ASTR☆LKOOKIE

felt cute might delete later;)

[astralkookie]

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*perfume, paper cuts, and poetry✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

𝓐𝓫𝓸𝓾𝓽 𝓶𝓮 ༊*·˚ 𝓜𝓪𝓼𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓽 ༊*·˚ 𝓢𝓬𝓱𝓮𝓭𝓾𝓵𝓮 ༊*·˚

𝓻𝓮𝓺𝓾𝓮𝓼𝓽𝓼/𝓪𝓼𝓴𝓼 ༊*·˚ 𝓢𝓱𝓮 𝔂𝓪𝓹𝓹𝓼 𝓪𝓵𝓸𝓽 ༊*·˚

𝓓𝓲𝓿𝓲𝓭𝓮𝓻 𝓬𝓻𝓮𝓭𝓲𝓽𝓼 ༊*·˚

[astralkookie]

Rant Session#2

no one's probably reading this (I hope) but I've been a writer since what? A month? Bro how the fuck do I already have a writers block?????????????? Is it cause I'm ovulating???? And my precious egg isn't receiving a friend it can spend time with??????? How do I tell my eggs that I'm Iiterally the most bitchless person in the world rn??? Ughhhhhhhhhh. Waw all this dieting and 5am gym for a summer body ain't nobody seeing damn I should have slept instead ughhhhhhhhhhhhh I wanna kms ughhhh hate writers block I had one thing making me fell better now I can't have that either what do I do😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[astralkookie]

Y'ALL THE WAY LECLERC CRASHED AT LAP 66 LIKE JUNGKOOK DID ON 72 DAMNNNNN DID I PREDICT THAT??? Cause I literally wrote the entire thing on 6th uploaded it and shit then I watched the race only to see leclerc crashing too I was like woahhhhh this is too similar to my story. Also Verstappen didn't finish either and had to stop after lap 1 so he's literally ranked last but hey atleast he won in my ch4 (good4him).

(THIS IS A FAKE TWEET GUYS I MADE THIS FOR MY FIC!!!!)

[astralkookie]

rant session #1

guyssss, gonna post never say never chapter 4 next!!!!!!! But honestly, I've been only writing and focusing on atlbty that I'm kinda out of nsn. So yeah let's hope I get into the spirits again, this story has sm potential. And I also think I'm not giving my 100 percent into this fic, it makes me kinda sad and I can't help but start thinking if anyone else would have been writing this story, it would have been sm better😭😭😭😭😭 But I'll try not to get too stressed and depressed abt it cause ik I'm new to this. Anyways guys, ch 4 will take some time to be out. ughhhhhhh I feel so demotivated rn someone helpppppp I wanna kms😭😭😭

[astralkookie]

Guys just saw kim k and lewis hamilton at the F1 race and idk why it's so funny 😭😭😭😭😭 Like imagine my inspirational couple shifting from Charles and Alexandra Leclerc to Kim K and Lewis Hamilton and the fake stories i be creating is of oc bumping into jungkook's bike and falling on him😭😭😭😭😭 they look sooo cute tho, I can't even tell who bagged who🙈🙈

[astralkookie]

All tracks lead back to you ✮⋆⭒˚.⋆ Chapter 4

Funny how a car crash at the Monaco Grand Prix ended up crashing everything else too.

F1 racer!jungkook, Songwriter!oc, childhood bestfriends to lovers, racing accidents/crashes, public scrutiny, friends to lovers, hate comments, emotional dependency, jealousy, miscommunication, angst, toxic fan culture, media pressure, arguments, alcohol consumption, anxiety, emotional burnout, slowburn, smut

desclaimer: this is a fictional story and does not reflect the real personalities or lives of any idols, drivers or celebrities mentioned. pls remember this is all fake and made for fun !!

word count: 10.5k words

Series Masterlist

note: chapter 4 is here guysss, this is a looong one and i did put in a lot of thoughts for this one, i tried my best to pour in all the emotions i could, cause this is kinda the peak of the series. And honestly, by the end of the chapter i could feel the goosebumps on my body, like i was soooo into the story. So i hope i was able to put that into this chapter and i really really hope ya'll feel the same and enjoy this one. I'd really appreciate your feedbacks and comments. Love ya'll, mwah mwah <33

Sleep had abandoned you somewhere around dawn.

Not dramatically. There was no sudden awakening, no nightmare, no particular thought dragging you from unconsciousness. You had simply opened your eyes sometime after six and immediately known there was no point trying again. Monaco sat waiting on the other side of the morning, heavy and impossible to ignore, and every attempt at closing your eyes only seemed to make you more aware of it.

The hotel room remained quiet as you pushed yourself upright, the sheets pooling around your waist while early sunlight slipped through the gap in the curtains. Somewhere below, the city was beginning to wake. Not fully. Not yet. The streets weren't crowded, the yachts remained mostly still in the harbour, and the circuit that would soon be packed with spectators looked strangely harmless from this height. It was always unsettling, seeing race tracks before race day properly began. As though somebody had taken something loud and dangerous and temporarily disguised it as ordinary.

The balcony door slid open beneath your hand, cool air immediately rushing into the room. It felt nice after the stuffiness of sleep, carrying with it the faint scent of the sea and something distinctly Monaco that you had never quite been able to identify despite visiting often enough.

Leaning your forearms against the railing, your gaze wandered aimlessly across the harbour below. Sunlight scattered across the water in fractured pieces, catching against windows and polished decks and every reflective surface unfortunate enough to face the morning. In a few hours, the entire city would be loud. Cameras. Commentators. Fans. Helicopters circling overhead. Yet for now, there was only the distant hum of Monaco stretching awake around you.

Your eyes eventually drifted lower, wandering away from the harbour and the yachts and the circuit winding through Monaco's streets, until movement near the hotel grounds caught your attention: a lone figure rounding the side of the building before disappearing again almost immediately.

At first, you barely paid any attention to it, assuming it was probably another guest taking advantage of the cooler morning temperatures before the city properly woke up, yet several seconds later, the figure appeared again, emerging from around another corner before vanishing just as quickly, and this time, your gaze followed automatically, curiosity settling in before you could stop it.

A smile tugged at your lips. Of course, who else would be voluntarily running laps around a hotel at six in the morning on Monaco race day?

Below, Jungkook disappeared behind the building once more before reappearing moments later looking exactly the same as before, maintaining the same steady pace he had apparently decided was necessary despite the fact that he would be climbing into a Formula One car in only a few hours. From twenty-nine floors above, he should've been impossible to recognize, reduced to little more than a moving silhouette dressed entirely in black, yet some part of you would've known it was him immediately. Maybe it was the way he ran, the slight forward lean he'd had for as long as you could remember, or maybe it was because you'd spent so much of your life unconsciously searching for him in crowds that identifying him had eventually become instinct.

The realization settled quietly in your chest, not dramatic enough to demand attention and not significant enough to interrupt your thoughts, simply existing with the same ease as countless other things that had become normal over the years. Below, Jungkook completed another lap, then another, then another, his pace never changing, his determination remaining just as ridiculous as it had always been whenever something mattered too much to him.

The closer a race was to his heart, the harder it became for him to sit still, and judging by the number of laps he'd already completed before most people had even finished sleeping, Monaco had clearly won that battle.

Idiot.

The thought arrived with so much affection attached to it that you didn't even bother correcting yourself, your smile lingering far longer than it should have while your gaze continued following his progress around the hotel grounds, watching him disappear and reappear and disappear again beneath the slowly brightening Monaco sun.

Below, Jungkook slowed briefly, one hand pushing damp hair away from his forehead as he walked for several seconds before immediately starting another lap.

After a while, you walked back inside towards the shower, deciding that if you were going to spend the next several hours suffering through race-day anxiety, you could at least do it while looking presentable.

By the time you emerged again, dressed and mostly awake, your phone lit up.

Jungkook.

A smile appeared immediately as you accepted the phone call before the second ring. "Hey."

"Why do you sound awake?" You laughed.

The accusation arrived so quickly that it almost caught you off guard. "Good morning to you, too."

"No, seriously," Jungkook continued. "How long have you been awake for? Why do you sound like that?"

"Like what?"

"Functioning." You couldn’t help but scoff at the response. By now, you were already out of your room, carefully sliding the key card into your back pocket as you reached the end of the hallway. The elevator doors slid open, and you stepped inside.

"I hate to break it to you, but some of us possess basic life skills."

The elevator began descending, and outside the glass wall overlooking the lobby, Monaco continued waking beneath the morning sun.

"You should be asleep."

"You called me."

"Exactly. I was trying to wake you up." A laugh escaped before you could stop it.

Somewhere on the other end, Jungkook sighed dramatically.

"I even waited until a reasonable hour."

"Seven-thirty isn't a reasonable hour."

"It is for you." The elevator reached the ground floor as you stepped into the lobby.

"What are you doing anyway?" he asked.

His tone had shifted slightly, a little more casual and curious. You could practically picture him slowing to a walk while asking.

Pushing through the hotel entrance, you stepped out into the gardens surrounding the property, morning sunlight immediately settling across your shoulders while neatly maintained hedges and winding stone pathways stretched ahead beneath a sky that seemed far too calm for a race day, and it took less than a few seconds for your gaze to find him.

“I’m walking.”

Jungkook stood several metres away with his back turned towards you, phone pressed against one ear, dressed entirely in black, still slightly flushed from his workout, and still completely unaware of the fact that the person he was currently attempting to wake up had already been watching him run laps around the hotel for the better part of an hour. The sight alone made a smile tug at your lips, and by the time his voice filtered through the phone once more, questioning where exactly you were, the urge to annoy him had already become impossible to resist.

“Huh? Walking where?”

"For somebody whose entire job revolves around awareness, you're surprisingly unobservant."

A brief pause followed, confusion immediately threading through his voice as he replied with a simple, "What does that mean?" while you continued walking towards him, each step making it increasingly difficult to keep the smile off your face.

The answer came easily. "It means turn around."

Jungkook froze so abruptly that the gravel beneath his shoes shifted slightly, his head turning first before his shoulders followed, realization slowly piecing itself together as he looked over the hotel gardens until his gaze finally landed on you. The confusion vanished instantly. Offense replaced it just as quickly.

“Oh, fuck off."

The accusation escaped before he could stop it, earning a laugh that echoed through the otherwise quiet garden while Jungkook lowered his phone and stared at you as though personally betrayed. "Come on."

"You saw me from your room, didn't you?"

"Maybe."

"You did." His eyes narrowed immediately as your grin widened.

And suddenly, for the first time all morning, some of the nerves that had been sitting heavily inside your chest seemed to loosen ever so slightly, because after everything that had happened yesterday, after the celebrations and interviews and cameras and endless reminders of what today meant, there was something reassuringly familiar about finding Jungkook standing in the middle of a hotel garden arguing over absolutely nothing.

"How are you all showered and freshened up already?"

The accusation arrived again, though this time amusement had already begun creeping into his expression.

"I woke up early."

"So you watched me run laps around the hotel?"

"I was looking at the gorgeous view from my room ."

"And that's me."

"No, that's Monaco, you fugly ass bitch."

The look he gave you only made the smile worse, because he genuinely seemed unable to decide whether the alarming part was the fact that you'd been awake before sunrise or the fact that you were calling him all sorts of names. His hair remained slightly damp from sweat, and his expression carried the same disbelief you'd seen countless times before whenever he decided you were being unreasonable.

"No way you recognized me from twenty-nine floors up."

"You weren't exactly difficult to identify."

"That's insane."

"I can literally find you even in a crowd of thousands."

The words slipped out before you could stop them, and for a second, Jungkook simply blinked at you before a laugh escaped, not particularly loud or dramatic but enough to soften something around the edges of his expression. "That's creepy."

"Oh, look who’s talking."

The two of you started walking back towards the hotel shortly afterwards, neither bothering to suggest it out loud because there wasn't much point. Some habits had existed for so long that they stopped feeling like decisions altogether, settling quietly into the fabric of your friendship until nobody could remember when they had actually started.

Following Jungkook upstairs before breakfast belonged somewhere on that list, alongside race-day phone calls, stolen food from each other's plates, and arguments over music during long flights despite both of you already knowing exactly how those conversations would end, and so you fell into step beside him without thinking twice about it, the morning stretching comfortably ahead while Monaco continued waking around you one slow moment at a time.

The journey passed without much discussion, interrupted only occasionally by race engineers wandering through the hotel or staff members wishing Jungkook luck for later. Each interaction was brief and polite.  Yet you noticed the way his shoulders tensed slightly every time somebody reminded him what today meant.

You waited until the elevator doors slid shut behind you before speaking again. "Nervous?"

The question lingered in the air between you as Jungkook didn't answer immediately. Instead, he leaned back lightly against the mirrored wall behind him, crossing his arms as the elevator began climbing, his gaze fixed somewhere above your head while considering the question more seriously than most people would've expected.

"A little."

The answer made you laugh. Not because it was funny, but because it was ridiculous.

Jungkook glanced at you. "What?"

"A little?"

His expression remained completely serious. "A little."

"You spent forty-five minutes running laps around the hotel."

"I do it every day."

"But today you were stress-running."

"I wasn’t.” The denial arrived far too quickly to be convincing.

A laugh escaped you before you could stop it. Unfortunately, Jungkook knew exactly what that laugh meant. "I hate when you do that."

"Do what?"

"That laugh where you already know you're right." Your smile widened as you dangled your tongue at him. Beside you, Jungkook shook his head before looking away, though the corner of his mouth betrayed him almost immediately. And just like that, the nerves seemed a little smaller than they had an hour ago.

By the time the elevator reached Jungkook's floor, whatever remained of the conversation had dissolved into something quieter, the comfortable sort of silence that had never felt awkward between the two of you, no matter how many years passed, perhaps because there simply wasn't much left to prove after spending the better part of your lives together.

The hallway stretched ahead in perfect hotel symmetry once the doors slid open, expensive enough to make you wonder whether anybody had ever actually lived inside the rooms lining either side of it, and for a brief moment, you found yourself thinking about how strange Formula One really was. Somewhere downstairs sat race engineers preparing strategy plans capable of deciding championships, journalists already drafting headlines before the race had even begun, and thousands of fans waking up across different time zones to watch a man who, at this exact moment, was fumbling through his pockets because he'd somehow misplaced his room key despite having used it less than twenty minutes ago. A laugh escaped before you could stop it.

Jungkook immediately looked up. "What?"

"You lost it, didn't you?"

The accusation landed with enough accuracy that his expression answered before he did. "I didn't lose it."

"Oh, you absolutely lost it."

Jungkook opened his mouth, then closed it, then sighed dramatically.

Eventually, after another few seconds of searching and considerably more muttering than the situation warranted, he finally produced the key card from an entirely different pocket than the one he'd checked moments earlier, looking mildly offended by the discovery as though the card itself had intentionally inconvenienced him. "There."

"When will you grow up?"

Jungkook shook his head while pushing open the hotel room door, though the corner of his mouth betrayed him almost immediately, and you found yourself following him inside before either of you thought twice about it. The action felt so normal that it barely registered, which probably said more about your friendship than either of you would ever willingly acknowledge.

The room itself looked almost identical to yours, save for the fact that every available surface appeared to contain some evidence of Jungkook's existence. A Ferrari team jacket rested carelessly over the back of a chair near the window, yesterday's accreditation pass had somehow ended up abandoned beside a lamp, and an assortment of race-related items occupied the desk with the organized chaos of somebody who fully intended to clean everything later and almost certainly wouldn't.

Your gaze wandered around the room while Jungkook disappeared briefly into the adjoining bedroom, leaving you alone amongst the familiar chaos that seemed to follow him from hotel to hotel, before reappearing several moments later carrying something carefully tucked beneath one arm. Immediately, your attention sharpened. The look on his face alone was enough warning that whatever he was holding was important, a smile already threatening at the corners of his mouth despite his obvious attempts to act casual about the whole thing.

Without saying a word, he crossed the room and placed the helmet carefully on the coffee table between you, the movement carrying a sort of unconscious reverence that you recognized immediately. Drivers always pretended they weren't sentimental about their helmets until the moment somebody touched one carelessly, and the fact that Jungkook was handling this one as though it belonged behind glass rather than on a race track told you everything you needed to know before you even looked properly.

For a moment, neither of you spoke. The helmet was beautiful. Not in the loud, overdesigned way special-edition helmets occasionally became whenever somebody tried too hard to make them memorable, but in a way that felt deliberate, every detail placed with purpose rather than simply for decoration. The familiar Ferrari red remained woven throughout the design alongside broad black accents and subtle gold detailing that caught the light whenever the helmet shifted slightly, while delicate references to Monaco appeared throughout the artwork in ways that felt elegant rather than obvious, revealing themselves only after a second glance.

Slowly, you stepped closer, your attention drifting across the design while discovering something new every few seconds. The outline of the harbour. The Monaco skyline worked subtly into one side. Small details hidden amongst the larger artwork that most people would probably never notice during a race broadcast. The longer you looked, the more there seemed to be.

A smile appeared before you even realized it. "Okay, that's ridiculous."

