Korea isn't the worst race of the year because of the weather, or because it's the last race of the season and it leaves a three-month stretch of nothing after it. It's the worst race because the gap between Monaco and Korea is four weeks instead of two, and the extra two weeks give Seulgi just enough time to sit in her apartment and stew over everything that's transpired and wonder about Irene and sometimes wonder aloud, in the shower or in bed at night or watching the dismal turning of the city from her window. It occurs to her briefly that she doesn't even have Irene's number.

She sets her fastest lap in the simulator a week before the race, and then a day later she sets her three consecutive worst times just to match. It's as if even she doesn't know how to feel about the race. The circuit is pretty good but not her best nor her favourite but it isn't Irene's either. She knows that from their late-night conversations, their talks about every aspect of racing, the history of Formula 1 all the way back to when it first began. Even other sports. Le Man 24 Hours, the IndyCar, NASCAR. Irene knows it all. So perhaps it's a little telling that the first thought that pops into Seulgi's had when she sets another appalling time just two days before race weekend isn't: I need to up my pace.

It's: Maybe Irene's setting some slow times as well.

By the time Friday comes around she's at the garage waiting for the others. She catches only a glimpse of Irene in the garage but the crowd are already impatient and there's too much going on for Seulgi to be able to take a minute to go and talk to her, much as she wants to. The last time they spoke was in Monaco a month ago but she's still there, still in Seulgi's head. It isn't: Forty-eight hours from now I could be world champion. It's: Irene Irene Irene. It's the taste of Irene's lips, the flush of her cheeks, the disheveled look when she pulled back and looked at Seulgi as if unsure of how to proceed. It's everything it shouldn't be.

'Hey,' Wendy says.

'Hey.'

She takes a moment to survey the crowd across the track in the grandstand. The noise, the commotion, the other teams coming and going. 'Man,' she says. 'I'll never ever get used to this.'

'Nor me,' says Seulgi.

'This is it. This is the big one.'

'I know.'

'You could be world champion in two days. Just think about that for a minute. World champion, in your first ever season. Unprecedented. Just think about it.'

'I've been thinking about it for a lot longer than a minute.'

Wendy smiles. Across the far side of the garage Joy is already suited and ready to go and her mechanics are checking over the last of the digital systems on their monitors. 'Tell me,' Seulgi says. 'Just tell me what I need to do to win it all.'

'As if you don't already know.'

'Of course I do. I've been going over it for a week now. But still. I just want to hear you say it. Just so I know I'm not losing my mind.'

'Maybe it should wait until after qualifying tomorrow.'

'Just say it. Please.'

'Okay,' Wendy says with a nod. 'So, you're six points behind. It's still all to play for. I know I said it was impossible to beat her in the second half of the season when she doesn’t have car issues but that mistake in Monaco cost her. Cost the whole team. This is the closest anyone's ever come, points-wise. So it's still all there on the table. You've just got to take it. And hope she has a bit of bad luck as well.'

'I've got to finish first.'

'Not necessarily.'

'If I finish second, and she finishes third, she still wins.'

'I know.'

'If I finish third, and she's fourth, she wins.'

Wendy nods again.

'If she finishes ahead of me at all, she wins.'

'Of course.'

'So I have to win, because there's not a chance she's finishing anything less than second. I just know that.'

'She might spin off again.'

'She won't. You said it yourself—'

'She's a machine, yeah. An animal. But after Monaco? Who knows. Anything could happen on Sunday. It wouldn't be the craziest thing ever.'

'I've got to win.'

'Honestly?'

Seulgi nods.

'Pretty much. But that's not out of your league or anything. You're a winner, Seulgi. That's what you do. Win. And this is Korea. You've got to win here, for them, for me, for everyone. For your mom. So, forget about everything that's happened this past week. Forget about the pace or the slow times or the spins or whatever's still bugging you, because I know there's something and it's not going to do you any good. It's just the race, and you, and that world championship, yeah?'

'Yeah.'

'Good. Now go out there and show the world the Dynamite.'

Free practice feels good. It's much better than her sim laps, and Seulgi chalks most of that up to the feeling of the car around her, the way it moves and shifts so effortlessly with every flick of the wheel and every feathering of the throttle and every hammering of the brakes. How finely tuned it is to her. She'll never get over that. Wendy's silent in her ear for most of the practice laps. She spots Joy a couple times and one of the Mercedes and at turn six catches sight of Yeri in her rearview mirror but the only person she's thinking about, naturally, is Irene. So much so that when practice is done and she pulls into the garage and shuts off the car the first thing she does when her helmet is on the table is saunter down to the Samsung garage to look for her.

