Chapter Text
**BGM: Paris in the Rain — Lauv**
-
## Oscar
Oscar Piastri figured he had his life planned out pretty perfectly.
Eighteen years, and he'd run like a well-oiled machine—skipped grades in primary school, stayed in the top three throughout secondary, aced his uni entrance exams with near-perfect scores, and stood at the podium on orientation day as the freshman representative.
His speech was two pages. No fluff. When the applause hit, he just nodded once, walked back to his seat, and pulled out his textbook.
The girl next to him kept sneaking glances. "You're really cute," she whispered.
"Thanks," he said, without looking up.
He wasn't trying to be cold. It just—didn't matter. A pretty face wasn't gonna solve his differential equations, or finish his lab reports, or land him that internship at the aerospace company he'd been eyeing since he was fifteen.
His plan was simple: finish his degree in three years, master's in two, then get into NASA or ESA. Or maybe go back to Australia, hole up in some research institute, and do his work in peace.
That was Oscar Piastri's whole life plan.
No dating. No parties. No unnecessary socialising.
He didn't even mess around with food—black coffee and two slices of toast for breakfast, lunch at the canteen in under twenty minutes, dinner was usually a sandwich or salad eaten one-handed while he read. His roommate Carter said he lived like a monk.
"You never get bored?" Carter asked once.
"Nope." And he meant it.
He genuinely didn't get bored. He loved the rush of cracking a hard problem, the satisfaction of watching his lab data fit the curve perfectly, the quiet of being the last person in the library and walking back to his dorm under the streetlights. This was the life he wanted. Controlled. Ordered. Full.
So he really, genuinely did not understand why Carter was so desperate to drag him to that stupid freshman welcome party.
"Mate, I'm begging you. It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing, you can't just not go—"
Carter was tugging at his sleeve, practically hanging off Oscar's arm. Oscar had just walked in from the library with three massive engineering mechanics textbooks and was planning to finish Chapter Seven tonight.
"I'd rather be in bed eating pizza and watching Netflix than destroying my eardrums for hours," Oscar said, trying to shake him off.
"But this is literally the most important social event of the whole year! C'mon, meeting people isn't gonna kill you." Carter wasn't letting go, his eyes all big and hopeful. "And honestly? With your face? You'd be a total lady killer. Loads of people are gonna wanna know you—"
"That's literally one of the reasons I don't wanna go."
Oscar sighed, finally pried Carter's fingers off his sleeve, dumped his textbooks on the desk, and grabbed the TV remote.
Carter followed him and flopped onto the couch. "But what if—what if you meet your soulmate? That's how it works in the movies!"
"Hard pass." Oscar bit into a piece of toast he'd grabbed from the kitchen, chewing lazily. "Not interested, you know that. And you should probably stop watching stuff that rots your brain."
"Hell no!" Carter clutched his chest like he'd been shot. "I seriously don't get you! Everyone's gonna be there. Why won't you just come? For fun?"
"I prefer Netflix. Quiet. Comfortable."
Oscar took another bite and went to pour himself some coffee. He wasn't even hungry, but it'd been four hours since dinner and his stomach was starting to complain.
Carter was quiet for a few seconds. Oscar thought maybe he'd given up.
Then Carter said, in the voice of a man with nothing left to lose: "If you come with me, I'll do all the housework for the next two months."
Oscar's hand stopped mid-pour.
He turned around.
Carter was sitting on the couch with his hands pressed together, doing the whole *please please please* face, twisting around like a worm on a hook. And Oscar had to admit—that was actually tempting. Carter was a disaster when it came to cleaning. Ever since they started sharing a bathroom, Oscar had lost count of how many times he'd found hair tangled in the drain, water stains all over the sink, and trash overflowing.
Two months of not dealing with that.
"Deal," Oscar said, putting his coffee down. "But we're back by midnight."
"WHAT?! Midnight's when the party STARTS! 3 AM, come on? No one leaves at midnight!"
"You can stay till three. I'm leaving at midnight. I'm not messing up my sleep schedule for this, Carter."
"Nooooooo! 2 AM?"
