The Second Race, Pt.1.
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It was strange, Yoongi thought, that someone as lithe and lightly-built as Hoseok could be carrying so much on his shoulders.
Yes, everyone had secrets. Yoongi had secrets, too. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary.
Hoseok just seemed to have an awful lot of secrets.
But Yoongi was okay with that, he supposed. He trusted Hoseok. It would be pretty rad if Hoseok was willing to spill, but even if he wasn't Yoongi would still trust him anyway.
He watched silently as Hoseok plopped down on one of the cheap plastic chairs inside the spectators' venue, brow slightly knitted in worry.
Of course he'd be worried. Yoongi was worried too. This was their second hoverboard race. Yep, another race. Another race in which he and his friends could very well die. Not exactly a joyous occasion.
The exterior of the spectators' venue was sort of like a large egg, laid down sideways. The inside, however, was fairly normal. Big screens were plastered all over the walls, simultaneously showing all the hoverboard races that would be held today in the city. There were too many to count, but Yoongi knew that he would only be focusing on the screen in the middle. The one where his team, and the team they would be competing against, would be shown.
Yoongi was glad that this race, like the first, would be in a one-on-one format. If he had to keep track of more than two teams at once, he honestly thought he'd go nuts. It wasn't even a relay this time-just five separate individual races between the teams. They'd have to win three out of five to move on to the next round. Simple.
By "simple", Yoongi meant that the race format was straightforward, easy to understand, not that winning was simple. Winning was not simple. Yoongi knew that his hoverboarding skills were improving in leaps and bounds-Jin never ceased to assure him it was so-but judging from how their first race went, they'd need more than hoverboarding skills to win.
Wits, the ability to think on their toes, courage, luck. They needed all that and more. Yoongi hated to admit it, especially when everyone else seemed perfectly chill for some reason, but he was utterly terrified.
At least, this time, their opponents didn't hate their guts. They were nice, Yoongi could tell at a glance. This almost made it even worse. Because this team- how old were they, were they even legal?This team right in front of him, bouncing on their heels, excited to get started-was composed entirely of what looked like teenagers. Teenagers with patches on their worn-out jackets and huge holes in their jeans. Yoongi had learned about teams like this from Hoseok. They were usually from the slums, participating in hopes of bringing back some prize money for their starving families and neighbors. These teams didn't tend to get very far. The fact that they were in the second round at all meant that they must be the pride and joy of their whole village.
No wonder, Yoongi thought, that the venue was so crowded. Yoongi wouldn't be surprised at all if the entire village had turned up to cheer their kids on. They brought lots of younger children as well, Yoongi noted with a wince. Five-year-olds weren't supposed to be watching races like this, especially if the second race would be filled with as much death as the first.
Yoongi prayed that it wouldn't be. For the sake of his team, for the sake of these hopeful families. Their clothes might be in tatters, but their eyes shone like stars. It was heartwarming, he thought, how the whole village seemed so friendly with each other, screeching and laughing, mothers fussing over babies who weren't even theirs, fathers solemnly giving the participating teens final tips.
