Soyeon fell into the rhythm of Hanbin’s life quicker and easier than he would have thought. She really wasn’t the typical Gangnam girl anyone would have pegged her. She was fierce, witty and a lot more cooler and less rigid than the stereotype. Of course she had her moments though when she pouted and thought she could get anything but her life didn’t revolve around designer bags and throwing the money out of the window. She didn’t look down at him at all despite knowing that his living conditions weren’t the best. And what started out as mere physical attraction between them soon evolved into something more as they got to know each other day by day.

Dating Soyeon involved a lot of car rides, stolen glances in the rear mirror, half made-up excuses in front of her parents, so she could accompany him to the weekend races and well, a bunch of dumbfounded friends. When she first visited him at the car repair shop on one of his off duty days as her driver, whispers followed her figure. Every head snapped up hearing the click-clacks of her boots echoing in the garage, some guy from the corner even whistled Soyeon’s entrance.

“Are you looking for something?” Yuna stood up from her chair where she was doing some finance calculations as soon as the girl stepped over the threshold. She might have recognized her from that night when Hanbin defeated her arrogant brother, Seungyeon, maybe she didn’t but her tone wasn’t as lovely as usually it was. She was pretty obviously judging the newly arrived girl in shorts and tank top even if she didn’t dress any less provocatively.

But Soyeon wasn’t easy to intimidate. She raised her chin high up.

“Yeah. I’m looking for Hanbin,” she replied and her voice didn’t waver even one bit. Her amusement of seeing the annoyance on the other’s face was barely a flash of glint in her chocolate eyes.

“And why exactly…”

“Hi babe,” Hanbin cut off the complaining Yuna as he stood from the cover of an old Hyundai. Wiping his palms into the dirty rag by his side, he walked over to the newcomer, pressing a quick kiss on her cheeks.

He had been listening to the whole conversation and the radiating confidence of Soyeon filled him with pride. His fingers dipped in oil slid to her waist like they belonged there, a subtle reminder for everyone around what was his. Hanbin wasn’t a possessive person or a show-off - okay maybe he was when it came to cars - but after they discusses their mutual feelings, physical closeness to Soyeon was addictive. Whenever he had her around, his fingers itched to touch, to claim, to hold tight and feel her heartbeat against his. So it’s not that he was afraid any of his friends would try something with her but rather because he liked the sight of the faint blush on Soyeon’s cheeks whenever he was being touchy. Well well, it was her who complained about him not touching her enough back then, so now he made sure she didn’t get such stupid thoughts into her head.

“Babe?” Yuna echoed more puzzled than ever with her elegant eyebrows stick to the middle of her forehead. She scoffed as if it was so unbelievable but she didn’t know Soyeon, none of them did like him. In their eyes she was still the chick who became the prize of her brother’s stupid game.

“Dude, are you really ing your boss’ daughter?” Someone whistled in disbelief from one corner and Hanbin wanted to throw something hard at Jinhwan for his obscene words. But he knew he didn’t mean anything bad by it. They had been friends for half a decade, they had had each other’s back in the most difficult times, so he knew the elder guy was just teasing shamelessly.

“What? Are you jealous?” Hanbin played along and based on the laughter that erupted around them everybody knew it was all chill. A few went back to work immediately, while others gathered around them curiously eyeing the first girl Hanbin brought back here.

“Guys, this is Soyeon. She’s nothing like her brother, so don’t get ideas,” the guy started off with introductions because he wanted to avoid any malicious comments about her being here to spy on them or any ridiculous claim like that. While working for her family, Hanbin had clearly seen that Soyeon despised nobody like her brother. He treated her like a fool and used every chance to get back at her. He was the reason why their circle of people, the rich kids were wary of Soyeon. Her brother made sure nobody approached his sister but luckily he wasn’t able to bribe or scare off Junhoe and a few university friends like Miyeon at least. Unlike her Hanbin was lucky enough to call a bunch of people his friends, almost like family and one of the reasons why he invited her over was so that the most important people in his life could meet. And if Soyeon was able to make some friends along the way even better. “She is also my girl, so show her some respect.”

