at the end of a desert
your existence is limitless

“Is that all there is to it?”

“Pretty much.” Baekhyun breathed out, then he turned, facing the front. “I'll be getting most of the paperwork done, and it might be surprising to know that it doesn't take too long.”

I nodded, even though I knew he wasn't looking at me. Suffice to say, I couldn't be bothered about whether he noticed or not. “How soon?”

“End of this week, probably, or the next at most.” He had taken of his glasses, which were now hanging from the neck of his plain white shirt, and was squinting against the sharp wind.

We were at the top of the old, beaten-down building the racers usually utilized as their base, the very place I had first got to know that Baekhyun was one of them. An informant. It was frigid due to the cool breeze and exhausting at this late hour, but I wasn't tired. I had done nothing but sleep the whole day.

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the railing and tucking my chin into my palm. The weather was pleasant, at most, a contrast to my current mood. Though it was significantly better than it had been in the morning, I still wasn't happy, exactly. The worries had simply been pushed to the back of mind, where they were going to stay until it was time for me to leave. Hopefully.

However, the odds hadn't been in my favour recently.

“How's your shoulder?” Baekhyun asked abruptly, looking at me with the familiar tilt to his head. “It might be a problem once they find you again, and you'll probably have to run—an injured shoulder might cause problems.”

“It's fine, really, almost as good as new,” I answered, flexing it backwards subconsciously. “What do you mean, though, ‘once they find me’?”

He lifted one corner of his lips in a dry smile before looking away again. “You and I both know there's no way they'll let you go,” he said. “Not after Lay himself made an attempt on your life.” He coughed out a chuckle. “He definitely knows where he shot you, and since you're not dead yet, they'll probably be after you again.”

The sudden, darker turn the conversation had taken made my lips press together into a thin line. “I don't want to talk about it.”

Baekhyun turned his face towards me, reflecting slight surprise. “All right.” He sighed. “What do you want to talk about?”

I hung my head, clenching my jaw as I studied the watch around my wrist. What did I even have to talk about? Almost every subject was taboo, and even a single suggestive word could send the conversation spiralling downwards. I mentally scoffed at that thought. This was what my life had come to. I couldn't even speak without overthinking.

“I don't know.” I voiced what had been going around my mind for some time. “There's just—ah, there's so much happening, it's difficult to process it,” I said, sucking in the air through clenched teeth. “It feels like everything is going wrong.”

“Well, it is,” he said, lifting a single shoulder in an elegant shrug. Typical Baekhyun. So ready to tackle the obvious that he didn't give two shits about what anyone might feel about his crassness...but then, I guess I needed it. He was the only one who was ready to accept and face whatever situation I was in, always ready to serve the cold, hard facts to me on a silver platter.

Hell, I was overthinking everything.

After a few more minutes of struggling to cope with the rise of emotion inside me, I finally gave up. “I don't know if I'll be able to handle it, Baekhyun,” I said, leaning forward until I was on the tips of my toes, hanging dangerously off the ledge. “With everything that's happened, it feels like my thoughts are going haywire. It's not even the situation, I'm just—just picking apart every event in my mind until it leaves me feeling even more haunted.”

He didn't say anything, didn't even look at me, instead listening calmly to whatever I said. I pulled back, feeling more infuriated with myself than anyone else.

“It's like I'm just scaring myself,” I said, turning my gaze skyward. “Like I'm scared of being scared, of whatever might happen rather than what is actually happening.”

It was quiet again, the only sound that broke through being the low hum of the lights, and even those were too far away to be of much interest. There was a tinny buzz in my ears, like my brain was bluescreening after pouring everything out.

“I'm not going to say I told you so,” Baekhyun spoke up at length, looking at me sideways with a knowing expression that normally would have been annoying. “And I'm not going to tell you I understand, because I don't, because it's different for everyone.” The moonlight made the sharpness of his features smooth over, making him looking ethereal but unbelievable. “But it's bound to happen, when there's someone on your trail.” He smiled at me, thin-lipped, with unfeeling eyes. “It never ends.”

I raised an eyebrow at his statement. His words felt like a repetition of the morning, when he had practically threatened me about what my life would be like if I never left Seoul. That had been frightening, at most, but the way he said it now, with such a flat expression, felt even more unnerving.

“Why are you so bent on scaring me?” I asked him, turning away and looking down at the street again. The neighbourhood here wasn't as nocturnal as the rest of the city, or at least the people here didn't show it. There were no headlights, no cars, no loud conversations. Still, I could feel the silent life here, the underlying energy that was darker than the former.

“I'm not scaring you, just stating the facts,” he said. “It might sound cold to you, but it's better if you accept what's going to happen sooner rather than later.”

“You could've still phrased it better,” I muttered.