Across from you, Jungkook immediately looked pleased with himself. "What?"

"You know exactly what." His grin widened.

The reaction alone was answer enough.

"You've been waiting to show this off."

"Not at all."

"You brought it out within ten minutes of me entering your room."

The accusation landed successfully enough that Jungkook looked away, which only confirmed your suspicions.

Your gaze drifted towards Jungkook, finding him already watching you with the sort of anticipation people usually reserved for receiving grades or waiting for reviews.

"I spent weeks working on it."

Your attention drifted back towards the helmet once more, noticing details you'd missed before and understanding suddenly why he'd wanted to show it to you before anyone else.

"It's beautiful."

The words came out softer than intended.

"Yeah?"

You nodded, and the smile that appeared afterwards was small and genuine and somehow more satisfying than all the teasing that had come before it, lingering on Jungkook's face even after the conversation had begun drifting elsewhere. For a while, the helmet remained between you, occupying most of your attention as you continued discovering details you hadn't noticed at first glance, while Jungkook sat nearby pretending not to care about your reaction nearly as much as he clearly did.

Eventually, your phone found its way into your hand, the movement catching Jungkook's attention almost immediately despite the fact that he had been pretending not to watch your reaction to the helmet for the past several minutes.

For somebody whose face appeared on billboards, magazine covers, race broadcasts, promotional campaigns, and approximately every sports-related social media account in existence, Jungkook remained remarkably opposed to being photographed whenever the choice was actually his, a contradiction that had never stopped being funny no matter how many years passed.

The moment your phone appeared in your hand, suspicion crossed his face, followed by realization and then something alarmingly close to horror, his immediate refusal arriving before you'd even managed to open the camera. Unfortunately for him, that only made the whole thing more entertaining.

What was supposed to be a single photograph quickly dissolved into several, mostly because Jungkook seemed physically incapable of behaving normally whenever a camera was pointed in his direction, every attempt somehow producing a different problem entirely. In one photograph, he looked painfully aware of being observed, in another, he looked as though somebody had just informed him of a national emergency, and by the fifth attempt, both of you were laughing too hard to take the process seriously anymore.

Eventually, you lowered the phone altogether, still smiling as your gaze drifted back towards him, only to stop abruptly when something finally clicked into place. His hair. The early morning workout, the Monaco humidity, and his nervous habit of repeatedly dragging his hands through it throughout the morning had combined into a complete disaster, leaving behind a level of chaos that somehow felt considerably more representative of the actual Jeon Jungkook than anything a stylist could ever create.

A second later, your hand disappeared into his hair entirely, fingers pushing through the dark strands and making an already questionable situation dramatically worse, until whatever remained of his attempts at looking presentable vanished completely. The look of betrayal that followed was immediate and so deeply offended that laughter became unavoidable.

"There," you announced proudly, stepping back to admire your work. "Now you actually look like yourself."

Jungkook stared at you for a long moment, one hand lifting automatically towards the damage before stopping halfway there as though he'd already realized the situation was beyond saving.  The look he gave you promised revenge. But the smile you gave back suggested you weren't particularly worried.

The moment you reached forward to mess it up again, he caught your wrist. “Don’t… fuck with my hair.”

The warning would've been far more convincing had his hair not already looked completely hopeless. A laugh escaped before you could stop it, and unfortunately, that seemed to offend him even further.

“I'm serious.”

“So am I,” you replied, already reaching forward again. “You look ridiculous.” The betrayal on his face was immediate.

But before you could mess it up further, a cushion suddenly collided with your shoulder. A loud gasp left your mouth as your eyes dropped towards the pillow now lying on the floor. Slowly, you looked back at Jungkook, who looked entirely unapologetic.

“Oh, that's how we're handling this?”

Before he could properly defend himself, you grabbed the pillow resting beside you and launched it directly at his face, the attack neither graceful nor particularly powerful, but successful enough that Jungkook's sentence ended abruptly beneath a look of genuine betrayal, his head jerking backwards as the pillow bounced harmlessly off his shoulder before landing somewhere near the sofa. For a second, he simply stared at you, as if you had started it all; though, that expression alone was enough to destroy whatever composure remained.

A laugh escaped before you could stop it, immediately followed by Jungkook again reaching for the nearest pillow, which somehow made everything worse because the movement was so predictable that you were already backing away before he'd even managed to grab it.

The next few moments dissolved into complete chaos. You managed to dodge one attack entirely, another clipped your shoulder, a third somehow ended up trapped beneath your arm before being thrown straight back at him, and through all of it, the laughter never really stopped, growing louder with each passing second until breathing became genuinely difficult.

Unfortunately, attempting to retreat while laughing proved to be a terrible strategy, because one second you were moving backwards in triumph after narrowly avoiding another attack, and the next your heel caught against the edge of the rug, your balance vanishing so quickly that the laugh still hadn't left your mouth before a startled sound replaced it. Jungkook immediately reached forward, whether to stop you falling or simply because instinct had beaten logic to the punch, but the attempt only made everything worse, his own balance disappearing the second yours did, and suddenly the room tilted in the most spectacularly inconvenient way possible.

Your legs collided with the edge of the bed first, momentum carrying you backwards onto the mattress, while Jungkook stumbled directly after you, and for one brief second, it genuinely seemed as though both of you might recover but then gravity intervened.

By the time everything finally stopped moving, half your body remained awkwardly sprawled across the bed while the rest of you had somehow ended up draped over Jungkook, who now lay flat on his back on the floor beside it, looking just as confused as you felt. For a moment, neither of you moved. The position itself wasn't uncomfortable, merely unexpected, yet awareness arrived almost immediately afterwards, because suddenly you could feel the steady rise and fall of his breathing beneath you, could hear his laugh trying and failing to escape, could feel your face growing warmer for reasons you absolutely refused to examine. The realization seemed to hit both of you simultaneously, judging by the way Jungkook immediately looked away and the way your own gaze suddenly became very interested in a random point somewhere near his shoulder.

Then laughter returned so violently that it physically hurt. The two of you remained exactly where you were for several seconds afterwards, incapable of doing anything except laugh harder every time one of you attempted to speak, until eventually you managed to push yourself upright, wiping tears from your eyes while trying and failing to regain some semblance of dignity. Across from you, Jungkook wasn't doing much better, his hair completely ruined, his cheeks slightly flushed, and his expression carrying the sort of helpless amusement that only appeared when something genuinely caught him off guard. The sight alone nearly restarted the entire thing.

"Come on," you finally managed, extending a hand towards him despite still laughing. "Get up."

In hindsight, it was a terrible idea.

Jungkook took your hand immediately, and for one glorious second, it seemed as though the plan might actually work. Then reality remembered that professional athletes were significantly heavier than songwriters. The moment he pulled, your balance disappeared again, a startled laugh escaping before you could stop it as the floor seemed to vanish beneath your feet entirely, and suddenly you were falling for the second time in less than a minute.

This time, there was no mattress to soften anything. You landed directly on top of him, the impact knocking another burst of laughter from both of you while Jungkook instinctively caught your waist in a completely unsuccessful attempt to stabilize the situation. If anything, it made it worse.

The movement shifted both of you sideways; neither managed to recover, and within seconds the room was once again filled with the sound of completely uncontrollable laughter, the kind that made your stomach ache and your eyes water and every attempt at calming down entirely impossible. By then, neither of you even seemed interested in standing up anymore, content to remain collapsed on the floor in the aftermath of your own stupidity while desperately trying to convince your racing hearts that they were only reacting to laughter.

Eventually, the laughter began fading, though neither of you seemed particularly interested in helping the process along because every attempt at calming down lasted approximately three seconds before one of you looked at the other and immediately ruined whatever progress had been made. Jungkook remained trapped beneath you, one arm still loosely wrapped around your waist from his completely unsuccessful attempt at preventing the second fall, while you were currently attempting to support your weight with one hand planted beside his shoulder despite the fact that neither of you possessed enough coordination to actually move.

The worst part was that the room had gone quiet now, not silent, but quiet enough that awareness slowly began creeping back in around the edges of everything. Quiet enough that you could hear your breathing gradually slowing, quiet enough that suddenly it became impossible not to notice things that hadn't seemed particularly important thirty seconds earlier.

Your eyes met first, and neither of you looked away immediately, not because anything dramatic happened and certainly not because either of you suddenly discovered feelings that hadn't existed before, but simply because after laughing for so long, after spending the better part of fifteen minutes behaving like complete idiots, there was something strangely disarming about finding yourselves here.

The realization seemed to hit both of you simultaneously, judging by the way his gaze immediately dropped before darting somewhere over your shoulder, while your own face suddenly felt much warmer than it had any right to. For a brief second, neither of you seemed entirely sure what to do next, because moving felt awkward and not moving somehow felt worse, and after spending your entire lives around each other, after years of shared flights and race weekends and random afternoons spent doing absolutely nothing together, the fact that this particular moment had somehow managed to become awkward felt deeply unfair.

Then, naturally, Jungkook ruined it. "I think you've broken a few ribs."

The accusation arrived with such complete seriousness that it took a second to process, another second to realize he was being ridiculous, and a third for the laugh to escape before you could stop it. "It’s your fault."

"How come?"

"You started this bullshit." Another laugh escaped immediately before he joined yours, his head falling backwards against the carpet while yours dropped forward in surrender.

"That was self-defence."

"Against what?"

"Your filthy hands." You gave me an offended look, to which Jungkook only laughed further.

The two of you were still collapsed on a hotel floor, arguing over a pillow fight. The thought should've felt ridiculous. Instead, it felt comforting. Eventually, after several failed attempts and considerably more laughter than necessary, you finally managed to untangle yourselves from the disaster you'd created, though standing proved surprisingly difficult when every glance threatened to restart the entire thing.

By the time you reached your feet, your cheeks hurt from smiling, your stomach hurt from laughing, and Jungkook looked only marginally more put together than he had while trapped beneath you on the floor. Unfortunately for him, his hair still looked terrible.

“You look terrible, by the way.” Your words earned you a scoff from him.

Your laugh followed instantly. “Go take a shower, bitch. The rest of us would like to have breakfast without you smelling like shit.”

Jungkook looked deeply offended. “I smell alright.”

You simply grinned, already moving towards the door. “Downstairs in fifteen.”

“Thirty.”

“Fifteen.”

“Fine.” Still smiling, you slipped out of the room, leaving him alone with his ruined hair, his Monaco helmet, and the biggest race of his life waiting just a few hours away.

The rest of the morning passed far more quickly than either of you expected.

Final team breakfast happened somewhere between laughter and race strategy, the entire Ferrari table existing in a strange state of controlled chaos where mechanics discussed weather forecasts, engineers stared at laptops, Taehyung complained dramatically about being awake, and everybody simultaneously pretended Monaco wasn't sitting at the centre of every thought in the room. The closer race time crept, the shorter conversations grew, gradually giving way to that familiar race-day atmosphere where nobody was quite relaxed enough to behave normally.

Eventually, there was nothing left to do except leave.

Jungkook was one of the first to stand, exchanging a few final words with engineers before gathering his things and heading towards the circuit with the rest of the Ferrari team, the moment feeling strangely abrupt despite the fact that it happened every race weekend. One second, he was sitting across from you, stealing food from your plate, and the next, he was gone, swallowed by the world of team meetings, strategy briefings, media obligations, and everything else that existed between breakfast and lights out.

You watched him disappear through the hotel doors, then immediately went upstairs. Because if Jungkook had a race to prepare for, so did you.

The hotel room felt unusually quiet after the morning you'd just had, sunlight now flooding through the windows in bright sheets while Monaco buzzed somewhere below, growing louder and busier with every passing hour. Getting ready should have been simple. Instead, you somehow spent twenty minutes changing outfits, another ten convincing yourself you didn't need to change again, and several more staring out at the harbour while pretending you weren't nervous.

By the time you finally finished getting ready and reached the circuit, the city outside looked completely different from the version that had greeted you only a few hours earlier, the calm stillness of dawn having disappeared entirely beneath the growing excitement of race day. Helicopters already hovered above the harbour in lazy circles, their shadows occasionally skimming across the water below, while yachts crowded every available stretch of coastline and the streets surrounding the circuit swelled steadily with spectators draped in team colours, all of Monaco seeming to vibrate with the kind of anticipation that only existed a few hours before lights out.

You found yourself drifting towards the paddock almost absentmindedly, your gaze wandering around as though searching for something without quite realizing it, only for your attention to stop abruptly when movement inside the Ferrari hospitality building caught your eye. A laugh escaped before you could help it.

A few floors above, standing beside one of the small windows overlooking the paddock, were two figures dressed entirely in Ferrari red who were very obviously supposed to be preparing for a Grand Prix and very obviously doing anything but that. Jungkook stood pressed almost embarrassingly close to the window while Taehyung lingered beside him, and both seemed to have spotted you at exactly the same moment.

Idiots.

You genuinely had no idea how they'd managed it. Between the distance, the crowds, and the hundreds of windows surrounding the paddock, the chances of either of them noticing you should have been practically nonexistent, yet somehow they had. The moment Jungkook pointed dramatically in your direction, Taehyung's entire body seemed to light up with recognition before he immediately began waving with enough enthusiasm to attract the attention of half the hospitality building, while Jungkook, rather than stopping him, appeared to find the whole thing deeply amusing.

From up here, they looked less like professional racing drivers preparing for one of the biggest races on the Formula One calendar and more like children trapped behind glass, desperately trying to get someone's attention.

A second laugh escaped as your phone appeared in your hand almost automatically.

The photograph itself wasn't particularly good. The distance was too awkward, the lighting was working against you, and both men looked objectively ridiculous, one still pointing while the other continued waving as if his life depended on it, but somehow that only made the picture better.

The smile stayed on your face for most of the time in the circuit. But the closer you got to the paddock, the more obvious it became that race day had truly arrived, the atmosphere shifting almost perceptibly as the city transformed into something louder and more urgent than it had been only a few hours earlier.

By the time you finally stepped inside, the garages were already buzzing with activity, engineers moving constantly between meetings while mechanics completed final checks on the cars and journalists attempted to interview anybody willing to stand still for longer than ten seconds, camera crews weaving through narrow spaces with practiced efficiency while photographers crowded around drivers trying unsuccessfully to reach their own garages, every corner occupied by somebody carrying a headset, a clipboard, a camera, or a problem that needed solving before lights out.

And through all of it sat the Ferrari garage.

When you reached the pit wall, preparations had already entered their final stages, the cars long since rolled into position, while stacks of tyres waited nearby and engineers occupied every available space in front of endless monitors displaying streams of data that somehow seemed capable of making entire groups of highly intelligent people nervous simultaneously.

Eventually, the drivers emerged, and the crowd reacted immediately.

A wall of noise rolled across the circuit so suddenly and completely that it seemed to swallow everything else, swelling from grandstands and hospitality suites and the countless yachts packed tightly into the harbour until the sound appeared to bounce between every building surrounding Monaco. Your eyes found Jungkook almost instantly. Of course they did. Dressed in his race suit now with his helmet tucked beneath one arm, he moved through the organised chaos with the familiar confidence of somebody who had done this hundreds of times before, though today somehow felt different.

Maybe it was Monaco. Maybe it was pole position. Maybe it was simply the realization that one perfect afternoon separated him from achieving something he'd spent years dreaming about. Whatever the reason, it felt impossible to look away as photographers followed his every movement and broadcasters stopped him repeatedly for final comments, team personnel pulling him in one direction while officials needed him somewhere else, yet somehow he continued moving steadily towards the grid through all of it.

For a while, you simply watched. The interviews. The photographers. The final preparations. The endless noise, movement, and anticipation seemed to exist everywhere at once. Then, almost as if he could feel it, Jungkook glanced towards the pit wall. The distance between you was considerable, and the crowd separating you even larger, yet somehow his eyes found yours immediately, the moment lasting barely a second before he raised one hand in acknowledgment.

The gesture was small enough that most people would've missed it entirely. You didn't. Your own hand lifted automatically in return, and then just like that, he was gone again, disappearing back into the sea of people surrounding the grid while Ferrari engineers settled fully into position beside you, headsets secured, data screens glowing, strategy discussions beginning in earnest.

The race was close now. Close enough that the helicopters circling overhead seemed louder than before, close enough that every update crackling through the radios sounded important, close enough that the nervousness you'd spent the entire morning successfully avoiding finally returned and settled heavily inside your chest. Across the circuit, thousands of spectators stood waiting beneath the afternoon sun while the harbour shimmered brilliantly beyond them, the Ferrari garage poised on the edge of something enormous. And somewhere out on the grid, Monaco's pole sitter lowered his visor, climbed into the Ferrari, and prepared for the biggest race of his season.

“Seventy-eight laps. Three hundred and thirty-seven kilometres. One of the most iconic races in motorsport. And this afternoon, beneath the Monaco sun, twenty drivers will attempt to conquer the streets of Monte Carlo.”

The commentator’s voice echoed from screens scattered throughout the paddock, blending into the endless noise surrounding the circuit while helicopters circled overhead and yachts packed tightly into the harbour glittered beneath the afternoon sun.

