The air is ersely warm for such a day in the waning of winter. Everything is imbued with a strange and beautiful sentience. Everything feels that much more alive. The testing facility twenty-five minutes south of Seoul is still the same as it was the year before, tall sheets of concrete and cinderblock offices rising high and small windows hammered into the sides and the parkinglot around the back of the building, the testing track beyond. And yet it feels bigger. Feels like something has changed. Inside is the same story. All concrete and white plaster, whiteboards scrawled with math equations and telemetry data and geometric shapes and doodles of brake calipers and rear wings and suspension dampers, computers running through stacks of coded numbers several minutes in length, long forms of race analysis printed on sheets of graph paper, stacks of laminate folders on the crowded tables, empty coffeecups and the smell of coffee, the sharp tang of the pressed beans from the coffeemaker in the en-suite kitchen, the wilted yellowing of the pencil stubs sat neatly in the glass on the desk by the rear of the meeting room as it looks out over the track in the cool afternoon day, the clock slanted on the bare wall going ticktickticktick, faint odour of fruit and cologne and motoroil and there’s that whiff of coffee again. A thin knife of warm sunlight breaches from the far window. Somebody coughs, somebody walks with feet pressed gently into the matted folds of the toffeecoloured carpet. Yes. Everything feels just that little bit altered.

It’s a trick of the mind that Seulgi feels this when she walks into the room. There’s a spring in her step as she greets each of the mechanics in turn, says thank you, goes on through to stash her bag in her locker and change clothes in the washroom. There’s a smile on her face, too. It’s a smile she has become used to wearing like a badge of honour over the past twelve weeks or so. She sees Wendy for the first time in almost two months in the meeting room in the back of the office. Her hair is cropped short and delicate. It makes her look astonishingly elegant. She stands side-on by the window and the dim slats of sunlight run over her face like liquid gold and seep on down her grey and orange overalls. On the front by the pocket is printed the word APEX in bright orange lettering. Stitched into the seams of the arms are the badges of their sponsors, BMW and Vodafone and Lindt Chocolate and SK Telecom. She’s busy reading something when Seulgi comes in and stands in the doorway and waits for her to notice. For a long time she does not. She wets her thumb and flips back a sheet from the stapled document in her hand and shifts from one foot to the other. The concentration evident in the way her eyebrows slant a slight at the corners is rather amusing.

‘You busy, then?’ Seulgi says. Wendy looks up and catches sight of her smiling and smiles in return. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘Didn’t hear you come in. When did you get here?’

‘Like, ten minutes ago.’

She drops the paper on the table and pulls Seulgi in for a great and warm hug. Seulgi smells the bitter and paradoxical richness of the instant coffee from her, locked away somewhere under the faint scent of her perfume. She steps back and looks at Seulgi again in her racing overalls. ‘You look ready to go,’ she says.

‘I am.’

‘You sure you don’t want to sit down and hash things out first? You know, check what we’ve been doing?’

‘I’ve always said the best way to learn is on the job.’

‘You’ve never said that.’

‘No?’

Wendy shakes her head.

‘Well. I mean, I thought it. The quickest way to figure things out is to get in that car and take it for a drive around that track. And we can go from there.’

‘You sound very confident.’

‘Do I have any reason not to be?’

‘No,’ Wendy says. ‘I just, you know. I didn’t expect it.’

Seulgi beams at her. The way she has not stopped smiling since walking into the room is not lost on Wendy. She looks more radiant. Looks younger. ‘I’ve got a good feeling about this year,’ Seulgi says. ‘A real good feeling. I know I said the same thing about six months ago, but this time is different. I’m all up to date now, you know? I know what I’m doing. No more stupid stuff like China last year. Nothing to stop me from winning.’

‘It’s not going to be easy.’

‘Of course not. I know that better than most, believe me. But I’m feeling it, Wendy. Properly feeling it.’

‘Good. That’s what I like to hear.’ She nods towards the stacks of documents and files on the table again. It looks like something left over from a tribunal, sheaves of paper folded one over the other and lined sheets bearing mere scribbles and laminate files piled high and left about and overflowing. ‘You sure you don’t want to run things over?’ she says, and Seulgi shakes her head. ‘Okay. Well, whatever. I guess if you’re feeling it, then yeah. But there’s some stuff we’ve got to go over, of course. Rules are rules, and all that. You don’t mind, do you?’