“She can have all of mine if she’s able to put up with you,” Bobby, another teasing , hollered but Hanbin was used to this kind of behaviour and he just rolled his eyes with a huge grin on his face. Of course his friends wanted to make fun of him before Soyeon.

“Let me introduce these idiots to you,” he turned his head and whispered into her ear, mouth grazing over the dangling earring she wore. He felt the tremble the little action sent through Soyeon’s body and he was glad he wasn’t the only one affected by their newfound intimacy but this wasn’t the time, nor the place to venture into a new territory. First, she had to meet the fam.

After the small bumps and initial awkwardness of the first meeting, Soyeon became a frequent guest at the shop. She visited him regularly in-between races and after Hanbin’s official working hours. Eventually she got along well with everybody. Bobby treated her as if she was his fierce, long-lost younger sister which was stupidly endearing. In the meantime Jinhwan shamelessly encouraged her to bring her ‘ridiculously handsome’ friend along next time she comes. She laughed and promised she would, exchanging a secret look with her boyfriend because they both knew that their friends had the hots for each other. Haesoo gladly welcomed another girl in the gang and adored her fashion style which she never failed to compliment. Hanbin even jokingly complained once that he felt like a parrot repeating after her because he always missed his chance to be the first one to comment on Soyeon’s look when the younger girl was in the shop, too. His girlfriend just laughed hearing his whining and told him she didn’t mind hearing it again.

Since Soyeon herself knew quite a bit about cars, she got a hang of their inside jokes quickly and was able to really be a part of their gang. The last one to let go off her prejudice was Yuna who refused to believe she was anything more than a silly rich chick playing with Hanbin’s heart until their little bet. It took only a few visits to reach the end of Yuna’s patience and hostility. Soyeon merely suggested a bit of a change in the torque of the car for better performance but it made the other girl scoff.

“Are you speaking from experience or just running your lipstick mouth about something you have know idea of?” she grimaced clearly not giving enough credit but Soyeon wasn’t one to let things like this go. It wasn’t the first time to prove herself, so she didn’t even hesitate pushing herself away from the currently fixed car, getting into the personal space of the other.

“Well why don’t you find it out? Wanna hit the road?”

The little crowd around them hollered, it was an invitation for waltz but not the elegant kind.

“Are you for real? Sure, it’s so on.” After her initial surprise, Yuna collected herself quickly and threw a challenging glance at the girl before turning on her heels, heading over her car. Soyeon turned to Hanbin one last time and flashed a bright, confident smile that looked better on her than any accessory. He gave her thumbs up and moved together with the crowd of people who all moved outside to the border of the road to see them getting lined up.

“Yuna has even raced in the Ring, she will demolish Soyeon-ah,” Bobby shook his head in a sad, sympathetic voice as he reached Hanbin’s side. Next was Jinhwan to catch up with them.

“If she’s able to keep up that’s already enough to earn her respect,” he said eyeing the expensive car the politician’s daughter had neck-to-neck with Yuna’s older but race-trained car.

“Why are you letting her do this?” Bobby pushed his shoulder but they both gave the guy a disapproving look. However, getting between them had never crossed Hanbin’s mind. The corner of his lips turned upwards.

“Because it’s her fight and because she’s going to win. She’s a natural, believe me.”

He really didn’t get why the Jeon parents insisted on her having a chauffeur when she was an excellent driver herself. It might had had something to do with her schedules being monitored this way or that with a personal driver and car for each member of the family, they could show off their wealth. Or maybe they didn’t want to give her that much control. But since he would have never understood Mr. Jeon’s decisions regarding his family, Hanbin gave up pretty early on analysing his reasons.

The rules were easy: till the end of the street and then back, the signal for the start was given by Haesoo. Then everybody cheered for their favourite, screaming from the top of their lungs. Races were always a liberating way of having fun, a kind of hedonism, pumping their adrenalin levels up even if they were just small, in-house ones. They could show themselves, putting their talents on display and even if Hanbin had already seen Soyeon drive, he anticipated the race.

