ʀᴀᴄɪɴɢ ʙʟᴜᴇ 💙 ᴄʜᴀɴɢʟɪX

1

Chapter Song Suggestion: Control - Zoe Wees

A black car sped around a track with all the speed it could muster up. It wasn't a race car. It was just a plain old Ford Mustang. It was in good condition, but that didn't change the fact that it was old. The car drifted to a halt, the tires squealing from the friction between the rubber and the pavement. It was always early in the morning when he raced the car around the track. There was no meaning to it. He simply felt the need to do it.
A pair of arms wrapped around the spectators waist, chin falling onto his shoulder. "You should let him be. He's not going to get better knowing we are watching. This is the only time he can let down his mask."
The man sighed and leaned back into his lovers chest. "Minho, he's so broken he doesn't have a mask anymore."
"Yeah. I know, Jisung. We all know," Minho whispered. His grip tightened around Jisung and he pulled him closer.
It'd been two years since Jisung won his first official race. Two years since he beat Minho on the street with the exact car his friend was climbing out of that very moment. Out of those two years, the last four months had been the most painful. Not just for Jisung, but for all his friends.
It'd happened so suddenly. No one had expected one of their group to ever get hurt. Then the unimaginable happened. Now they were living day after day wondering if he'd ever wake up again. Jisung's best friend who had once smiled so brightly, no longer smiled at all. Instead, he lay smack in the middle of a hospital bed in Tokyo, hooked up to loud machines that helped him breathe. Jisung watched as his friend slid down the side of his boyfriends car to the floor. Felix buried his face in his arms. That was all Jisung needed to see to know he was crying.
Minho released Jisung from his hold and took his hand, guiding him back to the garage's living room. It still looked the same. The street signs and bright neon lights were everywhere. A foosball table and a mini fridge, along with some faded bing bags sat around. Nothing had changed. Nothing but Changbin's disappearance. Jisung took a seat on the couch. He preferred the leather over the dry cloth of the bags on the floor. It was too much work to stand up from them.
Minho unlatched the mini fridge and grabbed two drinks, popping them open with each of his index fingers while he closed the door with his foot. He handed one to Jisung, then took a seat beside him. They'd been dating for two years. Minho insisted that it was three, but Jisung always shut it down saying he hadn't known that detail while he was busy training. Chris was back in Korea working at a dealership he owned with Seungmin, Hyunjin was racing recklessly as he always did, and Felix—he was hurting.
The door suddenly opened and in came the man on Jisung's mind. Felix's eyes were red and slightly swollen, the professional racer noted. Minho forced him to look away from their friend and into his eyes. He was glaring at him in warning. Felix didn't like being watched. It stressed him out. Jisung took a breath and scooted closer to his lover. Their arms wrapped around each other as Felix slowly made his way upstairs—he'd been staying with Minho for a while. Jisung was on break since he wouldn't be competing in the next NASCAR season. That gave him a year with Minho. A year to wait and see if Changbin would wake up. He didn't want to race if Changbin wasn't there to see it.
"I'm worried about him," Jisung muttered.
"He'll be fine. He's strong," Minho assured.
Jisung didn't feel any better about it. How could anyone be strong when the love of their life was half dead? Jisung's eyes began to tear. Right about now, Changbin would walk into the room, whistle teasingly at the two, and make a dumb joke before getting smacked by Felix. Jisung would then cuss out his best friend, and Minho would enjoy the scene because for some odd reason, he loved when Jisung got mad—just not at him.
"I wish I could do something," Jisung added.
Minho leaned his head against the others. It wasn't that Minho was heartless and didn't care about Felix's feelings. He knew Felix was hurting. His main priority was Jisung, however. Just as much as Felix was hurting, so was Jisung. He worried non-stop. That in turn worried Minho. The only way he knew how to console Jisung was to tell him to stop worrying. While it did work some of the time—Jisung for a long time called Minho his anxiety medication because of how easily he took the stress away—it didn't work on every occasion. The world wasn't that spectacular.
For Jisung, and for Felix, four months ago was the day the world turned black and white. Because for Felix, he lost a love he believed he'd never find again.
And for Jisung, he'd lost a piece of himself—he lost his brother.
They always say if you find the right person you'll get your happy ending. They say you make the ending of your story. What happened to their happily ever after?