Work Text:
Oscar Piastri is surprisingly composed for a 15-year-old boy.
That makes him stand out from his chaotic peers besides his tall figure, Aussie accent, and extraordinary physics score. You find that those things will make him a great camaraderie to endure three years of boarding high school. His cute face is a bonus, since you won't admit that out loud.
He appears to find you're a good friend too since the first chemistry project in Year 10.
Both of you sat next to each other accidentally that day. You're running late because Mrs. Anderson extended her history class, which left a 5-minute gap, and that resulted in the only vacant seat in chemistry class being right next to Oscar Piastri. He still catches his breath as you sit, you presume he runs from his previous class too.
His eyes widened when he heard a rustle beside him. He didn't expect someone—especially a girl— to sit next to him. Oscar made a pact with Logan Sargeant to be his teammate in chemistry last night, but he didn't have the heart to push you away. It's okay, he will convey his apology to Logan later. Oscar looks around and finds his friend sitting three tables away. Logan was deep in conversation with a girl in a twintail beside him. He lifts his head and thumbs up when he sees Oscar.
Whatever that means.
Boarding school is the smallest form of society. Everyone knows a fact or two about each other even if they never talked. It was three weeks since you first saw him and you already know Oscar does kart races. He probably heard you're a mathlete somewhere. But you two never talked, didn't have any friends in common either. That usually makes introductions a little bit awkward. You were glad Oscar extended his hand first.
"Hi, I'm Oscar Piastri."
"Oh—I'm Y/N." You pressed your palm against his and shook his hand.
The corners of his lips lift. "Do mathletes good at chemistry too?"
That earned a chuckle from you. "We do try. The result depends."
One more fact about Oscar Piastri you learned that day is that your first impression remained correct; he will be a great camaraderie to endure three years of boarding high school. He rarely talks, but is a good teammate to form a chemistry experiment report. You're already grateful for that.
—
"You finally talked to a boy! See? Not all of them are annoying." Your roommate clapped her hands. She waited her whole life for this moment.
You shrugged your shoulders. "It's Oscar Piastri. He rarely talks and stays calm. Of course, I won't be annoyed by his presence."
"Maybe nerd boy is your type?"
You don't know why, but that makes your cheeks burn. This is exactly the time when people in your batch start dating. Everyone makes a fuss and tells stories about how good it is. Crush, boyfriend, hug, kiss, date ... Everyone talked about it. Every girl has their crush. You never thought of Oscar Piastri that way, but your roommate's words get into your head. Oscar Piastri is the only boy who doesn't annoy you. Is that counted as type?
"No—no. He's not!" You shook your head wildly. "We're just... friends. We just talked today, Grace!"
Your roommate, Grace, poked your cheeks. "And my socks are neon green. Admit it, you like him. You're as red as a tomato!"
This is ridiculous. You're used to think in a logical way. Mathematically. Everything has a reason. To like someone on the first day of talking? Doesn't make sense. But why can't your cheeks comprehend and embarrassingly blush every time Grace mentions Oscar's name?
Days after that, you tried to prove Grace wrong. You don't have a crush on Oscar Piastri.
Starting from staring at his face while doing chemistry and didn't feel anything.
Which, if you think again, was a bad idea.
Oscar scratches the back of his neck when he feels your eyes on him. "Is there something on my face?"
"Oh." See? Your cheeks blushed again. "No—nothing—I was just—just trying to find the formula."
"On my face?"
He turns his head to face you. Wow. You never see him this close. He smells like chocolate and citrus. You just realized he has gorgeous brown eyes under those eyebrows, moles scattered across his face, a fine nose, and lips ... his lips smiling wide, as if they almost burst into a laugh.
You cough, try to neutralize your tone. "What can I say? Inspirational."
He chuckled, the noise ringing in your ears. "I'm flattered. Did I remind you of John Dalton? Marie Curie?"
