"were you with them?" seishiro asks you, his expression suddenly changing from concerned to deadly serious.
confused, but more irritated, you furrow your eyebrows and shake off his hands, which still rest on your upper arms with pressure.
"the better question is, where the hell have you been?" you hiss, feeling the rage take over your body.
seishiro had promised you he wouldn't leave your side, but he couldn't even keep that promise for two minutes before he broke it. and now he seems to be angry that you were with those two guys, although it was rather involuntary.
sighing he runs a hand through his white hair, knows it's his fault. he also knows that if he tells you what he did, he'll lose his head.
maybe it wasn't such a good idea to take you here after all.
actually, it wasn't.
"i was with a guy named barou for a minute. he hosts these races and is also the one who takes the bets," he doesn't have to say everything, since you directly understand what he means by that.
seishiro doesn't just watch these races, he even bets on them. that's why he's had no money for the last few weeks, or a lot of it at once.
"you've got to be kidding me," you mumble and shake your head, think you've gotten into the wrong movie.
but this isn't some action movie like fast & furious, it's real life and you've almost planned this life out.
nowhere do you see illegal car races or joint-smoking boys.
your best friend is about to say something, wants to apologize, but the loud honking of a car prevents him from doing so.
quickly pulling you aside, the car drives past you and inside sits none other than the guy with the pretty eyelashes.
his gaze is on you and is so intimate that you tremble. despite everything, you can't escape his gaze, he literally captivates you.
"i bet on him. on rin. like always," seishiro says and looks after the car, which lines up with the painted line.
that's probably where the race will start, you think.
suddenly you want to stay and watch, don't really know why.
secretly, of course, it's because of rin, but you can't and won't admit that to yourself.
"yo, are you all ready?" a female voice suddenly screams through a pink megaphone, making all the people gathered cheer. your gaze lands on the girl, who has brown hair and a bright pink lipstick on. her leather skirt is short and shimmers in the light of the other cars, and she's wearing neon green high heels and a tight leopard shirt.
"tsukiko." someone laughs softly next to you and you immediately recognize the guy who smoked a blunt earlier and pulled you along with him.
he smokes something again, but this time it's just a normal cigarette, although you still grimace when he blows the smoke in your direction again. if you remember correctly, his name was yoichi.
"so? who are you for?" he then asks, turning his head in your direction. he nods at seishiro, who is standing next to you with one arm wrapped around your middle, and they shake hands.
apparently he already knows yoichi, which explains his reaction just now. "anyway, i'm against smoking," you smile falsely, grab his cigarette and stub it out on the floor.
yoichi grins cheekily to himself as you put the cigarette butt in his jacket pocket and then give him a quick pat on the shoulder.
you yourself have no idea where you got the courage to do this.
yoichi could have reacted completely differently and then everything would probably have escalated.
"today, ryusei and our king of illegal car racing, rin, are racing against each other. are you excited?" the female voice calls out again and the crowd starts screaming again.
you almost feel like you're at a concert, never imagining that these people would go so crazy over a car race that doesn't matter anyway. they won't become famous with something like this anyway, and on top of that, they're putting themselves in danger, you think to yourself.
the sound of engines whining can be heard as both cars stand at the starting line. colored lights shine on the car rims, whether that's legal you don't know, but it looks great.
tsukiko stands in the middle of the two cars, right on the starting line - in her hand she holds a black and white checkered flag, which she waves around.
right, left and straight down and then the cars start racing.
a deafening squeal, coming from the spinning tires, envelops you, but your gaze is riveted on the two cars, which are driving quickly toward the other end, getting smaller and smaller, until all you can see is the light of the tire.
so no one knows who won the race.
"his start was bad. the chances aren't good. fuck," mumbles yoichi next to you and takes another cigarette out of his jacket pocket.
pulling hard on it, it looks like it's the only thing that could calm him down - he's tense, probably already sensing that something is going to happen.
the two cars come back, this time not as fast as before, until they come to a stop. no one can react before the door swings open and a furious rin gets out while his gaze is on lucas, who casually gets out and throws his hands up in the air.
apparently he is today's winner, which doesn't seem to suit rin. "you fucker!" the black haired shouts aggressively and his fist lands in ryusei's face.
restless murmuring goes through the crowd, otherwise it's quiet and nobody moves from the spot, just let rin do it.
and to be honest, you should have done that too
"hey, stop that!" you break free from your best friends gentle grip and sprint towards the guys fighting.
you don't think, should have known that you should never run into a fight. it was almost predictable that something would go wrong, something that would completely change your life.
"go get her back" yoichi says next to seishiro, taking a pleasant drag on his cigarette and being calm even as his best friend is beating himself bloody.
your best friend looks shocked at him and then rushes after you, but you're already in the middle of it.
"i told you to stop!" you become louder, as you have already tried a few times to break the two guys apart with words - this worked rather less, they paid no attention to you.
putting yourself between the two, you make eye contact with rin. everything happens in seconds, but for you it is like in slow motion. you see his fist rushing towards you, but you have no chance to move away, you are frozen in place.
you stumble to the side, only then you hear something again. the pain follows shortly after and something warm runs down your chin before it drips onto the asphalt. dark red mass.
blood.
"fuck.", he breathes and wipes his fist on his pants, on which there is blood.
from ryusei as well as from you.
he didn't want to hit you, would never lay a hand on a woman, even raise a hand against a woman. it just all happened so damn fast, he wanted to hit ryusei.
"damn it! y/n, are you okay?" seishiro arrived at your side and puts his hands on your cheek. his worried eyes scan your face and stop at your bloody lip.
you're even lucky - with that hard punch, rin could have surely broken your nose if he had aimed there.
"are you completely stupid? you could have seriously hurt her!" he yells at the person who caused it and clenches his hands into fists.
you've known seishiro for so long now that you know he's not someone who's just faking it.
although you don't know rin and don't have a particularly good picture of him, you don't want seishiro to get into a fight with him.
"let it go. please just take me away from here," you ask your best friend, who immediately turns his gaze in your direction at the sound of your voice. he seems to be struggling with himself and would like to punch rin in the face, but your wishes are much more important to him now.
"alright, let's go," he grabs your hand and pulls you away.
while lowering your head you feel all the stares on you. everyone had noticed the situation and for some reason you're incredibly embarrassed, would like to sink into the ground.
in the meantime, rin looks at you and feels a feeling he hasn't had in a long time.
guilt.
he didn't have the time to apologize to you and it bothers him, can't stop thinking about your face when you looked at him in shock and with pain in your eyes after he hit you.
"yoichi, tell sae to find out about that y/n girl. he goes to the same school as seishiro and y/n probably goes there too. i want to have her class schedule," he whispers to yoichi, who nods in a relaxed manner and sends a voice message directly to his best friends brother.
"does it hurt a lot?" asks seishiro, who has driven you home and is now cleaning your wound,
shaking your head you give him an answer.
it does burn really badly and the spot was completely numb for a few minutes, but it could have been worse.
you flinch as he presses the cotton ball onto your lip again.
"how much money do you owe them?" you interrupt the silence.
this question has been burning on your tongue the whole time.
sighing he throws the cotton ball into the trash can. "a lot. a lot i can barely pay. i'm hoping rin wins the next race, then i could get a lot out of it."