Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

[maranello, italy]
scuderia ferrari team base

The first thing Ferrari does, because it's physically incapable of behaving like a normal racing team, is turn the lights red.

Donghyuck would prefer for them to look expensive and mysterious, like they might have a fragrance campaign coming out in September. But Ferrari red is unforgiving, which means Donghyuck has been standing under twenty-seven aggressive stage lights for the past forty minutes looking like a human sacrifice sponsored by Shell, Santander, Puma, and three brands he's pretty sure sell watches that cost more than his first apartment.

And, of course, there are cameras pointed at him. He's Ferrari's number one driver now, apparently.

That's something people keep saying, like it's a royal death or religious miracle. Being called Ferrari's number one driver means being the man carrying Maranello's hopes as the future of the team. It also means his phone won't stop buzzing with congratulations from people who, six months ago, couldn't have picked him out of a lineup.

Donghyuck would like the record to show that said 'future' is currently wearing trousers so tight he's one poorly timed inhale away from becoming breaking –or tearing– news.

"You look angry," Matteo says beside him, low enough that the nearest Sky Italia microphone probably misses it.

Donghyuck keeps smiling at the row of photographers in front of them. His cheeks hurt. "I'm not."

"You've been staring at that man like you want to reverse a car over him."

"That's not anger," Donghyuck says. "That's strategy."

Matteo squeaks, then remembers where he is and presses his mouth flat. He's good at that – containing himself, not taking up too much space. It makes Donghyuck want to shake him a little.

He stands half a step to Donghyuck's left, dressed in the same black suit and red pin at the lapel, looking like Ferrari's PR department designed him in a lab for maximum Italian marketability. He's twenty-one, from Bologna, technically a rookie, and has spent the last three weeks being introduced as Ferrari's "exciting new chapter".

He knows, obviously. Everyone knows.

Jeno Lee was supposed to stand where Matteo is standing. He was supposed to lift the sheet off the car with Donghyuck and answer sixteen versions of the same question about whether two drivers could put aside their personal bullshit for the glory of Ferrari.

Not that Donghyuck is thinking about that.

He tries to focus on how his left shoe is pinching and how the journalist from Autosport has been making direct eye contact with him for ten minutes.

"Your tie," Donghyuck mutters.

Matteo glances down. "What?"

"It's crooked."

"Now?"

"No, Matt, I thought I'd mention it for fun in the middle of unveiling," Donghyuck snorts. "Obviously now."

Matteo's eyebrows jump, but he turns just enough for Donghyuck to reach up and fix it. It's an absurdly intimate gesture for two people who met properly less than a month ago, especially with fifty cameras pointed in their direction, but the alternative is letting Ferrari's new golden Italian boy go viral because he looks like he was attacked by a pigeon.

Donghyuck smooths the knot into place with two quick fingers.

"There," he says. "Now you look like you hate joy."

Matteo's mouth twitches. "Grazie."

"Don't thank me." Donghyuck shrugs. "I'm saving myself from being tagged in edits."

"You watch edits?"

"What else am I supposed to do in my free time? Sleep?"

This time, Matteo does laugh. It slips out before he can stop it, small and startled, and Donghyuck feels an unreasonable flash of victory. One rookie, successfully defused. He should get a badge.

He has been with Ferrari for three seasons now, long enough to understand that wearing red does something deranged to people. At any other team, a bad quali¹ session is disappointing, but at Ferrari, it's treated like a national tragedy. And is then dissected by men like William Dunner on British television until everyone involved wants to fake their own death and start a vineyard.

Donghyuck has genuinely considered the vineyard. He thinks about it more than he'd admit under oath.

A PR assistant with a headset approaches them from the side of the stage. "Two minutes," she whispers. "After the reveal, you'll take photos with the car, then the media pen². Keep answers positive, please."

Donghyuck nods solemnly. "So no blood oaths?"

The assistant blinks and Matteo coughs into his fist.

"I'm joking," Donghyuck says. "Positive. Got it."

The assistant looks at him like she doesn't believe him, not even a little. She's such a smart woman, Donghyuck thinks.

The host walks out onto the stage with a bright smile and enough enthusiasm to power a small city. The crowd's chatter lowers and Donghyuck straightens automatically. He knows the game – after all, he has been photographed since he was sixteen, back when his face was rounder and every article called him "promising" with an underlying "wait until he crashes" tune.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Maranello."

The host says many things. Passion, innovation, relentless pursuit of a better era. Donghyuck half-listens and lets his eyes move across the room, spotting the media pen set up beyond the main floor.

They'll for sure dress the questions up and make them professional. They will make them about chemistry and team cohesion. They'll say Jeno's name like they aren't trying to slide a knife under his ribs on live television.

Donghyuck has answered questions about Jeno for half his life.

At fifteen, it was: are you two friends? Back then, Donghyuck would shrug and say something about how everyone in karting³ knew everyone else. He remembers Jeno, standing a few meters away, pretending not to listen and very obviously listening anyway.

Now, at twenty-four, wearing a Ferrari pin under red light in Maranello, it is apparently: how does it feel to be left standing next to someone else?

Fine, Donghyuck thinks. It feels fucking fine.

The host turns toward them. "And now, please welcome the drivers who will lead Scuderia Ferrari into the new season. Donghyuck Lee and Matteo Rinaldi."

Applause swells and Donghyuck steps forward.

The lights hit harder from the front. For half a second, he sees nothing but white-hot red and the dark shapes of people rising to their feet. Beside him, Matteo moves a fraction too late, but it's only obvious to Donghyuck because he notices everything when he's annoyed.

They reach the covered car. Up close, the satin sheet looks ridiculous. Seductive, almost, like the car is a bride and they're all about to marry it.

Donghyuck takes one side. Matteo takes the other.

"You okay?" Donghyuck asks, barely moving his mouth.

Matteo's smile stays fixed. "Absolutely."

"Liar."

"I'm so fucking terrified," Matteo says through his teeth.

The host counts them down – three, two, one. They pull and the sheet slides away in a rush of red fabric, and the car appears beneath the lights.

For a second, Donghyuck forgets to be irritated.

The new Ferrari sits low and sharp, sculpted from carbon and blood red, sponsor logos gleaming under the heat of the lights. There's a thin strip of white along the engine cover, a nod to something historical Donghyuck will pretend to understand when asked.

It's beautiful.

Every year, he tells himself not to fall for it, but then he sees the car for the first time and becomes the dumbest man alive. Hope is embarrassing – it's for rookies and fans who haven't had strategy ruin their Sunday in front of a global audience.

But still… The car looks fast. God help him, he wants it to be fast. He wants it so badly it's almost humiliating.

The applause grows louder. Matteo is staring at the car with his mouth slightly open, and Donghyuck has the sudden realisation that this is his first time. Not his first car launch, technically, but first one while standing in Maranello, under this particular weight.

Donghyuck nudges him gently with an elbow. Matteo blinks and closes his mouth.

"Shit."

"Yeah," Donghyuck says. "That's the usual reaction."

"It's–" Matteo exhales a laugh, almost helpless. "It's very red."

Donghyuck looks at the car, then at the walls, then down at his own suit pin. "They'll love you in debrief, genius."

Matteo grins, and this one is real enough that a camera catches it. Donghyuck sees the flash and knows before it even happens that some fan account will have the screenshot posted within thirty seconds with a caption like 'matteo making hyuck smile already 🥺.'

He will mute his own name by dinner.

They pose with the car. First standing on either side, then together in front of the nose, then with the team principal. The old champions come up one by one to shake their hands, and one of them grips Donghyuck by the shoulder and tells him in Italian that Ferrari requires sacrifice.

Donghyuck smiles and says, "Of course."

