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celestie0 · 4 months ago

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gojo satoru x reader | college au [18+]

kickoff ch.12 how you get the girl

ᰔ pairing. college au - soccer player! gojo x film major! reader

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is the most popular guy on your college campus. he's tall, funny, hot, not to mention he's the most talented soccer forward the school has seen in years. but he's also a frat dude, which puts him in a world very different from your own, as he spends most of his nights partying while you spend most of yours working on your annoying film major assignments. but when he reaches out to you for a favor, you realize that helping him out might have something in it for you too.

ᰔ warnings/tags. 18+, fem reader, fluff, angst, smut, college au, fraternities, sororities, partying, drinking/alcohol, romance, jealousy, pining, slow burn, opposites to lovers, friends to lovers, she falls first he falls harder, gojo being an idiot, marijuana use, sexism, sexual harassment (verbal only)

ᰔ chapter. 12/x (probably 18)

ᰔ words. 11.3k

a/n. man the color scheme for this chapter is kinda giving BRAT lolol...i mean gojo IS brat. anywho, i don't have much to say at the beginning of this chapter but i do have a LOT to say at the end of it sooo see y'all at the bottom!! hope u enjoy. also BIG THANK YOU to @whereflowerswenttodie who beta read parts of this chapter for me n convinced me not to scrap it lol

nav. masterlist

☾·̩͙꙳ moodboard no.1 :: ♬.*ﾟplaylist

11:03am you: hi! 11:03am you: good luck today 11:03am you: incase i don’t see you

11:05am Gojo Satoru: Why wouldn’t you? Aren’t you gonna be on the field for your newsletter shots?

11:07am you: i mean yes but idk where i’m gonna be stationed so 11:07am you: it might not be on UTokyo’s side of the field

11:08am Gojo Satoru: Okay then I’ll look for you before the game starts

11:10am you: no pls don’t. coach yaga thinks i distract you. i don’t want to get yelled at again. he scares me :(

11:12am Gojo Satoru: Haha you’re silly 11:13am Gojo Satoru: East side entrance at 2 11:13am Gojo Satoru: Be there

11:14am you: or be square?

11:15am Gojo Satoru: Yea whatever shape you wanna be in is fine cutie

It’s a bright sunny day outside, perfectly blue sky with a scattering of fluffy clouds seen outside the window of your shared room in your apartment, and you realize spring is fully here from the way birds chirp past the glass. You’re stuffing your camera case full of chilled Kodak film rolls, your last stash left, and it’s the last piece of equipment you pack before slinging the strap over your shoulder and heading out the door.

Mina had offered to give you a ride to the stadium since your car’s still at the shop, but you’re happy you opted for the bumpy bus ride and although you come close to low-grade concussions from the bang of your head to the window at every other speed bump, the music in your ears while someone else is operating a public transport vehicle helps you think creatively before shooting shots.

It was surprise enough that Mina of all people was going to this game, and when you questioned her about it in the morning, she looked at you like you were absurd to assume anyone from UTokyo wouldn’t be at this game, and sure enough, it’s all anyone on Instagram has been repping on their stories or talking about in the bustling minutes before lectures. Even Utahime was going to this game, and she hates all intercollegiate sports. You knew the game was a big deal, given the way Coach Yaga was yelled at via email by the Dean of UTokyo to make sure the team wins today because a multimillion dollar Nike sponsorship would be greenlit by the prospect (for some reason you were cc’d in an email chain among divisional higher-ups, but you weren’t opposed to snooping in on conversations that were entirely outside of your tax bracket).

It’s because it’s the second to last home game before the season ends, and apparently this has been statistically the best season the UTokyo D1 Men’s Soccer team has played since the new millenia. No pressure to the players on that fact, but failure wasn’t much of an option for them anymore.

And you can feel the stakes the second you step inside the stadium. Packed would be an understatement, there were people flooding the aisles, overbooked for the sake of the university pocketing an extra buck no doubt, but spectators could care less since they were able to at least get in on the basis of that irresponsibility in the first place, despite the stadium’s capacity having long been reached before the pregame festivities even start. Banners and signs drape over railings with the school’s striking blue and golden colors, every single replay screen is lit up and brightly pixelated at every north, south, east, and west entrance for inclusive viewing. As you pass VIP security and make it into the lower field-level entry, the scattered chants from the crowd amplify in volume and you almost wince a little to yourself from the noise. The stadium felt like a living, breathing entity, pulsing with the collective heartbeat of everyone inside.

You’ve never been more overstimulated in your life, except instead of finding it frightening, it was electrifying. And for once, you think you can understand what an athlete must feel when playing on their own home turf surrounded by those that are wholeheartedly rooting for them.

Hana is quick to spot you, panic clear across her face as she regards you with a couple pages with your assigned vantage points, a rushed briefing session, and then she’s darting down the sidelines to make sure equipment is set up appropriately where needed. She’s understaffed, given you told Utahime about Kai’s little intervention last week and she made a nasty point to the university (and possibly a handful of legal threats) and they relented in firing him. So now the three of you were down a photographer, and the extra work shows in the instructions she gave you as you skim the sheets.

A glance at your phone tells you it’s close to 2pm, and your eyes take in the expanse of green on the field. UTokyo’s players practice kicking shots off to the right goal post, while YCU’s players practice shots off to the left. You can’t spot where Gojo is, but you faithfully head down to the East Side entrance like he asked you to.

When you round the corner, you almost crash right into an Ichiko mascot, but swiftly dodge, and then you stop in your tracks when you see Gojo standing right at the concrete entrance. He’s leaning back against the adjacent wall, arms crossed at his chest, and he’s stretching his neck side to side with a creased brow, an intense look in his eyes, lost in serious thought, scanning the wall across from him like he’s mapping out plays in his head.

When you approach him and catch the corner of his eyesight, he leans off the wall and flashes you one of his so extremely charmed to see you grins on reflex, and suddenly there’s nothing your senses seem to pick up on except him. Like everything else around you just disappears.

“Hey, you,” he says when he comes up to you, and you walk him like a dog back to a corner that’s tucked further away from noises and sights. You lean your back against the wall now, the coolness of concrete seeping through the fabric of your shirt, and he stands a step in front of you. Your hands toy with the strap of your camera.

“Are you ready to win today?” you ask him, and look off to the right into the flourishing seats that are still being filled to the brim, “clearly there’s no pressure.”

He breathes in deep, and releases it slowly, like there really was tension to relieve. “We’ve got no choice but to win.”

“Is that something Coach Yaga says to you guys often?” you ask him, because the man recited the same thing about five times in that email chain. “Also, apparently you take years off of his life.” Another thing he recited about five times in that email chain.

Gojo only addresses what he wants to address, as per usual. “Yeah, it’s something he says to us often.”

“So,” you say, “what did you want to talk about?”

He looks at you puzzled, tilting his head to the side. “Nothing. I just wanted to see you.”

It’s hard to assume that he didn’t have something to talk about with the intention of telling you to meet him here, because this is the same place you confessed to him a few weeks ago, and so is also the place he so painfully rejected you. But maybe he doesn’t think about these kinds of things as much as you do. “I see.”

His tongue pokes to his cheek as he studies your anticipating expression, and then he sighs, his shoulders slumping slightly. “What are we doing? I mean, I like you, and you like me too, at least I hope you still do. Why don’t we—…why don’t we just give it a go already? I don’t see how we can move forward if you won’t at least let me take you out on a date.”

Your hands stop fidgeting with your camera strap from his words, and you lick your lips, suddenly unable to keep eye contact with him so your gaze drifts down to his chest in front of you. His uniform is clean, no smudges of dirt or grass, just pure white fabric underneath heat-pressed blue and golden accents, and of course, that signature number 10. You’re sure he’s all you’ll ever think of when you see that number now for the rest of your life.

You know when you want something so bad you don’t know what to do once you have it? Because it almost seems too good to be true?

“I just wanted to let stuff between us breathe for a little bit,” you confess, “it’s just, it was a lot to deal with. Being around you when I thought you didn’t want me the way I wanted you. I don’t know if this is odd to say, and maybe I’m overthinking it, but I just feel like somewhere along the way, I kind of…forgot who you were for a little bit.” This kind of vulnerability would have you running away with your tail between your legs with anyone else, but not with him. Not after everything.

His expression softens, melting away that confrontational energy he had earlier, and he nods slowly. He opens his mouth to speak, but he can’t seem to find words. The presence of them is there, though, you can feel them. But what good are his thoughts if not voiced?

“I just wanted to spend a little bit of time getting to know you again, I guess.” You squeeze your arm in reassurance of yourself because he wasn’t giving it to you. You let out an awkward laugh. “I don’t really know what I’m saying right now, to be honest.”

You can tell he’s at a crossroads, and you think back to this week and his efforts to get you to open up to him again. You know how he feels right now, because it’s exactly how you felt when he rejected you. Like when someone is so close, yet so far, you can feel that they’re within arms reach but never truly. And they’re slipping away for some reason that you may never know, but all you can do is assume that it’s a fault of your own. You’re not really sure what he can do to make you feel secure about this whole thing anymore, and you can see the slight panic in his eyes when he realizes that too.

“I don’t mind waiting,” he tells you, rushed with a desperation entirely contrary to his words, “what’s a week or two when I want to spend a lot more of those with you anyways.” But he takes a deep breath, like he’s already mentally preparing himself for an agonizing wait in his head.

There’s a sound over the stadium speakers, something technical and sporty and goes entirely over your head in dismissal, but to Gojo it seems to have a different effect, as he’s suddenly attentive and stands up straighter, that focused expression on his face from earlier resurfacing. You realize he needs to get back to the field.

“Can we continue this conversation after the game?” he asks you hastily, already turning towards the center of the stadium. And he adds an obligatory, “sorry.”

“Yeah, sure,” you quickly agree, suddenly feeling like you’re taking up his time.

He gives you a small smile, unsure in its presentation but pure in its intention. But he can only take one step towards the field before you reach out and pinch the fabric of his jersey to keep him still. He feels the tug of it and fully faces you once again.

“Um. Just a sec,” you say, “I have something to give you before your game.”

“Oh?” he looks at you with interest, “I fucking love things.”

“You have to close your eyes though.”

“…what is the thing…” He squints at you with a what are you up to expression.

“Just close your eyes!” you snap at him.

“Okay, okay, jeez,” he holds his hands up in front of him in surrender, shaking his head to get his hair out of his face and then he closes his eyes. “You’re scary as hell sometimes. Excuse me for being cautious.”

You roll your eyes, useless because he doesn’t see it, and then take a step towards him. You cup his jaw with the palm of your hand, his cheek twitching slightly from the unexpected contact, and then you raise on your tiptoes to press your lips to his cheek. It’s short and sweet with the sound of a peck.

“For good luck,” you whisper, then you quickly lower yourself back onto your heels, take a step back and tuck some strands of hair behind your ear. The ground suddenly interests you.

He opens his eyes, blinking a few times with shock and his hand comes up to brush the tips of his fingers against the spot you kissed him, and then his gaze goes comically dazed when he reaches out to hold you. “Alright, c’mere you,” he says, closing his eyes and puckering his lips as he leans down to kiss you but you laugh and push his face away.

“No no no, only on the cheek for now,” you say with a small laugh.

He does nothing to restrain his frustrated groan. “You can’t do something that cute and then expect me to be chill about it.”

“If you win, then, maybe I’ll let you kiss me for real.”

“Maybe?”

“Yes. Maybe.”

He’s close, towering over you near this bustling east side entrance that he seems to like so much, and his eyes drop to your lips. “Alright. I like those odds.”

You give him a smile and slip away from him to get back towards the field, and you feel his eyes on you as you walk away.

The pregame events are a blur, with blaring music accompanied by the sounds of the sports announcers clipping across the speakers, finally quieted down in time for the players to line up on the field for the national anthem which was then followed by UTokyo’s alma mater.

You’re stationed on the same side of the field as Minato, UTokyo’s side, while Hana is covering the sidelines of the opposite end with the opponents goal post. Minato’s filling up a cup of Gatorade for himself at the athlete’s station and then he comes back around to find you.

“Are you ready to take your shots? I see Hana wanted you to shoot on film today,” he says to you as he sloshes around Glacier Freeze in a flimsy plastic cup.

You twist your aperture dial with your thumb. “Yesss, all set. I’ll try to keep up.”

He nods at you in approval.

The atmosphere feels nerve wracking. Something felt different about this game, the stakes feeling high. Well, of course they’re high, because if they lose today then they’re out of the tournament. But the stakes feel high for other reasons too, an energy you can pick up on but can’t quite discern.

Your eyes drift across the field where you can see a referee placing a ball at the center of the field. Off to the right, you can see Gojo standing with a few of his other teammates, including Geto, Nanami, and Choso, and they’re all gesticulating to various corners of the field as they discuss what you can only imagine have to do with their plays for today. And you realize— it’s their last college soccer season. Their second-to-last official home match before the championship, and for those of them that haven’t qualified for the national league, it may be their second-to-last match of this caliber for the rest of their lives. One of the final chances that they have to prove something of themselves. The determination was palpable.

The chief referee’s whistle cuts through the air with three short chirps, and that gathers the attention of all the players on the field. UTokyo wins the coin toss, choosing to kickoff, and YCU’s players choose to attack the left side goal.

Your stomach churns with anticipation, the crowd hushing too as all the players take their places on the field. If you feel nervous, you can only imagine how the athletes feel. There’s a rhythm that you’ve learned over the past couple of months getting to know the sport, where players stretch out their necks and kick out their feet and take subtle deep breaths as they survey the stands. Idle moments before the start of the match where they have no choice but to look forward and only forward, so they take a moment to stay in the present for as long as they can gather. You’ve never been much of a sports spectator, and perhaps you’ve only recently had some personal interest in the team, but you realize you feel pride in your school as you stand behind chalk sideline and see UTokyo’s colors scattered across the field in uniform. And fuck, you wanted them to win. You wanted them to win with fierceness and wrath, and it’s a desire you share with the crowd.

Gojo spends a minute talking to the referee before the black and white striped man pats him high on the back in the good sport and urges him towards the center of the field. He lifts his foot up onto the ball, rolling it back and forth underneath the spikes of his cleat, and you can see it in his eyes, even from all the way over here, that he seems to have different ideas in mind for this game too. High stakes. Pre-determined, set with will, evident in the clench of his jaw and the concentrated furrow of his brow as he surveys the field with his eyes, and you’re lost in the sight for what feels like forever because you can hardly register the chirp of the ref’s whistle.

And then the kickoff starts.

The ball is tapped to Geto to start the play, and the first few minutes were intense as the ball was passed back and forth between UTokyo’s players, placing pressure on YCU’s defense as they inched closer and closer towards the goal. A pass between UTokyo’s #4 was intercepted by YCU and the ball was rushed down towards the left side, the crowd’s horror evident in the uproar as they raise to their feet in fearful anticipation, and with ruthless offense, YCU’s forward takes a clear sink shot towards the goal, and the crowd holds their breath before they watch Choso lunge for it in air, gloved hands firmly grabbing the ball and then pulling it to his chest with a possessiveness you can only expect to see from a skilled goalie, before he crashes down into the ground and the crowd releases relief in the form of rowdy roars.

Ten minutes in, with everyone on their toes, each team tested each other’s defenses. UTokyo were known for stellar offense, especially within the past few years with players like Gojo Satoru and Takuma Ino joining the league as powerful forwards, but UTokyo’s overall offense was still statistically second to none other than YCU. And the pressure YCU was putting on UTokyo’s defense was wearisome to say the least. You glance to see Nanami, who is UTokyo’s best defensive player, huffing and puffing as he stands between two light-footed YCU players in an attempt to guard, and fails an attempt to steal the ball before it gets to the feet of YCU’s striker #6, passed in a split second off to his teammate, with a fake so seamless that it has Choso just a couple inches away from touching the ball before it’s sent flying into the net.

The noises from the crowd are still loud, but dampened in spirit.

With the referees hand signal up in the air, the current score is confirmed. 0-1, YCU.

Coach Yaga calls for a sub, in which he switches Nanami out for who you believe is a 2nd-year defensive player name Yuta you’ve seen around practice with a promising statistical record for interceptions, and you watch as Nanami takes the bench before he swipes the sweat off his face in exhaustion. God. Just fifteen minutes into the match, and YCU already has UTokyo’s defense winded from play.

You bring your camera up to your face, forgetting for a moment that there was still a job to do here, and you position the direction of the lens towards the center of the field, where Gojo takes his place at the ball once more. Yuta briefly passes by him, signaling some play to him by holding up a number three, likely something Coach Yaga asked him to pass on to Gojo, and you see him briefly nod, his mouth slightly agape as he breathes slowly and pulls his jersey up to wipe at the sweat at his forehead.

The referee chirps the whistle, Gojo taps the ball to Yuta, and the play starts.

YCU immediately puts pressure on UTokyo’s offensive play once more, with eager movements to steal the ball, but it’s passed between UTokyo’s players with ease, more practiced and more sure. The kind of play that you and the rest of the school was used to seeing from them. However, Geto loses the ball on a left-back pass, but right when YCU makes attempts to cover field in a long-shot kick towards the left, Yuta intercepts the ball and swiftly passes it to Gojo.

The crowd immediately rises to their feet in anticipation, watching as Gojo shuffles the ball down the field, dangerously close to off-field boundaries, a signature tactic he uses because he knows there’s not a single player in the league that can match him in precision and control to keep the ball in-field on a steal, and he swiftly passes it towards Geto with a side-swept kick, beelining down towards the goal post, in perfect time for Geto pass-back to meet his feet and when Gojo was this close to a net, there was no stopping him.

He draws his right foot back, and explosively kicks the ball forward, chipping the grass under it in the motion, and it’s sent flying towards the goal, and then threaded past the goalie right to the back of the net. The cheers that erupt across the stadium rumble the ground beneath you.

1-1, even match.

UTokyo spends no time celebrating, other than a few pats to Gojo’s back as he nods in acknowledgement, no emotion on his face other than pure concentration and greed. The greed to win, like a righteous sin. He stretches his neck out, panting slightly as he takes his place towards the right side of the field and the referee chirps his whistle to signal YCU to start the kickoff.

They quickly make attempts in moving the ball towards their scoring-end of the field, but face push-back from UTokyo’s defense, unable to make it much further past the midfield line, and you bring your camera up to take a snap of Gojo, who you see is still standing off to the right side of the field. But when you position it and peer through the viewfinder, that space he once stood at was empty. You pull your camera down, and blink at the sight, and then the crowd is picking up in volume once more.

Gojo sprints down the flank, cutting past every defender, and moves towards YCU’s attacking goal, which was a shocking place to be for a center forward, but you could feel his desire and determination to steal this back-and-forth ball, and succeeds when YCU makes an open pass, thinking they were in the clear, only to have Gojo sneak in at the last moment and get the ball at his feet.

The play moves by in a flash, a blur that you or anyone else in the stadium could hardly keep up with it, movements so fast you were shocked a human being was capable of even running that far in such a short amount of time, and in an almost embarrassingly easy play, Gojo makes a fool out of YCU’s defenders as he slips the ball through the legs of his last obstacle before he struck it with sharp precision, sending it soaring to the corner of the goal, past the outstretched arms of the goalie, and into the net.

2-1, UTokyo.

It was electrifying, the feeling that strikes through the stadium, one that reaches you in your own blood. You’re shocked, standing here, after witnessing Gojo score two goals within the matter of minutes, against one of the top three teams in the league. It’s a shock that reaches everyone, including Coach Yaga who’s standing about ten feet down the line from you, his arms crossed, and you see his eyes for the first time as he takes his sunglasses off to get a better look at what he’s seeing.

You trail his sight, dragging your gaze across the field until it lands at Gojo, who is barely acknowledging the encouraging pats and shakes and goodhearted shoves that his teammates were giving him, because he was focused. It might sound crazy to say, but you swear his eyes looked like a fiercer shade of blue, like they were lit up, and you’re insanely glad you’re not one of YCU’s defensive players at the moment because you feel fearful of him even just standing on the sidelines.

Your gaze trails back to Coach Yaga, who slowly puts his sunglasses back on but his brows are narrowed tightly as he crosses his arms over his chest tightly.

The “athletic zone”... You’ve heard of it before. A state of pure focus, of peak performance, where an athlete experiences optimal concentration and a sense of effortless control over their actions. In which they perform at their highest level, where time slows down, any and all distractions fade away, and they’re completely immersed in their sport at hand. At the task at hand.

Coach Yaga seems to pick up on the fact that Gojo was on the edge of tapping into that state.

YCU makes a substitution, and you watch in anticipation as they begin the kickoff.

There’s fire in their veins with desperation to even out the score once more, rushing the ball down the off-field line, one of their center forwards mimicking Gojo’s signature attack pattern, and Yuta struggles to keep up with the expert dribbling of a fourth-year player with more experience on him, so much so to where he completely leaves the ball unguarded and there’s an open shot, but Geto places pressure at the last moment, in a fierce battle for the ball, before YCU’s center forward loses the ball over the goal line.

Choso picks the ball up, tapping on it harshly a few times as he surveys his eyes down the field, and all offensive players begin to shuffle towards their attacking goal in anticipation for the goal kick. He signals his hand down and then holds up two fingers in the air before placing the ball down on the six-yard box. He tightens the strap of one of his gloves, eyes squinting, and you follow his gaze down to a part of the field where you note UTokyo’s best aerial players are located and being guarded by YCU’s defense. And with complete trust in his team, that’s exactly where he kicks the ball.

Geto makes first contact with the ball, his chest colliding with two other YCU players as his head comes out on top and he headbutts the ball closer towards the inner field, and Gojo immediately gains access to it with a bounce of his knee. The crowd holds their breath, fear that they’ll lose the ball to a steal in the split second it spends floating in the air, but Gojo urges it forward with a bounce off of his chest and then rushes it straight down towards the goal post.

You wonder what sight he sees right now. Where you’re dead center, at no angle, lunging towards the sight of an open goal with a sole goalie standing in the center, anticipating to block your shot, and three defenders on your tail. There’s no room for error, no time to think, only instincts that you cultivate in the last leading milliseconds. They say that, in sports, athletes channel one hundred hours of practice in just a brief second on the field. A split second success that was years in the making. You can’t even imagine possessing that level of perfection in your body, or possessing that level of confidence that you can follow through with it in a moment as dire as this.

It was unreal, the way Gojo fades away from all the defenders, and faces no fear when confronted with the sight of the goalie in front of him while drawing his foot back to kick the ball. You lift your camera up at the last second, no time to think about aperture or ISO, just like he had no time to second-doubt a single twitch in his muscles, and his foot makes contact with the ball so harshly that you can hear the explosive sound even among the delirious cheers from the crowd, before he hook, line, and sinks it straight past the goalie’s head, rushing by like a scarcely deflected bullet, and into the net behind him.

3-1, UTokyo.

The whole stadium is momentarily speechless, all players and referees and recruiters and reporters and coaches and employees alike, before the most deafening cheers you’ve ever heard in your life scatter across the stands.

There’s a moment of brief reprieve, where the players can catch their breath while YCU makes yet another substitution, as if they’re just trial-and-erroring it at this point, and the cheers in the stadiums remain idle as you can’t tear your gaze away from Gojo.

It’s one of those moments where you realize that someone who you thought was so familiar to you was actually someone you hardly knew at all. You knew he was a talented soccer player, everyone on campus knows it, potentially one of the best to ever grace the league, and the amount of times you passively watched his plays on a lecture hall projector screen as your professor enthusiastically broke them down during class, even before you met him, was good enough for you to realize that he was insane, a one-in-a-million, a talent you cannot replicate, one you have by divinity. One you were born with.

And yet, somehow, getting to know him these past couple of months, he just felt so human. For someone so seemingly beyond you, he felt so…close? In those moments where it was just the two of you, it was hard to imagine that he was capable of such greatness, and that so many people were rooting for him with wholehearted tears in their eyes and cheers from their hearts, because most of the time, when he was with you, he was just a dorky idiot. You find that your heart is beating fast in your chest, that feeling of being unsure of what to do with what you’ve been wanting resurfacing powerfully.

“This is insane,” you hear Minato say from beside you and you jump a little from your thoughts being interrupted.

You twiddle with your camera straps. “I know…almost done with the first half and we’re up 3-1…I thought YCU are number one in offense for the league?”

“Oh, yeah, I mean, yes, that is insane too. But what’s even more insane is that three of the goals so far have been scored by one player.” He tips his chin towards the right sight of the field and you trail his line of sight. “By Gojo Satoru.”

Your brow furrows as you watch Gojo, his hands on his hips and his mouth slightly open as he indulges in a few shallow breaths to gain energy while YCU prepares for kickoff. Three goals, by just one player. Your eyes widen when you realize that is insane, especially for a D1 semi-final qualifying match.

“You know what the divisional record is for most goals scored by a single player during a championship match, y/n?” Minato asks you as he lifts his camera up to take a picture of the area Gojo was standing in.

You shake your head and wait for his response.

He drops his camera down and glances at the photo on his screen. “Four. During Keio Uni vs. Osaka Uni, near the beginning of the tournament back in 1997 by Osaka’s center forward number 24, Yuji Nakazawa. Meaning no one’s managed to beat that record since the new millenia, for a couple decades. Although a few players came close.”

