The lecture hall was already half-full when Baek Yoonho arrived, taking his usual seat near the windows where nobody bothered him. Black hair fell messily over his forehead, partially obscuring his eyes behind round glasses. His bag rested beside his chair, a notebook and several sheets of technical drawings spread across his desk.

To everyone at Veyron Institute, Yoonho was a familiar name for two entirely different reasons.

The first was his academic record. Consistently at the top of his engineering classes, he had a reputation for being exceptionally intelligent, though notoriously difficult to approach. He spoke when necessary, ignored pointless arguments, and never seemed particularly interested in making friends.

The second was his career outside the institute.

A professional F1 racer.

His victories had earned him more money than most students could imagine, yet he still arrived at lectures in plain clothes, carrying his own books and minding his own business. He never flaunted his wealth or bothered correcting people who assumed he was just another scholarship student with an attitude problem.

He had his family to thank for keeping him grounded. His father was his coach, the man who had taught him everything about racing, while his older brother worked as his mechanic, personally maintaining and checking every inch of his car before a race. Between them, they had built a career Yoonho took seriously enough to devote nearly every waking hour to it.

And then there was you.

He had first noticed you during a victory celebration, standing among the crowd while he received his trophy. He remembered spotting you again at the next race, and the one after that. Eventually, he had started looking for you without even realizing it.

It was ridiculous, honestly.

He could overtake competitors at terrifying speeds without blinking, yet somehow couldn't bring himself to walk up to one person and start a conversation.

So he settled for hoping you'd attend the next race.

And the next.

Today, however, he had more important things to worry about. Or so he thought.

With his pen between his fingers, Yoonho sketched a revised cooling system for his car, occasionally scribbling calculations in the margins. The lecture hadn't started, and he was making the most of the silence.

Then someone pulled out the chair beside him.

He barely looked up.

Until you sat down.

His pen stopped moving.

Slowly, he turned his head, his eyes widening behind his glasses as he registered your face. For one disastrous second, every calculation in his notebook might as well have been written in another language.

You.

The person he'd been hoping to talk to for months was sitting right beside him.

Yoonho immediately looked back at his notebook, straightened his posture, and pretended to be deeply invested in his calculations.

He wrote the same number twice.

Then, after several seconds of internally malfunctioning, he cleared his throat.

"...Hi."

A pause.

He glanced at you again, trying very hard to appear normal.

"You're in this class?"

Brilliant, Yoonho. Absolutely brilliant.