She finds Yeri first, sat at the table talking to her engineer when Seulgi walks in. They both look at her as if she shouldn't be there. Then Yeri stands and nods to her engineer and the other mechanics and steps outside. 'You shouldn't be here,' she says, as if on cue.

'I know. Sorry.'

'Like, you really shouldn't be here. That's probably a penalty or something.'

'Sorry. I was just looking for Irene.'

'She took off about fifteen minutes ago. Literally just got out of the car and disappeared.'

'Where did she go?'

'Back to the hotel, I guess. I can't think of where else she'd go.'

'Thanks,' Seulgi says. Yeri just looks at her. In truth she doesn't really know what she's thankful for. She would've found Irene without any help, but better to be polite than brush her off. She says goodbye to Wendy and Joy and the other mechanics and catches a cab to the hotel four blocks away and goes on up in without taking off her overalls. A couple fans catch her in the lobby and once she's done signing autographs and taking selfies she goes on up to her room and changes into a fresh shirt and jeans and locks up and knocks on Irene's door. She only knows where it is because they keep a list in the lobby.

There's no reply. She stands there in silence for a long time. Her heart races madly in her chest and she can hear its rapid bloodpumping and feel it and she thinks for a moment she might keel over and pass out. She knocks again and there's a shuffling from behind the door. The lock lifts and Seulgi smoothes out her hair and practices a smile and then Irene is there, hair tied back neatly in a bun, jeans and polo and minimal makeup, the smell of jasmine and floral topnotes so strong in the air. She looks at Seulgi with an expression Seulgi can't quite place. It's either relief or surprise or annoyance or all three.

'Hey,' Seulgi says.

'Hi.'

'Just thought I'd come and talk to you, if that's okay.'

Irene looks around. As if she's not alone. Or perhaps weighing up the outcome of each response in her own head. Then she opens the door and lets Seulgi in without a word. The room is small and simple and they sit at the table while Irene brings out the champagne and pours two half glasses and puts the bottle away again. It's their usual ritual but there's something different about it, something neither mentions. As if the dynamic of their shared coda is in a constant state of change. Something has been altered that can scarcely be put back again. Seulgi sips at her champagne and holds the glass in her lap because her hands are shaking and she doesn't want Irene seeing because she doesn't know how Irene might react. But then she straightens up and puts her own glass on the table and says, 'I'm sorry.'

'Sorry?'

'For ignoring you after Monaco. I shouldn't have done that. I just needed some time alone to think things over.'

'It's okay.'

'It isn't. I shouldn't have done that. It's just—' she pauses. The look on her face is pure frustration like Seulgi has rarely seen before. She spends a long time throwing around whatever she wants to say in her head. Then she says it anyway, and Seulgi sits there and listens to every word.

'For as long as I can remember I've wanted to do this. Literally since I can first remember doing anything. Staying up until 5AM to watch Hakkinen and Schumacher and Fisichella. Then it was Massa and Alonso and Raikkonen. Then Hamilton and Vettel. Now it's me. Since I was four or five years old I've wanted to be a racing driver. A racing champion. I know I've said this before but I'm going to say it again because it's true. This is all I have, Seulgi. I don't have anything outside of this. No friends, no connections, no business ventures beyond sponsors on the grid, no marketing campaigns, no magazine spreads. No love life, no quick flings, nothing. Hell, the last time I got laid was about a year ago.'

Seulgi says nothing. Just sits there and fiddles awkwardly with her glass and listens.

'Everyone else has something they can fall back on,' Irene says. 'They've got something to relax them, to calm them down. To make them feel normal again. But I don't. I've got that car and those tracks and those championship trophies and nothing else. I've given every ounce of blood, every ounce of sweat to this sport, and more. I've gone to extremes no person should ever go to. I've done things no sane person would ever do. I've painted my racing helmet black because the molecular weight of black paint is less than that of any other colour and I believed it would give me a miniscule edge. I've refused to wear socks in case they threw the balance of the car off just a slight. I went on a crash diet to save a couple pounds and almost killed myself because I was too stupid to realise I needed that extra weight to be able to handle how vicious these cars are. I would stay up twenty hours a day going over the technicals behind everything, how it all worked, what bit did what, how we could improve it just a tad.

