Chapter 17 – Winston didn’t do anything to you, right?

Editor: Sammy

Proofreader: Happy Bubbles

---

Hunter returned to the front passenger seat of the Ferrari.

The ice-cold air dispersed the alcohol in his body. Although he definitely felt that his head was now sober, once he remembered the smile Winston had shown while sitting at the bar counter gazing at him, he could feel his blood rush forth.

“Shit… You Rule Me… shouldn’t be poisonous right?!”

The driver’s seat door opened, then Winston’s long legs strode in and sat.

“What’s poisonous?” 

You’re poisonous, bastard.

“Nothing. I’m a little sleepy suddenly.”

“What time is your flight tomorrow?”

“3 o’clock in the afternoon.”

“You?”

“I’ll fly off first, before you.”

“That… in the bar’s back alley… can you forget about it?”

“Forget about what? Could it be the sound of your breaths? Or your trembles? Or that you weren’t able to release at all?”

Hunter rolled his eyes. “Forget everything! Or else we’ll break this off!”

“Then let’s break it off.”

“…”

The stifling feeling in his heart multiplied exponentially.

Winston drove the car back to the hotel.

Together, the two of them entered the elevator.

Hunter had stuffed his hands into his pockets and lowered his head. The moment the elevator doors had opened, he’d pressed onto them and had said, “Today… thank you!”

“Hunter, if you’re afraid of something, not touching it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve overcome it.” 

It was only after the elevator doors had closed that Hunter finally understood why Winston had taken him to the warehouse bar.

He had already seen through him.

Winston had told him that everything which destroyed other’s — his father who’d ruined him, the alcohol that had ruined his family — all were nothing more than that.

Hunter drooped his head and laughed. “I’m not like you, born strong with nothing to fear.”

“Hunter.”

“En?”

“I’m not actually ‘born strong with nothing to fear’.”

“Thanks for your modesty.” Hunter smiled.

“It’s only because it’s you.”

The corner of Winston’s lips showed a shallow smile.

“What?”

“Goodnight.”

Just like that, the elevator doors closed.

Returning to his room, Hunter laid down and fell asleep. 

It was probably because of the alcohol, but his head felt heavier than usual.

Between being half awake and half asleep, he sensed himself wanting to head to the toilet so he opened his eyes. Just as he was getting used to the darkness, he suddenly realised that someone was in front of him.

Both of the man’s hands were propped on the side of the pillow, gazing at Hunter from above.

“Win… Win…” Hunter’s throat once again seemed to be in a deadlock, unable to produce sounds per usual. 

Yet the latter turned his face and suddenly pressed down. It was as if his lips were dropping from the sky, blocking off Hunter’s everything. 

His kiss and sucking was like a storm passing through, wiping out everything. 

Hunter was clearly scared witless, yet Winston governed him in his mind; leaving him unable to struggle and snatching away everything, even his breaths. 

A ringtone resounded and Hunter abruptly opened his eyes. Bright sunlight leaked out from a small crack between the window curtains.

The breath that was stuck in his throat finally exhaled. 

He gasped and suddenly realised that Winston, who’d been in his room, was only just a dream.

“Fuck… what kind of dream is this?!” Hunter vigorously fumbled his hair into a bird’s nest.

That kind of expression, that kind of thing couldn’t possibly belong to Winston!

Hunter immediately drove all of those imaginary scenes out of his head.

“If Winston knew about this, I reckon even my bones would be torn apart by him!”

The more I think about it, the scarier it gets!

His phone was still ringing over and over again.

A certain assistant’s voice sounded outside the door, “Hunter! Hunter, are you in your room?”

Hunter hurriedly answered, “I’m here! I’m here!”

“Why didn’t you pick up my call! I thought something happened to you!”

Hunter looked at his phone, Marcus’s name was flickering. His heart secretly shouted ‘not good’.

Sure enough, Marcus was about to lose his mind. 

“Hunter Evan— What the hell is wrong with you?! Not only did you not get up to eat breakfast in the morning, but you’re not going to eat lunch either? Do you really take yourself as a racer?! Are you really taking your body seriously?!”

Hunter’s head was about to explode.

“Apologies. I felt very tired so I overslept…”

“Don’t you dare think that I don’t know what you did last night!” Marcus was absolutely furious.