You blink at him, and Minato is jerking his chin over in the direction of Gojo again.

“I think he’s trying to beat the record.”

You can only widen your eyes at Minato in realization, and then the chirp of the referee’s whistle draws everyone’s attention back to the field.

The sports announcers go wild on the speakers, the crowd raving all the same, standing to their feet like the team just won the championship match.

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!! We are watching HISTORY in the making!! Gojo Satoru, UTokyo’s very own 3-year consecutive MVP, has scored his 34th goal of the season, highest of any player in this year’s season so far, and is now on the road to beat the league’s long-standing record for most goals scored by a single player in a championship match since 1997!!” And the crowd roars even louder as you stare out at the field in awe.

YCU starts the kickoff following the prompt short chirp of the referee’s whistle, and with two minutes remaining on the clock for the first half, make desperate attempts to book it down the field towards their attacking goal, one of their midfielders making a clumsy attempt to strike the ball to the net in the final minutes of the half, and Choso easily catches it in his arms, right before the buzzer of the timer sounds, and the match moves into halftime.

All of UTokyo’s players immediately flock towards Gojo in sportful glee, finally having a chance to surround him and harass him with harsh pats on his back and ruffles of his hair for his play in the first half. Choso even puts him in a headlock because they all don’t know what else to do with their excitement and adrenaline rushing through their bodies. Their win for today was basically confirmed with the way he was playing.

You catch a glimpse of him through the crowd of people, and he has a boyish grin on his face, reveling in the embarrassing amount of attention from his teammates, that focused look from before dissolving into his normal self again. But you can see through him, as well enough as you’ve learned to at least, and you can tell he’s not satisfied. He’s thinking it’s not enough. There’s still more to be done, and it’s not time to celebrate yet.

His eyes scan down the sideline until they find you.

Your heart jumps a second in your chest. He stands up straighter, despite his teammates still clinging to him, and there’s a twinkle in his eyes when your eyes meet.

Cheerleaders take their place out onto the field, performing their numbers with loud music blaring, and the recruiters seated at their white tables get up to roam across the sidelines in discussion with referees and with Coach Yaga and with whatever players they can sink their greedy teeth into, as well as sneak at refreshments while they’re at it. You can see off to the right that Hana has reunited with Minato and she’s showing him some of the shots she took over at the opponent's side.

UTokyo’s players start to make their way to the benches to grab for towels and drinks of water and to sprawl across in rest, and you hear loud familiar laughter approaching as you watch the players sprawl across the benches, so you avert your eyes towards the source of the sound.

You see Gojo approaching the benches, two of his teammates slung with their arms around him in some type of adrenaline-drunken glee as they talk dramatically and theatrically which Gojo entertains with his own drunk-off-of-adrenaline glee. And you raise an eyebrow at his demeanor when he makes eye contact with you.

“There’s my freaky little photographer,” he says, and he’s standing up straight and—wait, is he puffing his chest out as he makes his way towards you? Oh for fucks sake.

Gojo has always been confident around you, for as long as you can remember, but in the fair few moments he’s been cocky, he’s been a menace. And you can only assume the testosterone-induced high of being on the verge of breaking a league record in front of the entire school then subsequently getting homiesexually praised by his teammates for the better part of the past five minutes, not to mention with the crowd and the reporters feeding his ego with a spoon across the speakers, he’s been transformed into the final boss of cocky.

His teammates surround you too, their hands on their hips as they assess you and Gojo when he meanders right up to you, arms held out to hug you, a sleazy sight you’ve seen probably six times this week, and you feel a rush of warmth in your cheeks as you place a hand on his chest to keep him away.

“You’re sweaty and gross, please stay away from me,” you reprimand him, “this is an expensive lens that is not humidity-proof.”

“Hey, you’re the girl that Kentaro socked in the face with a ball the other day at practice, right?” one of his teammates asks, leaning in towards you to take a closer look at your face.

“Oh yeahhh, ‘cause Satoru wasn’t paying attention,” another one of his teammates chimes in teasingly, hardly heard over the loud remix playing in the background as the cheerleaders continue to perform on the field.

You shrink a little from where you stand. Gojo’s got an irritated look on his face and he’s shrugging his teammate’s elbow off of his shoulder.

“I really hope you’re getting my good angles,” his teammate to the left comments before winking at you, and you purse your lips together.

The one on the right leans in too, looking at your cheek with an assessing look in his eye. “At least it didn’t leave a scar on your cute face—”

Gojo shoves the both of them back and away from you by elbowing them in the chest, and they make deep eugh noises before stepping away and rubbing at their sternums with pouts on their faces.

“Get the fuck away from her,” he grumbles, “she’s mine.”

Your cheeks flush slightly with warmth at the attention, and you watch as his teammates scurry away to adhere to some social hierarchy Gojo seems to possess over them.

You raise an eyebrow at him. “Yours?”

“Yes. Eventually. Whatever, did you see me out there?” he turns his torso towards the field and points behind himself with his thumb, “when I—”

“Oh god, you know what’s soooooooooo super sexy to me?” you interrupt him. “When guys are humble.”

“Oh c’monnn,” he curls his arm around your waist and pulls you to him, to where you stumble a little on grass and he holds you when you fall into him with more clumsiness than grace. “Tell me you aren’t at least impressed by me.”

You pout, because you are, and you’d really like to give him some reassurance and validation, but for some reason his cocky attitude is setting you off. “Satoru,” you sigh, wiggling a little in his hug, but he holds you tighter, “I’m working right now. Cut it out.”

He lets go of you at that, sober enough from the adrenaline to realize you’re being serious, but he steps into your space so only you can hear him. “What? Are you embarrassed?”

“Of what?” Your face twists with confusion.

“Of me. Are you embarrassed of me?” he asks.

“No. Why would I be embarrassed of you?” you ask with sharpness.

“I don’t know, just, sometimes I feel like you’re always annoyed by me,” he says with a sigh. “It’s like, you’re really sweet sometimes, and then kinda rude out of nowhere, and it’s sort of messing with my head.”

You pout. “You were messing with my head for weeks.”

“And I’m sorry about that,” he quickly interjects, like he already knew you were brewing up that counterargument, “but you don’t have to act like you’re all disinterested and indifferent just to get back at me for it.” He places his hands on his hips and wipes his temple on the round part of his shoulder when he feels a drop of sweat trickle down from his hairline. “You don’t have to act embarrassed around me either.”

“I’m not embarrassed,” you deny, and your cheeks feel hot, and for some reason you feel angry. “In fact, I’m the one that should be asking you that question. Because I still very clearly remember that time you said I was just someone you know in front of your friends.”

He groans and tilts his head back with frustration. “Can you just let that go? Things have changed between us since then. Move on.”

“You kissed me and then pretended I was just a stranger to you in front of your friends,” you grit as you cross your arms. “That’s the level of sincerity that I know from you, Satoru.”

“Oh, okay, so there’s nothing else I’ve done that shows you that I’m serious about you?” he asks rhetorically with incredulity, throwing his hands up in the air in disbelief.

No. That’s not true, not true at all. But he’s pissed you off now and so all logic was to the wind. “Doesn’t matter. If you’re not embarassed of me, and if you’re really serious about me this time, then fucking prove it.” You’re speaking out of spite, and you fear you’ve just set him off too.

“Fine,” he says, and he grabs the microphone straight out from a passing reporter’s hand, replacing it with a gatorade bottle. The reporter stares at the bottle he’s now holding with confusion. “I will.”

“W-Wait—” you squeak out, feeling the hair at the back of your neck bristle in anticipation and a shiver gets sent down your spine. The cheerleaders are making their way off the field at the end of their routine, and you can hear the thumps across the loud boisterous speakers when Gojo whacks his palm to the microphone to make sure the thing was on before he jogs to the center of the field.

The crowd is already cheering, ecstatic to see the afternoon's star player and pride & joy of their school, and Gojo takes a moment to soak in all the glory in comical appreciation with bowing towards all 360 degree angles of the stadium.

“Uhhh,” you hear Choso from beside you, who’s strapping his thick goalie gloves tightly to his wrists, “Why the fuck does Satoru have a microphone while standing in the middle of the field.”

“It can’t be for any publicly decent reason,” Geto muses.

All you can do is watch.

“Hi, uh,” Gojo starts, static blaring slightly across the speakers and the crowd winces with him, “sorry. I’m Satoru, Gojo Satoru, you might know me from—uh, the game you’ve been watching?”

Cheers all around, because as if a single person wouldn’t know who he is. The stands were rowdy and most definitely drunk off of sidestep beers the stadium has been serving all afternoon long.

Gojo is about to continue speaking, when he catches sight of the table of recruiters in the corner of his eye and he turns to face them out of respect. “Oh, yeah, uh, number 10,” he tugs his jersey up at the shoulder to stretch out the fabric, the 1 and the 0 flattened in view, “division player ID 233-997. Coach Yaga keeps my business cards in his purse if you want one.”

“SAAAAATTOOORRUUUU!!!!!” you hear Coach Yaga yell from somewhere in the distance.

“Anywho,” Gojo continues, and the music dims slightly, so he glances at the stop clock on the screen, which shows him he’s got roughly five minutes left to pull off whatever idiocracy he had in mind before the second half of the game starts. “Just here to say that there’s this girl I really like.”

The crowd gets louder, almost deafening, and sonically mostly feminine in (delusional) hope he’s gonna name call one of them.

Gojo’s voice is crisp and clear through the speakers as he clarifies. “She’s standing over there,” he says as he nonchalantly points to your exact latitude and longitudinal direction, “with the big camera slung around her neck that looks like it could pull her down to the center of the earth. Yeah. She’s super cute and I really like talking to her.”

“Uh-oh,” Geto murmurs from beside you, and you glance at him to try to get a read on the situation but you can’t.

Gojo starts to pace across the center of the field now, like he’s working the crowd. “But get this—she thinks I’m not fuckin’ serious about her!!!”

The crowd groans with him in unison. Yep, most certainly drunk. Or high off of glee. Either way, he’s playing them like a violin.

“Huh?” Gojo’s voice sounds distant now, away from the mic, and you can see on the large pixelated screen that he’s being interrupted by someone that looks like one of the videographers, “oh, what’s that? This is being broadcasted? Uh-huh. Oh. I’m not allowed to cuss? Oh fuck, okay. Er— shit, okay. Wait—shoot, okay.”

Choso’s smirk is heard from beside you, and you catch Geto and Nanami shaking their heads in your periphery.

“LIKE I SAID,” Gojo continues into the mic, “the girl I like thinks I’m just messing around, so. Uh. To show her that I’m serious about her, I’m gonna…” He looks up at the sky to ponder, and you can hear people shouting all sorts of suggestions of nonsense from the crowd. And instead of saying proclaim my undying affection for her through a romantic soliloquy straight from my heart in the presence of the entire school, he says—“I’m gonna strip. Yes. Down to my tighty whities, Imma strip.”

H–

Huh?!?!?

You don’t even have time to be horrified or scared, you’re just bewildered beyond belief that that’s what he came up with.

What the fuck kind of reassurance did you ask for. And what the fuck kind of reassurance were you about to get?

The crowd goes wild, it’s no surprise to say everyone and their mothers wants to see him naked, even the straight dudes would dig it for the gym inspo. And he points straight to you, sleazy look on his face and you’re going to ignore the fact that he just winked at you too as he crosses his arms to hold the hem of his jersey and pulls it up over his head in the most raunchy and slutty way a man can take his shirt off.

The music manager is quick with the bit, and is most definitely a fellow Gen Z college student, because Justin Timberlake’s SexyBack (ft. Timbaland) starts playing across the speakers and the crowd goes ballistic.

“Ayo why’s Satoru Magic Mike’ing the field right now?” one of his other teammates calls out through a mouthful of protein bar, “What the fuck did I miss?”

The cameraman does God’s work in a hella zoom-in of Gojo’s sweat glistened abs, then pans up the naked expanse of the perfect taut skin across his chest, and you can’t help but stare even among all your horror. It’s like when a male bird embarrasses the fuck outta himself to attract a female bird sitting on a perch, except instead of within the context of a NatGeo documentary, this was your real life. Everyone wants him, but he’s making a fool out of himself for you.

He pretends to stretch his arms up into the air, a cover-up to flex his biceps, and then he kicks his cleats off, and the socks come off too. Entirely unnecessary, as showing one's ankles is simply too slutty, but alas he’s a whore. And when his thumbs dip into the waistband of his shorts, and there’s anticipating screeching from the crowd, he finally gets chased by security.

Except he’s an intercollegiate D1 athlete, why the fuck wouldn’t he be able to outrun a bunch of dudes in black?

The camerawork on him is phenomenal as he runs across the sidelines of the field, eliciting a wave down the bleachers. So good in fact that you’re pretty sure the camera man could shoot for the Olympic track and field, with the way the stadium’s got a clear sight of Gojo mouthing the lyrics Them other fuckers don’t know how to act from the song still blaring with satirical rage on his face as he makes a fool of the men chasing him around the perimeter of the field.

And then he does it, drops his shorts, discards them with a kick, and he’s down to his tighty whities as promised. Cameraman has got to be displaying some previously undiscovered level of talent as he zeroes in on a shot of said tighty whities, with Gojo’s—forgive me, I need to be crass—huge bulge prominent in Big Dick Energy fashion except his tighty whities have little red hearts in rows across the fabric so do with that duality what you will.

He’s outrun security with a steady grin on his face as he eats up the drunken crowd’s cheers and riots and roars and you feel like you’re the only sane person in this stadium, or maybe you’re just not used to the fanatics of a college sports crowd. You peep the men in black trailed all the way on the left side of the field where they abandoned their pursuit of Gojo.

He taps imaginary pockets at his thighs, very muscular thighs you take indulgence in noticing, as if he expected to find something there, and he looks around when he doesn’t. He shrugs and grabs the microphone of the next passing sports commentator he spots, and then he makes his way back to you.

His breathing is a little shallow, and he inhales deep to catch his breath. “Baby.” The crowd SCREAMS at the way he purrs the word into the mic. “Will you do me the honor,” he’s huffing and puffing, heard across blaring speakers, “of being my lawfully wedded girlfriend?” And then he holds the mic to your lips.

“W-Wha—” you stutter, and there’s chanting across the crowd with words that barely make sense until you finally realize they’ve started to yell say yes! say yes! say yes! “Oh my gosh, okay, yes, fine, now please, for the love of god, put some freaking clothes on!”

The crowd goes wild with cheerful glees, and Gojo shoots fists up in the air in celebration as he runs all the way towards the center of the field with high knees, and you’re gawking at the sight, before he falls backward onto the grass and makes delirious snow angels on the ground. You see Coach Yaga’s vein popping in his neck from pure agitation as he storms off towards the center of the field to knock some sense into Gojo, but you know that Coach Yaga can’t kick him out, because they still have a game to win. The perks of being the most valued player in the league is getting to act like an absolutely insane idiot because you know they still need you in the end to bring it home.

You glance to the right, seeing his teammates nodding slowly then getting back to wrapping athletic tape around ankles and stretching out shoulders, with immediate acceptance of his actions like it wasn’t even out of character for him to do. And you realize again that you don’t know Gojo as well as you think you do.

And then the halftime timer is up.

You see Gojo approach the benches in a quick jog, squeezing some water into his mouth with his green gatorade squirt bottle, and when your eyes flit up to the screens on all four entrances, you see that the cameramen are still all focused on him accompanied by the continued buzz of conversation among the crowd following his public spectacle. But he seems to already be past any semblance of embarrassment as he takes the attention with ease, before he glances up to make eye contact with you and then lightly jogs right up to you.

“Did that prove to you that I’m not embarrassed of you?” he asks you, cocking a brow with a smug look on his face as he gets all up in your personal space.

“I don’t know, but I’m certainly thoroughly and expeditiously embarrassed of you now,” you say, cheeks feeling flush when he leans forward so he can make eye contact with you at eye level. “I’ll have to move to a different country.”

His grin is relaxed. “Yeah well you asked for it.”

“Maybe. But I underestimated what a lunatic you are.”

“You’re my girlfriend now, you’ve gotta get used to it.”

Your heart skips a beat in your chest. “Satoru–”

“Tomorrow,” he cuts you off, “Hinode pier. I’ll pick you up at six. It’s a date, so wear something cute. And preferably easy to take off.” And then he’s attentive to the chirp of the referee’s whistle in the air before jogging backwards towards the feel and eventually turns on his heel towards the field while you’re left with warm cheeks and a heart that felt like it was moving at a mile a minute.

The timer for the second half refreshes on the screen while you loosely hold your camera in your shaking hands. It occurs to you that you haven’t taken a single photo of him before the start of the kickoff, and so you bring the piece of consolidated metal up to your eyes, peering through the viewfinder and focusing it on the center of the field. And there he was. Your muse.

Gojo lets out a breath, which you can see even from here that it’s shaky and staggered with resistance, and he lifts his jersey up to swipe at the sweat trickling down his face as he eyes the ball underneath YCU’s player’s foot just prior to the start of the second half. There it was—that look again of pure focus.

3-1, forty-five minutes on the clock. And the referee chirps the whistle to start the second half.

It’s immediately evident that YCU has returned to the field following halftime with renewed energy, pressing high down the flank relentlessly past UTokyo’s defense, so fast it was hard for anybody to even keep a steady eye on the ball with the fluidity of their passes. The persistence pays off in the fake double-pass that slips past Geto’s feet, a moment of hesitation in the broken flow of UTokyo’s defense, and one of YCU’s strikers has the perfect line of shot towards the goal before digging his foot under the ball and sending it flying towards the corner of the goal post, scoring themselves a goal within just the first five minutes of play.

3-2.

The pressure mounts at the next kickoff, and with about seven minutes of solid play, with back-and-forth passes, multiple attempts at both goal posts to no avail on either side, it was clear that exhaustion was bustling in the veins of all the players.

One of YCU’s offensive players seems to capitalize on this, jumping on a defensive lapse of a pass Nanami attempted to make towards Yuta, and the ball is swiftly stolen then raced back towards the goal post. Choso prepared himself at the line, light on his feet paired with a solid stance, but in a millisecond of a moment, YCU’s offense unexpectedly passes the ball to a player racing up the midfield, and the player chips the ball neatly into the exposed corner of the goal despite Choso’s attempt to lunge for it in mid air.

Equalized, 3-3 game, momentary shock across the players’ faces, and the crowd bustles with something that sounds less like glee and more life fear. YCU was prepared to live up to and hold onto their title as the league’s number one offense, and as Minato explained to you during your time working in this job, an offensive team isn’t good at scoring goals, but rather exceptional at breaking down the other team’s defense.

Your eyes zero in on Geto, who stands in the center of the field for kickoff, and he’s huffing and puffing. He's the lead of defense for the team, and you can only imagine the level of pressure he feels right now. He glances around to his players, over to Nanami who seemed to share the same level of exhaustion, and then he glances towards Gojo who stood in front of him off to the right. Except you notice that Gojo looks relaxed, albeit still exhausted, but there’s a composed expression on his face even in the moment of heightened stakes. With locked eyes, Geto nods at Gojo and raises two fingers up into the air to signal a play, of which Gojo seems to respond to by closing more distance between him and the goal post prior to the kickoff, positioning himself almost directly in front of it, to which YCU’s defense immediately begin to guard him in a tight radius.

The kickoff begins, with Geto making a few passbacks with Nanami as they close distance towards the field before passing it off to UTokyo’s string of offense and then receding back to their defending goal. UTokyo continues to close distance, raising stakes for YCU as their defense begins to falter under pressure, and the ball gets passed to Gojo, who only keeps it in possession for less than three seconds before he passes it back to Yuuji, a risky decision to make in the second half of a semifinal match, but the first-year swiftly unleashes a powerful shot that rockets past YCU’s goalkeeper, up towards the corner, except–

It bounces off the metal of the goal post, shot off with projectile speed back towards the center of the field, but with razor-sharp reflexes, Gojo headbutts the ball in air, twists his torso and strikes the ball with his foot past a dumbfounded goalie who can’t even move an inch to guard the ball that he already knew was going to sink right into the goal, and that’s exactly what it does.

The stadium erupts with the momentum.

4-3, UTokyo.

It was a sweet moment, one you manage to capture on camera of Gojo running up to Yuuji and ruffling his hair in reassurance, despite the missed goal. Your heart feels warm in your chest, feeling your own sense of melancholy that this was one of the last times they’ll ever get to play together on a team.

Your eyes widen when you glance at the scoreboard, realizing that he’s tied. Gojo is tied for the most goals scored during a championship match. There were less than three minutes left on the clock. UTokyo either preserves their lead, or they risk moving into overtime, which, judging by the exhaustion on the UTokyo players’ faces in the wake of YCU’s relentless offense this entire game, moving into overtime would be a hefty, hefty risk.

YCU’s center forward takes his place in the center of the field, fire evident in his eyes as he glances across the field. YCU are light on their feet, channeling everything in their bodies into these last moments of the game as they prepare to start the kickoff. You glance across UTokyo’s players, and although they look spent, there was a resolute look to all of them. It wasn’t the time to give up or feel at ease even near the end of this grueling battle. Now was the time to play.

The referee chirped his whistle, and the kickoff began.

YCU immediately presses hard, as all their other plays have been all game, in their desperation to score. You can already see UTokyo’s midfielders move sluggishly in comparison to YCU’s offense, a drag to their feet as YCU pushes past the first layer of defense towards their attacking goal. Geto takes an aggressive approach, making moves to steal the ball while Nanami and Yuta guarded both flanks, and there was a relentless pass-off happening that ate up more than a minute of the remaining time.

Nanami succeeds in stealing the ball, but immediately loses it under his feet by a YCU midfielder, who makes a broad pass down the sidelines to YCU’s star forward who then powerfully kicks the ball towards the unguarded area of their goal, a dangerous shot that was clear towards the crossbar and Choso makes a leap for it, high into the air, his glove brushing against the ball, the entire crowd holding their breath in anticipation–

And the ball lands in the net.

4-4, tied game. With one minute and seventeen seconds left on the clock.

There was no time wasted in getting back to center field. No time spent dwelling in the horrific roars of the crowd as they watch with anxiety and fear. No time spent to process or consider or signal any plays. Not even a single second used to catch breath. When there is this much at stake, an athlete thrives on momentum.

To your surprise, Gojo isn’t the one that takes place at the center of the field to start the kickoff. Yuta stands there instead, and you notice his eyes are erratic as he surveys all corners of the field.

The referee chirps his whistle.

Yuta immediately passes it off to the side to UTokyo’s midfielder, who curls it towards their attacking goal with a swift pass to Ino, who closes distance towards the goal, but one of YCU’s defender slips in, undoing any progress they had made in their offense by stealing the ball and sending it back towards mid-field. Forty-three seconds. The crowd’s roars heightened as YCU continued to push forward, thirty yards now from scoring, and UTokyo’s defense was desperate to stop them but their momentum was cracking in the wake of their exhaustion.

It was a moment you don’t think you could ever fully or truly recall, one that you wish you had focused all your energy and attention to so that you could commit it to memory for the rest of your life. The image of Gojo pushing all the way to ten yards before their defending goal, a place where no center forward should really be at in a game like this, but it was exactly what their defense needed. It was exactly what the team needed. It was exactly what the school needed. For the ball to be in his possession.

With twenty-two seconds left on the clock, he steals the ball from right under YCU’s offensive feet, and then charges towards the opposite side of the field. The crowd rises to their feet, thunderous roaring that overtook any and all senses, as Gojo weaves through forwards, center forwards, midfielders, and defenders, covering the entire span of the field in lightning time. Fifty yards, forty yards, thirty yards, twenty hards, ten yards–

In a moment you couldn’t believe, he digs his foot underneath the ball, and sends it flying out towards the goal. There was not even a margin of an inch in which it slipped past the goalie’s hands, past his head, and swiftly flew right into the net.

With three-two-one seconds, the match was over.

5-4, UTokyo’s win.

The final whistle blew, and for a moment, there was silence. As if the world paused to catch its breath. Then, all at once, the crowd erupted with glee that shook the entire stadium at its core. Flags waving, scarves held high, toasts of beer held up to the sky, it was deafening, and it almost makes you want to cry. Thousands of voices shouting in unison, celebrating the hard-fought victory of their school’s team. A type of pride that was fostered, and well-deserved, and long-lived.

You quickly glance towards the field again, and see Gojo standing right at the same spot where he had kicked the last and final goal, staring towards the net. You can’t see the expression on his face, but it surprises you how still he is. Like a statue, staring at the goal with the ball tucked into its corner. The very epitome of what it means to succeed in this sport was right in front of him, and it seemed like he wanted to soak the visual in for as long as he could.

His trance is abruptly interrupted when his teammates swarm in, rushing over like a wave of pure adrenaline. They slap him on the back, ruffle his hair, shout his name, the sounds of gleeful disbelief mixed with exhausted sighs of relief swarming into the air. And Gojo finally melts away from the tension of the match and into the celebration as he weakly returns the embraces of his teammates while he catches his breath.

“IT’S OFFICIAL!! IT’S OFFICIAL!! UTOKYO’S VERY OWN GOJO SATORU HAS OBLITERATED OSAKA UNIVERSITY’S RECORD FOR MOST GOALS SCORED BY A SINGLE PLAYER IN A CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH!!”

The speakers are blaring the voices of the sports announcers, along with ambient music to match the intensity of the match that everyone had just witnessed.

