Chapter Text
“This has to be a joke.”
Jeongguk flips his gaze between the contract in his hands and his manager, Mr. Davis, who wearily fights off a flinch at Jeongguk’s seemingly overdramatic reaction. The paper in his hands trembles lightly making it hard to read the tiny words, and as embarrassing as it is, he can’t seem to reel it in and steady himself.
The paper crumples slightly from his tight grip. It’s like he’s underwater, his ears feeling muffled, hearing stunted.
“This has to be a joke,” he repeats again, because it just has to be.
“Uh… no?” Davis says flatly like Jeongguk’s an idiot, “Why would we joke about this?” he taps the paper in Jeongguk’s shaking hands again, “Posner’s been dropped—”
“You can’t just drop him in the middle of a season!”
The words come out much sharper than intended, making his team in this tiny, backrooms-esque office all straighten up and turn their attention to Jeongguk. Which, you know what, everyone should be paying attention to this conversation because it is a big deal. It’s absurd anyone gets to go about their daily lives when Jeongguk’s is practically being uprooted with every breath his manager takes.
Davis straightens up, face hardening in a way that tells Jeongguk he’s on the verge of being genuinely and truly pissed off by the younger’s audacity.
“We definitely can, and we have. It is in the contract. Underperformance leads to termination,” he spits, enunciating the words to make them take root in Jeongguk’s brain.
“But why does he have to be Posner’s replacement?” Jeongguk hisses right back.
Davis closes his eyes, breathing deeply through his nose. “Park Jimin is the strongest candidate on the entire F2 team. There’s really no other choice that wouldn’t be fucking stupid.”
“Fuck!” Jeongguk seethes, fully crumpling the stupid papers to release at least a little bit of frustration.
“Is this going to be a problem for you?” Davis raises an incredulous eyebrow.
Yes, Jeongguk wants to say. Very much so.
Just seeing Jimin’s name on that fucking paper made his vision start to go black in the peripherals. Maybe it’s anger, maybe it’s panic, he’s not sure. All Jeongguk knows is he won’t survive the season with Jimin in his proximity, let alone on the same team.
So, what, they’re supposed to play nice for the cameras? Pretend like they haven’t spent over five years in a state of hostility? Everyone will immediately notice something’s wrong with them and then they’ll be the talk of the fucking town. The other driving teams will catch the tension and probably use it to their advantage, because there’s no way Jimin and Jeongguk will work well on the track together, not like they used to.
Jeongguk can’t possibly fathom why the hell Jimin had even agreed to be on a team with him in the first place.
Unless they didn’t tell him, and he is just as trapped in these unfortunate circumstances as Jeongguk is now. It’s not like Jimin could back out of the contract now.
Or Jeongguk either.
Fuck.
Davis snaps his stubby fingers in front of Jeongguk’s face, “Jeon, talk to me.”
The thing is, Jeongguk is one of, if not the, best racer in the entire F1 division, if he should so humbly say so. Last year, he’d raced for Ferrari, but this year, Redbull has taken him, and they’ve expressed what a hot commodity he is in this league.
“Teams would kill to have you driving for them,” he’s been told this many a time, and he knows it’s not just flattery, but fact. The teams and sponsors fight over him like wolves, and he absolutely goads in the spotlight. He’s never experienced treatment like this, where everyone, including the fans, want a piece of him.
But at the same time, he’s under the bend of the contract. He can’t just refuse to drive because he’s got a rough history with his new teammate.
“It’s fine,” he grits out, nodding his head like he’s trying to convince himself of this, “It’ll be fine.” Because it may not be fine now, but there’s not really the satisfaction of choice here.
Davis nods wearily, “Just remember, you don’t have to be buddy-buddy with Park. If anything, he’s your biggest competition.”
His manager drags a hand down his face as he paces to the other side of the room, grabbing a glass of whiskey from an assistant, “Jeon, you gotta think about sponsors and shit too. Dropping someone from our team’s a big deal. We don’t do this shit for fun,” he takes a glug of the dark liquid, pointing to Jeongguk with the glass in his hand, “Keep that in mind while you throw your silent fit.”