Both cars accelerated quickly shooting into the distance ahead and it was impossible to tell which one of them would be the winner. The U-turn in the dead end of the road was the trick. Whoever manages to take that faster will most probably gain enough leverage to secure their first place. From this distance the two cars seemed like nothing more than colourful patches but it was easy to tell when they arrived to the turning point.

Everybody screamed and shouted gathering around the vehicle that got back first and they exclaimed their congratulations loudly as soon as Soyeon opened the door.

“Oh my gosh, that was so sick, girl!”

“Never knew you had it in you, damn.”

Hanbin smiled proudly and endeared seeing her shyness at all these compliment. He made his way through the small mass of people.

“Congrats,” he said with a grin and welcomed the girl in his arms gladly, the nice, sweet scent of her lotus shampoo filling his senses. Her head was just by the crook of his neck, the perfect height to hug if you asked them. He could forget about time and place in serene moments like this.

The gathering around them slowly dissolved, the guys going back to work one by one.

“Let’s go for a ride,” Hanbin suggested because he knew the perfect place he wanted to show his girl.

“Stay safe, kids,” Jinhwan singsonged while leaving and Hanbin really threw his dirty rag at him. Luckily, Soyeon didn’t care or at least she didn’t comment on it as she walked around the car. She threw her car key at him and he caught it on instinct.

The drive was a pleasant one talking about everything and nothing, reminiscing old memories and speaking about making new ones. In these moments they forgot about the obvious differences in their lives, about the almost inevitable end and they were just living in the moment.

“Wow,” Soyeon breathed in awe when they arrived to the parking lot of one of the most popular lookout spots outside of the busy city life. On a weekday, this late there was barely anybody around and they had a first row view on the illuminated, neon jungle of Seoul. It was like staring at million stars fallen on the ground. “It’s beautiful.”

“So are you,” Hanbin blurted out no matter how cheesy it was because he enjoyed the sight of the blush creeping onto the girl’s face all to much. Slowly he leaned over the gear shift, watching every small reaction of her, the way her eyes flattered close, mouth slightly parted and he closed the distance between them. At first it was slow, exploring each other but with every flick of tongue and hands on skin the temperature had risen around them and it wasn’t enough.

“You were so hot challenging Yuna,” the guy whispered into the seam of , voice rough and raspy.

“Just then?” Soyeon asked teasingly, eyes glinting in the dark like cats do and Hanbin’s breath hitched when her soft, little hand found the zipper of his full body uniform at his neck.

“No, you’re hot now too,” he admitted with a gulp, sneaking a hand over the expanse of skin by her waist. The girl seemed to approve his answer with a hum and painfully slowly she pulled down the zipper revealing a simple white tank top under it. Sneaking her hand between the two materials they resumed kissing but it became pretty uncomfortable after a while.

Hanbin unbuckled both of their seatbelts and pushed his seat farther back between heavy panting.

“Come here,” he mumbled against her swollen, strawberry-flavoured lips and with a hand firmly on her thigh he helped Soyeon over the middle of the car and pulled her into his lap. She sighed satisfied when she could push off the uniform off his shoulders finally revealing his biceps and tattoos peeking out from under the shirt.

It was the first time they advanced from simply kissing to something deliberately hot like this, so it was all new and exciting and even if Hanbin knew his way around girls, Soyeon seemed to drive him crazy. His hand found its way under her crop top getting  firm grip on her side, thumb the edge of her bra as he kissed down on her jaw pressing open mouth kisses onto her swan neck and he worked on leaving a lasting mark on her skin, a reminder of his presence there. Hearing the girl moan when he on the skin particularly hard was music to his ears and he relished in the feeling of her nails digging into his arm.

It felt like they made out for an eternity because they knew it’s not safe going any further out here in the open, at such a public place but they didn’t want to stop either.

“I wish we could stay here forever,” Soyeon whispered once they cooled down, her breath hitting the sweaty neck of Hanbin in a way that send chills down the guy’s spine but he agreed with a hum and pulled his girl even closer to his chest.

They could worry the day after, that night he didn’t want to care about anything.