“But all eyes today are on the Ferrari of Jeon Jungkook, who starts from pole position after a sensational qualifying performance yesterday, securing the first Monaco pole of his Formula One career.”

The roar from the grandstands seemed to swell immediately at the mention of his name.

Across the circuit, thousands of Ferrari supporters waved flags from packed grandstands while countless others crowded balconies, hospitality suites, and yachts positioned around the harbour, every available space occupied by spectators hoping to witness history.

“Pole position around Monaco has always carried enormous significance. Overtaking opportunities remain limited, strategy becomes critical, and if Jungkook can control this race from the front, Ferrari has a genuine opportunity to leave Monte Carlo with one of the most prestigious victories in motorsport.”

From your position on the pit wall, Monaco seemed to exist in a state of controlled chaos, the harbour glittering beyond the barriers while helicopters circled overhead and the Ferrari garage buzzed with nervous energy, every pair of eyes repeatedly drifting towards the scarlet Ferrari sitting on pole position, carrying years of expectation.

“The grid is now forming. Final preparations underway. Drivers settling into position. We are moments away from lights out here in Monaco.”

One by one, the final pieces of the grid began disappearing as mechanics wheeled equipment away from the cars, grid personnel stepped back behind the barriers, engine covers vanished, and tyre blankets were removed, each small movement bringing the circuit one step closer to lights out. The noise remained, as did the constant movement surrounding the paddock, yet something else settled over Monaco all the same, a quiet tension threading itself through the grandstands, the garages, and the pit wall alike, the particular kind of anticipation that only existed in the final moments before a Grand Prix began. Across the timing screens, the starting order glowed back at you.

P1 - Jeon Jungkook P2 - Verstappen P3 - Taehyung P4 - Norris P5 - Russell

Your stomach tightened immediately, not because you doubted him but because you didn't. That had always been the problem. Doubt would have been easier to manage. Doubt came with lowered expectations and softened disappointments. Hope was far more dangerous.

“Engine temperatures rising now. Drivers preparing for the formation lap.”

One by one, the cars rolled away from their grid boxes, the Ferrari launching forward beneath a roar from the grandstands while the rest of the field followed behind, beginning the slow procession around Monaco's streets for the final time before the race officially began. Around you, engineers watched timing screens with unwavering focus while radios crackled with updates, yet somehow it all faded into the background as the formation lap unfolded.

The five red lights remained illuminated for what felt like an eternity, every second stretching impossibly thin while twenty drivers sat poised on the edge of seventy-eight laps around one of the most demanding circuits in motorsport, engines screaming beneath them and thousands of spectators holding their breath in anticipation.

Then the lights disappeared.

"And away we go in Monaco!"

The roar that followed seemed to shake the entire harbour.

Cars launched forward simultaneously, the field surging towards Sainte Devote in a blur of colour and noise while tyres fought desperately for grip and every driver searched for even the smallest advantage. From the pit wall, it was difficult to focus on anything except the scarlet Ferrari starting from pole position, your stomach twisting immediately as Verstappen drew slightly alongside during the run towards Turn One.

"Good start from Verstappen on the outside, Jungkook defending the inside line into Sainte Devote!"

The gap between them narrowed.

And a second later, the Ferrari emerged ahead. The reaction inside the Ferrari garage was immediate, several engineers visibly relaxing for the first time all afternoon while the rest of the field funnelled through the opening corners behind them, the order stabilising almost as quickly as it had exploded into chaos.

"Excellent launch from Jungkook, who maintains the lead of the Monaco Grand Prix."

Only then did you realize you'd been holding your breath.

The opening laps passed in a blur of sector times and radio updates, Monaco settling gradually into its familiar rhythm as the field stretched itself around the circuit and tiny gaps began appearing between cars. Every few seconds, the timing screens updated. Every few seconds, somebody inside the Ferrari garage reacted to a number. Somewhere behind Jungkook, battles continued unfolding throughout the midfield, yet the attention of almost everybody surrounding you remained fixed on the front.

Lap three became lap five, then lap eight, the opening phase of the race disappearing steadily from the timing screens while the scarlet Ferrari remained firmly at the front of the field, controlling the pace around Monaco's narrow streets with a confidence that seemed to grow stronger with every passing lap. Around you, conversations gradually resumed as the initial tension of the race start began fading away, engineers exchanging observations across headsets while strategy discussions continued and radios crackled constantly with information, yet compared to the atmosphere that had existed before lights out, the garage felt noticeably lighter now, as though everybody had collectively remembered how to breathe again.

"Jungkook is currently leading Verstappen by 1.4 seconds, beginning to build an early advantage here in Monaco."

The confidence growing inside Ferrari wasn't obvious enough for anybody to acknowledge openly, but it existed all the same, settling quietly into conversations and body language because Jungkook looked comfortable. More than comfortable. Fast. The Ferrari seemed perfectly suited to Monaco's demanding layout, carving through corners with a level of precision that made every lap appear almost effortless from a distance, the gap behind him growing little by little as the race settled into rhythm.

"Fastest lap of the race for Jeon Jungkook."

The announcement earned several approving nods around the garage, eyes immediately drifting towards the timing screens as fresh data appeared.

"Gap now 2.1 seconds at the front."

Another lap disappeared. Another purple sector appeared beside his name. Another small increase to the lead followed shortly afterwards, and with every passing circuit, it became increasingly difficult to ignore what the timing screens were beginning to suggest.

For the first time all weekend, you found yourself glancing away from the timing screens occasionally, allowing your attention to wander across the harbour and the grandstands and the endless sea of Ferrari supporters packed into every available space around the circuit.

The race was far from over, not even remotely close, yet with every lap that disappeared from the timing screens, it became increasingly difficult to ignore what everybody else seemed to be noticing. Jungkook wasn't simply leading anymore. He was controlling the race, the pace, the gap. Controlling the entire afternoon in a way that only became more obvious the longer the Grand Prix continued.

"Lap fifteen of seventy-eight, and Jungkook continues to lead comfortably, extending the gap to nearly three seconds over Verstappen behind."

Three seconds. The statistic alone felt significant enough to send another quiet wave of excitement through the Ferrari garage, several heads immediately turning towards the timing screens as though seeing the number for themselves somehow made it more real. Nearby, one engineer exchanged a brief look with another before returning his attention to the data in front of him, neither man saying anything out loud because neither needed to. The thought already existed everywhere. It lingered in the small smiles appearing more frequently around the garage. It lingered in the way conversations seemed easier now.

The race continued unfolding steadily around you while lap after lap disappeared from the timing screens, the Ferrari remaining firmly in control at the front while Taehyung quietly held position further back in the points, Monaco's streets gradually becoming less intimidating and more familiar with every passing circuit. Around the harbour, thousands of spectators remained fixed on the action below while helicopters continued circling overhead and commentators filled the airwaves with increasingly optimistic discussions about Ferrari's chances, the afternoon settling into a rhythm that felt almost comfortable.

Which, in hindsight, should probably have been the first warning sign.

Because the most dangerous thing about hope was how quietly it arrived, slipping into conversations and expectations and passing thoughts until one day you looked up and realised you'd already started imagining the ending.

"Lap twenty-three of seventy-eight and Jeon Jungkook continues to control proceedings at the front, maintaining a comfortable gap over Verstappen while managing his tyres beautifully."

The race had settled into rhythm now, the opening chaos long gone and replaced by something steadier. Around you, engineers studied timing screens and tyre data with unwavering focus, occasionally exchanging observations through headsets before returning their attention to the endless streams of information scrolling across their monitors.

Further down the order, pit stops had already begun unfolding, one team blinking first before another quickly followed, the timing screens shifting constantly as cars peeled away from the train and disappeared into the pit lane, strategies gradually becoming the centre of attention as the race entered its next phase.

"The undercut could be powerful today. Ferrari will be monitoring Verstappen closely here."

The atmosphere around the Ferrari garage sharpened almost immediately, several engineers leaning closer towards their screens while fresh calculations appeared and strategy discussions accelerated through headsets, attention momentarily shifting away from the race lead and towards the battle unfolding behind it.

A few laps later, Verstappen finally boxed, prompting another flurry of activity around you as every possible scenario seemed to be evaluated simultaneously, yet despite the growing intensity surrounding the pit wall, the Ferrari remained comfortably at the front, Jungkook continuing to circulate around Monaco's streets with the same controlled precision he'd displayed all afternoon.

"Verstappen into the pits. Ferrari is choosing to keep Jungkook out for now."

The decision appeared deliberate. Confident. Ferrari allowed their driver to extract a few more laps before eventually calling him in, the scarlet car finally peeling towards the pit lane several circuits later as the garage exploded into motion. Mechanics launched themselves over the wall with practiced efficiency, tyres disappearing and reappearing in a blur of movement while the stop unfolded almost too quickly to properly follow, the Ferrari dropping from the lead only briefly before rejoining the circuit.

The reaction around the garage was subtle but impossible to miss, shoulders relaxing slightly as a few relieved smiles appeared amongst engineers who immediately returned their attention to the race. The pit stop phase continued unfolding elsewhere around the circuit, but Ferrari had emerged exactly where they wanted to be.

"Excellent stop from Ferrari. Jungkook retains the lead of the Monaco Grand Prix."

The race settled once again after the pit stop cycle concluded, the order at the front remaining largely unchanged while Monaco's streets continued swallowing lap after lap beneath the afternoon sun. Around the circuit, overtaking remained as difficult as ever, forcing most drivers into a careful balancing act between aggression and patience, while further down the order several battles briefly threatened to develop before inevitably being shut down by the unforgiving nature of the track itself.

"Lap thirty-seven of seventy-eight, and Jungkook continues to lead the Monaco Grand Prix. Verstappen remains within range, but Ferrari will be pleased with how this race is unfolding."

The numbers continued changing constantly as the race progressed, drifting from two-point-seven to three-point-one before settling somewhere in between again, yet never shrinking enough to become genuinely concerning. If anything, Jungkook appeared completely in control. From your position on the pit wall, there were moments when the entire thing almost appeared effortless, the scarlet car threading itself through Monaco's impossibly narrow streets with a precision that made the circuit look far less intimidating than it actually was, each lap unfolding with the same measured confidence that had defined his entire afternoon.

Then came the first yellow flag.

"Yellow flag, sector two. Yellow flag, sector two."

For one brief moment, the entire Ferrari garage seemed to pause collectively before information finally began filtering through the radios. A Williams had brushed the barrier exiting the Swimming Pool section, scattering a small amount of debris across the circuit before managing to continue without significant damage, the incident minor enough to avoid a Safety Car yet significant enough to remind everybody of the reality surrounding them.

The yellow flags disappeared almost as quickly as they had appeared, and the race resumed its rhythm, yet something about the atmosphere felt subtly different afterwards.

"Forty laps completed. Thirty-eight remaining."

The race had entered that strange phase where time seemed to move in two directions at once, every lap taking forever to finish while the overall distance remaining somehow continued shrinking faster than expected.

Sometime during the last ten laps, a cooler breeze had begun sweeping across the harbour, carrying with it the first hints of the evening that would eventually settle over Monaco once the race ended. You ignored it initially, too focused on the timing screens to pay much attention, but eventually even that became impossible.

The thin leather jacket you'd thrown on earlier suddenly felt far less useful than it had a few hours ago. Without looking away from the race, you slipped it off your shoulders and draped it across the back of your chair before reaching for the Ferrari hoodie you'd brought with you that morning, pulling it on quickly as another gust swept through the pit lane. Your attention had already returned to the timing screens.

The next ten laps seemed to disappear almost without notice, the race settling into such a steady rhythm that time itself felt strangely distorted, one moment showing thirty laps remaining on the timing screens and the next showing twenty, the scarlet Ferrari never once surrendering the lead while Verstappen remained trapped a few seconds behind, close enough to stay relevant yet never quite close enough to become a genuine threat.

With every completed circuit, the atmosphere surrounding the Ferrari garage grew steadily more dangerous, not because anything had gone wrong but because nothing had. The race had unfolded almost exactly as Ferrari had spent the entire weekend hoping it would, every strategy call landing perfectly, every pit stop executed cleanly, every decision appearing to move them one step closer towards something nobody wanted to discuss too openly.

"Twenty laps remaining in the Monaco Grand Prix, and Jeon Jungkook continues to control proceedings at the front."

Around the circuit, it seemed everybody else had reached the conclusion. Ferrari supporters erupted whenever Jungkook's name appeared on the giant screens, their cheers rolling across the harbour in waves, while broadcasters and commentators had started discussing victory with considerably less caution than before, the possibility no longer feeling hypothetical enough to dance around.

"If Ferrari can continue managing this race the way they have so far, Jungkook is on course for one of the biggest victories of his career."

The statement lingered longer than it should have, and so did the reaction it created. Suddenly, the possibility seemed to exist everywhere. Not hidden beneath careful optimism or buried beneath statistics and strategy discussions, but spoken aloud, openly acknowledged by people who had spent most of the afternoon refusing to tempt fate. The word victory had finally entered the conversation, and somehow that made everything feel significantly more fragile.

Around you, the tension had returned in a completely different form. One engineer briefly removed his headset and rubbed both hands across his face before immediately putting it back on, while another checked the timing screens for what felt like the hundredth time despite the numbers barely changing.

"Fifteen laps remaining."

Fifteen laps separated Jungkook from Monaco. Fifteen laps separated Ferrari from one of the most prestigious victories in motorsport. Fifteen laps stood between years of dreaming and the possibility of finally achieving it.

And somewhere deep inside your chest, the nervousness you'd managed to suppress for most of the afternoon returned all over again.

"Twelve laps remaining here in Monaco, and barring anything unexpected, Jeon Jungkook appears firmly in control of this Grand Prix."

The commentator's voice drifted through the speakers scattered around the pit wall, the statement sounding almost dangerously confident now.

The Ferrari continued circulating at the front with the same measured precision it had displayed all afternoon, Verstappen still unable to reduce the gap enough to apply meaningful pressure, while the grandstands surrounding the circuit seemed to grow louder with every completed lap.

The race was beginning to feel inevitable, the kind of inevitable people only recognised in hindsight. And the closer victory moved, the harder it became to look away.

"Ten laps remaining."

The announcement earned an immediate reaction from the crowd, a surge of excitement sweeping across the harbour and echoing between the buildings overlooking the circuit as thousands of spectators collectively realised just how close the race had come to its conclusion.

For the first time all afternoon, the number felt genuinely small, close enough that broadcasters had already begun preparing graphics and post-race segments, close enough that journalists were gradually gathering near Parc Fermé, and close enough that somewhere in the back of your mind, despite every effort not to, you found yourself wondering what Jungkook's face would look like when he finally climbed out of the Ferrari.

A cooler breeze drifted through the pit lane, and you instinctively folded your arms tighter across the Ferrari hoodie wrapped around your shoulders, your eyes never leaving the timing screens as another lap disappeared from the board and then another shortly afterwards. Lap sixty-nine became seventy. Then seventy-one. With every completed circuit, something inside the Ferrari garage seemed to tighten, not fear exactly, but expectation, the dangerous kind that arrived once victory stopped feeling hypothetical and started feeling attainable.

"Gap remains stable at 2.4 seconds. Verstappen simply hasn't had an answer for the Ferrari's pace this afternoon."

Ahead, the scarlet Ferrari continued carving its way through Monaco's narrow streets with the same precision it had displayed all afternoon, disappearing through Casino Square before reappearing moments later elsewhere around the circuit, the car looking every bit as composed as it had two hours earlier despite carrying the weight of an entire race weekend on its shoulders.

Then came lap seventy-two. Only six laps remaining.

And for the first time all afternoon, something changed. A brief radio transmission crackled through one of the engineers' headsets. A second glance towards a monitor before exchanging a quick look with somebody standing nearby. The entire interaction lasted only a few seconds, subtle enough that most people probably would've missed it entirely.

But you didn't, as your stomach tightened immediately.

Then the radio crackled again, this time louder and long enough that several heads turned simultaneously. The reaction was immediate, subtle enough that most people would've missed it yet impossible to ignore once you noticed it, one engineer suddenly frowning at the data in front of him while another looked up from his monitor and a third reached instinctively for his microphone, the atmosphere around the Ferrari garage stumbling all at once as though somebody had interrupted the rhythm everybody had settled into over the last seventy-two laps.

Your eyes immediately drifted towards the timing screens. The Ferrari was still listed first, and the gap was still there. Nothing looked wrong, yet something had changed.

"What happened?"

The question escaped before you could stop it, directed towards the nearest engineer, but he never answered. Not because he was ignoring you. Because he was already listening to something coming through his headset, his expression changed almost imperceptibly as more information arrived.

A sound tore through Monaco, so sharp and violent that it instantly cut through the roar of the crowd and the scream of twenty Formula One engines, replacing them with something infinitely worse. For a split second, the entire circuit seemed to hold its breath as the unmistakable sound of a car hitting the barriers echoed between the buildings surrounding the harbour.