And, yeah, PR and all that shit, that’s the reality. Being good in the race, fastest lap time, winning the first place cup— those things are also important to him. But really, the competition that sparks between teammates is more intense than anything else in the race. Each person wants to be the best in their company. Being second best, no matter what area of life, has never satisfied Jeongguk.
If he wants first place, first place is what he’ll fucking get, teammates be damned.
So he’ll race with Jimin, against him, whatever. He’ll be an adult and put the past behind him. It’s not like Jimin’s going to try and interact with him anyways.
……………………
Jeongguk pulls up to the house in his Maserati and sees Sasha’s Jeep parked out front. He hadn’t expected her to be back before 5PM, or even at all tonight, honestly. He sighs, relenting the fact he no longer has the house to himself tonight.
As he opens the door to their much too large home, the hot LA weather is shocked away from his system from how cold the house is. Normally, his dog, a doberman named Bam, would greet him when he walks in, but his presence is absent, which fucking sucks because Jeongguk could really use the comfort of his baby right now.
He spots Sasha and the dog outside on the back patio. She’s smoking a cigarette, lounging on the pool chair, still dressed in her brunch attire. The Jimmy Choos on her feet are crossed, flowy brown mini dress riding up to expose her fake tanned, too thin thighs. She holds the Marbolo between her insanely long manicured nails and her phone in the other, obviously talking to someone. Jeongguk can probably guess it’s one of the girls she was just at brunch with and they’re talking shit about another girl they were also just at brunch with.
Jeongguk knows he should go out and say hi to his wife, but after the day he’s had, he honestly just wants to be alone. He also really doesn’t want to talk about what happened today with her.
Jimin is a forbidden topic between them. After Sasha’s first ask as to why the two of them were no longer speaking, she never asked again nor pushed to know more. She respected Jeongguk’s space, and that was that. Honestly, she never pushes him on anything, which is why sometimes he spirals and feels like he’s married to a stranger.
But it’s fine. She’s beautiful and kind and they’re married. That’s all there is to it.
Jeongguk retreats to their room, shrugging off his hoodie as he steps into the bathroom. He turns the shower on, scalding hot, as he steps out of the rest of his clothes. Standing under the spray, he feels his mind trying so hard to drift back to the forbidden subject, and it takes a lot for him to force the thoughts away from Jimin. Just the thought of the other has heart rate pick up, his breathing slowly becoming unsteady.
He steps into the hot water, hoping the temperature will distract him from his spiraling thoughts.
It’s not like he hasn’t seen the other man since they fell out of touch (to put it lightly). He’s seen Jimin in Hoseok and Taehyung’s instagram posts. Jeongguk obviously sees flashes of him in the media, thanks to his presence in the F2 circuit. He’d even briefly seen him at Namjoon’s birthday a few years ago, but that had been a disaster. Jeongguk had almost puked from panic just upon seeing the other.
And now they were not only going to have to interact, but they’d have to do press together, work together, all kinds of shit. Shit, Jeongguk thinks he’s going to puke again.
He rushes out of the shower, almost slipping and busting his head open, kneeling in front of the toilet as he spews the contents of his lunch.
If Jeongguk couldn’t even thinking about Jimin without feeling ill, how the fuck was this going to work?
He’s not sure if these nerves are because he doesn’t know how Jimin is going to respond to his presence or because Jeongguk doesn’t know how he’s going to react to being around Jimin.
There’s so much buried under the surface, pushed down to the deepest dregs of his memories, and he’s worried it’s all going to come flooding back. Maybe the throwing up is all those memories and feelings trying to find their way out.
“Ggukie? You okay?”
He hates when Sasha calls him that. Her knocking on the bathroom door makes him realize he's been sitting butt ass naked on the cold tile floor for god knows how long.
“Yeah,” he chokes out. He suddenly feels like crying, “Just gonna shower.”
“...Okay.”
Her tone says she definitely knows the shower’s already been running for twenty minutes, but he hears her click clack away from the bathroom.
He pulls himself together enough to finish washing and brush the vomit taste out of his mouth. He towels off his hair like a dog, making his way to the living room.
Sasha frowns at him where she’s sat on the couch with a glass of wine, phone still on call with someone. How her and her friends have this much to constantly talk about, he’s got no clue.