‘Would it make any difference if I did mind?’ Seulgi asks.

‘Not really, sorry. Like I said, rules are rules.’

‘Let’s get it out of the way, then.’

‘You that eager?’

‘Always,’ Seulgi says, still smiling.

‘You’re looking good, by the way. Happy, I mean. Looking happy.’

‘Yeah, well. I’ve got reason to be.’

Wendy takes her through into the garage where the other engineers are already tinkering with the car. Seulgi takes a minute to just look at it. To take it all in. It’s been eleven weeks or so since she last saw it in person. The car changes every year. Sometimes it’s a new shape for the wing or new aerodynamics or a new bargeboard or a longer wheelbase. But somehow it always remains the same. It’s always that same sleek elegance, the same outrageous speed that should be impossible but isn’t, the G-force in the corners powerful enough to make you vomit if you’re not careful. To spin your eyeballs around in your head. The garage doors leading out onto the track are already open. She can hear the distant tremor of a V6 engine out there in the greater world. It sounds like some sort of minor cataclysm. Like a wailing in the stitched seams of the earth’s heartbeat yearning to be free. She looks at Wendy, documents and tablet in hand again. ‘That Joy?’ she says.

‘Yeah.’

‘How long has she been here?’

‘Since late morning. She came early. Said she wanted to get in some practice time alone before you showed up.’

‘How’s she doing so far?’

‘Good. Better than last year. But whether that’s the car or not, I’m not sure yet. She claims it’s her. I’m inclined to agree.’

‘And how’s the car?’

‘So far, so good. But we’ll know more in the next few weeks. And then hopefully something big happens in Bahrain.’

‘It will. I know it.’

Wendy smiles. ‘I like this newfound confidence,’ she says.

‘I’ve always had it. You know that.’

‘Yeah. But this is different.’

‘I’ve just learnt to embrace it, is all.’

‘Good. I’m glad,’ Wendy says, and it sounds entirely genuine.

‘Is she ready to go?’

The engineers nod to her and to Wendy. Her helmet and gloves are on the table by Wendy. The design is different this year, a stark white the colour of plastercast and the enormous orange lettering of APEX along the sides and her new racing number, 13. The amount of points she finished behind Irene last season. A reminder of what could have been, and what still will be. Wendy tosses her the gloves. When she’s finished fastening the straps she takes the helmet and turns it in her hands and peers into visor's plastic nothingness. It feels lighter this year. Feels much better. She turns it again and slips it over her head and suddenly all the world seems to shift around her. It’s that tangible thrill Irene has spoken about so many times before. The world of Formula 1 exists outside of everything else and without equal and the helmet is the first part of that. The beginning of the ritual. She closes her eyes and staggers her breathing and calms herself. The other mechanics are by the computers and checking the numbers over one final time. Out there on the track Joy flies by and disappears into a quivering sunscorched blur down the far end of the straight.

‘You ready?’ Wendy asks. She opens her eyes and smiles even though Wendy can’t see it. ‘As I’ll ever be,’ she says. She climbs into the car and Wendy passes her the steeringwheel. It takes a moment to adjust her legs to how very small the space is, how little movement she truly has in that carbonfibre coffin. She grips the wheel. The pulsing in her fingers is something she is actively aware of and actively aware also that she can’t stop it. It’s the adrenaline that transforms her from smiles and idle chatter to steely determination like nothing else. The voice at the back of her mind that says: This is it. This is where it all begins again.

It used to say other things too. Used to speak of a certain other driver on the grid. But the past twelve weeks have given her enough time and space to sensibly compartmentalize that part of her life away for the time being. It isn’t F1 or Irene. It’s F1 and Irene, and both have their own special place in her heart.

