alone makes her heartbeat double in rate, pounding against her ribcage. She can physically feel it– loud and insistent. It incites guilt, but it is futile. She knows she can only do so much.
 

The bank erected right next to the apartment complex Kyungwon calls home comes into view. She reaches into her bag for her small, denim wallet as she drags her feet along the pavement, though her mind lingers on what to take home for dinner– though she had already lowered Eunwoo’s expectations to mere cup noodles, she figured it would be a nice surprise for the younger girl if she did come home with something nice.

After making the withdrawal at the bank (₩1.7M– not so bad, and much better than the usual; perfect, Kyungwon thinks, because the next installment for Eunwoo’s university fees is due the following week), Kyungwon stops by a Chinese restaurant to pick up some noodles, beef brisket, a bunch of other viands, and an unnecessary amount of rice. For herself, he picks up a green apple flavoured popsicle, ling on it quite happily while making her way back home.

As she’s skipping up the stairs to the third floor, she feels her phone vibrating inside her bag. She pushes the popsicle further down , letting it lodge into the in-between of her teeth and into her cheek, and reaches into her bag with both hands– one for her house keys, the other for her phone. The name [ F.보스 ] flashes on the screen, indicating a call. She slips her phone in between her shoulder and her ear, as she sets foot on the third floor landing.

“Yup?” She mutters in a nearly incoherent manner, struggling to speak due to the popsicle in .

There is nothing else heard but static for a few moments.

She stops by the door to their apartment, fiddling with the keys with one hand, and holding onto the popsicle stick with the other so she’d be able to speak more clearly. “Seungcheol? What’s up?”

“Vixen, where are you right now?” He quips from the other end of the line, obviously tense. The way he talks in a hushed manner makes Kyungwon instinctively mimic it.

Kyungwon furrows her brows in confusion, as she struggles to insert the key past the hole. “About to crash into my bed like it’s nobody’s business. Why?”

“Wait, what? Are you inside your apartment right now?”

“I’m like, two seconds away from being inside the cramped up space, yeah. Why? Is there something wrong?”

“Don’t. Go. In. There.”

“W-what?”

“Turn around right now, and start walking away. Don’t run, don’t cause too much a fuzz. Just go.”

“I… don’t quite follow…”

“It’s your partner. Jung Eunwoo.” Seungcheol clarifies. This is when Kyungwon freezes in place, blinking in profuse. “She came in a while ago saying she found the dead body of a Shin Wonho in your apartment when she came back from school. It’s only a matter of time before the police get there. So please, hurry, come to the garage.”