A violent screech of tyres fighting desperately for grip, sharp enough to cut through the roar of the crowd and brutal enough to silence entire sections of the circuit almost instantly, followed by a sickening impact that seemed to reverberate through the harbour itself, the sound of carbon fibre and metal colliding with concrete barriers carrying far further than it should have.

The entire pit wall froze.

Your head snapped towards the circuit instinctively while around you, engineers were already moving, conversations dying mid-sentence as eyes immediately shifted towards timing screens and monitors, everybody trying to understand something that nobody seemed capable of explaining yet.

The timing tower updated once. The broadcast feed switched cameras abruptly, showing a Ferrari flying through one section of the circuit before cutting elsewhere, then somewhere else again, the production team seemingly searching for the source of whatever had just happened.

For one terrible, confusing second, nothing made sense.

The noise that had filled Monaco all afternoon vanished beneath something far worse, the entire circuit suspended in a strange state of confusion where everybody knew something had happened but nobody knew what.

Then your eyes found the timing tower again, and your stomach dropped. Because the Ferrari that had spent seventy-two laps leading the Monaco Grand Prix had suddenly disappeared.

Just gone.

"No." The word escaped automatically, barely louder than a whisper.

Around you, people were already moving before information had even fully arrived, engineers abandoning monitors, mechanics leaving equipment exactly where it sat, and team personnel rushing towards the pit wall railing overlooking the circuit, everybody operating entirely on instinct.

You followed without thinking, your feet moving before your brain could catch up, the distance between you and the barrier somehow feeling impossibly long despite only being a few metres. Then you reached it and saw the scarlet Ferrari sitting crumpled against the barriers. For a moment, your brain simply refused to process what your eyes were showing you.

One side of the car had been obliterated by the impact, fragments of carbon fibre scattered across the circuit in every direction while marshals sprinted towards the scene beneath frantic yellow flags, debris littering the racing line and smoke hanging faintly in the air. Everything about the image felt wrong.

Around the harbour, the crowd had fallen eerily quiet. Around the Ferrari garage, nobody seemed capable of speaking. Even the commentators sounded stunned when they finally found their voices again.

"Jungkook's crashed."

The words echoed across the circuit. Across the harbour, the grandstands, the Ferrari garage.

"Jungkook is out of the Monaco Grand Prix."

And just like that, seventy-two laps of perfection disappeared in a single corner.

The wrecked Ferrari remained motionless against the barriers while yellow flags continued waving overhead and marshals surrounded the scene, yet the Ferrari garage seemed trapped in a strange state of disbelief, as though everybody was still waiting for reality to correct itself and reveal that none of this had actually happened.

The timing screens updated, and Verstappen inherited the lead, the realization somehow hitting harder than the crash itself because that was the moment it became real, not when the Ferrari had struck the barriers and not when carbon fibre had scattered across the circuit, but now, as the race continued without him and the world carried on as though nothing had happened.

Around you, engineers slowly removed their headsets while others stared silently at screens they had spent the last two hours monitoring, nobody quite seeming to know what to do with themselves now that seventy-two laps of work, strategy, concentration, and hope had disappeared in a matter of seconds, leaving behind only the hollow aftermath of what should have been.

Then movement appeared beside the wrecked Ferrari, first one marshal and then another, before attention shifted towards the cockpit itself, and the entire Ferrari garage seemed to hold its breath, yourself included, every pair of eyes fixed on the same spot as the seconds stretched painfully longer than they should have.

Nobody was looking at the timing screens now. One second passed, then another, and then finally the top of a helmet appeared above the halo.

The reaction was immediate, not celebration but relief, pure overwhelming relief that swept through the garage and the grandstands alike as a wave of applause rolled through sections of the crowd when Jungkook climbed from the car unaided, marshals immediately approaching him while television cameras zoomed in from every available angle. Relief hit so hard it almost hurt.

The realization should have settled the panic sitting inside your chest, should have eased the tightness that had been there ever since the impact, yet instead it only seemed to make room for something else, because even from this distance and even through the helmet, you could tell that something about him had changed.

Jungkook wasn't looking at the car, he wasn't looking at the crowd, and he wasn't looking anywhere at all, simply standing beside the wreckage for a moment with his shoulders rising and falling as one marshal spoke to him before he finally nodded once in response, the gesture feeling mechanical and automatic, like somebody operating entirely on instinct because there was nothing else left for them to do.

Around Monaco the race continued, cars streaming past behind the Safety Car while commentators resumed speaking and the grandstands gradually found their voices again, yet none of it seemed capable of reaching him, none of it seeming able to break through whatever silence had settled around him in that moment, because six laps earlier he had been leading the Monaco Grand Prix, six laps earlier victory had been close enough to touch, close enough to imagine, and now it was gone.

Completely gone.

Without another glance towards the Ferrari, Jungkook finally turned away from the barriers and began walking towards the waiting marshals while the crowd continued applauding as he left, but he never acknowledged it, not once.

And for the first time all afternoon, Jungkook looked exactly like somebody whose dream had been taken away before he ever had the chance to reach it.

Chapter 5 | Taglist: @haniiii @myr-sam0 @annpeachy @ggukcosmos @lovingkoalaface @armycarat2612 @mar-lo-pap @bjoriis @lotusglowii @glittersparklezz @ceellliiinee

[astralkookie]

Guys just saw this post of alexandra leclerc and the first thing that came to my mind is the chapter 1 of atlbty. The difference between her and our oc is crazyyy. Initially when I started writing this, I tried not using alexandra and charles leclerc for the pictures but ykw, there's no way I write an F1 Ferrari fic and not use their faces. Also, why are they sooooo pretty 😭😭😭😭 Especially alexandra, I'm so gay for her😭😭😭😭

also guys I'm only 5k words in in chapter 4, this shit is going to be crazyyy long. Cause 5k words are for the scenes before the race even starts. Also, spoiler!!!! this chapter is going to be insaneeee, like oh my Lord kind insane. But I'm also trying to make the consequences worse than the action. Can't say more than this, give me a few more days mkay??

Also, while i go write y'all tell me if y'all believe in superstitions? Like evil eyes and jinx etc etc? (The question is somewhat related to the chapter oop)

[astralkookie]

GUYSSSS!!!!!! All tracks lead back to you Ch 3 will be out in an our or so. Meanwhile, I've also started working on the next chapter of never say, never.

So now tell me, which one do i uplod next?

never say, never ch 4

all tracks lead back to you ch4

Voting ended onJun 2

[astralkookie]

okay okay guyssss, I'm gonna start working on ch4 for atlbty then. I feel so excited writing this fic so I think I'm gonna loose my sleep tonight, enough rest I've had. LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOO!!!!

[astralkookie]

y'all ik how much i fuck up the timings on the texts in atlbty, but pls for the love of god, ignore them😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 I beggggggg cause I'm way too lazy to go fix it and I'm too fucking lazy😭😭😭🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Also professional writers (or literally anyone) pls suggest me good websites or applications to make the imessages, etc. Thank youuu watashi wa star hehe

[astralkookie]

All tracks lead back to you ✮⋆⭒˚.⋆ Chapter 3

Funny how a car crash at the Monaco Grand Prix ended up crashing everything else too.

F1 racer!jungkook, Songwriter!oc, childhood bestfriends to lovers, racing accidents/crashes, public scrutiny, friends to lovers, hate comments, emotional dependency, jealousy, miscommunication, angst, toxic fan culture, media pressure, arguments, alcohol consumption, anxiety, emotional burnout, slowburn, smut

desclaimer: this is a fictional story and does not reflect the real personalities or lives of any idols, drivers or celebrities mentioned. pls remember this is all fake and made for fun !!

word count: 4.5k words

Series Masterlist

note: yes. yeah. yup. chapter 3 is out already. Did I loose my sleep over this? Definitely. Will I do it again for chapter 4? Hell yeah. So this capter is going to be very cutsiee, it'll be about the qualifyings and we'll get to see so many cute moments bw oc and jungkook. I really hope ya'll enjoy this one and i'd really appreciate your feedbacks and comments. Love ya'll, mwah mwah <33 I'll go sleep now.

On Saturday morning, Monaco had settled into the pit of your stomach.

Nothing had changed physically; the yachts still floated lazily across the harbour, the Mediterranean sparkled beneath the sunlight, and the city looked impossibly beautiful from every angle. Yet, the atmosphere tightened. It became sharper, carrying a weight that seemed to follow everybody through the paddock, whether they acknowledged it aloud or not.

Even arriving at the circuit unusually early didn't make the place feel calmer. If anything, it only made the tension more noticeable. Mechanics were already moving through the Ferrari garage with purpose; engineers stood clustered around screens displaying data from previous sessions, and team personnel hurried between meetings carrying coffees that looked far too small for the amount of work waiting ahead of them.

Everybody seemed nervous except Jungkook.

Or at least he appeared that way. You sat beside him near the back of the garage while he finished his smoothie and casually chatted with Taehyung as though Monaco qualifying wasn't only a few hours away. Around him, the entire team seemed locked into preparation mode, yet Jungkook somehow managed to carry himself with the same relaxed confidence he'd shown all weekend, occasionally laughing at something Taehyung said before turning back toward the engineers discussing setup changes nearby. It should have reassured you. Instead, it made you more nervous.

"You know you're stressing enough for both of us, right?"Jungkook’s voice reached you as you glanced up from your phone and say, "Someone has to."

"I'm literally the one driving. You act like I'm about to go to war."

"You’re about to drive a Ferrari around Monaco at two hundred kilometres an hour." That earned you a laugh from him. Despite himself, he seemed amused by your concern, which only irritated you further. The entire paddock spent every weekend reminding people how dangerous Formula One was, yet the actual drivers always appeared the least concerned by it.

Jungkook simply nudged your shoulder with his before standing up as one of the engineers called him over for the final FP, leaving you with nothing except your own thoughts and the growing anticipation hanging over the circuit.

A few hours later, FP3 just made everybody even more confident.

From the moment the session began, Jungkook looked completely untouchable, consistently finding time at the top of the leaderboard while Ferrari personnel attempted and failed to hide their satisfaction. Every lap looked clean. Every sector looked strong. Every time his name appeared at the top of the timing screens, the confidence surrounding him seemed to grow. By the time the session ended with him comfortably securing P1 once again, even the people trying not to get ahead of themselves had started believing Monaco pole position was within reach.

You certainly believed it. But believing it only made you more nervous because now there was something to lose.

The celebrations afterwards remained brief, mostly because everybody immediately shifted their attention toward qualifying preparations, but the atmosphere around Ferrari had noticeably lifted. Conversations sounded lighter. Smiles appeared more frequently. Even the engineers looked cautiously optimistic. Jungkook, meanwhile, returned from the session looking exactly the same as he had beforehand, helmet tucked beneath one arm as though topping another practice session was the most ordinary thing in the world.

Before either of you could leave for the hotel, however, your phone suddenly lit up with an incoming FaceTime.

Mom

You immediately knew what this was about. Instead of answering, you accepted the call and turned the screen toward him. The moment his face appeared on screen, your mother's expression brightened noticeably while your father immediately launched into what sounded suspiciously like a pre-race motivational speech.

"Look at him," your mother said dramatically. "He already looks like a winner."

"Don't jinx it," Jungkook replied.

"Nonsense. You're winning tomorrow."

"See?" your father added. "That's the confidence I like."

For the next several minutes, you sat there listening while they treated him less like your best friend and more like their second child. They reminded him to eat properly, wished him luck approximately twelve separate times, told him how proud they were of everything he'd achieved, and somehow managed to squeeze childhood memories into the conversation as well. At one point, your mother even brought up a karting competition from years ago that neither of you had thought about in ages, causing Jungkook to laugh so hard he nearly dropped your phone.

By the time the call ended, the smile lingering on his face seemed impossible to hide. Barely two minutes later, his own family called, followed by his cousins and friends.

One by one, he accepted every good luck wish with the same patience and gratitude, thanking each person before moving on to the next. Watching him sit there surrounded by so many people rooting for him felt strangely emotional, especially because you knew exactly how much work had gone into reaching this point.

Eventually, engineers started calling drivers back as the meetings resumed and qualifying preparations began in earnest. Jungkook stood for another briefing, while you prepared to head back to the hotel and get ready yourself.

"You'll be fine, you know."

The words pulled your attention away from the endless movement surrounding you, away from engineers crossing the garage carrying laptops and headsets, away from mechanics making last-minute preparations and team personnel rushing between meetings as qualifying crept closer with every passing minute.

You looked up to find Jungkook watching you with an expression that was equal parts amused and concerned, as though he'd spent the entire morning observing your increasingly obvious attempts to pretend you weren't worried. "What?"

"Qualifying."

A laugh escaped you before you could stop it. "I'm not the one qualifying."

"No," he agreed, shifting his helmet from one arm to the other, "but you're still more nervous than I am."

You wanted to argue. You wanted to point out that he was about to drive a Formula One car around one of the most unforgiving circuits in the world while millions of people watched and expected him to perform. You wanted to remind him that every person inside the Ferrari garage had spent the entire weekend quietly convincing themselves that he was capable of securing pole position, that he had topped every session so far, that everybody suddenly seemed so sure of what was going to happen that it felt dangerous. Instead, all that came out was a quiet sigh because, unfortunately, he wasn't entirely wrong. The smile that spread across his face softened almost immediately.

"I'll be okay."

For a moment, neither of you moved, and everything felt strangely quieter than before. Maybe it was because the reality of qualifying was finally settling in. Maybe it was because you'd spent the entire morning carrying around a nervousness that refused to disappear, no matter how many times you reminded yourself that Jungkook had done this hundreds of times before. Or maybe it was simply because no matter how successful he became, no matter how many championships people predicted for him or how many headlines his name appeared in, a part of you would always see the boy who had spent most of his childhood chasing impossible dreams and refusing to give up on them.

As if Jungkook could still hear the turmoil within you, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around you.

You hugged him back immediately, arms comfortably settling around his sides.  

Throughout your lives, there had been countless moments exactly like this, moments before competitions, performances, races, tours, and milestones where one of you instinctively reached for the other without needing a reason beyond simple comfort. This was just another one of them, yet his warmth comforted you in a way nothing ever has. It felt as though some of the tension you'd been carrying all morning had finally loosened its grip.

"You better win this shit,” you murmured against his chest.

The laugh that escaped him this time was warmer, softer, and for some reason, it eased something inside your gut that had been wound tight all morning. Neither of you pulled away immediately; there had never been a need to rush when it came to each other. However, an engineer called out Jungkook's name from somewhere deeper inside the garage, forcing both of you back into the present.

As he stepped away, he gave your shoulder a small squeeze. "I mean it," he said, meeting your eyes one last time before turning toward the waiting team. "I'll be okay."

This time, you believed him.  You believed him because you always had. Because trusting Jungkook had become so deeply woven into your life that you no longer knew how not to. Yet even as you watched him disappear further into the controlled chaos of the Ferrari garage, preparing himself for the most important session of the weekend so far, the nervousness started to reappear, and it only settled deeper beneath your ribs.

By the time you returned to the circuit that afternoon, the paddock had transformed completely, growing louder and more crowded with every passing hour.

The outfit change, the makeup touch-ups, and the brief attempt at convincing yourself that Jungkook was probably the best driver there had done very little to calm your racing heart. The roads surrounding the circuit were busier now, packed with fans wrapped in team colours and photographers lingering near every possible entrance in hopes of catching drivers arriving for the most important session of the weekend. Somewhere in the distance, you could already hear helicopters circling above the harbour, broadcasting images of Monaco to millions of viewers around the world while the city itself seemed to hold its breath in anticipation.

Monaco had always carried a different kind of importance compared to every other race on the calendar. Even somebody like you, whose career existed in an entirely separate universe from motorsport, understood exactly what was at stake. Pole position here wasn't just pole position. It was history, the kind of achievement people remembered years later. The kind that ended up framed on walls and replayed in highlight reels long after the season had ended.

The moment you stepped inside the paddock, the shift in atmosphere became impossible to ignore. Ferrari's garage buzzed with a level of intensity that hadn't existed earlier that morning, engineers moving between workstations with purpose while mechanics completed final checks on both cars. Across the pit lane, Red Bull appeared equally focused, their drivers already disappearing in and out of briefings while Mercedes personnel crowded around timing screens discussing something with increasingly serious expressions. McLaren looked busy. Aston Martin looked busy. Every single team seemed locked into the same collective understanding that what happened over the next hour could very easily define the rest of the weekend.

"Well, the Ferrari Princess is here."

You turned around only to find Namjoon walking towards you.  The smile that immediately appeared on his face suggested he was enjoying this far more than he should have.

"Hate when people call me that.” You laughed despite yourself. "I still don't believe Ferrari lets you sit on the pit wall."

“You can’t ignore real talent forever.”

"That's definitely not it." He chuckled, showing off his dimpled smile.

The conversation should have ended there. At least, that was probably how it would have gone with anybody else. But Namjoon possessed the irritating ability to keep every interaction moving forward, no matter how many opportunities it had to die naturally, effortlessly jumping from one topic to another while maintaining the same relaxed confidence that appeared to follow him everywhere he went. It wasn't difficult to understand why people liked him.

