Chapter Text
The air over the circuit was hot with the roar of hundreds of thousands of people. It caught against Anxin's racing heartbeat and left him short of breath. Anxin tightened his hands on the wheel. 320 kilometers per hour. Speed pushing against gravity drove the blood in his body backward. The rough breaths forced out of him by the feeling of blood running back through his veins must be traveling through his helmet, through the radio mic, to someone.
To Lee Sangwon, the only person his mind had turned toward.
Sangwon left the pit wall and stood at the edge, staring at the monitor. On the screen, the surface temperature of the left rear tire crossed the limit and flashed a warning. It was dangerous enough to burst at any moment. Sangwon wet his dry lips with the tip of his tongue. Chik, haah.... Ha... Anxin's rough breathing inside the helmet struck Sangwon's ear through the radio.
It was the same hot breath that had spilled through wet hair last night.
- How is it?
Anxin asked. They had only a moment. Late in the race, fighting for the win, coming into the pits was a gamble that could cost him the podium. But Sangwon had to decide. He had tuned this car. He was holding Anxin's life.
"Box, box. Come in. Right now."
With a tearing sound, Anxin's car slid into the pit lane. The gap to Alan was only 0.8 seconds. If he pitted now, the win might move out of reach. But if Sangwon told him to come in, to Anxin it was not a suggestion. It was an order.
Anxin had only a short window, 2.5 seconds at most. Under Sangwon's command, more than a dozen mechanics rushed in and changed the tires. Oil-stained work clothes flicked in the cool sea wind between the crew. Through the tearing air guns, the metal noise, the whole brief violence of it, Sangwon looked at Anxin's helmet.
Beyond the dark-tinted visor, Sangwon felt the stubborn, young gaze that only he could recognize. It is okay if you do not win. Just come back safe. With no time to say it, Sangwon swallowed the words. But Anxin, as if he had heard the voice inside that silence, answered shortly and clearly right before he let go of the clutch.
- Believe me.
Because I trust you.
At the same time, Anxin's white car shot back onto the circuit, tearing through the artificial glare. The answer reached Sangwon a beat late. White smoke plumed from the track, swallowing Anxin from his sight. Wind whipped through Sangwon's fine blond hair. For a long moment, Sangwon just stood there, staring at the black tire marks scarred into the asphalt.
How had I ended up pulled into this dangerous boy's gravity?
Orbit - Sector.1
BGM - Beachhouse Girl of the year
"Ah..."
Sangwon shook his head with a groan. Alan's hips kept moving.
"Hah, ah...!"
The words it hurts rose to his throat. Alan kissed him hard enough to swallow them.
It hurts. Please, slow down. When his mouth was finally free, Sangwon tried to plead, but the look in Alan's eyes only sharpened. Instead of answering, Alan gripped Sangwon's narrow hips and dragged him closer. His body was not ready. Being forced open while he was still raw turned his vision white. Ah, ah.... He could not even pant properly through the pain. Alan watched him and muttered, as if annoyed, Stop fussing.
That was not it. Alan took Sangwon's struggling for sulking in bed and flicked his forehead with one finger. The pressure holding Sangwon down grew harder. The gesture was playful. The weight behind it was not. Annoyed that Sangwon still was not hard, Alan grabbed him and stroked him with an impatient hand.
Alan was always like this after a race. The sharpened nerves of a driver who had to spend everything on the circuit, the adrenaline pushed too high. He spent it by pushing Sangwon down instead. When had it started? When had he stopped whispering You did well? Sex with Alan wore Sangwon down, the same as a race. Tender talk and careful touch had become a nuisance. Now Alan only touched him below a few times and called it enough.
But love was everything to Sangwon, so he endured all of it under that name.
"Focus. Fuck. Stop thinking about something else."
Alan grabbed Sangwon's black hair. Sangwon's head, still caught in tangled thoughts, snapped back. He faced himself in the mirror that covered the wall. His eyes were unfocused and raw. Bent back inside Alan's arm as if tied there, panting, he looked like a doll someone had bent wrong. Alan met his eyes in the mirror and sped up, making him watch. Sangwon's toes curled. The wet sound where their bodies met kept ringing through the room. Whenever Alan's rough breathing hit his ear, Sangwon closed his eyes.
"Ha, fuck..."
Alan drove him to the limit, then came deep inside him without care. The feeling of being filled made Sangwon tremble in small shudders. When it was over, Alan let go of his hair at once. Without that support, Sangwon dropped onto the bed. Semen ran down his thighs from the gap that would not close. Alan wiped his sweat-damp body roughly and put a cigarette in his mouth.
