Warning(s): cursing, some violence
Length: 5.0k words

Although Baekhyun can’t see Ange’s face, he knows she’s pouting as she paces back and forth because this is the fifth minute in which she has voiced her worries about Mark.

ing Mark.

Baekhyun admits that he hasn’t been a good mentor or senior to the poor Mark, but there is a line that even close friends shouldn’t cross. At some point, a real friend has to place their foot down and stop intervening in every situation that goes wrong. Maybe if Ange wasn’t the girl that Mark has a crush on, then maybe Baekhyun would be more inclined to console him. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

So Mark. At least for now.

“He’ll come around,” Baekhyun grumbles as he uncovers his day car—a black BMW that’s at least a decade old by now. “Mark always does this,” he tells Ange over the phone. “He mopes around when he gets rejected, but he always gets over it.”

“But he hasn’t been answering my texts,” Ange whines. “And he always replies within 10 minutes.”

Within 10 minutes? Goddamn, Baekhyun thinks to himself. So when I’m not texting her, Mark is? that guy.

“Just relax,” Baekhyun reassures her. “He’ll come around. He’s probably getting drunk…” Baekhyun looks at the clock on his garage wall. It’s only 7PM. Most clubs don’t open until 8. “…or something.”

“Or something?” Ange echoes. “You’re making it really easy to tell that you don’t care about him as much as I do.” Baekhyun doesn’t even want to entertain Ange by giving her an answer to that, but then she continues speaking. “Baek,” she says like a know-it-all, “it sounds like you’re jealous.”

“Jealous?” Baekhyun raises his brows and smirks. “Right. I’m so jealous. Ooo,” he teases. “I’m so scared that you’ll find someone better than me. Come on,” Baekhyun scoffs. “Who bought you a plane ticket to Dubai? Who owns more cars?” Baekhyun tries to stop himself from smiling, but it’s impossible not to when he knows he’s objectively better than his assistant. “And I’m not gonna brag here,” he says lowly, “but I can reach places where Mark can’t.”

There’s only soft breathing on the other side of the line.

“Is that a reference to your…?” Ange asks in a small voice, causing Baekhyun to laugh.

“I could be talking about how I always win first place at the races, and that’s the first thing you thought of?” Baekhyun teases even though that’s exactly what he was referencing. “Never mind. Just trust me when I say he’ll come around, okay? He can’t be mad forever.”

“Okay, I guess,” Ange mumbles. “I just hope he’s not doing anything stupid.” She sighs, and Baekhyun imagines her to be pouting, her lips jutting out as a frown forms on her face. “I’ll see you tomorrow then, okay?”

“I will. Goodnight, Angel.”

“Goodniiiiight.”

Baekhyun lets her hang up on him, and he enters his BMW with a smile on his face. Talking to Ange always calms him down even when she’s overreacting over other guys because at least he knows that she’s safe. Of course, Baekhyun will have to readdress the whole Mark thing with her at some point—and with Mark himself—but for now, the most he can do is get her to stop worrying about someone she shouldn’t even be thinking about.

“Mark, you piece of , you got my girlfriend worrying more about you than she worries about me,” Baekhyun mutters as he leaves Mark a message asking to talk. Though Baekhyun knows that Mark will most likely ignore it, at least Baekhyun can say that he tried reaching out.

Baekhyun starts his car after placing his phone down. Kyungsoo needed to get his car towed while he was at work because its tires were flat, and he was supposed to get his car back before he finished his shift, but towing companies aren’t exactly upstanding on keeping a schedule. Fortunately, Kyungsoo does have a friend in Baekhyun—and Baekhyun was more than happy to give him a ride home; Baekhyun figures that he should start building more onto his friendship with Kyungsoo since, after all, he is sort of dating Ange.

The old BMW from another decade doesn’t go as fast as Baekhyun’s Jaguar, but he still gets to Kyungsoo’s place of employment—that brutal-looking car factory in the middle of nowhere—in record time.

“Hey, Baekhyun!” Kyungsoo exclaims when he gets inside the car. “Thanks for the ride, man. Means a lot.”

“No problem. You know I don’t mind.”

“I just don’t want to be that friend,” Kyungsoo confesses sheepishly as he buckles up. “I always go to you when I have problems with my car, you’re basically babysitting my sister, and now you’re giving me a ride. You do a lot.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not a big deal.”

“It’s a big deal to me,” Kyungsoo insists. “Ange actually wanted to go out and be a waitress until I convinced her to take up an apprenticeship with you—and so far, it’s been going great.” Kyungsoo runs his hands through his hair as if it in disbelief. “God, I never thought my sister of all people would be telling me that I need to get an oil change.”

Baekhyun smiles to himself.

Oh, Angel.

“And she knows how to change a tire,” Kyungsoo adds. “Even I don’t know how to do that. You’re amazing if you can get her to do anything with cars. I’m serious, Baekhyun. You’ve actually gotten my sister to like something.”

“Aw, come on,” Baekhyun waves off Kyungsoo. “Don’t give me any credit. That’s all her. She shows up everyday and follows instructions.” Most of the time. “I’m not doing anything special.”

“But I think you are,” Kyungsoo presses on. “I honestly thought she would come whining to me after a month, but it’s April now.”

“Time flies.”