Oscar glanced at the clock, then at Carter's tragic face, and finally caved. "One. That's my final offer."
"Fine...! One!"
Carter practically launched himself off the couch and wrapped Oscar in a back-slapping hug. "You're the best, bro. I swear you won't regret this!"
Oscar coughed from the impact and thought, *I already do.*
---
The party was in the student union building next to the lecture halls.
Oscar walked in behind Carter and immediately thought—*too loud.*
The music was shaking the floor. Lights were flashing all over the place—red, blue, purple. The air smelled like cheap perfume, sweat, and cheap booze all mixed together. The hall was packed with people, mostly freshmen, all looking excited and nervous, standing around in groups talking or drinking or swaying to the beat.
Carter disappeared into the crowd like a fish in water. Oscar didn't even get to say "don't go too far"—he just turned around and poof. Gone.
He sighed, found a corner that was slightly less chaotic, and leaned against the wall. Someone handed him a drink. He sniffed it—vodka something, strong. Took a tiny sip. Gross.
He looked at his watch. 9:43 PM.
Three hours and seventeen minutes until he could leave.
Oscar felt a wave of despair hit him. He started seriously considering ditching Carter and sneaking back to the dorm. It wasn't like Carter would even notice, right? The guy had already vanished—
And then the door opened.
Something shifted at the entrance. A ripple of movement. Oscar looked up without thinking, his gaze cutting through the crowd—
And forgot how to breathe.
He didn't know how to explain it.
It was like—you know that feeling when you're walking down a street you've walked a thousand times? You know every tree, every bench, exactly when the streetlights will flick on. And then you turn a corner and suddenly there's an ocean. Right there. An ocean you've never seen before, blue and glittering and endless.
The guy was standing in the doorway, backlit by the September night and the ugly yellow lights of the union building. But he looked like he was glowing anyway. Not from the lights—from something inside him.
Oversized white tee, light blue denim jacket over it, black trousers, really expensive-looking white sneakers. Brown curly hair falling over his forehead, messy. His face was small but his features were sharp—big eyes, a nose with a nice slope, lips curved up like he was always about to laugh.
And he *was* laughing.
Talking to someone next to him, grinning so wide his eyes turned into crescents, showing a little bit of teeth. It wasn't one of those fake social smiles. It was the real deal—like he could find something to be happy about at any moment, anywhere.
People were crowding around him. Slapping his shoulder. Leaning in to talk. And he handled all of it like it was nothing, like breathing. He was the kind of person who was born to be at the centre of things. Everyone orbited around him like he was the sun.
Oscar didn't know how long he stood there staring.
A few seconds. Maybe a minute. Maybe longer. All he knew was that his drink was still hovering at his lips, forgotten, and his entire body had frozen in place.
Then the guy looked up.
Like he'd felt someone watching him. His eyes swept across the room, casual, not really looking for anything specific—and landed on Oscar's corner for maybe two seconds.
Just two seconds.
Their eyes met across half a room of sweaty dancing bodies and flashing lights. The guy didn't seem to be looking *at* him, exactly. Just... in his direction. Then he turned back to his friends.
But in those two seconds, Oscar felt something hit his chest.
Soft. Barely there.
Like someone had dropped a single pebble into a still lake. Ripples spreading out, round and round, and then—stillness again. Except the lake would never be the same. Because now it knew what it felt like, to be touched.
Oscar finally blinked. Looked down at his drink. Took a sip.
Still gross.
He put the cup down and tried to refocus on the important question: *when can I leave*. But his eyes kept drifting back to the doorway. Back to that white t-shirt.
He watched the guy get pulled toward the dance floor by his friends, watched him shake his head laughing, then give in and do this clumsy little wiggle that was somehow adorable. Watched someone hand him a drink and him take a huge gulp and make the most hilarious disgusted face while his friends cracked up. Watched him move through the crowd like he belonged everywhere at once, saying hi to everyone, remembering every name, like he'd known them for years.
*Who is he?*
Oscar asked himself the question, then immediately told himself it didn't matter. He didn't need to know. This person had nothing to do with his life. He was an engineering student. His life plan didn't include parties, or socialising, or—
Or standing in a corner staring at a stranger for ten straight minutes like a creep.
