Chapter XXVII. Fake It Till You Make It

In the entirety of his twenty one years of lifetime, Pedri has come to the self-realisation that he isn't afraid of many things.

He can count on one hand the things he's scared of and they're all something philosophical ranging from not being good enough of a player to losing his loved ones to letting down his supporters and well maybe, spiders. Yeah, he's scared of them but then again many people are scared of those tiny vicious creatures so his fear is justified.

But what probably isn't justified is the fact that he's scared of a man who claims that he's 180 cm tall (when he's clearly not) and a 5'4 girl who's even younger than him by one year.

Yes, Pedri's scared shitless of the two Ferrari drivers who are glaring at him so hard that if looks could kill he would've been six feet under a long time ago.

He can grasp why Mijoo hates him, okay. Granted he's (fake) dating Vivienne who she used to have a crush on as a child. For her to hate him is clearly justified but for Charles to be glaring at him so hard is something he can't comprehend because the Monégasque driver had already commented something along the lines of "approved" under Vivienne's post of soft launching Pedri. So, after that he'd been under the impression that maybe Charles would be more of an easygoing person...but that's clearly not the case.

At least Vivienne's mother, Pascale and her younger brother Arthur seem to be quite smitten with him.

"Can you two please stop glaring at my boyfriend." Vivienne finally says in an exasperated manner while rolling her eyes. "Can't you see that it's making him uncomfortable?"

It's been like this since they had entered the Ferrari garage. With Charles and Mijoo glaring daggers at the Spaniard saying nothing after clipped and short greetings, Arthur being busy playing with Leo Leclerc (Vivi's family dog) and Pascale gushing over Pedri's existence as if he's Jesus reborn which is quite endearing to be honest.

"No, it's alright," Pedri says quickly with a strained smile, "I'm not uncomfortable at all."

That's a big fat lie.

And it seems like Vivienne knows that too because the look she gives him speaks volume.

Vivienne turns to Alexandra who's Charles' girlfriend and tells her something with just her eyes. Pedri doesn't know if the two have some secret silent girl code or of they're just telepathically connected because Alexandra understands whatever Vivienne had wanted to tell her because she gives her a small nod and then walks over to Charles, muttering something in his ear and then dragging him away towards the driver's room, not listening to his complaints about wanting to stay there.

When Charles is finally gone, Vivienne turns over to face Pascale who's talking to someone on the engineering team.

"Maman?" She calls out to her.

"Oui, ma chérie?" Pascale turns to her daughter with a motherly smile.

"Didn't you say that you saw Mijoo's boyfriend looking for her?" At Vivienne's statement, Mijoo's face sours as if she has eaten something very tasteless and disgusting.

"He's not my boyfriend." Pedri hears Mijoo mutter with a scowl.

He also sees confusion flickering across Pascale's face but just like Vivienne had communicated non-verbally with Alexandra, he also sees that happening with Pascale and he watches as the older woman's confusion melts into understanding.

"I think I did." She hums in faux thought, "He looked really sad that he couldn't find you, like a lost puppy-"

"Fine!" The Korean-Monégasque groans as she throws her hands up. "I'm going to him...just- just stop talking about him, okay."

With that, Mijoo also walks off stomping like a child while mumbling curses in different languages under her breath.

But before exiting the garage, she whips her head back towards with narrowed eyes. Pedri watches with wide eyes and baited breath as she raises one of her hands, points two of her fingers at him and then at her eyes and then goes down to her neck to do a neck slicing motion with her thumb as if she's saying that I'm watching you and if you fuck up or break Vivienne's heart, I'm gonna kill you.

A shuddering breath leaves his lips. Yep, he's definitely scared of that girl.

"Don't take her actions to heart." Vivienne tells him with a smile as she walks back over to him and casually intertwines his fingers with hers. "She's a good kid. She'll come to like you in no time, as will Charles."

His heart skips a beat at her action of holding his hand but he buries those feelings as quickly as they blossom.

"Really?" He asks in disbelief, "Because I think both of them really want to kill me. Mijoo more than others and frankly, I'm scared shitless of her."

A laugh escapes Vivienne's lips as she shakes her head.

"You don't have to be scared of her, she's harmless and besides," She pauses for a moment, leaning closer to the boy with that same damn twinkling smile that makes something constrict in his chest painfully, "I'll protect you from her."

Now, it's Pedri who chuckles at her words.

"My saviour." He teases her and watches as she throws her head back and laughs at the title, unabashedly.