Soon enough, Jungkook reached both of you, water bottle hanging loosely from one hand, while he casually inserted himself into the conversation with the ease of somebody who had never once questioned whether he belonged there. Somehow, his presence changed the entire shape of the conversation without him appearing to make any effort whatsoever. Maybe it was because your attention kept drifting toward him. Or maybe it was because qualifying was now close enough to feel real. Which was probably why you didn't fully realize what had happened until Namjoon eventually glanced toward one of the screens displaying the remaining time until qualifying, pushed himself to his feet with an exaggerated sigh, and announced that his team had apparently remembered he had responsibilities.

His gaze shifted between you and Jungkook for a brief second before giving Jungkook a quick "Good luck today." The smile he gave you before leaving was amused. The one he gave Jungkook was knowing. Neither of you acknowledged it, though.

Yet once he disappeared into the growing crowd surrounding the neighbouring garages, Jungkook caught your attention. "You seem to be making a lot of new friends."

You narrowed your eyes at him, "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing."

"That definitely wasn’t nothing." The accusation almost escaped your mouth before you stopped yourself. You knew the slight shift in his voice when something was bothering him, even if he refused to admit it. Which was exactly why you noticed the way his attention seemed to linger on Namjoon's retreating figure for half a second longer than necessary.

Unfortunately, qualifying left very little room for overthinking. The closer the qualifying drew, the more obvious it became that the entire paddock was shifting into another gear. Ferrari wasn't the only team feeling it. Across the pit lane, journalists hovered near garage entrances, hoping to catch final interviews before drivers disappeared into preparation mode.

Everywhere you looked, people seemed to understand exactly what was at stake. And standing inside Ferrari's garage, watching engineers prepare for the session while mechanics made final adjustments to the cars, you couldn't stop thinking about how badly one particular driver wanted it.

Jungkook changed the closer he got to the car. His focus seemed to narrow naturally, all unnecessary distractions quietly falling away until every piece of his attention pointed toward the same objective. Looking at him now felt different from looking at him an hour ago. He looked like the driver who had spent years turning impossible ambitions into reality through sheer stubbornness, talent, and determination.

And suddenly, standing there while the noise of the garage swirled around you, you found yourself feeling absurdly emotional about it.

Because nobody else here had seen the beginning of it all. The oversized karting helmets, the tiny local tracks, the endless drives home after competitions, the years spent working toward opportunities that had never felt guaranteed.

Everybody saw the headlines, podiums, sponsorship deals, and interviews. You saw all of that, too, of course you did, but layered beneath it remained every previous version of him that had existed before the world started paying attention. Maybe that was why your chest felt strangely tight as qualifying finally approached and your heart seemed determined to race alongside his.

When his eyes eventually found yours again, neither of you spoke immediately because there wasn't really anything left to say. Everything meaningful had already been spoken aloud. What remained now was something simpler. The understanding that existed after twenty years of knowing somebody so completely that words occasionally became unnecessary.

The affection hit you before you could stop it, as you stepped closer, reached up, and pressed a quick kiss against his cheek.

The gesture itself wasn't unusual. Physical affection had never been unusual between the two of you. Hugs, shoulders leaning together during flights, hands grabbing wrists and sleeves and jackets without thinking, all of it had existed comfortably inside your friendship for years. Yet something about this moment felt different anyway.

Because instead of immediately rolling his eyes or making a joke or teasing you for being emotional, Jungkook simply looked at you.

The look he gave you felt different from every other look exchanged throughout the course of your life, carrying something neither of you understood well enough to name.

You'd known Jungkook for most of your life. You knew the sound of his laugh before you saw him, the difference between his real smile and the one he used for cameras, how he looked when he was angry, exhausted, excited, disappointed, nervous, heartbroken, and happy.

So why, standing here in the middle of a Ferrari garage surrounded by hundreds of people, did he suddenly feel impossible to read?

The thought barely had time to settle before somebody called his name from deeper inside the garage.

The moment cracked apart. Jungkook blinked first, then appeared a small, soft, almost shy smile, and that made everything worse.

Because your stomach chose that exact moment to perform a completely unnecessary backflip.

Jungkook simply held your gaze for one second longer than necessary before turning toward the waiting Ferrari, disappearing back into the noise and movement and expectation that had surrounded him all day as you watched him go.

And for the first time all afternoon, qualifying wasn't the only thing making your heart race.

​By the time the first cars rolled out of the pit lane, you had already stopped pretending you weren't nervous.

It wasn't even a rational kind of nervousness anymore. Rational nervousness could be explained away. Rational nervousness listened to the statistics, timing sheets, and all the evidence Ferrari had spent the entire weekend presenting. Rational nervousness looked at Jungkook topping every practice session and decided there was probably no reason to panic.

Unfortunately, whatever was currently happening inside your chest had very little interest in logic. The closer qualifying drew, the more difficult it became to ignore the pressure hanging over the circuit, not only because this was Monaco, not only because pole position here mattered more than almost anywhere else, but because everywhere you looked, people seemed to expect something extraordinary to happen. The thousands of supporters packed into grandstands overlooking the harbour expected it. Somewhere beneath all the excitement and anticipation sat a dangerous amount of hope, and hope had always been considerably more terrifying than doubt.

From your place on the pit wall, Monaco unfolded in flashes of colour and noise and impossible precision, cars appearing for mere seconds before disappearing behind barriers and buildings again, leaving only the fading scream of engines in their wake. Every time the timing screens updated, another ripple passed through the Ferrari garage.

Engineers leaned closer to monitors. Mechanics exchanged glances. Radios crackled constantly with information that seemed to arrive faster than anybody could possibly process it. Across the circuit, other teams were experiencing the same thing. Red Bull remained close enough to be uncomfortable. Mercedes refused to disappear. Every few minutes, another driver threatened to shake up the order entirely before somebody else immediately responded. The gaps separating them were ridiculous. Entire afternoons being decided by distances too small for the human eye to detect.

And through all of it, Jungkook remained exactly where everybody expected him to be.

Always near the front.

Every time his name appeared at the top of the timing screens, the Ferrari garage relaxed for approximately five seconds before finding a new reason to panic. Every improvement from another team sent another wave of tension through the engineers surrounding you. Every purple sector made your stomach drop. Every lap felt important. Every corner felt important. At some point, you stopped sitting entirely, too restless to remain still for more than a few moments at a time, hair already in a messy braid, pacing short distances behind the pit wall before inevitably returning to the screens as though staring at them hard enough might somehow influence the outcome.

Then came Q3, and Ferrari looked strong. Strong enough to believe, to make pole position feel possible, and to make losing it hurt.

By the time the final runs began, nobody around you seemed capable of acting normal anymore. Hoseok had removed his headset twice, only to immediately put it back on. Yoongi looked as though he hadn't blinked in several minutes. Even the mechanics standing behind the pit wall had abandoned any attempt at appearing calm, their attention fixed entirely on the screens displaying sector times as the remaining minutes disappeared. Somewhere overhead, helicopters circled the circuit. Somewhere out in the harbour, thousands of people were watching from yachts. Somewhere in the city, millions of viewers around the world were holding their breath.

And so were you. You didn't even realize the broadcast cameras had found you until the reaction reached the crowd first.

A roar swept through one section of Ferrari supporters positioned opposite the pit wall, loud enough to briefly pull your attention away from the screens. Confused, you followed their gaze upward and immediately regretted it. Your face stared back at you from the giant circuit display overlooking the harbour, your expression apparently communicating enough panic to entertain several thousand people at once. The realization lasted all of two seconds before your attention snapped right back toward the timing screens because Jungkook was still on track, and absolutely nobody's opinion of your stress levels felt remotely important compared to that.

The final lap felt endless. Every sector update appeared to take years, and every corner seemed impossibly far away from the next. Somewhere beside you, somebody swore. While somewhere else, somebody started celebrating too early. Nobody seemed capable of agreeing on anything except the fact that the next few moments would decide everything.

Then came the final sector, the line, and the deafening silence.

The strange, impossible silence that exists for a fraction of a second before thousands of people realize what they've just witnessed.

The moment Jungkook crossed the line and his lap time shot to the top of the timing sheets, Ferrari exploded.

The sound hit first, not one sound but hundreds of them. Shouts and laughter and disbelief and relief all crashed together into something so loud that it briefly drowned out everything else, the engineers surrounding you surging to their feet almost instantly while mechanics threw their arms around whoever happened to be standing closest.

One of the headsets landed somewhere on the floor. Somebody nearly knocked over a monitor. Somewhere behind you, Jimin was already filming the chaos unfolding around him because, apparently, even in moments of complete emotional collapse, he remained committed to content.

People were already pulling you into strong, messy hugs, yet you couldn't move.

All you could do was stare at the timing screen, at the name sitting at the very top, at the tiny white letters beside it confirming what everybody had spent the entire weekend hoping for and simultaneously trying not to expect.

P1, Monaco.

Jeon Jungkook.

The three things refused to fit together properly inside your head. The moment itself felt bigger than the numbers displayed on the screen, because standing there while the Ferrari garage celebrated around you, all you could think about was how far away this had once seemed. How many years ago this had simply been a dream. How many weekends had been spent chasing moments exactly like this one.

The realization hit harder than expected as your eyes immediately burned. Nobody gave you time to recover because somebody suddenly grabbed both of your shoulders from behind and started shaking you.

"He did it." You finally turned.

Taehyung looked just as shocked as everybody else. "He actually did it."

"You got P3."

"I KNOW." He yelled before pulling you in a hug. The fact that he sounded personally offended by his own excitement only made you laugh harder, tears also escaping your eyes, the tension finally breaking apart after hours spent wound impossibly tight.

Around you, the celebrations showed absolutely no signs of slowing down. Ferrari personnel continued pouring out of the garage. Journalists were already gathering near Parc Fermé. Team members were talking over each other. Yet the person responsible was nowhere to be seen.

Until he was.

The giant screens scattered throughout the circuit switched to the broadcast feed just in time to catch Jungkook climbing out of the Ferrari, pulling off his helmet while the crowd erupted around him. Even from a distance, the grin spreading across his face looked almost unreal, the kind of smile that appeared only when somebody spent years imagining a moment and then found reality exceeding expectations. Cameras surrounded him immediately. Marshals directed him toward parc fermé. Reporters practically materialized from thin air.

And still his eyes searched.

The realization struck you so suddenly that it almost stole your breath. Even through thousands of people, he was looking for you.

The second his gaze finally landed on you standing near the pit wall, something about his entire expression changed. One moment he looked like Monaco's pole sitter, and the next, he looked like Jungkook.

The idiot Jungkook, wearing the same expression he had worn when he came first in that roller-skating competition at fourteen.

And then he started running towards you, as the crowd immediately noticed.

You could actually hear the reaction ripple through the grandstands as people realized the newly crowned pole sitter was sprinting straight past several journalists and directly toward somebody standing near the Ferrari garage. Cameras followed him instantly while broadcast crews practically chased him. Somewhere above the circuit, your faces probably occupied every giant screen available.

Neither of you cared.

You barely had time to react before his arms wrapped around you and suddenly the ground disappeared beneath your feet, a startled laugh escaping you as he lifted you clean off the floor with enough force to nearly send both of you falling backwards. The adrenaline still radiating from him felt almost contagious, his laughter mixing with yours as well as the tears of happiness, while the entire Ferrari garage continued celebrating around you, and for one ridiculous moment, it genuinely felt as though the rest of the world had ceased to exist.

"You did it."

The words came out breathless and entirely inadequate, yet Jungkook understood anyway.

Because of course he did, he always did.

The hug lasted longer than either of you intended before the two of you were crushed by a running Taehyung, then came Hoseok, then Jimin, Yoongi, and then half of Ferrari.

The resulting group hug quickly collapsed into complete chaos, people laughing and shouting and congratulating each other while photographers desperately attempted to capture everything at once.

For the next hour, the celebrations never truly stopped. Interviews came and went. Photographs were taken. Team members received congratulations from people they'd never met before. Phones buzzed endlessly with messages from friends and family. Everywhere you looked, somebody was smiling.

Eventually, as the paddock slowly began settling into the evening and the initial chaos faded into something more manageable, somebody suggested drinks. The proposal was accepted almost immediately, partly because Ferrari had earned the right to celebrate and partly because nobody possessed enough self-control to say no after a day like this. Plans were made. Locations were chosen. Reservations were apparently secured by people far more organized than anybody else present.

And for the first time all day, with the pressure finally gone and Monaco glowing beneath the evening sun beyond the harbour, everybody allowed themselves to believe that tomorrow was going to be perfect.

Chapter 4 | Taglist: @haniiii @myr-sam0 @annpeachy @ggukcosmos @lovingkoalaface @armycarat2612 @mar-lo-pap @bjoriis @lotusglowii @glittersparklezz @ceellliiinee

[astralkookie]

GUYSSSS!!!!!! All tracks lead back to you Ch 3 will be out in an our or so. Meanwhile, I've also started working on the next chapter of never say, never.

So now tell me, which one do i uplod next?

never say, never ch 4

all tracks lead back to you ch4

Voting ended onJun 2

[astralkookie]

Hi can u pls make a masterlist serise for the f1 racer jk pls? Like has all chapters in for this series? I wanna reblong it so bad so i can chech it , if its finisheh so i can start read then? Pls and thank u

Here's the masterlist !!!!

[astralkookie]

All tracks lead back to you ✮⋆⭒˚.⋆ Chapter 2

Funny how a car crash at the Monaco Grand Prix ended up crashing everything else too.

F1 racer!jungkook, Songwriter!oc, childhood bestfriends to lovers, racing accidents/crashes, public scrutiny, friends to lovers, hate comments, emotional dependency, jealousy, miscommunication, angst, toxic fan culture, media pressure, arguments, alcohol consumption, anxiety, emotional burnout, slowburn, smut

desclaimer: this is a fictional story and does not reflect the real personalities or lives of any idols, drivers or celebrities mentioned. pls remember this is all fake and made for fun !!

word count: 3.8k words

Series Masterlist

note: Chapter 2 out alreadyyy!!! I'm having so much fun writing this, tho i'm still struggling in some areas. So in case any portion of this chapter feels iffy, do lemme know, i'll try my best to improve. Anyways, i'm really excited for this and i'd really appreciate your feedbacks and comments. Love ya'll, mwah mwah <33

Friday began with Jungkook texting you like a man who had personally been assigned by God to ruin your sleep.

You had ignored the first message on principle, mostly because it was too early and partly because your stomach had started twisting itself into the familiar, miserable knot that always arrived on the first day of your period like an unpaid debt. The second message came three minutes later, followed by a third, where he guessed correctly that you were still sleeping. Not like he knew that he was right, but it was enough to get you out of bed anyway.

By the time you made it downstairs, hair still slightly damp from the fastest shower of your life and sunglasses shoved over your face like they could hide both exhaustion and cramps, Jungkook was already seated with the rest of them, looking unfairly awake for someone who had no business functioning that early.

Breakfast was loud in the way Ferrari mornings always seemed to be loud, full of half-finished conversations, clinking cutlery, people checking schedules between bites, and someone from the media reminding everyone of obligations they were clearly pretending not to hear. Hoseok greeted you with a dramatic little cheer when you reached the table, Yoongi looked up just long enough to let you know that he had acknowledged your presence, and Jimin, who seemed to exist somewhere between media assistant, professional babysitter, and human calendar reminder, immediately slid a coffee toward you like he had been expecting you to arrive in a bad mood.

Taehyung, another one of the racers, was there too, leaning back in his chair with the lazy confidence of someone who knew the entire internet would lose its mind over his race-day outfit later, and somehow the whole thing felt less like breakfast and more like being dropped into a family argument that had started before you walked in.

Jungkook noticed your mood before anyone else did, of course, because he was irritating like that. He did not say anything at first, only pushed a plate toward you when you sat beside him and nudged the glass of water closer with two fingers while pretending to listen to whatever Taehyung was saying across the table. You hated that he knew better than to ask too much in front of everyone, and hated even more that the quiet little gesture made your chest soften despite the cramps making you want to fold yourself in half.

“You look possessed,” Yoongi eventually commented, because apparently subtlety had died sometime between Thursday and Friday morning. “And you look unemployed,” you replied without missing a beat, which earned a laugh from Hoseok and a deeply offended silence from Yoongi that lasted approximately four seconds before he stole a piece of toast from Jimin’s plate.

By the time everyone started moving toward the paddock for FP1, the city had already shifted into race-weekend mode properly. Thursday had felt like anticipation, but Friday felt like machinery finally beginning to turn. The walk toward Ferrari hospitality was all moving bodies and camera flashes, staff hurrying with headsets pressed to their ears, fans calling names from behind barriers, journalists trying to catch drivers before they disappeared into garages and the track waiting below all of it like something alive. You had been around enough race weekends to know that practice was not supposed to feel dramatic, not really, but Monaco had a way of making even preparation feel important, as if every lap carried the weight of something bigger than the timing screens could show.