What he thinks it, Great, because I was worried the blood altar was just decorative.

Matteo receives the same speech with the pale, serious expression of a Catholic schoolboy being told God can see his browser history.

When they finally move toward the media pen, Donghyuck feels the shift in the atmosphere. He rolls his shoulders back and does the thing he's done since he was sixteen – takes whatever he's actually feeling, folds it up small, and puts it somewhere the cameras can't reach.

He's gotten disgustingly good at it. That's not a compliment, no matter how it sounds.

"How does the car feel in the simulator?"

"Promising," Donghyuck says. "Obviously, we won't know where we stand until testing, but the feeling has been positive. The team has worked incredibly hard over the winter."

Another microphone nudges forward. "Have you noticed any major differences in the car philosophy compared to last year?"

Donghyuck nods loosely, as if he hasn't spent half his winter arguing with engineers about corner entry balance. "There are always evolutions. The team has been very aggressive with development. It's about finding consistency across different conditions, and I think we've made steps in that direction."

Translation: We will find out in Bahrain whether this is a masterpiece or an absolute piece of shit.

Matteo gets a question about joining Ferrari as an Italian driver, which is basically someone handing him a violin and asking him to bleed patriotism into it.

"It's a dream," Matteo says. His English is careful, but accented, and it makes the Italian journalists look ready to adopt him. "I grew up watching this team. My father watched it, and my grandfather even had worked for the team in Lauda's⁴ days. So to be here, in Maranello, it's… Difficult to explain. But I also know it's work and I'm here to learn and to help the team.

Good, Donghyuck thinks, pleasantly surprised. The childhood dreams really sell the rookie image.

Another journalist jumps in before the moment can settle. "Matteo, how has your integration with the team been so far? Have you had enough time in the simulator with Donghyuck?"

Matteo nods. "Yes, we have worked together already. The team has been very welcoming. There's a lot to learn, but I feel comfortable asking questions. Donghyuck has been–" he glances sideways briefly, "–helpful."

Donghyuck raises his eyebrows. "I'm being praised in public? This is new."

A few chuckles ripple through the pen.

"It's true," Matteo insists, a little more confident now. "He tells me when I'm wrong."

"I tell everyone when they're wrong," Donghyuck says. "It's a public service."

"Very generous," Matteo replies.

The exchange earns another round of laughter, and Donghyuck can practically hear Ferrari's social media team foaming at the mouth somewhere behind the barricades.

Then the Autosport journalist gets his turn.

"Donghyuck," he begins. "There was obviously a lot of expectation around Jeno Lee continuing with Ferrari this season. Many people saw your partnership as one of the strongest on the grid⁵. Can you talk about your reaction when he chose to move to Mercedes?"

There it is.

Not even ten minutes.

Donghyuck keeps his face open, but he can feel Matteo still beside him.

"My focus is on the lineup we have," he says. "Matteo is here because the team believes he deserves to be here. He's been very strong in Formula 2⁶, and I'm excited to work with him."

"Yes, but emotionally," the journalist presses, because apparently dignity died over the winter break. "Given your history with Jeno, was there disappointment?"

Donghyuck smiles, but it's forced and sour. He wants, badly, to say: yes, you absolute vulture, it fucking devastated me, are you happy now, can I go home.

"I think in Formula 1, drivers make decisions for their careers," he says. "Jeno made his. I respect that. But I'm here with Ferrari, and that's where my focus is."

Someone coughs and the journalist's smile tightens. "So, no frustration?"

"Within the team, we're focused on performance," Donghyuck says. "Jeno is a great driver, everybody knows that. But Matteo is my teammate. He's sitting right here, which is convenient, because it means we can ask questions about him, too."

A few eyebrows lift. The PR assistant at the edge of the pen has entered a state of spiritual crisis.

The next journalist, bless her entire bloodline, turns to Matteo. "Matteo, do you feel extra pressure knowing there was so much public discussion before your announcement?"

Matteo takes a breath. The practised softness flees from his face, leaving only steel in its wake.

"Yes," he says. "Of course. I read things. I have a phone, unfortunately."

Donghyuck snorts before he can stop himself.

Matteo's mouth twitches. "I know I wasn't the first name people imagined. I know there were other plans, maybe bigger names, shifted from inside the grid. But if you wait for the perfect way to arrive, you never do. I have the seat now, so I will drive."

The journalist nods. "And have you spoken with Jeno?"

Donghyuck nearly laughs. Jesus Christ. They are obsessed. Someone should check on them.

Matteo glances at him quickly, then back. "No. I don't know him well."

"Would you want his advice?"

This time, Matteo smiles widely. "I think I will ask Donghyuck first."

The microphones tilt toward Donghyuck like flowers toward the sun. Assholes.

"Matteo's very smart," Donghyuck says. "Clearly learning how to create problems for me."

Matteo shrugs. "I learn from the best."

There are laughs now, and the pressure in the pen loosens by a degree. Donghyuck hates that it works, because it means Ferrari PR will absolutely clip this, add subtitles, and post it with a caption about chemistry before they've even left the building.

🏎️. ܁₊ ⊹ . ܁˖ .

The schedule for the day had landed in Donghyuck's inbox at 6:12 a.m. with a cheerfully corporate subject line that made him consider throwing his phone into the sink. At the bottom, in bold, there was a reminder to dress comfortably.

Donghyuck stared at that for a full minute while holding a piece of toast in his mouth, because "dress comfortably" at Ferrari meant anything from a red polo to a blazer expensive enough to qualify as a bribe.

While he had compromised with black trousers, a white t-shirt, and the team jacket, Matteo had shown up in the full red team kit like an obedient child on the first day of school. Donghyuck had made fun of him for six consecutive minutes, then fixed his collar because he was beginning to suspect Matteo might be hopeless without supervision.

Now he's down the hall doing his own integration session with his race engineer, looking nervous in that rookie way that makes Donghyuck feel ancient despite being twenty-four.

Meanwhile, Donghyuck has been instructed to meet properly with his new race engineer⁷.

New. Another fun word.

His previous engineer had been with him for three seasons. Andrea had been red-faced, deeply Italian, and always two seconds away from calling someone's mother a string of profanities in at least two languages, one of which Donghyuck was fairly sure Andrea had invented on the spot out of pure rage.

He and Donghyuck had fought constantly – Andrea had yelled at him over tyre management, Donghyuck had yelled back over entry speed. Once, in Hungary, Andrea had gone so far off-script over the radio that the broadcast had to bleep four consecutive words, and Ferrari's press office had spent an entire evening pretending it was a translation error.

Donghyuck had trusted him completely – he's heard him at his absolute worst over a radio channel and simply never mentioned it again.

Then Andrea moved into a senior performance role over the winter, because people in Scuderia are allowed to abandon him professionally as long as they use words like 'long-term technical direction.'

Donghyuck had congratulated him, obviously. He was not a monster, but the result was that Donghyuck now had to sit in a private room with someone new and pretend he was not evaluating them like a bomb disposal robot deciding whether to cut the red wire.

There's a round table instead of the usual rectangular intimidation slab. Two coffees sit near the centre, one black and one with milk. A screen on the far wall displays his name, his car number, a glorious 66 he picked up, and a neat set of performance folders organised so cleanly that Donghyuck might start feeling judged.

And standing by the screen is his new race engineer.

He's smaller than Donghyuck expected. He has a narrow face, neat dark hair parted softly away from his forehead, and eyes that move once over Donghyuck with the speed of a scanner at airport security.

He's also dressed like he accidentally wandered in from a gallery opening. Everyone else in this building looks like they've been dipped in Ferrari red and released into the wild. This guy, meanwhile, is wearing a cream knit, slim black trousers, and polished loafers that look like they've never once stepped in a puddle outside a hospitality unit in Spa.