“Hey, Tarra, I’ll call you back ‘kay?” She hangs up, acrylic clicking as she taps the screen. She looks towards Jeongguk with a frown.
“I told you not to dry your hair like that. It’s gonna look a mess when it dries.”
Jeongguk can’t help but roll his eyes. Ever since he and Sasha moved to Los Angeles, after he received his first contract with F1 and her social media influencer bullshit had blown up, she had changed completely. Well, not really. She’s always been pretty vain, but it’s amplified tenfold since their relocation. Her face has gotten completely rearranged, which Jeongguk was highly against because she was pretty without all the plastic shaping her face. When he’d told her this, she had said “You should never tell a woman what to do with their body,” and that was that.
It wasn’t like she was physically ugly by any means. Her personality though… Well, maybe that’s Jeongguk’s fault for marrying someone he hardly knew outside the bedroom.
Sasha was nitpicky about every single thing Jeongguk ate, wore, bought; literally everything. As if she wasn’t spending his hard earned money to buy six colors of the same expensive athletic leggings when she doesn’t even go to the gym. Who the fuck buys Alo to just go get an overpriced green juice?
And so, Jeongguk doesn’t respond to her comment about the hair because it’s the same shit every day. He takes a seat beside her on the couch, and she immediately scoots closer, legs curled to the side, knees against Jeongguk’s thigh.
He grabs the remote to change the channel from the reality tv show she has on to switch to the cooking channel. He can see her slight eyeroll at his action because “You should ask permission. I was watching that.”
She takes her hand with the claws she calls nails and rakes them across his neck in a way that’s supposed to be comforting, but just sends a chill down his spine.
“What was the meeting about, hm?”
Jeongguk feels himself involuntarily stiffen. Right. He’d forgotten about that for 0.01 seconds. Of course she has to bring it up.
She drops her hand, straightening up and turning her body to fully face him.
“Was it…Was it something bad?” There’s distress in her voice, and Jeongguk knows immediately she’s only worried that maybe he got dropped. Not because she gives a shit about his career, but because she gives a shit about his paycheck.
“Well…” he begins, chewing on his lower lip and avoiding looking at her, “Posner got dropped.”
Sasha scoffs, “God, you made me think something actually bad happened,” she flops back into her lounging position of the couch, taking a large gulp of her rose, “I mean, good fuckin’ riddance. He was an asshole.”
“He wasn’t that bad,” and he really wasn’t. Bad at driving? Yes, but a bad person? No. Reality was Posner just fucking hated Sasha and was really bad at hiding it.
She glances at him with a side-eye, “So that’s all? You’re gonna be a one man show now?”
God damnit, “Well, no…” he pauses, taking a breath she hopes doesn’t notice is much too shaky, “Um… they found a replacement for him.”
She chuckles mirthfully, “That was fast.”
Jeongguk just nods, fisting at his jeans to try to keep his hands from shaking. He really doesn’t want her to ask. He really, really doesn’t want to fucking talk about it.
“So who’s his replacement?”
Jeongguk sticks his tongue in his cheek, practically whispering as he says, “Jimin.”
He can feel the way Sasha’s eyes widen next to him, her whole body still from either shock or because she’s weary of Jeongguk. Like if she makes too sudden a movement he’s going to lash out.
“As in–”
“Yeah. Yep.” Jeongguk springs off the couch in that instant, making his way to the kitchen to avoid the conversation.
“Jeongguk—”
“What do you want for dinner? I can cook something, or we could order from that chicken place we went to last week. It was pretty good. Or, actually, are you even hungry? It’s not really dinner time—”
“Jeongguk!”
He pauses his rambling, turning slowly to see Sasha standing on the other side of the counter, hands outstretched like she doesn’t know whether to approach him or not.
He just shakes his head, hoping that’s enough indication he doesn’t want to talk about it. He expects her to respect that, because they never talk about anything, never push each other to open up. And out of everything they’ve ever needed to talk about and haven’t, this is the one Jeongguk really hopes she respects.
“Are you…” she begins slowly, “I mean, you’re obviously not okay with it.”