You should probably be doing your job. You know, take a picture of the huddle of players on the field as they bask in the glory of a close victory, but instead your feet start moving on their own. Like a magnet drawn to him, you make your way towards Gojo, only a slight hesitation in your step as you stop about ten feet away, suddenly unsure. But when he makes eye contact with you, all that fear melts away.

He hastily pats the backs of some of his teammates, acknowledging their praise at the center of the huddle before tightly squeezing past them to make his way over to you. Your heart is beating fast in your chest, feeling an almost overwhelming sense of pride in your school’s team, but more importantly, in him. What was the acceptable thing to do? Run to him, into his arms, and hug him while he twirls you around? Tackle him to the grassy ground? Kiss him like your life depended on it? You have no clue what the acceptable or sane or normal thing to do is. But he’s made his decision for you when he walks right up to you, his hands holding your waist as he pulls you towards him. He smells earthy, of grass and salt and sweat and of all the hard work he poured into today, the wear and tear of the game evident in the wear and tear of his jersey. He only manages to huff out an exhale at the sight of you, like some relief washing over him just by looking into your eyes. Forget the fact that the crowd was all watching and that all of the screens you could see past his head were focused on the two of you, because all you could hear or see or think was him.

“I believe you owe me a kiss,” he says, huffing as he catches his breath but that doesn’t stop the smile that makes its way onto his face.

You nod your head, giving him your own version of a sweet smile as your arms slide up past his shoulders, crossing behind his neck, and he leans down to kiss you.

You hear a swell from the crowd, some teasing comments off in the distance from some of his teammates, you’re pretty sure you hear Coach Yaga yelling at him to get back to the benches, but it all melts away with the feeling of him smiling against your lips as he kisses you at the center of this stadium.

It was a moment so pure, so sweet, so picture perfect, and for once, you’re not the one behind the camera taking the photo. You’re the one that’s in it.

[end of kickoff ch12]

a/n. aaa thanks a lot for reading!! pls the fucking public stripping scene was so stupid i apologize on behalf of kickoff gojo for his behavior 😂😂 i’ll put him in his cage dw this chapter had some of what i consider to be the most challenging aspects of writing for me (internal conflict, grand public gesture, sports jargon) and so writing it felt like an uphill battle the ENTIRE time i wrote it and edited it. i considered scrapping it sooo many times cuz i just wasn't happy w it...but whatever i can't expect to be 100% happy w every chapter i put out there haha. i think kickoff has become a lil sacred for me since i've been working on it for a while now but likeee...sometimes u just gotta say fuck it we ball (tbh kickoff gojo probably says that to himself before a match) anywho, i am veryy thoroughly excited for what i've got planned for the chapters to follow, especially moving into the last angsty arc before the end of the series!! so i look forward to picking up momentum w this series again :0 honestly chapters 10 through 12 were the most difficult things i've written so far for a lot of reasons, but i have a feeling things will go more smoothly for me creatively going forward since what i've got planned falls well within my writing comfort range oh also there seems to be a little confusion about the number of chapters left, as i know i had originally said 12, but i anticipate that there will be about 18 chapters of kickoff total!! so still around six chapters left before the end :)) much lovee thanks for reading!!

OH WAIT ONE LAST NOTE I'M SORRY i didn’t really have a way of organically incorporating this into the story n i’m not sure if i’ll get a chance to in the upcoming chapters, so i just wanted to share this part of ch7 (gojo’s pov chapter) that is relevant to this chapter:

During the thrilling semifinal match between Keio Uni, Gojo’s father’s team, and Yokohama Uni during the end of his senior year, spectators witnessed a game that most college soccer enthusiasts would deem was a once-in-a-lifetime watch. Both teams engaged in relentless offense, and Gojo’s father was on his way to shatter the record of the most goals scored in a single championship match within the history of the league, but when he received a call from his wife during a timeout with the most life-altering news he could have ever heard, he abandoned everything on the field that day to go home and be with her. Grainy footage from the televised broadcast still exists online today—the moment he sprinted across the field, confused players glancing in his direction, amidst the uproar of the crowd. She called to let him know she was pregnant.

the record that gojo broke in this chapter is the same record that his father almost broke before he got the call that he was going to be a dad :0

➸ you're all caught up!

additional notes. please do not pressure me for updates or ask when i will next update (read rules); taglist is currently closed (consider subscribing to the story on my ao3 for email updates if you'd like! :0)

taglist:

@megumisdivinedogs @witchbybirth @avatarl0v3r @mwtsxri @asherheed

@wynney @delulux3 @higurumapet @zombriesworld @xenop0p

@phoenix-eclipses @who-can-touch-my-boob @mo0nforme @reagan707 @lost-resonance

@foulprincesscycle @luniunia @alekssashka7 @beabadobeee @thexmistress

@tsukikourito @pickuptruck01 @gabriiiiiiii @4y3sh4 @tiredflame132

@cliosunshine @btszn @izayas-rings @semra4 @ethereally-lyann

@drthymby @bbyxxm @fvsm4x @sadmonke @zoinks1010

@joemama-2 @horisdope @banenemilk @nanasukii28 @spindyl

@ri-sa20 @thexmistress @mwtsxri @ritsatoru @sashisuslover

@chwesuh-imnida @megumisthirdog @imjustaweirdnerd @angelicscribe

[taglist is closed]

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postracehair · 3 months ago

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a small request

max verstappen x reader | 2k

even world champions deserve love letters. after missing the mexico gp, you're determined to see max have a good weekend in brazil. maybe all it takes is a handwritten note.

cw: fem!reader, being in love, softness, a track-side kiss, love letters. and google translate, sorry to any dutch speakers.

a/n: was this inspired by that video from austin? yeah, it was! sue me! also, written/posted before the gp, so. no race details <3 xx

You miss race weekend in Mexico. It happens. You can't be there every weekend, much as you'd like to be. You're even more peeved about it after, considering you quite like Carlos and wish you had seen him earn what very well might be his last win with Ferrari. But you're mostly upset because Max, though he won't say so, could probably have used your support.

Years of experience have him calm, cool, and collected despite the team troubles. Flippant, some headlines say. Mad Max, others. But you know he's probably just tired. Tired of the media, of the FIA, of the churning conflict between him and Lando -- something you all knew was coming someday, but maybe not so suddenly. The longest season ever continues to drag and drag and drag.

"Twenty seconds was...Christ, Max," you say. You know what happened, of course. You watched what you could, saw the sharp moves around the corner and heard the radios. It never gets easier, watching him take risks like that. Usually, everyone else backs off, but McLaren can see victory on the horizon and won't let it go. You can't blame them, either of them, you just wish it was all a bit less tense.

"I know," he says, voice raspy over the connection. "I -- well, you know how I feel about it. Don't want to say anything in case the FIA is tapping my phone."

You laugh into your hand so you don't disturb the other people in the airline lounge, not entirely used to places like this, still. Max has told you over and over that it's absurd for you to spend your own money when you're coming to see him all over the world. When you told him you moved things around so you could come to Brazil, he booked you the nicest ticket, per usual.

"Oh, ha, ha," you say. "Don't give them any ideas, Mr. Community Service." You sigh. "Do you need anything? Be honest."

"Aren't you at the airport already? Your flight should be leaving in --" A pause, like he's checking his watch -- "forty minutes."

You glance up at the departures screen. He's right, but you don't give it to him so easily. "Know my schedule, do you?"

"Well, I booked your ticket, so I should think so."

"Your assistant booked it, you mean."

He hums and you picture him in his hotel room, maybe at the window, looking over the city. "I know your flight information. Don't be silly."

"I mean it, Max," you say again. "Is there anything I can do to make the weekend better?" It's a bit of a useless question and you expect him to answer with a snarky get me a new car or apply for the position of steward.

But he doesn't. He clears his throat.

"I'm just glad you're coming," he says, softly. "I've missed you."

You never doubt how Max feels about you, but he must be pretty tired to admit it like this. He's all about actions, this man. Making sure you have what you need when you're at the track, arranging your travel, remembering your schedule. He shows you how much you matter, and that's more than enough. He never wants to make you feel bad for having a life beyond being his girlfriend. And this doesn't, not really. It just makes you ache, fills your chest with the hopeless affection you've felt for him for so long.

"I've missed you, too," you reply. "But I'd like to be useful."

"Oh, I can think of a few things, then," Max says, all of a sudden all cheek. Such a boy, sometimes. A boy in love.

You can't help but laugh, face hot. "Hush, you!"

He huffs. A few beats of silence, the comfortable, well-worn kind. Sometimes, when he's halfway across the world and up late on the sim, he'll call you just to hear you breathe.

"Max?"

"I -- do you remember what you did for my birthday?"

He'd wanted something small, quiet. There was a lot of work to be done with the team but three weekends off meant you had a little time to yourselves. A few days hardly leaving his place, a dinner with some of the guys, a cake you made yourself, hand-delivered in bed. Gifts for a very wealthy man are difficult, especially since Max doesn't seem to want much.

"Oh, the pillow with my face on it?"

Max laughs. The lounge loudspeaker announces that your flight is going to board soon, so you gather your things but keep your phone wedged next to your ear.

"No, the other thing," he says. He clears his throat and summons some of that World Champion courage. "The letter."

You'd written him a fairly long love letter, thinking it would be a nice thing to carry to the races you couldn't be at this fall. It was tempting to be embarrassed about it when you gave it to him the morning of his birthday, but his cheeks had gone pink and he'd buried his face in your neck.

"Oh, that," you say. The airport is busier outside the lounge and you push your case in the direction of your gate weaving between. people.

"You could write me another, maybe."

Max is direct. He is honest, at work and at home, but this surprises you a little.

"You do know I'm about to get on a plane to see you, right?"

He huffs, and you imagine his cheeks pink, eyes bright. "You asked!"

"I'll write you another love letter, Max Verstappen," you assure him. "I'll write you a hundred."

"One is a fine start," he says firmly. "You should be boarding soon, and I've got to go to the press conference. Text me when you've landed?"

"Of course," you reply, eyes rolling though he can't see. "I'll see you soon, okay? Love you."

"Love you, liefje."

On the plane, you tear out some pages from your journal. You'd prefer to have some nice stationery like what you wrote on for his birthday, but maybe this is more romantic, more real. Making do with that you've got because he asked.

In the last one, you told him your memories of when you first met. How your stomach swooped when you made him laugh, how his blue eyes wouldn't leave your dreams. In this one you tell him about when you first realized you loved him. How absurdly early you were sure, how badly you wanted to tell him for weeks. The way you remember every second of when you blurted it out -- his face, his smile. His voice in your ear, telling you over and over, geliefde, ik houd van je, zo veel. I love you, so much.

"You're working hard on that," someone says. You look up at your seatmate, a woman a few decades older than you with a heavy accent.

You feel a little like you've been caught doing something illicit, but you just smile at her. "For my boyfriend," you tell her. "A love letter."

She flattens her palm over heart and sighs. "How lovely," she coos. "I hope he takes care of you, too."

We take care of each other, you want to say. You could tell her about how he sends you postcards from every country he goes to after you told him you like to put them on your fridge. You could tell her how sometimes you text him during his streams to make him laugh on camera. How he remembers your favorites, how he saves you his special team gear, how he sends you flowers all the time. How he likes to sit on the couch, your toes under his thigh, fingers around your ankle. How you've been learning Dutch and how he patiently corrects your pronunciation. You could go on and on and on.

"He does," you say instead.

The plane lands safely in Brazil, but the pilot tells you that there is no open gate and that you'll be sitting for a while. You text Max.

stuck on tarmac, will be later than expected! :(

He must be in media responsibilities still because he doesn't reply until you finally get off the plane.

go relax at the hotel. i'll see you for dinner!

You find your ride easy enough and take a deep breath. The letter you wrote on the plane feels heavy in your pocket, and you just want to see Max. To be near him again. To give him this small thing he asked for.

"Excuse me," you say to the driver. "Do you think we could go to the track, instead?"

You text Max's assistant to say you're headed there, hoping it's not too much of an inconvenience. You're told he's almost done, maybe an hour left, and when you arrive you're led to his driver rooms. His shit is everywhere, per usual. Max is quite neat except in here -- Carmen once told you that George is the same. Clothes strewn about, his race boots unlaced and left in the way, warm-up equipment in a pile. On the table are a few of his things -- his wallet, a notebook, some papers.

Wait a second. One of those papers looks...familiar. It's been folded in three, the envelope it came in nowhere to be seen. His name is scrawled on the blank side in your hand and when you tug it from the pile you can see that it's creased, the edges a little more worn than when you gave it to him a few months ago. Max Verstappen, three-time World Champion, actually carries around the love letter you wrote him. Brings it to the track. It's darling. You love him so much. You pull the new one from your pocket and set them side-by-side on the table where he'll find them.

You ask to be taken to the pit wall, please, so you can see whatever the drivers are doing on track. Some dedication, you're told. The timing ends up being perfect and you get there just as they're finishing. You lean on a gap in the barrier where, on Sunday, crew members will be holding timing signs as the drivers zip around the hot pavement. The crowd in the stands is loud, as always, and maybe you imagine it but it seems to get a little louder when you look out.

The guys are talking amongst themselves and a few of them wave at you. You spot Max as he turns away from Charles and you can't help but grin. His eyes meet yours under his cap and his entire face chances, softens, and he breaks into a jog. You lean out over the concrete ledge and meet him in a kiss that's more two smiles pressed together than anything else.

"This is a surprise," he says when he pulls away. Eyes sparkling, he shows no signs of rejoining the other drivers as they head to whatever their next thing is. Photos, probably.

"I missed you," you tell him. "I've left you something in your room."

"Oh?" He straightens the lanyard of your credentials with careful fingers.

You reach for him, palm on his cheek. His stubble tickles and he leans into it ever so slightly. It doesn't feel like there are thousands of eyes on you, not even a little.

"Yeah," you say. "As promised." Someone calls his name. "Go on, then. I'll be waiting."

He kisses you again, a quick brush of his lips on the corner of your mouth.

Later, you'll wake from your nap in the hotel room to those same kisses on your cheeks, your forehead. Max will gather you in his arms and tell you all the moments he almost told you he loved you, how he could hardly believe when you said it first. You'll tease him for how many times he's read that first letter and he'll cheekily say that's why he needs more. And you will write him more, you'll write him as many as he wants. As many as you can, for the rest of your lives.

But now, in front of thousands of screaming fans, he smiles at only you, boyish and pleased.

#max verstappen x reader #max verstappen #max verstappen fanfic #mv33 x reader #f1 fanfic #my writing #mv33 #fic: a small request #beep boop

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mv1simp · 6 months ago

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Into It ♥️ Part 1 of 3

Max Verstappen x Girlfriend!Reader

i'm into it, yeah, says she wanna fuck me later, girl i'm into it

the one in which you’re newly dating your gorgeous boyfriend, max verstappen, after months of pining and flirting. he’s the perfect gentleman, so romantic and treats you just right! now how do you tell him that you’re desperate for mad max to come out and rail ur insides without sounding like a freak 😚

Content includes: 18+ MDNI, smut but this time with some plot lol, reader essentially is just trying whatever tactic she can to seduce her bf and make mad max come out in bed, size kink, dom/sub elements, 4k WC

PART TWO HERE ♥️ PART THREE HERE ♥️

You look up blissfully at your boyfriend, Max, from where you’re tucked into his side, his strong arm scooping you against him and keeping you warm. You’re rewatching an old classic, Shrek 2, as you wind down from your dinner plans with your friends earlier than evening. Lando and Daniel had joined as well, teasing you and Max mercilessly about how you two were finally together and that the whole F1 grid had been placing bets on when you would make it official.

You had flushed in a combination of embarrassment and giddiness, unable to hold back a matching laugh with Max who had looked over at you with an adoring gaze, his own heart warm with happiness about finally being able to call you his own. You two had run in the same Monaco circles for years - with him as a driver and you on the McLaren legal team. Though initially you only saw glimpses of him through paddock interviews or social media posts celebrating his multiple winning streaks, the two of you had become a lot closer the past couple years through his friendship with Daniel and Lando. Soon enough you were joining them at weekly Padel sessions, leading to you and Max exchanging funny cat memes or popping online to decimate him and Lando on a Call of Duty stream and then eventually onto deeper conversations, from his latest breakups with his model girlfriends or quiet ramblings with a bottle of wine outside a booming party about the pressures of demanding fathers.

Of course, tongues were wagging anytime you two were seen together - especially when Max had his first time in years being single for months before you had gotten together. You couldn’t deny that you had always thought the older Dutch man was incredibly handsome and funny, always full of interesting facts about niche topics, and you found his intensity and passion for his racing career so attractive, as a high powered professional yourself as a lawyer for a luxury car brand’s executive board. But you had always curbed any growing feelings you had for Max, paranoid that it would compromise the strong friendship you two had developed. Besides, given his affliction for dating vogue models, and his respectful gazes or polite touches compared to the much more flirtier ones from other drivers on the grid, you had never thought max considered you attractive.

But somehow, despite both your busy schedules, despite max being across the globe, you always ended up calling each other first to share sad, happy, or even just boring news. You had never once imagined that after winning his most recent championship the first person he came looking for in his celebrations that night was you, his face flushes from champagne and hugging you tightly, his eyes shining with warmth as he told you he couldn’t have won it without you and suddenly you could no longer deny the rapid palpitations of your heart when you looked up at him. And as he looked at you, thumb gently brushing across your cheeks, warm breaths mingling together as your faces drew closer, he couldn’t deny himself any longer either - Schat, all I’ve been thinking about is what I really wanted for my prize instead of this trophy. Can I kiss you now?

And the rest was history. Fast forward a few months and it’s still so surreal to call Max your boyfriend, you think, as you come back to the present, watching him fondly as he chuckles at the movie. Dating him has been a dream - he’s your first serious relationship, your standards too high to waste time with any of the subpar guys you had gone on first dates with before - and wow, did Max know exactly how to knock all of those standards out of the park. He would always drive and pick you up anywhere you wanted, in his sleek luxury cars that had pedestrians gawping, one large hand on your thigh and asking how your day had been. You had literally stopped taking your wallet out anymore as Max always slammed down his black Amex at any opportunity to pay for you - dinners, trips, jewellery and luxurious shopping sprees - and although the staunch feminist in you had initially disagreed you couldn’t help but feel so cared for, so looked after - knowing all you needed on a night out was one hand around his arm and the other clutching a pretty little Chanel purse he had picked up for you at last month’s race weekend, with a matching Dior lip gloss inside. If you were ever having a hard day at work he would always order your favourite foods straight to your apartment, where he would meet you and bitch and vent alongside you about whichever client had been giving you grief.

And my god, the sex - THE SEX with your man had been absolutely amazing. Considering the difference in your past number of relationships, max was keenly aware that he had a lot more experience than you and was so unbelievably sweet and patient - letting you take all the time you needed to go slow and work up the confidence gradually to ask for what you wanted for him. Your first time together had been incredibly romantic, a night at a private house he had booked out for the week on the Italian coastline. After a candlelit dinner and a bottle of wine you found yourself in his lap on the outdoor chaise, soft kisses turning more and more heated, max whispering are you sure, liefje? If you’re not ready-

to which you had cut him off with another deep kiss, pleading for him to make you his once and for all ❤️ His eyes had flickered with a deep intensity at your possessive statement before softening out to adoration again as he gently unlaced your dress and trailed kisses down your body, worshipping you. you’d both cum embarrassingly faster than you’d have liked, high off the feeling of one another, max cleanly finishing inside a condom he threw away before carrying you in his arms to the bedroom inside. Since then, you’d both figured out you had a combined very high sex drive, using every opportunity in your schedules to make love, max never hesitating to always make sure you came first, either on his fingers, tongue or cock. You had the perfect boyfriend. Truly. You couldn’t ask for anything more, yet -

- yet, here you were, feeling like an absolute bitch about the recurrent thoughts that had planted in your mind as you watched max come out of the bathroom freshly showered, getting ready for bed after finishing a gaming stream with his mates following your Shrek 2 viewing. The issue was that your boyfriend - your incredibly hot, sexy, tall Dutch boyfriend - was so stupidly enticing but so oblivious that he has no idea what he did to you. You bit your lip as you looked at him, hair dripping wet, distractingly saying something to you while texting on his phone - but your mind was only fixed on how big and strong Max looked. Your boyfriend was much bigger than you, almost towering over you at 6”1 with your 5”1 frame. His athletic training currently during the season meant he had been looking extra delectable lately, defined abs, thick muscular thighs and a broad shoulder and back that narrowed down to a narrow (or as Lando joked, slutty) waist, highlighted now by the grey sweatpants hanging low on his hips that did nothing to hide the sizeable bulge in between his legs. It was undeniable that he was packing, to the point where you had called it his third leg after first seeing him naked, making him laugh but also take even more care everytime he entered you - you were a lot smaller than his previous partners, after all. He always made sure his pace was gentle and slow, avoiding fully entering you too much in worry of causing you pain. Truly, your boyfriend was too sweet - everything he did was to avoid causing your any pain or distress - which is why you felt too embarrassed to ask him directly to be rougher with you when he was simply looking out for your comfort. It has been perfect for you initially, but now you felt more adjusted to his size, and each time you slept together you felt yourself becoming more and more desperate for Max to be just a little bit rougher, a little bit more controlling. What would he think when his usually sweet, happy go lucky girlfriend admitted she actually fantasised about him completely ruining her? So, of course, you being you - an ambitious feminist - have decided to hatch a conniving strategy to seduce your boyfriend into giving it to you just right!! 💕

Starting tonight - you had already planned to spend the night at Max’s, relaxing after the hectic work week you had both had. Often, you wore his comfortable hoodies that dwarfed you and smelt just like him as you cuddled in bed. Instead tonight you wore an angelic pink lace Agent Provocateur nightie, bows and all, pushing your cute tits up on display for him and complimenting your caramel skin perfectly. Enough to drive Max crazy, right? Sitting against the plush pillows, you had been reading one of your steamy dark romance novels - your latest outlet these days while you manifested getting some back breaking sex with Max - but of course had ended up distracted by the sight of your himbo boyfriend emerging from the shower.

-Schat? So what do you think? Max finally looked up from his phone, making you come back to reality and realize you hadn’t been answering his question. Max’s eyes widened seeing your pretty little form on his bed - he had never seen you wear an outfit like that in bed before. He cleared his throat, inconspicuously shifting his stance so you didn’t notice his hard on at the sight of you when you hastily stumbled to reply - Oh sorry maxie, I missed what you were saying, just a bit tired after today

Max immediately came to your side in bed, looking guilty. Of course Schat, sorry, I’m keeping you up with my gaming stream aren’t I? You had such a long week already, we can go straight to bed now. You cursed your own slip up - of course, your sweet Max would put your comfort first over what you were sure looked like mission successful given the rapid hardening of his bulge you had zoned in on.

You try again as Max dims the bedside lamps, taking your book gently away from your hands and setting it to the side. You lean softly in next to him, fluttering your eyelashes up at him, tits right up against his hard biceps so that your breasts are basically cushioning his arm right in between them. Your nightie rises up your legs, showcasing your soft, luscious thighs for him. Max smiles lovingly at you, cradling your face before peppering your cheeks with baby kisses. You look so pretty, sweetheart. So sweet to wait for me before falling asleep, mein Schat.

You lean in further, lips pouting in an effort your boyfriend would finally catch the hint but instead you found yourself gently maneouvered and tucked into his side, his large hands rubbing soothing circles along your back as he placed a final kiss on your forehead. Goodnight, darling. Your eye twitched at his definitive words, perplexed at how your plan had been so unsuccessful, but you sighed and wished goodnight to Max, falling asleep and already plotting for another day.

A couple of weeks later you decided to up the ante. A sexy, bold crimson red lingerie teddy set, practically see through and showcasing your tan nipples through the lace and mesh, and a pathetic excuse of some lacy red panties to match. You smirked as you eyed yourself in the mirror - sure, it was quite a forward look, but you had found yourself becoming increasingly more desperate for your boyfriend’s attentions after attending his Monaco race today. You did your best to attend the races you could but with your own demanding schedule often struggled to make it, so were very excited to support your boyfriend this time - especially as you had been keeping track of how this season was difficult compared to earlier years given the poorer quality of the RB car. Your eyes had widened at seeing the events this weekend - a string of bad luck events. First, his engine had stalled during free practise, making him lose precious practise time, and then a red flag had been called as he was finishing an almost perfect qualifying lap, ruining his chances of pole, and finally during the actual race he was clipped on the side by one of the Aston Martin’s, making him spin out but still incredibly go on to get P2. It was amazing result given everything, but what caught your attention was a side of your boyfriend you had only every heard whispers about emerge on the track. In the past, you had only attended races he had easily won, appearing calm and collected throughout the weekends as he cruised to P1 - easily overpowering everyone else. Today though - Mad Max, his fans excitedly cheered and paddock staff gossiped, Mad Max is finally back!! In his villain era!!