There's no visible team branding except a small Ferrari pass clipped neatly to his belt.

Donghyuck's first thought? Oh, thank God, he's not one of them.

His second, though…

Wait, is he allowed to be this pretty at work?

"Hi," the guy says and his voice is softer than Donghyuck expects.

He closes the door behind him and leans against it for half a second longer than necessary, taking him in properly. "Hi. Am I in the right room?"

That's so stupid, but if he doesn't say something, he's going to keep staring, and that would be embarrassing for everyone involved.

"You are," the guy says. "Driver-engineer integration session."

"Great. Love that for me." Donghyuck pushes off the door and walks further in, glancing at the table. "So you're–"

"My name is Renjun," he says, stepping forward slightly and offering his hand. "I'll be your race engineer this season."

Oh, right. That makes sense.

Donghyuck takes his hand, grip firm out of habit, and tries not to look like he's recalibrating several expectations at once. "Donghyuck."

"I know." Renjun's mouth curves slightly as he gestures toward the table. "Please. Sit."

Donghyuck drops into the chair opposite him, immediately reaching for the black coffee. Everyone in this God-forsaken building knows he can't handle milk well.

"You're not wearing red," he says.

Renjun glances down at himself like he's genuinely checking his outfit. "I noticed."

"That's borderline treasonous." Donghyuck gestures at him with his coffee cup. "They let you past security like that, or did you have to sneak in through a ventilation shaft?"

"It was certainly tighter than I expected it to be," Renjun says with a smile, and doesn't so much smile as allow one to happen to his face like he's rationing it.

Donghyuck huffs a quiet laugh before he can stop himself. That's… Annoying.

He takes another sip of coffee, eyes narrowing slightly as he studies Renjun over the rim. "You've been here long?"

"Long enough," Renjun replies, settling into his chair across from him. He opens his folder with a quick flick of his wrist. "I've worked with the simulator group and performance team before this."

"So you've seen my worst moments already," Donghyuck says, leaning back like he's bracing for judgment but also daring it to come.

"I've seen your data," Renjun corrects, not missing a beat.

Donghyuck grimaces faintly. "That's worse."

"Sometimes," Renjun agrees, flipping a page with his dainty fingers.

Donghyuck watches him for a moment longer, trying so hard to figure out where the cracks are. "You don't seem nervous."

Renjun looks up from his notes. "Should I be?"

"Most people are," Donghyuck says, tilting his head slightly. "New driver, new role, Ferrari breathing down your neck."

"Most people aren't getting paid to tell you that you're wrong most of the time," Renjun says evenly. "I prefer to focus on that."

Donghyuck raises an eyebrow and smiles. "Interesting."

Renjun doesn't rise to it. There's just the faintest flicker in his eyes, like he's noting it down somewhere in his head, filing it away for later use. "I've reviewed your previous sessions," he says instead, tapping the folder with his pen. "Your feedback is very clear when you're given space to give it."

"Space," Donghyuck repeats, dragging the word out just enough to make it sound like an accusation.

Renjun doesn't even blink. "Yes."

"Interesting," Donghyuck says again, because he enjoys being irritating and because Renjun's face, so far, is giving him absolutely nothing. "And here I thought engineers preferred filling every available silence with numbers, warnings, and deeply unhelpful suggestions."

"That depends on the engineer," Renjun says. "It also depends on the driver. Some of you need reassurance and some need constant references when they're focused on pace."

"And me?"

Renjun finally looks up properly. His eyes are dark and steady, almost too direct for someone who has been in a room with Donghyuck for less than ten minutes. "You need me to shut up until the information is useful."

Donghyuck stares at him, dumbfounded.

The laugh comes out before he can stop it, sharp enough to bounce off the glass wall behind Renjun. Donghyuck covers it badly by reaching for his coffee. Apparently, he has now become a man who laughs at his new race engineer's jokes, which is humiliating. And Renjun doesn't even look smug – he just watches him with knowing stillness, like Donghyuck's reaction confirms something he has already written down in his little mental notebook.

Renjun turns the folder toward Donghyuck, revealing a printed sheet with session notes from the previous season, arranged by track, condition, and what appears to be Donghyuck's emotional damage in spreadsheet form.

Incredible. Men used to go to war. Now they colour-code your oversteer complaints.

"You're very consistent in what you feel," Renjun says, tapping one section with his pen. "If the rear feels unstable on entry, you mention it right away, but your first descriptions are usually emotional. After two or three laps, you become more mechanical."

Donghyuck glances at the notes, then back at him. "To be fair, sometimes the car is trying to kill me."

"It is a fifteen-hundred-horsepower death box going 300 kilometres per hour, so I'm not going to bullshit you and pretend it isn't trying, occasionally."

"Good. Very open-minded of you."

"But if I know the pattern," Renjun continues, unbothered, "I don't need to ask you five follow-up questions while you're still angry. I can wait until you've separated from that."

Donghyuck hates how much sense that makes. He hates it enough that he has to look away for a second, toward the screen where his name sits above a list of files. "My last engineer didn't wait," he says eventually. "Andrea would just start yelling back."

Renjun nods, but it doesn't seem like he's surprised or even judging Andrea. "I know."

Donghyuck raises an eyebrow. "You reviewed those, too?"

"The radio?"

"Yeah."

"Yes."

Donghyuck groans and tips his head back against the chair. "Fantastic. My entire career is a podcast now."

"Some of it was very educational."

"Educational how? Like, 'here's what not to do', or educational like, 'this man should not be legally allowed near a headset'?"

"Both," Renjun says. "In roughly equal measure."

Donghyuck lets out a short laugh, leaning forward again as if pulled back into the conversation by sheer disbelief. He taps the edge of the table with two fingers, restless energy bleeding through the gesture. "Andrea was being a goblin most of the time."

Renjun's pen pauses mid-note. The corner of his mouth lifts, restrained but unmistakable. "I'm not saying he wasn't."

Donghyuck catches it and pounces on it, pointing at Renjun. "See, now we're building trust."

"I wouldn't go that far," Renjun huffs.

"Fine." Donghyuck folds his arm. "Mutual professional tolerance?"

"That's closer."

The smile on his face stays, changing the shape of his face a bit. It softens him without making him any less sharp. Donghyuck has known Renjun for approximately nine and a half minutes and already understands that he's going to be a problem.

He's competent, pretty, and apparently immune to Donghyuck's usual methods of psychological warfare.

Renjun turns another page. "I'm not Andrea," he says.

"I noticed." Donghyuck shakes his head. "He wore more red."

"And had terrible handwriting."

"You know, I thought that was just an Italian thing."

"It's not. It was a personal problem," Renjun says and closes the file. "I'm not going to try to copy him. That would waste both our time. You already know what worked with him, and some of that will transfer, but not all of it. We'll have to build our own language."

"Our own language," Donghyuck repeats. "That sounds romantic. Should I be concerned?"

Renjun gives him a look. "You're very dramatic."

"Well, after all, I drive for Ferrari."

"Noted," Renjun says, and actually writes something down in his notebook. "You'll survive."

Donghyuck, regrettably, is having a good time.

It sneaks up on him in the most offensive way possible – he came into this room prepared to be evaluated, managed, and gently intimidated by someone with a headset. He was ready to perform himself at the right volume; confident enough to remind Renjun who was driving the car, but cooperative enough that nobody could accuse him of being difficult before testing had even started.

Instead, Renjun is sitting across from him, calmly insulting Andrea's handwriting and somehow throwing jokes that Donghyuck starts to understand.