“Could I?” He questioned in that careless, glazed over manner that made my skin crawl, because I knew something was coming. “What do you want me to say, then? That you're going to go crazy if you stay? That you'll rip your own sanity apart before they manage to get you?”

I scowled at him, irritated by his irreverence. “That’s not a better way of phrasing it.”

He laughed, the only real emotion he had shown so far in the conversation. “Face it, there's no way it can sound better.” Cocking his head towards me, he smiled slightly. “If you can't hope, you can at least plan.”

Plan. Sure. When I was powerless to do anything, still caught up in this web, or rather, this nest of lies. By this time, I had pretty much come to the conclusion that no one could be trusted completely. Yet I had to follow through with whatever they told me to do, simply because I had no other choice.

I knew what I needed, which was to get back to my senses. In spite of that, I couldn't help it, because I had neither the motive nor the means. All I wanted was to be done with this life.

“You'll never escape.” Baekhyun's soft voice broke through my thoughts. “Don't fight it. All you can do is try to live within those limits.”

Limits.

How could I limit myself, when going by the rules was my one weakness? This was why I had joined the bikers, this was why I wanted to race. Why I still wanted to race. There was no way I could live a life with boundaries.

I sighed heavily, tracing a scream into the railing with the tip of my index finger. “And here I was being told that life in the underworld was limitless.”

There was that subtle smirk on his face again, not amused, but something more, something else. The one face I rarely got to see on Baekhyun. “You can't go forward, you can’t go backwards,” he intoned. “Think sideways.”

I laughed at how absurd that sounded. It was childish, and unlike Baekhyun, like a quote that was supposed to be inspirational but made no sense. “Right.”

“I'm not joking,” he said, straightening. “There are other things to find happiness in. Hobbies. Goals. Love.” He scrunched up his nose a little. “Maybe you could build yourself a new life out there, from scratch.”

Even before he finished speaking, I smiled. It was more sardonic than genuine, though, disbelieving and doubtful about whether all this talk was going to help. “Maybe it would've been possible if I—” I bit my lip. “If I hadn't found all of it here.” Letting my eyelids droop, I slackened my shoulders, leaning against the side. “It’s not easy to move on.”

Baekhyun scanned my expression, the corners of his lips lifting almost imperceptibly. “Is that why you don't want to leave? Because you have a life here?”

There was more to the question, but he didn't speak further. Subconsciously, I recalled Taeyong's pained question from before dawn, wondering if I was mourning for this life. If I was, it meant that there was something keeping me anchored to this place. Or someone.

“I don't know anymore,” I said lowly, focusing on my scarred hands which wrapped around the metal unstably.

Baekhyun's half-lidded eyes narrowed thoughtfully, a hint of a reflective smile remaining on his partly lit face. “I can see why that could be, though.” He raised a hand to his face, touching his lower lip with his fingertips as he contemplated. “You're a racer. I don't want to sound cheesy, but it's in your blood.”

The undertone was dangerous, balancing ever so slightly in favour of a warning. I didn't take it, not understanding what could possibly be the bait.

There was his implication from earlier, when he had hinted at the fact that there was something about my situation that I myself didn't know. It was hard to believe, but I found myself considering it, slowly, hesitantly. My father had gone missing, which was surely for a reason. But because of me? The idea sounded so nonsensical, even inside my head, that I started believing Baekhyun more and more.

“This is the life that so many long for, you know,” he said, pulling me out of the tide of thought before I could drown in it. “There's a darkness in everyone, and even if they don't act on it, it's always there, disgusting even themselves. Like festering flesh.” He turned up his nose at the thought. “Sometimes I wonder if it's better that we do something about it rather than let it stay.”

“Like a rotten core,” I mused, recalling Seulgi's words.

“Yes,” he said lightly. “Some of us are too guilty, for too much, but it's not hard to see their motive sometimes.” He turned around, leaning his lower back against the railing, supporting himself with the heels of his palms. “There's a motive. Every time.”

I thought about Yoongi, his blood on my hands, his lifeless eyes on my face, and shivered. “It's exhilarating, though,” I said, feeling a bit better after letting everything out. “When it's not about revenge, just bending the rules sometimes, breaking some if you can.”

He laughed. This was something not everyone here could agree on, but I felt it, and he did too.

“Being bad feels pretty good, huh?” Baekhyun smiled as he looked at me.

My lips curved into a grin, and I looked away, once again feeling the bite of the cold wind against my face.

“You bet it does,” I said.

──────

this might be weird but do you guys know any free apps EXCEPT PHONTO which can be used to add downloaded fonts to a picture? even if it's a website, it's fine. it's just that phonto hasn't been working recently (my phone's an android) and i really need a text-on-pictures app for a downloaded fonts (urae nium, specifically). please help a broke girl out lol.

love,
Manx.