And your Max was indeed seething at everyone - competitors, his strategy team, the stewards for not giving Aston Martin a penalty - and you had listened in on the radio to hear him angrily swear and yell to his engineer, seen him aggressively overtake and defend his place on the track, and finally seen the stormy expression on his face as he emerged out of his car, clearly pissed with narrowed eyes as he stalked off to his driver room without a word, not even sparing a glance at you or anyone else. Sure, you should have felt a little hurt that he hadn’t noticed you or seen the perfectly planned designer outfit you had arrived wearing, sending the paparazzi into a flurry, but you completely understood that his career was first on the line today and he needed some time to cool off. And honestly, instead of feeling bad for Max - the sick, twisted part of you couldn’t deny that he had looked sooo sexy completely dominating on the track, authoritatively giving orders over the radio and confidently outmanoeuvring his rivals. You had to catch yourself from biting your lip or squeezing your legs together as his rough accented tones got more and more angry throughout the race over your headphones, imaging what it would be like to be pinned down by his strong arms, to have him lean down behind you and whisper naughty things in your ear, to ask if you liked being a dirty little-

“Oh! Y/N! Can we get a quick word?” The sky sports reporters interruption hastily put an end to the illicit thoughts you had been having. Quickly trying to school your expression into something much more PR friendly, you flashed a dazzling smile, “Of course!”. As expected they tried to rile responses out of you to condemn Max’s aggressive performance. But you had stood for none of it, honestly and clearly stating that your boyfriend had driven very capably and fairly given the circumstances and you were extremely impressed with his performance. “He’s a triple world champion after all. Did you just expect him to roll over and not defend his title? If you don’t agree with it then no need to watch it. At the end of the day he’s the one driving the car over the finish line while everyone else is speculating hypotheticals.” The reporters thank you for your input, stumbling for words at your strong defence of your boyfriend. You wandered off before they could say more, catching up with Max a couple hours later when he had debriefed and collected his trophy, looking a lot more chilled out than earlier.

Hey, Schatje he mumbled gently, leaning down to kiss you on the lips after pulling you from a conversation with the other WAGs. Max! you had exclaimed brightly, congratulating him on his win and letting him know just how proud you were of him. You knew he would be tired - we could go to the red bull celebration yacht party for 30min, show our faces, and then play hooky back to ours? I already put in a dinner order for your favourite lamb kebabs.

Max smiled down at you - you knew him so well, always knew what to say and when he wanted to relax. Sounds amazing, Schat he voiced in agreement. Later, after eating dinner at home, Lando sent him a trending insta reel with the caption “Mate, she’s too good to you, you bagged a queen.” Max grinned, expecting some fanmade memes about you and him as he clicked the link (he has seen all the Queen Y/N and he’s just…Ken Max tweets already. You were a well liked figure on the paddock for years with your well mannered speech, excellent dress style and courteous relationships with most of the staff.)

He was suprised to instead see an interview post race of you defending him staunchly, shutting down any opportunity the reporters used to manipulate your words. He walked into his bedroom to find you conveniently waiting for him in bed again, nose buried in one of your romance models, and started laughing at how effective you were at putting the media clowns in their place. Thanks for sticking up for me always, liefje. You smiled back at him with pure adoration - of course Maxie, that’s the advantage of dating a lawyer, right?

He agreed enthusiastically, so caught up on now yapping about the race as he climbed into bed with you that he didn’t even notice the sexy little outfit you had planned just for him, covering you up with his soft duvet before you could properly twirl around and showcase it for him. Your eye twitched again as he yawned in between statements, grabbing your waist and bringing your back in against him, spooning you while his voice gently trailed off, falling asleep.

Meanwhile, your mind was running at 100 miles a minute, a scowl on your face. This was ridiculous, you had gotten all dressed up in an overpriced beautiful outfit just for your boyfriend to get distracted by a 3min interview you had done with an asshole reporter and then fall asleep instead of ravaging you?? You had tonight would be the perfect night, for you to be the one to support him for once, be the perfect outlet for his stress, to use you and manipulate your body for his own pleasure…heat pooled in your gut at your dark thoughts, and you grow wetter between your legs at the mental image of max having his way with you. Maybe it still wasn’t too late. Sighing gently, you closed your eyes, pretending to drift into sleep but moving your plump, barely covered ass behind you to gently grind up on your boyfriend’s cock, which was now rapidly hardening with your practised movements. You sensed Max had awakened when you felt his arms tighten around you, keeping you still in an effort to stop you from exciting him to much while you were still asleep and he couldn’t act on it.

Mmmhmm, maxie, feels so good~ you moaned, still keeping up the facade of having a wet dream, breathing getting heavier and pushing your tits against the edges of his fingers that were wrapped around your waist. You felt him exhale sharply as he came into contact with your hardened nipples, a smirk on your face. Your grinding had managed to push the duvet partially off, exposing your red lingerie in the moonlight - surely this would be enough to drive any man crazy!!

You heard him sigh behind you, shifting slightly and inadvertently pushing his cock against your skimpy underwear as he pressed a kiss to the back of your neck - and you had to hold back a squeal with how hard and big he felt against you, this was it, he was finally going to give in and fuck you awake while he thought you were having a wet dream, he could slide it right in, you were ready for it, for him, you were soo wet already just from imagining it, this was so hot-

Your fantasies are quickly shut down as max easily used his strength to turn you around so your face was buried into his chest again, your ass now devastatingly much too far away to get any action, and began rubbing your shoulders soothingly to get you to fall into a deep sleep again. You almost combusted at the action before deflating and accepting defeat once more. Your kind boyfriend of course would never toe the line of having sex with you in a dubious way were you were asleep. You wanted - no needed, to bring Mad Max out in your bedroom, and you were determined to do whatever it took.

Over the next few weeks you threw countless strategies Max’s way. Leaving your dirty romance books out in plain view, sometimes even opened up to a page right in the middle of a jaw dropping sex scene. Lacier and lacier bralettes and panties left everywhere to prompt him. “Accidentally” deleting his best SIM race time record on his rig. But nothing seemed to be working - max diligently tidyed up the stray underwear, reshelved the books, and generously forgave you for the SIM error before setting a new record later that night instead of fucking you angrily like you had planned. You got more frustrated as both your work schedules became busier, leaving you less time to connect with him. Fuck, last weekend - last weekend you had even thrown out all your boxes of condoms before jumping into Max’s arms when he had come home, laughing and eager to see you. One thing let to another and he was as eager to be inside you as you were to have him inside you, voicing It’s been too long Schat, I’ve missed your sweet body so much, so beautiful for me in between kisses as he reached for the bedstand drawer to grab a condom - only to find it empty. You pretended to have a confused look on your face (truly, you deserved an Oscar for your performance this past month) before oh so innocently suggesting Maxie, we- we don’t have to use one if you don’t want, I’m on the pill -

And there it was - a brief darkening of your boyfriends’ normally loving ice blue eyes, his sharp gaze on you at your suggestion of doing it raw for the first time - before he schooled his features back to normal and gave you a sweet kiss, It’s okay Schat, you’re too sweet, you don’t deserve to feel uncomfortable for my sake, I’ll just grab some from the corner store, da? He was off you before you could protest, promising he would be back soon as you blinked away tears of frustration and denial that yet again your plan had failed. When he finally entered you later that night, ever so gently, condom and all, you closed your eyes tight and imagined how each vein and ridge of his thick cock might feel when fully buried inside you to the hilt, if that goddamn condom broke, if he spilled all of his thick, creamy cum inside you, so much that it spurted out the sides, leaking everywhere, claiming you as his and no one else’s, making such a filthy, filthy mess-

- you came harder than you had the whole month, burying your face in Max’s shoulder to contain the scream that threatened to spill out. You sighed as you came down from your high. Fuck, you needed a drink.

—————————————————————————

A/N: Follow along for Part 2 of this 3 part series to see if dear reader will finally manage to uncockblock herself and release Mad Max!! 😚😚

#max verstappen x oc #max verstappen fanfic #max verstappen x you #max verstappen x reader #f1 fanfic #f1 imagine #f1 smut #max verstappen imagine #max verstappen smut #max verstappen #formula 1 #smut

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itadorey · 6 months ago

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𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄 (?) 𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐇 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄— gojo satoru

pairing: racer!gojo x race engineer!reader genre: formula 1 au, fluff summary: he's insufferable (and wants to ask you out) and you're just trying to help him win the championship notes: formula 1 has ruined my life. probably lots of inconsistencies but i sped wrote this. this turned out a lot longer than i initially planned. gn reader but mention of wearing a dress. word count: ~3.2k

It's hot.

Your nose scrunches up in mild disgust as you feel a bead of sweat trickle down your neck, quickly making it's way towards the collar of your shirt before it's wiped away with a soft towel.

"Thanks," you mutter, looking up to meet a pair of bright blue eyes accompanied by a swoon-worthy smile. You huff lightly at the wink Gojo sends your way, turning away slightly to let your eyes roam over the rest of the paddock. Your lips turn up into a smile when you catch sight of Geto Suguru walking past your garage, and you return his greeting with a wave of your own before you hear Gojo grumble from his place beside you.

"Fraternizing with the enemy," he says, annoyance coating his words. He crosses his arms, unintentionally flexing and drawing your gaze towards his torso. His black fireproofs fit him snugly, and you find your mouth going dry as you try your best not to ogle him. You wonder if the temperature's gotten hotter. "That's not very nice of you."

"He's not the enemy," you protest, turning away to grab Gojo's helmet before thrusting it into his chest. "He's your best friend."

"Off track he is," Gojo agrees, holding onto the helmet. He pulls you in slightly, raising a brow when you don't immediately let it go. "But on track, he's my biggest competition. So you should be focused on me, not him. He's only a handful of points behind me."

"I'd hardly call one hundred points a handful," you mutter, turning to the side to grab a clipboard. "I think you're guaranteed to win the championship this year. Plus, Megumi's been doing great as well. Kid is in third place and it's only his second year! I think we've got the constructor's in the bag as well."

"All I need is a couple of bad races and next thing you know, Geto Suguru is the 2024 World Champion."

"Bad races," you snort, guiding Gojo towards his car and shoving his balaclava into his free hand. "Gojo Satoru does not have bad races. I don't know how you do it. I feel like you never drop below second place."

"It's all thanks to those genius strategies of yours," Gojo quips, watching in amusement as you shake your head in mild disbelief. There's a soft glint in his eye that you never seem to notice, and he finds himself wondering if maybe he should be a little more obvious about his feelings. (Everyone else on the grid and even the majority of the fans know he has the hots for you, so really, you're just the densest person to exist).

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," you say, waving him off as you start to make your way towards the rest of your team. "Pull your suit up and go get settled in."

Gojo watches you for a couple of minutes, leaning against a cement column with his arms crossed. He doesn't know how, but watching you organize the team and go over your notes has become his pre-race ritual. He's so lost in thought that he fails to notice the cameras pointed at him, broadcasting the lovestruck look on his face for everyone watching the race live to see.

"Ready to go?"

Gojo snaps out of his daze when his team principal, Yaga Masamichi, comes up to him. There's a faint smirk on his lips as he motions towards you, his sunglasses hiding the teasing glint that Gojo just knows is present. "Or is there something you need to urgently discuss with your beloved race engineer?"

Gojo rolls his eyes but chooses to remain silent before pulling his balaclava over his head. He's abnormally quiet as he settles into his seat, and when he catches sight of you giving him a thumbs up from afar, he decides to ask you out right after he beats Geto and wins first place.

"Radio check."

"I can hear you loud and clear," you respond, your voice carrying the same lilt that Gojo's does. He laughs quietly, settling into the second position after the formation lap. A glance to his left leaves him scowling when he sees Geto flip him off, and he sighs deeply before realizing that his radio is still on. "Something wrong?"

"Just Suguru being an asshole," he responds, his irritation fading away when you attempt to choke down your laughter.

"Radio is still on," you manage to spit out. "Mind your language."

"You can reprimand me later," Gojo says immediately, well aware that his radio has probably drawn the broadcaster's attention. "Over dinner, maybe? Just you and me in the candlelight at that little Italian place you like."

"Win the race and then maybe I'll consider it," you hum, amusement tinging your words as you shake your head. Gojo can't help but pout when he realizes that you're dismissing his words as a joke, and he merely huffs before turning his radio off and telling himself that he has to beat Geto to the first turn if he wants any chance of winning this race.

It isn't long until lights out, and Gojo finds himself reacting just quick enough to push past Geto's car and take the lead. He catches a glimpse of Megumi gaining on Yuuji, eventually passing him and allowing him to start catching up to Geto. Seeing that his biggest competition is now being distracted by his teammate, Gojo turns his focus back to the track, trying to put as much distance between him and Geto as possible. A few laps pass before he hears his radio crackle to life, and he hears you speak softly so as to not startle him with the suddenness of your words.

"You're seven seconds ahead of Geto," you say, earning a hum of acknowledgement in return. "You also currently have the fastest lap so please focus on managing your tyres."

"The tyres are fine," Gojo's voice trills through your headphones. You glance over at Yaga, grimacing when you see him shaking his head.

"There's been reports of graining," you respond nonchalantly. "Please take better care of your tyres unless you want us to pit you earlier than planned and switch to plan B."

"Alright, whatever," Gojo grumbles, going quiet for a few seconds before speaking once more. "Now let me focus on driving. The sooner I win, the sooner I can see your pretty face."

You roll your eyes at his words, raising an eyebrow in confusion when Yaga fails to muffle his amused chuckle.

"Something funny?" you ask, leaning back slightly to look at the older man. He holds his hands up in surrender, shaking his head as he turns his attention back to the monitor in front of him. You roll your eyes briefly before turning back to the pit wall as well, ignoring the words Yaga mutters under his breath about someone being oblivious.

The race progresses smoothly, and you find yourself feeling thankful that both you and Tsumiki (Megumi's race engineer) have had an uneventful race so far. It isn't until the race is about a third of the way through that you finally turn the radio on again, holding out a hand to stop Tsumiki from doing the same. "Gojo? We are boxing next lap, do you copy?"

"Copy," he responds immediately, his tone uncharacteristically serious for once. "Are we sticking with plan A?"

"Yes, you listened for once," you confirm, nodding your head even though he can't see you. "You have enough of a gap that we can comfortably put you on hards and have you back in the top spot in no time. The track is warm enough for those tyres."

"I always listen to you," Gojo replies without missing a beat. "Anything you say goes."

A deep sigh is all he gets in return, and he can't help the small chuckles that leaves his lips as he finishes his lap and prepares to pull into the pit lane. The stop is performed without a hitch, and you sigh in relief when Gojo emerges in third place, only a couple of seconds behind Megumi. You exchanged nods with Tsumiki, and you turn your attention back to the monitor in front of you as she radios Megumi to come in for his pit stop next.

"Okay, Gojo," you speak when you see Megumi head into the pit lane. "We're getting Megumi in and out as fast as possible. Geto is about ten seconds ahead of you, it's time to push."

"Perfect, but not as perfect as you" Gojo sings, swearing as he takes a turn a little too wide.

"Make that eleven seconds," you correct, biting your lips to hold back a laugh when Gojo swears again. "Go do your thing. I'll keep you updated."

There's no response as the radio clicks off, and you find yourself wincing when you realize that Megumi's slow pit stop has dropped him down to fifth place behind Yuuji's twin brother, Sukuna. You can hear hushed words coming from Tsumiki, and you can't help but feel bad for her predicament considering that Sukuna is the reason that Megumi hadn't been able to finish his race a couple of weeks ago after being pushed off track and into the barrier.

You watch with bated breath as the gap between Gojo and Geto begins to close, and you cross your fingers and hope that Shoko, his race engineer, will choose that moment to call him in for a tyre change. Your hopes go unanswered, and you're on the edge of your seat when Gojo managed to catch up to Geto after ten laps.

The air feels tense as you and Yaga watch Gojo get incredibly close to Geto, separating from him right as he turns a corner to avoid being hit. He's close to him— too close, you think— and you find yourself taking a deep breath to prevent yourself from turning on the radio to tell him to stop being so aggressive. A glance to your right tells you that Yaga isn't concerned with Gojo's driving, so you decide to let him be and see how the situation works out.

Your fingers grip onto your clipboard, knuckles going white as Gojo manages to swerve himself into the spot right next to Geto. You're slightly awestruck as you watch Geto and Gojo race wheel to wheel, their synchronicity impressive as they take tight corners and long straights in unison. There's a brief moment during which you wonder what it would be like if they were teammates, and you shake your head to clear the thoughts from your head. You fear that being teammates could damage their friendship beyond repair.

"There's been contact!" Yaga shouts, snapping you back to reality. You scramble for the radio button, a gasp leaving your lips as you watch Gojo swerve close to the edge of the track. You see Geto move in the opposite direction, and you quickly scan all the monitors before speaking to your racer.

"Gojo, there was contact but the car seems to be perfectly fine," you say calmly, watching as he straightens himself out and passes Geto. "That's P1."

"Great!" Gojo replies breathlessly, his voice sounding slightly strained. "How is Geto? Is he fine?"

You take a second to glance to the side, receiving a nod from Yaga before he motions to the pit lane. A soft call of your name has you turning your attention back to the radio, and you nod to yourself before updating Gojo. "He's fine, slight front wing damage so Shoko brought him in to get that changed along with his tyres. You're in the lead and we're waiting to see what the stewards will say about the incident. We think you might get a warning."

"Alright, better than a penalty," Gojo says, nodding to himself as he takes another turn. "Just a couple more laps and then I can take you out for that dinner."

"I said I'd think about it," you reply dryly, ignoring the giggle that leaves Tsumiki's lips. "Just bring it home. Geto had a bad pit stop so him, Yuuji, and Megumi are like fifteen seconds behind you."

"Whoa! Megumi made it past Sukuna? The kid's got balls."

"Language, Gojo," you remind him, sighing softly. "I'm turning the radio off now. Don't fuck this up."

"Language!" Gojo mocks, his laugh cutting out as you turn the radio off. You spend the last quarter of the race watching Megumi alongside Tsumiki, slightly impressed as Gojo manages to retain his now sixteen second lead. It isn't until Geto manages to break away from Yuuji and Megumi that you start to get nervous, and you watch as he begins to push the last few laps of the race.

"Gojo?" you ask, the radio crackling to life as you watch the monitors. "Just letting you know that Geto has managed to pull ahead of Yuuji and Megumi. I don't think he can catch up but there's still a couple of laps and he always manages to surprise us."

The silence you receive unsettles you, and you mutely turn the radio off and sit back to watch the end of the race. There's not much you can do but rely on Gojo to pull through, and you can vaguely hear Tsumiki talking to Megumi over the radio as he battles with Yuuji. You're on the edge of your seat when Geto manages to set the fastest lap in the race, and you begin to worry that he might be able to catch up to Gojo, only for your fears to be quelled when you realize that it is the final lap of the race.

"Last lap, Gojo!" you call out, turning the radio on in excitement. "Bring it home!"

"Last lap?" he asks, laughing breathlessly when he receives a hum from you. "How far behind me is the next car?"

"Fourteen seconds," you respond, bouncing your knee up and down in anticipation as he turns the last corner. The upcoming straight is the only thing between him and the finish line, and you feel your heart drop when Gojo's car suddenly starts to lose speed. "Gojo? Are you losing power?"

"Nope!" he chirps cheerily, humming softly to himself. "Are you feeling Italian? We can always choose a different restaurant for dinner?"

You do your best to ignore the anxiety creeping up your spine, watching as Gojo trails towards the finish line at what can only be described as a snail's pace compared to the speed of Formula 1 cars. Your eyes widen when you see the gap between him and Geto close, and you do your best to not let your nervousness creep into your tone. "Gojo, is really not the time to be talking about dinner."

"But you're going out to dinner with me right?" comes his immediate response.

"Gojo, please hurry up and cross the finish line."

"Not until you agree to go out with me!" he trills. Yaga shoots you a pleading glance.

"Gojo! Please! Just win the race!" you beg, swallowing harshly as your fingers begin to tap against your clipboard. You catch a glimpse of the amused look on Tsumiki's face, but you're unable to give her the scathing glare you usually would due to the fear you're beginning to feel.

"I can stay here all day," he replies smugly, giggling to himself as he speeds the car up just to slow down once more. "Well I can't, but I can stay here until I cross the finish line in P20."

"Oh my fucking god," you nearly shriek, watching as Geto takes the final turn and begins to head down the straight. "Yes! Yes, I'll go out with you, Gojo! Now please just cross the damn finish line, you dumbass!"

"My pleasure!" he teases, slamming his foot down on the accelerator just in time to cross the finish line a second before Geto. A loud whoop leaves Yaga's mouth as everyone in the pit wall relaxes, too relieved by Gojo's win to instantly realize that Megumi has managed to cross the finish line before Yuuji. The cheers surrounding you sound muted as you put your head in your hands, trying to calm your racing heart and fight off a smile as you realize that you now have a date for the night.

You barely process anything as Tsumiki drags you towards the now parked racecars, and you try your best to ignore Shoko's smug smirk as she whispers into Geto's ear. You think it's safe to assume that she's filling him in on what happened with Gojo during the last lap.

His loud laugh accompanies by a friendly wink thrown your way confirms your assumption.

You stand near the back of the crowd as Gojo stands on top of his car, holding his pointer finger up and posing for pictures before leaping back onto the ground and proceeding to congratulate Geto and Megumi for their performances. You manage to catch his eye after a few minutes, and you feel your face grow warm when a genuine smile spreads across his face, his eyes sparkling as he makes his way through the crowd towards you.

"Congrats on P1," you say quietly, trying your best to ignore the way he's looking at you.

"All thanks to your genius strategies," he quips, repeating his words from earlier. The smile on his face tells you that he wants to make a suggestive comment, and you do your best to redirect the conversation before he can.

"You should probably head into the cooldown room," you comment casually, tilting your head in the direction that Geto and Megumi had disappeared to. "Podium celebration is about to start. Don't forget to get weighed."

"Don't forget to wear that pretty, red dress I like," he responds confidently. A surprised laugh leaves your lips at his comment, and you can't help but shake your head fondly as you finally look up at him.

"You know, you didn't have to give me a heart attack during the race. You could've asked me out after the race like a normal person. I would've said yes," you confess, becoming hyperaware of all the attention the two of you seem to be drawing.

"What can I say?" Gojo responds, shrugging half-heartedly as he takes a few steps closer to you. He's close enough that you can see the varying shades of blue in his eyes, and you resist the urge to jokingly push him away when he loops an arm around your waist. "I tend to have a flair for the dramatic."

"Oh boy, don't I know it," you whisper, not giving him the chance to respond before you loop your arms around his neck and pull him down into a kiss. Both of you faintly register the whoops and cheers surrounding you, and you can't help but break apart from each other as laughter starts to bubble up in your throats.

It isn't until you fully pull away from him and usher him towards the cooldown room that you notice the sheer amount of cameras that have been pointed your way, focusing on the moment that has just been shared between the both of you. An embarrassed noise escapes your lips as you duck into your team's garage, giggling when you hear Yaga congratulating you loudly on your win. A smile spreads across your face as you settle into a seat to watch the podium ceremony, and you find yourself wondering if you and Gojo will manage to evade the press when you finally leave the track.

It's safe to say that the internet has a field day when the news of Gojo's end-of-race stunt and your spontaneous kiss breaks.

ty for reading!! rbs are appreciated <3

#gojo x reader #jjk x reader #gojou x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #gojo satoru x reader #gojou satoru x reader #jjk imagine #jujutsu kaisen imagine #gojo imagine #gojou imagine #satoru x reader #gojo satoru imagine #jjk fluff #gojo fluff #gojou fluff #gojo satoru fluff #gojo imagines

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cowpants147 · 14 days ago

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I neeedddd more Foxes on TikTok content! Them doing their own versions of trending videos and challenges like the "dress up as something that starts with your first initial challeneg"

Allison, looking ethereal dressed like a literal Greek God, glammed to the heavens: I'm Allison, I'm dressed as Aphrodite and it's the onw year anniversary of my boyfriends death so I better be the drunkest tonight.

Renee, wearing a real leather F1 jacket/jumpsuit that Allison for some reason has in her closet with a blow up steering wheel in her hand: I'm Renee, I'm a race car driver and I think Nicky might be the drunkest.

Andrew, dressed exactly the same as normal but has a stethoscope around his neck and a piece of paper saying "Aaron" duct taped to his chest just stares into the camera for 30 seconds until it's obvious Allison will not be leaving without an answer: when Kevin starts puking I'm leaving.

Once everyone has given their answer the video enda with a pic of Nicky and Kevin passed out in a bathtub together.

Or the Trauma Dump Candy salad video which goes off the rails immediately and PSU makes them take down 3 hours after posting

"Hiiiiiii, I'm Nicky and I'm a gay teenage father of two and I brought Nerd Cluster Gummies"

"I'm Aaron and instead of going to rehab my evil doppelganger locked me in a bathroom w a blanket and a weeks worth of canned food and I brought Reeces"

"I'm Allison and my parents didn't even yell at my brother when he got expelled from boarding school for having coke in his room but I got kicked out of the house when I showed up to my deb ball with a black eye and a busted lip after playing (and winning) an exy game. They didn't even ask if I was OK. And I brought cherry flavoured Twizzlers"

"I'm Neil ans whenever I burn something while cooking I have a panic attack cause I start to think about burning my mother dead body in a ditch on the beach and I brought ... Andrew what are these called? Oh, I brought sour patch kids"

"I'm Kevin, I grew up in a cult and I brought raisins" except he's body tackled by a blonde blur before he gets a chance to dump the raisins into the bowl.