"Oh—stop it!" You turn away, about to stand up, finding some fresh air outside. His hand catches your wrist fast. His thumb brushes your pulse. The warmth from his palm spreads on your arm. He's the first boy to hold your wrist. It feels weird. Weirdly good. His hand is warm and soft.
"Stay, would you? We're almost done. It's okay, stare at my face if that helps you."
You pursed your lips as you found his cheeks turned red too.
Turns out it's hard to stare at Oscar Piastri's face and not feel anything.
"Proving You Don't Have a Crush on Oscar Piastri" Project Part 1: Failed.
—
That fuels you further to prove you don't have a crush on Oscar Piastri. He's a good lad. That's why he's nice to you. Probably nice to everyone. You can't fall for him just because he's nice and smells good and cute and funny and ... the list goes on.
You think harder. It's almost Year 11 now, you need to study for GCSE and you can't do that if this still bothers your mind. Do you have any other way? Something with more impact? Such as ... watching him do crickets with a flat face? Yes. That could work. You can bring Grace along too. She would stop teasing you after this.
"You will see for yourself, Grace. I don't have a crush on him." You walk with confidence.
Grace squiggles her eyebrows. "Are you sure? Boys in cricket outfits are equivalent to boys in basketball outfits. Sporty. If he does karting, he's also fit, doesn't he?"
Your step falters. You never considered that part. All you thought was that you didn't understand cricket, so you would just focus on the game rules or score rather than the players—
Okay, you can see why this is the worst idea to prove you didn't have any feelings for Oscar Piastri.
The Aussie boy stands distinctively tall, proper, and fit among his friends in all-white cricket attire. His brown hair follows the breeze, leaving it slightly messy when the wind stills. His cheeks are pink in the sun. Oh, you just realized your school has a custom-made emblem attached to the sweater on the stomach. Nice strips. The cable knit is high quality, and it spreads nicely on his shoulder. It has a white shirt underneath too, see the collar? Oh, Oscar has a mole on his collarbone.
"Do you realize you're basically ogling at him?" Grace is laughing beside you.
"I—I'm not!" You cough, turning your head away. "I pay attention to the uniform details."
"Everyone wears the same uniform, why only focus on a certain Aussie karting boy?"
You can't answer her.
"Proving You Don't Have a Crush on Oscar Piastri" Project Part 2: Failed.
—
Oscar Piastri didn't have a particular friend group. His weekend is busy with racing, after all. He's close with Logan, both of them do racing, but that boy is madly in love with Beatrice, the twintail girl from chemistry class. So he is usually seen alone, sometimes with trophies or a folded racing suit on his arms. On top of that, he is still a good pupil. Oscar often asked you about things he needed to catch up on. You started hanging out with him at the study lounge, with or without chemistry paperwork. He stays long after the team report is submitted, focusing on his other work. You didn't mind since he stayed silent, the only sound coming out was from his keyboard.
Then comes another Tuesday when you don't have any chemistry work to do with him, he just slips beside you. Oscar opens his laptop and does his things.
You didn't lose your hope. There must be another way to prove that you don't have a crush on Oscar Piastri. Perhaps you can ask him to explain the infamous Einstein's theory of relativity? Ask for his help with physics? That's neutral. That will add useful information to your brain and maybe by then you can see he's just a boy.
You cleared your throat as you pushed a piece of physics question towards him. "Can you help me? I'm struggling with the 5th question."
"Well, let's see your answer sheet." His hand reaches the paper on your hand, accidentally brushes.
It's supposed to mean nothing. Just hand brushes. Totally civil.
But every inch of your skin that is briefly in contact with him leaves a weird tingle.
Weird. And warm. And you feel like you're about to lose your mind.
Oscar looked at your answer sheet. He circles a number with the back of his pen. "You did every step right, but converted this wrong. It should be in joules..."