This, Donghyuck thinks, might be love. A normal amount of professional love for a man who can read telemetry and has cheekbones. Whatever. People have built worse workplace dynamics on less.

"How did you get here?" Donghyuck asks out of pure curiosity.

"It wasn't a straight line like some," Renjun glances down at the folder before looking back up. "I studied mechanical engineering at Tsinghua, then did my master's at Jiao Tong in vehicle dynamics and control systems. After that, I spent some time at Shanghai International Circuit, mostly on track systems and data analysis for testing programs."

Donghyuck hums, genuinely interested now despite his best efforts. "And then Ferrari?"

"A few junior programs first," Renjun says. "Some GT work. Then, Ferrari's simulator group, and then performance engineering. I've worked with development drivers and occasionally men who think volume is a substitute for being correct."

"That last one sounds familiar."

"It's an industry-wide issue." Renjun smiles politely. "The point is, I've worked in enough environments to know there isn't one correct way to communicate with a driver. I won't need you to be polite in the car or protect my feelings. I do need you to be clear, especially when something changes fast."

Donghyuck nods. "Clear. I can do that."

Renjun's lips twitch again. "We'll see."

He closes the folder and starts gathering his things like he has other places to be, which Donghyuck finds mildly insulting.

"That's it?" he says. "No parting wisdom? No inspirational quote about teamwork?"

"I'm saving it for when you actually need it," Renjun says, standing up. "You'll know." He pauses at the door, hand on the handle, and glances back. "Bahrain in three weeks. Try to sleep before then. Your reaction times get sloppy when you don't."

"You already have a read on my sleep schedule?"

"It's the job."

Then he's gone, and the door clicks shut, leaving Donghyuck alone at the round table with a cold coffee and the distinct, deeply unwelcome feeling that he has just lost an argument he didn't know he was having.

He's going to be a problem, Donghyuck thinks. A gorgeous, competent, completely infuriating problem, with cheekbones and a folder full of Donghyuck's worst moments and absolutely zero interest in flattering him about any of it.

Fantastic. Fucking fantastic.

🏎️. ܁₊ ⊹ . ܁˖ .

The first time Donghyuck hears Renjun through the radio, he nearly misses his braking point.

He stands beside the cockpit⁸ in his fireproofs, helmet tucked under one arm, watching a mechanic finish checking the headrest. His race suit is half-zipped, sleeves tied around his waist because someone turned the garage heating up too high, and his hair is already sweaty near his forehead.

Across the garage, Matteo is leaning over a laptop with his own engineer, nodding so seriously that Donghyuck briefly considers walking over and kicking him in the ass.

Renjun, meanwhile, is at the engineering station, headset already on, one hand resting near his keyboard as he speaks quietly to a performance analyst beside him. He's wearing a team kit today, technically, but it's just a black Ferrari softshell over a dark shirt.

Some people, when they wear a team uniform, disappear into the machinery of the garage. But Renjun could be dressed in a fireproof potato sack, and Donghyuck would still have to suffer the knowledge that his cheekbones are doing measurable damage to workplace efficiency.

Renjun glances up then, like he can sense Donghyuck's bullshit from twenty meters away, and Donghyuck immediately looks at the car.

A mechanic touches his shoulder. "Ready when you are."

"Beautiful," Donghyuck says, pulling his balaclava around his neck. "Love being delivered to the machine like a sacrificial lamb."

The mechanic, who has worked with him long enough to ignore ninety percent of what comes out of his mouth, only pats the cockpit rim. "Try not to scare the newbie."

Donghyuck looks over at Renjun again, and Renjun is already looking back.

This time, Donghyuck doesn't look away. He lifts his eyebrows instead, because if Renjun wants to observe him, Donghyuck can absolutely be annoying about being observed. Renjun's expression doesn't change much, but there's a tiny curve at the corner of his mouth before he turns back to the monitors.

Awful.

Donghyuck climbs into the car.

That's always the part people don't understand from the outside. They see speed, noise, spectacle, but they don't see how intimate it is once you're inside. The cockpit holds him tight around his hips and shoulders, hands fitting naturally around the wheel.

Mechanics lean over him to fasten the belts, tugging them hard until the suit compresses against his ribs. The headrest locks in. He clicks the steering wheel into place and runs through the familiar switches with his fingers, waking the display alive.

Someone lowers his helmet onto his head and Donghyuck pulls it on, letting the sound of the garage dull at once. The world goes padded at the edges and his own breathing grows louder.

A voice crackles in his ear.

"Radio check, Donghyuck."

It's Renjun, filtered through the headset and thinned slightly by static, but Donghyuck's fingers tighten on the wheel anyway. It's so– Soft?

Oh, he thinks, with sudden irritation. That's going to be a problem.

Out loud, because unfortunately the microphone is live and he has never once processed a feeling privately when he could make it someone else's issue, he says, "Say something mean so I know it's you."

There's half a second of silence and then Renjun says, perfectly even, "Your brake release in the final sector yesterday was inconsistent."

One mechanic laughs so hard he has to turn away from the cockpit.

Donghyuck grins inside his helmet. "Radio good."

"Copy. Radio good," Renjun replies, and Donghyuck can hear the almost-smile tucked into the words.

They fire the car and the engine comes alive beneath him, the whole chassis⁹ trembling. It's like a complex animal waking up with every engineer in the building staring at its pulse. Donghyuck feels it through his spine, his ribs, and his hands. Heat begins to gather around him and the steering wheel display brightens.

Renjun's voice returns, steady through the buzz. "We'll start with an install. Out-lap, systems check, no push. Brake warm-up as instructed, weave only on the straights. Target mode is Strat five, torque three. Confirm."

Donghyuck closes his visor. "Confirmed. Strat five, torque three, be boring."

"Correct," Renjun says. "For one lap, at least."

"Wow. First day on the job and you're already trying to change me?"

"Only temporarily."

The jack drops¹⁰ and Donghyuck eases the clutch. The car bites and rolls out of the garage into the pale morning.

The tyres are still waking up, so he keeps the car slow down the pit lane¹¹, noticing the mechanics and engineers sliding past in his peripheral vision. At the exit, the track opens in front of him, empty and clean, asphalt dark against the late-winter grass.

He crosses the line and lets the car breathe.

The rear sits tighter than last year's car on initial throttle, though he doesn't trust that yet. Cars like to lie on cold tyres and in testing. Donghyuck warms the brakes, moves the car gently, and weaves down the straight because he has been told to behave.

"Brake temps coming up," Renjun says. "Fronts a little slower than expected. Add one more warm-up before turn four."

No extra words or commentary. Not even a gentle encouragement. Just information, placed neatly in the exact spot Donghyuck needs it.

He takes the next few corners carefully, building temperature, listening to the car talk in its first language – grip and resistance. The rear shifts slightly on entry into the slow section.

"Initial balance?" Renjun asks after a stretch of silence long enough that Donghyuck notices it.

Donghyuck exhales, eyes already scanning the next braking board. "Entry is cleaner than sim. The rear is moving a bit. Mid-corner okay. Traction is a bit guarded."

"Guarded?" Renjun repeats.

"Like it wants to give me grip but doesn't trust me."

"Understood," Renjun says, and the fact that he says it like Donghyuck has provided a perfectly normal engineering assessment makes Donghyuck's mouth twitch. "We'll review the traction map after this run. Keep current settings."

"Copy."

He finishes the install lap and comes back through the pit lane for checks. Mechanics swarm the car at once and Donghyuck sits still in the cockpit while they inspect everything, gloved fingers resting loosely on the wheel.

Renjun's voice comes through again. "Everything looks clean so far. We'll send you out for a five-lap baseline run. Build lap, then three timed, then cool. No full quali mode."

Donghyuck makes a face. "You hate joy, Huang."