Wendy offers her a thumbs up. The other mechanics all do the same. It occurs to Seulgi that at least two of them are new faces and she hasn’t introduced herself yet but that can come later. There are more important things to worry about. Through her visor all the world seems terribly small. There is the nose of the car and her hands on the wheel and a thin stripe of racetrack and sky beyond the confines of the cockpit and nothing else. She tests the rev limit of the engine. It sounds like heaven in her ears. The noise is so loud Wendy and the others are wearing earplugs and still wincing when she puts her foot down and builds the revs with the back tires squealing a slight. The tires are a new set of Pirelli redstriped softs. Seulgi’s hands clench even tighter around the wheel. Somebody’s got control of the garage’s speaker system and they’re using it to play The Chain by Fleetwood Mac on repeat. The world outside narrows and quivers. The closing of the day is a darkening gloom of violet meshed against the afternoon’s prior clearness like a silver cast, the past and the dismal coming. She closes her eyes again. Everything seems to slip suddenly away. The engine, the idle murmurs. It’s just the metronome of her heart loud in her ears. The radio crackles into life and Seulgi has to smile at the familiarity of it.

‘Alright,’ Wendy says. ‘Testing, one two. Testing, one two.’

‘I hear you.’

‘Okay. Good. How you feeling?’

‘Never better. Can I get out there? Or do I have to wait for Joy to come in?’

Silence a second while Wendy confers with one of the other engineers. Then she says: ‘You’re free to go whenever you’re ready, champ.’

She needs no more than that. It’s three eternal seconds of the low murmur of that engine and her heart and her laboured breathing and the quiet chatter somewhere behind her. Then it’s her foot to the floor, the squeal of rubber, and a hundred miles an hour in two seconds.

The realisation that her life has never been better only hits her halfway through the third lap. She doesn’t know where it comes from or for what purpose but it does. It reminds her how smooth the car feels, even smoother than last year, and how close she was only three months ago to winning and how much it’s done for her since then. It reminds her of Irene most of all. Not that she needs much reminding.

She sails across the apex at the far corner and down the back straight at two hundred miles per hour. The acceleration makes her head rattle. The lump in feels like coal lodged there. All she hears is the reverb of the engine and the thump of the brakes at the tight hairpin turn and then the engine spooling up again at twelve thousand revs. Joy has already pulled back into the garage. Seulgi takes one look at the sky and thinks about doing the same. What remained of the oddly bright day has receded entirely, purpled and bloated and gone rancid with the dark and looming cast of the evening. But the tires feel good. The car feels even better. Whatever they’ve done to the shape of the front wing and the extra centimeters for the wheelbase has worked wonders. The downforce feels better than even Monaco and Korea.

A crackle across the radio. Then it’s Wendy saying, ‘How are you feeling out there?’

‘Not too sure about this weather, if I’m being honest.’

‘Yeah, the forecast is heavy rain real soon. Like, within a few laps soon. You can come in if you want.’

‘I’ll have to anyway, even if I want to go back out.’

‘I know. But you don’t have to go back out, you know that?’

She thinks about it as she rounds the final turn and hammers down the main straight. The car feels brand new. As she builds the speed so rapidly the air past around her wobbles against her helmet and the office on her right blurs and distorts and is lost like a dream and the trees down the far end beyond the confines of the track evaporate with the speed and her head hurts again. Suddenly she’s thinking about Belgium. It was eight or nine months ago. She doesn’t remember exactly because she doesn’t want to remember. ‘Alright,’ Wendy says, distracting her for a moment. ‘The data’s real good so far. Real good. You’re looking amazing out there, holy . Good to see the downtime hasn’t hurt you at all.’

‘It never would,’ Seulgi says. The past twelve weeks has been Irene and sims and not necessarily in that order. Practice and practice and practice. Sometimes in the rain and sometimes in the most extreme of snowbound weathers and on every possible track. She’s beaten her best times on all twenty-one calendar circuits and then beaten them again and beaten them again. Then, for good measure, she’s beaten them again. Her times around Monza and Interlagos are the best racing she’s ever done. But sims are sims. Rain in a videogame isn’t cold or miserable and the risk of crashing is fleeting and imaginary. The virtual cars aren’t worth fifteen billion won. There’s no risk there.

She flattens out the racing line up at the next bend and pulls again onto the back straight. Her times might be excellent. She doesn’t know but she thinks that it’s likely. At the end of the straight as she brakes for the hairpin she feels the rain begin to fall. ‘Wendy,’ she says.

‘Yeah, talk to me.’

‘It’s raining. I’ve just felt it.’

