Chapter Text
New Years Eve, 2020
Till sat idly on his couch, glancing around the walls of his apartment. Despite having called the place home for almost 3 years now, the place still looked, and arguably felt, quite bare. He hadn’t hung many photos on the walls, too much of a hassle to take down should he move. That, plus he didn’t really have any that felt worthy enough to be placed on the wall. Any important photo could live perfectly fine on one of the few tables or countertops that were already in the apartment. He softly picked at his fingers, his eyes falling on the trophy that sat in one of the corners of his living room.
The season hadn’t been bad. Sure the first nine or so races had been cancelled due to the pandemic, and sure several more had been cancelled afterward, but the ones that had gone on were still somewhat enjoyable. Except maybe Austria. Or Monza. Or Imola. Or Bahrain. Okay so maybe except half of the actual races but whatever. That part doesn’t matter. You win some and you lose some. He’d won the ones that had mattered and had managed to snag third in the championship behind the two Ferrari’s. That’s something to be proud of, no?
Of course, this was not the view of his father. First was the only place that existed in his household. Everything else was ignored, no matter the result. Third was not good enough. It never was. Second was even worse. Those who win second place are the first losers. Anything below those two positions was dealt with accordingly by his father. Rather, he was forced to train for hours on end, regardless of the weather. There had been more times than Till could count where he would get extremely sick as a result of these added trainings. But of course, his father had never really cared.
His father had been in the sport himself, years before Till had even been a thought in his parents mind. His father had never been successful though, and thus thrust the shadows of his career onto Till from the ripe old age of three. He wasn’t allowed to do other sports, even if he was somewhat good at them. No. It was always karting. And on the rare occasions it wasn’t karting, it was running around trying to build up his stamina.
The faint sound of ringing dragged his mind back to the present as Till looked down at his phone. The screen was lit up, showing Mizi’s caller ID as it continued to ring. He let out a huff of air before picking up the phone, his finger reluctantly pressing the accept button. It took less than a second for Mizi’s voice to fill the room.
“Oh my God Till! You actually picked up!” Mizi basically shouted in excitement.
“Mhm. I did,” Till replied with a soft chuckle, “What’s with the call?”
“Oh! I just wanted to tell you that myself and a few of the other drivers are having a party tonight for new years and I wanted to know if you planned to go?”
“What other drivers are going?”
“Umm Sua, Hyuna, Hyunwoo, Acorn. Maybe a few others?”
Till hummed softly. If he was being honest, he’d never really been close with many of the other drivers on the grid. Ever since his first season, it had mostly just been him and himself and quite literally no one else. Mizi was a good friend, sure, but even she didn’t know everything about him. But that was how Till had always wanted it, so he can’t get upset over something like that.
Yet despite that, hanging out with a few people on a night where he would otherwise be alone didn’t sound all that bad. He let out a soft sigh.
“Fine, I’ll go.”
“Wait really! I fully expected you to say no. I’ll let people know. Oh my goodness and before I forget it’s happening at my apartment from 9pm onwards!” Mizi exclaimed.
“Okay, thanks Mizi. See you then.”
“Okay, bye bye!”
The call ended with a soft beep and Till let out a groan. Curse Mizi and her ability to make people agree to events at random. Curse her.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
When Till arrived at Mizi’s apartment he wasn’t entirely sure what he should expect. For starters, the drivers Mizi had mentioned were all vastly different from one another. See, Hyuna and Mizi called themselves the party animals of the group, otherwise known to everyone else as the extroverts. Acorn and Till were the more introverted ones, and Hyunwoo fell somewhere in between the four of them. And Sua technically wasn’t even a part of their little friend group at all. Though usually she goes along with Mizi to most of their hangouts. So maybe she’s more of an honorary member? Till doesn’t know.
Much like how he doesn’t know what the overall vibe of this get-together, or as Mizi was calling it, party, was going to go. Not like he really cares though. If it’s awkward, then he’ll leave within the hour. If it’s not awkward, he’ll still probably try and leave within the hour. Simple as that. Unfortunately for him, the longer he stood outside the door, the weirder he looked.
Thus, he bit the bullet and gave a soft knock to the door, silently praying it would be loud enough for Mizi to hear. Thankfully his prayers were answered, as the door burst open and Mizi practically threw herself at Till. He gave her a decently normal hug in return.
Their embrace was short, with Mizi practically dragging him inside her apartment while excitedly talking about everything she had prepared. Till gave a small wave to Sua, who gave a small wave in return as she followed the pair around the area. Surprisingly, Till was not the last one to arrive. According to Mizi they were still waiting on Hyuna and Hyunwoo. In Till’s eyes, it was nothing short of a miracle. Mizi also felt the need to comment as such. It’s not his fault he has a less than ideal sense of time.
