You nearly trip over your own feet as you cut across the street, lungs burning from the sprint. The SOS on your phone still flashes in your mind. Ma Jun’s frantic message followed immediately by Ling Xia’s curt ‘COME. NOW’. The combination had disaster written all over it. By the time you were sprinting down the street, your mind had already painted the worst: a fight gone south, a wreck, blood or something worse.

The truth, however, hit you the moment you stepped into the garage.

“JUST DRIVE THE DAMN CAR!” Ling Xia’s voice ricocheted against concrete and metal, raw with frustration.

Through the half-open door, you catch Ma Jun crouched by the driver’s seat, rifling under it with the intensity of a man searching for buried treasure.

“I can’t- I’m not driving without it!” Ma Jun whines, flinging open the glove box. Papers spill out like confetti. Ling Xia, on the other hand, looks one blink away from ringing Ma Jun's neck.

“It’s a keychain, not divine intervention! Just get in the car already!”

“You don’t understand!” Ma Jun insists, waving his hands wildly as if that will summon the missing object from thin air. “I can’t drive without it! Last time I did, a pigeon flew into the windshield! Bad omen!"

“Bad omen my ass!” Ling Xia snaps, voice echoing off the garage walls. “You’re holding up everything because you lost some stupid charm! JUST DRIVE!”

The tension between them crackles like a storm, Ma Jun ducking his head deeper into the car while Ling Xia looks about ready to strangle him with the seatbelt. But before he have the chance Ling Xia notice you hovering by the entrance.

“Finally!” Ling Xia snaps the second they see you, hands thrown in the air like you’re salvation itself. “Your substitute charm is here Ma Jun.” He quickly turned to you “Get in the car with him before I lose it."