“It sure does.” Kyungsoo takes a deep sigh, leaning back in his seat. “Everything’s looking up for once. I really love my new job, and they’ve given me a raise already. Not to mention, I got you as a friend.” Baekhyun feels Kyungsoo’s eyes on him. “Thanks for what you’ve done—especially with Ange since I know for a fact that she likes messing around. But I got a good friend looking over her and making sure she’s productive, and I really can’t thank you enough for that.”

Kyungsoo continues talking about how it means the world to him that Ange isn’t on the streets stirring trouble, and Baekhyun bites his tongue in guilt because Kyungsoo doesn’t anything. Sure, Ange isn’t on the street, but she’s at the street races, and that isn’t any better than being a youth roaming the city and committing petty crime. If anything, attending a street race makes her more vulnerable since she’s directly affiliated with Lux—and Lux is a pure criminal, the embodiment of it actually. Baekhyun hates that Kyungsoo is in the dark about this, and what he hates most is that Kyungsoo thinks that he’s a good person on top of it.

“Hey, I’m worried about you, though,” Kyungsoo says, his voice quickly taking on a somber tone. “You told me about your brother a while back, and I—I’m worried about you.”

“Worried about me?” Baekhyun arches a brow. “Why?”

“Well, uh…” Kyungsoo now seems hesitant to talk when he had been running his mouth just moments ago. “You told me that it, uh, um, happened on your birthday, and your birthday’s in a few weeks, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is.”

Baekhyun has to stop at a red light upon reaching downtown Daegu. The silence throbs and brings back old memories like a bruise that hasn’t quite healed yet.

“My parents died in October,” Kyungsoo states, shattering the already ugly silence with an uglier truth—that death is all around them. “Every time it comes up to that date, it just—I don’t know—everything feels different.” Kyungsoo sighs, and when Baekhyun glances at him, his eyes are cast down and staring at his lap. “I lived 19 years of my life going through every October like it was okay, and suddenly every October after that is ruined. Like, it tastes weird. Like, time isn’t real, and I’m stuck in time reliving hearing the news and seeing my sister in the hospital.”

No one simply walks away from having someone ripped away from their lives.

“I’m fine, though,” Baekhyun insists.

“You sure? You’re not mentally exhausted or anything?”

“No,” Baekhyun lies. In between juggling quite literally everything, he is exhausted, and he would like it all to stop, but he can’t stop, and he won’t stop. “I’m doing pretty well,” he adds. “Business is doing great, and I’ve been busy with keeping up with it.”

They’ve just pulled up to Kyungsoo’s apartment, and the lights are , signaling Ange’s presence.

“That’s good to hear,” Kyungsoo notes. “Really good to hear, actually.” He gathers his messenger bag and water flask from the floor before making eye contact with Baekhyun. Like Ange’s, Kyungsoo’s eyes are big and rounded, making him look like a puppy. In a way, he is—because he doesn’t know and won’t ever know how dangerous it is to live Baekhyun’s life. “Stay safe,” Kyungsoo says. “Crime rates aren’t going down any time soon, and I’d hate to see anything happen to you.”

“Nothing’s going to happen, Kyungsoo, don’t worry.”

“You don’t know that,” Kyungsoo cuts in. “Be safe, Baekhyun.”

They stare at each other wordlessly for a moment before Baekhyun finally nods, and the drive back to his house is awful.

Kyungsoo has been nothing but good to Baekhyun. In addition to that, he has actual hopes and dreams and goals that he wants to achieve. Unlike Baekhyun who has been walking towards a cliff for most of his life, Kyungsoo has the potential to be something great. He doesn’t deserve Daegu and all of its ugliness, he doesn’t deserve to have his sister involved with a heinous criminal, and he definitely doesn’t deserve to become collateral in the city’s violent crime. At the very least, he and his sister deserve to live, and Baekhyun swears upon himself that he won’t let anything happen to them.

- - - - -

“Manila?” Ange exclaims, stopping herself from spinning around on the revolving chair. Although Baekhyun has his eyes on his Supra’s engine, he can feel her staring at him. “The April race is in Manila? Manila, Philippines?” Ange asks loudly again. Thankfully, the garage door is closed and there’s no one around but them. “Why is it in Manila?” she demands. “I’ve seen pictures, Baek, and the roads don’t exactly look safe!”

“No roads are safe, Angel.”

Ange makes a noise of defiance. “You’re not actually going, are you?” she demands. “Are you?” Baekhyun doesn’t answer to that because he doesn’t need to; she already knows that he’s going no matter what—and she seems to realize this when sighs loudly. “You’re going,” she states. “Okay.” Her voice is audibly hurt, and Baekhyun looks up from his car to catch her mid-pout. “Are you going early then?” she asks. “Or are you leaving the day before?”

“Leaving early. I think I actually have to practice because the roads are narrow there.”

“When are you leaving?”

“This Friday.”

“What?” Ange whines. “It’s only the 20th,” she states. “And you’re leaving on a Friday?”

“It’s my only choice,” Baekhyun says, closing the hood of his Supra. “I’ve never been to Manila, and they’re not closing off the streets completely, so there’s a lot more to risk for me.” Ange can’t even look at him; she fiddles with the hem of her skirt and purses her lips, clearly upset. “I have to go,” Baekhyun reiterates. “It’ll be really bad if I don’t go early to practice.”

“No, I know that,” Ange murmurs. “I just—I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Well, we can talk about it now.”

“There’s uh, actually, two things I want to talk to you about.”

Baekhyun cros