Oh Lord, her laugh is so beautiful ━━━ it's something akin to the place where spirit meets the bone, something akin to dewdrops glistening on a flower's petals, the fluttering of a young butterfly's wings, a slow motion love potion, jumping off things in the ocean. Her laughter is so mesmerizing that just by hearing it he can't stop putting her roots in his dreamland, hearing it makes him want auroras and sad prose, he wants to watch wisteria grow right over his bare feet and he wants her right there with him, her watching as her ivy grows and covers his stone house in her essence.

Hearing her laughter makes him realise that she'll haunt all of his what-ifs.

And Pedri doesn't mind it.

Their sweet moment is disturbed when he feels a chill run over the back of his spine, as if someone's watching him. Pedri looks around and his eyes fall on Mijoo, who is standing outside of the garage in the pitlane by her race car dressed in her red race suit while her eyes still shoot daggers at him. There's also another boy by her side, most probably the boyfriend Pascale had mentioned, but he looks like he wants to be anywhere but there and he looks oddly familiar yet Pedri can't quite put his finger on where he has seen him before.

Pedri gulps and then softly mumbles, "She totally hates me."

Vivienne also looks over to where Pedri's looking. When her eyes fall on Mijoo, she snorts making Pedri give her a dirty look.

"She's about to kill me just with her eyes and you're finding this funny." He huffs childishly.

"Relax, babe." Vivienne pokes the side of his waist with a toothy grin, "I think she wants to kill her own boyfriend more than you."

Her words make him frown but he can't help but look towards the brown haired girl again. Luckily, Mijoo is not glaring at him but now her eyes are on her boyfriend but the way she's looking at that boy with so much anger makes him look more like an enemy than a boyfriend. He observes the way her jaw has tightened and how her hands are twitching by her sides, all while the boy is looking tired and so done with everything around him.

Now don't get him wrong, Pedri usually isn't a nosy person but once in a while his inner chismoso comes out and he craves gossip.

He glances at Vivienne who seems to be thinking the same thing as him. Then he glances at his watch to his how much time they have before the race, the time shows that they almost have an hour to waste before things start picking up. He looks back at Vivienne to see her wiggling her eyebrows at him playfully and he winks at her in response.

Thus, their gossiping session about the alleged doomed love life of the girl (who definitely wants to run Pedri over with her car) begins.

They gossip about Mijoo's love life first, then Charles and then everyone's love life is discussed, even the poor mechanics aren't pardoned from their gossiping session and Pedri's really enjoying it because Vivienne has all the tea about everyone in the paddock. His jaw drops to the floor when he hears about Max Verstappen's dating history with Kelly Piquet and he almost dislocates it when Vivienne mentions that her own brother, Charles Leclerc, is a homie hopper.

"Damn," He whistles after Vivienne tells him about Charles, "The F1 dating pool is a bathtub."

There's so many other stories that are spilled, even Ayrton Senna and the F2 guys aren't let out of the gossips and by the end of it, the stories are so juicy that Pedri's inner chismoso is almost satisfied. Keyword: almost because he still wants to know why Mijoo looks like she might kill her boyfriend.

"Wonder why they look like they are disgusted by each other instead of being in love?" Pedri questions with furrowed eyebrows.

Vivienne hums, deep in thought and then after some time, she shrugs.

"I don't even know. It might have something to do with Woo-"

She's cut off before she can complete her sentence by a grinning Pierre Gasly who comes stumbling behind the pair and slings his arms around Vivienne's shoulders casually.

"Bonjour, buttercup," Pierre says with a laugh as he headlocks Vivienne, "Why didn't you come to the Alpine garage?"

"Pierre, you jerk let me go!" Vivienne struggles against the Frenchman to get out of the headlock and flaps her arms around like a fish out of water. When she realises that it's of no use, she reaches for Pedri who's just standing there like some npc, watching it all unfold in front of his eyes.

Pierre's attention is taken from Vivienne to Pedri and he greets him with a firm handshake and an easygoing smile, "Hey, mate."

"Hello." Pedri replies with the same smile. "Pierre, right?"

"You know me? Aww, did little boo boo bear talk about her best friend to her boyfriend." Pierre coos at the blonde who just stomps on his foot at his remark.

"Ouch! That hurt!"

"Shut up, you deserved it and don't call me that horrendous nickname again." She wrinkles her nose as she gets out of his hold and stands next to Pedri and gives Pierre a scathing glare.

