Chapter 450: !Happy? Fatih

"Is everything okay?" Seraphina asked, having immediately caught that Fatih’s eyes didn’t have their usual sheen. As someone who had spent the most time with him outside of his family, she knew him too well for the mask he was wearing, which left only his eyes to act as a veil to hide his emotions.

"Not really. I’m angry and disappointed at the moment," Fatih said, not bothering to hide it as they continued walking to the building to change into their racing overalls.

"At Red Bull?" she asked after spending a few seconds thinking about what might have made him disappointed and immediately connected it to the collusion rumor that was revealed a few days ago during the Azerbaijan GP.

"But that wouldn’t make sense, since a few days have already passed for you to be like that," she immediately dismissed it after thinking about it some more. Fatih had been met with quite a few major problems as he rose through his motorsports career, but she had never seen him be emotional for three days straight, as he always seemed to come to terms with matters very fast.

From that, she guessed that the disappointing matter was definitely not that, but something that happened recently, at most, a few hours ago.

"You would be half correct, half wrong," Fatih said as they passed a sofa in the reception area after entering the building.

When she heard that, she immediately reached out and held Fatih’s hand as she directed him to the sofa before sitting next to him and saying, "If you want to talk about it, I’m all ears," as she took off her mask and patiently waited for Fatih to speak.

Fatih looked at Seraphina for a few seconds before exhaling heavily and started talking to her about the events. His explanation regarding the matter was very detailed, as it seemed that having brooded over it for a period of time had allowed him to connect more and more dots to close some of the logic gaps he had previously thought existed.

"...hidden from me. I had the option to go to Mercedes or any other team for this season, but because I considered them family, having supported me throughout my career, I went with them, only to learn about this now.

Because of that, I’m now questioning everything they did for me from the very first time we signed the academy contract, and whether every decision made on their side had my best interest in mind and not only theirs. It makes me wonder if the mistake made on my F4 debut that led to a twelve-race ban was not a mistake but deliberate.

From there, my thoughts start spiraling out of control as I now start to look at every interaction and relationship I had with everyone and try to see if I was being deceived behind my back or was being used for someone else’s benefit, and I start losing trust in people. I hate them for making me like that," as Fatih continued, his disappointment started to mix with anger, and his lips trembled as he spoke.

Seraphina found herself speechless as to what she should say to calm and comfort Fatih. She failed to find anything to say as it was the first time she had seen Fatih look this angry, and although it didn’t look like much, she could see that he was holding himself back.

After thinking about it, she decided to focus on a single thing that she thought was important and that she needed to at least try to preserve in Fatih. She said, "I know you are angry at them and doubtful, but don’t let them kill your trust in people. It will close you off to trusting new people who have no fault of their own and might even alienate you," trying to separate Fatih’s anger at Red Bull from his trust in people.

She knew deep down how shallow her words might sound because his relationship with Red Bull started forming when he was barely a teenager. They were a very large part of his life, and even more so because they were related to something he had dedicated his entire childhood and teenage years to pursuing, meaning they were even more intertwined than a normal relationship formed in childhood.

What he was feeling in that moment wouldn’t be fixed by what she said, but she knew she had to try, or a part of the Fatih she knew would die today, and she didn’t want that.

"I know that, but I can’t help it. They were a very important part of my life, and I was grateful for the relationship we had. But to them, I was just a chip they could bet for more benefits for themselves, and every relationship with other people that I have is now being tainted by the question of if I’m just a chip they could use for their own benefit," Fatih said as he looked at his fingers, which were clasped together, resting on his lap.

When she heard him become even more disheartened, she, without thinking, reached out to him. Her hands cupped Fatih’s cheeks as she turned his head to face her before she said, "That is not true."

Only after she said that did she realize she was currently holding Fatih’s face and had pulled him close to her. She could see every detail of Fatih’s blue eyes, causing her ears to start turning a pink hue.

Just as she was about to remove her hands from his face, Fatih asked, "I can trust you, right?"

"..." Seraphina, speechless, couldn’t say anything as she saw Fatih’s eyes focusing on her as if trying to see if there was any sort of deception on her part.

"You will not do that to me, right?" Fatih added another question while maintaining eye contact.

"No, I wouldn’t," she said instinctively as she felt her ears getting hotter.

"You are not hiding anything, are you?" Fatih followed with another question that nearly made Seraphina’s heart leap out of her body.

It was a very difficult question to answer, as it was a blanket question that could mean anything. Even a small secret would be under consideration, and for Fatih at the moment, anything that would be considered a secret or an action kept from him would undergo magnification since it was going to be filtered through the context of Red Bull’s actions.

And she had a secret she kept from him, and a big one at that. Not knowing how to answer, she remained silent, but her eyes were wavering as her heart was beating faster than a combustion engine could. She tried to hide her expression but failed.

As she was close to Fatih, she could see the reaction he was having to her silence. As he started pulling his head out of her grasp while saying, "So you are hiding something from me," with his face telegraphing hurt and slight disappointment, she just closed her eyes and pulled him closer to kiss him.

Fatih, caught by surprise, had his eyes bulge, but after a few seconds, he just went with it and closed his eyes as he focused on the kiss. His left hand reached to hold Seraphina’s right hand on his cheek while his right hand reached out to her waist, pulling her closer as his mind dumped everything that was worrying him.

The kiss went on for about thirty seconds before they finally separated, but they didn’t distance their faces from one another. Seraphina leaned her forehead on Fatih’s with her eyes closed as she felt her entire face burning.

Still, she smiled as she breathed heavily. Something she had been dreaming of had somehow come to reality when she least expected it, and that was while Fatih was at his lowest moment.

"So this was your secret," Fatih said, as if finally having a realization. But these words acted as a wake-up call, and she immediately came back to reality, got out of Fatih’s grasp, and ran away.

"We have to talk about this. Where are you going?" Fatih asked as he walked in her direction, only for her to arrive at the dressing room and lock the door behind her.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. Fatih knocked on the door while leaning against it as he said, "We can’t just ignore that now, can we?" in a mixture of a serious and teasing tone.

In his voice, there was none of the anger and disappointment he had been feeling, as if all of that had been thrown out the window. He had a wide smile on his face, and his childish grin had returned for the first time since he had received the final blow.

It wasn’t that the matter was fully forgotten or settled, but at the moment, he pushed thinking about this matter to later, after he addressed the current situation, because if he let it go, he might just be repeating what he had been doing to himself by holding back, and he didn’t want to go back to that.

After a few minutes, the door finally opened, and there stood Seraphina with her racing suit and helmet on, going so far as to even have her visor dropped.

"We can talk about it, but after practice. I want you to think about it before we talk," she said as some of her previous shy tendencies showed before she rushed past Fatih, heading to the garage.

Watching her figure disappear around a corner in the direction of the garage, Fatih couldn’t help but chuckle before entering the dressing room, saying, "I don’t have to think about it," while scratching the back of his head before closing the door behind him to change into his race suit for practice.