He forced himself to look away. Checked his watch.
10:08 PM.
Two hours and fifty-two minutes to go.
Time had somehow gotten slower.
---
## Lando
Lando Norris never said no to a party.
Especially not the freshman welcome party.
"You again," George Russell said, leaning against the bar with his whisky. "You come every year. Don't you get bored?"
"Don't *you* come every year?" Lando shot back, grabbing a champagne flute off a passing tray. "Anyway, I'm just here to welcome the new kids. Such a kind, generous senior, me."
"Kind and generous," George repeated flatly. "You're here to check out hot guys."
Lando took a sip of his champagne, eyes crinkling, and didn't deny it.
Okay, fine. *Maybe* that was part of it. But what was wrong with that? Appreciating nice things was human nature. He was just more honest about it than most.
He scanned the room, eyes flicking quickly over the crowd. Not bad this year. Better than last year, anyway—he spotted a few decent-looking guys. Blonde, brunette, tall, muscular. Lando mentally rated them and shook his head.
Cute, but none of them *popped*.
"What are you looking for?" Charles Leclerc appeared out of nowhere, holding what looked like juice, and stood on Lando's other side.
"Hot guys," Lando said.
"You're *always* looking for hot guys," Charles sighed.
"It's called enjoying life."
George and Charles exchanged a look. The *here we go again* look.
Lando Norris. Design major, third year, the undisputed social butterfly of campus. Pretty face, golden retriever energy, could light up a room just by walking into it. He was never short on friends—or admirers. Honestly, he'd lost count of how many people had confessed to him since freshman year.
He'd said no to all of them.
Not because he was picky (okay, maybe a little picky). But because the *feeling* wasn't there.
Lando ran on instinct. That's how he painted, how he made friends, how he dated. He didn't care about stats or backgrounds or how much someone liked him. He only trusted his gut.
When it clicked, it clicked.
When it didn't—well, they were just another face in the crowd.
He'd had a few relationships, yeah. But they never lasted long. George said his love life had a shorter shelf life than a goldfish's memory. Lando argued that he just hadn't found the right person yet. George rolled his eyes and said he'd be waiting forever.
"Hey, did you hear?" George's voice dropped into that *I know something you don't* tone.
"Hear what?" Lando asked absently, still scanning.
"The freshman rep this year."
"Yeah?"
"Engineering. Oscar Piastri." George set down his drink, hands in his pockets. "Apparently the best freshman they've had in a decade. Near-perfect entrance scores. Won a bunch of competitions in high school. And—"
He paused for effect.
"And what?"
"And," George smiled slowly, "he's really good-looking."
Lando raised an eyebrow. "How good?"
"Ask Charles. He saw him in the engineering building this afternoon."
Lando turned to Charles with a look that said *well??*
Charles thought for a second. "It's not like... an obvious pretty, you know? He's more... clean. Cool. Maybe around 178cm? Brown hair, really nice eyes—like dark chocolate? Or amber? He looks smart. Kind of hard to get close to."
"So he's a nerd," Lando said.
"A *hot* nerd," Charles corrected. "And he gave his speech without looking at notes. Super clear, nice voice. Didn't seem nervous at all with everyone staring at him."
"So what," Lando shrugged. "A nerd's a nerd. Doesn't matter how hot—"
His mouth stopped working.
Because he saw someone.
Someone standing in the far corner of the hall, back against the wall, holding a drink he'd barely touched. Dark blue shirt, sleeves rolled up to his forearms—nice forearms, actually. Brown hair catching the light, making it look warm. His face was all sharp angles in the shadows—high nose bridge, lips pressed together in a thin line, and those eyes—
*Those eyes.*
Charles was right. They were beautiful. Like dark amber, or melted chocolate. Deep and still and way too calm for someone his age.
He stood in that corner like he didn't belong here at all. Everyone else was loud and sweaty and having the time of their lives. He was an island. Quiet. Cool. Untouchable.
