(Part 3 of the Night Cycling AU 🚴 🚵)

🍥🍙🚹🍣🇯🇵

Somehow, miraculously, they find a place down the road, after finding an unlocked door.

The ceilings are extremely low.  “Careful, Takuya! Don’t want your giant body getting stuck in the doors!” Hyosung laughs as she warns him, trudging through the place and going down steps that lead to the actual house.

It’s dark and dingy, and there’s isn’t any furniture they can use. It’s small, but because it’s pretty much halfway underground, it’s warm.

“You know, this is like a horror movie where two super Paranormal Investigators venture into a dark, historical, haunted house,” Hyosung says as she uses her phone as a flashlight.

“Except I’m injured and not super,” Takuya says, and his fingers find a switch on the darkness.

He presses it and a lone lightbulb flickers on from the ceiling above them.

“Except it’s not dark anymore,” he adds.

“Heyyy, my smile can light up the room better than any lightbulb can,” Hyosung teases jokingly as she settles onto the floor.

“Yeah,” Takuya’s still in a daze as he says it, but he means it fully. “Yeah it does.”

He hears Hyosung’s breath catch in .

“O…kay, I’m guessing you must be feeling real painful and woozy right? Lie down, I’m going to do the dressing for your legs,” she finally says, gently stretching out Takuya’s right leg and cleaning the wounds with saline.

He watches her as she furrows her eyebrows in concentration, her face still etched with worry.

“How about yours?” Takuya finally says when he sees her keeping the bandages after doing the dressing for his leg. “You have a scrape on your knee.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. The blood’s drying up anyway.”

Takuya scoots closer to her and reopens the kit. He goes through the motions and gently places the gauze over her wound and fastens it with the surgical tape that the cashier had thrown in.

“Thanks,” Hyosung says.

“I have a lot more to thank,” he points out.

They sit next to each other with their backs against the wall. Takuya switches off the light (Hyosung prefers darkness) and settle for the moonlight streaming through the window near the ceiling, right at the top of the wall.

Thunder claps and reverberates through the thin walls, and Hyosung is alarmed yet again. Takuya pulls her into his lap, into the familiar position they often end up in. Her head rests on his left thigh (his right thigh is injured and is currently being nursed by an icepack), and his hand in her hair. It sort of soothes her into a happy daze.

They sit in silence, with him treading through her wet, mangled hair and untangling the ends slowly.

“You know, this feels like a jail cell,” Hyosung chuckles.

She has a point, however. The room is small and dark, and there’s only a tiny window from the top of the room. And they’re stuck here until tomorrow.

“I don’t feel very apologetic for my criminal actions,” Takuya says after a while.

“Neither do I. But we should, you know? Just now in the mini mart…”

“I’m ed, you know?” he sighs, but he can’t find it in him to be upset.

“Yeah,” Hyosung says, but she’s smiling as she looks up at Takuya.

He doesn’t want this moment to end.

… But his thigh kind of hurts.

He squirms a little, and she gets the message as she sits up and leans into him.

“I’m sorry I caused you to get injured,” Hyosung says.

“It’s kind of my fault though, I took your snapback.”

“No seriously, I’m sorry. How are you going to practice tomorrow? I can only make up for so much, but the bruises on your thigh is already angry and purple and it doesn’t look like it’s going away anytime soon,” she explains and he hears the concern, the guilt, and the self-condemnation in her words.

“Hyosung, it’s really my fault. I asked for it.”

And he really means it when he says that. In that moment, when Hyosung leaned over, he knew that if he just manouvered his bike to the right by tilting his balance off centre, and steering it back to forward direction, he could have easily escaped the fall. But that meant that Hyosung would fall on absolutely nothing. If that happened, it might have even caused a head injury, if you took into account the way she fell.

He doesn’t tell her all of that, of course.

“But I’m just so stupid sometimes and competitive and I don’t know.”

“It’s okay, so am I.”

🎧 🎤🚺👠🇰🇷 

It’s nearing 3 am, but they both can’t sleep despite the tiredness that weighs down on both of them.

“Takuya?” Hyosung prods and leans on his shoulder.

“Yeah?”

“What’s your ideal type?”

“Seriously?”

“Yup.”

“You know I don’t answer these questions well.”

“Well there’s no hidden cameras here, so you shouldn’t give me the “a girl who looks pretty when she smiles” bullcrap,” Hyosung advises.

“Hey, I said that on Match Made In Heaven because I didn’t know how else to describe it!”

“Well you have all the time to describe it now. We’re stuck in an abandoned house fringing on the outskirts of the city, and when we return tomorrow, both our asses are going to fry in hot oil. Let’s make use of the remaining uh, 3 hours we have,” Hyosung says. She’s amazed she’s said it all in a casual, level tone. She’s still dealing with her fickle- good for nothing heart.

Let’s call this a litmus test, shall we, Hyosung reasons in her extremely compartmentalized brain. If I don’t fit the requirements, I’ll give up.

Takuya frowns at her, biting his lip.