word count: 3015
[part 2] ep. 57 - ep. 80
That morning, Minu woke you all up by screaming about god knows what.
"What's gotten into you first thing in the morning?" Dom asked sleepily as he rose from his slumber.
"Did you have a nightmare?" He added after Minu's lack of answer.
"No," Minu said standing up abruptly. "We have a race today so we should get up early."
You groaned and tried to hide as deep inside your blanket as you possibly could. Dom slapped Vinny's ass and ripped the blanket from over your head.
"Wakey wakey," he said in a voice that would be creepy if it came from anyone but him. Vinny didn't move a muscle, you sat up feeling defeated.
"This dick is impossible to wake up once he falls asleep," Dom whispered as he got up leaving you and Vinny behind.
Vinny rolled over and you looked at each other for a bit. His red eye looked a lot less impressive when he'd just woken up. Still, it was as beautiful as ever.
"Can't even have peace in my own fucking home," He groaned before getting up. You followed after him though you wish you could've slept the day away.
In the kitchen, Jay was making a delectable breakfast that could probably be part of the most prestigious restaurant in Korea's menu. Dom was visibly drooling at the sight.
"Don't just stand there watching. Set the table so we can eat," Jay said as if this was a daily occurrence.
Minu and Dom obeyed with no complaints. Vinny watched the scene bewildered, he'd lost his title as king of the house. You pat his back and joined the two other boys.
The league of streets tournament seemed to get louder and louder. This morning was no exception. The speakers spit out music like their life was on the line. People were screaming either to be heard over the music or just to scream. Everything around you made some kind of noise. You could almost hear your own brain pulsating inside your head.
"I wonder how Mia's doing today," Minu said to no one in particular as he stretched an arm over his head.
"She's got Yuna with her, don't worry," Dom answered.
"Hey! What happened to your faces?" The fish-looking guy with the teal hair yelled as he approached your group. You'd gotten so used to the bruises on your faces you'd nearly forgotten about them and the fight that had caused them.
"Were you in a gang fight?" Fish guy added with a laugh.
"Yeah. With those guys behind you," Minu said looking past them to where Hwangyeon and his buddies stood.
"I see you all managed to get away," The wicked witch of the west spoke up as if on cue. You rolled your eyes, an automatic response you'd developed over the years. That dick's voice aggravated you.
"What's with the mask? Did you get a nose job?" Dom asked almost mockingly.
"I'd really like to pound the shit out of you all right here," Hwangyeon added in what he probably wished was an intimidating tone.
"You wish," You spat but not loud enough for him to hear.
"That bastard!" Minu spat more than loud enough. Dom held him back so he wouldn't cause a scene.
"Anyway," Hwangyeon said with a devilish smile. "We have a race today so let's be civil."
"Civil my ass!" Minu yelled again.
The ghost crew didn't bless him with an answer.
'The race is scheduled to begin shortly so we ask that each team select two main riders and gather in the central hall'
The voice on the speakers sounded more robotic than it usually did.
Minu volunteered instantly. Pride was a hell of a motivation.
The second rider was decided after a very intense game of rock paper scissors. Dom was happy to win but also slightly worried to be racing again. He'd be fine, probably.
"See you later!" Minu cheered as he waved you all goodbye.
Today's race was an elimination or as you liked to call it, hell. Dom and Minu would have to fight for their lives against the Monster crew and the jackasses from the Ghost crew. Good fucking luck.
Dom and Minu seemed to be playing it safe until they suddenly weren't. Dom flew by everyone like a goddamn bullet. Which was probably a stupid fucking idea. But something in your mind told you he'd be fine. Dom's brain worked wonders under pressure.
Two riders crashed, everyone managed to dodge it. Dom took the lead and everyone started questioning his strategy but the thing with Dom is that he has no strategy, he just does shit. And who were you to question that?
Monster, who definitely had a strategy, started making a move. That crew scared the shit out of every reasonable person. They seemed pretty invincible.
During the second lap, Hwangyeon's little buddy started getting dangerously close to Dom. Way too close.
Dom was three milliseconds away from getting pancaked by the Ghost crew when Minu managed to squeeze in-between them and push him away. He and Hwangyeon's leech crashed on the side of the road. A noble sacrifice.
Dom kept riding like a maniac and although all hope was lost for him, Minu got back up and kept going. He crossed the finish line last, leaving his fate in Dom's hands.
If you were in Dom's place you'd probably be shitting bricks right about now. There was no way in hell that boy wasn't tired. Still, he kept pushing harder and harder.
Monster finally started his sprint. He flew by everyone in less than a second. What a beast.