Them posting stupid shit to popular sounds:

Aaron, sat on the couch, study notes laid out around him, energy drink cans littering the place: I want to sit back and enjoy my my evening when all of a sudden ...

Camera flashes across the room to Neil just minding his own business: ... I hear this aggravating, grating voice

***

The "My Shalya" sound over clips of Neil absolutely violating people.

***

Zoom up of Kevin in full Queen Day sttess mode on the sidelines of practice with the sound "yes I'm a drama queen, but it's not by choice" playing over it and when it gets the "it's genetic" part the video zooms out to show Wymaxk next to him with the exact hand on hip, stressed look on his face

***

Renee doing the "actually I do cuss a little" sound while she's getting her gear on to spar with Andrew and when it reaches the "probably fuck" portion of the audio the clip switches to her taking Andrew downnnn. And then there's a beat drop just cause.

***

Another edit of Neil but with the "am I the drama? I don't think I'm drama" sound.

***

Upperclassmen scrolling through news articles or flipping through sports news channels rhag are reporting on them while miming along to "is this fucking play about us"

***

Some teammates, probably upperclasmen, definitely Nicky also miming along to "I'm sorry, not everybody fits in the bad bitch genre, it's a genre, not everybody fits on the he roster" while dressed in full exy uniform, with the caption "when you're coach only recruits the most traumatised bitches"

And forcing teammates to do "day in the life" "what i eat in a day as a member of the most fucked up exy team" and "ootd" videos.

Andrew (bribed with alcohol, ice cream and ten dollars) does a What I Eat in a Day as depressed mother of 3 whose forced to play stickball. There's no sound, its just the picture carousel style w block letters next to pics of his food:

Breakfast is a massive mug of hot chocolate with half a can of squirty cream and marshmallows.

Breakfast 2 is a big bowl of whatever sugary flavour cereal that's overflowing w E Numbers and almost illegal food dye you guys have in the US.

Snack 1 is a chocolate bar.

Lunch is a slice of pizza, fries and then there's a hand forcing salad onto his plate. Andrew adds a note to this pic saying "I'm allergic to green, Kevin's trying to kill me"

Snack 2 is a an energy drink and a cigarette

Dinner is a pint of ice cream

Midnight snack is just a pic of Neil which Andrew thinks is an obvious coming out without coming out vibe but everyone is immediately worried about Neil's safety and there endals up being a Reddit thread about Andrew being a cannibal.

Then they post a follow up video of Kevin reacting to this and he just watches on in despair saying "no. no. Andrew you have a nutritionist!"

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bunny-jpeg · 1 month ago

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burnin' tire

max verstappen

cw: smut/pwp, masturbation, fantasies, mad!max, post-dutch gp, mechanic!reader

love the fic? leave a comment! really love the fic? suggest your own!!

second.

second was first place for losers. that was what he had been told his entire life. second, seconde, secondo, however he could slice it, it still looked bad. so when he stomped back into the paddock with fire in his heart and a storm cloud over his head, the mechanics scattered.

they even went as far as to push you, their newest addition in front of max so they could get a head start away from mad max.

he looked down at you, something in his gaze left you a little shaky at the knees. this was your first race with the team, and you couldn't secure a win for max. it was almost embarrassing.

"i'm sorry, mister verstappen!" you pouted, "i'm really sorry! we tried to move as fast as possible, but i guess we couldn't keep up to mclaren." you worried about your job! you had just started, you were far from home and this was your dream to work for, "i'm so sorry!"

you almost had tears in your eyes, which deflated the anger from max's stance. he dropped his arms and looked at you. he replied, "there's nothing to be sorry about, it happens." as if he hadn't been on a losing streak for some time now.

your bottom lip quivered and your eyes grew watery, "this was your home race. and i'm just so sorry! i just wanted to do good, i wanted you to win!" a few tears fell and max was dumbfounded.

he was used to tearing into the mechanics and the engineers. he was used to snapping his words and letting rage consume him. instead he reached out for you, "hey, it's okay! don't cry. it's alright.'" he even wiped your tears away as your lip wobbled.

you got into his arms and gave him a bit hug. you looked at him and said, "i promise we'll win the next one! i promise!" even in those baggy coveralls you looked cute. if not beautiful.

max felt the anger disappear in his gut and he smiled at you, almost warm, "yes... yes we will." and when he patted you on the head and turned away and out of the paddock.

the other mechanics were in as much shock as you were. and while max would've loved to continue holding you, even reassuring you about the race in monza the following week. max was painfully hard from your brief interaction. it was like all the anger went to his cock and he needed to get out of there before he caused a scene.

back in the red bull motor home, max thought he was going to burst a blood vessel in his head. it was a pain to get into his jeans after he got out of his racing clothes. everything felt like a live wire, to go without masturbating for that long felt painful. especially when the source of his erection was playing in his read.

you smell like motor oil and warm vanilla, your touch was soft when you hugged him and that pretty face. even with the smear of grease on your face and the red bull cap on your head.

"mister verstappen." your voice rang in his head and he didn't even make it to the bed before his cock was in his hand. his palm covered in his spit as he sat on the couch and stroked himself still clothed.

he knew that the team had hired a new mechanic, but to see you in action made his brain feel almost rotten from the lust he felt. he barely paid attention to who was working on the car during the race but he knew you weren't working alone. and yet, you still carried all the responsibility for the team on your shoulders.

you poor thing. he continued to stroke his cock and he panted heavily at the feeling. thoughts of you were in his head as he pleasured himself. he wished you were there to do it for him. even if you wore you coveralls and covered in grease, if you were on your knees in front of him, your mouth on his cock as you pleasured him.

he wondered if you had even done that before. if you had any partners, or even one at the moment. he tried not to let the jealousy curl in his gut. he wasn't even sure, but he wouldn't have been surprised. you were beautiful, and who didn't love a gentle soul. you wanted max to win and max in turn felt towards you that he felt towards no other mechanic. he wanted you to work on his car, but also taking you out to dinner. to show you the finer things in life.

he wondered what colour panties you wore, and what cut. he knew you weren't wearing a thong, no when you were lifting heavy tires all day. he imagined something red, maybe a boy short. something that moved with the curves of your hips and thighs. he thought excited him, it really turned him on. made his face as red as he hoped that your panties would be.

how they'd curve to your ass, when you ran around the pit stop. how you would lift tools around. the strength to you. max liked models, but there was something about you the captivated him. and you didn't even know. you were just a humble mechanic, and you drove max wild.

he continued to stroke his cock heavily. he panted heavily as he felt his dark t-shirt cling to his back. his pace was quick up against his cock, he even spat on his hand once more to just to get the right friction. it was a head rush. he was not immune to masturbation, max did it almost daily if he had the time.

but to picture you in your bra and panties made him excited. hungry like a dog as he fucked his hand. he wished it was your pussy. he wished that he could bully the tip of his cock against you. he wished he could bend you in half and fuck you with a vigor that there were no other words for.

he wondered if you were loud, if he'd have to silence you with your panties. if he's have to cover your mouth or gag you, or would you just burst into tears like you did in the garage. the wet eyes,staring at him, promising that you'd do better next time. it made max want to fuck you even more. he wanted you every way he could have you.

"shit." he groaned through grit teeth as he continued to stroke his cock. he could feel his heart beat in his ears as he continued to masturbate. you were just a little thing, even with your skills as a mechanic, you were still so small. max felt he need to protect you.

he wanted to make sure you needed for nothing. he wondered if you'd have him as your lover. as your partner. the thought made him shudder as he continued to stroke his cock. he felt the head rush it all, he panted heavily as he stroked his cock.

his pace continued and he let himself get lost in the feeling. when it got overwhelming, he finished all over himself. your words rang in his mind, the promises you made. next time will be better. he'd win next time! and as cum dribbled all over his hand, he panted heavily with the head rush. he panted heavily and felt a shudder through climax. he wondered if you were touching yourself tonight, which made his cock twitch in his hand.

he was covered in cum at the waist and he felt hot all over. he rubbed his face with his free hand and for a moment felt in the post-orgasm shame. but it didn't last long.

with the after shivers of euphoria, he knew he had to do something. he couldn't be jerking off in private anytime he saw you. max was a man of action so after he cleaned himself off, he texted horner,

"i was wondering if i could properly meet with our new mechanic, show her the ropes. i think things will be promising with her." he tried to sound as professional as possible, but as thoughts of your watery eyes filled his mind. he knew he'd have to get himself off again soon. <3

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menagerofmischief · 2 months ago

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M4X

summary: after max wins his 4th title in vegas, you congratulate him in a special way in his driver's room

tags: pwp, kinda sub!max, semi public sex, blowjob, deep throating, I went a bit wild on use of "champion"

wc: 1.4k

a/n: do I have an exam tomorrow? yes! am I in the middle of writing a lando fic? also yes! but ever since the race ended I keep thinking about this so I had to write it.

You waited patiently, bounding on the balls of your feet as you gathered outside the RedBull garage alongside the employees, feeling like both your nerves and excitement were choking you up.

Your cheeks hurt from how wide you were smiling when Max pulled the car up in front of the “champion” banner, tears brimming up in the corners of your eyes as you watched him get out of the car.

A quick pose for the picture and then he was pulling off his helmet and balaclava, eyes searching across the many faces in the crowd until they finally met yours. And then he was running, a smile on his face as he reached you, wrapping his arms around your waist and lifting you up to spin you around in joy, both of you laughing through choked sobs.

“You did it!” You said, your voice cracking. Max put you down, your feet now flat against the ground and you looked up at him, looping your arms around his neck as he leaned down to kiss you.

It was a desperate, passionate, raw and purely primal kind of kiss. The kind Max rarely allowed himself in public, but this was a special occasion. Open mouthed, his tongue stroking against your own, licking into your mouth desperately.

Finally the two of you pulled away, the loud cheers coming from the workers of RedBull filling your ears as everyone celebrated the win.

You part your lips, a breath coming out as your eyes meet with his and your lips twitch upwards into a smile. “Congratulations, champion.” You say, leaning forward to press a kiss to his cheek. “Go celebrate!”

Max nodded, leaning in for another kiss, shorter this time, and then going down to greet the rest of the team and celebrate with them before heading to the cool down car.

Once all the formal celebrations and interviews were down, and everyone gave their congratulations, Max went to search for you.

A brief talk with one of the mechanics let him know you were waiting for him in his driver's room and he wasted no time in making his way over there.

He twisted the door, stepping into the room and his eyes immediately scanning the small space until they landed on you, sitting on top of his massage table with legs dangling down, wearing one of by now very spottable shirts in the RedBull garage, with his name. M4X.

"Do you like the shirt?" You ask with a laugh, pushing your chest out a bit to show him the logo.

He hums, making his way across the room and to you, one of his hands grabbing your chin and lifting up your head to kiss you. "Love it," he replies, lips brushing against your own with each word he speaks.

You place your hands against his chest, pushing him back a bit, enough to give you space to jump down from the massage table. You circle around him, running your fingers along his shoulders and back.

“You looked so good today,” you purr in his ear, fingers grasping onto the zipper of his racing suit as you slowly start pulling it down. “A 4 time world champion. My world champion.”

Max groans at the words coming from your mouth and you take the moment to lean forward and press open mouthed kisses along the skin of his neck, licking against the spots you know are the most sensitive for him.

“Fuck, schatje.” He says, his voice coming out more as a broken whisper than what he intended.

You move your hands and start pushing down his race suit until it pools around his ankles and with just a second of effort he steps out of it, looking at you with wide eyes and pouty lips, almost as if begging for anything you want to give him, as long as it’s something.

“Go on and sit,” you tell him, gesturing towards one of the chairs in the room. For a second he’s completely still and you think maybe he hasn’t heard you but then he bolts towards the chair, practically tripping over his own two feet as he moves to sit down.

You pull down your pants and step out of them, the slightly colder Vegas air making goosebumps raise across the skin of your legs. You leave the shirt on, a pair of navy blue panties barely peeking out.

Max takes in a deep breath as you sink down onto your knees in front of him. “Wait!” He says, and you still instantly, you’re about to ask what’s wrong when he gets up to grab his discarded racing suit and pulls you up just enough to slip the fabric under your knees before moving back into the chair.

“Thank you, baby.” You smile at him, leaning forward and pressing kisses along the skin of his thigh, the muscles flexing due to him tensing up from your actions. “Now, I think my champion deserves a reward, isn’t that right?”

“Yes!” Max says, his voice overly excited but you can’t blame him. “Please.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll give you what you want.” You say, palming him over his boxers before sinking your fingers under the waistband. He lifts his hips in an effort to help you pull his boxers down and once you have them off you waste no time wrapping your hands around his already hard cock.

You slide your fingers over the slit, collecting the bits of precum that has already started leaking and using it as lube as you twist your hands down his dick. Max hisses, feeling pleasure overwhelm his senses as you lean forward, pressing a kiss onto the tip of his cock before opening your mouth and gently sucking on it.

Max’s moans are nearly pornographic, his cheeks flushed and lips open as moans and pleas slip past. You push your head further down, gliding your tongue along his length and pressing it just a bit against the vein running along the underside of his cock.

“You feel so good, schatje.” He says, his voice cracking. His hand cups the back of your head, fingers tangling into your hair as he pulls it into a makeshift ponytail to keep it out of your face.

He pushed your head down, not too rough, forcing you to take him deeper into your mouth until the tip is hitting the back of your throat and your nose is rubbing against his neatly trimmed base.

You hollow your cheeks around him, giving him a long suck before pulling your hair halfway up and then dropping it down again, gagging a little from the pressure at the back of your throat.

It doesn’t take long for you to feel Max’s thighs tensing and slightly shaking as he approaches the edge of his orgasm, the grip of his fingers in your hair tightening.

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum.” He moans out, hips lifting off the chair as he thrusts his dick into your mouth, chasing the warmth around his dick. “So good, schatje, so good." Gonna make me cum.”

Encouraged by his words you speed up your movements, bobbing your head along his dick faster until you feel him twitch inside of you, and then filling your mouth with his hot cum. You pull off his slowly softening cock, letting it slip past your lips, and swallow.

You smile at him as you eye the mess on his cock and then teasingly lean back down to lick him clean. “You did so good baby,” you tell him, pressing your lips against his briefly as you go to stand up.

Max stands up, one of his knees buckling slightly, he leans down and grabs his boxers and pulls them up. “I didn’t get the podium today but this was so much better.” He says, stroking your cheek with his thumb.

You laugh in response, pressing your lips against the palm of his hand. “Come on, champ, get dressed.” You say, the tone of your voice teasing. “We’re hitting the clubs tonight.”

“Or maybe I’ll be hitting your cervix tonight.”

A laugh slips past your lips, your tongue darting out to lick them. “Maybe after a few drinks and some dancing.”

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hemmingsleclerc · 1 year ago

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Little Verstappen ▏Max Verstappen

-summary: Olivia Verstappen doesn't let her father focus on his post-race interview

The sun had just set on the racetrack, casting a warm glow on the tired faces of the drivers. Max, the winner of the day's race, was in the paddock surrounded by the hum of post-race activity. While journalists clamored for interviews, Max held his RedBull cap in one hand and, to everyone's surprise, cradled his young daughter, Olivia, in the other.

With a wide but tired smile on his face, Max agreed to a quick interview, with his daughter squirming playfully in his arms watching everything curiously. The interviewer, an experienced journalist, adjusted the microphone and began the conversation.

"Max, congratulations on another incredible race. How does it feel to win and be closer to winning your third championship?"

Max's eyes sparkled with joy, but his attention was often stolen by his daughter's mischievous antics, Liv, a bundle of energy, couldn't resist reaching for her father's cap and playing with his face.

"Well, it feels amazing," Max began, his words punctuated by Olivia's giggles. "The team did a fantastic job and the car was just perfect. It's always special to win, but having Liv here with me makes it even greater."

Olivia, not content with just the cap, began pulling on Max's ear, causing laughter from the crowd around her. Max, unfazed, continued answering questions while deftly avoiding her tiny fingers.

The interviewer chuckled: "Speaking of Olivia, what does she think when she sees her father win the race?"

''I don't know'' said Max ''Liv? What do you think?' he asked his daughter in his arms.

The little girl, realizing that the attention was now on her, felt her little cheeks heat up and hid her face in her father's neck, causing the elders to laugh.

"Well, it looks like we'll never know," Max said with a laugh as he rubbed his daughter's back. But the girl quickly turns around and says "My papa is the best driver in the whole world!" with a big smile on her face.

Max smiled at his daughter, who was now trying to put the cap on her own head. "She's amazing. She's my good luck charm and having her here makes everything that much more special. It's hard to describe the feeling of hugging her after a race. She's my biggest fan along with my wife, and I hope one day she understands what her father does."

As Max spoke, Olivia successfully donned the oversized cap, her eyes peeking out from beneath the brim. Max couldn't help but laugh, causing the crowd to join in the merriment.

The interview continued, a delightful mix of racing ideas and adorable interruptions. Liv, tired of the cap, now focused on her father's nose, causing more laughter from the viewers. Ever the professional, Max seamlessly integrated fatherhood and racing in a way that endeared him even more to fans.

At the conclusion of the interview, Max Verstappen lifted his daughter aloft, with the RedBull cap now perched precariously on her head. The image of the champion driver, crowned by his smiling daughter, became a trend on the Internet and was engraved in the hearts of fans around the world.

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diamonddaze01 · 1 month ago

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Full Throttle (ii)

pairing: ferrari driver!yoon jeonghan x journalist!reader chapter wc: 16.7K (dont look at me)genre: humor, fluff, angst, smut (?) au: f1 au (i am sorry i am a nerd abt this) rating: m (MINORS DNI)warnings: SLOW BURNNN. mentions of injuries, car crashes // unprotected sex (WRAP IT BEFORE YOU TAP IT), some nipple-play, vaguely (?) rough (?) sex, begging

PREQUELS: would highly recommend reading On the Record and Off the Record to gain some context into the relationship! This fic starts directly after the end of Off the Record

a/n: ok pt 2 here we gooooo! to kae @ylangelegy , who hasn't read the ending of this because they wanted to be surprised. i love you, im sorry, i love you // to alta @haologram , who hyped me up so much and made me feel so much better about my writing // thank you to lola @monamipencil and haneul @chanranghaeys for beta-reading! // and finally, an ENORMOUS thank you to jupiter @cheolism for the banner!

read part 1 here.

FORMULA 1 PIRELLI GRAN PREMIO D’ITALIA 2024 Track: Autodromo Nazionale Monza

Monza, the Temple of Speed. The track that had seen countless legends, where every tire mark told a story of glory and heartache. The crowd—the tifosi—roared like a living entity, their chants filling the air, demanding greatness from Ferrari’s finest. It wasn’t just a race here, it was a pilgrimage. The heat of Italy in late summer mixed with the electric atmosphere of a home Grand Prix, and Jeonghan could feel it all—the energy, the expectation, the weight of a thousand eyes on him.

The Autodromo Nazionale Monza was a track built on speed, but more than that, it was a track built on history. The sweeping curves, the long straights, the iconic Parabolica that would make or break a driver—it was a place where only the brave thrived, and only the strongest survived. Jeonghan knew the stakes: it wasn’t enough to be fast, not when you were wearing Ferrari red. He had to win, not just for himself, but for the tifosi, who saw him as their golden boy. He had to deliver.

As the weekend progressed, he couldn’t escape the growing weight on his shoulders. His performance was scrutinized with every passing second. In the pits, the team’s eyes were on him, hoping for that perfect lap. The techs, the engineers, the strategists—all working in harmony, hoping that Jeonghan would be the one to pull them across the finish line, but in the back of his mind, Jeonghan kept hearing the unspoken truth: nothing less than pole would suffice. Anything less was a failure.

He felt his pulse quicken as the qualifying session wore on, his concentration laser-sharp, every move calculated. But the tire strategy wasn’t perfect, and as the final moments ticked down, the truth settled over him like a cloud of doom. He was not going to make Q3. Neither was Soonyoung. The agony of it slammed into him like a punch to the gut.

The Ferrari garage was quiet, save for the hum of the engines being powered down. Soonyoung clapped him on the shoulder, a small gesture, but Jeonghan could see the frustration in his eyes, the mirror of his own defeat. The disappointment felt like a heavy weight on Jeonghan’s chest, suffocating, and he couldn’t shake it off. He couldn’t even look at the team, let alone the tifosi waiting outside.

The mood around the paddock was tense as Jeonghan left the garage, still in his race suit. The world felt unreal, as though it were in slow motion. He couldn’t escape it. The tifosi would be waiting to cheer their heroes, but today, he hadn’t been the hero they wanted. He was just another failure in a sea of victories that had come before him. He needed to escape it, to clear his mind.

It was then, as he walked toward his motorhome, that he felt it—a small, electric connection. Your hand brushed against his.

He froze.

Your presence was like a balm, soothing the sharp sting of defeat, but it also distracted him. The familiar, intoxicating scent of your shampoo, something floral and faintly sweet, hit him like a memory, and his heart skipped a beat. That scent, mixed with the lingering tension of the day, flooded his senses. He couldn’t look at you, couldn’t form words. All he could think about was that fleeting moment—so close—and the ridiculous notion that he had never noticed how desperately he wanted to be closer to you.

You didn’t stop walking either, your movements fluid, confident. But he couldn’t help the way his eyes followed you, the way the tension built with every step.

Without a word, you both continued on, the space between you shrinking until you finally spoke. Your voice was soft, but there was an edge to it, something that told him you understood more than he let on.

“Tough luck out there,” you said, a hint of sympathy in your tone.

The words were simple, but they hit harder than he expected. His chest tightened as he swallowed. “It’s... whatever,” he muttered, trying to brush it off. He didn’t have the energy to care.

You glanced at his fist, clenched so tightly it was almost painful to watch. “Doesn’t seem like ‘whatever’ to me,” you countered, raising an eyebrow, your words cutting through the fog in his mind.

He let out a small, mirthless chuckle. “I’ll be fine,” he said, his voice more convincing than he felt. But even as he said it, he knew. He wouldn’t be fine—not until he had redeemed himself, not until he could prove to the world that he was still Ferrari’s shining star. He had to be.

But for now, there was a fleeting connection between the two of you, and it was the only thing that made his heart skip, even if just for a moment.

The race was an uphill battle from the start, as expected. Jeonghan’s starting position was far from ideal, and the track ahead was a maze of cars, each one blocking his path, each one a reminder of the high stakes. The pressure weighed on him heavily, like an invisible force that squeezed the air from his lungs. It wasn’t just about the race, it was about redemption. The tifosi—his tifosi—filled his mind with a deafening chant, a roar of expectation, as if they were willing victory into existence. The weight of their adoration and their demand for perfection followed him, a constant reminder of the legacy he carried.

But Jeonghan had never been one to back down. The track felt like an extension of himself, the tires gripping, the engine vibrating beneath him, urging him to push. Even with traffic clogging his way, he found openings. He fought for every inch of track, his movements sharp, instinctive, like a surgeon making precise cuts. Overtaking felt almost effortless—his car slipping through gaps with the grace of a dancer. He was fluid, controlled, never losing sight of the goal.

As the laps unfolded, his nerves sharpened, but so did his focus. The aggressive strategy that had been laid out for him was beginning to pay off. He was making up ground, inching forward, climbing the ladder of positions one battle at a time. The thought of the tifosi cheering, of their voices blending into one thunderous symphony, drove him. They believed in him. He had to deliver. His mind cleared. He no longer heard the roaring crowds, the whirling thoughts of doubt. All that mattered was the track, the tires, and the roar of the engine beneath him. The conditions became his advantage—he thrived in this chaos.

Through the speed-trap corners, Jeonghan carved his way through the field. The world outside the cockpit blurred into a haze, his focus narrowing into sharp precision. He saw every gap, every opportunity, and he seized them without hesitation. The rain had turned the race into a dance of risk and control, and Jeonghan was leading the waltz.

Crossing the finish line first, Jeonghan allowed himself a single moment of release. The victory wasn’t just for him—it was for Ferrari, for the tifosi, for everything that had been building in his chest since the first day he’d strapped into the car. He had done it. He had delivered.

The roar of the crowd felt like an affirmation of his own heart, beating in time with the cheers of thousands. In that moment, the weight lifted off him, replaced by an overwhelming surge of satisfaction and relief. He had proven himself once again, and it was more sweet than any victory lap could ever capture. The tifosi were wild, their cheers ringing through the air, a thunderous confirmation of what Jeonghan had already known in his heart: this was his race. This was his victory.

After the podium celebrations, the champagne-soaked cheers, and the endless barrage of media questions, Jeonghan finally managed to steal a moment of solitude. His body was spent, muscles aching, his throat raw from the adrenaline-fueled roar that had escaped him as he crossed the finish line. And yet, his mind wasn’t on the race anymore. Not on the points, not on the tifosi.

It was on you.

The fleeting brush of your hand earlier lingered like a phantom touch, a warmth that refused to fade even as the hours passed. The memory of your scent—the subtle floral notes of your shampoo—clung to him, more grounding than the overwhelming chaos of the Monza circuit.

He walked toward his motorhome, each step feeling heavier now that the adrenaline had begun to wane. The din of the paddock was fading, replaced by the rhythmic thud of his heartbeat in his ears. The glow of the overhead lights cast long shadows, and as he turned the corner, there you were. Waiting for him. Leaning casually against the side of his motorhome, your arms crossed and a knowing smirk dancing on your lips. His footsteps slowed as his eyes locked onto yours, the soft gleam of your smile both a challenge and an invitation.