Wendy’s silence is a response itself. It tells her the decision is hers, but either way she’s got to come in, either for new tires or to retire the car for the day. By the time Seulgi is on the penultimate corner the rain has steamed her visor and the water runs down the pale and murky plastic in long and offshaped droplets like planarians. She feels the cold in her hands before anywhere else. ‘Wendy,’ she says again. Belgium is right there. All of it comes back to her and it’s almost impossible to ignore.

‘I’m here,’ Wendy says.

‘I’m staying out for one more lap. It might not get worse than this.’

‘The forecast says it might.’

‘Guess we’ll see, then.’

Halfway through the next lap and the rain is much heavier. The skies have opened fully. Parts of the track seem inexplicably wetter than others. On turns four and five it appears only as a gentle drizzle and then on the back straight she drives into a sheer wall of solid rain and is soaked right down to the bone immediately. It's here that the car first shows its signs of disobedience. The tail end wiggles and kicks out involuntarily and the soft tires slip about with mutinous sentience. At the end of the straight she brakes for the hairpin and turns in too soon and loses it completely. The back spins around and the engine burbles and the rear tires begin to smoke. , she mutters to nobody. She spins the car back around and a fine spray of mist goes sliding across the track in the wake of her tires.

‘Are you okay?’ Wendy says.

‘I’m fine. Fine.’

‘Are you coming in this lap?’

‘Yeah. I’ll have to. It’s not going to get better than this. I know that.’

The silence lasts for longer than Seulgi hopes. ‘Okay,’ Wendy says, and says no more. Seulgi turns off at the beginning of the straight and into the pitlane. She coasts into the garage and cuts the engine. It’s her gloves first and then her helmet and the Velcro strap of her racing overalls so that she can breathe a slight easier. The rain has welded her sodden outfit to her body and the cold makes her raw hands look like giant pomegranates. She climbs out and tosses the gloves to Wendy. Wendy looks at her with a sort of cheerful amusement.

‘What?’ Seulgi says. ‘What’s with the face?’

‘Quite a few reasons, actually.’

‘Well? Are you going to tell me?’

She looks over Seulgi’s shoulder and is quiet again. Seulgi turns around to find Joy, still in her racing gear minus helmet and gloves, a little out of breath and sweaty. The first thing she does is pull Seulgi in for a hug. ‘Careful,’ Seulgi says. ‘I’m all wet.’

‘I feel like I haven’t seen you in years or something.’

‘Twelve weeks.’

‘How are you?’

‘Good,’ Seulgi says, the truth. ‘Minus the whole, you know, wet thing. What about you?’

‘You should see my times and ask me again.’

‘That good?’

Joy only smiles. Seulgi turns to Wendy again. ‘Well,’ she says. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s got you so cheery all of a sudden?’

‘Who says I’m cheery?’

‘You look it. Good times? Good data?’

‘Something like that.’

‘What’s with all the vagueness?’

‘Never mind that,’ Wendy says. She spares a look towards the front of the garage and the track. The rain falls in vast translucent sheets that twist and slant in what remains of the pale sunlight like burnished metal. It seems as if might be raining everywhere in the world.

‘Are you going out there again?’

Seulgi spends a long time just looking at it. The hesitation on her face must be obvious because Joy puts a hand on her shoulder and says, ‘You can wait for it to die down, you know. No rush or anything.’

‘I know.’

‘You don’t have to go out there.’

‘What sort of a racing driver would I be if I deliberately chose only the best time for me to race?’

‘Still, though.’

Wendy folds her arms and shakes her head. The rain slides down the top of the garage doors and against the doorway in a fine mist. It smells of dust and oil in the air. ‘Look at this,’ she says. ‘Haven’t seen it rain like this since, well, Belgium.’

‘Yeah,’ Seulgi says.

‘You want to go back out there?’

‘I don’t know.’ Seulgi looks at the two of them. The concern they show her is something Seulgi is genuinely thankful for. ‘I don’t know,’ she says again, the painful truth of it turning and twisting in . ‘I really don’t.’

‘You should go rest for a bit,’ Wendy says. ‘Come back in fifteen minutes, see if you want to still give it a go.’

‘What about you?’ Seulgi says to Joy. ‘You going out there in this?’

