Chapter Text
Date: December 11th, 2025
Time: 15:00 GMT
Location: Kagali, Rawanda
The wooden door slammed into the wall, but the sound it made was drowned out by loud voices and applause from the awards ceremony going on next door. Your cheeks were flushed and you knew you were burning up, but after the mess he made, you needed to get to the ladies room.
You looked at yourself in the mirror: disheveled, flushed, with that dazed look in your eyes that showed you had been up to some mischief. You gripped the lip of the sink hard and released as soon as you had gripped up, collecting yourself enough to go to a stall.
Where the fuck is toilet paper? Your legs trembled, knees shaky like a newborn deer, made even more uncomfortable by the mess in between your legs. But before you could shut the stall door, a force ripped it away to reveal to a set of tall, handsome men.
“Y/N, we were wondering where you were.”
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Date: December 11th, 2024
Time: 15:00 GMT
Location: London, United Kingdom
Picking at the sequins on your dress, you frowned. The Paco Rabanne dress had started out as a good idea, but as the delicate metal sequins got tangled into the delicate, vintage fur of your coat, it was quickly turning out to be a terrible idea.
Not to mention the outdoor venue the Aston Martin team had chosen had not only a woefully inadequate amount of heaters, but had spaced them out terribly. You suspected one of the part-owner’s wives had discreetly asked for their close placement, because you saw her throw off her coat to expose bare shoulders.
As one of the owner’s daughters, where did that leave you? Stuck in between a rock and hard place. You could either be warm and ruin the sequins on your dress while wearing your coat, or develop hypothermia and look hot. You grimaced; the things you did for your father.
And Reo, you supposed. Oh, and Nagi too.
Speaking of the devil, both tall men swooped around to your table and sat down in the vacant seats next to you.
“Aren’t you supposed to be networking or something? Leave me to my misery,” you sniffed as both snickered.
“It was getting boring,” Nagi whined, slumping down into the table to hold up his head with his chin. “Reo told me I wasn’t allowed to play Roblox under the table. So, entertain me Y/N.”
“It’s cuz you’ll look like a 14 year old if you do that, not the grown-ass 20 year old you are,” Reo scolded. Turning to you, he grinned. “Hi Y/N, you look lovely tonight.”
“And you look dumb as fuck with your purple hair, who told you to do that?” You lazily leaned back on your chair, unused to the bright hair color on your childhood bestfriend.
Reo fluffed his hair self-consciously. “My PR team told me I should make an impression as a rookie this year.”
“Yeah, an impression as Barney . God, stop listening to them. It’s not that you don’t look good, let your skills speak for themselves.”
Reo opened his mouth to argue, but the loud clearing of a throat from the stage directed your attention away. Atop the stage, which was decked out in the signature teal and silver of Aston Martin, stood your and Reo’s fathers.
“Welcome everybody, we hope you’re having a great night! As you may know, I’m (your father’s first and last name). Beside me is my best friend— in fact, he was the best man at my wedding — Takahashi Mikage. Both of us represent the RaceLine corporation, who have asked you all together to celebrate a momentous occasion: the return of Aston Martin to the Formula One Grid!”
The room erupted into cheers and applause as silver confetti rained down on yours and Reo’s father.
“Yes, Aston Martin will be back on the F1 grid for the first time in 60 years. Ever since we were children, Takahashi and I have dreamed of racing these cars. And while we are certainly too old for that now— “barks of laughter cropped up from the room—”, we are fulfilling at least part of our dreams through our children. I am proud to announce Chris Prince as our Team Principal, and our two drivers Reo Mikage and Seishiro Nagi, for the 2023 season!”
A mixture of emotions ran over Reo’s face. Pride, excitement, anxiety. This had been his childhood dream too, ever since the two of you attended day school together. The dream of racing as a Formula One driver hadn’t faded even as you went through boarding school in Switzerland together. This was his moment. His time to step into the limelight not as Takahashi Mikage’s son, but as a driver for the Aston Martin team.
Sei, you snickered to yourself, looked unimpressed. He always had the same bored, nonchalant look on his face when you met him at your stuck-up Swiss boarding school. But for the sake of the crowd (and not at all for his scary PR manager), he pasted on an innocent grin.
Even with the vastly different reactions of your best friends, you couldn’t help the ridiculous smile that crept up your face. You had been there for them ever since Reo dragged Sei to a GoKart track and sat through the trials and tribulations of Formula 3 and 2. A warm feeling shot through your chest and your cheeks started to hurt as you pushed them to go make a speech.
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Date: December 12, 2024
Location: Aston Martin HQ, Graydon, United Kingdom
Time: 8:00 GMT
“It is too fucking early for this, fuck this shit, man,” Reo groaned, covering his eyes with his hoodie.
“What happened to “endless enthusiasm and confidence”, huh?” you quoted from his speech from a few days ago. Yeah, with endless enthusiasm and confidence he partied his way through Central London for two straight days and was now reaping the consequences.
“Reo’s right, though. I’m eepy,” Sei yawned, looking impossibly adorable with his puffy eyes. While Reo had dragged him to town, Sei had managed to escape in order to hop on Discord and play Assassin’s Creed.
