Keep Going Crazy Chapter 24

Completely soaked in champagne, Aiden entered the pit. Walking into the garage amid congratulations from his team members had become familiar by now. Aiden could do anything to stand on the podium at every Grand Prix.

Just then, Ryeoun, who was coming out from inside the garage, met Aiden face to face. As if he’d dipped his whole body in ice water, his hair was wet and he had a towel draped around him.

Ryeoun approached with a smile and lowered his voice, speaking to Aiden playfully.

“Not bad today, right?”

It was a mischievous expression. This was the first time Aiden was seeing this look on Ryeoun’s face. Aiden blinked for a moment. It was an innocent, childlike expression. Ryeoun stuck his tongue out slightly and deliberately exaggerated a shrug.

It was like a look that said, “See? My points?” When Aiden didn’t say anything, Ryeoun spoke again.

“Congratulations on the win.”

At that moment, he felt unaccountably good. Before he knew it, Aiden’s eyes crinkled as he smiled.

“Yeah.”

His cheeks lifted of their own accord. Ryeoun’s playful expression went blank in an instant. But Aiden didn’t notice that expression.

Aiden recalled the conversation he’d had with Ryeoun the day before qualifying. He’d called out to Ryeoun’s back as he was leaving.

‘I suppose saying you’re going to sleep early is a lie.’

At those words, Ryeoun had furrowed his brow and looked back. Then, pressing his forehead as if he had a headache, he’d nodded weakly.

‘Yeah.’

‘…Don’t drink too much.’

‘I’m not really in the mood anyway. Stop worrying. I’m not seven years old. I’m twenty-three, in case that’s really surprising.’

With those words, Ryeoun had left the bar.

Back then, he’d just quietly watched Ryeoun’s retreating figure with a “so that’s how it is” attitude. He’d heard his circumstances, but honestly, he couldn’t perfectly understand them.

Aiden knew that athletes had all sorts of superstitions. He himself had a very small and trivial little superstition.

However, after hearing the whole story, he couldn’t help but have a sudden doubt.

‘You said you tried to break free? Did you really try?’

Ryeoun said he’d tried to break free. But had he really tried? Couldn’t it be that coincidences just piled up, and Ryeoun conveniently shoved it all under the word “superstition”? Ryeoun would probably be so flabbergasted he’d jump out of his skin at the thought.

Anyway, that was Aiden’s impression. He hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, nor experienced it himself… Honestly, he couldn’t perfectly understand it. Ryeoun probably hadn’t said it expecting to be understood either.

For Aiden, the Constructors’ Championship results were just as important as the World Champion title. For that, Ryeoun absolutely had to score points. So Aiden, though he didn’t understand, decided to leave Ryeoun alone while pretending to understand. If he poked at him unnecessarily and his performance dropped, that would be a problem.

‘Frustrating.’

Even after Ryeoun left, Aiden hadn’t been able to leave that spot for a while.

Honestly speaking, he wanted to take the time to keep Ryeoun by his side and help him with training. He knew that Ryeoun, who had just joined Helix, was struggling to adapt. If he passed on various know-how and analyzed data together, his skills would improve quickly.

To be completely honest, Han Ryeoun was a genuinely decent driver. If he tweaked his racing style just a bit, he was a guy with good enough basic skills to stand on the podium. He was a driver who had quickly moved up from F3 to F2 and was called up to F1 in no time. Aiden knew that much as well.

So when it was announced that Ryeoun would fill Jamie’s spot, he couldn’t object. Because as a fellow driver, he understood why the team had their eye on him.

But not objecting didn’t mean the same thing as welcoming him. Resentment toward Jamie, who had suddenly transferred to Meridian, and distrust toward a driver who hadn’t even shed his rookie title yet, made his feelings complicated.

Anyway, Aiden had absolutely no intention of reaching out to Ryeoun first.