“You’re late,” you teased, tilting your head in mock disapproval.

Jeonghan huffed a laugh, shaking his head as he approached. “Didn’t realize I was on a schedule.”

“You’re always on a schedule,” you shot back, your tone light but your gaze sharp. “Besides, I thought you’d be faster off track too.”

His smirk deepened as he stopped in front of you, close enough that the scent of champagne and adrenaline clung to him. “Big words for someone who’s hanging around my motorhome.”

“Big win for someone who barely made it out of Q2,” you quipped, the corner of your mouth twitching upward.

Jeonghan’s chuckle was low, almost indulgent. “Touché.”

There was a moment of silence, the din of the paddock fading into a distant hum. His eyes traced your face, noting the way your lashes cast faint shadows on your cheekbones, the way you seemed perfectly at ease under his scrutiny. That unnerved him more than he cared to admit. You’d always been too good at staying cool, keeping him on edge.

“So,” he finally said, leaning casually against the doorframe, “where’s your article? Shouldn’t it be out by now?”

You raised an eyebrow, feigning surprise. “Oh, you think I’m done? I’m holding out for an exclusive.”

Jeonghan’s grin widened, his ego soaking up your words. “An exclusive? From the tifosi’s god?”

Your laugh was soft, teasing, and it sent a warmth through his chest that rivaled the rush of the race. “Your words, not mine.”

“You want a headline that bad?” His voice dropped, his tone dipping into something darker, something that made the air between you shift.

“Maybe,” you replied, your voice steady despite the way he was looking at you now—like he was ready to devour you whole. “But you’d have to give me something worth writing about.”

It was playful, the banter you always shared, but there was something crackling beneath the surface tonight, an electricity neither of you could ignore. Jeonghan stepped closer, his presence swallowing the space between you. You shifted back instinctively, your spine meeting the cool surface of the motorhome door.

“You always have something to say, don’t you?” he murmured, his voice low, intimate.

“Someone has to keep you grounded,” you shot back, though your voice wavered slightly as his hand braced against the door beside your head, caging you in. His other hand hovered near your hip, close enough to make you hyper-aware of the heat radiating off him.

“Grounded?” he repeated, his lips curling into a slow, predatory smile. “You’re doing a great job of that.”

Your heart was pounding now, the proximity, the tension—it was overwhelming. “Jeonghan,” you started, your voice quieter, more measured, “this… this isn’t professional.”

“Fuck being professional,” he said, the words slipping out like a confession. Before you could respond, his fingers tilted your jaw, firm but not rough, guiding you to look up at him.

And then his lips were on yours, capturing them in a kiss that was as fierce as it was unrelenting. It wasn’t sweet or tentative—it was raw, all the tension and frustration that had built up between you spilling over in a single, consuming moment. His hand slid to the nape of your neck, anchoring you to him as if he was afraid you might pull away.

But you didn’t. You kissed him back with equal fervor, your hands finding the front of his race suit, clutching the material as if to steady yourself. The world around you blurred into nothing; there was only the warmth of his mouth, the taste of him, the way he kissed like he was claiming something he’d wanted for far too long.

Jeonghan’s breath hitched as he pulled back just enough to look at you, his eyes searching yours for something—confirmation, permission, anything. Whatever he found made him grin, wicked and hungry. Without a word, he reached for the door handle, pushing it open with a sharp motion. The door swung wide, and then his hands were on you again, pulling you inside.

The door clicked shut behind you, plunging you both into the dim interior of the motorhome. Jeonghan's hands were everywhere at once, tracing the curve of your waist, sliding up your back, tangling in your hair. His lips found yours again, more urgent this time, as if he couldn't bear to be separated from you for even a moment.

You stumbled backward, your legs hitting the edge of the small couch. Jeonghan followed, never breaking contact, until you were lying beneath him, the leather cool against your heated skin. His weight pressed you down, a delicious pressure that made your head spin.

"God, I've wanted this for so long," he breathed against your neck, his words punctuated by hot, open-mouthed kisses that trailed down to your collarbone.

You arched into him, your hands fumbling with the zipper of his race suit. Your fingers trembled slightly as you tugged it down and yanked off his fireproofs, revealing more of his sweat-slicked skin. Jeonghan groaned against your throat as your hands slipped inside, exploring the taut muscles of his chest and abdomen.

"How long?" you managed to ask between ragged breaths, curiosity mingling with desire.

Jeonghan lifted his head, his eyes dark and intense as they locked onto yours. "Since the first time you interviewed me," he admitted, his voice low and husky. "The way you challenged me, saw right through my bullshit... I knew I was in trouble."

The confession sent a thrill through you, and you pulled him down for another searing kiss. Your tongues danced as his hands roamed your body, pushing up your shirt to caress the soft skin beneath. You gasped into his mouth as his thumb brushed the underside of your breast.

Your fingers curled into his hair, tugging gently as you deepened the kiss. Jeonghan groaned, the sound vibrating through his chest and into yours. His hand slid lower, tracing the curve of your hip before gripping your thigh, hitching it up around his waist.

“So what you’re saying,” you whispered, grinding your clothed cunt against him. “Is that you’ve been obsessed with me as long as I have with you.”

He drops his head and groans, hot and heavy, against your throat. “You’re telling me we could have been doing this for three years?”

You pull him back to your lips by his hair, relishing the way he hisses at your touch. “If only you’d put your money where your mouth is, pretty boy.”

At that, he props himself up above you, grinning like the cat that got the canary. “I knew you called me pretty in Japan!”

You desperately claw at his shoulders in an attempt to bring his mouth back to yours. After three years of cat and mouse, you do believe you’re entitled to it. “Jeonghan, I swear to everything that is holy-”

“Say it.” His necklace hangs in front of you, glinting in the dim light of the motorhome. You have half a mind to crane your neck and take it with your teeth. But instead, you choose to stare up at him in mock confusion, fingers dancing at the nape of his neck.

“Say what?”

His answering laugh mocks you a little, and he leans down to gently bite your earlobe. When he speaks, it’s low and deep. “Say I’m pretty. I know you think it when you’re drunk.”

You shiver at the sensation of his teeth grazing your ear, heat pooling in your core. His words make you flush, remembering all the times you'd drunkenly gushed about him to your friends. You'd always been careful to keep things professional in person, but apparently some of your true feelings had slipped out.

"And how would you know what I think when I'm drunk?" you challenge, trying to regain some control.

Jeonghan chuckles, the sound vibrating against your skin. "You're not the only one with sources in the paddock, sweetheart."

The pet name sends another thrill through you. You decide to give him what he wants, if only to move things along. "Fine," you breathe, trailing your fingers down his chest. "You're pretty, Jeonghan. Gorgeous, actually. Happy now?"

His grin is triumphant as he captures your lips again, the kiss deep and consuming. "Ecstatic, darling," he murmurs against your mouth.

Your hands roam his body, tracing the lean muscles of his back, feeling them flex under your touch. Jeonghan's fingers dance along your sides, leaving trails of fire in their wake. He breaks the kiss to nip at your jaw, then your neck, drawing a soft moan from your lips.

"You know," he says between kisses, his voice low and husky, "I've imagined this so many times. On the couch in the media room, in the garage, during those long interviews..."

You gasp as he finds a particularly sensitive spot on your neck. "Is that why you always fidget so much during our talks?"

He chuckles against your skin. "Guilty as charged."

Your hands find the waistband of his fireproofs, , but as one hand curls around your jaw, the other stops you.

“You first,” he breathes, sitting back on his knees to gently urge you out of your shirt.

You lift your arms, allowing him to peel your shirt off slowly, his eyes drinking in every inch of newly exposed skin. The cool air of the motorhome raises goosebumps on your flesh, but Jeonghan's heated gaze makes you feel like you're burning up.

"Beautiful," he murmurs, his fingers tracing the lace edge of your bra. "Even better than I imagined."

You reach up to pull him back down to you, craving the warmth of his body against yours. As your lips meet again, his hands roam your sides, mapping out every curve and dip. You arch into his touch, desperate for more.

His hands brush over your clothed nipple, and you inhale sharply. The sound makes Jeonghan raise his head, a faint smirk dancing across his lips. “Sensitive, are we?” He coos, hands drawing shapes against the swell of your breasts until goosebumps erupt on your flesh.

Your breath hitches as his fingers tease you though the thin fabric of your bra. “Jeonghan,” you breathe, half-warning, half-plea.

His smirk widens as he lowers his head, pressing open-mouthed kisses along your collarbone. "Yes, sweetheart?" He murmurs against your skin. His lips trail lower, ghosting over the lacework.

You arch your back, silently begging for more. Jeonghan obliges, his tongue darting out to trace the lace edge of your bra. Your hands find his hair, fingers tangling in the soft strands as you hold him close.

With deft fingers, he reaches behind you to unclasp your bra. You lift slightly, allowing him to slide it off. His eyes darken as he takes you in. You moan wantonly, arching your back in an effort to touch you - somewhere, anywhere.

“Jeonghan, please-”

A singular finger traces the curve of your waist up to your collarbone. He hums as you squirm. “Look at you,” he murmurs. You shriek as he pinches your waist. “You act so big in the paddock, and here you are, begging for me to touch you.”

It enrages you a little, how easily he takes you apart. Hell, he’s barely even touched you and you’re already rubbing your thighs together, desperate for any amount of friction.

"Jeonghan, please," you gasp, not even sure what you're begging for. More? Less? Everything?

He lifts his head, his eyes meeting yours. The intensity in his gaze makes your breath catch. "Tell me what you want," he says, his voice low and commanding.

You swallow hard, and the heat pooling between your legs feels hot enough to burn. “Y-your-”

“My what, baby?” His words are punctuated by hot, open mouthed kisses against your collarbones. He pointedly ignores your nipples, a thought that makes you whine. “Speak up.”

“Your mouth, Jeonghan,” you finally get out, hissing when his teeth find purchase on the skin of your neck.

“Yeah? Where, baby?” His hands fit themselves against the curve of your waist. “Here?”

“N-no,” you hate it, the way Jeonghan turns you into a whimpering mess. You shiver as his hands trail up your body.

“Hm…how about…here?” His thumbs brush against the underside of your breast again, and you arch your back, desperate and aching for him.

“Higher,” you breathe, mesmerized by the way his fingers dance up your body, by the way his eyes never leave yours.

“Here, baby?” His fingers tweak an already-hard nipple, and you gasp.

“Yes, please-”

“Say I’m a good driver, sweetheart, and I’ll give you what you want.”

Your eyes snap open, narrowing at him in disbelief. Even now, with you half-naked and writhing beneath him, he can't help but tease. "You're kidding, right?"

Jeonghan's grin is wicked, his eyes gleaming with mischief. "Not at all. Come on, darling. Just a few little words."

You bite your lip, torn between your pride and your desperate need for his touch. His thumb circles your nipple lazily, sending jolts of pleasure through you. Finally, you cave. "Fine," you breathe. "You're a good driver, Jeonghan. The best, even. Now please—"

Before you can finish, his mouth is on your breast, hot and wet. You cry out, arching into him as his tongue swirls around your nipple. His hand kneads your other breast, fingers teasing your other nipple.

Your fingers tangle in his hair, holding him close as he lavishes attention on your breasts. Jeonghan's tongue and teeth work in tandem, drawing gasps and moans from your lips. The sensations are overwhelming, each touch sending sparks of pleasure through your body.

"God, Jeonghan," you breathe, your head falling back against the couch cushions.

He hums against your skin, the vibration sending another shiver through you. His free hand trails down your stomach, fingers dancing along the waistband of your pants. You lift your hips instinctively, silently begging for more.

Jeonghan lifts his head, his eyes dark with desire as they meet yours. "Tell me you want this," he says, his voice husky and low. "I need to hear you say it."

You nod frantically, your breath coming in short gasps. "Yes," you breathe, your voice filled with need. "I want this. I want you, Jeonghan."

His eyes darken further at your words, a low growl escaping his throat. In one swift motion, he unbuttons your pants and slides them down your legs, taking your underwear with them. You kick them off eagerly, now fully bare beneath him.

Jeonghan's gaze rakes over your body, hungry and appreciative. "Beautiful," he murmurs, his hands skimming up your thighs. "So fucking beautiful."

You reach for him, tugging at the fireproofs still clinging to his hips. "Your turn," you say, your voice breathy with anticipation.

He grins, standing to shuck off the rest of his clothes. Your eyes widen as he reveals himself fully, drinking in the sight of his toned body. Jeonghan's grin widened as he caught you staring. "Like what you see?" he teased, his voice low and husky.

You nod, unable to form words as your eyes roam his body. The lean muscles of his abdomen, the sharp cut of his hipbones, the impressive length of his cock standing proud against his stomach - it was all even better than you'd imagined.

He chuckles, the sound sending a shiver down your spine. "Cat got your tongue, sweetheart?"

That snapped you out of your daze. "Shut up and get back here," you growl, reaching for him.

Jeonghan obliges, lowering himself back onto the couch and covering your body with his. You gasp at the feeling of skin on skin, the heat of his body against yours. His lips find yours in a searing kiss as his hands explore every curve and dip of your body. When his fingers finally brush against your core, you gasp into his mouth, your hips bucking involuntarily.

“So wet,” he murmurs against your lips. “All for me?”

"Yes," you breathe, your hips rolling against his hand. "All for you."

Jeonghan's fingers explore your folds, teasing and mapping out every sensitive spot. When he finally slides a finger inside you, you moan loudly, your back arching off the couch. He sets a slow, torturous pace, curling his finger just right to hit that spot inside you that makes you see stars.

"More," you gasp, your hands clutching at his shoulders. "Please, Jeonghan."

He obliges, adding a second finger and increasing his pace. His thumb finds your clit, circling it in tight, precise movements that have you writhing beneath him. You can feel the tension building in your core, a coiling heat that threatens to consume you. Your hands scramble for purchase against his shoulders – you’re too drunk on lust to recognize if you’re pushing him away because it’s too much or pulling him closer because it’s not nearly enough.

"That's it, baby," Jeonghan murmurs, his voice low and encouraging. "Let go for me.”

His words push you over the edge, and you come with a cry, your body arching off the couch as waves of pleasure wash over you. Jeonghan works you through it, his fingers never stopping their relentless rhythm until you're trembling and oversensitive.

As you come down from your high, Jeonghan peppers soft kisses along your jaw and neck. "Beautiful," he murmurs against your skin. "You're so beautiful when you let go."

You're still catching your breath when you feel the hard length of him pressing against your thigh. Your hand snakes between your bodies, wrapping around his cock. Jeonghan hisses at the contact, his hips jerking involuntarily.

"Fuck," he groans, his forehead resting against yours. "You have no idea how long I've wanted this."

"Show me," you breathe, thumb brushing over the tip of his pre-cum slick cock. You relish the way he shudders against you. “Show me everything you imagined, pretty boy.”

He preens a little at your teasing words, arms shaking with the exertion of keeping himself above you. “Yeah?” he purrs, hips bucking to the tempo of your hand. “You wanna see, sweetheart?”

You barely have the time to nod before he’s sweeping his arms under your thighs and sitting back against the couch, setting you on top of him. Your wet heat is inches from his weeping cock, and you give him an experimental roll of your hips. The friction is delicious, and you bite your lips at the way his head rolls back.

You take advantage of his position and press hot kisses against his neck as he squirms below you.

“This is what you wanted, baby?” you whisper against his ear, biting gently. He shudders, one arm circling your waist and the other finding purchase in your hair. “You wanted me on top? Me in control?”

He laughs breathlessly at that, hips grinding against yours with such fervour that you almost succumb right then and there. “You might be on top, sweetheart,” he hisses as you position yourself above him, one hand circling his length. “But I’m the one in char-”

He cuts himself off with a strangled moan as you sink down until your hips are flush to his. “Hmmm?” You hum sweetly against his throat, exhaling at the sheer size of him inside you. “What was that?”

“Fuck,” he groans, throwing his head back against the couch as his hands trail down to rest on the curve of your ass. “Move, please, sweetheart.”

“Tell me how much you love my writing.” The words leave you in a rush, the sight of him panting for you almost too heady to ignore. You hadn’t planned on teasing him, but his earlier words had lit a fire in your core that would only be doused once you flipped the script on him.

His head is still on the back of the couch as he barks out a laugh. “You’re a fucking menace,” he murmurs, pinching your waist. “Now, move.”

“No.” It takes every bone in your body to stay absolutely still. You can feel him, thick and throbbing, and the thought of it makes you almost forgo this insanity to ride him into oblivion.

His eyes meet yours, and he raises his eyebrows in mock outrage. “Are you serious?” He punctuates his words by dragging a hand down your body, fingers finding your clit and pressing until you jerk away from him. It’s a futile attempt though, because his other hand is still fisted in your hair, and he uses it as leverage to hold you against him, powerless against his ministrations.

With a shaking hand, your press against his wrist until his fingers stop moving in circles around your clit. “C-come on,” you tease breathlessly, using your other hand to thread through his sweat-soaked hair and yanking until he bares his throat to you with a groan. “Play nice, pretty boy. Tell me how much you love my writing.”

He groans again as you lick a stripe up his throat, the hand in your hair loosening as his resolve weakens. “Y-you don’t play fair,” he moans, legs shaking with the exertion of keeping still, of playing your little game of cat and mouse.

“Neither do you,” you whisper, your words paired with a tweak to his nipple that has him gasping and arching his back.

“Fuck!” He cries out, curling forward until his chin rests against your ribs and he’s staring up at you. “Y-your writing is perfect.”

He’s rewarded with another gentle tug on his hair and a firm, “keep going.”

“S-so perfect and wonderful, I – fuck, baby please – read every word th-three times,” he’s almost whimpering now, looking up at you with so much desire that you decide it’s time to reward him for being so pliant, so good for you. “You-you’re the best writer in the whole paddock, fuck, yes, thank yo-”

You decide to put him out of his misery, preening at his praise, you start with an experimental grind against his hips, and watch with glee as he almost melts back against the couch. You decide to take advantage of the situation for a little while longer, rocking your hips faster as his lips find your nipple.

“Who’s in charge?” you coo, fingers gripping his hair a little tighter. He draws back to give you a quick smirk. They don’t call him the fastest on the grid for nothing – one second, you feel like you’re in complete control, and the next, he’s lifting you off of him with surprising ease. Your chest meets the couch before you can even form a single thought, and Jeonghan gathers up your wrists in one of his hands.

“You really thought,” he hisses as he re-enters your aching pussy. “You were in charge, sweetheart?”

The new angle allows him to sink even deeper inside you, drawing a low moan from your lips.

"You were saying?" he purrs, chest pressed against your back, his breath hot on your neck as he sets a punishing pace. Each thrust drives the air from your lungs, leaving you gasping and whimpering beneath him.

"You thought you could tease me like that and get away with it?" he groans, his free hand gripping your hip tightly. "Thought you could make me beg?"

You can only moan in response, overwhelmed by the sensation of him pounding into you relentlessly. The couch creaks beneath you dangerously.

"Answer me," Jeonghan demands, slowing his pace torturously.

"J-Jeonghan," you manage to stammer, your voice muffled against the cushions.

He leans over you, his chest pressed against your back as he whispers in your ear. "What was that, sweetheart? I couldn't quite hear you."

You turn your head, meeting his intense gaze over your shoulder. "Please," you whimper.

“Please what?” He demands.

"Please," you gasp, struggling to form coherent thoughts as Jeonghan's hips continue their torturously slow pace. "Please, I need more."

His low chuckle sends shivers down your spine. "More what, baby? Use your words. You’re so good with words, aren’t you?"

You whine in frustration, trying to push back against him, seeking the friction you desperately crave. But his grip on your hip is firm, holding you in place.

"Fuck me," you finally manage to choke out. "Please, Jeonghan, fuck me harder."

"There we go," he purrs, satisfaction evident in his voice. "Was that so hard?"

Before you can retort, he snaps his hips forward, burying himself to the hilt inside you. You cry out at the sudden fullness, your fingers clawing at the couch cushions.

Jeonghan sets a punishing pace, each thrust driving you further into the couch cushions. The hand not holding your wrists snakes around to find your clit, rubbing tight circles that have you seeing stars.

"Fuck, you feel so good," Jeonghan groans, his breath hot against your neck. "So tight, so perfect for me."

You moan at his words, feeling the familiar coil of heat building in your core. "J-Jeonghan," you whimper, "I'm close..."

"That's it, baby," he encourages, his fingers working faster against your clit. "Come for me. Let me feel you."

Every part of your body is on fire, from the way Jeonghan's hips press against yours to the way his fingers expertly stroke your clit.

You come with a cry, your body shaking as waves of pleasure crash over you. Your inner walls clench around him, drawing a deep groan from Jeonghan.

He doesn't slow his pace, fucking you through your orgasm and pushing you towards another. You're oversensitive, every nerve ending on fire, but the pleasure is too intense to resist.

"God, you're perfect," Jeonghan pants, his rhythm becoming erratic. "So fucking perfect."

You feel his thrusts becoming more desperate, his breathing ragged against your neck. "Come on, Jeonghan," you manage to gasp out.

"Come for me," you urge him, clenching around him deliberately.

With a guttural groan, Jeonghan's hips stutter and he comes, spilling inside you as his body shudders with release. The feeling of him pulsing within you sends you over the edge again, and you cry out, trembling beneath him.

For a long moment, the only sound in the motorhome is your combined heavy breathing. Jeonghan releases your wrists and gently pulls out, causing you both to wince at the sensitivity.

Jeonghan collapses onto the couch beside you, his body warm and solid as he pulls you into his arms. The weight of him, the feeling of his heartbeat drumming against your cheek, is grounding. You curl into his chest, letting the rise and fall of his breathing lull you into a rare moment of stillness. His fingers trace lazy patterns across your back, the movements unhurried, almost absentminded, as if he can’t bear to stop touching you just yet.

“Well,” he says finally, his voice rough and lower than usual, laced with satisfaction. “I think that was worth the wait.”

You huff a laugh, the sound barely audible over the soft thrum of life outside the motorhome. “Of course you do,” you mutter, your cheek pressed against the hard planes of his chest, which smells faintly of sweat, champagne, and something uniquely Jeonghan.

His fingers pause their tracing for a moment, as though considering his next move, before starting again, this time slower and more deliberate. “Admit it,” he murmurs, his tone teasing, though softer now, quieter, like the vulnerability from before hadn’t completely left. “You’ve been thinking about this as much as I have.”

You tilt your head up, catching the faint glow of the ceiling light reflected in his eyes. They’re darker now, warmer, but still full of that infuriating smugness. Your lips twitch in defiance as you fight the urge to smile. “What makes you so sure I was thinking about it at all?”

Jeonghan raises an eyebrow, a lock of hair falling across his forehead in a way that’s unfairly distracting. His grin is sharp and unrelenting. “You’re terrible at lying.”

“Am not,” you fire back, though your tone lacks any real conviction. The way his fingers continue their soft, languid exploration of your back doesn’t help.

“Okay,” he says, clearly enjoying himself as he leans his head back against the couch. “So when you cornered me after qualifying that one time in Japan two years ago, that wasn’t because you couldn’t stop staring at me in my race suit?”

You gape at him, your body jerking upright just enough to glare at him properly. “I cornered you because I wanted a quote, you egomaniac.” You punctuate the accusation with a half-hearted swat at his arm.

He catches your wrist easily, his grip firm but gentle, and intertwines his fingers with yours. The warmth of his hand against yours is distracting, and it takes all your willpower not to lose focus. “Oh, you got a quote, all right,” he counters, his laughter bubbling up like he’s savoring every second of your indignation. “Admit it—you’ve been counting the days.”

You roll your eyes, the movement dramatic, though the warmth blooming in your chest betrays you. “And if I was?”

Jeonghan’s grin softens at your words, the sharp edges smoothing out into something quieter, something vulnerable. He lifts a hand to your face, his fingers tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear with a tenderness that makes your breath catch. “Then I’d say it was worth the wait,” he says, his voice lower now, more intimate.

The air between you shifts, heavier now, the teasing replaced by something else entirely. His gaze locks on yours, and for a moment, the rest of the world fades—the low hum of the paddock outside, the faint creak of the motorhome settling. All that exists is him, his hand still resting near your face, and the weight of his words hanging between you.

Your throat feels tight, and you clear it quickly, trying to shake off the spell he’s cast over you. “Don’t let it go to your head,” you mutter, shifting slightly to put some distance between you.

“Too late,” he replies with a ghost of a smirk, leaning back lazily against the couch. His arm stretches along the back of the cushions, the casual sprawl of his posture somehow making him seem even more confident. Then, with an easy grace that feels entirely unfair, he leans forward and plucks something from the coffee table. “By the way, your article? It’s still late.”

You blink at him, incredulous, before groaning and burying your face in your hands. “Now you care about professionalism?”

Jeonghan shrugs, holding out his hand as if offering you an invisible microphone, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “Exclusive with the winner of Monza? Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

You peek at him through your fingers, shaking your head with a laugh that’s half exasperation, half affection. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t,” he counters, his voice softening again as he leans forward to press a kiss to your temple. His lips linger there, warm and reassuring, before he pulls back just enough to look at you again. “But I’ll let you pretend for a little while.”