"Check the car setup again before tomorrow's race. It keeps sliding in Sector 3. That's your fault."
Sangwon had no strength to answer. He buried his face in the sheets and breathed hard. A lie. The car had been perfect. Data did not lie. If Alan had not gone too deep into the corner, the car would not have slipped out.
You drive like you are testing the limit. You do.
Alan threw off the car's balance with his own arrogance, then put the responsibility for a run that could not be measured back on Sangwon. In a world decided by 0.001 seconds, Alan knew better than anyone that Sangwon, a mechanic, would never be careless. Still, he always found a way to keep Sangwon under his feet.
Alan took a single run to trample the car Sangwon had spent all night tuning. And still, Sangwon had to repair the damaged machine—to prove his love all over again.
"Okay. I'll check it again."
In the end, Sangwon bit his lip and nodded. The record was not what scared him most. It was Alan stepping out of his life for good. He listened to Alan go into the bathroom in a good mood, then forced his exhausted body up.
In the pit at dawn, the car waited with last night's traces still on it. Sangwon ran his hands over the carbon bodywork Alan had, as always, made a mess of. This machine, tuned under his fingertips for three years, was Sangwon's other self and the thing eating away at him. Gravel marks and tire dust across it proved how reckless yesterday's race had been. But that recklessness was what made Alan a genius driver.
The smooth surface gave back no warmth. It sank into his palm. The metal ring on his left ring finger cooled faster than the bodywork. Maybe he clung to love because he had lived closer to machines and equipment than to human warmth. Still, Sangwon believed this was his fate. He told himself there would be a destination at the end of this worn-down love.
If I win the championship this season, should we stay in America?
The ceremony in Hawaii. What do you think?
After the Miami GP had ended well, on Sangwon's birthday, Alan had whispered those promises in bed in a voice that was rarely gentle. Sangwon had repeated the sentences every day until they wore thin. He used them as fuel and covered himself in engine oil.
It's fine. If I fix it this time too, it will be fine. Sangwon gripped the spanner without a word. The only way to put down the nameless anxiety of a fading love was the hard work of wiping and tightening each precise part. Three in the morning. Only a few hours were left before the main race. Sangwon pushed his aching body under the car. He tightened the last nut. Now the car was perfect. Alan would take the car that had fed on Sangwon's heart and secure the championship. He would.
Sangwon pressed his forehead to the hood, hoping it would cool the heat in his head.
"Just a little longer, Sangwon. The end is finally in sight."
The checkered flag waved. Alan had given them a race with no surprises. The bright car Sangwon had worked on all night crossed the finish line first.
"An unbelievable drive! The throne of world champion this season belongs, as expected, to Alan! Today, too, he showed us an aggressive race, pushing all the way to the limit."
"From the opening race of the season to this very moment -pressure, setbacks, wheel-to-wheel battles- and through it all, Alan never backed down. Consistency, courage, and sheer brilliance... this is a World Champion's campaign. Alan is the World Champion!"
The announcer's excited voice rang through the huge speakers and spread across the circuit. The stands were packed. Hundreds of thousands of people chanted Alan's name at once, and the sound came up through the ground into the soles of Sangwon's feet.
Under thousands of lights set up to hold back the desert dark, Alan cut across the asphalt and got out of the car. The gold-and-red surface, painted specially because he liked Iron Man, caught the artificial lights and shone without a speck. That, too, was Sangwon's work, the result of nights before the race spent wiping and polishing it clean.
The mixed-race driver's smooth face appeared. When he took off his helmet and swept back his sweat-damp brown hair as if aware of the screen, the fans watching on the big display screamed louder. The director ran over, hugged Alan, and clapped his shoulder hard. The team mechanics grabbed at one another and shouted; someone banged on the fence, overcome. In the middle of it, Sangwon stood in a corner and watched him quietly. Everyone else was lost in the win. Sangwon saw what passed over Alan's face under the helmet: dissatisfaction. He had finished first, but he was 1.2 seconds behind the course record he had set for himself. Leaving Alan's face blurred by the lights, Sangwon walked away as if escaping.
"Good work, Sangwon!"
"You know you're Lancaster's treasure, right? Congratulations on the win!"
"Everyone worked hard. Thank you..."
The moment he passed the pit box and entered the motorhome, the team's cheers and congratulations came at him. People clapped shoulders, hugged, enjoyed the win. Sangwon forced his mouth into a smile. He was not unhappy, exactly, but something in him kept sinking as if a stone had been tied to it. Alan's disappointment would cut into him again tonight. On days when the record slipped by even one second, the blame always came back to Sangwon, and the payback was taken out on Sangwon's thin, white body.