Everyone was so focused on Monster's sprint nobody saw Dom, of all people, catch up to him. He'd been sprinting for three laps straight now and he still had enough energy to catch up to Monster. The two beasts rode like hell all the way to the finish line. Somehow, seeing Dom catch up to Monster with his last bit of adrenaline gave you hope. Hope that you could be the team to take down the monsters.
Dom finished second coming in just after Monster.
Dom received quite a bit of commotion. Even Monster himself came over to congratulate him. They both had the honor of being the first two people to get tested for doping which is pretty impressive for an amateur tournament.
You all took the train on the way back. You sat between Minu and Vinny and listened to the music that came out of the earbuds you shared with Vinny, Minu and June's conversation, Dom's insanely loud snoring and the train's rumbling.
"My handsome Vinny, could I please take a shower at your place?" Minu begged the red haired boy with a sickeningly sweet smile.
"Use your own shower," Vinny answered
"Come on, help me out man"
Vinny ignored him. Meanwhile, Dom's head slowly made its descent towards Vinny's shoulder. As soon as the boy's drool hit his shoulder, Vinny slammed his head against the window with all the kindness in the world. Needless to say, Dom was no longer sleeping.
"What the hell? I bet y/n can sleep on your shoulder," Dom whined "I can't believe you put your partner above your bros. Not cool"
"I'll buy you a box of ramen," Minu chimed in, still not giving up on the shower.
"What?" Vinny asked confused as he was still focused on his shoulder full of drool.
"Yeah! Let's have ramen!" cheered Dom who had missed the whole conversation.
And so once again, everyone sat in Vinny's small appartement with a mouth full of ramen. June, who was a new addition, looked quite content. Jay and Minu didn't eat as they were both getting ready to go out.
"Look at you getting all dressed up," Dom said suspiciously "Are you going to meet a girl?"
"No, I'm just having dinner with a friend" Minu answered though the look on his face suggested otherwise. He tried to take the suspicion off of him by asking Jay where he was going.
"Bookstore," He answered simply. The look on his face suggested he was definitely telling the truth.
"You better start paying rent if you're all going to keep staying here," Vinny complained changing the subject. And with that, Jay and Minu left. "Assholes," he grumbled again as they closed the door.
"Let's follow him," Dom suggested as he swallowed the last bit of his ramen.
"No," Vinny replied quite categorically.
"June?" Dom inquired. June shrugged as an answer because he wasn't the type of guy to object or encourage. Dom turned to you.
"Why?" you asked.
"To see his girlfriend," he answered as if that was the most obvious thing in the world.
"He's just meeting Mia," you said.
All three boys turned to you. June looked surprised, Dom looked betrayed and Vinny looked insulted.
"No way. He's just meeting one of his bitches," Vinny declared.
"Mia?" June repeated doubtfully.
"He didn't even tell me," Dom whispered sadly. "We bonded."
Shortly after, the four of you were sitting in a nice restaurant with hoodies and masks. The waitress kept refilling your glasses with water as you watched Minu bat his eyelashes at none other than Mia.
"I hate to say it," you started.
"Don't." Vinny shut you up before you could say I told you so.
"This breaks every rule of the bro code," Dom fumed. "June, you should be mad too." June did look mad, mad confused.
After the restaurant, Dom kept stalking Minu and you all followed after him with varying degrees of enthusiasm. You all watched as they got ice cream and looked at the sunset. Vinny and you had stopped watching after seeing Minu blush a little bit too much. June was surprisingly almost as into it as Dom was.
"Are those two filming a soap opera?" Dom muttered.
"If you're jealous just say it," June laughed.
When June and Dom stopped yapping like a bunch of idiots, a mix of concern and curiosity made you and Vinny decide to take a quick look too. You regretted taking a peek as soon as you saw Minu get up on his bike to kiss Mia. Vinny took your hand and started dragging you away back towards his house.
"Why are you two acting all shy?" You heard Dom shout at you as you walked away. "You probably do this shit all the time!" Little did he know.
Apart from Minu's love life, the week was quite uneventful. Work, class, work and then class again. Vinny had finally gone back to school after his suspension. Sometimes he texted you during the day, one word texts to make the hours go by quicker. It worked.
Jay and Minu still slept over at Vinny's place. It had been weeks now and neither of them seemed to want to go back to their own place. You went back home every now and then to get some stuff or check on your mother. You'd managed to see her once, she said staying over at Vinny's place was a good idea and that she was grateful he and his mother had welcomed you. That was enough for you, you were glad she was okay.
You'd all developed a routine. Jay sat on the floor to do homework, Minu sat beside him with his back against the wall and played on his phone, Vinny stayed on the mattress and pretended to sleep and you rested your head on his back as you scrolled through your phone. Eventually, Jay would try to make you and Minu do some school work and then give up as soon as you started asking him questions.