FP1 began with the kind of controlled tension you had learned to recognise even if you still understood only half of what was happening. The garage sharpened around the session, conversations becoming shorter, screens becoming more important, Hoseok and Yoongi disappearing fully into work while Jimin hovered somewhere between media duties and making sure nobody wandered where they were not supposed to. You stayed out of the way, tucked into a corner with your arms folded lightly across your stomach, watching Jungkook’s car move through the circuit on the screens and then, occasionally, catching a flash of red outside when he passed. There was something almost unfair about watching him drive on the tracks. He made it look easy, which you knew it wasn’t, and calm, which you knew he rarely was beneath all that focus.

When he came back after the session, helmet off and hair slightly ruined in a way his fans would probably write poetry about if given the chance, you were still sitting where he had left you. “Not bad,” you said, because complimenting him properly had always felt like handing him a weapon.

Jungkook glanced at you while taking a sip of water, unimpressed before you had even finished speaking. “Not bad?” “Yeah,” you nodded. “Very inspirational. A very red car went vroom vroom. Nearly moved me to tears.” Hoseok, passing behind him with a tablet, snorted loudly enough for Jungkook to glare at both of you.

“You know,” he said, dropping into the seat beside you for the few minutes he apparently had before being taken away again, “one day you’ll admit I’m good at this.” You tilted your head like you were considering it. “Maybe when you stop fishing for praises like a fatherless golden retriever.”

That should have been the end of it, except Jungkook’s expression shifted halfway through whatever insult he was preparing, his gaze narrowing slightly as he looked at you properly for the first time since breakfast. “Why do you look like you’re in pain?” he asked, quieter than before, and that was the problem with him, really. He could be annoying for hours and then suddenly look at you like he had stripped the room down to just the two of you. You shrugged, reaching for a piece of fruit from the plate someone had left nearby. “Cramps. Day one.” The answer made his mouth press into a line immediately. “Why didn’t you say that earlier?”

“Because I’m brave,” you said, while rolling your eyes. “You’re annoying,” he shot back, looking away as though your existence itself was annoying.

“I think I’m both,” you said, breaking into a full grin. Though he did not laugh, which was how you knew he had started taking it seriously. “You should go back to the hotel.”

“I’m fine.” “You’re literally sitting like someone stabbed you.” “That’s just my posture.” “It’s not.” Jungkook stared at you for a full second before looking around like he was searching for someone to blame for your existence, and before he could start whatever lecture was already forming behind his eyes, two Ferrari interviewers appeared with bright smiles and a camera crew hovering behind them.

Your name was said with that careful, polite enthusiasm media people used when they were asking for something, and you immediately sat up straighter, grateful for the interruption. “See?” you told Jungkook, already standing. “Busy woman. Very important. Needed by the press.”

“You’re not press,” he said, still frowning.

“But I’m prettier.”

Jimin appeared behind him then, one hand already on Jungkook’s shoulder as if physically prepared to drag him away if necessary. “FP2 prep,” he reminded him, and Jungkook looked deeply unhappy about the timing, which you chose not to find sweet because you had self-respect and stomach pain. “Go drive your little car,” you told him, waving him off before he could argue again. “I’ll survive.”

He looked like he wanted to say more, but Jimin was already steering him away and one of the interviewers was asking whether you had a minute to talk about being back in Monaco, so you gave Jungkook the most convincing smile you could manage and pretended not to notice when your phone buzzed a few minutes later with a message from him anyway.

By the time FP2 ended, the entire paddock felt tired in a different way. Not drained exactly, but stretched thin by heat, noise, schedules and the knowledge that Saturday would matter even more. Jungkook looked it when he found you again, all post-session focus and damp hair, but somehow the two of you still ended up deciding that going straight back to the hotel felt too depressing for a Friday evening in Monaco.

So instead, after enough people had stopped needing him and enough staff had stopped looking like they were about to chase him down, you wandered away from the paddock together with no real plan except finding air that did not smell faintly of rubber, coffee and stress.

Monaco was softer outside the circuit, though only slightly. The streets were still busy, the harbour still crowded, the entire city still glowing with the unbearable confidence of a place that knew exactly how beautiful it was. You ended up wandering aimlessly along the waterfront while the sky slowly shifted into shades of gold and pink, neither of you particularly eager to return to the hotel yet, despite the team dinner waiting somewhere later in the evening.

At some point, Jungkook stopped in front of a small food stall and immediately bought a paper bag of barbajuans after insisting they were a Monaco essential. "I'm not hungry." You refused when he offered to get you your own.

"You haven't eaten properly since lunch," his voice now filled with concern. "I’m sure I did."

"No, the last thing you ate was the fries you stole from me." Well, now that was 5 hours ago, yet the sharks in your uterus right now weren't really helping with the appetite.

"Exactly. I ate." Jungkook looked unconvinced but didn't argue further, instead taking the bag and continuing down the street while eating one himself.

But only three minutes later, you stole one, and the first bite immediately ruined your argument. Your eyebrows shot upward immediately as the sweet taste and the weirdly satisfying texture of barbajuan overwhelmed your senses.

“Oh fuck, it’s so good.” You grabbed another one from the bag before he could continue. The look on his face was insufferable. “Aye aye, they’re mine!”

For the next ten minutes, you maintained the increasingly difficult position that you did not actually want barbajuans while steadily working your way through most of Jungkook's portion. By the time the two of you reached the edge of the harbour, there were only a few left.

"This is ridiculous." You glanced over at a sulking Jungkook.  "What is?"

"You said you didn't want any." He said with a pout, way too cute to be his.  "I didn't."

"Then why are you eating mine?" You considered the question seriously. "Because now I do."

"Then go buy your own." You immediately took another one, which immediately offended Jungkook, as he looked at the bag, then at you. Then at the bag again. "You are unbelievable." He shook his head, already smiling despite himself.

The thing was, for all his complaints, he never once tried taking the bag back. Never moved it further away. Never stopped you whenever your hand disappeared inside for another one. He simply continued walking beside you, grumbling every now and then about thieves and financial loss while making absolutely no effort to protect what remained of his food.

By the time the last barbajuan disappeared, the sun had almost completely sunk beneath the horizon, painting the harbour in warm shades of orange and gold. The conversation drifted naturally after that, jumping from old memories to stupid internet rumours to an argument about whether Jungkook had actually cheated during Mario Kart when you were thirteen, before eventually dissolving into the comfortable silence that had followed the two of you through most of your lives.

Somewhere behind you, Monaco continued preparing for race weekend. Somewhere ahead, Ferrari's team dinner was waiting. For now, though, it was just the two of you walking along the coast with salty air in your lungs, tired feet, and the familiar certainty that no matter how different your lives became, some things never really changed.

By the time Jungkook finally knocked on your hotel room door, the sky outside had already darkened over Monaco, the evening had arrived faster than either of you expected, and although the team dinner was still some time away, you were already running dangerously close to being late.

Jungkook opened the door with the extra keycard of your room, which he always kept, revealing a scene that immediately explained every unanswered text message from the last half hour.

You were slouched across the oversized couch near the window with all the elegance of somebody who had completely given up on life, one shoe abandoned near the coffee table, your phone lying face-down beside you, and the dress hanging frustratingly unfinished down your back. The expression on your face suggested that the zipper had personally insulted your family, and judging by the dramatic sigh you released the moment you saw him, the battle had clearly been going on for quite some time.

"You've been sitting here like this the whole time?" he asked, already setting his phone down on the nearest table.

"The zip is stuck."

He stared at you for a second before holding out his hand. You accepted it automatically, allowing him to pull you to your feet without argument. There was no teasing this time, no dramatic complaints, no endless back-and-forth that would have usually accompanied something so stupidly simple. Perhaps it was because you were tired. Perhaps it was because your cramps were still making their presence known every few minutes. Or perhaps it was because both of you wanted to get to dinner before Jimin started sending increasingly threatening reminders.

He turned you around to assess the damage, only to get distracted by your naked back. He shook his head slightly to get out of the spell he suddenly found himself in.

The problem turned out to be exactly what Jungkook expected. A tiny section of fabric had become trapped inside the zipper, stubborn enough to stop it from moving. He finally got to work, trying to get the stuck fabric out of the zipper, as his fingers came in contact with your skin. Shivers ran down your spine, making you feel so fuzzy every time you feel his touch.

The room settled into an awkward silence while he worked, interrupted only occasionally by the distant sounds of Monaco drifting through the partially open balcony doors. Somewhere further away, music floated upward from the harbour. The entire city seemed alive beneath the hotel, yet for a strange moment it felt very far away.

When the zipper finally slid smoothly upward, neither of you spoke immediately. You’ve never been more aware of his presence, his warmth seeping throughout your back as the pre-existing blush on your cheekbones hardly works in hiding the now red spreading on your face.

It should have been nothing, just a tiny inconvenience solved in less than sixty seconds. The sort of thing neither of you would even remember by next week.

Yet something about the moment lingered longer than it should have. Standing there now felt strangely different from sitting beside each other in Ferrari hospitality or wandering around the harbour earlier. Maybe it was the hormones peaking in your body due to your period.

Oh yes, that’s what it is. It’s very normal to feel horny during your period, right? Right? Also, the man standing behind you looked like the hottest person you’ve ever seen in your entire life. So you convinced yourself that it’s just your hormones speaking and everything’s chill.

Jungkook stepped back first, and you turned around almost immediately. Suddenly, neither of you seemed particularly interested in maintaining eye contact. You noticed how red his ears had become, a sign of nervousness you’ve been seeing since you can remember.

To Jungkook, the realization arrived quietly, without warning, and without either of you acknowledging it out loud. You looked good, like annoyingly good, if Jungkook were being honest with himself. The dress suited you perfectly, your hair had finally decided to cooperate for once, and somewhere between the afternoon sunlight on the harbour and the soft glow of the hotel lamps, you had become a slightly dangerous person to look at for too long. Unfortunately, looking away did not seem much easier.

"So?" you asked eventually, smoothing a hand down the side of the dress. Jungkook blinked before averting his eyes at something or anything behind you, "So what?"

The smile that slowly appeared on your face gave away how evidently you can read Jungkook,  "My fit check."

His eyes found yours again. "There are better ways to ask for compliments."

"There it is," you pointed at him triumphantly. "I knew you had one."

"I didn't say anything." He found himself moving away from you, trying to create as much distance as he could, so that you wouldn’t catch him in his act. "You were thinking something."

He didn't reply anymore, already moving towards the door as you pick up your purse and put on your heels. The tension remained, as Jungkook tried to think about the things he hates, weird textures, smelly farts, and even losing something valuable. But the only thing that came to his mind was him losing his sanity.

By the time you left for the restaurant together, one of the problems still persisted. And no matter how hard Jungkook tried, the ‘problem in his pants’ wouldn’t go away. Sometimes he wished he had a switch for this ‘problem’ so he could save himself in situations like these. You walking beside him, your arms casually looped around his, rambling about something he couldn’t fucking hear, was just making his condition worse.

The dinner itself was larger than you expected. Ferrari had apparently invited enough people to fill half the restaurant, resulting in a long table crowded with engineers, mechanics, media staff, sponsors, drivers, and various important people whose names you immediately forgot.  Dinner settled into a comfortable rhythm surprisingly quickly, conversations overlapping from every direction while people drifted naturally between topics, the kind of atmosphere that felt more like a family gathering than a Ferrari event. Somewhere further down the table, Hoseok and Yoongi had become trapped in an argument, while Taehyung was telling a story that grew increasingly less believable with time, and you had mostly settled into your seat beside Jungkook, occasionally contributing whenever the conversation wandered in your direction.

By the time dessert arrived, the pattern had become difficult to ignore. This one guy had somehow managed to involve you in nearly every conversation that happened on your side of the table, occasionally directing a joke your way or throwing in a compliment so casually it almost sounded accidental. Under normal circumstances, you probably wouldn't have thought much of it. He was funny, easy to talk to, and seemed determined to make everyone around him laugh.

But the strange part was Jungkook. Every time you laughed at anything that man would say, he seemed to find something else to focus on, whether it was his drink, his phone, or whatever conversation was happening somewhere further down the table. Nobody else appeared to notice. Not Taehyung. Not Hoseok. No one.

But you'd known Jungkook for too long. There was something slightly off about him tonight, something you couldn't quite put your finger on, and every time you looked over to figure out what it was, he was already looking somewhere else.

But the dinner eventually began dissolving the way all good dinners did, slowly and reluctantly, conversations stretching themselves into final stories while people finished drinks they had stopped paying attention to twenty minutes ago. Chairs scraped softly against the floor, somebody near the far end of the table was still laughing about a joke that had happened several minutes earlier, and one by one, people began gathering their things as the evening finally drew to a close. You had almost forgotten about the strange feeling Jungkook had left you with when the first raindrops began tapping lightly against the restaurant windows.

At first, nobody paid much attention to it. Then somebody looked outside, while somebody else groaned. And suddenly, the entire Ferrari table had become very interested in the weather.

The rain wasn't particularly heavy, but it was steady enough to make walking back unpleasant, which explained why the staff waiting near the entrance had already prepared a collection of umbrellas for everyone leaving. People naturally split into pairs almost immediately, some by convenience, some by friendship, and some because they were standing closest to each other when the umbrellas appeared. By the time you reached the doorway, there was only one person you expected to end up beside.

The umbrella settled above both your heads as naturally as breathing, and within seconds, the two of you were stepping out into the Monaco night while the rest of the team scattered around you in different directions. The city looked different in the rain. Softer somehow. Streetlights reflected across wet pavement in streaks of gold and orange while the harbour shimmered quietly in the distance.

"Wow!!" You had barely made it halfway down the street when a voice called out behind you. Both you and Jungkook turned at the same time, only to find a very excited Jimin holding Jungkook's phone. He looked up from the screen for not even a second before grinning immediately and tapping across the screen with alarming confidence while Soobin peered over his shoulder.

"What are you doing?" Jungkook asked.

"Just doing my job.”

A second later, Jimin held the screen up proudly toward Soobin with the most satisfied expression you'd seen all evening.

"This," he whispered, gesturing dramatically toward the picture of the two of you sharing an umbrella, "is how you do good PR."

Soobin nodded with the seriousness of someone receiving valuable career advice.

The rest of the evening passed quietly after that. A shower. A change into comfortable clothes. The relief of finally collapsing into bed after a day that had somehow felt three times longer than it actually was. Monaco hummed softly outside your hotel window while your phone rested forgotten beside you for all of three minutes before another thought suddenly resurfaced.

You couldn’t even ask that man’s name, and he was acting as if he had known you his whole life. And that also brings you to the increasingly strange behaviour from Jungkook.

Curiosity got the better of you as you texted him asking about that guy. Jungkook’s replies grew shorter, and every answer somehow managed to avoid giving you the one thing you were actually asking for. Eventually, you stopped pretending and simply asked for that guy's Instagram directly.

Even though everything about the man’s behaviour suggested he wasn’t in a relationship, Jungkook didn't hesitate before typing out the lie that he has a girlfriend.

The only problem was that Namjoon very definitely did not.

Chapter 3 | Taglist: @haniiii @myr-sam0 @annpeachy @ggukcosmos

@lovingkoalaface @armycarat2612 @mar-lo-pap @bjoriis @lotusglowii @glittersparklezz @ceellliiinee

[astralkookie]

All tracks lead back to you ✮⋆⭒˚.⋆ Chapter 1

Funny how a car crash at the Monaco Grand Prix ended up crashing everything else too.

F1 racer!jungkook, Songwriter!oc, childhood bestfriends to lovers, racing accidents/crashes, public scrutiny, friends to lovers, hate comments, emotional dependency, jealousy, miscommunication, angst, toxic fan culture, media pressure, arguments, alcohol consumption, anxiety, emotional burnout, slowburn, smut

desclaimer: this is a fictional story and does not reflect the real personalities or lives of any idols, drivers or celebrities mentioned. pls remember this is all fake and made for fun !!

word count: 3.6k words

note: sooo, chapter 1 ya'll, it's kinda crazy how this is finally coming alive. I first dreamt abt jungkook driving a ferrari at a formula 1 race last year and ever since, the idea has been growing in the back of our mind. I haven't found any F1 racer jungkook fics and i think it's a pretty new plot((is it?) or wtv,) here. Anyways, i'm really excited for this and i'd really appreciate your feedbacks and comments. Love ya'll, mwah mwah <33

You had known Jeon Jungkook for so long that there were parts of your life where he did not feel like a person anymore; he felt like a habit.

A name your mother still said too casually over breakfast. An emergency contact no one questions. A voice note saved somewhere in your phone from three years ago, where he was laughing too hard to finish whatever stupid sentence he had started. A face that appeared in old family albums before either of you had grown into your features properly.

He was there in all the embarrassing photos.

Missing teeth. Bad haircuts. Mud on his knees. Chocolate around his mouth. A permanent scowl on his face whenever you beat him at something, which happened often enough for it to become a part of your childhood mythology.

You met when you were too young to remember the meeting clearly, but your parents remembered it better.

According to them, Jungkook had been the kid who refused to share his toy car with anyone, and you had been the kid who took it from him anyway. He cried. You called him a crybaby. He chased you around the living room with one sock missing and somehow, by the end of the day, you were sitting shoulder to shoulder on the floor, pushing the same tiny red car across the tiles.