He wasn't smiling. Wasn't talking to anyone. Wasn't even looking at anyone. He was just... waiting for time to pass.
And Lando Norris's heart stuttered.
No—not stuttered. It was like—you know when you're painting, just messing around, and you put down one brushstroke that feels... off? So you stop and stare at it for ages, and then you realise—*oh*. That's the one. That's the whole point of the painting.
Lando had no idea how long he'd been staring until George snapped a finger in front of his face.
"Earth to Lando."
He blinked. Looked down. Realised he'd spilled half his champagne on his hand.
"That's Oscar Piastri," Charles said quietly. And his voice had that *I told you so* lilt to it.
Lando opened his mouth. Closed it. Nothing came out.
George grinned, all smug. "Thought you said nerds don't matter?"
Lando glared at him and wiped his champagne-covered hand on George's sleeve, ignoring George's "HEY! This is my favourite shirt!"
"I'm going to talk to him," Lando announced.
"Right now?" Charles glanced at Oscar in the corner. "He looks like he really doesn't want to be bothered."
"Then I'll bother him. So what?"
He started walking, but George grabbed his arm. "Hold up. Look at him—he was clearly dragged here by his roommate. His whole vibe is *I want to go home*. If you go over there right now, he's just gonna think you're annoying."
Lando stopped.
George had a point. He hated admitting it, but he had a point.
Lando was impulsive, sure, but he wasn't stupid. He could tell—Oscar Piastri wasn't like anyone he'd ever met before. He couldn't just do his usual thing. That would only push him further away.
"So what do I do?" Lando asked, and there was something in his voice—lost, almost. Charles and George exchanged a look. They'd known Lando for years, and they'd never seen him like this over anyone.
"Take it slow," Charles said, patting his shoulder. "You've got more than one day. It's not that big of a campus. You'll run into him."
Lando nodded. But his eyes drifted back to that corner anyway.
Oscar was looking at his watch, frowning slightly. The expression made Lando want to laugh—this guy really hated parties, huh? He really wanted to leave.
But his frowny face was so cute.
Lando kept that thought to himself.
---
## Oscar
Three days after the party, Oscar noticed he'd started paying attention to things he'd never cared about before.
Like, he'd started looking at people's faces when he walked across campus.
Before, he never looked at anyone. He'd walk with his head down, thinking about problems, or staring at his phone. He could walk the same route from his dorm to the lecture halls a hundred times and not notice a single tree, let alone who else was on the path at that hour.
But now?
Now he found himself looking up. Scanning the crowd for someone. Noticing every person in a white t-shirt, every person with brown curly hair, every person who smiled with their whole face.
He told himself it was stupid.
He didn't even know the guy's name. All he knew was that he was probably a year or two older—maybe a sophomore or junior—because at the party he'd been greeting everyone like he owned the place. And he was clearly one of those popular, social types. The complete opposite of Oscar.
*Completely opposite.*
Oscar turned that phrase over in his head, trying to use logic to talk himself out of this. He and that guy had nothing in common. Zero overlap. Oscar was in engineering; the guy was probably in business or communications or something. Oscar liked quiet; the guy obviously liked noise. Oscar's life plan had no room for parties or socialising; that guy's life plan probably had parties pencilled in every single night.
Parallel lines. Never going to meet.
So he should just stop thinking about him.
But he kept zoning out in class. Which—for Oscar Piastri—was basically unheard of. He'd never once zoned out in a lecture, not since primary school. His focus was literally his best quality. But now, in Engineering Mechanics, while the professor was going over stress-strain curves, his brain just randomly served him the image of that guy making a disgusted face after taking a shot of something cheap.
His mouth twitched.
He immediately pinched his own palm.
"What're you smiling at?" the person next to him whispered.
"Nothing," Oscar said flatly, dragging his attention back to the PowerPoint.
He started wondering if he was sick.
Not physically sick. Something else. Something he didn't have words for, something that didn't fit into any engineering principle. His heart would race for no reason. His thoughts would drift to a person he'd seen once, for a few seconds. His eyes would search crowds for someone who wasn't there.
This was ridiculous.