'The truth is I've got nothing outside of this. Nothing at all. This is all I am. I was willing to die for this, if that’s what it took to be the very best. I would’ve given every last breath. And you know what? It's worked. I've got three championships. Maybe four in a couple days. So yeah, it's worked, but I know what you're thinking and maybe you're right, maybe it is sad or pathetic, maybe it's an unhealthy obsession with something that might one day kill me. Maybe. But that's what it was.

'And then I met you. I met you, Seulgi. A reckless amateur in her first season that couldn't keep it together for a whole lap without doing something dangerous and crashing and putting other people at risk. At least, that's what I thought after China, but it's not true. You're not that at all. You're the most naturally gifted driver I've ever seen. Far more naturally gifted than I am. That something I was talking about? That special spark you need to succeed at the highest level? You've got that and more. And I don't mean to discredit your hard work by saying that. I know you're dedicated to this because you have to be to even think about stepping into one of those things, let alone actually following through with it. But I've almost killed myself for this and I can still barely stay ahead of you. That's something.'

She looks at Seulgi and Seulgi is quiet, reassuring. 'That's not what's bothering me, though,' she says. 'It's not that I've given my entire life to this sport to be overtaken by someone new one day suddenly. That was always going to happen. Sometime soon I expect it might. That's the nature of all sports. It's not that. It's that you're the only thing in a very long time outside of Formula 1 that I think about regularly. You're the only one I even can, and I know how that sounds but just hear me out for a minute because I'm terrible at this sort of thing. Really, truly awful.'

The giggle Seulgi lets out has her looking a little more relaxed. She picks up the champagne glass and holds it against the pale light and finishes it in one mouthful as if steeling herself for something. 'Look,' she says, 'I'm just going to say it. I like you, Seulgi. I like you a lot. I'm sure you already know that, or at least you had a hunch about it.'

'Yeah.'

Seulgi looks at her and she's silent for a long time. In the quiet gaps someone outside is shouting but the world they're contained within is very small and very sincere and cannot be broken by any foreign enterprise so easily. 'Go on,' Seulgi says. 'I'm listening.'

'That's it.'

'What?'

'That's the whole thing. I like you. Why? What else were you expecting?'

'I don't know. It's just—'

'I told you I'm awful at this sort of thing. I just know what I'm feeling. Maybe I love you. I don't know. I think I probably do, and to be honest I don't know how to handle that properly and it's properly ing me up. That's what happened in Monaco, by the way.'

'What? What is?'

'I was thinking about you.'

'What?'

Irene nods. It takes a moment for Seulgi to process it. Then she says, 'You crashed in Monaco because you were thinking about me?'

'Yeah. About what happened the night before in the corridor. About how much I was looking forward to it. My whole head was swimming on race day like nothing before. I thought I was going to crash a lot earlier than that, honestly. You know what the first dumb thought that went through my head was? I thought I’d been sabotaged. Seriously. I thought someone had tampered with the brakes or something ridiculous like that. The first thing I did once I planted the front into that wall was start making a mental list of all my enemies, all the people I’d pissed off over the years that might want to get one back on me. Then I realised just how stupid that is, the idea that someone would be willing to kill me over a race. On the way back to the hotel I realised that the truth was a lot simpler than that. A lot more human. The truth was that my entire life up until that point had been Formula 1 and one single moment in a hallway in a Monaco hotel and suddenly it’s You first, Formula 1 second. And I didn’t know how to handle that. I still don’t think I do. So, yeah. It was you.'

'I—'

'I'm not blaming you. There's nothing to blame you for. It's my fault. I know that. I've given so much of myself to this sport that something good comes along and I don't know how to react. I don’t know how to respond to the fact that the most amazing thing has dropped itself into my lap. I just clam up. I never do that in a race. Not this late in the season, at least. It’s funny, really. There I was telling you in America not to let any feelings get in the way of a race because all it would do is distract you. Make you drive worse. And then, well.'

'And you didn't tell me this in Monaco?'

'I didn't know how. Like I said, I'm bad at this . But I had a lot of time to sit down after that day and think things through and I realised that all I’d be doing by ignoring you and pretending I didn’t feel what I feel is hurting myself, and hurting you, and hurting both our chances in this championship. And I couldn’t live with that. I figured the mature thing to do would be to just sit down and talk it out the next time I saw you, even though I’m admittedly terrible at this sort of thing and I’m still working things out in my own head and everything’s still a bit of a mess up there. I spent all of yesterday talking to myself in the mirror, pretty much, just to work up the courage to come and talk to you. And then I didn’t do it. So, yeah. I should’ve told you when you asked me in Monaco that night, and I’m sorry I didn’t. I just couldn’t really figure any of it out. I didn't know if you were drunk or leading me on or if I was leading you on or if one of us was just being stupid or what. I didn't know if you genuinely liked me. I didn't know anything. I still—'

'I like you,' Seulgi blurts out.