His voice does something weird to you. It is low and calm, whispering in the usually quiet study lounge. Your stomach churned, the sensation is close to when you're anxious. He leans toward your ear as he continues to explain, but you couldn't care less. Not when he's this close.
"Is that clear?"
You blink your eyes, retreat to create a distance. "Yeah," you whisper. "Thank you."
Your palm pressed to your stomach. Your fingers cradle, squeezing the skin as if that would help to get rid of the butterflies. Spoiler alert: it doesn't. You move uncomfortably on the sofa. That catches Oscar's eye. He observed the way you move away, awkwardly switching your legs, facing forward and sideways. The Aussie guy leans to whisper again, but you fall back until your spine hits the side of the sofa. He cornered, his body hovering above you.
"May I?"
Is this it? Your first kiss?
Your head moves to make the smallest nod.
Your mouth falls open when he drapes his grey jacket over your thighs and lifts your calves to stretch over his thighs. His palm is warm on your ankle, his thumb pressed slightly to massage.
"My sisters do that too when they walk or sit for a long time," Oscar says in a clinical tone. Like it's normal. "I hope this helps."
Yes. Very helpful, Oscar.
Very, very, helpful.
Now you realize not only he's attractive, he's also very nice too.
"Proving You Don't Have a Crush on Oscar Piastri" Project Part 3: Failed (Miserably!).
—
You finally admit it.
You have a crush on Oscar Piastri.
A little bit. Not that much. Tiny. Tiny crush.
A tiny crush on your friend won't hurt, right?
"Hey, so how does this equation work?" He nudged your arm.
You look at the brighter side. Studying with your crush is motivating. You help each other a lot. Your grade is increasing significantly and he never missed any schoolwork now.
You explained the equation to him. His eyes followed your neat handwriting, nodding along.
"Great. Thanks." He scrabbles on his answer sheet.
Oscar stopped his hand. "Anyway," he lifted his head. "I can't do chem this weekend. I started British Formula 4."
You have no idea what it is or how it works, but you assume it's racing too. You will look that up after this. A smile rises to your face. "It's okay. We can do it on Thursday or Monday. Congratulations, by the way."
A shade of pink crept up his cheeks. "I—I just started."
"Still, congratulations." You nod. "You worked hard for this. Good luck with your race."
You don't have any idea how Formula 4 works. You rarely watch F1 anyway. Yet here you are, skimming information about it. Cross upon his karting blog. Looking for livestreams on YouTube. Body buried under the blanket, you watch the boy in red 81 car, trying to understand. You smiled when you saw Oscar step onto the podium two times that weekend.
It's almost midnight when you tiptoe to the pantry, in a need of emergency hot chocolate. You let the room dark so the security guards won't find you. The buzzing dispenser and soft rattled spoon knocked against a mug is your company. Your heart leaped out of your mouth as you heard the pantry door click.
"Hey."
You can recognize that voice everywhere. That's Oscar.
"Why are you here? Can't sleep?" He continues, the rustling sound from a drink packet fills the room.
Your fingers clutched to the mug. "Yeah, kinda. You just came back from the race?"
"A few hours ago. I need to finish an English essay for Monday."
The coffee smell goes straight to your nose. You put your mug in the sink.
"C—Congratulations, by the way. You step onto the podium." You were hesitating if you worded that wrong.
"You watch me?" His eyes glimmer in the dark.
"There's this livestream—" Your words cut off when you feel his hand reach your waist, pulling you close. His figure swallows your tiny body. Warm. He's so warm and comfortable. Oscar's thumb rubs your back, his other palm pushes your waist closer. Your whole body buzzes, helplessly clinging to his arms. You're afraid he can feel how hard your heart beats.
Oscar Piastri is the first boy outside of the family to hug you. Now you understand why those girls make a big deal out of this crush thing. It's... Great. Comfortable. You wish to keep his hug at all times.
"Thank you." His breathy voice whispers.
"You—You're welcome."
Fine, you finally admit you're in love with Oscar Piastri.