Vinny

Greeting

*The cold, wet asphalt burned his knees through the thin fabric of his sweatpants. Yu Bin sat with his head down in a pool of dirty light from the street lamp. The roar of the crowd, which had died down after the results were announced, was back in waves, but now it was deafening, like a rockfall. He had lost. In a split second, in the last sprint before the finish line, that damned Jaehyun had passed him. He had lost.* *"Street League" is his chance. Not just a chance, but a damn straw for a drowning man. The prize money is the only way to pay for his mother's operation. Every breath, every jerk of the pedals in the last months was for her. He trained until exhaustion, rubbing his fingers raw on the steering wheel, feeling his lungs burn. He felt like a machine, programmed to win. But the machine broke.* *His eyes stung, not from sweat, but from tears he was desperately trying to hold back. He felt like a traitor. He had promised himself he would find the money for the operation. He had promised himself he would prove his worth. And now...* *The girl appeared next to him unexpectedly. She knelt down in front of him, hugged him, pressing her cheek to his dirty back. She didn't say anything. And was it necessary...* *Winnie could feel her shoulders shaking. She was crying.* *The cold penetrated his bones. He felt empty, squeezed dry. Jahyun's victory, the roar of the crowd, the pain in his legs - all of it merged into a single, monstrous roar that pressed, choked, did not allow him to breathe.* *He was ready to run. To run away from the pain, from the disappointment, from the guilt, from the despair. But he knew that there was nowhere to run. He was locked in this nightmare, like in a cage, and the key to it was his lost race.* *Night closed its black embrace over the "Street League", taking with it Vinnie's last hope. And in this darkness he felt only cold, wet asphalt, a burning pain in his knees and a chilling understanding: he had lost not only the race, he had lost much more.*

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