'You do?'

'Yeah.'

'Well.'

'Well.'

Silence. Then Irene says, 'You want some more champagne?'

'No, I'm good. Thanks.' She throws a brief glance Irene’s direction but Irene isn’t looking at her. She’s thinking something over and that much is obvious. Trying to formulate a coherent way to spill everything she still has to say. ‘You know,’ Seulgi says, ‘I thought maybe something really serious had happened at Monaco.’

‘What? What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know. I get that it sounds dumb, but yeah. I thought maybe there’d been some big thing happened in your life. Like a family emergency or something. Or, I don’t know. I was really worried.’

‘There was a big thing. Well, big for me. But no, my family are all alright. It’s me who’s not.’

‘Because of me?’

‘Something like that, yeah.’

‘Sorry.’

‘For what?’

Seulgi thinks about it for a second. Then she says: ‘Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve got nothing to be sorry for, do I?’

‘No. It’s me who should be sorry.’

‘For?’

‘For pushing you away in Monaco. For not just telling you and talking about it like mature adults should do. For crying myself to sleep knowing it was eating away at me. And for not giving you the proper competitive race you deserved on that track. I know you were looking forward to it. So was I.’

‘It’s okay,’ Seulgi says. She allows herself a teasing smile again; the normalcy has returned. ‘The result would’ve been the same anyway.’

‘Is that right?’

‘Looked like it to me. You were about to be dust.’

‘Uh huh. You sure you don’t want some more champagne?’

‘Are you trying to get me drunk or something?’

‘I’m just asking,’ Irene says with a shrug. There is silence between them again. Seulgi sits there not quite knowing what to do. Not truly knowing the extent to which their relationship has changed. What are they now? Does it matter? All that matters is the race. But the race and their relationship are intrinsically linked and to pretend otherwise would be foolish.

'You like me,’ Irene says. Her voice is small, at the back of , timid.

'Yeah.'

'You like me,' she repeats, playing with the words.

'I think I might love you too. And I also think I want to win the championship on Sunday and to do that I need a good night's sleep.'

'I can't disagree with you there.'

‘Are you sure this wasn’t your plan? To get me drunk so I can't qualify tomorrow?'

Irene laughs. 'Cheeky,' she says. 'If I wanted to do that, I'd have bought something a little stronger.'

'Fair. Save the vodka for Sunday night, yeah?'

'Sure.'

Irene shows her to the door and stands a while posted against the doorframe waiting for Seulgi to leave but she doesn't. She stands there gazing at Irene and playing with her fingers and trying in vain to stop them from shaking and it's almost adorable and she's blushing and Irene doesn't quite know how to react. Her whole life has been F1 and now her whole life is F1 plus Seulgi and the alien truth of it is uncomfortable to adapt to. The hotel door has become a sort of special sanctuary, a lodestone around which the defining moments of their shared lives become affirmed, solidified. Irene allowing her into the room in Japan and then Irene with tearstained eyes and a pitiful heart denying her the same in Monaco and now this. Now all that has changed. The hotel door in each scenario some form of gateway between what is real and what is temporally not and what they each wish to be real. They stand there in the doorway for a long time. A smile on Irene’s face, butterflies looping in Seulgi’s stomach. 'I should go,' Seulgi says, voice barely there at all.

'Yeah.'

'I'll see you after qualifying tomorrow?'

'I'll be here. Just come on up.'

'I hope you do well. I mean, not as well as me, obviously. But still.'

'How very kind of you,' Irene says with a grin. 'I hope you do well, too.'

'I'm going to win.'

'That's the spirit.'

'Goodnight.'

When she turns around Irene stops her. She barely has time to turn back before Irene is drawing her in and kissing her. She cups Seulgi's face in her soft hands and pulls her even closer and kisses her for a long time and all Seulgi can do is kiss back and fight away the smile and try and think of anything coherent, anything that isn't: Oh my God I love you I love you Irene I really do.

She pulls away and smiles at Seulgi. 'See you tomorrow,' she says.

'Yeah.' It's smiles and butterflies and nothing but. 'Yeah, you will.'