That was the beginning, apparently. A stolen toy car and a fight, neither of you ever fully agreed on. Jungkook insisted you were a thief. You insisted he was very rude. But your families insisted you had been inseparable ever since.

And you had been.

For years, you existed in each other’s lives with the kind of ease that only childhood allowed. You did not ask before entering each other’s rooms. You did not say thank you when one of you stole food from the other’s plate. You fought like animals over video games, over who got the bigger slice of cake, over whether Jungkook had cheated during hide and seek because there was absolutely no way he had managed to find you hiding in a jumbo trunk near his house in less than 30 seconds without fraud or divine intervention.

He was loud when he was happy, stubborn when he was upset, and weirdly quiet when something mattered too much. You learned that early.

Jungkook learned your things too.

He knew you hummed when you were anxious. He knew you got mean when you were tired, even worse when hungry. He knew you pretended not to care about things you cared about the most, like school performances, new songs, people leaving, and whether he remembered tiny details you had only mentioned once. He always remembered.

People liked to say you grew up together, but that sounded too simple. Too clean.

You did not just grow up together, you grew around each other.

Your lives bent in different directions and somehow still made room for the other. Jungkook found racing before either of you fully understood what that meant. At first, it was just karting. Small tracks. Helmet too big for his head. His parents cheering from the side. You standing beside them with snacks in your hand, pretending you were bored while secretly watching every lap like your life depended on it.

You used to tease him before every race. “Don’t crash, loser.”

He used to glare at you through the visor and say, “Don’t cry when I win.”

Then he would win sometimes. Lose sometimes. Sulk almost every time. And you would be there after, either laughing at him or handing him a bottle of banana milk before anyone else could.

And just like that, music came to you more naturally.

Just notebooks filled with half-written lines and melodies recorded under blankets at night because you thought your voice sounded better when the room was dark. Jungkook was the first person who heard most of them. Not because he understood music better than anyone else, but because he understood you.

Though he was terrible at giving normal feedback.

“This part sounds like when you’re pretending you’re fine, but you’re not”, he once told you. You had stared at him for a full ten seconds before throwing a pillow at his head. But you kept the lyric.

As you got older, the world around you started becoming less forgiving.

Jungkook’s races got bigger. The tracks got farther. The calls became shorter because he was always training, always traveling, always being pulled into some new room by people with clipboards and serious faces.

You started posting songs online. Then writing for other people. Then being invited into studios that smelled like coffee, expensive perfume and nervous ambition. Your name began appearing in places that once felt too far away to touch.

You were no longer just two kids from the same childhood.

He became Jeon Jungkook, Ferrari’s golden boy, the driver with sharp reflexes, insane focus, and a face that could ruin social media for an entire weekend.

You became the songwriter with the impossible-to-get username, the low voice, the quiet interviews, and lyrics people quoted like they were personal wounds.

The world learned you separately.

Then it learned you together.

At first, it was harmless. A picture of you at one of Jungkook’s races. A video of him at the side of a stage during one of your performances, cap pulled low, pretending he was not mouthing every word. An old childhood photo posted by one of your relatives that fans found within minutes because the internet had never known how to leave anything alone.

Then people started connecting things. Jungkook wearing your merch during a press day. You using one of his race numbers as a caption. His likes under your posts appearing too quickly to be casual. You showing up in Ferrari hospitality with a paddock pass swinging from your neck, as if you belonged there.

Which, to Jungkook, you did.

To you, he belonged in every green room, every studio corner, every hotel lobby where you looked up and found him waiting like it was the most natural thing in the world.

You never explained it. And that made people worse.

Fans called you best friends. Soulmates. Childhood legends. Emotionally married. The internet’s longest-running situationship. Neither of you corrected anything because there was nothing to correct, not really.

You were just Jungkook and you.

He was the person you called when something good happened and you did not know how to sound normal about it. You were the person he looked for after every race, even when he did not mean to. He kept your demos in playlists no one else could see. You kept his race schedules saved even when you pretended you were too busy to remember them.

You annoyed each other. Protected each other. Insulted each other with terrifying fluency. Missed each other in ways you rarely admitted out loud.

Your love, if anyone wanted to call it that, did not look soft from the outside. It looked like Jungkook stealing fries from your plate after you told him not to. It looked like you texting him, you look unemployed, under a magazine cover that had taken thirty people and six hours to shoot. It looked like him booking an extra room for you during race weekends before even asking whether you were coming. It looked like you sending him unreleased songs at two in the morning because you trusted him with unfinished things.

That was what he was to you. The person who got the unfinished version. The drafts. The bad moods. The ugly laughs. The silence after a long day. The version of you that did not know how to be impressive. Not Ferrari’s driver. Not the boy on screens. Not the headline, not the podium, not the helmet, not the red suit.

Just Jungkook.

The same boy who once cried over a toy car and still acted like you stealing things from him was a personal attack, even though he had spent most of his life giving you everything before you had to ask.

By the time the Monaco Grand Prix weekend arrived, none of this was new.

You had been to race weekends before. Jungkook had been to your shows before. Your names had trended beside each other enough times for both of you to stop checking.

Monaco was supposed to be another city. Another race. Another weekend of fans making jokes, media accounts posting blurry arrivals, and Jungkook texting you before you had even collected your luggage.

It was supposed to be normal. Or as normal as anything between you could ever be.

You were half-asleep when the car began its descent, your cheek pressed to the window, the sky outside bruised pink and gold over the coast. Your phone buzzed against your lap before the wheels even touched the ground.

You did not need to look to know who it was.

jkkkkk:

landed?

You smiled despite yourself, tired and stupid and already annoyed by him.

Monaco had not even begun yet, and somehow, he was already there.

The first ten minutes of any race weekend with Jungkook were usually the last ten minutes you actually spent with him.

You'd barely made it through the paddock entrance before somebody from Ferrari's media team appeared beside him with a schedule in one hand and the expression of a person who had already repeated themselves several times that morning.

"Press first," they reminded him. "Sponsor shoot after."

"I know."  he replies lazily, before the man continues, "Then more interviews."

Jungkook looked like he wanted to argue. "Good luck," you told him, before he leaves you alone to wander around.

Monaco always felt slightly unreal.

Maybe it was the yachts that looked bigger than apartment buildings, or the fact that half the city seemed to be built into the side of a cliff, but every time you came back, there was always a moment where you found yourself staring out at the harbour, wondering how a place could look so much like a movie set and still somehow function as a real city.

The paddock wasn't any better.

By the time you'd made it through security and into Ferrari hospitality, you'd already been stopped twice, first by a journalist who recognised you before you recognised him and then by a photographer you'd met during a race weekend nearly three years ago who somehow remembered the exact conversation you'd had about your favourite camera.

You couldn't remember where you'd left your hotel key half the time, yet people in Formula One remembered things from conversations you'd forgotten happened.

Maybe that was why the paddock felt familiar. Not because you belonged there, because technically you didn't. You weren't an engineer, a mechanic, a driver or even somebody whose job had anything to do with motorsport. You wrote songs. You spent most of your year buried inside recording studios and tour buses and rehearsal spaces that smelled faintly of coffee and overworked air conditioning.

And yet, after years of showing up to race weekends, there were people here you'd only ever seen in Ferrari garages who somehow knew more about your life than some of your industry friends.

"Well, if it isn't the most expensive guest Ferrari has."

You looked up from your phone to find Hoseok standing near one of the tables with a coffee in one hand and the expression of a man who hadn't slept properly since February. "Good to see you too."

"I'm serious," he said, pulling out a chair across from you. "Do you know how much it costs to feed celebrities?"

"I'm not paying for this lunch, am I?"

"Not if you run fast enough." You laughed. And just like that, it felt like you'd never left.

The strange thing about the paddock was that it moved fast enough to make a week feel like a day and familiar enough to make months feel like nothing at all. One moment you were catching up with people you hadn't seen since Melbourne, and the next somebody was dragging you into the background of a team photo because apparently you'd been standing there too long and therefore counted as part of Ferrari now.

You didn't even bother arguing.

One moment somebody was laughing over coffee, and the next they were being pulled into a meeting, an interview or some emergency involving a laptop and increasingly worried expressions. The paddock had a strange way of making everybody look busy even when nothing was technically happening yet. Cars weren't on track. No points were being won or lost. Nobody's weekend had fallen apart. And yet the anticipation sat over everything like static electricity, invisible but impossible to ignore.

"Have you actually been here longer than ten minutes?" Hoseok asked after a while.

"Maybe." you replied while sipping the coffee. "And you've already been in a team photo."

"I didn't ask to be."

Hoseok pointed at you with his coffee cup. "You realise half the garage thinks you work here now." To which you chuckled and replied, "Then they should start paying me."

The conversation drifted after that, moving from harmless complaints about travel schedules to whatever ridiculous sponsor event everyone seemed destined to attend at some point during the weekend.

Somewhere in the middle of it, Yoongi appeared looking deeply offended by something, announced that he'd lost his paddock pass and then became even more offended when neither of you seemed surprised.

By the time he walked away, muttering something to himself, you were laughing hard enough to earn several confused looks from nearby tables. It felt stupidly familiar, the kind of conversation that only happened between people who'd spent enough time together to stop caring about first impressions. Maybe that was why you kept coming back to race weekends. People always assumed it was because of the races, or because of Monaco, or because of the excitement that came with Formula One, but the truth was far less glamorous.

You just liked the people. The mechanics who showed you pictures of their children. The photographers who remembered conversations from years ago. The engineers who looked permanently exhausted and somehow still found the energy to argue over something. Somewhere along the way, they'd stopped feeling like people you knew through Jungkook and started feeling like people you simply knew.

Eventually you wandered away from hospitality and toward the garages, not because you had a destination in mind but because wandering had become something of a tradition over the years. The harbour stretched out beyond the barriers in the distance, bright enough to hurt your eyes whenever sunlight bounced off the water, while clusters of journalists hovered nearby, hoping something interesting would happen. It rarely did.

You spotted Jungkook long before he spotted you. Or maybe he had already spotted you and simply hadn't bothered acknowledging you again.

Either option felt equally likely.

He was standing near the back of the Ferrari garage, surrounded by engineers and monitors displaying numbers you would never understand no matter how many years you spent around the sport. From a distance, he looked exactly like every photograph the internet loved posting. Focused. Serious. Professional. The version of him people built edits around.

The version you knew best was the one who once spent twenty minutes looking for sunglasses that were sitting on top of his head.

The contrast never stopped being funny.

A second later, Jungkook looked directly across the garage and immediately found you. His gaze dropped briefly to the now held plate of shushi in your hand before returning to your face as you stuff a piece into your mouth. He rolls his eyes and flips you off from where he’s standing, and you do the exact same.

Though his expression doesn't change, not even slightly.

Jungkook simply nodded once before turning back toward whatever discussion he'd been having and you hated how you started laughing to yourself.

Five minutes later, your phone buzzed.

jkkkkk:

come here

You stared at the message, then looked up only to find out he wasn't even looking at you anymore, just standing there talking to an engineer like he hadn't interrupted your afternoon for absolutely no reason.

Still, you slipped your phone back into your pocket and headed toward the garage like he'd activated some deeply embarrassing childhood conditioning that neither of you had managed to grow out of.

The closer you got, the colder the air became. The Ferrari garage always felt slightly different from the rest of the paddock, less chaotic on the surface and infinitely more chaotic underneath it, with engineers moving between workstations, data flashing across screens and conversations happening so quickly that you could barely keep track of who was talking to whom. By the time you finally reached Jungkook, you had somehow become involved in three separate conversations and promised to listen to a voice memo from somebody's daughter who apparently wanted advice on songwriting.

Jungkook didn't even look up when you stopped beside him. "You called?"

"I texted," he replies, still not looking at you.

"literally the same thing, asshole."

The two engineers standing beside him looked between the two of you before wisely deciding not to get involved.

"Why’d you even call me? I was doing something." you huffed beside him as he finally shifted his eyes on you, "I could literally see you doing nothing but eating as if it's your last day."

"I was appreciating the food, it deserves to be eaten. The pizza is literally the best thing i swear to god, like pussy-quenching best." You now tell the two more engineers standing along with him.

"None of us here has a pussy y/n." is the last thing he says as the two other guys laugh loudly. You couldn’t help but roll your eyes at them.

For another minute or two, he remained focused on whatever discussion was happening on the monitors, occasionally asking a question or pointing at something on the screen while you stood there pretending to understand what any of it meant. You never did. After years of race weekends, you had learned enough to recognise when people were talking about something important and not much else. The moment the meeting finally ended, Jungkook grabbed the water bottle sitting beside him and started walking away without explanation.

"Where are we going?" you ask as you walk along with him.  "We aren't going anywhere."

"Then why am I following you?" He shrugged.

Eventually, he led you toward one of the quieter viewing areas overlooking part of the circuit, far enough from the busiest sections of the paddock that the noise softened into something more distant. From there, you could see a stretch of track winding between the barriers below, disappearing around a corner before reappearing further down near the harbour. The grandstands were already filling slowly despite there being nothing to watch yet, photographers dotted along various vantage points like they'd been strategically placed there, and beyond everything else sat Monaco itself, layered into the cliffs in shades of white and gold beneath the afternoon sun..

For a few minutes, neither of you said much, just appreciating the view. You sat beside each other watching members of different teams move through the paddock below while boats drifted lazily across the water in the distance. It was one of those rare moments where neither of you felt any pressure to fill the silence, mostly because you'd spent almost your entire lives doing exactly this. Different countries, different cities, different stages of life, but always the same silence.

After a while, you held your hand out expectantly as Jungkook glanced down at it before asking, "What?"

"Phone."

He didn't even ask why, just unlocked it and dropped it into your palm before returning his attention to the track below.

You angled it toward the view first, capturing the track curving through Monaco beneath the sunlight, then took another of the harbour beyond it. Neither felt quite right. The city was beautiful, but it looked too polished through a screen, too perfect in a way that somehow missed the actual feeling of being there.

Without thinking too much about it, you shifted slightly closer and raised the phone again as you thought this one was better.

Then, without really thinking about it, you switched the camera around.

Jungkook didn't even notice at first, still looking out toward the circuit below while the late afternoon sun caught the red of his Ferrari shirt. By the time he finally realised what you were doing, the picture had already been taken. Your shoulder partially visible in the frame. Neither of your faces fully visible, just enough to suggest who was there without actually showing it. The sort of picture that looked completely meaningless to everyone else.

Jungkook immediately leaned over to look. “Show.” He hummed a response of agreement as he looked at the picture, which looked identical to several pictures you’ve taken together in the past.

Eventually, the phone returned to its rightful owner, disappearing back into his pocket before you could save any of the photos yourself. You made a mental note to ask him for them later. For now, though, it remained safely forgotten as the two of you sat overlooking the circuit, the late afternoon sun beginning to sink lower over Monaco while the weekend waited patiently ahead. Tomorrow would bring practice sessions, interviews and headlines. Saturday would bring qualifying. Sunday would bring the race.

But Thursday still belonged to anticipation.

And neither of you had any reason to believe it wouldn't stay that way.

Taglist:

@haniiii @myr-sam0 @annpeachy @ggukcosmos

@lovingkoalaface @armycarat2612

[astralkookie]

All tracks lead back to you ✮⋆⭒˚.⋆ Chapter 1

Funny how a car crash at the Monaco Grand Prix ended up crashing everything else too.

F1 racer!jungkook, Songwriter!oc, childhood bestfriends to lovers, racing accidents/crashes, public scrutiny, friends to lovers, hate comments, emotional dependency, jealousy, miscommunication, angst, toxic fan culture, media pressure, arguments, alcohol consumption, anxiety, emotional burnout, slowburn, smut

desclaimer: this is a fictional story and does not reflect the real personalities or lives of any idols, drivers or celebrities mentioned. pls remember this is all fake and made for fun !!

word count: 3.6k words

Series Masterlist

note: sooo, chapter 1 ya'll, it's kinda crazy how this is finally coming alive. I first dreamt abt jungkook driving a ferrari at a formula 1 race last year and ever since, the idea has been growing in the back of my mind. I haven't found any F1 racer jungkook fics and i think it's a pretty new plot((is it?) or wtv,) here. Anyways, i'm really excited for this and i'd really appreciate your feedbacks and comments. Love ya'll, mwah mwah <33

You had known Jeon Jungkook for so long that there were parts of your life where he did not feel like a person anymore; he felt like a habit.

A name your mother still said too casually over breakfast. An emergency contact no one questions. A voice note saved somewhere in your phone from three years ago, where he was laughing too hard to finish whatever stupid sentence he had started. A face that appeared in old family albums before either of you had grown into your features properly.

He was there in all the embarrassing photos.

Missing teeth. Bad haircuts. Mud on his knees. Chocolate around his mouth. A permanent scowl on his face whenever you beat him at something, which happened often enough for it to become a part of your childhood mythology.

You met when you were too young to remember the meeting clearly, but your parents remembered it better.