"I like having the car intact before Bahrain."

Donghyuck huffs a laugh, and one of the mechanics near his front-left tyre looks up with a grin. Great, wonderful. Now the garage is witnessing him enjoying himself.

The car drops again, and this time, when he rolls out, something in him settles faster. He brings the tyres in, lets the brakes bite harder, and pushes the throttle a little earlier on exit to see how the rear answers.

"Mode push available after turn eight," Renjun says as Donghyuck exits the slower section. "Gap clear. Use the next lap."

Donghyuck's thumb moves. "Copy."

The car comes alive under him and the world tightens to its most honest shape. The engine note rises, the gears snapping through his hands – there's no room for headlines here, no Jeno questions. No one asking if he feels abandoned while pretending they mean car development.

Just the thin thread of Renjun's voice in his ear, arriving exactly when needed.

"Wind picking up slightly into turn one. Expect front light on entry."

"Shit–" Donghyuck starts, but he's already correcting before the word finishes leaving his mouth. The front does go light, just as Renjun warned, but it doesn't catch him. He makes the apex cleanly.

"Good," Renjun says.

He attacks the next sector harder, partly because the car is asking for it and partly because some treacherous little part of him wants to hear the praise again. He's not proud of this; seeking praise from a man he met properly last week is not his finest adult development.

In his defence, the praise is efficient and data-backed, which makes it a technical tool.

"Rear temp stable," Renjun says. "You can lean on traction more out of six."

Donghyuck does, and the car holds. A sharp laugh escapes him before he can stop it. "Oh, she has manners."

"More than you," Renjun replies, so dry that Donghyuck nearly misses it under the engine noise.

Donghyuck grins behind the visor. "Careful. That sounded like personality."

By the third timed lap, he realises his shoulders have dropped. He's still ready to correct whatever the car decides to throw at him, but the usual tension at the base of his neck has eased. Suddenly, for the first time since his rookie year, he's not waiting for the radio to annoy him.

He's not bracing for a voice to start yelling the second something goes slightly wrong. He didn't even realise how much room that bracing had been taking up until it wasn't there anymore.

Oh, that's fucked. That's so fucked.

"Last push lap," Renjun says. "You have margin in sector two. Don't overdrive entry seven. Let the car finish rotating."

The lap is cleaner. He can feel it before the dash confirms anything – less correction, better traction, a smoother exit onto the short straight. It's not the fastest he can go, but it gives him that small, electric thread of possibility again.

He crosses the line.

Renjun doesn't speak for a moment, and Donghyuck appreciates that, too. He lets him complete the sequence, cool the tyres, and bring the car down from push mode.

"That was clean."

"Don't sound so surprised," Donghyuck huffs.

"I'm not," Renjun replies. "I'm confirming."

"Very sexy of you."

Silence. Donghyuck's soul quickly exits his body with a back door as the delayed realisation hits him – perhaps saying 'very sexy of you' to your race engineer over an open team radio during a private test is not, in fact, best practice.

Then Renjun calmly says, "Box this lap."¹²

Not even the decency of a reaction, which is somehow worse than if he'd laughed.

Donghyuck brings the car in, trying very hard not to think about the fact that Matteo will absolutely hear about this within three minutes and become intolerable for the rest of the day. Mechanics guide him into the box and the engine cuts.

For a moment, Donghyuck just sits there, feeling his heart running a lap ahead of him. Around the car, the team moves, pushing fans toward the sidepods and getting the tyre blankets ready.

Someone lifts his visor and the cool air slips in and touches the sweat at his temple.

Renjun appears beside the cockpit with a headset around his neck and a tablet in one hand. He rests the other on the halo¹³, leaning in just enough to be heard over the garage noise. "Initial comments before we download?"

Donghyuck looks at him.

This is the part where he should say something normal. Stable entry, improving traction… Useful driver words that won't make anyone in the garage pretend to cough into their sleeve.

Instead, because he's committed to ruining his own life in small increments, he says, "Your radio voice is weirdly calming."

Renjun's face flushes with surprise. "Weirdly?" he asks.

Donghyuck exhales a laugh, grateful for the escape hatch. "Don't get greedy."

"I'm just clarifying the feedback," Renjun shrugs. "If it helps, I need to know."

Donghyuck's fingers flex against the steering wheel. He could make another joke; there are mechanics within earshot and somewhere behind Renjun's shoulder, Matteo is emerging from his side of the garage.

"It helps," he says, against his better judgment. "You don't crowd me."

Renjun nods once, slow and serious, like Donghyuck has handed him useful information instead of embarrassing himself. "Good. I'll keep the same rhythm for the next run."

Before Donghyuck can answer, Matteo appears behind Renjun, helmet still on but visor lifted, eyes bright with joy. "I heard someone say 'sexy' on the radio."

Donghyuck turns his head slowly. "Did you now."

Matteo's grin is visible even behind the helmet padding. "I'm not saying who."

"You want to drive this afternoon, Rinaldi?"

"I heard nothing," Matteo says immediately, then looks at Renjun. "But congratulations."

Renjun's eyebrows lift. "On?"

"Your voice, apparently."

Donghyuck tries to climb out of the car through sheer force of rage, which is difficult with six-point harnesses and a halo. "I will end you."

"You're still strapped in," Matteo says helpfully. "So not right now."

"Someone unclip me. I have a rookie to commit several crimes against."

A mechanic, wisely, doesn't move.

Renjun, the traitor he is, looks down at his tablet to hide what is very obviously a smile, but Donghyuck sees it anyway.

"Something funny, Huang?"

"Nothing," Renjun says, not looking up. "Reviewing data."

[sakhir, bahrain]
bahrain international circuit

God has favorites and in Bahrain none of them are Formula 1 drivers.

The paddock¹⁴ bakes under a white, pitiless sun that turns every surface into either a mirror or a frying pan. The garage smells like hot rubber and electrolyte drinks spilt by engineers who pretend three days of testing is enough to understand a car built by hundreds of people over several months.

He's on the scales in the medical unit, in his underwear, glaring at Luca like the number on the screen is a personal insult invented by him.

"You've lost mobility in your left hip," Luca says, unbothered, marking something on his tablet. "We're doing extra work before you get in the car."

"I don't have a left hip. I have a suggestion of a hip. It's fine." Donghyuck rolls his eyes.

"Sit on the floor."

"I just showered."

"Sit on the floor, Donghyuck."

This is the great tragedy of his career – not the trophies he hasn't won yet, not the questions about Jeno, but the fact that a physiotherapist half his size can make him do anything with five words and the correct tone.

By the time he's stretched, weighed, hydrated, and poured into his fireproofs, it's nearly eight.

Matteo intercepts him on the way to the wall, already halfway into his own suit, sleeves hanging loose around his hips. "Good morning," he says, entirely too cheerful for the hour. "I ran forty laps in the sim last night. My engineer says I should sleep more."

"Your engineer is correct. Imagine how stupid you are when I have to tell you that."

"I don't know how to turn my brain off," Matteo says, like he's self-diagnosing himself. "It keeps doing corners."

"That's called 'being twenty-one and insane'. Welcome." Donghyuck claps him once on the shoulder, hard enough to be affectionate but not to dislodge anything important. "Drink some water. You'll live longer."

"You're the one to talk."

"I'm not doing corners in my sleep. I have better things to do." He doesn't elaborate and Matteo, mercifully, doesn't ask.

Renjun is already at the wall when Donghyuck walks past, headset on. There's a coffee cup near his elbow that's clearly been cold for over an hour, and a second one already lined up behind it like a spare tyre.

"You look like a war crime," Donghyuck says, pausing behind him.

