Chapter Text
The rain had come earlier than expected.
It hadn’t been in the forecast at least not for that hour but Monaco didn’t care for predictions.
The streets glistened under the sudden downpour, a mirror of jagged lights and rubber-slicked chaos.
The engines screamed against the wet asphalt, tires slicing through puddles like knives.
Jeno’s hands were steady on the wheel, jaw locked tight. Turn sixteen was coming fast. He could see it. He had done this hundreds of times.
But that was before the rain. Before the skid. Before the brief moment of nothing.
And then, impact.
The sound of carbon fiber shattering echoed through the narrow track walls. The world flipped, blurred, and narrowed into one long, jagged exhale before everything went dark.
🏎️
Geneva University Hospital was over an hour away by helicopter, and still not far enough.
Na Jaemin was elbow-deep in a trauma rotation, bleary-eyed and one espresso short of functioning, when the alert came through the ER.
"Critical incoming. Male, early twenties. Fractured ribs, probable concussion, blunt force trauma. High-profile patient. Airlifted from Monaco."
Another F1 racer, probably. They’d had two that year already, one walked away with a sprain. The other hadn’t walked away at all.
“Who is it?” Jaemin asked, tugging gloves on without thinking.
“Lee Jeno,” the nurse beside him muttered. “The one from South Korea. Youngest in the top ten.”
Jaemin froze.
Time didn’t stop but it felt like it hesitated.
He looked up, lips parting. “What... what did you say?”
“Lee Jeno.” The nurse blinked, confused. “You know him?”
Jaemin didn’t answer.
His body moved before his mind caught up, steps carrying him into Trauma Room C like he was being pulled by invisible thread. Machines beeped. Staff barked orders. And in the center of the chaos, bloodied, bruised, hooked up to monitors was him.
Jeno.
Six years evaporated like breath on cold glass.
Gone was the teenage boy who used to race bikes through the streets of Seoul, who slept through math class with his chin on Jaemin’s shoulder, who once kissed Jaemin’s cheek on graduation night and called it a joke even though it hadn’t felt like one.
In his place was a man older, sharper, broken.
Jaemin’s stomach lurched. “Shit,” he whispered.
A nurse shoved gloves in his hand. “Dr. Choi wants you on vitals.”
“I...” Jaemin swallowed, looking at the line of blood seeping from Jeno’s hairline. “Okay. Okay, I’ve got it.”
🏎️
They worked fast. Trauma protocol kicked in. Broken ribs. Concussion confirmed. Small fracture on the left ulna. Mild internal bleeding, but no organ rupture. Stable, but sedated.
Jaemin didn’t speak unless necessary.
He tried not to stare, but he caught himself glancing again and again at the shape of Jeno’s lips, the flutter of his lashes, the way his fingers twitched restlessly against the blanket.
How long had it been?
Six years, maybe seven, since Jeno left without saying goodbye. Since he signed with the academy in Europe and never looked back. Since Jaemin stopped waiting for a reply to the last message he ever sent:
“Good luck. I hope it’s worth it.”
It had haunted him for years. Not the message itself but the silence that came after.
🏎️
“Vitals stable,” he reported after the second hour. His voice was flat, too calm. Detached.
Inside, he was unraveling.
“You okay, Jaemin?” Dr. Choi asked, pulling off his gloves.
“Yes,” he lied, before remembering to smile. “Just tired.”
Dr. Choi didn’t push it. “Good work. Go rest.”
But Jaemin didn’t rest.
He lingered at the observation window, arms folded, watching Jeno breathe beneath the monitors’ glow. The rain outside tapped gently against the glass.
He looked different.
Taller. Leaner. His face was sharper now, jawline cut by time, cheekbones worn by speed and sleeplessness. But his mouth was still soft. Still familiar.
Still Jeno.
“Why are you here?” Jaemin whispered. “Why now?”
As if he could hear him, Jeno stirred faintly in the bed.
🏎️
Flashback: Seoul, 2018.
The school rooftop. Mid-June heat. Jaemin in uniform, sleeves rolled. Jeno, laughing, straddling his bike.
“You’re going to crash one day,” Jaemin had said, rolling his eyes.
Jeno grinned. “Maybe. But it’ll be worth it.”
He leaned closer. “Besides, you’ll patch me up, won’t you, baby doc?”
Jaemin had turned red. “Don’t call me that.”
Jeno laughed, eyes crinkling. “Why not? It suits you.”
It was the last summer they had together.
Back to the present.
Jaemin blinked away the memory.
He shouldn’t care. He didn’t care.
Jeno Lee was just a patient. Another name. Another body on the table.
Jaemin repeated it like a mantra as he turned and walked away.
But even as he left, his chest ached with the weight of everything he didn’t say.
And everything Jeno never did.