🏁

BRAZIL

The rain cascaded down, creating a small puddle around the spot where its path wasn't blocked by an umbrella. Seungwan stood in the middle of the empty Interlagos circuit. Lifting her umbrella a little she looked up to see they sky pitch black, it's hard to believe that it's just afternoon here, that's the beauty of Interlagos, the unpredictable weather.

It did her a favour during qualifying as she managed to put in a lap good enough to claim pole again before the thunderstorm came and the session had to be red flagged.

Seungwan didn't feel happy about the pole, everything felt suffocating, everytime she thought of the championship and her championship rival, she felt as if she was getting choked by thorn infused shackles.

The rain mirrored her inner turmoil, washing away the facade of confidence she wore, she was far away from that, in reality she was tired, scared and torn, not knowing how to process anything happening around her.

She feels dumb, realising it just now, that she was mentally not in the best place to indulge in such a draining competition this season. Shaking her head, she took a deep breath, attempting to push aside the conflicting emotions threatening to consume her like she always did.

Crouching next to that wet track, she holds the umbrella above her head in one hand while the other one rests on the wet ground. There is no one around her, she is in the most stranded part of the circuit, surely no one is going to be here to witness her go insane.

Running her hand over the rough ground she ends up scratching the side of her palm a little but it doesn't bother her, she just wants to feel something for the track, bring back the spark of passion that she has been lacking—how could she survive this long without breaking apart, after all she was hollow from inside.

Joohyun, the soul of her body, without her looming presence, she feels incredibly empty, like she's a robot working without a heart. Everything Seungwan is, it's made up of Joohyun…people always say that without sun the moon can never shine but do they realise a sun is useless if it doesn't have its moon.

She tries to look back and think of a time where it's just her and her happiness but no matter how hard she tries her happy memories start with Joohyun and they end with Joohyun. She can't exist on her own without her, because Joohyun is a part of her she can never move on from and it becomes a reality with each passing second, with each breath she takes she discovers how difficult it is to stay away, no matter how painful it is, she still wants it.

Like a host to a parasite, she let Joohyun consume her from inside out, getting nothing in return.

She feels warmth on her cheeks, lifting her hand from the ground she touches her cheeks, realising that tears are trickling down her cheeks…she is crying—but why?

Was she sad? But she didn't feel sad, she felt nothing at all.

Feeling her knees go weak, she stopped herself from crouching anymore and tried to get up, instead she found herself on her knees on the track, her umbrella long forgotten on the side as she let the rain fall over her, hoping it'll wipe away all those tears cause she didn't have it in her to wipe them herself, she didn't know why she was crying but she didn't want to stop herself from crying and by wiping tears it meant she was asserting herself to stop crying, she didn't want that.

“I hate you,” with weak hands she punched the track beneath her, the voice escaping through barely audible, “I…hate…you,” a desperate whisper, something she couldn't bring herself to say, because she knew that it was never going to be true.

As her head met the pavement of the track, she sobbed uncontrollably, letting out everything she has been keeping in for too long, with each sob her whole body shaked, “I want to hate you Joohyun, that's the only way I can stop myself from loving you,” she can’t even do that, she tried but…she couldn't.

This championship is a suicide, if she ends up losing, she doesn't know how will she manage to cope and if she wins, she still wouldn't be happy, her heart will mourn.

Son Seungwan is a coward, something she projects on Joohyun but she is just the same. Knowing the consequences of loving Joohyun, she runs away from them cause she can't deal with them only for that pain to haunt her.

She doesn't know for how long she cries, but the stinging in her eyes is enough to tell her that she surely let everything out. Getting up she looks up at the sky that is no longer black and the horizon is darkish grey, the rain has also subsided a lot. She must've lost track of time, the circuit feels even more empty.

The walk back to the paddock is agonising, her mind still being a windwhirl of emotions. She avoids going towards the garages, there are still some mechanics of every team putting in work and her condition isn't appropriate enough to be seen by them. Instead she heads towards the motor home, hoping that she has another spare set of clothes.

“Excuse me!” A family voice rings in her ears as she stops outside her driver's motorhome, “It’s still raining, I was wondering if you will be willing to share your umbrella with me,” the voice starts to become louder, like the source is getting closer.

“Excus—Wan-ah,” she turns around in that pathetic state, not ashamed to show herself like that to Joohyun who goes silent once she sees her disheveled state.

“You can take it,” her scratchy voice cracks as she shoved the umbrella into Joohyun's hand, letting the rain consume her once again.

“You’re drenched,” Joohyun mutters, taken aback by her condition, “You had this too,then why?” The older girl rests her hand over the one she is holding the umbrella with, “Hey, your hands are really cold and these clothes are drenched. You should change.”

