Rush

file two: lmh + pjm

"Are you sure?"

Minhyuk hesitated, sliding his fingers down the flat of the knife. The orange-haired boy watched him patiently, eyebrows arched, as he waited for an answer.

"Not really," he confessed, threading a hand through his soft raven hair. "That's what I figured, since, you know—the whole Hwang-Lee business is what Jungkook said is principle for now." His brow furrowed. "Did they shut down the drug deals?"

The words 'drug deal' felt unfamiliar and repulsive on his tongue. Unlike most of the others, Minhyuk was just a racer. There were times he was sent on odd pick-up jobs, but never had he actually seen a deal in action, or even that faces of the people who had sent whatever he had been told to bring to the others.

The only time he had been involved in something high-level had been when Jennie herself had asked him to convince the new arrival in his college to join them as a racer. If he had known the hurricane of events his actions would bring in the future, he would never have agreed.

Unless, of course, they had decided to point a gun to his head. That usually ends up with the job being done without complaint.

"Not with the Thai gang, as far as I know," Jimin said, one of his eyebrows lowering to give his expression a more chiseled, pointed look as he set his gaze on the younger boy. "But then, the deals with them are more important for collaboration than money."

At that, the boy's eyebrows shot up. "They're willing to help?"

The Thai gang, with whom most deals were carried out under the highest supervision, usually showed up at the docks. It had seemed cliché, but the one time he had been asked to drive, the looming atmosphere had driven away all his amusement regarding the deal's location.

Jimin shrugged, leaning against the side of the Lexus. "Not all of us can go after her; we're needed here too. The manager may have paused all deals, but I guess it's got more to do with the fact that Vernon is busy than all our attention being focused on her."

Minhyuk's teeth worried at his lower lip, his eyes glassing over as they fell on the exterior of the Lexus. It was a beautiful model, an arctic white with the empty places filled out with a congealed, black-blue shade.

He would have asked for it himself, but the memories connected to it prevented him from doing so. Yes, he wouldn't exactly consider himself sensitive, but when it came to the kind of people he was usually surrounded by, he was much more compassionate in comparison.

He found his mind slipping away from the conversation, the dirty rag slipping a little from his hand which he had been using to clean the oily wrench. He knew Byun Baekhyun had died in that car—or at least, his body had been found in it.

Minhyuk usually didn't involve himself in the shadier side of the racers' business, but he couldn't help but be curious. Even if he wasn't a major part of their operations, he knew. He knew that Baekhyun had played an important role in their work.

And as far as he heard, Vernon Chwe himself had killed the informant.

He sighed, blinking a couple of times to bring himself out of his thoughts. Jimin hadn't moved from his position. With a frown, Minhyuk wondered how an easygoing, warm man like Park Jimin had no trouble using a car in which a dead person had been found.

The thought itself gave him shivers.

"So they've agreed to help," he spoke up, trying to use the conversation's original direction as a distraction from his morbid ideas. "Why do you need so many people just for tracking, anyway? It's not like she knows how to disappear."

Even as he said it, he worried. It wasn't often that someone managed to get close to his heart, even if he was usually in the company of hardened criminals, but he couldn't help but be affectionate towards the girl in question. The racers weren't a family, they were simply a team. But finding strange bonds within that team wasn't impossible.

"It's not just for tracking," Jimin said solemnly, touching his neon hair out of habit, expression turning brooding. "My brother's sure that they're trying to get a good backup going because the clan will be targeting her themselves, not just through the bikers—and they will be shooting to kill."

Minhyuk's skin crawled. Though he didn't know the foster siblings too well, he knew that Kim Taehyung's instincts were usually spot-on, even if what he suspected wasn't necessarily a positive situation.

"They will be taking out the hitmen," the ravenet said lowly, the cleaning motion of his hands ceasing completely. "The killers of the Lee clan."

"Probably more than their own resources to match us," the orange-haired boy said, his tone surprisingly unbothered and light. "Dealing with other gangs. Hiring contract killers."

God. The amount of work going into one murder was both disgusting and fascinating to him. "All for a girl."

Jimin's eyes flashes to his for a moment, and he was taken aback by the emotions swirling in them. Their eyes had met only for a split second, but it had been enough for him to glimpse everything in his abysmal, dark pupils—something sinister and hungry, a far cry from the usual façade the boy marched around wearing.

Jimin's gaze had been challenging, excited, even. For what, he didn't know, but he wasn't eager to find out.

There was something strange about Park Jimin, something that made him uneasy despite his unassuming personality, but Minhyuk couldn't quite put his finger on it. Trying to dissect the reason was like trying to catch smoke.

"Yes," he said, his high, clear voice knowing and breathy, as if he knew something that Minhyuk didn't—that no one did. "All for a girl."