Five pairs of eyes were watching closely the hands clenched around the steeringwheel. Heavy drops of rain had continuously hit the car body for the past few hours, disturbing the light sleep of them all. And it wasn’t like they could sleep when the road was filled with serpentines and the rain continuously falling over the car, making it hard for the driver to keep a straight direction.

“S-shouldn’t we stop for a while?” One of them bit his lower lip while trying to buckle up his seatbelt.

“Lay’s right, you know,” spoke the one next to the driver’s seat with a steady tone, his anxiety being given away only by the his knuckles turned white around the handle of the door.

“Shut up!” The driver growled at him, his eyes never leaving the slippery road ahead of them. “This van can make it. It can make it, hear me?!”

“She can make it, but we won’t if we crash, Zitao,” the guy next to the driver pointed out, turning his eyes away from the slippery road for the first time. “You’re scarring the kids, Tao,” he then continued on a softer tone. “Let’s pull over till the rain stops and then we can continue our journey. There’s really no  reason to hurry on this kind of weather.”

“No,” Tao just accelerated. “Listen up! All we do is get out of this portion of road. I bet that at the bottom of the hill the rain ain’t this aggressive. And if we’re to go down, might as well have some respect for this car and go down with her.”

“Are yo nuts?!” A high pitched voice whipped the air the next second.

“No, I’m not nuts. Nuts are fruits, Jong In,” Tao rolled his eyes at their strange companion.

“Not nuts as in nuts, but nuts as in crazy,” the named one scowled. “No, no, I’m done with this ,” he quickly unbuckled his seatbelt, “I’m way too young and handsome to die in this old van!”

It took him two steps and one move to slide the door open, letting the rain soak the floor of the van and the wind howl inside like in the middle of nowhere.

“You wouldn’t make the fall, smart-,” his seat mate quickly grabbed him y his strange cape and pulled him back on the bench. “Chanyeol, can you close and lock the door? This idiot right here might try to jump out again while we sleep.”

“Who do you think you’re smacking, Oh Sehun?! I’m older than you, you know?”

“By three months and twenty-eight days,” Sehun rolled his eyes at his friend, smacking the back of his head once again. “So what? We’ve always had this kind of relationship.”

His statement only drew the attention of the others, culminating with Chanyeol turning around with a loose smile hanging in the corner of his mouth. “So, you two are in such a relationship, huh?”

“Wha-?! No! See what you’ve done?! You and your big mouth!”

“Kai, don’t push it,” Sehun threatened, his fingers still clinging on the other’s cape. “No, we’re not gay if that’s what you’re implying, Chanyeol. Actually, I could ask the same: are you attached to your seat mate or something? ‘Cause you’re always near him.”

“Don’t get me involved in this, Oh Sehun,” Lay frowned from his place.

“Don’t act smart-, Sehun. You two are weirder than a pair of ostriches at the bottom of Hallasan, so don’t you pick on why I am always around Lay, alright? I’m being friendly, if you really want to know,” Chanyeol retorted with the same smile on.

“Who are you calling an ‘ostrich’, you llama?!” Kai threw his phone on the other side of the van where Chanyeol was sitting next to Lay.

“I’m going to murder someone,” Tao grumbled, ignoring his sweaty hands on the steering wheel. “Kris, do something about them or they’ll all end up dead before the rain stops,” he eyed the tall, Chinese guy on his right.

“Guys-”

“What the –” Tao’s sudden movement cut Kris, making all the others hold tight on their seatbelts while the van drew a slick S on the wet road, the headlights catching in their spanking the violent shade of a crimson skirt being blown by the wind and a pair of widened, shocked eyes.

And then the gnashing of the wheels against the wet asphalt…

☾ ♅ ☽

Rain. Rain. And again, rain. Heavy, strangely bouncing against the roof of the vehicle stopped diagonal on the road.

“What was that?” Sehun checked his temple that had just bumped against the window.

“An animal maybe,” Tao shuddered, trying to drive away the haunting image stuck in his head. “What do you think, Kris?”

But the one on his right was sitting there silent, head leaning against the board.

“Wu Yifan, this is not funny,” Tao shook his body till his head hit the window quite violently. “ this !” He just jumped out of the car and quickly walked to the other side where he opened the door, letting the cold rain fall on Kris’s face, hoping that maybe water will wake him up.

“Let me check his pulse,” Lay stood from his place, passing Chanyeol who gave him the mocking looks. “I can do at least this, you know? Hmmm… I think he passed out.”

“It was a woman,” Kris spoke suddenly, making Lay’s fingers clench around his wrist.

“Out here? In the middle of nowhere? Hey Lay, are you sure he didn’t hit his head harder?” Kai jumped out of the van with the usual smirk on his full lips.

“I can hear you pretty well, Kim Jong In,” the Chinese man opened his eyes, letting few raindrops wash his eyelids and trickle down the corner of his eyes like a pair of crystal tears. “And I bet I can still kick your from here, all the way to the sea if you insist on being an jackass. What’s wrong?” Kris’s attention turned to Chanyeol who approached them with his hands buried in his pockets.

“Well, we’ve got a couple of problems,” he kicked away a small stone, still not looking at his companions. “First, we should move the car from the road because we risk to get hit by any car that would come on this road and second, the van is damaged.”

“Damaged?!” Tao’s eyes widened to the size of golf balls.

The boys rushed to the back of the van, only to discover that one of the windows was broken and the shards scattered all over the pavement.

“Great! Just great!” Tao’s nostrils dilated and turned white. “How the heck did it broke when we didn’t hit anything?!”

“Guys? You might want to see this,” Lay’s voice made them attentive, pointing at the portion of asphalt in front of his shoes.

“Is that… blood?” Kai’s brows knitted together at the small pool of blood that was quickly getting washed away by the heavy rain.

“I think so,” Lay dipped his fingers into the pool and then s