All Roads Lead to Us (Street Racers #1)

3: Taehyung

He's like a flat tire at the end of the race. Comes when you don't expect it, never wanted, pisses you off until you want to drive down a cliff and set the car on fire. Jeon Jungkook is a flat tire in my car, and he fucking loves making my life as shitty as possibl. I don't remember a situation when Jeon Jungkook didn't step ahead of me when I thought I had it all. There wasn't a time like that. It is always Jungkook.

Jungkook is smarter, better looking, funnier, friendlier, faster, more talented, a better racer apparently. Jungkook is all that I should be, but the list has an end. It must have it. I will put an end to it, winning this season. I am winning with Jeon fucking Jungkook, and showing him he is not as great as he thinks he is. As everyone thinks he is.

Winning last season did give me  the first place, but as much as I pushed it into everyone's face, I can't help the empty space within me. That part of me that won, but not against Jungkook. I won because he quit. I crossed the finishing line first, but he didn't cross it at all, and that doesn't let me sleep at night.

This time I will win, and show Jeon Jungkook, and everyone else, that I am better than him.

Walking into this house of chaos is nothing new, but to see all three of them in one room is a surprise that makes me pause to glare. A line of receipts stretched in front of Father on the table as he does the same bullshit everyday, count how much they suck with managing money. My mother and my brother, a sight to see in this house, peeling potatoes I won't get to eat, whatever they are making out of them.

"What are you looking at?" she asks.

"Didn't know circus is coming here today," I mumble, heading to my room upstairs, but pause when a piece of potato hits my head. I don't have to turn around to know this asshole threw it. Every time I encounter my brother, the first place in my hate rank isn't as clear anymore. Who knew someone could be worse than Jeon?

"Did you bring some money today?" Father asks.

I turn slowly, chanting curses in my head to not get worked up again. "No."

"Liar." Mother scoffs, eyes on the knife sliding down the potato, not even sparking me a glance. Not like I expect one.

"I didn't bring any money I can give you." I cross my arms on my chest. I almost give in and fight. "Whatever, I'm tired. I'm going to sleep."

"Gone for the whole day and won't even move a fucking finger."

"We don't need that kind of help, Hyun." Father says, focused on the bills, and it's my cue to leave. There is no reason I should be entertaining them at all.

If they want to talk shit about me, they can do it when I'm not listening. I have heard enough of that throughout my life.

I don't stay here for long. A quick nap, shower, fresh clothes, and I'm on the way to my car repair shop to give a few fresh touches to my car. Whatever Jungkook is going to race with, mine has to be better.

"Where are you going at this hour?" Mother asks, as the three of them sit at the dining table. My stomach fucking rumbles. Traitor. What does she care where I am going, anyways?

"To work."

They don't have a say in my life. I pay my chunk for living here, and that's all they get from me. If I want to leave, I do, despite their 'rules' and 'preferences'. And they have a fuck tone of those. When I don't follow them, someone always rubs it into my face how useless I am, and how I won't amount to anything.

I'm used to that, in a way. It sucks, but who cares.

I just have to win the season, and nothing else will matter. My family will see someone in me if for once I'm better than Jungkook. They always hated me for being worse than him. If I show them I can be number one, maybe they will finally give me any sign of approval. And then I will be gone from this house. I just need them to see it once. That I can be worth something, too.

"Don't you think it'd be nice to stay and help your family instead of running around all day long?" she asks. Running around all day long is the only reason I haven't been put in a mental hospital, yet.

My family, she says. Isn't family supposed to have something to do with love and warmth? 

"No, I don't think so," I say, tying my left shoe. What have they done for me that I have to stay and help?

"Stay and clean after dinner," Father says, not looking at me. He orders. They don't even look at me, like they are that disgusted by the fact that someone like me was born into that family, and he thinks he has a right to give me orders.

"That dinner you made and didn't even ask me to eat with you? Yeah, I will not be doing that." I chuckle, shake my head and reach for the doorknob. They are ridiculous. The longer I know them, the worse it gets. Though maybe I don't know any of them at all.

"Useless." Father scoffs, not talking to me, but he wants me to hear. "The world would still spin just as well without him in it."

Even if it feels like my ribs are closing in on my lungs, I won't show it to anyone. I'm used to it. I don't give a fuck.

"And it would work just as fine without you," I say loud enough to be heard, and walk out the door.

When I'm under the car, sweating my ass off with a wrench in my hand, and an old, burning hot lamp next to my head, my mind is silent. Jeon Jungkook crosses my mind a few times when I remember I am working on the car to beat him, but as soon as he leaves, my mind is at peace again.

There is not much this car needs. Nothing to add, a few things to tweak to make it a bit more manageable. I bought it from a guy obsessed with it so the car is pretty much maintained like a newborn baby. He drove it twice, and spent the rest of the year on 'improving' it. Main reason why I bought it

Costly, and I could have had an apartment on my own for this money, but the car is worth it. This season's money will go into the apartment.

It's 2 a.m. when I finish. I'm the only person in the neighborhood, one lamp on the wall of my garage buzzes as I sit by the car. I should shower, clean up the garage, go "home" and sleep. I can't. When nothing busies me anymore, another day that's gone by falls too heavy onto my shoulders, pinning me to the prickly ground.

Racing, new season, my family. And Yeeun. This stupid prize idea. And this stupid asshole Jeon Jungkook, her boyfriend. It's bullshit. It has to be. It was too random, too sudden for it to be real. A quiet whisper in my head reminds me that all I am is jealous, but I won't be so quick to believe him.

Not when I had her in my grasp already, and he had to come and snatch her away from me. As always.