UNLIKELY MATCH | HEESEUNG

9 - Slow Pit Stops

HEESEUNG'S POV

A week had passed since my encounter with Sena, and Raven was still pretty annoyed because I got her food late. I don't know how I can tell a cat is annoyed, but I do, since now I'm apparently a cat father. "You can stop giving me the cold shoulder, Raven," I mutter, tossing her a handful of treats. She eyes me warily before cautiously approaching and nibbling on the treats. "Why are all the women in my life so difficult?" I muse aloud, earning a curious glance from Raven as she continues to snack on her treats. It's a rhetorical question, of course, but it feels good to vent to someone, even if that someone is a cat.

As I watch Raven contentedly munching away, I remember what Sunghoon told me about opening a social media account. It won't be that hard, right? I'll only update pictures from time to time and I can even block comments and messages if I don't want to deal with them. Plus, I'll get to have an official social presence since some people are impersonating me online already. With that thought in mind, I grab my phone and begin setting up the account. Choosing a username and password is the easy part. But when it comes to selecting a profile picture, I find myself hesitating. I find a picture that Jay once took of me in the racetrack pit, standing next to my car. I decide it's good to go and proceed to upload it as my profile picture.

My account gets verified and almost instantly, I start gaining followers. It's a strange feeling, knowing that so many people are interested in my life. I find myself looking for a particular account, typing the name Sena in the search bar in hopes of finding her profile. I pause for a moment, my finger hovering over the search button. Part of me wonders if I should even bother looking for her. After all, our relationship – if you can even call it that – is purely business. But I still press the search button, and there it is – Sena's profile. Her profile picture is a selfie of her smiling brightly, and it's definitely not the same woman I met a few days ago. 

Sena is famous, she has over three million followers, and her profile is filled with photos from red-carpet events, vacations, and exclusive parties. I had no idea she was this successful and well-known. I scroll through her feed for a little longer and end up finding photos of her and her boyfriend. Well, not exactly since he doesn't show up in any of them, but sometimes his hand appears, his presence indicated by a hand on her shoulder or a shadow in the background. It's clear that she's in a serious relationship, but her boyfriend remains a mystery. 

There's a recent update on her profile, a post from just a day ago. Sena, dressed in a black dress that clings to her body, stands in the middle of an event I can't quite identify. I don't care, it's not like I'm planning on being involved in her life anyway. I close the app and decide to call my parents to check on them. After a few rings, my father picks up the phone. "Heeseung, is that you?" His voice crackles through the receiver, and I can hear the faint sounds of the television in the background.

"Yeah, Dad, it's me," Warmth fills my chest when I think of him. "How's everything? How's Mom? Is she doing okay?" My parents live outside the country, in a small village in the countryside, surrounded by rolling hills and lush greenery. My hometown is beautiful, with its peaceful atmosphere and slow time. I still remember when my father and I used to make racing cars out of cardboard boxes and race them down the hills, dreaming of the day when I would become a real racing driver.

"She's doing good. She's outside in the garden right now, tending to her flowers," He replies, a smile evident in his voice. "You know how much joy she gets from her garden. It's like therapy for her." I can picture my mother now, her hands covered in soil as she lovingly tends to her flowers, her face lit up with a beautiful smile. My father asks about my well-being, about my racing, about everything under the sun, and for a moment, I forget about the chaos of my current situation. Until he asks about her, and I feel my heart drop to the lowest depths of my chest. "And what about Haruka?"