“Dude, I saw you were awake at like 3 this morning, the fuck?” you asked, taking a sip of your matcha latte. You wished your favorite matcha cafe in London were open but, alas, the commute would’ve taken too long. Instead, you got the chef to whip up one.
“Well, I’m not gonna have much time to game if I have to drive and stuff this year.”
“Fair, but dude. Please. Go to sleep at a reasonable time.”
The team principal, Chris Prince— a blond, broad handsome man with a sparkling smile that spoke of veneers done in Turkey— clapped his hand for everyone at the round table to pay attention.
“Good morning, everybody! Strap in, it’s about to be a long day for all of us. First off, I am very happy to see everyone here and my words from a few days ago still stand: I am ready to make us the number one team in Formula One. Get it?”
Crickets. Everyone was too sleepy.
Chris, a man unused to receiving flat energy, awkwardly coughed and pulled up his powerpoint. “Welcome to our strategy development meeting, everyone. We’ll be going over our high-level goals this season and, of course, our competitor’s.”
Actually, why the fuck were you here? All you saw was that this event was added to your calendar, but what? You were only a lowly associate for the Business Development team, in charge of greasing palms and securing sponsorships to raise money for the team.
He clicked a slide. “We aim to be number one of course, but realistically, with Julian Loki and his car at Mercedes, we are fighting for placement on the podium. Everyone is expecting us as a newly introduced team to flail around a bit, but we must find our feet and hit the ground running.”
“While we’ve covered car and driving strategies, these were internal factors. Today, I’d like to talk about our biggest challenge: everyone else. Our competitors.”
Another slide popped up with pictures filled with drivers celebrating with their trophies in the air, spraying champagne everywhere. “In our goal to podium, the biggest threats we face this year come from two teams: Red Bull and McLaren.”
“As we know, Red Bull has been on a winning streak recently. They’ve been on the podium for at least half of the races in the season thanks to Sae Itoshi.”
You squinted at the picture of the pale man, who had long under lashes and red hair that framed a boyish, yet serious face. He had piercing teal eyes with high cheekbones and a delicate jawline. You pouted inwardly. He was prettier than you!
“From Japan, moved to Spain when he was young, Ferrari Academy, blah blah blah— point is, read his Wikipedia. Stacked resume all the way from karting to Formula 3 and 2. And he’s a dependent driver for RedBull since he thinks coolly, rationally in tough situations. He’s more of a logical driver than an instinctual one, I’d wager, but the man’s sharp as a whip.”
“He’s also an asshole!” an engineer, who had worked for RedBull, interjected. The room snickered.
“Well, well, let’s not speak badly of others, yeah? Anyways, they’re facing major upheaval this year too. They recently let go of their other driver and pulled in a newbie: Ryusei Shidou.”
You didn’t have to squint for his image. His picture blinded the screen. Dark, tan, skin with horribly dyed yellow and pink hair— the man was a walking glowstick. Undeniably, though, his pink eyes were gorgeous (if not a little bit manic looking).
“There’s not much information about his background, he kinda popped out of nowhere in Formula 3 and rose up extremely quickly. Ryusei is a fantastic driver, able to maneuver out of crazy situations, but he’s just… volatile. I have my doubts as to why RedBull would pick him— someone that doesn’t gel well with a team and lacks the rational ethos they’ve developed, but who knows?”
As Chris blabbered on and on about the team’s competitors, you zoned out. The jargon they used flowed one ear and out the other, making this an unproductive and useless session to you.
No doubt everyone was here to help Team Aston Martin win (you, especially, since your trust fund depended on the investment your dad put in), this meeting was the wrong place for you. They might be able to fight on the grid, but the other battle was fought off it. Development, PR, Marketing, Logistics— they all made it possible for the drivers to get into their cars, with logos proudly on their gear and car, and race the best they can on the track.
You quickly realized after all the fancy market research and analytics meetings you had been pulled into that F1 was a driver and personality-driven sport. All the PR and hype belonged solely to the men driving the cars and could make or break the team. You honed in on this aspect— you were a people person first and foremost. You would help Reo and Sei stand on that podium, even if you had to play a bit dirty.
Well, you were never afraid to dig your hands in. Even if that meant into other drivers’ pants.
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Short Explanatory Note about F1:
- Each team has 2 main drivers and at least 1 reserve driver.
- Team Principal= coach.
- In F1, there are two levels of competition: individual races and the overall championships.
- There are 24 individual races each year held in different cities all across the country and if you finish Top 10, you earn points.
- There is the World Driver Championship, in which the driver who wins the most 1st places in individual races, wins. Most coveted race. It’s basically being the best striker in the world. However, if only one person can win, why are there teams?
- This is where the Constructors Championship comes in. Each team (2 drivers) has the chance to earn points collectively throughout the 24 races and when tallied up at the end, whomever has the most points wins.
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Hi everyone, first BLLK fic woooo! This fic has been already planned out and is set to feature various pairings. You’ll probably see I have favorites lol. Please comment and let me know your thoughts!
See you in Bahrain ;) xx