"Thank you," Renjun says, not looking up. "Radio check when you're strapped in."

"So bossy this early."

"I've been awake since four."

"Voluntarily?"

"The sim correlation data doesn't run itself," Renjun finally glances at him, and there are the faint beginnings of shadows under his eyes that make Donghyuck feel, uncomfortably, like offering him another coffee. "Get in the car."

The first run is meant to be simple – install lap, aero rake positions, no push. Donghyuck has done a myriad of these at this point. He could do it in his sleep, which is exactly the energy he brings to it.

"Radio check," Renjun says, the moment the car fires.

Donghyuck lets four full seconds pass before he answers. "Sorry, was busy."

"Doing what?" Renjun mutters.

"Living my life. Some of us have hobbies outside of you."

"Radio check," Renjun repeats in the exact same tone, like Donghyuck hadn't said anything at all.

"Loud and clear, unfortunately," Donghyuck says and eases the car out of the box.

Testing week always does something to him – the boredom, the heat, the endless white noise of aero numbers turning even mildly interesting information into a fight against his own attention span.

He needs something to push against.

Andrea used to give him that for free, mostly by being furious about everything within a ten-meter radius. Renjun doesn't do him the favour of being anything about anything.

"Full rake run, Strat four," Renjun says. "Lift at the hundred board into turn one. I want the brake temps building slowly."

"Copy," Donghuck says, and lifts at the fifty board instead, because apparently he's twelve years old.

The brakes bite harder than expected, front locking for a fraction of a second before he catches it, and for exactly one and a half seconds, Donghyuck thinks: well, that was stupid, and also, worth it.

Renjun doesn't raise his voice. "You lifted late."

"It was perfectly on time."

"You lifted forty meters late, which means you're carrying more heat into turn one than the run plan wants, which means the data from that lap is compromised, which means we do it again." A beat. "Lift at the hundred board."

"You're not even going to yell at me?"

"Would that make you lift earlier?"

Donghyuck opens his mouth, then closes it, because… No. It would not.

"Thought so," Renjun says, no smugness in it whatsoever, which is somehow the single most irritating thing about him. "Again. Hundred board."

Somewhere around lap four, Donghyuck decides the differential setting Renjun's called for is too conservative for his taste and quietly nudges it two clicks tighter on the steering wheel dial without saying anything.

"You changed the diff," Renjun says, before Donghyuck has even finished the corner that supposedly gave him away.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Donghyuck smiles.

"The car's rotation just changed by an amount that isn't consistent with tyre temperature or physics as I currently understand them," Renjun sighs. "Put it back."

"What if I like it better that way?"

"Then tell me that, and we log it as a deliberate change instead of a mystery I have to explain to Vittorio in a meeting neither of us wants to have. Put it back, Donghyuck."

He puts it back, but does it again a few laps later. He's testing the edges of things that have nothing to do with brake temperatures – how long Renjun will let a silence sit before repeating himself, and whether ignoring an instruction outright gets him anything more than a flat restatement of the same instruction.

Every single time, Renjun says it again, exactly the same, like a man with an infinite supply of absolutely no interest in Donghyuck's feelings.

Yelling, at least, Donghyuck knows what to do with – he can match it, decibel for decibel, until whoever's doing it gets tired or gets embarrassed. Renjun doesn't offer him anything to match. He just keeps handing the same information back, over and over, like Donghyuck is a corner that needs three more laps before it gives up.

It's enough to make Donghyuck feel a little insane.

Turn ten at Sakhir is the one that eats him alive every single year – tight, uphill, blind on entry.

"You're carrying too much speed into ten," Renjun says at lap six. "You're braking in the right zone, but you're not committing to the direction change. Turn in earlier and trust the front."

"Copy."

He does it on the next lap. Turns in half a car-length earlier than every instinct in his body is screaming at him to and the car rotates clear and fast and exactly where he wants it. He's through turn ten faster than he's been through it in three years of testing at this track.

"There," Renjun says. "Two tenths. You'll find more once the tyres are fully in the window."

"Two tenths," Donghyuck repeats, a little dazed. "From a corner I've hated my entire career."

"You're just a coward sometimes."

"That's very poetic for a man who woke up at four a.m."

"I contain multitudes," Renjun deadpans and Donghyuck laughs again.

Two laps later, on the in-lap, static clicks through his headset before it clears, and Donghyuck hears a voice that isn't Renjun's.

"–second session and he's already taking Renjun's calls," Clara's voice says, dry and clipped, clearly not talking to him. "Andrea used to repeat himself twice a lap, easily."

"Maybe he just likes the voice," someone else says. It sounds like Marcello, entirely too pleased with himself for a man who's supposed to be worrying about aero correlation.

"Or maybe the new engineer is just good at his job," Clara says. "Try that theory first."

Then the channel clears, and it's just Renjun again. "Box this lap."

Donghyuck brings the car in with his ear burning for reasons that have nothing to do with the desert heat. When he climbs out, one of the front jack mechanics –Paolo, who has known Donghyuck since his second season– hands him a bottle of water and says, "You're quiet with this one."

"I'm not," Donghyuck shakes his head.

"Andres used to say a thing three times before you'd do it. This one says it once." Paolo shrugs, like it's a simple observation and not the single most alarming thing anyone's said to Donghyuck all week. "Good for lap time, I guess."

By the final sprint of the day, he's run out of legitimate reasons to be difficult and has moved into recreational menacing.

"Long run, please," Renjun says. "Twelve laps. We're looking at degradation, not pace."

Donghyuck rolls his neck against the headrest, resenting the words before he's even out of the box. "What if I go fast instead?"

"Then the data is useless and you do the twelve laps again tomorrow, on worse tyres."

There's no arguing with that math, as much as Donghyuck would like to. "Fine. Boring."

By lap five, he's counting down in his head, and by eighth, he's fairly sure he's counting down out loud, and stops the second he realises the mic's live. He manages nine laps of genuine, admirable restraint before his hands make a decision his brain didn't sign off on, and he throws in a flying lap through the middle sector purely to see what happens.

The lap time flashes up on the dash a second later, and he already knows, before Renjun says a single word, exactly how this is going to go.

"That was a push lap," Renjun says. "Nine-tenths push lap you'll try to hide as a mistake."

"Slander." Donghyuck is grinning inside the helmet.

"Your sector two says otherwise." A pause, and when Renjun speaks again, there's amusement sitting underneath the flat delivery. "Finish the twelve. Then you can push."

"You're rewarding bad behaviour."

"I'm managing a driver," Renjun huffs into his mic. "Allegedly, there's a difference."

When Donghyuck finally climbs out for the last time, the sun is dropping fast behind the desert, orange bleeding into the sand past the back straight. His legs feel like they belong to someone with worse life choices than him.

Renjun meets him at the back of the garage with a tablet. "You were difficult today," he says. "You ignored the run plan four times."

"I improved it four times." Donghyuck smiles widely, showing his teeth.

"By spiking up my blood pressure," Renjun says, so dry and so completely deadpan that it takes Donghyuck a full second to register it as a joke, and then he's laughing again. It's too loud for how tired he is, and a mechanic three cars down glances over.

"For the record," Renjun adds, already turning back toward his laptop, "the data's good. Turn ten alone is going to make the simulation team insufferable for a week."

"You're welcome."

"You didn't do it for me."

"No," Donghyuck agrees, and means it more than he'd like to. "I did it because it was the right call on my part and I wanted to see if you'd actually say so."

Renjun looks at him for a second too long, something unreadable moving behind his eyes. "I'll always say so. When you're right. It's rarer than you'd think."

"I hate you."

"Copy," Renjun says, and turns back to his screen, entirely unbothered.

🏎️. ܁₊ ⊹ . ܁˖ .