"Break up with her for your the wellbeing of your mental health," Pierre tells Pedri in an inconspicuous manner, "She'll ruin you."

"Hey!"

Pedri grins at their bickering and then steps in the conversation, "I'll let myself get ruined by her a million times."

While his answer makes Vivienne smile and blush, it makes Pierre gag in mock disgust as if he's a little kid who's watching his parents kiss in front of him. It oddly reminds Pedri of how Gavi acts around him and Vivienne. He decides that he likes Pierre, he's the first person who hasn't threatened to kill him and he appreciates it.

"Anyways," The Frenchman begins goodnaturedly, "What were you two gossiping about, huh?"

Vivienne's immediately shoots back defensively, "We weren't gossiping."

Pierre just raises a single eyebrow at her with an expression that screams that he doesn't believe her at all. Vivienne also looks back at him with a defiant expression, unwilling to back down but after a minute of staring at each other, it is Vivienne who has to surrender.

"Okay, fine. We were gossiping," She admits with a sulky pout, "About the grid's dating life."

"Ooh," Pierre claps his hands together with a victorious smile, "My favourite topic."

Vivienne rolls her eyes and mutters, "Of course it is."

Her statement makes Pedri chuckle in amusement.

"But be more specific, I want to take part in this spilling tea ceremony too."

Vivienne rolls her eyes at Pierre's words but does answer him albeit reluctantly, "We were wondering why does Mijoo look like she hates her boyfriend."

"Really?" He also looks at the female racer in the distance before shrugging, "That's because she does hate him."

He says it so casually that it takes both Pedri and Vivienne a moment to realise what he has just said. But when it sinks in, they both whip their heads towards Pierre with wide eyes and shock displayed all over their faces.

"But he's her boyfriend?!" Pedri splutters in shock while pointing at the not-so couple in the distance.

"Eh, not really." Pierre answers casually.

"What the fuck do you mean not really?!" This time it's Vivienne who asks this question.

Pierre's eyebrows furrow as he looks between the two of them with confusion, "I can understand Pedri's confusion but Vivi, you also don't know?"

"Know what? That Mijoo hates her boyfriend?! Pierre that's so toxic-"

"It's a PR relationship." Pierre cuts her off as he begins slowly and cautiously while looking between them in suspicion. "Her last relationship ended on a bad note and you know how much bad rep it got her so her team decided for a rebound PR relationship with some rising TikTok star."

"Wh-what?"

The Alpine driver nods, "Yeah, and Mijoo hates it and her new 'boyfriend' can't be bothered to give a shit about it. It's been pretty tense between them, honestly."

Vivienne risks a glance towards Pedri to see what his expression is like and safe to say, he's mirroring her expression.

"People say fake it till you make it but I don't think they can even fake this anymore," Pierre continues, not noticing how silent his two companions have gotten, "Whatever it is, I'm glad that the dating contract is about to expire because nothing good comes out of a PR relationship."

The more Pierre speaks, the more the wheels in Pedri's head turn. He's thinking all sorts of things about how Mijoo's situation parallels what him and Vivienne have going on. Vivienne also needed a rebound to clean her image and Pedri was there. The only difference between Mijoo and them is that him and Vivienne do get along. They get along so well that Pedri has even forgotten that what they have is fake, it's just PR and nothing else. The thought of everything they've build together to be ruled as nothing else but fake makes it a little harder to breath for him. Fake it till you make it. Yeah, him and Vivienne have just been faking this relationship, right?

If so, then why doesn't he remember anything being fake at all.

All the laughs, all the kisses, all those sweet whispers, all those nights spent together in his bed, all of those moment they had spent together ━━━ none of them had been fake in his eyes.

But they should've been fake.

Fuck, he had also completely forgotten about the expiration date of the contract. It had been a seven month long contract, from July to December and right now, it's September. Only three months left.

And then both him and Vivienne would go on their separate ways.

Will Vivienne go back to João once this contract expires? The thought comes to him as a haunting revelation.

God, why does his heart feel so heavy all of a sudden thinking about all of this?

"The race is about to start." Pierre says, breaking him out of his thoughts, "See you soon, guys. Root for me, okay?"

With that, he goes away and Pedri watches as Vivienne hugs him goodbye. Everything around him becomes a blur as everyone gets ready for the race. But despite outwardly smiling and looking normal, he feels disturbed from inside. Even as the race starts and everyone cheers around him, he feels dull.

Pierre's voice echoes in his ears; Nothing good comes out of a PR relationship.