"Don't ask me stupid questions,"
"They're not stupid questions!" Minu retorted.
The debate would go on until Vinny decided to shut either one of them up.
The next week, you all got a text to let you know when the next race would be which immediately prompted Minu to schedule more practice. You all met up in the same park as usual and rode around the neighborhood before sitting on some benches in the park and fucking around. Shelly and June went on a corner store run and brought back drinks. Minu tried to teach Dom some more bike tricks. Vinny looked at nothing in particular and you scanned his face trying to decipher his thoughts. Jay had to skip practice because his mom was pissed. She'd shown up in the middle of class to yell at him and demand he go back home. Crazy bitch.
The day of the race, the sky was grey. Clouds floated menacingly above your heads. The whole crowd seemed quieter like the noise had been choked out of it by the bad weather. It was kind of nice, you didn't really mind the shitty weather.
'The race is scheduled to begin soon! Would each team please gather in the central square.'
In today's race, your mission would be to protect your king and make sure he crossed the finish line quickly and safely. Jay had been elected king to the great pleasure of the entire team. Vinny and Shelly decided to stay back leaving you, Dom, Minu and June to protect Jay.
The race got intense right from the start. Every team was looking for a good spot but mostly they just wanted the hummingbirds to go down. The beef with the highschoolers was definitely one sided. June and Minu led the way for Jay while you and Dom watched the rear. The fruit team kept sticking to yours like goddamn leeches. Meanwhile the trident crew decided to secure their lead and race ahead like a bunch of pussies.
Jay quickly decided that riding at the back wasn't for him and sprinted to the front of the pack all by himself. Unfortunately for the rest you, team trident made it impossible for anyone else to join the cool kids up in the front. But, if there was one thing you were good at, it was getting past blockades. It was simple really. You had to get close to whoever was trying to block you, make them feel your presence, make them scared. It's the fear that makes them move, the fear that they're in the wrong spot, the fear that whoever's behind them knows exactly how to get by. And when they move, you slip by them.
Once you were out, catching up to Jay was easy. You were calmly riding behind him, making sure his ass was nice and safe, when a raindrop hit your nose. Fucking hell. It really had to start raining during your race? Oh well.
You caught a glimpse of Dom and two fruits coming up behind you. One of them managed to get past Dom. You blocked his path. Blocking was as easy as getting past someone as long as you didn't doubt yourself. One wrong move and your blockade would crumble. You heard the fruity looking bitch behind you shout, frustrated that he couldn't get past you. You smiled, you loved being a pain in the ass.
The fruit's frustration grew wilder by the second until he decided that running you over and risking his own team's demise was clearly the better option. You felt his front wheel scrape against your back wheel. Your survival instinct told you to swerve in whatever direction and save yourself. But the part of you that wanted to keep being a pain until the very end told you to stay right there and try to take him down with you. So you stayed right there and slammed the brake.
As soon as your bike began to slow the fruit tried to dodge the inevitable crash by going to the right. His lack of control nearly made him crash into his own teammate who'd been getting held off by Dom the entire time. Once he'd come back down to earth he tried to go back after Jay but you stuck to his side like a fly.
"y/n watch out!" You heard Dom shout behind you. Oh shit. His fruit had managed to get past him.
You saw the asphalt before you saw the fucking mango that had slammed into you. You rolled onto your back. First, you heard the other bikes fly past your head. Then you vaguely saw the cloud filled sky and the raindrops that filled the air. Then the pain in your left side hit you, your shoulder felt raw and your head felt like it'd been smashed open. The last thing to come back was your breath. You'd missed the moment it had been knocked out of you but now that you could breathe again you realized just how much you'd missed it.
The mango beside you whined and moaned like this wasn't his fault.
"Shut up," you groaned.
Soon, some guys came to take you back and patch you up. You missed the rest of the race but judging by the crowd's reactions and the energetic screams coming from the animator it was pretty awesome. Once you'd been freed you started searching for familiar faces.
"Did the fruits lose?" You asked as soon as you found Vinny and Shelly amidst the crowd.
"Yeah," Vinny answered. "You okay?" You nodded.
"Did we lose?" Vinny shook his head. You let out the breath you'd been holding. The hummingbird crew lived to see another day.
That night, a headache kept you up. You tossed and turned until you felt someone grab your arm.
"Stop," Vinny said groggily. He pulled you against him and rested his head on top of yours. You listened to his heart beat and wondered if he'd have done this with a clearer mind. You listened to his heart beat and wondered if your own heart would be beating this much if you weren't so tired. You listened to his heart beat and wondered if in some other universe you could've been something else by now. You listened to his heart beat and felt yours burn.