Midnight Circuit: Bangtan - Part 2
part 1
kim namjoon underground car racing au
racer!namjoon x oc
cw: car crash and low-key no one worries?
an: not really proof-read, English still isn‘t my first language. this is not as long as the first part, I didn’t want to rush anything. This could be my first working friends to lovers, lowkey slowburn story :°
Three minutes.
That was all it took for everything to go to shit.
RM returned with his phone still pressed to his ear, his expression unreadable in the dim light. The conversation on the other end was short, entirely controlled by his low voice.
“…Yeah. I know.” A pause. His jaw tightened, just slightly. “No, we have the license plate. Yoongi took it with him before coming back.” Another short pause. “I’ll handle Jackson.”
He ended the call without another word.
Jayden was already standing straighter before he even looked at her.
Something in the air had shifted. The buzzing excitement from earlier had thinned out, replaced by something sharper. Uneasiness. People were moving differently now. Faster. Quieter. Like ants after someone kicked the hill.
Her stomach dropped. „What happened?”
RM slid the phone into his pocket, gaze flicking over the lot before settling on her.
“He crashed.”
The words landed flat. No drama.
Jayden blinked. “What?”
“He flipped the car,” he added, like he was clarifying a minor detail instead of completely rewriting her night. “Three times.”
For a second, she just stared at him.
Three times.
Her mind tried to catch up, failed somewhere in the middle, and left her with a hollow, buzzing feeling in her chest.
“Is he—”
“Alive,” RM cut in. Not harsh. Just quick to not draw too much attention to the topic. “Already being taken care of.”
Some of the tension in her shoulders dropped, but not much.
Around them, voices rose and fell in sharp bursts. A group of men argued near the far end of the lot - one of them louder than the rest, agitated in a way that didn’t need translation.
Jayden didn’t need to guess who that was. “Jackson?” she asked quietly.
RM followed her line of sight, then exhaled through his nose. „Yeah.”
No elaboration. None needed.
She wrapped her arms around herself again, suddenly very aware of how cold it had gotten. Or maybe it was just her.
“This is insane,” she muttered, more to herself than to him.
RM didn’t disagree. He just watched the scene for another second, calculating something she couldn’t see, before his attention shifted back to her.
“You want a ride home?”
The question came out simple. Casual, almost. Like they were leaving a party. Not the aftermath of a crash.
Jayden let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh. “That obvious?”
His mouth twitched - barely there, but real.
“You don’t look like you’re planning to stay. Now, that your fuck-buddy chickened out.“
Fair.
She glanced toward the torn fence they had come through earlier. The long walk back. The dark streets. The very real possibility of getting lost in a part of the city she didn’t even recognize.
Then back at him. Tall. Composed. Completely unbothered by the chaos unfolding around him.
Annoyingly good-looking, too.
Her judgment clearly wasn’t at its peak tonight.
“…I guess I don’t have a lot of options,” she admitted.
RM held her gaze for a second longer than necessary. Not pushing. Not convincing.
Just waiting.
“Alright,” he said finally, nodding once. “Come on, before you get dragged into something else you didn‘t sign up for.“
He turned without checking if she’d follow.
But of course she did.
Because despite everything - the crash, the strangers, the growing realization that she had walked straight into something way out of her depth - he was the first person all night who felt… steady.
Which, honestly, said more about the night than about him.
They moved past the cars, past the clusters of people still buzzing with tension and adrenaline. A few heads turned as they passed, some curious, some knowing. No one stopped them.
At the edge of the lot, near a line of darker, quieter vehicles, RM slowed. He pulled a set of keys from his pocket, pressing a button without looking. Somewhere to their left, a car unlocked with a soft click.
Jayden hesitated for half a second.
This was insane.
Following a stranger. Getting into his car. After everything that had just happened.
Her brain was trying, really trying, to protest.
RM opened the passenger‘s door, then glanced at her over his shoulder, “You coming?”
There was that same tone neutral again. Like it was entirely up to her. Jayden shook her head once, almost to herself, and walked around to the passenger side.
“Yeah,” she muttered, sitting down into the soft leather.
The car door shut with a soft, solid click - muting the chaos outside almost instantly.
Inside of the car, it was different. Jayden was momentarily distracted by how smooth the seat felt against the skin of her thighs.
The faint smell of something subtle - woodsy and clean - lingered in the air. It didn’t match the outside at all. But if she was honest, nothing about this particular car did.
RM shut his own door after sitting in the car.
„My Momma wouldn’t be proud of me,“ Jayden said, tugging awkwardly at the seatbelt, as the locking mechanism jammed. „Walking into some stranger‘s car.“
She gave it another try. It refused to cooperate.
A soft chuckle came from beside her. Obviously amused.
Before she could fumble with the belt again, he leaned over - close enough that she caught his scent - and took it from her hands.
Click.
Completely effortless.
„I don’t know your name either,“ he said, settling back into his seat as the engine purred to life beneath his hands, „but my mother would be proud of me.“
Jayden turned her head slightly, eyebrows raised.
He glanced at her, while pulling out the car of the row, „Having a pretty stranger sitting inside my car.“
That caught her off-guard. Not the compliment itself, but the way he said it. Like it wasn‘t a line. But rather a fact he had already decided on a while ago.
Jayden huffed a quiet laugh, shaking her head as she leaned her head back, her gaze traveling over the rows of cars they passed. „Careful,“ she muttered, „That almost sounded genuine.“
Outside, the people shifted. Without anyone saying a word, space opened up for RM‘s car.
„You‘re kind of a big deal here, aren’t you?“
He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Instead, he rested one hand loosely on the steering wheel, the other shifting the gears with precision.
„Name,“ he said.
Jayden blinked, then smirked faintly. „Straight business, boss.“ A small pause followed. Then, „Jayden.“
He nodded once. „Namjoon.“
As he spoke, he gestured slightly toward the people outside - the ones watching, the ones who had stepped aside without question.
„But they call me RM.“
The message was clear. This was his world. And they all knew it.
Jayden exhaled slowly, as he pulled onto the street and moved them toward the center of the city.
„Well, RM,“ the woman in his passenger seat said, glancing at him from the corner of her dark blue eyes, „This is definitely not how I thought tonight was going to go.“
A faint smile ghosted across his lips, eyes fixed onto the asphalt beneath them, as the gates and the chaos behind them fell away.
„Yeah,“ he said, „Me neither.“
———————
@ksnj1209 i hope this didn‘t disappoint too much, there‘s more to come!