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Junghoon wipes his sweaty palms on his grimy band T-shirt and grins at the attendant. The attendant grimaces back, staring pointedly at the coffee stain on Junghoon’s sweatpants, then sighs. “There is no way he’s gonna let me even look at the keys to a Kia Soul at this point.” Junghoons thinks. He smiles brighter, though. Pupils completely overshadowed by his eyesmile, and every molar, incisor, and canine on display.
“Look, sir…” The attendant starts tightly. “Aside from our luxury options, I’d love to show you our budget catalogue for a more affo–”
“He’s here!” another attendant frantically screams. “He’s what?!” Junghoon’s attendant yells back. “Go, go, go! Madam will flay us if we don’t polish his fuckass shoes!” They, and several others, rush out of the exit, and suddenly Junghoon is left alone, the warehouse completely devoid of prissy attendants in white polos and khaki bottoms. A brief pity for their unfortunate wardrobe flashes through him, before he spots a freightliner with ten glorious luxury cars stacked neatly in two columns.
Curiously enough, the door to the driver’s side is wide open, and a box was placed haphazardly on the steps. Junghoon walks over, absolutely intrigued by the driver’s carelessness, when he spots the keys to each car in the mysterious box.
“Oh, there’s no way.” He laughs to himself, scanning the warehouse for any witnesses to the crime he's surely about to commit. Junghoon quickly rifles through the box for the keys to the white Lamborghini on the bottom rack of the transport trailer, and all but drops the box to the floor when he spots it.
He sprints over and unlocks the car as he jumps onto the trailer, then watches in awe as the door swings upward on its own. The interior is sleek, dark, and sophisticated, accented with mint underglow and interior lights. Junghoon nearly sees heaven when he slides into the seat.
He sinks into it, “I’m so going to jail, but who cares?” Junghoon blissfully sighs, closing the car door and rubbing his hands over the soft leather of the wheel. He gives the interior another once-over and notices a button labeled ‘lighting’ on the touch-screen center console. Junghoon clicks on it and stares at the color wheel pop-up, then grins. He turns the intensity to max, and basks in his egregiously mint haven.
Suddenly, the car starts moving, and He panics, thinking he let his foot off the brakes in all his thinly veiled adoration.
“Fuck. Oh shit, I’m gonna knock off the other cars behind me.” Junghoon swears, frantically trying to hit the brakes and turn off the car for good measure. He fumbles with the key fob and presses the trunk button six times before he finally hits the power button and turns off the car.
Then he realizes. The car is still locked in its position on the transport trailer.
“The truck is moving,” Junghoon whispers, paler than the Lamborghini he’s cherished for all of two seconds. “I’m gonna go to jail.”
He panics internally and wonders if he should jump off the truck, but it’s moving too fast for him to even attempt it. That, and the driver hits every bump, curb, pothole, and crack in the road for good measure, almost like he's dying to get away from the dealership as fast as possible.
Junghoon freezes when he realizes he might be an accomplice to car theft. He sits and waits, desperately searching for an opening to swing the door open, jump off the truck, and roll onto the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.
Unfortunately for him, the truck pulls into another warehouse before he gets the chance to do so.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” Junghoon rants, desperately trying to dissolve himself into the darkness of the car’s interior as the truck creaks and slows to a stop. He closes his eyes for good measure and prays, hopes, that whoever was driving the freightliner wouldn’t call LAPD, frame him, and have him shipped off to Arkham for his crimes. Or worse, keep him hostage forever.
Junghoon hears the driver’s side door swing open and the light footsteps that follow it, still hoping that they don’t spot him and his self-inflicted balayage that inevitably fried his hair beyond any repair. An unfamiliar voice suddenly yells, “Hurry up with the plates! I’m itching to drive that Chiron up there.”
Without missing a beat, someone else responds. “I don’t get what you see in that bumblebee looking ass car, but to each their own.” several snickers and an indignant “Hey!” echoes through the new location.
“If you’re itching, you must take less showers than Hyunwoo at this point.” Another voice cackles. All the giggles get louder, someone even lets out a full-bellied laugh at the comment.
Junghoon hears yet another voice, probably Hyunwoo, yell an exasperated “Oh, fuck you!”
“How many of them are there??” Junghoon worries, wondering if he needs to call his mom and tell her not to look at the news tomorrow morning. He can just imagine the headlines. “This just in, sophomore engineering student at prestigious university Caltech Institute caught stealing a Lamborghi from a dealership. What a shame, this generation seems to conti–” His thoughts get cut off by a loud scraping sound from a mechanism unlocking.
Junghoon whips his head around to see a shadowy figure sliding into one of the cars behind him and pulling out of the trailer into the warehouse. He’s so fucked.
Junghoon closes his eyes again and accepts his fate of being the first in his family to be charged with coercion, grand theft auto, and driving with an expired permit (without parental supervision).
The trailer continues to creak and shake as Junghoon’s accidental kidnappers release and unload more cars behind him. It’s finally his turn.