Feeling her eyelids become heavier with each passing second she lets go of the umbrella and throws her arms around Joohyun. The actions surely catches the older girl off guard as she lowers the umbrella for a few moments before she positions it above their heads again. She lets her carry her entire weight since her knees feel weak and she feels sleepy all of sudden.

Being close to her felt like she was breathing again, it felt too good. With each passing second she found her eyelids dropping as she felt a hand wrapped around her waist, supporting her. The world was turning black again, this time instead of fighting it, she let herself scumble to darkness with the last thought that came to her mind was that she was in the arms of her own downfall.

“Don’t l..e…t go, Hyun.”

Her eyes flutter open a little when she hears faint sound of someone talking, her eyelids still feel a little heavy but she forces herself to stay awake, to make out of her whereabouts.

“Tell him I will handle it myself. It's my privacy he doesn't get a say in that,” that voice belongs to Joohyun, she can spot her blurry figure from some distance.

Blinking her eyes a couple of times seems to do the trick as she retains her vision fully and looks around the place once again. Bringing her hand up, she brushes her overgrown fringe away from her eyes and then pushes it against the bed to force herself to sit up.

“You’re up,” ignoring Joohyun's words she rests her head against the headboard of the bed, realising that she's in Joohyun's apartment in Brazil. She's been there plenty of times, it's a couple of miles away from the circuit near the beach which makes it a perfect vacation spot for Joohyun, “Feel better.”

She just nods and lets put a small sigh, leaning away from the headboard as she feels the mattress next to her dip a little, “Just the head, it hurts a little.” She doesn't pry away Joohyun's hand when it comes up to rest on her forehead, instead she leans closer, yearning for that touch.

“Still no fever, that's good to know,” the older girl mutters as she pushes her head gently until it meets the back of the pillow again, “I had called in a doctor to get you checked, just in case. It seems like a bad case of jet lag nothing else,” nodding at her words she lazily keeps her gaze on Joohyun who is busy searching for something on the bedside table.

“It’s always Brazil,” she mutters, putting some sarcasm to her words.

“You’re just not used to the weather changes here and since you fly here from Austria, the jet lag just gets worse,” the older girl mumbles, holding a small plastic bag. “The dinner is almost ready, you need to eat some pills for the headache and then we can decide what you want to do after that.”

“You changed my clothes?”

“Who else will if not me?”

She's just so damn stupid isn't she, still that eighteen year old feeling giddiness takes over her entire body like she's some teenager experiencing a crush for the first time. It's the way Joohyun looks at her with those eyes, her gaze speaks lots of things, it's like a burst of emotions and she knows each and every single emotion, there is a hint of teasing, some protectiveness, the usual urge to take things to a deeper level and many more but there is a new emotion in-between all those and that's the one making her insides a jumbling mess, she can see care in Joohyun's eyes, genuine care.

Tugging the sleeve of Joohyun's shirt she brings the older girl closer until her face is within her reach and she cups her face with both of her hand, looking straight into her eyes, trying to find the faux incase it's hidden somewhere.

Eventually she lowers her gaze, hiding the liquid that glimmers in her eyes, threatening to escape, she can't do this right now, this is the worst time for her to break her resolve and act on her feelings.

“Seungwan,” Joohyun whispers, covering her palms with her own hands, “Is everything alright? You don't seem okay, ever since we—that night in my penthouse, things have been different,” a thumb gently caresses the skin of the back of her hand.

“It’s nothing,” she mutters, loosening her grip around Joohyun's face, turning herself to the side to face away from her.

“If it was nothing, you wouldn't be bothered by it,” she shouldn't have done that, exposing herself like that to Joohyun, because now that she knows something is wrong the older girl wouldn't find peace until she gets to the root of the problem. Funny how she applied that to everything except their own relationship.

It comes off as a surprise when the older girl doesn't speak anymore, instead she feels her weight on her, arms around her neck and then, she is pretty sure that the position they are in is considered hugging.

“I’m sorry,” and here she is apologising again, if there was only a single mistake she would've figured out for what Joohyun is sorry for but with everything being a mistake, she isn't sure for what she's supposed to be saying sorry for.

‘Don’t do it, Seungwan-ah,’ her brain chants it like a mantra, stopping her from digging her own grave yet she finds herself reciprocating the hug as her hands gently rest on Joohyun's back, ‘You’re supposed to move on.’

“How do I know what you're sorry for, Joohyun?”

“Only if I knew that myself, I would tell you Seungwan.”

“If you don't know why, then why do you keep apologising?”

“Because I don't want you to go through pain anymore, if an apology eases even a fraction of the pain I've caused you then I’d consider apologising to you for the rest of my life as my salvation.”