Donghyuck has tried all the usual things by now – dark room, white noise app, counting sector times instead of sheep (which backfires because his brain immediately starts arguing with itself about tyre degradation curves). At some point, he accepts defeat, pulls on a hoodie over his sleep shirt, and drives himself back to the circuit.

That's who he is now. A man who can't sleep in a five-star hotel bed but might manage it in a plastic chair forty metres from a jet-wash station.

The Ferrarri compound is still lit up on the second floor, which means the engineering room is still occupied, which means Donghyuck has found his people – the other unfortunate souls who also don't know how to stop.

He climbs the stairs two at a time and pushes the door open to find three of them hunched over laptops. There's a graveyard of paper coffee cups between them and a catering tray that has clearly been picked at, abandoned, and picked at again over several depressing hours.

"Absolutely not," Donghyuck says in lieu of a greeting.

Noah looks up first – Renjun's data guy, permanently exhausted. He was born like this, Donghyuck assumes. "Absolutely not what."

"That." Donghyuck points at the tray. "Whatever that is."

"It's a wrap," one of the other engineers says, not looking up. "Or it was several hours ago."

"A crime," Donghyuck muses, wandering further in. "Where's the– Is there real food anywhere in this building, or did catering also clock out at ten like a normal person?"

"Vending machine on the ground floor," Noah offers. "It has crisps and something claiming to be a protein bar."

"Claiming?"

"The wrapper isn't sure whether it's chocolate or not."

Donghyuck drops into an empty chair, spins it once out of pure restlessness, and finds Renjun at the end of the row of monitors. He has his headset around his neck, sleeves pushed up, and a laptop balanced on his knees instead of the desk because even his posture is trying to conserve energy at this point.

"You're all still here," Donghyuck points out. "It's midnight."

"Correlation runs," Renjun says matter-of-factly. "We're checking today's on-track data against the simulator model. It has to be done before tomorrow, or we're flying blind on the next setup change."

"Fun."

"Thrilling," Renjun agrees blandly.

One by one, over the next twenty minutes, the room empties – Noah first, mumbling something about needing four hours before the 6 a.m. call, then the other two, trailing behind him like ducklings too tired to argue about seniority.

Donghyuck watches them go with something between pity and jealousy. He should also be sleeping, but he's not built for it tonight.

Which leaves him alone with Renjun and a graveyard of coffee cups.

 "You should go, too," Donghyuck says, not moving himself. "You've been up since four."

"I know exactly how long I've been up. I don't need the reminder." Renjun rubs at one eye with the heel of his hand, the most human gesture Donghyuck's seen out of him all week. "This has to be done tonight. The model's off by a margin that's bothering me."

"Off how?"

"Turn ten." Renjun turns the laptop slightly, more out of habit than any real expectation that Donghyuck will understand the graph. "The sim has you rotating half a second later than you actually did today. If we don't fix the tyre model before the next sim session, whoever drives it next will be practising the wrong corner."

"See, this is my whole issue with the sim," Donghyuck says, seizing the opportunity to be offended. "It's never right. I go in, I do the laps, I tell you exactly what the car's doing, and somehow the machine still thinks it knows better than me."

"The machine doesn't think, Donghyuck. It's a very expensive calculator."

"Don't gaslight me." Donghyuck rolls his eyes.

Renjun's mouth twitches, but he doesn't look up. "Go on. I know you have more."

"The force feedback is criminal. It's like driving through wet cement. The kerbs feel like Lego bricks. And the rain – don't get me started on the rain module. It doesn't feel wet. It's like somebody described the feeling of being wet to a computer and left it at that."

"That's a surprisingly thorough complaint for one in the morning."

"I contain multitudes," Donghyuck says, throwing Renjun's own line back at him, and gets the small satisfaction of watching it land – Renjun's head tips back and a short laugh escapes before he can smooth it over.

"The platform's motion cueing is limited by physics we can't engineer around," Renjun says patiently. "We can't replicate a hundred and thirty kilos of downforce with a hydraulic rig in a warehouse. What we can do is get close enough that the muscle memory transfers. It's supposed to feel useful, not real."

"So what, I'm supposed to trust the machine?"

"That's most of engineering, honestly."

Donghyuck laughs and it echoes a little in the empty room. He reaches over to steal a corner of the sad sandwich, mostly to see if it's as bad as advertised. Even if it is, he'd gulp it anyway.

"How do you even live like this all season," he says, wrinkling his nose. "Cold food, no sleep. This is not a lifestyle."

"I didn't sign up for the sandwiches specifically." Renjun finally sets the laptop down, stretching his neck to one side until something pops, which makes Donghyuck wince in solidarity. "But yes. It's not glamorous."

"Why do it, then?"

Renjun considers the question for a bit longer than Donghyuck expects, like it's not one he gets asked very often. Or maybe one he hasn't asked himself in a while.

"I like being right," he says eventually. "Not in the– I don't need to win an argument. I just like knowing I saw something before anyone else did." He glances at Donghyuck sideways. "That's probably a weird answer."

"No," Donghyuck says. "That's the least weird thing you've said all week."

"What about you?" Renjun asks. "Why do you do it? And don't say 'because I'm good at it.' I've read that answer in six different interviews and it's boring every time."

"Rude, but okay." Donghyuck picks at the crust of the sandwich. "Honestly? I was five, my dad put me in a kart because my older cousin was doing it and I was jealous, and then I was just there. By the time I was old enough to ask if I wanted this, I'd already been doing it for ten years. I stopped questioning it."

"That's a very diplomatic way of saying you never had a choice."

"I had a choice. I just made it when I was five and everyone else has been enforcing it ever since." He says it lightly, like he says most things, but something in his own voice catches him off guard – a little more honest than he meant it to come out. He clears his throat. "Anyway. That's the backstory. Feel free to weaponise it against me in Melbourne."

"I'll think about it," Renjun deadpans and then asks, out of nowhere, "What's the food like where you're from? Better than this, I'm assuming."

"Yeah. My mom makes this spicy stew, and I used to complain about eating it every week when I was a kid, but now I'd commit several crimes for a bowl of it at one in the morning instead of whatever this is." He gestures at the tray.

"That sounds better than anything currently within a hundred meters of us," Renjun admits.

"Where are you from?" Donghyuck asks, before Renjun can fully commit to the food bit. "Originally, I mean. The actual place."

"Small town outside of Jilin in China. You wouldn't have heard of it." Renjun says easily. "My dad fixes motorcycles, has been doing so since before I was born. My mom still isn't entirely sure what I do for a living – she tells her friends I work with 'cars, but expensive kind', which isn't wrong, but it's not exactly an explanation either."

"Does she watch the races?"

"She watches the ones where the cameras are on you. She's very interested in you, actually. She thinks you're funny for a Korean." Renjun winces. "Her words, not mine."

"I like her already."

"Don't get comfortable. She also thinks you'll crash someday. She's said this to me on the phone, unprompted, twice."

They drift through jet lag next – whose was worse this winter, whether the six-hour difference or the nine-hour one does more damage. There's a brief and entirely serious argument about the worst hotel pillow either of them has ever suffered through, which Renjun wins with a story about a mattress in Le Castellet.

Donghyuck can't remember the last time a conversation felt like this; two tired people and enough hours left before sunrise that neither of them has to be anything other than exactly this tired.

At some point, mid-sentence, Donghyuck stops talking.

He doesn't notice himself doing it. One second, he's saying something about tyre blankets, and the next, his head's tipped back against the top of the chair and his eyes have closed.

When he surfaces, the laptop's been closed, and there's a jacket –Renjun's jacket, still faintly warm– draped over his shoulders that definitely wasn't there before.