“It’s fine,” he snaps, turning to open the fridge, grabbing a beer, “It's a contract, so it’s not like I have a say.”
“Well, you can still feel upset about it.”
“I’m not upset.” and it’s true. He’s not necessarily upset. More than anything, he’s just really fucking nervous for how everything is going to play out. The anticipation of talking to Jimin again for the first time in years honestly may kill him.
“Okay, well…” Sasha pauses. She’s never had to comfort Jeongguk like this before, and he can tell she’s incredibly uncomfortable, “Well, maybe this is a good thing.”
He shoots her a glare, “A good thing?! How?!” he snaps, a knee jerk reaction like a rabid dog being cornered.
“See?! You are upset!”
“I’m fine!”
“Then why are you yelling at me?!” she whines.
Sasha’s right. Jeongguk is taking his stress out on her, but he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He feels like he can hardly think. He doesn’t say anything, looking away and drinking half his beer in one go.
Sasha huffs and continues, “Maybe this is your opportunity to reconnect with him. I highly doubt after all this time he’s still—”
“Stop.”
He fists his eyes, because embarrassingly he feels like he may start crying. Jeongguk can’t think about any of this anymore. He’s going to be sick. Again.
Grabbing his beer and without glancing at his wife, Jeongguk murmurs, “I’m going to bed,” before making his way to their grand master bedroom. Sasha doesn’t say anything, just lets him go.
Closing the door behind him, Jeongguk leans against it, giving a shaky exhale. He closes his eyes, downing the rest of his beer. He should have grabbed a few more before locking himself away. It’s against his pride to go back out there. Showing Sasha he’s getting drunk and being sad is a vulnerability he doesn’t want her to see, even if they’re married.
He eyes the bottle of whiskey sitting on his nightstand, a part of a PR package from a clothing company he hadn’t put away yet.
Fuck it.
Jeongguk grabs the bottle, screwing off the cap and drinking straight from the lip. For the next who knows how long, all he does is pace and drink until a third of the bottle is gone. He hasn’t had this much to drink since starting the F1 program, needing to maintain his physique. But if he deserves to get fucked up any night, tonight’s the night.
His brain begins to cloud and vision to spin. The alcohol hits him so suddenly it’s like a headrush that won’t go away. It makes him feel all floaty. He giggles at the feeling, but then the giggles slowly turn into tears. He doesn’t even realize he’s crying until he feels the wetness on his face.
He probably would look batshit insane to an outsider, pacing and laughing and crying at nothing alone in his room.
He glances at his closet, and a thought occurs to him, and before he can think about it, he’s there at the door, walking into the corner, and pulling a dusty photobox out from the back. He sits on the bed, just caressing the box like it’s a magic lamp for a few minutes. The rational part of his brain, barely functioning at this point, tells him he can’t open it— shouldn’t open it.
But his hands move without permission, pulling the lid off. It takes him another steadying moment to reach into the box and remove its contents.
Jeongguk always prints out photos that are special to him in case the world ends and all electronic media ceases to exist. He doesn’t want all the photos of his loved ones to entirely disappear with the world. And so, he has boxes upon boxes dedicated to certain people. Three for his mom, because there were too many photos he found precious to not print. One for his brother, and a half a box for his dad. Since he passed when he was younger, there wasn’t much to print. He knew his mother had at least a dozen boxes dedicated to the man, so it wasn’t like he was entirely lost. He has another four boxes dedicated to various friends. There wasn’t one for Sasha yet– he hasn’t had the time to go and print any pictures recently because of how busy they both are. All they have printed of the two of them is their wedding photo, a giant 24x36 spread in the hallway to their bedroom.
This box is one he’s contemplated throwing away time and time again, because what was the point in keeping it when all it brought was painful memories? But he could never bring himself to. He thought about asking Sasha to throw it away on his behalf, but that was still too difficult a request.
He spreads out the photos that span over the course of all the pivotal years of Jeongguk’s life.
The first photo is of him and Jimin before Jimin’s senior prom. He’d brought Jeongguk since he was younger and they wouldn’t be able to attend at the same time, since prom was only for seniors, and Jeongguk was only a junior at the time. In the photo, they’re both in cheap suits that don’t fit them well, Jimin’s oversized and Jeongguk’s tight around his arms. Jimin’s on his back, mid-laugh in a way that would be ugly if it was anyone but Jimin, and Jeongguk is looking up at him with a bright smile on his face.