This was SO ridiculous.
Oscar Piastri—who didn't go to his own high school formal, who'd turned down every confession he'd ever gotten, who thought dating was a waste of time and energy—was getting heart palpitations over a stranger.
He broke it down like an equation, trying to use logic:
Variable A: He saw a person at a party.
Variable B: That person was attractive.
Variable C: He thought that person was attractive.
Conclusion: This was just a temporary hormonal response. Biological attraction. Had nothing to do with feelings. It was like seeing a pretty flower or a nice painting—just an aesthetic response. No need to overthink it.
He felt better after that analysis.
Right. Exactly. He just thought the guy was good-looking. Same way he thought a building was good-looking, or a piece of industrial design. Aesthetics, not emotions.
He didn't need to know him.
He didn't need to know his name.
He didn't need to think about him anymore.
Oscar closed his notebook, satisfied, and turned back to his problem set.
Then he noticed that in the corner of his scratch paper, he'd absentmindedly drawn a little curve—a crescent moon shape.
He stared at it for five seconds.
Then he scribbled it out.
---
## Lando
Lando noticed he'd started hanging around the engineering building a lot more.
He gave himself a perfectly reasonable excuse—his design project this term required using the 3D printers over there. Yeah. That was it. Totally normal. Nothing weird.
"You've been to the engineering building three times this week," George said, watching Lando grab his jacket to go out again. "Didn't you already submit that project?"
"There's a revision," Lando said smoothly.
"Professor said, and I quote, 'It's perfect, don't change anything.'"
"...I strive for excellence."
"You strive for a certain engineering major."
Lando didn't answer. He shut the door a little harder than necessary.
Okay, fine. He admitted it. He just wanted to see Oscar Piastri again.
But he'd been to the engineering building three times this week—plus the library, plus the canteen, plus he'd "accidentally" wandered past the engineering labs—and he hadn't seen Oscar once.
He was starting to think the guy never left his classroom.
"He probably doesn't," Charles said when Lando complained about it. "I heard Oscar Piastri has a super fixed schedule. Up at 7, in class by 8, lunch in the canteen in under twenty minutes, library till closing, then home. Weekends are either lab or library."
"...How do you know all that?" Lando squinted at him.
"Catherine told me. She's in engineering. Same class as him."
Lando was quiet for a moment.
"The canteen," he said. "He eats lunch at the canteen."
"You're not gonna stake out the canteen," Charles said, his face doing something complicated.
"It's not a stakeout. It's called eating. I need food too, don't I?"
Charles opened his mouth, thought better of it, and just sighed.
So Lando started his "canteen stakeout."
The school canteen was huge—two floors, could fit a few hundred people. Lando never really ate there before. He usually went off-campus or ordered delivery or just... didn't eat. But this week, he showed up every day at lunch, grabbed a tray, found a seat with a good view of the entrance, and waited.
Day one: no Oscar.
Day two: still no.
Day three: he saw him.
Oscar was wearing a grey hoodie, hair flattened from the hood, carrying a tray with a very sad-looking sandwich and a glass of water. He sat in a corner by the window, back to everyone, pulled out his phone, and started eating one-handed while scrolling.
He ate neatly. Took his time chewing. Cut his sandwich in half and ate one side first, then the other. When he drank water, he tipped his head back slightly, and his throat moved.
Lando knew he probably looked like a complete creep staring like this, but he couldn't stop.
He was so—*good-looking.*
Not in a dressed-up way. In a casual, sitting-there-eating-a-sandwich-looking-at-his-phone-not-caring-about-anything way. His profile was sharp. Nose straight, eyelashes casting tiny shadows on his cheeks. His fingers were long, knuckles defined, holding the sandwich like it was a precision instrument.
Lando suddenly really wanted to draw him.
The thought hit him out of nowhere, like lightning. He was a design student. Drawing was literally what he did. He'd drawn plenty of things—landscapes, buildings, random people on the street. But he'd never drawn a *specific* person before.
Because faces were hard. Not technically hard, but—there was too much *there*. Emotion, personality, history, soul. Drawing someone's face meant capturing all of that.