Renjun is watching him from across the desk with an expression Donghyuck doesn't have a name for yet. "You fell asleep," he says quietly, like it's a fact that requires gentleness. "Mid-sentence. It was very dramatic."

"I was resting my eyes."

"For eleven minutes," Renjun huffs and stands, gathering his things. "Go back to the hotel, Donghyuck. Actually, sleep this time. Real sleep, in a bed, like a functioning adult."

"You're one to talk. You've been here since four a.m."

"I'm aware. I'm also leaving now, which is more than I could say for you five minutes ago." He nods toward the door, and there's softness under the flat delivery. "Go. I'll walk out with you."

Donghyuck stands, and the jacket slips half off one shoulder, and he almost hands it back before deciding that he'd rather just keep it for the walk to the car.

"Thanks," he says at the door and gestures vaguely at the jacket. "For the– This. Whatever this was."

Renjun looks at him, running some internal calculation that Donghyuck will never get to see the results of. "Get some sleep," is all he says.

🏎️. ܁₊ ⊹ . ܁˖ .

Donghyuck stands near the timing screens in his fireproofs, unzipped to the waist, watching the countdown clock tick down the final hours of the test. Three days of engineering purgatory, and somehow he still wants more of it – more laps, more corners, one more shot at the sector time Renjun's been chasing since Tuesday.

"Last runs after lunch," Renjun says, not looking up from his screen. "Quali sim in the afternoon, then we pack the garage tonight instead of tomorrow morning, because apparently that's cheaper."

"For who?"

"Not us. Logistics."

"Logistics can eat my–"

"Please don't finish that sentence near the sponsor boards," Renjun sighs.

Donghyuck grins and lets it go, mostly because he's too tired to commit to the bit properly.

Matteo finds him a few minutes later, helmet under one arm, hair damp with sweat. He looks like he's never been more delighted in his life. "Last day," he says, like it's another coming of Jesus Christ. "I want to cry a little."

"Don't. You'll dehydrate faster."

"I've done the math. It's worth it." He falls into step beside Donghyuck, glancing sideways. "You seem– I don't know. Somewhere else today."

"I'm always somewhere else," Donghyuck shrugs his shoulders. "It's called being interesting."

"Sure," Matteo says, unconvinced, and mercifully lets it go.

Down the pit lane, past three other garages full of other teams' exhausted engineers, he can hear the low growl of an engine being fired, and further still, the bright chatter of a radio channel that isn't Ferrari's.

It bleeds faintly through an open garage door two units down.

Mercedes is in the next block. Has been all week, really. Donghyuck has mostly managed not to think about it, just like you manage not to think about a bruise until someone else mentions it, at which point it's the only thing you can feel.

He goes to find water somewhere around one, mostly as an excuse to walk, because if he sits at the wall for one more hour watching Renjun cross-reference tyre pressure, he's going to lose whatever's left of his sanity.

The walkway behind the garages is quieter, the sun bouncing hard off the concrete, and a couple of mechanics from some midfield team are smoking in the shade of a generator.

And that's when he sees him.

Jeno is standing outside the Mercedes garage in the black-and-silver kit, sleeves rolled to the elbow, talking to Oliver Pike about something that's apparently so funny. Pike's laughing with his whole chest and Jeno has got the small, private half-smile he used to wear back when moments like these were shared between the two of them.

He looks good. That's the first, deeply inconvenient thought Donghyuck has. He's settled and he looks like he has slept the whole night through and woke up without anything sitting on his chest.

Donghyuck used to be the reason Jeno smiled like that. Now it's some British guy with a nice jaw and no history at all.

He should keep walking, but he doesn't. He stands there for one second too long, water bottle forgotten in his hand, and that's long enough for Jeno's eyes to drift sideways and catch him.

Everything stops.

Jeno doesn't smile. The one he had for Pike disappears so fast it's like it was never there, replaced by something careful, blankness attributed to recalibrating for an audience of one. Donghyuck doesn't know what his own face is doing – probably something that gives away more than three seasons of press training should allow.

There's nothing to say, really. Jeno looks away first and turns back to Pike, saying something Donghyuck can't hear. The moment closes like a door someone remembered to shut quietly instead of slamming.

Donghyuck feels monumentally stupid and walks back to his own garage without the water he came out for.

The walk back is longer than the walk out, though it's the same forty metres of concrete. He runs the whole non-encounters through his head twice, then a third time for good measure, picking at it the way he'd pick at a lap he wasn't happy with.

Where did it go wrong? What could he have done differently? Was there a version of that thirty seconds where he came off like a person and not like someone who forgot how his own face works?

There isn't, as far as he can tell.

He's fairly sure he just stood there like an idiot holding a water bottle he never drank from.

The worst part isn't that Jeno looked happy. Objectively, Donghyuck knows he should want that; he should be capable of wanting an old friend well, even from a distance. But Jeno looked like he wasn't thinking about Ferrari at all, and Donghyuck had spent an entire winter unable to think about anything else.

Renjun clocks it the second he's through the door. He notices a two-tenths shift in brake bias from across a paddock; a change in Donghyuck's face is basically a neon sign by comparison.

"You good?" he asks, not looking up from the screen, which is somehow the kindest way he could've asked it.

"Fine," Donghyuck says.

"Okay." Renjun doesn't push and lets him have the lie, which Donghyuck is more grateful for than he'd ever say out loud.

They run the final programme through the afternoon – a shortened quali sim on low fuel and soft tyres, with the entire garage holding its breath a little. Donghyuck drives it clear, faster than he expects, and doesn't think about Mercedes' garage once, which he considers a personal triumph.

Until the debrief afterwards, when Mercedes becomes unavoidable.

"Quick look at the field before we close this out," Clara says, pulling up a shared screen on the wall. "Merc has been efficient all week. Their long runs are consistent to a tenth across three different fuel loads. That's not luck."

"Meaning?" Donghyuck mumbles.

"They're not chasing a number," Renjun says, looking at the data. "They're building a baseline they can trust. It's the boring approach, but also usually the correct one."

"That's a very generous read for a car we haven't seen actually push."

"It's just what the data says." Renjun finally glances over at him. "You can be frustrated by a team's approach and still respect that it's effective. Those aren't contradictory."

"I'm not frustrated."

"Didn't say you were, but okay," Renjun says carefully.

"One more thing," Clara adds, tapping the screen again before she closes the file. "Their driver's deltas¹⁵ are tighter than his race pace suggests he needs. He's not showing his hand yet either. Whatever they're sandbagging¹⁶, it's deliberate."

"Sounds exhausting," Donghyuck says. "Hiding how fast you actually are."

"Some people find it easier than the alternative," Renjun nods. "Showing everyone exactly where you stand invites everyone to have an opinion about it. They're buying their privacy."

"That sounds like a personal philosophy and not a strategy note."

"It's both." Renjun finally closes the laptop before the debrief goes any further than he's willing to let it. "That's enough. We don't get points for diagnosing our rivals in March."

Donghyuck expected this, braced for Renjun to feel like a substitute. A newer model of an old, familiar thing. It would've been simple, because he's been doing it his whole career – each new person absorbed the shape the last one left behind.

But Renjun doesn't fit the shape Jeno left. He never did; he's not a smoother version of what Donghyuck lost, not a kinder Andrea, not anything with a precedent. He's just… New. A whole separate variable that showed up and started working.

He watches Renjun across the garage, already three sentences into an argument with Noah about tyre allocation for the next test, entirely unaware that he's just become the single most inconvenient person in Donghyuck's life.

"Donghyuck." Renjun's voice pulls him back. "We're wrapping. Go eat something before the flight."

"In a minute."

"Now, ideally."

"You're not my mother."