According to them, Jungkook had been the kid who refused to share his toy car with anyone, and you had been the kid who took it from him anyway. He cried. You called him a crybaby. He chased you around the living room with one sock missing and somehow, by the end of the day, you were sitting shoulder to shoulder on the floor, pushing the same tiny red car across the tiles.

That was the beginning, apparently. A stolen toy car and a fight, neither of you ever fully agreed on. Jungkook insisted you were a thief. You insisted he was very rude. But your families insisted you had been inseparable ever since.

And you had been.

For years, you existed in each other’s lives with the kind of ease that only childhood allowed. You did not ask before entering each other’s rooms. You did not say thank you when one of you stole food from the other’s plate. You fought like animals over video games, over who got the bigger slice of cake, over whether Jungkook had cheated during hide and seek because there was absolutely no way he had managed to find you hiding in a jumbo trunk near his house in less than 30 seconds without fraud or divine intervention.

He was loud when he was happy, stubborn when he was upset, and weirdly quiet when something mattered too much. You learned that early.

Jungkook learned your things too.

He knew you hummed when you were anxious. He knew you got mean when you were tired, even worse when hungry. He knew you pretended not to care about things you cared about the most, like school performances, new songs, people leaving, and whether he remembered tiny details you had only mentioned once. He always remembered.

People liked to say you grew up together, but that sounded too simple. Too clean.

You did not just grow up together, you grew around each other.

Your lives bent in different directions and somehow still made room for the other. Jungkook found racing before either of you fully understood what that meant. At first, it was just karting. Small tracks. Helmet too big for his head. His parents cheering from the side. You standing beside them with snacks in your hand, pretending you were bored while secretly watching every lap like your life depended on it.

You used to tease him before every race. “Don’t crash, loser.”

He used to glare at you through the visor and say, “Don’t cry when I win.”

Then he would win sometimes. Lose sometimes. Sulk almost every time. And you would be there after, either laughing at him or handing him a bottle of banana milk before anyone else could.

And just like that, music came to you more naturally.

Just notebooks filled with half-written lines and melodies recorded under blankets at night because you thought your voice sounded better when the room was dark. Jungkook was the first person who heard most of them. Not because he understood music better than anyone else, but because he understood you.

Though he was terrible at giving normal feedback.

“This part sounds like when you’re pretending you’re fine, but you’re not”, he once told you. You had stared at him for a full ten seconds before throwing a pillow at his head. But you kept the lyric.

As you got older, the world around you started becoming less forgiving.

Jungkook’s races got bigger. The tracks got farther. The calls became shorter because he was always training, always traveling, always being pulled into some new room by people with clipboards and serious faces.

You started posting songs online. Then writing for other people. Then being invited into studios that smelled like coffee, expensive perfume and nervous ambition. Your name began appearing in places that once felt too far away to touch.

You were no longer just two kids from the same childhood.

He became Jeon Jungkook, Ferrari’s golden boy, the driver with sharp reflexes, insane focus, and a face that could ruin social media for an entire weekend.

You became the songwriter with the impossible-to-get username, the low voice, the quiet interviews, and lyrics people quoted like they were personal wounds.

The world learned you separately.

Then it learned you together.

At first, it was harmless. A picture of you at one of Jungkook’s races. A video of him at the side of a stage during one of your performances, cap pulled low, pretending he was not mouthing every word. An old childhood photo posted by one of your relatives that fans found within minutes because the internet had never known how to leave anything alone.

Then people started connecting things. Jungkook wearing your merch during a press day. You using one of his race numbers as a caption. His likes under your posts appearing too quickly to be casual. You showing up in Ferrari hospitality with a paddock pass swinging from your neck, as if you belonged there.

Which, to Jungkook, you did.

To you, he belonged in every green room, every studio corner, every hotel lobby where you looked up and found him waiting like it was the most natural thing in the world.

You never explained it. And that made people worse.

Fans called you best friends. Soulmates. Childhood legends. Emotionally married. The internet’s longest-running situationship. Neither of you corrected anything because there was nothing to correct, not really.

You were just Jungkook and you.

He was the person you called when something good happened and you did not know how to sound normal about it. You were the person he looked for after every race, even when he did not mean to. He kept your demos in playlists no one else could see. You kept his race schedules saved even when you pretended you were too busy to remember them.

You annoyed each other. Protected each other. Insulted each other with terrifying fluency. Missed each other in ways you rarely admitted out loud.

Your love, if anyone wanted to call it that, did not look soft from the outside. It looked like Jungkook stealing fries from your plate after you told him not to. It looked like you texting him, you look unemployed, under a magazine cover that had taken thirty people and six hours to shoot. It looked like him booking an extra room for you during race weekends before even asking whether you were coming. It looked like you sending him unreleased songs at two in the morning because you trusted him with unfinished things.

That was what he was to you. The person who got the unfinished version. The drafts. The bad moods. The ugly laughs. The silence after a long day. The version of you that did not know how to be impressive. Not Ferrari’s driver. Not the boy on screens. Not the headline, not the podium, not the helmet, not the red suit.

Just Jungkook.

The same boy who once cried over a toy car and still acted like you stealing things from him was a personal attack, even though he had spent most of his life giving you everything before you had to ask.

By the time the Monaco Grand Prix weekend arrived, none of this was new.

You had been to race weekends before. Jungkook had been to your shows before. Your names had trended beside each other enough times for both of you to stop checking.

Monaco was supposed to be another city. Another race. Another weekend of fans making jokes, media accounts posting blurry arrivals, and Jungkook texting you before you had even collected your luggage.

It was supposed to be normal. Or as normal as anything between you could ever be.

You were half-asleep when the car began its descent, your cheek pressed to the window, the sky outside bruised pink and gold over the coast. Your phone buzzed against your lap before the wheels even touched the ground.

You did not need to look to know who it was.

jkkkkk:

landed?

You smiled despite yourself, tired and stupid and already annoyed by him.

Monaco had not even begun yet, and somehow, he was already there.

The first ten minutes of any race weekend with Jungkook were usually the last ten minutes you actually spent with him.

You'd barely made it through the paddock entrance before somebody from Ferrari's media team appeared beside him with a schedule in one hand and the expression of a person who had already repeated themselves several times that morning.

"Press first," they reminded him. "Sponsor shoot after."

"I know."  he replies lazily, before the man continues, "Then more interviews."

Jungkook looked like he wanted to argue. "Good luck," you told him, before he leaves you alone to wander around.

Monaco always felt slightly unreal.

Maybe it was the yachts that looked bigger than apartment buildings, or the fact that half the city seemed to be built into the side of a cliff, but every time you came back, there was always a moment where you found yourself staring out at the harbour, wondering how a place could look so much like a movie set and still somehow function as a real city.

The paddock wasn't any better.

By the time you'd made it through security and into Ferrari hospitality, you'd already been stopped twice, first by a journalist who recognised you before you recognised him and then by a photographer you'd met during a race weekend nearly three years ago who somehow remembered the exact conversation you'd had about your favourite camera.

You couldn't remember where you'd left your hotel key half the time, yet people in Formula One remembered things from conversations you'd forgotten happened.

Maybe that was why the paddock felt familiar. Not because you belonged there, because technically you didn't. You weren't an engineer, a mechanic, a driver or even somebody whose job had anything to do with motorsport. You wrote songs. You spent most of your year buried inside recording studios and tour buses and rehearsal spaces that smelled faintly of coffee and overworked air conditioning.

And yet, after years of showing up to race weekends, there were people here you'd only ever seen in Ferrari garages who somehow knew more about your life than some of your industry friends.

"Well, if it isn't the most expensive guest Ferrari has."

You looked up from your phone to find Hoseok standing near one of the tables with a coffee in one hand and the expression of a man who hadn't slept properly since February. "Good to see you too."

"I'm serious," he said, pulling out a chair across from you. "Do you know how much it costs to feed celebrities?"

"I'm not paying for this lunch, am I?"

"Not if you run fast enough." You laughed. And just like that, it felt like you'd never left.

The strange thing about the paddock was that it moved fast enough to make a week feel like a day and familiar enough to make months feel like nothing at all. One moment you were catching up with people you hadn't seen since Melbourne, and the next somebody was dragging you into the background of a team photo because apparently you'd been standing there too long and therefore counted as part of Ferrari now.

You didn't even bother arguing.

One moment somebody was laughing over coffee, and the next they were being pulled into a meeting, an interview or some emergency involving a laptop and increasingly worried expressions. The paddock had a strange way of making everybody look busy even when nothing was technically happening yet. Cars weren't on track. No points were being won or lost. Nobody's weekend had fallen apart. And yet the anticipation sat over everything like static electricity, invisible but impossible to ignore.

"Have you actually been here longer than ten minutes?" Hoseok asked after a while.

"Maybe." you replied while sipping the coffee. "And you've already been in a team photo."

"I didn't ask to be."

Hoseok pointed at you with his coffee cup. "You realise half the garage thinks you work here now." To which you chuckled and replied, "Then they should start paying me."

The conversation drifted after that, moving from harmless complaints about travel schedules to whatever ridiculous sponsor event everyone seemed destined to attend at some point during the weekend.

Somewhere in the middle of it, Yoongi appeared looking deeply offended by something, announced that he'd lost his paddock pass and then became even more offended when neither of you seemed surprised.

By the time he walked away, muttering something to himself, you were laughing hard enough to earn several confused looks from nearby tables. It felt stupidly familiar, the kind of conversation that only happened between people who'd spent enough time together to stop caring about first impressions. Maybe that was why you kept coming back to race weekends. People always assumed it was because of the races, or because of Monaco, or because of the excitement that came with Formula One, but the truth was far less glamorous.

You just liked the people. The mechanics who showed you pictures of their children. The photographers who remembered conversations from years ago. The engineers who looked permanently exhausted and somehow still found the energy to argue over something. Somewhere along the way, they'd stopped feeling like people you knew through Jungkook and started feeling like people you simply knew.

Eventually you wandered away from hospitality and toward the garages, not because you had a destination in mind but because wandering had become something of a tradition over the years. The harbour stretched out beyond the barriers in the distance, bright enough to hurt your eyes whenever sunlight bounced off the water, while clusters of journalists hovered nearby, hoping something interesting would happen. It rarely did.

You spotted Jungkook long before he spotted you. Or maybe he had already spotted you and simply hadn't bothered acknowledging you again.

Either option felt equally likely.

He was standing near the back of the Ferrari garage, surrounded by engineers and monitors displaying numbers you would never understand no matter how many years you spent around the sport. From a distance, he looked exactly like every photograph the internet loved posting. Focused. Serious. Professional. The version of him people built edits around.

The version you knew best was the one who once spent twenty minutes looking for sunglasses that were sitting on top of his head.

The contrast never stopped being funny.

A second later, Jungkook looked directly across the garage and immediately found you. His gaze dropped briefly to the now held plate of shushi in your hand before returning to your face as you stuff a piece into your mouth. He rolls his eyes and flips you off from where he’s standing, and you do the exact same.

Though his expression doesn't change, not even slightly.

Jungkook simply nodded once before turning back toward whatever discussion he'd been having and you hated how you started laughing to yourself.

Five minutes later, your phone buzzed.

jkkkkk:

come here

You stared at the message, then looked up only to find out he wasn't even looking at you anymore, just standing there talking to an engineer like he hadn't interrupted your afternoon for absolutely no reason.

Still, you slipped your phone back into your pocket and headed toward the garage like he'd activated some deeply embarrassing childhood conditioning that neither of you had managed to grow out of.

The closer you got, the colder the air became. The Ferrari garage always felt slightly different from the rest of the paddock, less chaotic on the surface and infinitely more chaotic underneath it, with engineers moving between workstations, data flashing across screens and conversations happening so quickly that you could barely keep track of who was talking to whom. By the time you finally reached Jungkook, you had somehow become involved in three separate conversations and promised to listen to a voice memo from somebody's daughter who apparently wanted advice on songwriting.

Jungkook didn't even look up when you stopped beside him. "You called?"

"I texted," he replies, still not looking at you.

"literally the same thing, asshole."

The two engineers standing beside him looked between the two of you before wisely deciding not to get involved.

"Why’d you even call me? I was doing something." you huffed beside him as he finally shifted his eyes on you, "I could literally see you doing nothing but eating as if it's your last day."

"I was appreciating the food, it deserves to be eaten. The pizza is literally the best thing i swear to god, like pussy-quenching best." You now tell the two more engineers standing along with him.

"None of us here has a pussy y/n." is the last thing he says as the two other guys laugh loudly. You couldn’t help but roll your eyes at them.

For another minute or two, he remained focused on whatever discussion was happening on the monitors, occasionally asking a question or pointing at something on the screen while you stood there pretending to understand what any of it meant. You never did. After years of race weekends, you had learned enough to recognise when people were talking about something important and not much else. The moment the meeting finally ended, Jungkook grabbed the water bottle sitting beside him and started walking away without explanation.

"Where are we going?" you ask as you walk along with him.  "We aren't going anywhere."

"Then why am I following you?" He shrugged.

Eventually, he led you toward one of the quieter viewing areas overlooking part of the circuit, far enough from the busiest sections of the paddock that the noise softened into something more distant. From there, you could see a stretch of track winding between the barriers below, disappearing around a corner before reappearing further down near the harbour. The grandstands were already filling slowly despite there being nothing to watch yet, photographers dotted along various vantage points like they'd been strategically placed there, and beyond everything else sat Monaco itself, layered into the cliffs in shades of white and gold beneath the afternoon sun..

For a few minutes, neither of you said much, just appreciating the view. You sat beside each other watching members of different teams move through the paddock below while boats drifted lazily across the water in the distance. It was one of those rare moments where neither of you felt any pressure to fill the silence, mostly because you'd spent almost your entire lives doing exactly this. Different countries, different cities, different stages of life, but always the same silence.

After a while, you held your hand out expectantly as Jungkook glanced down at it before asking, "What?"

"Phone."

He didn't even ask why, just unlocked it and dropped it into your palm before returning his attention to the track below.

You angled it toward the view first, capturing the track curving through Monaco beneath the sunlight, then took another of the harbour beyond it. Neither felt quite right. The city was beautiful, but it looked too polished through a screen, too perfect in a way that somehow missed the actual feeling of being there.

Without thinking too much about it, you shifted slightly closer and raised the phone again as you thought this one was better.

Then, without really thinking about it, you switched the camera around.

Jungkook didn't even notice at first, still looking out toward the circuit below while the late afternoon sun caught the red of his Ferrari shirt. By the time he finally realised what you were doing, the picture had already been taken. Your shoulder partially visible in the frame. Neither of your faces fully visible, just enough to suggest who was there without actually showing it. The sort of picture that looked completely meaningless to everyone else.

Jungkook immediately leaned over to look. “Show.” He hummed a response of agreement as he looked at the picture, which looked identical to several pictures you’ve taken together in the past.

Eventually, the phone returned to its rightful owner, disappearing back into his pocket before you could save any of the photos yourself. You made a mental note to ask him for them later. For now, though, it remained safely forgotten as the two of you sat overlooking the circuit, the late afternoon sun beginning to sink lower over Monaco while the weekend waited patiently ahead. Tomorrow would bring practice sessions, interviews and headlines. Saturday would bring qualifying. Sunday would bring the race.

But Thursday still belonged to anticipation.

And neither of you had any reason to believe it wouldn't stay that way.

Chapter 2 | Taglist: @haniiii @myr-sam0 @annpeachy @ggukcosmos @lovingkoalaface @armycarat2612 @bjoriis @lotusglowii @glittersparklezz @ceellliiinee

[astralkookie]

All tracks lead back to you ✮⋆⭒˚.⋆

Funny how a car crash at the Monaco Grand Prix ended up crashing everything else too.

✮⋆⭒˚.⋆ Instagram handles ✮⋆⭒˚.⋆

Jeon Jungkook- 26, F1 racer

Y/N- 25, Singer-Songwriter

[astralkookie]

All tracks lead back to you ✮⋆⭒˚.⋆

Funny how a car crash at the Monaco Grand Prix ended up crashing everything else too.

jeon jungkook SMAU✮⋆⭒˚.⋆ Masterlist

F1 racer!jungkook, Songwriter!oc, childhood bestfriends to lovers, racing accidents/crashes, public scrutiny, friends to lovers, hate comments, emotional dependency, jealousy, miscommunication, angst, toxic fan culture, media pressure, arguments, alcohol consumption, anxiety, emotional burnout, slowburn, smut.

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⋆social media handles

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desclaimer: this is a fictional story and does not reflect the real personalities or lives of any idols, drivers or celebrities mentioned. pls remember this is all fake and made for fun !!

note: guysss i've been trying real hard to wait till i finish my first series before uploading this. But i can'tttt, i've been in love with this idea eversince i got it months ago, and now i'm finally gonna write abt it wohoo. Like imagine an F1 ferrari racer jungkook, uughhhh, i'd do anything for him no shit. Also the overall theme of the fic is so differant from curent theme, but i didn't really wanna change it for now. let's see, i might do it in a while. anyways, i hope ya'll like it, i'm really excited for this one!! Love ya'll mwah mwah<3