Joy shakes her head. ‘I’ve been here since, like, eleven this morning. I’m going home. I need my beauty sleep. Good luck, though. Whatever you decide to do, I’m sure you’ll ace it.’

‘Thanks.’

Joy hugs her again. She says goodbye to Wendy and the other mechanics still seeing to the two cars and leaves them. ‘How are my times?’ Seulgi asks.

‘Don’t worry about your times. Seriously, go get some fresh air or something.’

‘Fresh air. In this?’

‘It was a figure of speech. I’ll still be here when you get back.’

Seulgi can only nod in thanks. She grabs a towel from the neatly folded pile on the table in the corner and dries her hair and dabs the sweat from her neck and wanders through the offices. That they feel larger is something Seulgi accepts as a fact of how comfortable she has become with everything motorsport related. A year ago, testing was her first foray into anything so serious. She was a stranger in a stranger place, nervous and jittery and friendless save for Wendy. Now, Apex is her home, and Formula 1 is her life. The result is that everything feels that much more welcoming to her. She’s still thinking about it when she opens the door to one of the meeting rooms at the end of the hallway and sees Irene sat in a swivel chair with her feet hiked up on the table and her hair pinned neatly back in a ponytail. Seulgi closes the door and turns around and closes her eyes. She opens them again. Irene is still there, only now she’s giggling at Seulgi and waving at her from the other end of the table.

‘What are you doing here?’ Seulgi says.

Irene with a beaming smile, says: ‘Surprise.’

‘What are you doing here.’

‘I could ask you the same thing.’

‘What? I work here. This is our testing base.’

‘Yeah,’ Irene says. ‘I don’t know why I said that. Was a bit of a dumb thing to say. Whatever. Surprise, though.’

Seulgi looks around again. She looks back at Irene and Irene is still there. On the table in front of her is a tall and sparsely decorated marble cake towered three layers high on a silver platter and a chinaplate with a halfeaten slice and a small disposable plastic fork. Irene, slouched in her swivel chair, stabs a piece of the cake and raises it to and eats in a way that Seulgi thinks is almost deliberately too y to be practical. Or maybe it’s just Irene. She still hasn’t figured that part out yet. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asks a third time.

Irene points her plastic fork at the tower of cake. ‘Is this a normal occurrence?’ she asks. ‘Because we don’t get anything like this over at Samsung. It’s all fruit salads and low-carb cafeteria snacks and Greek yoghurts. And sometimes if we're lucky we'll get a box of muffins or something. Who bought this thing? This is really good cake.’

‘Irene.’

‘I mean it.’

‘Why—’

‘Am I here?’

Seulgi nods.

‘Pick your jaw up.’

‘I’m serious,’ Seulgi says. It takes her a minute to accustom herself to how comfortable Irene looks, sat slouched in the chair, fork in hand and feet on the desk and smile playing on her lips. Six months ago the thought of her being that open and free and even cracking jokes would have been laughable at best and offensive otherwise. Even four months ago. But Seulgi isn’t the only one open to change. Their altered togetherness is a two-way exchange. Seulgi gets the confidence to push herself like never before and Irene gets to be human again.

Irene skewers another small triangle of cake and eats it with a little too much grace. ‘I figured I’d come see how you were getting on,’ she says.

‘What?’

‘I came to cheer on my girlfriend. Am I not allowed to do that?’

‘No.’

‘What? Why not?’

‘It’s not allowed. You’re not allowed in here.’

‘Why?’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Why are you so grumpy today.’

‘This is pre-season testing,’ Seulgi says. ‘This is where we get all our data about how the car is doing. This is where we prepare for the season. You’re not supposed to be in here. You’re a driver for a rival team.’

‘Relax. All of this goes public in two weeks anyway. It’s not like the testing results are private forever. And I’ve already promised not to look at any of the important documents or anything. Or any of the computers.’

‘What, that’s it? They just let you in?’

Irene shrugs.

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘I promised,’ Irene says.

‘Who let you in?’

‘Wendy.’

‘What?’

‘What what?’

Seulgi thinks it over a minute. Then she says: ‘That must be why she was being so weird and vague about giving me my lap times. In case you see or hear anything.’

