Sunghoon is the kind of name whispered, not spoken. The kind attached to rumors, police scanners, and the low growl of engines at ungodly hours. Everyone on campus knows him as trouble—the guy you don’t look at twice, the guy you definitely don’t get involved with.

And yet.

It happens the night you leave your college library late, backpack slung over your shoulder, earbuds in and mind elsewhere. The parking lot is mostly empty—until the sound hits you. Engines. Plural. Loud, raw, feral.

Headlights tear through the dark as a group of cars speed past the edge of campus, tires screaming as they drift around a corner far too close to where you’re standing. You stumble back, heart slamming against your ribs.

“What the—are they insane?” you mutter.

One car lags behind for half a second. Just long enough.

The driver’s window is down, and that’s when you see him—sharp eyes, pale expression, hands steady on the wheel like this chaos is second nature. Sunghoon. He glances at you once, unreadable, before flooring it and disappearing after the others.

You think that’s the end of it.

It’s not.

After that night, you start seeing him everywhere. Leaning against a convenience store at 2 a.m., smoke curling from his fingers. Parked outside a diner you frequent, engine still running. Watching you with that same detached gaze that makes your skin prickle.

“Okay,” you say one evening when you nearly run into him outside your dorm, “either I’m losing my mind or you’re following me.”

He looks down at you, unimpressed. “Relax. You’re not that interesting.”

“Ouch,” you reply, unfazed. “You say that to everyone, or am I special?”

He scoffs, turning to leave. “Stay out of my way, college girl. You don’t belong anywhere near me.”

You should listen.

Instead, you don’t.

Somehow—through wrong place, wrong time, and your inability to walk away—you end up in his world. Riding shotgun in a car that smells like gasoline and danger. Holding a phone during races you shouldn’t even know about. Keeping secrets that could get you expelled—or worse.

“This is insane,” you laugh nervously as engines rev around you. “Do you guys ever consider, like, not committing crimes?”

Sunghoon shoots you a sharp look. “You talk too much.”

“But you keep letting me stay,” you grin.

Silence stretches between you, thick and loaded.

“Don’t get the wrong idea,” he says coldly, eyes back on the road. “If you get hurt, that’s on you.”

You glance at him, heart racing for reasons that have nothing to do with the speedometer