But watching Oscar Piastri eat a sandwich in the corner of the canteen, Lando suddenly wanted to try.
He wanted to draw the way his lashes fell when he looked down. The way his lips pressed together. The curve of his fingers around the bread. That isolated, cold, somehow magnetic energy he carried around.
He wanted to draw him.
Lando put down his fork. His heart was racing.
"You okay?" George asked from across the table.
"Fine," Lando said, even though his hands were shaking a little.
"You've been staring at that corner for like five minutes." George followed his gaze, and then went "ahhhhhh." "That's Oscar Piastri?"
"Yeah."
"...Are you staking him out?"
"I'm eating."
"Your fork's backwards."
Lando looked down. He *was* holding his fork backwards—the back of it up, the tines down. He'd been stabbing his pasta with the wrong side.
He flipped it over and ate a bite in silence.
"You're so done for," George said, like he was witnessing a historic event.
"I'm not."
"You're blushing."
"The canteen's hot."
"It's September and the AC is at 18 degrees."
"...George, shut up."
---
## Oscar
Second week of September, Oscar did something very out of character.
He asked Carter about someone.
Okay, it was more like—Carter mentioned something about "this hilarious senior I saw at a party," and Oscar said, in his most casual voice, "Oh yeah? Who?"
"Lando, I think? Something like that. Design major, third year, super popular. Everyone knows him. He was dancing at the party and it was so bad but also so cute, everyone was losing it."
*Lando.*
Oscar turned the name over in his head.
"What's he look like?" he asked, trying to sound like he didn't care.
"Uh... brown curly hair, not tall, nice smile. Oh, he was wearing a white t-shirt with a rainbow pony on it. Super childish but it kind of worked for him."
White t-shirt. Brown curly hair. Nice smile.
Oscar pieced it together with the image from the party.
"Why're you asking?" Carter suddenly whipped around, eyes sparkling with gossip potential. "You finally interested in a real person?"
"No." Oscar flipped a page in his book. He hadn't been reading. "Just curious."
"Just curious?" Carter was clearly not buying it. "You're Oscar Piastri. You're never 'just curious' about anything. You don't even ask what's for lunch."
"I don't care what's for lunch."
"So why do you care what some design senior looks like?"
Oscar was quiet for two seconds.
"I don't," he said. "Just confirming something."
"Confirming what?"
Oscar didn't answer.
He *was* confirming something. He was confirming that the person from the party—the one who'd made his heart stop—was real. Sometimes he wondered if he'd imagined it. Maybe the lighting was bad. Maybe the music had messed with his head. Maybe he'd built it up in his memory, and the guy wasn't actually that striking, that bright.
But now he knew.
His name was Lando.
*Lando.*
The name sat on his tongue like a piece of candy. Sweet.
He bit his lip and pushed the thought down.
It didn't matter. The name didn't matter. Who he was, what he looked like, what he studied—none of it mattered. Parallel lines. No intersection. He didn't need to remember this name.
He turned the page.
His eyes glazed over the same paragraph for five minutes straight.
*Oscar Piastri. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?*
---
## Lando
Lando started drawing Oscar.
Just sketches at first. He'd sit in the canteen, watch Oscar from across the room, and quickly block out his shape—the slope of his shoulders, the angle of his head, the way his fingers looked holding his sandwich. His lines were fast and loose, but when he finished, something was always missing.
What?
He stared at the sketch on his pad. The lines were right. The proportions were right. Even the shading was fine. But it wasn't—*him.* The drawing didn't have that thing. That Oscar-ness. That cold, distant, like-he's-watching-the-world-through-glass quality.
Lando ripped the page out, crumpled it, and threw it in the bin.
"Another one?" Charles appeared behind him, glancing at the bin. "That's five this week."
"Six," Lando corrected, flipping to a fresh page.
Charles watched him for a moment. "You know," he said quietly, "I don't think you're just drawing."
Lando's pen stopped.
"You're trying to figure him out," Charles went on. "You don't just want to draw what he looks like. You want to draw who he *is*. But you don't know him yet, so you just keep drawing over and over, hoping the lines will tell you something."