‘I guess. I don’t know. She let me in, though, so she must trust me at least a little bit.’

‘And they’re all okay with it?’

‘Sure. They all said they were.’

‘Why are you even here?’

‘To cheer you on.’

‘Really?’

Irene pushes her chair back and tosses the fork onto the chinaplate and stands up. It only takes half a second for Seulgi to gawp at her the way she always does, even twelve weeks later. To tell herself all over again how very lucky she is. ‘Why else would I be here?’ Irene says.

‘I don’t know. But don’t you think, you know.’

‘What?’

‘You know.’

Irene only shakes her head.

‘Don’t you think it looks a bit suspicious, you turning up here like this, for me?’

‘In what way?’

‘It just does.’

‘She already knows,’ Irene says, to a dead silence. Seulgi weighs it up in her head. It takes her a good while to understand fully. Then she says anyway, ‘What do you mean, she knows?’

‘Wendy. She knows we’re dating.’

‘No she doesn’t. I didn’t tell her.’

‘I admire your density sometimes. Or naivety, whichever sounds better.’

‘She doesn’t know.’

‘Go ask her.’

Seulgi thinks about for a minute again. Perhaps she’s blushing or perhaps not. She knows for a fact she is when Irene takes a couple steps closer. ‘What’s up?’ Irene says. ‘Am I bothering you? Because—’

‘No, of course not. It’s not you.’

‘What is it?’ She steps close enough to acclimate herself to Seulgi’s private sphere, to become part of her small world again. Seulgi can smell the floral whisper of her perfume. She offers a hand and Seulgi takes it in her own cold and raw hand. ‘What’s up?’

‘I don’t know whether to go out there in this weather or not.’

Irene turns to the windows along the left side of the room. The rain beats out its indistinct pattern like turmoiled chatter. She the back of Seulgi’s wet hands with her thumbs so gently it has Seulgi calmed almost immediately. ‘You’re worried it’s going to end up like Belgium, aren’t you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And you’ve every right to be. Every right.’

‘I know I do. But—’

‘You want to prove yourself. You feel like you still don't belong here one hundred percent until you’ve handled the rain. Until you’ve ticked off all your shortcomings, all your fears, all your biggest hurdles.’

Seulgi smiles a faint smile. ‘You know me so well,’ she says.

‘Yeah, I do. Imagine saying that eight or nine months ago.’

‘After China, you mean.’

‘Exactly.’ She the back of Seulgi’s hands again. ‘I think it took me about four seasons to get comfortable driving in the rain, you know. Four whole seasons. You’re talking about doing it in less than two. You haven’t even started your second season yet. So, there’s no rush.’

‘But there feels like there is.’

‘You’ve got to do things at your own pace. You can’t just rush in there before you’re ready.’

‘But—’

‘But you don’t know if you’re ready or not, because you haven’t tried. Right?’

‘Right.’

This time it’s Irene’s turn to smile. ‘See? That’s what I love about you. One of the many things I love about you. You’ve got this tenacity that’s almost childlike. It’s this willingness to do literally anything, even if you’re not actually willing to do it. I don’t know how to describe it so it makes sense, but it’s the same way a kid has that urge to wander down a dark alleyway late at night, when there are no streetlights guiding their way. That kid doesn’t really want to go down that alley, but it’s the thrill of the thought of it, the electricity at being able to tell his or her friends that they did it, that they stepped out into the dark and conquered it without hesitation. That’s what you’ve got. You want so badly to be able to say you've done it, even if you don't want to do it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in another driver before.’

Seulgi looks at her and she smiles again. It’s a smile that lights up her entire face, so refined and dignified and familiar to Seulgi. ‘Look,’ she says, ‘what I’m trying to get at is that you’re amazing, and wonderful, and I love you. And whatever you do, whether you go out there today or not, I’ll still love you, and I’ll still think you’re the best driver I’ve ever seen. You’re my idol.’

‘That’s going a bit too far.’

‘I’m serious. You step into your first season and do things nobody’s ever done before and not all of it good, but you know what? The thing is, you learnt. You improved. You never stopped. And more than anything, you showed heart. You got the fans rooting for you every step of the way. That takes more than a talented driver. That takes spirit. Hunt, Lauda, Senna, Prost, they all had it. The spirit of racing. And it lives on in you. So, yeah.’