They weren’t close enough for that, and he had no obligation to do so. Right now, just defending his World Champion title was overwhelming enough. Formidable drivers were threatening him day by day, and standing firm to defend the World Champion title was the most important thing for Aiden Carter.

There were at least four competitors for the World Championship. In the midst of that, Aiden was busy enough just securing his own points. Honestly, the best-case scenario for him was having a driver like Jamie, who performed well on his own, join the team and score points. So from Aiden’s perspective, there was no way he’d welcome a rookie who appeared out of nowhere.

Still, it was welcome news that Ryeoun had scored points.

‘It was worth leaving him alone.’

He thought it was a good thing he hadn’t made a big fuss about that superstition of his. Because Ryeoun had scored points after all.

But separate from that, the thought of having to turn a blind eye to this teammate’s promiscuous private life from now on wasn’t exactly pleasant.

Personally, Aiden was very thorough about self-management. Moreover, his overall lifestyle management was clean to the point of being almost obsessive-compulsive.

Whenever men would say that the upper and lower halves of their bodies had separate hearts, Aiden would frown. Because he simply couldn’t understand what kind of bullshit that was.

People often say that it’s inevitable for men to be ruled by sexual desire. But that wasn’t the case for Aiden himself.

Aiden had never once in his life felt a desire to “not be able to hold back and lunge at” someone.

‘Why do you carry around a dick that can’t be controlled?’

Aiden genuinely thought that. He often felt disgusted by the lower halves of foolish men.

Anyway. For now, it seemed good to savor the feeling of victory. Pushing aside the complicated thoughts in his head, Aiden reached out first to the teammate before him.

He’d won the Shanghai Grand Prix and his teammate had brought in a not-bad result of 6th place, so for today, he wanted to celebrate with genuine joy, without any other thoughts.

“What? You’re offering a handshake just because I scored points?”

Ryeoun winked and extended his hand. The two clasped each other’s hands firmly.

The handshake, hot enough that it was unclear whose body temperature was higher, ended quickly.

“I’ll do better next time. I think I’m starting to get used to the car.”

Ryeoun, pulling his hand back, swept back his still-damp hair and said that. The confident words didn’t sound bad.

Aiden, about to grin and give a light reply, paused for a moment.

Because he’d spotted something on Ryeoun’s wrist as he swept back his hair.

Despite having wiped off with a towel, water droplets were still dripping from various parts of Ryeoun. Ryeoun had only unzipped the top of his uniform and flipped it open, with the tight fireproof undergarment slightly disheveled.

While wiping himself down, the sleeve of his fireproof undergarment had rolled up. And on his exposed wrist, Aiden spotted a red bruise.

Because Ryeoun’s skin was so pale, the bruise was very conspicuous. Aiden narrowed his eyes and involuntarily scanned Ryeoun’s wrist.

No matter how he looked at it, it didn’t seem like he’d bumped into something. It also looked like a handprint… Aiden’s scan didn’t last long.

Ryeoun quickly pulled down his sleeve and straightened his clothes.

“Anyway, you need to cool down and change clothes since you have an interview later. I need to go change too.”

With a nonchalant expression, Ryeoun passed by Aiden’s side calmly. Aiden, unable to say anything in return, tilted his head. He felt inexplicably unsettled.

Moving to the back of the garage, Aiden entered his private room. His manager, John, naturally handed him an ice vest as he entered.

With his calves immersed in cold ice water, Aiden quickly cooled down. John, placing a towel that had been in the fridge on the back of his neck, began chattering excitedly.

“On lap 38, my heart was practically shrinking in on itself, you know?! I was so scared you’d get overtaken there…”

But Aiden wasn’t listening to John at all. The only thing dominating Aiden’s mind right now was Ryeoun.

‘Where did he get hurt? Did he get into a fight with someone? …His personality’s a bit rough, but he didn’t seem bad enough to get into a physical fight with someone. Was there any driver he had bad blood with?’

Countless questions churned through Aiden’s mind. In the end, unable to suppress his curiosity, Aiden spoke up.

“Hey, John.”