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Glistening. That is how Minho’s fingers are when he lifts them from the misted livery. Droplets of rainwater stick to the pads of his fingers, seeping into the grooves and rolling down his joints until they pool into his palm.
Sleek, black paint shines ominously in the low light of the garage. It’s elegant, it’s petrifying. The rack of tyres beyond the car cast a broken shadow along its halo. Minho bites his lip in a sudden bout of apprehension.
This is no place…
The smell of ages old cigarette smoke fills his senses. Unsure, but steady footsteps follow it. Always steady, never sure.
Minho runs his slicked hand through his hair, dirtying the already messy strands with whatever contaminants the rainwater has accumulated. Fingers curling at his chin, the sigh he lets out rattles a few of the droplets still clinging to the nose’s surface.
“Is that disappointment I smell?”
Melodic, aimed to wrap around the thickest chords of anyone’s mind and attune them to the finest notes of irritation. One front after the other, and Minho is nonetheless entranced by the honeyed tone.
He turns his head towards Hyunjin, who has stopped by the garage’s door. His hand is propped against the doorframe—the stronger one, his injured arm remains by his side. The thick material of his coat does plenty to keep most of himself hidden from view, and it’s enough to protect his arm from curious eyes.
What the coat can’t hide is that half smile on his lips, pink flesh marbling with the slight tightness of the expression.
Minho has seen it too many times before. False enthusiasm; sleazy brand representatives; all a thick, mould-filled glass of reality’s worst. Minho has seen it all on his way up the ladder, still sees it out of the paddock and during off-season events.
Hyunjin has seen it twice as many times. He was drowned in the murky waters and brought back to surface with a corroded sense of self, resuscitated and embraced with a layer of arrogance to keep himself at arm’s length from the rest of the world.
So when Minho hears the lift in Hyunjin’s voice at the tail end of his taunt, all he feels is endeared.
He rises from his position on the ground, meeting the other’s smile with one of his own. Warm, inviting. Anything to lessen the chasm between them.
“How many washes until it’s gone?” He asks with a tilt of his head, dragging his gaze up and down the extravagant length of Hyunjin’s winter coat.
It billows with the rush of warm air that filters into the garage and reveals nothing. Outside of runways, Hyunjin has never been the type to outdress the crowd.
Hyunjin’s eyes twinkle, “One or ten.” He smacks his lips, smile turning wry, almost mocking. “All within time.”
Oh but how he clearly aches for it. His fingers are curved aggressively into the doorframe’s edge, strangling the cold metal in a white-knuckled grip that has Minho wincing internally.
“You’ve done well,” he says softly, gesturing both to the air and the car behind him.
Hyunjin’s face falls, though only slightly.
“Not good enough,” he replies, taking a step forward and pulling away from his sanctuary of darkness.
“You were flawless,” Minho praises, breath caught from how true his words are, “Fourth is nothing easy for a rookie.”
Hyunjin shakes his head, closes the gap between them until he’s close enough for Minho to take his clean, dry hand to ghost along the sharp curve of his jaw. Clenched, teeth grinding together. Minho feels himself release another sigh.
He presses the full weight of his palm against the rippling muscle, and only then does the warmth of his hand erase the awful smile from Hyunjin’s face.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Hyunjin gently tells him, lashes fluttering miserably when Minho finally drags his thumb over his warming cheek.
Minho hums. “Changbin likes me enough.”
“If… People will talk.” Hyunjin argues lamely, nudging Minho’s hand away from his face. He sniffs, looks around the garage, and tucks some hair behind his ear. “And we have…brand deals and contracts and shit.”
Arms crossed over his chest, Minho follows Hyunjin as he walks aimlessly around the car. He doesn’t look at it, but he isn’t quite looking ahead either. Minho mimics that notion, choosing to focus on the swaying of his coat.
“That’s true,” he eventually says. “Is that why you never told me about this?”
Hyunjin chuckles. It’s a choked sound. His heart isn’t in it at all.
He comes to a stop by the tyre rack, letting the rubber scent of the tyres overpower the stubborn smell of cigarette smoke that haunts him. It’s then that both hands come up to land on a tyre’s curve, nails tracing the finer parts of it.
“For once,” Hyunjin breathes out to the tyre, “I wanted to do something for myself. For once, hyung.”
Minho has come to hate the smell of fresh tyres. It’s oppressive; it burns his insides more than the sputtering exhaust of the old beat up cars he used to fuck around with before Formula One had even been within reach.
Entering another season of racing, freshly crowned a three time world champion, has become a gruelling experience to shoulder. Passing that heaviness to Hyunjin was never in his mind. The mere thought was unimaginable. Never to be expected.
Yet here they stand.