They share a tender glance. ‘Stop it,’ Irene says. She wipes a single tear from Seulgi’s left eye and cups her face and draws her in for a kiss and Seulgi kisses back with all her love and all her endless gratitude for how much her life has become like a fairytale since Irene waltzed into it and decided she liked it enough to stick around. ‘I love you,’ she mutters against Irene’s lips, and Irene says it right back. It’s only a minute later she goes back through into the garage with Irene behind her and grabs her gloves from the table before Wendy’s even realised she’s there.

‘Hey,’ Wendy says. Irene waves back at her. The computer monitors at the back of the garage are all turned off and the data is nowhere to be seen. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘Rules are rules.’

‘I know,’ Irene says. ‘I get it.’

Seulgi takes her helmet and nods to Wendy. She hesitates a moment. Then she says, ‘Wendy.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Did you know that—’

‘You two are dating? Yeah.’

‘But—’

‘I know,’ Wendy says with a smile. ‘You know, for all your talent as a driver, you’re remarkably awful at keeping things hidden. I mean, come on. It wasn’t hard to see.’

‘Are you going to tell anyone?’

‘Who is there to tell? Everybody here at Apex already knows and nobody cares.’

‘Everybody?’

‘Give or take.’

‘Joy?’

Wendy shrugs. She turns out to what little remains of the day. The dim falling sheets of rain look as if they may never end. ‘This isn’t getting any better anytime today,’ she says.

‘I know,’ Seulgi says. She adjusts her helmet and wipes the condensation from the inside of her visor.

‘Well? What’s the call?’

Seulgi takes one look at the car and one look at Irene behind her. Then the car again. ‘Get me a new set of wets,’ she says. ‘I’m going out there. And I’m going to give you the best rain laps you’ve ever seen.’

It feels just like it did in Belgium.

The rain spatters against her visor and the tires hide the car behind a mist of fine water and even as grooved as they are the car is wild to control. The rain runs down the back of her neck and into her suit and her hands are numb to the touch and her legs aren’t much better. She’s almost crying. The difference this time is Irene is watching her from the garage and the truth of that is enough to bring a smile to Seulgi’s face again.

She does three laps. They’re not the best but she spins it a total of zero times. Then on her fourth lap she crosses the line and even though the rain is still falling and she can see almost nothing the car feels much more attuned to her. Much more stable. Perhaps she’s getting used to it. She thinks perhaps it’s something to do with Irene’s influence. Whatever it is, it works. Laps five and six fly by. On lap seven she hits every apex and the racing line is comfortable and smooth and the tires are still loose and wild but she’s learnt the patterns now, so that when they threaten to slide treacherously at the tight hairpins or coming onto the back straight she knows just how to feather the throttle or turn in the wheel to counteract the veering of the car completely. Wendy is silent across the radio. The only sounds are the engine and the battering of the rain. She finishes two more laps. By lap twelve she can no longer feel any part of herself above the knees but it doesn’t matter because her feet are the only thing still important. She crosses for lap thirteen and the rain fogs up her helmet and her breath catches in so cold it feels for a while like she has died prematurely. The back straight comes and goes. The speed even in the wet is immense. The barrier of rain thrown up by the grooved tires creates around her a sort of strange and ghostly mesh in which all the world distorts and shudders and disassembles, like an image of the wider world seen through the warped lens of a waterfall. She slows for the last hairpin and onto the straight and pulls into the pitlane and down to the garage. Irene is waiting for her with a smile already on her face. She turns off the car and clambers out and takes the towel from Irene and dries herself off to no real avail. Irene takes her helmet and her gloves with that same smile that never falters. She pulls Seulgi in for a kiss before she’s even had time to catch her breath.

‘I’m sweaty,’ Seulgi mutters. ‘And I stink.’

‘You did amazing. I knew you would.’

They look at Wendy, tablet in hand, pride on her face. ‘Well?’ Seulgi says, panting and wheezing and fiddling with the towel.

‘I can’t say. Not while you’re in the room. Sorry.’

‘I can put my fingers in my ears,’ Irene says.

‘Sorry.’

‘Did I do well?’ Seulgi asks.