Lando didn't answer, but his grip on the pen tightened.
Charles was right.
He wanted to know who Oscar Piastri was.
He wanted to know why the guy could stand alone in a corner at a party and look so lonely but so comfortable at the same time. He wanted to know why he ate his sandwich like it was the most serious thing in the world. He wanted to know what he thought about when he was reading—did he ever look up? At the sky? At the people walking past?
At *him*?
Lando felt pathetic.
He was Lando Norris. People chased *him*. He didn't chase anyone. He was the one people snuck glances at, had crushes on. He'd never tried this hard for anyone, never camped out at a canteen just to see someone's face, never filled a sketchbook with the same person's face over and over.
It felt strange.
It felt scary.
"Just go talk to him," Charles said.
"I know," Lando said. But he didn't move.
Because he was scared.
He was scared Oscar Piastri would reject him the same way Oscar rejected everyone. He was scared those dark amber eyes would look at him and see nothing—just politeness, just coldness, just distance. He was scared his whole sunshine-and-rainbows act would just be... embarrassing.
Lando Norris, for the first time, was scared of being turned down.
"You know," George said later, "this is probably the first time in your life you've actually had to pursue someone."
"I'm not pursuing anyone," Lando protested.
"You're staking out the canteen, you're filling a sketchbook with his face, you keep finding excuses to go to the engineering building. That's not pursuing?"
"...I'm just interested."
"So what's the plan? Watch him from afar forever?"
Lando was quiet for a long time.
"I don't know," he said finally, voice small. "I'm scared I'll mess it up."
George's face softened. He'd known Lando for years, and he'd never seen him look like this. The golden boy. The one who always had a smile and a joke.
"You won't mess it up," George said. "You're Lando Norris. No one says no to you."
Lando smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.
"No one?" he asked.
"No one," George said firmly.
Lando hoped he was right.
---
## Oscar
Third week of September. London started raining.
That's just how this city worked in September—sunny one second, pouring the next. Oscar had known that before he moved here, but he still forgot his umbrella all the time.
Like today.
After his last class, Oscar stood at the entrance of the building and watched the rain come down in sheets. This morning had been clear skies. He'd actually thought about pulling out his winter coat to air it out. Now it looked like someone was dumping buckets from the sky.
He looked down at his laptop bag.
New laptop. Bought it with his summer job money. Had all his notes, assignments, project files on it. He couldn't let it get wet. Not because he'd get sick—he didn't care about that—but because water and electronics didn't mix.
He sighed and leaned against the doorframe, deciding to wait it out.
Other students were waiting too. Some were chatting, some were calling friends for rides, some just sprinted off into the rain. Oscar watched them run and thought about how they probably didn't have two thousand dollars' worth of computer in their bags.
Ten minutes passed. The rain got worse.
He started thinking about just making a run for it. If he shoved the laptop under his jacket—
"Hey!"
A voice behind him. Breathless, like they'd been running.
Oscar turned around.
And forgot how to breathe.
Standing in front of him was a guy with brown curly hair. Light blue hoodie, hood down, already half-soaked. Curls plastered to his forehead, water dripping off the ends. His face was flushed—from running, maybe, or something else—chest still heaving a little.
But his eyes.
They were so *bright*. Bright like two lanterns in the rain, warm, the kind of light you couldn't look away from.
Oscar knew those eyes.
He'd seen them at the party. Across a crowded room. For two seconds.
Lando.
The name rose up from somewhere deep, like bubbles after rain.
"You forgot your umbrella, didn't you?" Lando said, smiling. He was holding a black folding umbrella—small, but probably big enough for one person.
Oscar opened his mouth. Nothing came out. His throat felt tight. He just nodded.
"Here." Lando held it out, easy and natural, like they'd been friends for years.
Oscar didn't take it.
"What about you?" he asked. His voice came out lower than he meant it to.
"Me?" Lando's smile widened—that same smile Oscar remembered, eyes curving into crescents, little teeth showing, whole face lighting up. "I'm fine, my place is close. I'll just run."