Hyunjin had never really liked modelling. He often came to their shared apartment with a tongue overflowing with complaints and enough cigarette smoke around him to force Minho to pop open the balcony door for some much needed air. He didn’t like it: the hot, glaring lights that illuminated the runway; the constant expectation to groom himself into an entirely different person. It was all a farce.
It was all egregiously fake.
(Mirrors. Those became less and less as the months passed by.)
“I wouldn’t have stopped you,” Minho says, bleeding with honesty. “You know that I’m with you no matter what you do.” He places a rough hand over Hyunjin’s, giving it a squeeze. “You just gotta let me in, honey.”
Hyunjin doesn’t take his hand away. That’s an insurmountable victory for Minho.
“I know,” Hyunjin affirms, though it sounds like he doesn’t believe it. Minho feels himself falter, throat spasming in the face of that shard of caution the younger just can’t seem to rid from his bloody grasp. The edges dig deeper, and Hyunjin doesn’t say anything further than a raspy “Your hand is sweaty.”
Minho smiles, heart only partially in it, and gives Hyunjin’s hand another squeeze. “Are you complaining, Hwang Hyunjin?”
Beautiful brown eyes widen, and Minho’s whole being aches.
So alive, Hyunjin looks so alive and less like the defeated shell that would drag himself through their apartment for hours on end, wandering until his feet would start to trip over themselves and Minho would have to take him by the hand to their barely used sofa.
Hyunjin’s eyes sparkle, then they glisten with a barrage of tears, and his lips part in the sweetest display of apology.
Minho laughs then, peeling Hyunjin’s trembling hand from the tyre and pressing a lasting kiss to his wrist.
“I know you’re not,” he murmurs into the residual scent of sweet fragrance oil, “It’s okay, baby.”
Hyunjin scowls then. He sniffs, aggressively blinking the tears away.
“Now you’re really in for it, old man.”
“Is that so?” Minho envisions his honey on the podium and imagines himself below it, cheering and clapping for Hyunjin as he has always done, be it the podium or a runway. “I ain’t complaining.”
(But part of him worries— It was too easy, too fucking easy to bring Hyunjin to tears.)
There’s a sharp inhale. Hyunjin’s wrist is ripped from his grasp as the younger man moves away from the tyres. Past Minho’s confused gasp, the melody of Hyunjin’s ringtone reverberates throughout the garage.
With an apologetic look Hyunjin accepts the call. He turns away from Minho, takes the deluge of whiny questions and scoldings from what is undoubtedly a frantic Changbin. Hardly a word is uttered by Hyunjin, and by the end of the call he offers an affirmative hum before yanking his phone away.
“We—I have to go,” Hyunjin throws over his shoulder before facing Minho. A smile blooms across his lips, pretty and ecstatic. “Changbin’s calling for a strategy meeting. He says he’ll die if I’m not on the podium next weekend.”
Yeah. That sounds like Changbin.
“You were beautiful tonight,” Minho finds himself regurgitating mindless praises again, coming forward until he’s able to wrap a few fingers around the lovely curve of Hyunjin’s waist. “I’m positive you’ll be there with me.”
Hyunjin stares right into his eyes, unblinking. He breathes quietly, taking slow and steady breaths as if the only air available is that between them.
“You have no idea how much I want that.”
And he’s so earnest with it.
“God you’re adorable,” Minho tells him. He leans in to give his cheek a kiss, making sure to tuck some more of his hair behind his ear just the way he likes it. Hyunjin squirms and grumbles but he doesn’t push him off.
“You’re going to fuck up my makeup—”
Minho pulls away, laughing. “Okay, okay. Are we still up for dinner later?”
Hyunjin fixes his coat, “Can we get Korean food?”
“We can get whatever you want as long as we eat together,” Minho looks at the car, face pinching in regret. “It’s been so long.” He directs his gaze back towards Hyunjin, feeling all his concern rush back to the forefront of his mind. “Will you be alright until then?”
Hyunjin nods.
“Yeah,” he says softly, a tad rushed. “Don’t worry about me.”
That nearly makes the older driver burst into laughter: all Minho can do is worry. Day and night, night and day he battles with the cold tides of worry.
He has watched Hyunjin be torn to pieces once; he cannot let it happen again.
“I know Changbin’ll take care of you,” is what Minho says instead, guilty of delighting in the smile that earns him. “Try to give him a hard time, yeah?”
He savours the kiss that is pressed to his cheek. He relishes the warmth of those plump lips, and keeps Hyunjin’s playful giggle close to his heart.
Then he’s left alone in an unfamiliar garage with a car that doesn’t belong to him. He gives the car another look, kneels down to trace the Mercedes emblem with his dirtied fingers, and shakes his head.
Please, Changbin. Take care of him.