I want to run away. No, if he did not smoke at least one cigarette, he felt like he would suffocate on the spot. Leaving the noise behind, Sangwon slipped out the back door for a moment to steady himself. The clamor fell away with one door between them. He gave small bows to the few people passing by, but he did not look properly at anyone's face. He walked with his eyes on the toes of his oil-stained work shoes.
A long shadow stretched at the end of the corridor. Someone who had been leaning against the wall came toward him. He seemed to be on his way back to his team's hospitality, the upper half of his racing suit hanging loose over his shoulders. A rookie, maybe. Sangwon bowed briefly and tried to pass. The man did not move aside. He stopped in front of him.
Only then did Sangwon look up. Dark brown hair, damp with sweat and stuck to his forehead. A young face marked red where the helmet lining had pressed into it.
"You dropped this."
A driver from another team, his name barely familiar. He picked something up from the floor and held it out. Their fingertips brushed as Sangwon took it. It was an invitation to the hotel after-party, a glossy card edged in gold foil, out of place against his oil-stained hand. He could not remember when he had received it. Michelle must have slipped it in for him.
[Yasmarina, Amber Lounge. PM.09:00]
Sangwon hesitated, then put it in his pocket.
"Thank you."
"Lee Sangwon, you're going to the party too, right?"
"Yes. The team sponsor is hosting it, so I should go."
"Then I'll see you at the party."
He bowed and walked away. The loose smile at the corner of his mouth was arrogant and somehow kind, and Sangwon watched until he disappeared completely down the corridor. Sangwon rubbed the back of his hand where the unfamiliar touch remained. The touch was too clear to be chance and too brief to be intentional. He must be mistaken. He quickly put away the thought that the man had meant to brush his hand. These days, when he could not breathe, even nothing felt like a sign.
Sangwon walked to the end of the corridor and opened the door wide. Cool sea wind pushed into his team jacket. He pulled his sleeves down past the backs of his hands, and the place the man's hand had touched disappeared under the cool fabric. The cigarette he had wanted so badly a moment ago was gone from his mind. Instead of nicotine, he breathed in the sea wind. Come to think of it, had the man told him his name?
Sangwon took out the tailcoat he had bought with the incentive from the last race and put it on. It was the dress set he had ordered to wear at his wedding with Alan. The starched white shirt and dark navy suit fell cleanly along his body. On the hanger, it had looked like someone else's clothes. Once on, the reflection in the mirror seemed to finally find its shape. Last, he fastened the tie brooch. Michelle had given it to him, telling him to wear it when he held the ceremony. She was the only teammate who knew about him and Alan. Only after that small kindness shone under his throat did the face pressed down by work clothes come back to life. Sangwon smiled before he knew it. But that confidence vanished the moment he entered the lounge. Sangwon looked around awkwardly. Everyone was dressed well, but no one looked as if they had tried as hard as he had. The suit fit his body. It did not fit the room.
From the entrance, Sangwon was pushed around between people several times before he finally reached the bar at the edge, outside the lights. The inner area with the VIP tables was already packed. The staff member he stopped to ask about a table only nodded with a busy face, then passed in front of him several more times. After races, Sangwon was usually catching up on sleep as if paying off a debt, or enduring Alan with his whole body. This kind of place was too unfamiliar. Unable to belong anywhere, he quietly sipped a weak cocktail.
"There you are. I found you, Sangwon.”
An unfamiliar voice called him. Strangely, in that moment, the unease inside him thinned a little. He turned his head. The young driver from the corridor was standing there. After that encounter, Sangwon had searched the entry list and found his name: Zhou Anxin. A rookie supported by a Chinese company. He had not reached the podium yet, but his rise was steep enough that the media mentioned him often. Sangwon's cheeks grew hot. He had spent so long looking only at Alan that he had not even recognized a driver like this.
"It's fine. You know my name now.”
Facing him again, Anxin smiled with a boyish ease. But his gaze held a weight that did not match the softness of his face.
"How do you know me, Anxin?"
"How could I not? I've spent this whole season looking at the back of the car you set up.”
Anxin lightly shook his cocktail glass.
"The cornering setup was really good. Like art. I saw your interview too. I thought you were someone who really loved machines.”
It had been two years ago, when Alan's records first began to falter. Sangwon had refused every interview offered to the team, then finally taken one in Alan's place. That must be what Anxin meant. Sangwon lowered his head, embarrassed for no reason. He had seen that too.
"Your Korean is very good."
"Yes. I lived there for a little while. About three months? I was interested, too."
"Oh, really? Why...?"