The door to the Lamborghini swings upward, and Kidnapper #1 slides in and settles into the driver’s seat. Right on Junghoon’s lap. Immediately, the blonde on top of him freezes and turns comically slowly to look at Junghoon, who is still trying his best to be invisible.
It doesn’t work, obviously, and they make eye contact for about three seconds before blondie starts screaming and scrambling to get out of the car.
And because Junghoon is strange, he screams back, thinking that would make them even in some convoluted sense.
The others quickly take notice and rush over to see what terrified their partner in crime out of his wits. One of them even vaults over barriers on the trailer, snatches up his friend, and holds him to his chest like an old white lady clutches her purse on a crowded train.
They both stop screaming at that point, so Junghoon just stares awkwardly at the green-haired boy currently bear-hugging a terrified blonde who’s at least two heads shorter than him.
“Who the fuck are you?” Junghoon demands. “Might as well go out with a bang” he thinks miserly.
Without missing a beat, Dipsy the teletubby fires back. “Right back at you, Oreo head, what the hell are you doing in our car?” He squints at Junghoon like he’s trying to see through him.
It’s only when someone behind them laughs out a “Seeun how the fuck did you not know one of the keys were gone?” that Junghoon notices there are seven other people currently staring at him and the two boys still practically hugging.
One of them fiercely turns towards a redhead and throws his shoe at him with terrifying precision. Junghoon watches in amusement as he squawks and scurries behind another boy with fluffy brown hair.
“Hyung! I swear I didn’t know there were supposed to be ten cars and not nine I—” Another shoe is thrown at his head, and it is immediately clear how short the sandal sniper is as he chases after the redhead, trying to flee his wrath.
Junghoon snickers behind a hand. “Is he wearing insoles?”
“Can you not count?! Park Seeun, I swear to all that is good, I AM GOING TO POUND YOUR STUPID FACE!” The furious boy screams, sprinting towards his victim.
“Ayo, pause.” Another redhead says, leaning on the hood of a navy blue Koenigsegg and laughing as the taller ginger scrambles to his knees to beg for forgiveness.
“Shut up, Yechan.” Eight voices retort, seemingly familiar with his shenanigans but unfortunately not immune to them.
“Oh, by all means, let’s ignore the fact that we have a witness, shall we?” A raven-haired boy snarks. But he says it with a lisp. So Junghoon, ever the unserious person he is, snorts and mimics his words. “Witneth, thall we?”
Everyone except Tom, Jerry, and Mr. Witneth bursts into laughter, completely ignoring the fact that Junghoon is indeed a witness.
The blonde who nearly gave him a lap dance pauses in his laughter and slowly realizes how right his friend is.
“Guys, no wait. For real, what the hell are we supposed to do? We’ve never had anyone see us before,” he contemplates. The laughter dies out (save for the sound of Yechan(?) still laughing at the other redhead getting scolded), and Junghoon looks at all of them mumble and whisper about what his fate will be.
A lightbulb flashes in his mind. “I don’t have to be a witness, I can be an accomplice,” Junghoon says brazenly, praying that they’d buy his confidence and somehow pat him on the back for his novel idea.
A cold silence passes through the warehouse. Even Yechan pauses to look at Junghoon with bewilderment. A beat passes, then he laughs even harder than before, completely falling off the hood of his car with a loud thud. He does not stop laughing this time.
The green-haired boy squints even more at Junghoon and sighs. “Let’s just take him.” The blonde, still in his arms, looks back at him incredulously.
“You can’t possibly be serious, right? Right guys?” he asks around nervously.
The boy who instigated the shoe-throwing exhales sharply. “What choice do we have? Those pigs are absolutely after us at this point, and we have a long drive ahead of us to the drop off.”
“Fuck… Yeah, you’re right. Hopefully, Mr. Park buys our story and still lets us race next week,” another one of them sighs, exasperated. “Hunter, go change his plates and give him the drop off. Welcome to the team, uh…” he trails off.
“Junghoon. Kim Junghoon.” He finishes. Definitely not one of his wiser life decisions to give a crew of car thieves (and underground racers?) his full name, but this is all for the sake of the plot, right?
“Well, okay, Junghoon, my name’s Jinsik!” He responds cheerfully. Jinsik smiles as he continues introducing the rest of them. “Grasshead and banshee are Sumin and Yujun. Yechan is the one giggling on the floor.” He points to the boy still clutching his stomach for dear life by the tires of his car.
“Hunter is the one changing your plates right now. You made fun of Hyunwoo’s lisp three seconds after meeting, so good luck with that.” Jinsik snickers.
He points to the other side of the warehouse, where yet another one of them is holding back a still enraged boy from his cowering friend. “Minjae is currently beating Seeun with his shoe, and Junmin is the one holding him back.”
“Welcome to the fam, I guess?” Sumin drawls, finally letting go of Yujun and sticking his hand out for Junghoon to shake.
Junghoon takes his hand and grins back. “Glad to be here.”