"It's pouring," Oscar said. He knew he should say no. Push the umbrella back. Keep his distance. But his fingers were already lifting, almost reaching for it.
"Don't worry about it!" Lando pushed the umbrella closer, practically into Oscar's hand. "I'm Lando Norris, design major. You looked like you needed this more than me, so here you go!"
He said it so lightly. Like giving strangers umbrellas in the rain was just something he did. Like running home in a downpour was nothing.
Like Oscar Piastri was worth it.
Oscar took the umbrella.
His fingers brushed Lando's.
Lando's fingers were cold—from the rain, probably—but that cold felt like a spark against Oscar's skin. He closed his hand around the handle automatically. It still had Lando's warmth on it, mixed with rain, making something strange and warm and damp.
The air smelled like him. Not cologne. More like laundry detergent and rain. Clean. Fresh. A little sweet.
"Thank—" Oscar started, but Lando had already turned and run into the rain.
"You're welcome! Bye!"
Lando didn't look back. Just waved over his shoulder. His light blue hoodie blurred in the rain like watercolour bleeding across paper. His run was clumsy, splashing through puddles, the hem of his hoodie flying up to show a strip of his waist.
Oscar stood there, holding the umbrella, watching that figure get smaller and smaller until it disappeared into the grey.
The sounds around him faded.
The rain. The wind. The other students talking.
All of it gone.
Just his heartbeat.
*Thump. Thump. Thump.*
Getting faster. Louder.
He looked down at the umbrella. A normal black folding umbrella. One of the ribs was slightly bent. The handle had a little worn spot. It looked well-used.
He held it tighter. That warmth was still there.
He looked up at where Lando had vanished. The rain kept coming, hard. Puddles had formed on the ground, each raindrop making tiny crowns of water. In the distance, streetlights glowed through the grey, soft and yellow, and the whole campus was wrapped in a blue-grey haze. Quiet. Like another world.
First rainy day of September.
Oscar stood at the entrance of the building, holding an umbrella a stranger had given him, his heart slamming against his ribs.
He thought about what Carter had said.
*What if you meet your soulmate? That's how it works in the movies.*
At the time, he thought it was stupid. Soulmates. Movie plots. Pointless fantasies. His life didn't need that. There was no room for that in his plan.
But now—standing in this rain, holding this umbrella that still smelled like Lando, watching the place where Lando had disappeared—
Now he understood.
He understood what *like* meant.
It wasn't hormones. It wasn't aesthetics. It wasn't biological attraction. It was—you're walking down a street you've walked a thousand times, and you know every tree, every bench, exactly when the lights come on. And then you turn a corner and suddenly there's an *ocean*.
An ocean you've never seen before. Blue and glittering and endless.
And standing there, looking at that ocean—all your logic, all your plans, all your "shouldn't"s and "impossible"s—they just get washed away. And you're left with one thought.
*I want to stay here.*
*I want to keep looking at this ocean.*
Oscar opened the umbrella and walked into the rain.
The rain hit the fabric with a soft, steady sound, like a song he didn't know the name of. He walked slowly. Slower than usual. Because he didn't want to get back to his dorm yet. He didn't want this moment to end.
He wanted to hold onto this feeling.
This umbrella. This rain. This September afternoon.
And that person—Lando Norris.
*Lando Norris.*
The name rolled off his tongue, not sweet like candy anymore. Stronger. Hotter. Like liquor burning all the way down to his chest, leaving a mark.
He thought he understood now. Why Carter had said what he said about soulmates.
Not because that's how movies work.
But because—when you meet that person, your heart tells you.
Not your brain. Not the logical, controlled, everything-planned-out part of Oscar Piastri.
His heart.
The heart that had been bumped at a party. The heart that raced in the canteen for no reason. The heart that was pounding right now, in the rain.
It was saying—
*Him.*
*It's him.*
Oscar stopped in the middle of the path and looked up at the grey sky. Raindrops fell on his face, cool against his skin. But his heart was warm.
The umbrella trembled slightly in his hand. Not from the cold.
Because—
The seed inside him, on this first rainy day of September, had started to grow.