"Because the person I liked was Korean. I was curious. When I went, though, that person wasn't in Korea.”
Anxin bent low toward Sangwon to take the cocktail he had just ordered. His scent filled the narrow space all at once. Sangwon stopped breathing without meaning to. Hair brushed his cheek, and his heart beat a moment late. By the time he thought he should move back, it was already too late. Anxin brought his lips close to Sangwon's ear and whispered.
"But the driver was too rough with the car."
"...What?"
"The thing you made perfect, Alan... drives it like he's breaking it. I could hear the tires giving out even from behind him.”
Sangwon could not answer. It was Alan's shame, something only Sangwon had known. Fast and reckless were not the same. Tires that could not hold the corner. Brakes that caught a beat late. A rookie who had just debuted had seen it.
"...What are you-“
Sangwon was only blinking when Anxin suddenly took his hand. Sangwon parted his lips, dazed. Anxin, eyes wide as if nothing were wrong, gently pried the glass from his grip and set it on the bar.
"You looked like you were going to drop it.”
Only then did Sangwon realize his hand was wet. Water from the melting ice had filled his palm. He almost wiped his hand on his suit out of habit, then stopped. He had bought it after thinking so hard.
"And this."
Anxin's gaze lowered below Sangwon's throat.
"Your brooch is crooked.”
Before Sangwon could raise his hand, Anxin's long fingers touched the tie brooch. The ornament moved slightly, then settled back into place. Close enough for their breath to touch, Anxin whispered low.
"It's pretty.”
Sangwon's eyes shifted in embarrassment. Why is he still in front of me? His heart began to beat faster. I want to run away. Just then, he saw teammates waving from far away. As Sangwon looked around, Anxin smiled without a word. As if he had expected exactly this reaction.
"I'll go see my teammates."
Sangwon said it almost like an excuse and turned. Before he could take a step, Anxin's voice came from behind him.
"Don't trust it too much."
"What?"
"It bursts. Boom-“
What does?
Anxin lifted the corner of his mouth and made a small balloon-bursting gesture with his fingers. Sangwon did not ask more. He turned away. Trying not to look back, he toyed with the end of his sleeve as he walked toward the team. The invitations had gone to everyone, but the others must still be cleaning up. He greeted the part chiefs awkwardly and sat down. Familiar faces made him feel a little steadier.
"Sangwon, you look unreal today. So pretty."
"I knew you were handsome, but seriously, you look like an idol.”
He smiled shyly under the compliments, but his gaze kept drifting toward the bar. Thinking he had met Anxin's eyes, he quickly turned his head. His chest beat for no reason. Why does it feel like he keeps looking at me?
Sangwon touched the ring on his left hand out of habit. No matter how many times he rubbed it, the trace Anxin had left would not go away. Now all that remained was for the main character to appear. Sangwon checked the entrance again and again. The promised time had long passed. If Alan did not come, Sangwon had no reason to stay in this unfamiliar place.
The party seemed to catch and shift. The lights inside lowered a tone. At the same time, spotlights and camera flashes poured toward the entrance. The main character of the night had arrived: Alan, the champion. Sangwon stood and clapped too. Relief and gladness made him smile. Now he would not have to keep trying alone in this strange place. The moment he thought it, his body froze. Behind Alan's tall silhouette, someone was entering with him. A woman.
Alan was holding her hand. His touch was careful, and the distance as he matched her pace was natural. He walked half a step behind her high heels. The hand that had grabbed Sangwon's hair on the bed was now gently stroking the back of her hand.
Applause filled the party hall. As if showing everyone, Alan smiled tenderly at her and, in front of the cameras, kissed her deeply on the cheek. It was a scene that would go up on social media and the news around the world not tomorrow morning, but now.
A ringing sounded in Sangwon's ears. The music and cheering moved far away, as if underwater. His hands had stopped clapping at an awkward height. Sangwon stared at Alan in front of the cameras. A perfectly composed face. Alan's gaze touched Sangwon for a brief moment through the crowd. Then it passed over him. No apology. No surprise.
"...Sangwon, are you okay?”
Michelle, beside him, caught his arm as he swayed. She looked more shocked than he did.
"When did you and Alan break up?”
Sangwon could not answer. How could he explain when they broke up, when he had not even realized he had been thrown away? Had we ever been lovers at all? Sangwon's three years of devotion, the nights spent wiping the car until morning, the wall called love he had kept standing through Alan's words and hands, all of it collapsed at once.
It bursts. Boom-
Boom. A small sound went off inside his head. Sangwon barely lifted his head. His wavering gaze landed in one place. Anxin was still looking at him.