Not long after Till arrived was the door knocked once again, with Hyuna and Hyunwoo both making their way inside the apartment in quick succession. Till gave Hyuna a wave as Hyunwoo pulled him into a hug. He sat back down in his spot on the couch and the others followed suit. Hyuna sat on the far end of the couch, with Hyunwoo in the middle and Till on the other end. Acorn sat on one of the loveseats while Mizi and Sua were somehow sharing the other, though it looked anything other than comfortable. They were all talking to one another, catching up and reflecting on what their break had looked like so far. But after a while, their conversation drifted.
“Hey, wasn’t the whole grid supposed to celebrate new years together?” Hyunwoo asked.
“Wait, I remember that!” Hyuna mentioned while clicking her fingers, “Any idea why it never happened?” She asked while turning towards Mizi.
“Not a clue.” She replied.
“Oh. That. Marty and Ivan didn’t want it to happen, so it didn’t.” Sua said flatly.
“How come?” Till asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.
“Not sure.”
“Perhaps they’re stupid?”
Everyone laughed at his comment. Till himself smiled.
“One hundred percent they are.” Sua replied, a small smile playing on her lips.
“Anyways, how’s the team looking this year?” Till asked Hyuna.
“Everything looks great. I’m excited to see what happens this season. Maybe a top 5 finish?”
“That’s awesome Hyuna!” Mizi exclaimed.
“Yeah. But what about you Till. Is this year the year?” Hyuna asked, a smile present on her lips.
“Hopefully,” Till said with a sigh, “We’ll see what the car is like at testing but everything seems good so far.”
“Mate you’ve got this.” Hyunwoo stated.
“You have to win it. Otherwise I’ll hit your car in Abu Dhabi.” Sua deadpanned.
Till along with the others in the room burst out into another fit of laughter at that. Seems like Sua is also sick of the constant Ferrari championships. Till turned to look at Acorn before slapping his leg gently.
“Good thing I have my lucky charm here then.” He said with a grin.
Acorn rubbed his neck, a sheepish look taking over his face. His cheeks were lightly flushed.
“I’ll try my best!” Acorn started, “And if all else fails I’ll run Ivan off the track.”
The laughter picked up again with that. Till gave Acorn a smile, which the latter gladly returned.
The party continued as such, with the laughter and noise from the group filling the apartment. Finally though, midnight came and so did Till’s desire to stay out for any longer. When everything wrapped up, he bid goodbye to everyone and made his way back to his own apartment. Thankfully it was only a few minutes away from Mizi’s.
Once Till was inside his own apartment, he let out a soft sigh. He changed out of the clothes he wore and pulled on his pajamas, his shoes being cast away in some random corner of his bedroom. Several pops and cracks emerged from his spine as he laid down in bed. He held a breath as he waited for his body to settle down before picking up his phone. He opened up a random social media app, mindlessly scrolling away. Ever since winter break had started there had been so much meaningless discord going around. For instance, debates about drivers performance or accusations about random things.
It amazed Till how someone could have one of their best seasons yet, and people will come online and fight for their life about how terribly they performed. So many people love to nitpick the little things and obsessively point out where mistakes have been made. He’d seen it countless times for himself, especially in his rookie years. People over inspecting clips of his driving then jumping onto social media and spreading their observations to thousands of people who generally do not give a singular fuck. Or at least, that’s with his fans anyways.
He rolled his eyes as he continued to look at the posts. Stuff about congratulating Ivan, stuff about people hating him, people commenting on the new teams. The one thing that stuck out to him however was that there were way too many images of Ivan appearing on his timeline for his liking. Till already has to see him almost every other weekend in the year, he’d much rather not see him during his well deserved break too. Thus, when he scrolled onto yet another post overly exaggerating Ivan’s season, he did what any other reasonably sane person would do. He flipped the image off. And maybe called it a name or two. That part doesn’t matter though.
Who cares really? Till shut off his phone and stared at the ceiling, letting his thoughts wander for just a moment. Would this year finally be his year? It feels like he’s been saying those exact words since like 2018. Deep down he knew he could do it but realistically? What if the car was a total shit box that wouldn’t drive? What if he had a repeat of 2016 and he had a DNF next to his name every second race? What if he had a crash so bad he could never drive again? Okay. Maybe that last one is a bit far fetched but still. Almost anything could happen when he got into the car.
He dug his palms into his eyes. He could do it. No. Not could. He would do it. He would become the first driver driving under the Chilean flag to become a world champion. He would show the world that it was possible. And most importantly, he would show his father that he was worth it. But having a mindset that contradicted every single thing he’d just told himself was not how he was going to do it. It’d do the opposite actually. So no more thinking in that manner. Because by the end of the year, Till was going to be a world champion. And he was going to do it the best way possible.