‘Well? Are you kidding me? How did you feel out there?’

‘Like I’ve never felt before. I don’t know, I can’t describe it. Everything felt so different. So right.’

‘You just needed some practice. I knew it.’

‘So did I do well?’

‘You aced it.’

‘That good?’

Wendy nods. Seulgi steals a look at Irene again to find her beaming with pride. ‘What?’ Seulgi asks.

‘Senna, Schumacher, Hamilton. The three greatest of all time. You know what all three had in common?’

‘What?’

‘They were all incredible in the rain.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m not saying anything.’ Irene gives a curt shrug. She gestures for Seulgi to take her hands and she does. ‘I’m proud of you,’ she says. ‘Really. I knew you could do it. You just needed that same confidence you have everywhere else on the track. With that confidence, I’m not sure you can ever lose.’

‘Until I go against you.’

‘Well, sure. But that’s a different matter entirely.’

Wendy’s laughter from the far side of the car breaks them apart for a moment. They turn to her. ‘What?’ Seulgi says. ‘What’s so funny?’

‘You two.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. You’re just cute, is all.’

‘Cute.’

‘Yeah. Kinda.’

‘Hey,’ Irene says. ‘Is that cake up for grabs, by the way?’

‘What cake? Oh, the marble cake?’

‘Yeah. It’s amazing.’

‘Take it. It’ll just get thrown out otherwise.’

‘A tragedy, really.’

‘You’re telling me. Anyway, you guys should probably head off. I don’t know how much longer we can keep these monitors turned off. We’ve got a bunch of stuff to be going over, you know?’

‘Sure,’ Seulgi says, smiling and smiling. She takes Irene’s hand in her own without even realising it. It has become second nature to her at this point. ‘Thanks, Wendy,’ she says. ‘See you tomorrow.’

‘See you then, champ. And champ.’

‘Bye,’ Irene says. They disappear into the other meeting room and Irene cuts away a great slice of the cake and piles it onto the chinaplate. Seulgi stands slouched against the doorframe watching her with a lazy smile. The rain hasn’t lessened even a slight. Irene one of her fingers and looks at Seulgi. ‘What?’ she says.

‘Nothing.’

‘What is it?’

‘I just love you. So much.’

‘I love you too.’

‘Thank you for coming today. It really means a lot.’

‘Figured I’d do something with my downtime, what with testing being a breeze and all.’

‘That confident, are you?’

Irene taps the side of her nose. ‘A champion never tells.’

‘Spoilsport.’

‘You fancy going for a meal tonight or something? Celebrate you acing it out there in the rain.’

‘Sure. Where did you have in mind?’

‘I don’t know,’ Irene says, plate in hand like a thief. ‘But it occurred to me just the other day that I never did take you to the Hermitage when we were in Monaco.’

‘We drank that Chateau, though.’

‘True, true. But that was a different restaurant, and I said the Hermitage was the best.’

‘So, what are you suggesting? We fly there for dinner tonight?’

‘Honestly?’ Irene says. ‘I wouldn’t mind. But no. I was thinking we could just get a bottle of the Chateau again, if there’s anywhere that does it. Just to pretend we’re in Monaco or something, since it was your favourite, and all.’

‘Sounds fine by me, champ.’

She expects Irene to laugh or retort with something equally cheeky but she doesn’t. She just stands there a moment with the plate in her hand and a wistful, distant look in her eyes. Her face looks so utterly at peace.

‘What?’ Seulgi asks.

‘You know what?’

‘What?’

‘I’m really glad I met you. Really glad.’

Seulgi breaks into a smile she can’t possibly fake or hide. ‘You know what I said last year?’ she says. ‘About it being the best year of my life?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Somehow, I think this one’s going to be even better.’

‘Yeah,’ Irene says, smiling all the way. ‘You know what? So do I.’

Author's Note:

                         Well, that's the end for now! I've really enjoyed writing this though so I might come back to it later if people are still interested, the only issue is that I don't want to add things for the sake of adding things even though it's been fun, I'd prefer it to have meaning within the story etc. Anyway thank you so much for reading, I'll be writing more very soon. If you've enjoyed then please leave an Upvote/Comment, means a lot! Thank you :)   <3