The grip of her hands around Joohyun's waist gets tighter, not because she wants to have her pressed impossibly close to herself but because she wants to distract herself from the fact that she has this urge to just kiss her.

She stands in that garden of Mercedes factory in Germany, in that rain, walking away from Joohyun, even though she's in Joohyun's bed, in her arms, far away from that place somehow she's still there.

Seungwan is not over Joohyun,  she's never going to be.

🏁

She feels like she's going to throw up with every bite she takes and it's not because the food is bad, no, the food is really good, she isn't sure if Joohyun made this on purpose or not but it definitely feels nice to eat Korean cuisine, that too her favourite dish.

Looking up, she glances at Joohyun again who is sitting opposite to her, eating her meal in silence, it's oddly nice. She feels nauseating, the churning in her stomach doesn't stop no matter how hard she tries to hold all those weird feelings back they just keep bursting inside her and it makes her feel sick.

Seungwan clutches her shirt under the table tightly, her hands curl around the fabric in a desperate attempt to understand the turmoil that's happening inside her. Subconsciously, she pushes the plate away, and looks down biting her lip, unable to do anything about her condition.

“Are you done?” She silently nods at Joohyun's words, refusing to meet her eyes, “I’ll get your medicines,” hearing the sound of the chair getting dragged across the floor she glances to her side to see Joohyun walk past her.

‘What is happening? Why am I feeling like this? It doesn't feel right. I hate this…I hate myself for feeling like this.’

Before she knows her lips are quivering, she takes a deep breath to calm herself down but it seems to be struck somewhere in and then hot tears are streaming down her cheeks and she's choking on her own silent sobs.

She tries to stand up and get away so Joohyun can't see her like this but her legs betray her and she finds herself on her knees on the floor just crying. Desperate attempts to wipe her tears follow, she brings up her arms to wipe her tears with the sleeve of the shirt she's wearing then it hits her that it's Joohyun's shirt she's wearing, she can't even wipe her tears on her own, even in this she is nothing without her.

Useless, she's useless…she's nothing.

“I got your medicines…Seungwan,” oh god, Joohyun is here and she has seen her like this, just take her already. Joohyun has seen her cry, she has seen her have panic attacks, she has seen her at her vulnerable moments plenty of times but this is a new low because Joohyun has never seen her this defeated, this broken, “Wan-ah what…what happened…why are you crying?” She even made Joohyun overwhelmed, such a mess.

“Don’t,” she manages to mutter, jerking away Joohyun's hand that reaches out for her, “Leave me alone.”

“No,” despite her attempts to push her away she still ends up in Joohyun's arms, the older girl cradles her in her embrace, running her hands through her hair, “I’m not leaving you alone—I did that once…never again.”

“That’s the problem,” croaking put she weakly punches Joohyun's chest, “I always end up needing you, even when I try to pretend that I am fine on my own deep down my body and my heart needs you and it reminds me…reminds me,” another series of sobs escape from and then she is pulled impossibly close to Joohyun that her tears are trickling down the older girl’s neck, “I’m nothing without you Joohyun.”

The room goes silent and she feels the grip around her body loosen for mere moments, “That is not true,“ the older girl whispers before she tightens her hold around her, “You are so much more than me—You are so much more without me…You are everything without me,” there are some shallow cracks in Joohyun's voice as she speaks, like the words that escape from hurt her too but she lets them escape from anyway.

“I used to think like this, like you're nothing without me, I’m the one who's behind you—then you left and I realised how wrong I was…how selfish I was to diminish you and your entire existence like that,” the older girl takes a small pause, probably to recollect her thoughts before she begins again, “It’s the opposite Seungwan, you’re everything without me but without you I’m nothing.”

“I worked my whole life, dedicated myself to the wheel, to this sport to be where I am. All of this, I had nothing and I had to work from scratch to do what I have been able to do on the track and just when I thought that I was at the top of the world and no one could be above me…an eighteen year old rookie comes and does what I have been doing for far longer, much better than me—You don't see it but the Joohyun you see now is the one you made, if you see the Joohyun before you, I don't think you'll be able to recognise me…everything I am, in every part of me there are fractions of you and this is what I was afraid to admit.”

“Why…were you afraid?”

“Because I am ashamed…ashamed of what I did despite knowing that you made me. Thinking back and looking at the fact that I took advantage of your naiveness—I feel disgusted and to think it took you to be in this much pain for me to realise that what I was doing to you was so wrong. You are like this because of me, it wasn't supposed to be this way, you were supposed to live your dream and be happy…” Joohyun trails off as she cups her face and pushes her head back a little so she can look at her.

“That’s not true, you are much better than me and there is nothing in me that you should have to be better,” she mutters as the tears finally stop.

There is a small smile on