Jeonghan’s arms tighten around you as the laughter fades into a comfortable quiet. The warmth of his hand on your back and the steady rhythm of his breathing are grounding, but your thoughts won’t stop spinning. You tilt your head up to look at him, searching his expression for something you can’t quite name.

“What?” he asks softly, his tone warm but teasing. His fingers brush over the curve of your shoulder, leaving a trail of heat in their wake.

“What… what are we now?” you ask, the words tumbling out before you can stop them. They hang in the air between you, vulnerable and raw.

Jeonghan’s gaze doesn’t waver. His thumb brushes your cheek with a tenderness that makes your chest tighten. “We’re whatever you want to be, sweetheart,” he says simply, his voice low and full of something too deep to name.

You feel your heart stutter, the weight of his words sinking into you. “Can we…” You hesitate, the vulnerability of the moment making your voice falter. “Can we take it slow?”

For a second, he just blinks at you, and then the corners of his mouth lift into that infuriatingly familiar smirk. “Take it slow? After you just made me beg?” He chuckles, the sound soft but undeniably teasing. “You’re full of surprises.”

Your face heats instantly, and you swat at his shoulder, your embarrassment overridden by his smugness. “Shut up.”

Jeonghan catches your wrist before you can retreat, his laughter fading as he shifts closer, resting his forehead against yours. “I’m kidding,” he murmurs, his voice softer now. The mischief in his eyes melts into something gentler, something that makes your breath catch. “I’ll wait as long as you want.”

You glance at him, your walls crumbling under the weight of his sincerity. “It’s just…” You trail off, trying to find the right words, the weight of reality settling in around you. “Our careers, the season… It’s a lot. I don’t want to mess this up, not with everything else happening.”

Jeonghan’s expression softens even further, the teasing flicker in his eyes replaced by understanding. “I get it,” he says quietly. His hand moves to cup your cheek, his thumb brushing lightly against your skin. “I’ve waited three years to feel this close to you. What’s forever if it means I get to do it right?”

The words hit you like a punch to the chest, equal parts devastating and beautiful. You close your eyes for a moment, letting them sink in, before leaning forward to press your lips to his—soft, brief, but full of everything you can’t quite bring yourself to say.

When you pull back, Jeonghan’s smile is softer than you’ve ever seen it, his eyes crinkling at the edges as he gazes at you like you’re the only thing in the world worth looking at.

“No pressure, though,” he adds after a beat, his teasing tone returning as his grin widens. “Unless you’re writing a follow-up article about me being the world’s most patient man.”

You groan, burying your face in his chest as he laughs, the sound rich and warm. “You’re insufferable.”

“Yeah, but you love me for it,” he counters, his hand sliding back to your hair, cradling you close.

And maybe you do. Maybe you always have.

FORMULA 1 QATAR AIRWAYS AZERBAIJAN GRAND PRIX 2024 Track: Baku City Circuit

The streets of Baku were as much a character in the race as any driver—a stunning clash of history and modernity, where medieval walls stood beside glimmering skyscrapers. The track was notorious for its tight corners and long straights, a playground of risk and reward. Jeonghan knew every inch of it like it was an old rival, one he had to best to keep his championship hopes alive.

Qualifying was tight—Jeonghan secured P2, just behind Mingyu. "He’s fast," Jeonghan muttered to you that evening, the weight of the competition clear in his voice. But there was no self-doubt, just the quiet calculation that always preceded his brilliance.

Race day was a spectacle. Jeonghan’s precision through the castle section was breathtaking, and when the opportunity came to pass Mingyu on the long straight during the final stint, he didn’t hesitate. The roar of the tifosi—echoing even in Azerbaijan—followed him as he crossed the line first. The team’s radio had erupted with cheers as Jeonghan crossed the finish line, and when you saw him after the podium ceremony, his champagne-damp hair and triumphant smile had made your heart skip a beat.

Later, after the media frenzy, Jeonghan pulls you aside. "Come on," he says with a conspiratorial grin, grabbing your hand. "You didn’t think I’d let you leave Baku without exploring, did you?"

The cobblestone streets of Baku feel like something out of a postcard. The sun is just beginning to dip below the horizon, casting a golden hue over the historic Old City. Jeonghan walks beside you, his hand occasionally brushing yours as he gestures to the buildings with a sense of wonder that’s rare to see in him.

“How do you know all this?” you ask, genuinely curious as he points out the Maiden Tower and recounts its legends with surprising accuracy.

He grins, tilting his head in that maddeningly charming way. “What, you thought I only studied race strategies? I’ve got layers, sweetheart.” He insists on taking cheesy tourist photos, including one where he pretends to be a knight defending you at the city walls.

“I could be your knight in shining armor,�� he teases, holding his imaginary sword aloft.

You roll your eyes, but you can’t help the smile tugging at your lips. “You’re already Ferrari’s golden boy,” you shoot back, snapping the photo anyway. “Isn’t that enough?”

He’s good at this—whisking you away from the chaos of the paddock and making you forget, even if just for a moment, that the world is watching him.

Now, as you wander the streets of Baku, he’s more relaxed, his usual playful demeanor slipping into something softer. You pause in front of a street vendor selling intricate souvenirs, and Jeonghan picks up a small, hand-carved wooden box.

“For your desk,” he says simply, handing it to you before you can protest.

“You’re insufferable,” you mutter, but you take the gift anyway.

“Yeah, but you love me,” he teases, slinging an arm around your shoulders as the two of you continue down the street, the sound of distant music and laughter filling the warm night air.

That night, back at the hotel, Jeonghan skims your article on his phone while sprawled on the couch.

Jeonghan’s Baku Blitz: Closes the Gap to Mingyu with Stunning Victory

His smirk grows wider with every sentence. “Stunning victory, huh? You really know how to make me sound good.”

You roll your eyes, throwing a pillow at him. “It was stunning. Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Oh, it’s too late for that,” he quips, pulling you into his lap. “And don’t think I didn’t notice the little shout-out to my late-braking move. Makes me wonder how closely you’re watching me.”

“Always,” you admit softly, the truth laced between your words. His grin softens, and he leans in to press a kiss to your temple.

FORMULA 1 SINGAPORE AIRLINES SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX 2024 Track: Marina Bay Street Circuit

The Marina Bay Circuit was infamous—its oppressive heat, humidity, and unforgiving corners made it a grueling test of endurance. It was Jeonghan’s least favorite track, something he’d muttered repeatedly during practice.

In qualifying, he delivered a masterclass, securing pole position under the glowing lights that lined the circuit. "See?" he said, leaning casually against his car afterward, sweat still dripping from his brow. "Guess the heat doesn’t bother me as much as I thought." Watching him grin through post-quali interviews, drenched in sweat but radiating confidence, had you practically floating back to your hotel room.

You’ve barely ventured outside the hotel after qualifying, and he texts you cryptically to “stay put.” Now, the air conditioning hums softly as you sit cross-legged on the bed, scrolling through headlines about his performance. You’re still reading when the door swings open, and Jeonghan strides in, carrying a tray.

“Room service,” he announces with a dramatic flourish, setting it down beside you.

Your eyes widen at the sight of chocolate-covered strawberries and a chilled bottle of champagne. “What’s the occasion?”

He shrugs, popping the cork with practiced ease. “Pole position deserves a celebration. Plus…” He smirks, holding up a strawberry. “I wanted to see you smile.”

You laugh, shaking your head as he moves closer, offering the berry. But when you reach for it, he pulls it back, dragging it over your lips instead, smearing chocolate at the corner of your mouth.

“You missed a spot,” he murmurs, leaning in to kiss it away. The sweetness lingers on his lips, and before you know it, he’s pulled you into his lap, the rest of the world forgotten.

The race the next day is less triumphant. A perfectly timed pit stop keeps Jeonghan ahead of the pack for most of the race, but a late safety car allows another driver to close the gap, relegating him to P2. Still, with Mingyu out of the race, Jeonghan’s second-place finish is enough to reclaim the championship lead.

Jeonghan’s expression is unreadable when he reads your latest article:

Heat and Havoc in Singapore: Jeonghan Takes Second as Mingyu Crashes Out

“Well, at least you didn’t call me lucky,” he says finally, leaning back in his chair.

“You weren’t lucky. You earned that result,” you reply, watching his face carefully.

He hums, a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. “Still. Next time, I’d rather win outright.”

FALL BREAK: SEPT 23-OCT 17

The crisp autumn air brushes against your face as you unlock your front door, arms full of groceries. It’s been a quiet few weeks since Singapore, the space between races stretching out like an eternity. You’ve tried to enjoy the pause, but it feels strange—unnatural, even—to be so far removed from the whirlwind of Jeonghan’s life.

Your thoughts drift to him as you drop the keys on the counter. Monaco. Ferrari’s headquarters in Maranello. Both places are worlds away from your little apartment.

You’re unloading a carton of eggs when there’s a knock at the door. Confused, you glance at the clock. It’s too late for deliveries and far too early for your neighbors to come by.

When you open the door, your heart stops.

Jeonghan stands there, his frame relaxed yet somehow magnetic. He’s dressed in a simple leather jacket and jeans, his dark hair catching the golden glow of the setting sun. A bouquet of your favorite flowers is clutched in one hand, their vibrant colors almost as captivating as the smile tugging at his lips.

“Jeonghan?” you ask, blinking in disbelief. “What are you—how—”

“Miss me?” he interrupts, stepping inside before you can fully process his presence. He hands you the flowers like it’s the most natural thing in the world, leaning in to press a quick kiss against your lips.

Your breath catches, and you can only stare at him, your mind struggling to keep up.

“You live in Monaco,” you point out, still staring at him. “And work in Italy.”

“I’m aware,” he says, a hint of amusement in his tone. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Of course, I missed you,” you murmur, your cheeks heating.

“Good.” He grins and takes your free hand, tugging you toward the door.

“Wait—where are we going?”

“Out,” he says simply.

You try to protest, gesturing to the groceries still sitting on the counter, but he’s already leading you down the hallway. His excitement is infectious, and you find yourself laughing despite your confusion.

An hour later, you’re standing at the entrance of a sprawling amusement park, the neon lights casting a kaleidoscope of colors across the evening sky.

“You’re serious?” you ask, staring at the carousel spinning lazily in the distance.

“Dead serious,” Jeonghan replies, his tone light as he hands over your ticket. “I figured you could use a night off.”

“I’m not the one traveling the world every other week,” you point out.

“Exactly,” he counters, his smile growing. “I needed to see you smile. And this seemed like a good place to start.”

The night unfolds in a blur of laughter and adrenaline. Jeonghan, surprisingly competitive, insists on winning you a giant stuffed bear at the ring toss, only to fail spectacularly—twice. You tease him mercilessly, your stomach aching from how hard you’re laughing.

When you step off the bumper cars, your cheeks are flushed, and your voice is hoarse from yelling. Jeonghan is no better, his hair sticking up in all directions after you gleefully rammed into him three times in a row.

“I think you’ve got a mean streak,” he says, pretending to nurse an invisible injury.

“Me?” you gasp, feigning innocence. “You literally tried to corner me!”

He doesn’t respond—at least, not verbally. Instead, he grabs your hand again, intertwining your fingers as he pulls you toward the Ferris wheel.

The view from the top is breathtaking. The park stretches out below you, a sea of lights and movement, while the city skyline glimmers in the distance.

Jeonghan is quiet beside you, his gaze fixed on your face instead of the view. You turn to him, suddenly aware of how close he’s sitting.

“What?” you ask softly.

“You’re happy,” he murmurs, his thumb brushing over the back of your hand. “I like seeing you like this.”

Before you can respond, he leans in, capturing your lips in a kiss that steals your breath. It’s slow and deliberate, his hand moving to cradle your jaw as the world around you seems to fall away.

When he pulls back, you’re both smiling.

“This is dangerous,” you tease, though your voice is barely above a whisper. “You’re going to make me think nothing can go wrong.”

“Maybe nothing will,” he replies, his forehead resting gently against yours.

FORMULA 1 PIRELLI UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX 2024 Track: Circuit of the Americas

Austin brought a different kind of challenge. The Circuit of the Americas was iconic for its mix of sweeping corners, elevation changes, and a crowd that rivaled the tifosi in their enthusiasm. Jeonghan thrived here, securing P1 in qualifying and delivering a flawless race to claim another victory.

"Two wins in three races," he said that evening, pulling you into his side as you walked into a cowboy-themed bar downtown. "Guess I’m on a roll."

The bar was loud, filled with locals and fans alike, but Jeonghan stood out effortlessly. His cowboy hat tilted just right, a plaid shirt unbuttoned enough to make you wonder how he managed to look like that after hours in a car.

He kept his hand in your back pocket all night, his touch a silent claim when no one was looking. Every time he leaned in to murmur something in your ear, his lips brushed your skin just enough to send a shiver down your spine.

"Save a horse, ride a cowboy," he whispered at one point, his grin wicked as he tipped his hat at you.

That was all it took. You dragged him back to the hotel, barely making it through the door before he was on you, the hat ending up on the floor somewhere between the bed and the door.

The article you write the next day earns a rare whistle of approval from Jeonghan:

Cowboy Jeonghan Rides High in Austin, Extends Championship Lead

“I think this might be your best one yet,” he says, setting the phone down as he pulls you into his lap.

“Because I complimented you, or because I called you a cowboy?”

“Both,” he answers, his lips brushing against yours. “You know how much I love it when you’re right.”

And as his hand slides to the small of your back, you can’t help but think this season isn’t just his championship—it’s yours, too.

FORMULA 1 GRAN PREMIO DE LA CIUDAD DE MÉXICO 2024 Track: Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez

The atmosphere at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez crackles with energy even hours after the race ends. The stands have mostly cleared, but the celebratory chaos of the paddock lingers. Jeonghan, fresh off another stellar performance, grins as reporters crowd around him, microphones extended like offerings. His hair is damp with sweat, his race suit tied around his waist as he leans casually against the Ferrari garage.

You watch from a distance, notebook in hand, trying not to let your gaze linger too long. He catches your eye anyway, a knowing smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. He’s been calling you his “lucky charm” ever since you started waking up in his bed on race mornings, and it’s a moniker he seems to enjoy reminding you of at every opportunity.

"Don't go too far," he says when the interviews wrap up, his voice low as he brushes past you on his way to the motorhome. The warmth of his fingertips grazing your wrist sends a jolt of electricity through you. "We’re celebrating tonight, and you’re not wriggling out of it this time."

You don’t see the ambush coming.

You’re reviewing your notes in the quiet corner of the paddock when your editor finds you. His expression is stern, almost irate, as he approaches. The celebration around you suddenly feels muffled, the weight of his presence pulling you back to reality.

"Finally," he snaps, crossing his arms. "I’ve been trying to get hold of you for days."

"Hey, sorry, it’s been hectic," you start, tucking your notebook under your arm.

He doesn’t let you finish. "Hectic? I gave you the Ferrari all-access months ago. They’re breathing down my neck about where the hell it is. Where’s the draft?"

The question lands like a punch to the gut. You open your mouth, fumbling for an answer, but he’s already barreling forward.

"And don’t think I haven’t noticed your tone shift," he continues, his voice lowering but losing none of its edge. "All this newfound niceness toward Jeonghan in your articles. What’s that about, huh? You sleeping with him or something?"

The accusation slices through you, leaving you momentarily stunned.

"That’s not—" you begin, but your voice falters.

"Spare me," he says, waving you off. "I don’t care what’s going on between you two, but I do care about the reputation of this outlet. You’ve built your career on being incisive, unbiased. So get it together, or I’ll find someone who can."

He doesn’t wait for a response, leaving you standing there as the din of the paddock swells around you. The celebration feels distant now, muffled by the blood rushing in your ears.

When Jeonghan finally finds you later that night, you’re a bundle of frayed nerves. The confrontation with your editor replays in your head like a broken record, each word cutting deeper into your carefully constructed sense of self. You sit hunched over your laptop in the corner of the media center, the fluorescent lights casting harsh shadows that match the knot in your chest.

“What, you sleeping with him or something?”

The accusation echoes, burrowing into your mind, where it tangles with your own insecurities. You’ve built your entire career on being sharp, unbiased, and unflinchingly honest. And yet, somewhere along the way, Jeonghan had slipped through your defenses. You can still hear the venom in your editor’s voice, feel the judgment in his eyes. The doubt wasn’t just his anymore—it was yours, too.

Was he right? Had you compromised everything for Jeonghan?

Your hands tremble slightly as you scroll through the notes you’ve been trying to organize for hours, but the words blur together, useless. Guilt presses against your ribs like a vice, mixing with a raw ache of something you’re too scared to name. You’re drowning in your own thoughts, and you can’t shake the feeling that you’ve let everyone down: your editor, your readers, and most of all, Jeonghan.

When he finally appears, his presence fills the doorway like a shadow cutting through the sterile light. He leans against the doorframe with a casualness you can’t match, arms crossed and head tilted slightly, his damp hair still clinging to his forehead. The sight of him, so familiar and yet suddenly so distant, sends a pang through your chest.

“Working late?” he asks, his voice low but carrying the faint edge of concern.

You look up, startled, and quickly shut your laptop as if that might erase everything weighing on you. “Just...catching up,” you say, forcing a smile that feels as flimsy as the excuse.

Jeonghan doesn’t move, his eyes scanning you with the precision of someone who knows you too well. He doesn’t buy the act—you can tell by the way his brows knit together, a subtle but telling sign of his worry.

“Catching up on what?” he asks, stepping closer, his tone light but probing.

You shrug, trying to sound casual. “Just notes. Articles. The usual.”

His gaze sharpens. “Right. And that’s why you look like you haven’t breathed in hours?”

You glance away, your fingers curling into fists on the tabletop. “I’m fine, Jeonghan. Go enjoy your win. You earned it.”

“And what, leave you like this?” He pulls out a chair and sits across from you, resting his arms on the table. “Not happening.”

The flood of emotions bubbling under your surface threatens to spill over. You want to tell him everything, but the words feel too tangled, too raw.

“I just need to get this done,” you say, your voice tight.

Jeonghan frowns, studying you more closely. "What’s going on? Did something happen?"

"Nothing," you say quickly, sidestepping him. "I just need some space tonight, okay?"

His hand brushes your arm, but you pull away, and the confusion in his eyes makes your stomach twist. "Fine," he says after a moment, his voice quieter now. "If that’s what you want."

Jeonghan wakes up to sunlight filtering through the blinds, but the bed feels empty. The cool sheets where you usually sleep tug at his attention before he fully registers the weight in his chest. Frowning, he rolls over and reaches for his phone on the nightstand, still groggy.

The screen lights up with a mess of notifications: congratulatory texts, memes from Soonyoung, and a dozen links to your latest article. He swipes through the chaos with a faint smile, already anticipating your sharp insights mingled with the familiar affection that’s always laced through your critiques.

Propping himself up against the headboard, Jeonghan opens the piece. At first, the smile lingers—he’s grown to appreciate the balance you strike between honest criticism and admiration. But the further he reads, the slower he scrolls, the words pressing into him like bruises.

His smile fades entirely by the time he reaches the paragraph describing his meltdown in Spain. The words cut too close, dragging him back to that moment in the Aston Martin garage: the oppressive silence, the rain hammering against the roof, and the suffocating realization of yet another missed opportunity.

"Jeonghan’s brilliance is undeniable, but brilliance without consistency leaves championships just out of reach."

The sentence burns itself into his mind. The carefully chosen words feel clinical, detached—so unlike you. He rereads it, hoping to find the warmth he’s come to expect, but it’s nowhere to be found.

Jeonghan tosses his phone onto the bed and stares at the ceiling, disbelief simmering into anger. This wasn’t just an article. This was personal.

The paddock is bustling, teams dismantling their motorhomes to get ready for next weekend. Jeonghan doesn’t bother changing out of his sweats before leaving his room, each step through the maze of hospitality suites and garages fueled by frustration.

When he finally reaches the media center, his chest tightens at the sight of you hunched over your laptop, headphones in, oblivious to his stormy approach. He doesn’t hesitate.

"You want to tell me what the hell that was?" His voice slices through the low hum of conversations around you.

Startled, you pull off your headphones, your eyes widening as you take him in. "Jeonghan—"

"No." He slaps his phone onto the desk in front of you, his movements sharp and deliberate. The article stares back at you, a glaring reminder of the wedge you’ve driven between you. "Don’t ‘Jeonghan’ me. What is this?"

"It’s my job," you say, standing to meet his intensity. The tremor in your voice betrays your composure. "You’ve always said you respected that about me."

"Respect?" His laugh is sharp, the kind that doesn’t reach his eyes. "You think I respect this?" He gestures to the article like it’s a living thing, something venomous and cruel. "You went for my throat."

"I didn’t go for your throat," you argue, though your voice cracks at the edges. "I wrote the truth."

"The truth?" His hands ball into fists at his sides. "You think I don’t know when you’re pulling punches? You tore me apart for no reason."

"You’ve been avoiding media days. You had a meltdown in Spain," you fire back, your tone rising as your frustration bubbles to the surface. "Those are facts, Jeonghan."

"You didn’t have to highlight them," he counters, his voice quieter but no less cutting. "You know how much this season means to me."

"And do you think this was easy for me?" you ask, tears pricking at your eyes. "Do you think I wanted to write that?"

"Then why did you?" His voice softens, the anger slipping to reveal something raw and vulnerable. "Why would you do that to me?"

"Because I had to!" The words explode out of you, breaking the fragile tension. "Because people already think I’m biased. That I’ve gone soft. That I’m compromised because of you."

The weight of your confession hangs in the air, pressing down on both of you. Jeonghan’s face shifts, the fury giving way to something heavier—hurt, confusion, disappointment.

"I never asked you to compromise anything for me," he says quietly, his voice thick. "I never would."

You look away, your gaze falling to the floor. "I know. But this isn’t just about you. It’s about my career. My integrity."

"And what about us?" he asks, his voice breaking slightly. "Where does that leave us?"

You have no answer, the words lodged in your throat. The silence stretches, broken only by the faint hum of activity outside the room.

Finally, Jeonghan exhales sharply, running a hand through his hair. "I can’t do this right now," he mutters, taking a step back. "I need...I need to get out of here."

Jeonghan finds himself at the bar later that evening, the neon lights washing over him in hazy blues and reds. The whiskey in his glass is halfway gone before Soonyoung slides onto the stool next to him, his arrival quiet but not unnoticed.

"You look like shit," Soonyoung says, his tone light despite the obvious concern in his eyes.

"Thanks," Jeonghan mutters, swirling the amber liquid in his glass.

They sit in silence for a moment before Soonyoung breaks it. "Want to talk about it?"

Jeonghan stares at his drink, the ice melting faster than he can keep up with. "I don’t know what we’re doing anymore," he admits, the words coming out heavier than he expected. "Me and her."

Soonyoung hums thoughtfully, taking a slow sip of his drink. "You two have always been complicated."

Jeonghan huffs out a humorless laugh. "That’s one way to put it."

"But," Soonyoung says, setting his glass down, "you’ve also always figured it out."

Jeonghan doesn’t respond, his thoughts a tangled mess of frustration and longing.

"You’re not going to fix it tonight," Soonyoung continues, his voice quieter now. "But if it matters—and I know it does—you’ll find a way. Just...don’t wait too long, yeah?"

Jeonghan nods slowly, the whiskey burning on its way down. Soonyoung’s words linger, a reminder of what he already knows but isn’t ready to face.

Not yet.

FORMULA 1 LENOVO GRANDE PRÊMIO DE SÃO PAULO 2024 Track: Autódromo José Carlos Pace

The rain is relentless in São Paulo, hammering down on the paddock and turning the atmosphere into a chaotic mess of drenched personnel and frayed nerves. Qualifying has been suspended indefinitely, the downpour rendering the track undriveable, and the mood in the Ferrari garage is grim. The asphalt glistens under the floodlights, reflecting streaks of color from team banners and sponsor logos. It feels like the world is holding its breath.

You’ve never liked rain. It has a way of amplifying what’s already simmering under the surface, and today is no exception. Your heart pounds as you weave through the maze of garages, dodging puddles and sidelong glances from team members. You know exactly where he’ll be—Jeonghan never strays far from the Ferrari setup, even when there’s nothing to do but wait.

Sure enough, there he is. Sitting on the edge of a workbench, his race suit unzipped to his waist and his damp undershirt clinging to his torso. His head is bowed, one hand gripping the edge of the bench while the other pushes wet strands of hair back from his forehead. He looks exhausted—physically, emotionally—but the moment your shoes scuff against the concrete floor, his eyes snap up to meet yours.

You’ve been blowing up his phone all week. Texts, calls, voice notes—all unanswered or met with cold, clipped replies.

"Jeonghan," you start, the sound of your voice barely carrying over the rain pelting the garage roof.

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t smile. "What are you doing here?"

The coldness in his tone sends a shiver down your spine, but you force yourself to step closer. "I could ask you the same thing."

His laugh is short, bitter. "Why are you surprised? This is where I always am."

"Don’t do that," you say, trying to keep your voice steady. "Don’t act like this is normal. You’ve been ignoring me for weeks."

"I haven’t been ignoring you," he snaps, pushing off the bench. He stands tall now, towering over you, his hands resting on his hips. "I’ve been busy."