That was the only prom Jeongguk had attended, because he saw no point in going to his own without Jimin or a date. He remembers Jimin’s girlfriend had been irritated he brought Jeongguk as his plus one instead of her. Since they were both juniors, she couldn’t attend. They’d broken up soon after. Jeongguk and Jimin had gotten drunk at the dinner before, sneaking shooters into the bathroom and almost getting kicked out of the prom for acting a fool. Jeongguk doesn’t remember the names of any of Jimin’s friends who had been in their group. He only remembers Jimin.
After the prom, they’d somehow ended up in Jimin’s backyard, still in their suits, laying on the damp grass passing a blunt (from where they’d gotten that, it was hard to say) back and forth. Jeongguk can recall how the faint stars in the Colorado sky reflected off Jimin’s eyes. His high little brain thought the sight was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
He chuckles, looking down at the photo. It’s weird he can remember every miniscule detail from that night but not what he had for lunch yesterday.
The next photo is of their prom group, and still, looking at these faces, he doesn’t remember any of their names nor their dates. He wonders if anyone thought it was weird Jimin brought him, a guy, if they thought they were…
Jeongguk quickly moves to the next picture. It’s from his fourteenth birthday, and it’s only Jimin and he. When he was in middle school, Jeongguk didn’t have a single friend. His classmates said it was because he was a fucking asshole, which he’s sure was true. He tries to not think about that time in his life. It was really rough. Moving from Busan to Colorado, of all places, and barely speaking English was a challenge, to put it lightly.
The grey clouds seemed to part, though, when he’d met Jimin. They’d met at a karting summer camp, because Jeongguk had been determined to be a racer from a young age. The camp was insanely expensive, but his mother was so supportive of him she’d made it work. Jimin also had the same aspiration, but he never took it as seriously as Jeongguk, and maybe that’s why they bonded– because they balanced each other out.
Jimin was his first and only genuine friend until college. Jeongguk still doesn’t know why he bonded so well with Jimin, and when he’d express this to the older boy, Jimin would just smirk cheekily and say “You are me, and I am you.” Whatever the hell he meant, but that was that.
The photo from his birthday shows him blowing out his candles, eyes looking up to stare at Jimin as he did so. Jimin is sitting next to him with the biggest grin on his face. They’re both wearing stupid party hats he recalls his mom forcing them to wear. Jimin only loved it because of how disgruntled Jeongguk felt about it.
His birthday memories from fourteen to twenty-something had Jimin as their star feature in his mind. Jeongguk’s not really sure he’s even really celebrated a birthday since their falling out.
There’s a picture of the two of them at the beach at Busan, and Jeongguk feels like his heart begins to concave in on itself at the sight. He hasn’t been to Busan since this photo was taken his senior year of high school. He still thinks that trip may have been the happiest moment of his life. The two of them, coincidentally, were both from there, and so when Jeongguk and his mom decided to go back home for his grandmother’s birthday, Jimin and Jeongguk had both begged their parents for Jimin to come with them. They’d, after an absurd amount of convincing, agreed. Jeongguk remembers the two of them saying they wanted to move there together after college, when they were real adults— they’d sworn on it, actually.
Sickly enough, their friendship didn’t make it that far.
Jeongguk continues to flip through picture after picture, showcasing every single major moment in his life— middle school graduation, his first apartment, prom, random parties he doesn’t remember the details of but looks like he’s having a fucking blast. Birthdays, holidays, bland trips to the mall, when he got his license and drove for the first time, racing camps, all of it. And in every single picture, Jimin is right there beside him.
Jeongguk doesn’t realize he’s crying until he sees drops of water landing on the photo of him and Jimin at Disney for the first time. The tears fall harder, a choked sob strangling itself out of his mouth.
He’s full on hysterical to the point he doesn’t notice Sasha coming into the room. She doesn’t say anything, just gently pries the picture from his hand, moving his head to her lap as she slowly pets his hair the way he likes until he passes out.