"Busy?" You scoff, crossing your arms over your chest. "You call one-word replies busy? Jeonghan, I’ve been calling and texting nonstop, and you’ve barely said anything to me."

His jaw tightens, and for a moment, he says nothing. The silence stretches, heavy and suffocating, broken only by the distant clatter of tools being packed away. Finally, he exhales sharply, running a hand through his damp hair again.

"Maybe I’m tired," he says, his voice quieter but no less sharp. "Maybe I’m sick of pretending everything’s fine when it’s not."

Your heart twists at the admission, but you push it aside. "What’s not fine? Tell me, Jeonghan. Because I don’t understand why you’re shutting me out."

He shakes his head, a humorless smile tugging at his lips. "You don’t understand?" His voice rises, cracking with the weight of his frustration. "How could you not? You tore me apart in that article like I was just another driver. Like I meant nothing to you."

"It’s my job," you argue, but the words sound weak even to your ears.

"Your job?" he repeats, throwing his arms up. "You mean the job where you’re supposed to be unbiased? Yeah, I’ve noticed how ‘unbiased’ you’ve been lately. Especially when it comes to me."

"That’s not fair," you shoot back, taking a step closer. "You know I’ve always tried to be honest—"

"Honest?" He laughs, the sound bitter and hollow. "You call dragging my worst moments into the spotlight honest? You didn’t write about me; you dissected me. Like I was nothing more than a story."

Tears sting your eyes, but you blink them away, refusing to let him see how much his words cut. "I didn’t mean to hurt you."

"But you did," he says, his voice softening but losing none of its edge. "And now I don’t even know where we stand."

"We stand..." You falter, your throat tightening. "We stand where we’ve always stood. I care about you, Jeonghan. But this is complicated."

He steps closer, his eyes searching yours. "It doesn’t have to be. It’s only complicated because you’re making it that way."

You look away, unable to hold his gaze. "You don’t understand what this means for me. For my career. For the season."

"And what about me?" he presses, his voice breaking. "What about what this means for us?"

The weight of his words hangs between you, heavy and suffocating. You take a shaky step back, the sound of the rain growing louder in the silence. "Maybe I should go," you whisper, turning toward the garage entrance.

"Don’t," he says sharply, and before you can take another step, his hand wraps around your wrist. “Don’t walk away from me.”

You barely have time to register the movement before he’s pulling you back, his other hand cupping your face as his lips crash against yours. The rain spills into the garage, soaking you both as his kiss deepens, desperate and unyielding. His hands slide to your waist, holding you like you’re the only thing keeping him grounded.

When he finally pulls back, his forehead presses against yours, his breath warm against your skin. "I won’t give you up," he whispers, his voice raw. "But I need you to choose."

"Jeonghan..." Your voice trembles, but he cuts you off.

"You love me," he says, his hands cupping your face. "Yes or no."

You hesitate, the weight of his question pressing down on you like the storm outside.

"Come on, sweetheart," he pleads, his voice cracking. "Don’t make me beg."

"I’m scared," you admit finally, your voice breaking. "Scared of losing myself. Of losing everything I’ve worked for."

He exhales shakily, his thumb brushing against your cheek. "Are you willing to lose me to keep writing?"

"I..." The words catch in your throat, the truth slipping through your fingers. "I don’t know."

His hands drop to his sides, and he takes a step back, the distance between you like a chasm. "When you decide," he says quietly, his voice heavy with resignation, "give me a call."

The rain clears just in time for Sunday’s race, and Jeonghan is unstoppable. He weaves through the slick track with the precision and grace that made him a legend, crossing the finish line first and extending his lead in the championship.

But you’re not there to celebrate with him.

You watch from the media center, your chest tight as the cameras capture his triumphant smile. But there’s a hollowness in his expression, a flicker of something unspoken as he scans the crowd for someone who isn’t there.

The post-race interviews blur together, and even as you type up your article, the words feel lifeless. Without him beside you, the hotel room feels cold and sterile, the thrill of the race dulled by the ache in your chest.

The days leading up to the Las Vegas Grand Prix are a haze of press releases and anticipation. Jeonghan is one race away from becoming a world champion, but all you can think about is the sound of his voice, the warmth of his touch, the way he looked at you under the floodlights.

Your editor calls to praise your latest pieces, but the compliments feel hollow. The articles are polished and professional, but they lack the spark you used to feel when writing about him.

You glance at your phone, your thumb hovering over Jeonghan’s name. You haven’t called. Haven’t texted. Haven’t dared to.

Because the truth is, you’re terrified.

Terrified of losing yourself.

But even more terrified of losing him.

FORMULA 1 HEINEKEN SILVER LAS VEGAS GRAND PRIX 2024 Track: Las Vegas Strip Circuit

The sun sets over Las Vegas in a haze of neon and desert dust, the city already buzzing with anticipation for the final race of the season. But in the paddock, the air is electric for all the wrong reasons.

Jeonghan crashes out in Q3.

Your eyes are glued to the screen as Jeonghan’s car slides violently into the barriers, the sharp sound of the impact slicing through the usual hum of commentary. Gasps ripple through the room, but your stomach lurches with something deeper than professional concern.

You’re in the media center when it happens, staring at the screen as his time locks in. The commentators speculate, the other journalists start drafting headlines, but you can’t hear a word of it. Your heart is already in free fall, and you don’t breathe again until he climbs out of the car, his hands held up in frustration as he waves off the medics.

P8. A disastrous result for the race that could make—or break—his championship. It might as well be the end of the world.

The room erupts into murmurs as analysts speculate on strategy and rival team fans cheer, but you barely hear them. Your editor sidles up to your desk, his grin practically gleaming in the fluorescent light.

"Well, well," he says, leaning over your shoulder. "Looks like we’ve got our headline for tomorrow. ‘Jeonghan’s Championship Dream in Tatters.’ Perfect angle to dissect his mistakes, maybe even his cocky attitude catching up with him—"

His words fade into the background as something clicks inside you. Every fiber of your being recoils at the thought of reducing Jeonghan—your Jeonghan—to nothing more than a headline. You love writing, yes, but this? This isn’t writing. This is tearing apart the one person who matters most to you, all for clicks and ad revenue.

Without thinking, you swivel in your chair, fixing your editor with a glare so sharp it silences him mid-sentence. "This is my two weeks’ notice."

He blinks, taken aback. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me." You stand, grabbing your bag and laptop. "I’m done."

Before he can argue, you’re already out the door, leaving behind the cacophony of keyboards and camera flashes. The paddock is chaos as you weave through the throngs of team personnel and fans, your heart pounding with a mix of adrenaline and urgency.

You run.

The Ferrari garage is chaos. Engineers scramble to pack up the car, Jeonghan’s manager barks into his phone, and his publicist looks ready to faint. You push your way through it all, ignoring the glares and the shouted protests.

“He doesn’t want to see anyone right now,” Soonyoung says, stepping in front of you as you approach the motorhome.

“I don’t care,” you snap, shoving past him.

The motorhome is empty.

For a moment, you’re frozen, your chest heaving as you glance around the pristine space. The stillness only amplifies your worry. And then it hits you, like a sudden gust of wind: you know exactly where he is.

You sprint again, your heartbeat pounding louder than the chaos of the paddock behind you. The world blurs into streaks of neon lights, the hum of distant conversations, and the faint roar of engines being powered down for the night. The grandstands loom ahead, their cold metal steps stretching upward like an impossible climb. Each step burns in your legs, your breath coming in shallow gasps, but you don’t let up.

You don’t stop until you see him.

Jeonghan sits alone, halfway up the grandstands, his figure slouched as though the weight of the world is resting on his shoulders. The floodlights bathe him in a pale glow, illuminating the soft curve of his profile, his hair catching the light in strands of gold. His head is tilted back, eyes fixed on the track below as if searching for answers in the lines he couldn’t master tonight. A half-finished beer dangles loosely from his fingertips, the bottle swaying slightly with every small movement. Beside him, another bottle sits untouched, condensation pooling on the aluminum seat beneath it.

Waiting.

You take the last steps slowly, your chest tightening as your breathing evens out. Up close, his exhaustion is palpable—dark shadows under his eyes, his usual sharp features softened by an unfamiliar vulnerability.

“I knew you’d come,” he says without looking at you, breaking the silence. His voice is soft, but it carries a weight that settles heavily in your chest. He doesn’t even look at you, his gaze still fixed somewhere far ahead, lost in thought.

You hover for a moment before lowering yourself into the seat beside him. The cold aluminum seeps through your jeans, a stark contrast to the heat radiating from your own skin after the sprint. Jeonghan doesn’t move, doesn’t turn toward you, and the distance between you feels like a chasm.

“Jeonghan...” you start, your voice hesitant, but he cuts you off with a bitter laugh.

“This is what happens when my lucky charm leaves me,” he mutters, a sad smile curling at the edges of his lips. His tone is light, but it does nothing to hide the ache in his words. He takes a slow sip of his beer, the motion unhurried.

You glance at the track, the sharp turns and straightaways now cloaked in shadows. “It’s not your fault,” you say softly, your hand reaching out to brush his arm. He flinches at the contact, his muscles tense beneath your touch, but he doesn’t pull away.

“P8 doesn’t mean it’s over.”

This time, he turns to look at you, his dark eyes locking onto yours. The raw vulnerability there makes your chest tighten further. His voice is quieter now, almost fragile. “You don’t get it,” he murmurs, shaking his head as his gaze drops to the beer bottle in his hand. “This race... it’s everything. If I win, I’m a champion. If I don’t...” He trails off, his words hanging in the air between you.

“I’m scared, Y/N.” His voice cracks, and the sound is almost unbearable. “Scared of all of it. The pressure, the expectations... losing.”

You stare at him, the usually unshakable Jeonghan, the Golden Boy, the Ferrari God, unraveling before you. Your hands move without thinking, cupping his face and tilting his chin so he’s forced to meet your gaze again. His skin is warm beneath your palms, a faint flush from the alcohol—or maybe the stress—lingering across his cheeks.

“Jeonghan,” you say, your voice steady despite the storm in your chest. You press your forehead against his, your breath mingling with his as you close the distance between you. “You love me. Yes or no.”

For a moment, he doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe. And then his hands come up to grip your wrists, his touch firm but trembling. “Yes,” he whispers, the word spilling from his lips without hesitation, raw and resolute. His voice shakes, but his eyes hold yours, steady and certain despite the tears brimming there.

A soft smile tugs at your lips as you lean in, your lips brushing against his forehead in a feather-light kiss. “Good,” you whisper, the word carrying a quiet strength. “You’ll always have me.”

His grip on your wrists loosens, his expression shifting to something between confusion and hope. “But your job... your writing?”

“I’m quitting,” you say simply, letting the words hang for a moment. You watch the shock bloom across his face, his eyebrows shooting up as he sits back slightly, pulling your hands with him.

“You’re what?”

You laugh softly, brushing your thumb against his cheek as if to soothe him. “Not writing, idiot,” you tease gently. “I’m still going to write. But I’m not writing for any organization that profits off me tearing the man I love to shreds.”

His lips part, but no words come. He blinks rapidly, trying to process, and you take the opportunity to continue.

“Besides,” you add, your voice lighter now, “Sky Sports has been trying to recruit me for an on-air job for almost a year now.”

He stares at you, his gaze searching your face for any hint of doubt or regret. Finally, his voice comes, soft and uncertain. “You love me?”

The corners of your mouth lift into a playful smile, and you raise an eyebrow. “Is that what you decide to focus on?”

“Y/N,” he says again, his voice dropping to a whisper, almost desperate. His hands move to clasp yours, his fingers lacing through yours as if afraid you’ll slip away. “Do you love me?”

You answer with action, leaning in and capturing his lips in a quick, tender kiss. His breath hitches, his fingers tightening around yours. “Win tomorrow, golden boy,” you whisper, your lips brushing his as you speak. “And I’ll tell you my answer.”

For the first time that night, Jeonghan smiles—a real, genuine smile that reaches his eyes and softens the tension in his face. And in that moment, as the world fades to just the two of you under the floodlights, you know he’s already won.

Jeonghan is going to lose.

He’s sure of it.

The car feels like it’s fighting him at every turn, the tires slipping just slightly when he needs them to grip, the brakes locking up when he’s trying to conserve them for the final laps. His body aches from the sheer force of the race—the g-forces on the corners, the strain in his neck, the tension in his hands from gripping the wheel too hard.

The numbers on his dashboard blur together, his mind a muddled mess of strategies, tire temps, and sector times. He’s made up four places since the chaotic start and sits in P4 now, but every gain feels like a herculean effort. Every corner feels like it could be his last.

He slams the steering wheel in frustration as he exits another turn slower than he should, the car wobbling slightly under him. “This isn’t working,” he growls into the radio, his voice clipped and strained.

His engineer’s calm voice filters through the crackling static. “We know, Jeonghan. Stay focused. We believe in you.”

Jeonghan clenches his teeth, a biting retort forming on his tongue, but before he can spit it out, the radio crackles again.

“Your girl is here. In the garage. She’s watching.”

“What the fuck?” The words come out before he can stop them, his tone incredulous.

“Soonyoung wanted to surprise you,” his engineer explains, and Jeonghan can practically hear the grin in his voice.

His mind stutters to a halt, and for a moment, all the noise fades—the engine’s roar, the tires screeching against the asphalt, even the deafening wind rushing past his helmet. He blinks, the image of you sitting in the garage flashing in his mind, your presence there grounding him in a way nothing else can.

And then, like a light cutting through the fog, your words echo in his head. “Win tomorrow, and I’ll tell you my answer.”

His grip on the wheel tightens, his breath steadies, and something in him clicks. It’s not just the car anymore—it’s him. His mind, his body, the machine—they all fall into alignment like pieces of a puzzle.

“Copy,” he says into the radio, his voice calm now. The frustration is gone, replaced by a steely determination.

Lap 50. Jeonghan is chasing down P3, the gap shrinking corner by corner. His tires scream in protest as he takes each turn with precision, braking just a fraction later, accelerating just a fraction earlier. The car isn’t perfect, but it doesn’t need to be. He’s making it work.

As he dives into the braking zone at Turn 7, the car in front of him falters, locking up slightly. Jeonghan seizes the opportunity, darting to the inside line and slipping past with a calculated aggression that leaves no room for error.

P3.

Lap 53. The leader pack is within sight now—Mingyu in P1, his closest rival, and Seungcheol in P2, a surprising dark horse this season. The three of them have danced this dance all season, but tonight feels different. Tonight, everything is on the line.

Lap 55. Seungcheol’s car begins to falter, his tires degrading as he struggles to maintain pace. Jeonghan hovers in his slipstream, biding his time.

On the main straight, he pulls to the outside, pushing his car to its limits. The engine roars as he edges past Seungcheol, the two of them side by side into the braking zone. Jeonghan holds his line, his heart pounding as he feels the car stick.

P2.

Lap 58. Mingyu is just ahead, the gap less than a second now. Jeonghan can feel the strain in his body, his hands cramping from the sheer effort, but he doesn’t let up. Every ounce of energy he has left is poured into these final laps.

Lap 59. DRS is open, the rear wing flattening to reduce drag as Jeonghan closes the gap on the straight. Mingyu defends aggressively, forcing Jeonghan to the outside.

They enter Turn 10 side by side, the apex inches away. Jeonghan holds his breath, his tires brushing the curbs as he edges ahead. But Mingyu doesn’t back down, his car pushing right up to Jeonghan’s rear wing as they exit the turn.

Lap 60. The final lap. It’s a battle of wills now, neither of them giving an inch. Jeonghan’s heart feels like it’s about to burst, the sweat dripping down his face soaking into the padding of his helmet.

The final corner looms ahead, and Jeonghan knows this is it. Mingyu is on his inside, the two of them neck and neck as they approach the braking zone.

Jeonghan brakes just a millisecond later, his car sliding slightly as he takes the tighter line. He holds his breath, willing the car to stay steady, and then he’s through.

The checkered flag waves, the two cars crossing the line almost simultaneously.

Jeonghan’s chest heaves as he slumps back in his seat, his mind a blur of exhaustion and adrenaline. He doesn’t know if he’s won or lost—everything was too close, too fast.

The radio crackles to life, and for a moment, all he hears is chaos—shouting, cheering, voices overlapping in a cacophony of noise.

And then, cutting through it all, your voice rings out.

“YOON JEONGHAN, TWO-TIME WORLD CHAMPION!”

The words hit him like a lightning bolt, and a yell tears from his throat, loud and raw and triumphant. He punches the air, his entire body trembling with emotion as he lets out another scream, so loud he’s sure the neighboring cars can hear him.

He’s done it.

Through the static of the radio, he hears your laughter, bright and unrestrained, and it’s the only sound that matters.

Jeonghan rolls into Parc Fermé with deliberate precision, the sound of his engine fading into silence as he pulls to a stop. His hands are shaking, his knuckles pale from the grip he’s maintained for the last grueling laps. The cockpit feels stifling, and yet he lingers for a second longer, the enormity of what’s just happened crashing over him like a wave.

He’s done it.

The realization leaves him breathless. His fingers fumble with the steering wheel as he pulls it free, his movements automatic even as his mind spirals. Around him, the world is chaos. Fans scream from the stands, the floodlights of Las Vegas painting the scene in stark gold and shadows. Through the static in his earpiece, his engineer’s voice is still ringing with elation, and he hears indistinct shouting from his crew, but it all blends into a distant roar.

All Jeonghan can think about is you.

He climbs out of the car, bracing his foot on the halo as he pushes himself upright. For a brief moment, he stands tall atop the machine, his body vibrating with adrenaline. His fists shoot into the air, and he lets out a triumphant yell, a sound ripped from deep within his chest. The Ferrari crew erupts in response, a sea of red swarming toward him, shouting his name, their arms outstretched in celebration.

But Jeonghan’s eyes are already searching, scanning the barriers beyond the chaos, darting from one face to another. He’s not looking for his engineers or the cameras or even his teammates. He’s looking for you.

And then he sees you.

You’re there, pressed against the barricade, your hands gripping the edge so tightly your knuckles are white. Your face is wet—tears streaming freely—but your smile is brighter than anything he’s ever seen. It’s disbelieving, joyous, and so achingly familiar that his breath catches in his throat.

In that moment, everything else fades away. The cheers of his team, the flashing cameras, the rules about protocol—none of it exists anymore.

Jeonghan jumps down from the car, tossing the wheel to a waiting mechanic, and tears at his helmet strap. The world around him is a blur of movement and noise—his team surging forward, the cameras flashing, the announcer’s voice booming overhead—but none of it registers. His helmet comes off with a sharp tug, his hair sticking to his forehead with sweat as he grips the sleek surface in one hand and bolts toward you.

He’s moving before he realizes it, his boots pounding against the pavement as he cuts through the throng of people. The barricade draws closer, and the sight of you—your tear-streaked cheeks, your trembling shoulders—grounds him in a way nothing else could.

When he reaches you, he doesn’t stop.

His hands find you immediately. One curls around your neck, his palm warm and steady against your skin, while the other cups your face, his thumb brushing away the tears tracing paths down your cheek. His chest is still heaving, his breath ragged from the exertion of the race, but his touch is impossibly tender.

Your lips part, and your voice comes out in a trembling whisper, just loud enough for him to hear over the chaos. “Congratulations, pretty boy.”

It’s like the world holds its breath. For one fleeting second, it’s just the two of you. The noise of the paddock fades, the flashing lights dim, and all that remains is the quiet intimacy of your words.

Jeonghan’s lips curve into a smile so pure, so unrestrained, that it feels like sunlight breaking through a storm. “You love me,” he murmurs, his voice low and reverent. His forehead dips to rest against yours, his breath warm against your skin. “Yes or—”

You don’t let him finish.

Your arms shoot out, locking around his neck as you pull him down into a kiss. It’s desperate and dizzying, a culmination of everything left unsaid. Jeonghan freezes for the briefest of moments, his eyes widening, before melting into you entirely. His lips move against yours, soft but insistent, and the hand on your neck slides up to thread through your hair, holding you close as if you might disappear.

“Yes,” you whisper against his mouth, your voice breaking. Your hands fist in the front of his race suit, anchoring yourself as you press your forehead to his. “Yes. I love you.”

The barriers around you tremble as the Ferrari crew erupts in celebration, their cheers deafening. Jeonghan barely registers it. His fist shoots into the air, his lips still brushing against yours as he laughs—a sound full of pure, unrestrained joy.

“You’re my lucky charm,” he murmurs, his voice shaking with a mix of awe and certainty.

And when you smile back at him, it’s brighter than the floodlights, warmer than the victory.

EPILOGUE

FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX 2024Track: Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit

The air at Albert Park hums with the kind of energy that only a new season can bring. The stands are packed, a sea of flags waving for drivers and teams, and the scent of freshly cut grass mingles with the faint tang of engine oil. It’s not quite spring yet, but the Melbourne sun still beats down relentlessly, leaving Jeonghan’s fireproofs clinging uncomfortably to his skin as he strides out of the Ferrari garage.

His mind buzzes with the aftermath of qualifying—P2 isn’t pole, but it’s close enough to feel like a promise. Yet, beneath the satisfaction, there’s the familiar tug of nerves that always follows a strong start. Tomorrow is what counts.

His publicist catches up to him, clipboard in hand. “Sky Sports first,” she says, her tone clipped but not unkind.

Jeonghan barely suppresses a groan, already knowing what awaits him. He doesn’t mind media—not entirely—but right now, his thoughts are miles away from answering questions about his out lap or tire degradation.

He rounds the corner into the media pen, where cameras are trained on bright logos and polished smiles. But his eyes find you immediately, waiting just behind the barricade, a microphone in hand, your hair catching the golden glow of the late afternoon sun.

You’re a vision.

He slows as he approaches, his publicist muttering instructions he doesn’t bother to hear. Your eyes catch his, and a secret smile spreads across your lips. He mirrors it, his heart lifting in a way that has nothing to do with his qualifying position.

Jeonghan leans against the barricade, his hands braced on the metal. It’s casual, nonchalant—a stark contrast to the spark simmering beneath the surface. As the questions begin, his fingers shift, brushing yours. The touch is featherlight, a soft sweep of skin against skin, but it’s enough to make his chest tighten.

The lanyard around your neck gleams in the sunlight, a stark reminder of how much had changed—and how much hadn’t. You’re still you.

And you’re wearing it.

The chain glints faintly against your skin, the two charms catching the light with each movement. One is the microphone, delicate and detailed, perfectly crafted. The other is his initial: J. Small, simple, yet undeniably his.

(You’d teased him endlessly when he gave it to you at Christmas. “Modest as always, aren’t you?” you’d laughed.

“Of course,” he’d replied, his voice low and teasing as he leaned into your hair. “One charm for your new job, because I’m so proud of you. And one for me, because I’m so amazing.”

“Two-time world champion,” you’d corrected, poking his ribs.

“Two-time world champion,” he’d agreed with a grin, pulling you into his arms.)

“Jeonghan,” you greet, a secret smile tugging at your lips.

The sound of his name on your lips—professional but laced with affection—sends a warmth through him that he doesn’t bother to hide. “Y/N,” he replies, his tone light but his eyes heavy with meaning.

The interview begins, your questions sharp and to the point. Jeonghan answers with his usual ease, the confidence that had earned him his titles. But he’s distracted, his focus flickering between your voice and the way your thumb absently brushes the microphone charm as you speak.

“You’re awfully cheerful for someone who only managed P2,” you tease, tilting your head slightly.

He leans closer, the faintest smirk tugging at his lips. “Just keeping it interesting. Wouldn’t want to win everything too easily.”

You roll your eyes, but the soft laugh that escapes you betrays your amusement.

The banter continues, each exchange laced with an undercurrent of warmth that only the two of you can fully understand. To anyone watching, it’s just another driver and journalist sharing a lighthearted moment. But to Jeonghan, it’s everything.

When the cameras finally cut, the energy between you shifts. He leans over the barricade without hesitation, his hands curling around the edge for balance as he dips his head toward you.

The first kiss is quick, a soft press of lips that feels like a punctuation mark to the conversation.

The second is slower, more deliberate, as if he’s savoring the fact that he can do this now.

The third lingers, his lips brushing yours with a tenderness that makes your breath catch.

“Jeonghan,” you murmur, glancing around with a mix of amusement and exasperation. But your grin is wide, and your cheeks are flushed, and he knows you’re not annoyed in the slightest.

“I love you,” he whispers, his voice so low it barely reaches you. His eyes are soft, his expression open in a way that’s reserved only for you.

Your hand finds his wrist, your fingers curling gently around it. “I love you too,” you reply, your voice steady, your gaze unyielding.

For a moment, the world around you fades—the bustling media pen, the hum of conversations, the clicking cameras. All that exists is the space between you, filled with unspoken promises and the quiet certainty of what comes next.

And as Jeonghan straightens, reluctantly stepping back into the whirlwind of his world, he knows he’s carrying a part of you with him—just as you carry a part of him. Always.

a/n: and that, was full throttle. i cannot express to any of you how proud i am of myself for finishing this. i think i spent more time deleting things on this doc than i did writing it and somehow, i fucking love the way this turned out. alta, kae, if you're reading this - thank you. from the bottom of my heart. this story would have never happened had it not been for the two of you motivating me to get this out of my head and onto a doc. you both inspire me every day and i am lucky that i had you on my side for this one.

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