“Ah?”

It couldn’t be that Marcus knew Winston had brought him to the bar? 

“You went to fool around with Donald from Sauber! You need to know that the other harbours ill intentions! He wants to ruin your determination with alcohol and women! Not to mention squandering your physical strength!”

Fortunately… he didn’t know… that the one who wanted to ruin his determination with alcohol and women was in fact, Winston. 

“Oh…”

“Oh? You’re ‘oh-ing’ at me? You better roll down here for lunch this instant!”

“Yes!” Hunter immediately hung up the call and, using his fastest speed to wash up, he rushed off to the elevator doors afterwards.

A professional racer’s meals were strictly controlled, so his act of skipping breakfast… wasn’t appropriate. He’d be disrespecting the nutritionist if he didn’t eat lunch as well. 

The moment the elevator doors opened, he saw Donald.

“Oh— Hunter!”

“Hi…” Hunter raised his hands to greet him.

There were several hickeys on Donald’s neck. It looked like yesterday was quite enjoyable.

“Were you ok last night?” Donald asked.

“Me? I’m not bad…”

You abandoned me to go pick up women for yourself, yet you still want to ask if I was alright?

“What I meant was… Winston didn’t do anything to you, right?”

“Ah?” That name caused Hunter’s heart to inexplicably skip a beat. 

“My teammate said that not long after the both of us left, he just so happened to return from dinner and was stopped by Winston.”

“Ah?”

“It was my teammate’s first time speaking to him. He said that Winston’s aura was extremely formidable; his voice was cold enough to freeze him into a big ice popsicle.”

“Oh.” Hunter suddenly realised that in front of him, Winston never treated others with the same coldness.

Hold on, the main point should be for what did Winston stop Donald’s teammate for?

“Tremblingly, my teammate told Winston about the place we went to fool around.” Donald felt extremely apologetic and patted Hunter’s shoulders. 

So… it wasn’t a coincidence that he met Winston there while picking up women outside the bar?

That’s not right… When did I mess around with that Donald guy?!

“Where exactly did you provoke him?” Donald was a little curious and asked. 

“Provoke who?”

“Winston Vann! If it wasn’t out of hatred, why would he interrogate my teammate about where you went?”

“If I really had animosity towards him, would I still be alive now?”

“That’s true. Then he must love you a lot and can’t stand you womanizing about. Hence, he personally went into the battlefield!” Donald shamelessly joked around.

Yet Hunter showed a grave expression. Looking behind Donald, he asked, “Winston… why did you come here?”

Donald turned around in horror, but realised there was no one behind him. He turned back and faced a Hunter who was holding his stomach, laughter blossoming on his face. 

“Stinky boy, you’re looking for death!”

“Hehe… If you really have the balls, say ‘you definitely love Hunter Evan to death’ right to Winston’s face!”

“Get lost!” Donald pointed the middle finger at Hunter and left. 

In the dining hall, McGrady — who stubbornly refused death — sat opposite of Hunter.

His complexion was similar to having eaten shit from a housefly. 

Hearing about his ankle, he couldn’t possibly participate in the British race anymore.

This made Hunter feel better internally.

“Don’t think that I don’t know you’re pleased with yourself,” McGrady said ferociously. 

Ah? You even know that? I clearly curbed it well!

“Didn’t you look at the other professional discussions? Your performance was definitely unexpected, but it was like a gamble at the end of the road. No one thought you could be stable.”

“Thanks for telling me. I’ll take note.” Hunter nodded, earnestly curling up his spaghetti and putting it into his mouth.

“At Silverstone ¹Silverstone circuit: An iconic track in the UK that’s used during the British Grand Prix, you’ll still be a piece of shit and Winston Vann won’t be able to save you again.”

Hunter tightened his hold on his fork.

I’m shit, but that’s okay because I was shit to begin with.

But why do you want to tear down Winston too?

“What if I could still take the sixth position?” Hunter raised his eyes, staring at McGrady.

“You? At Silverstone? Don’t joke around.”

“What’s up?” Hunter coldly asked.

“It has long straights and high-speed corners, so in order to get a good result from this racetrack, you’d need first-class technology and race cars. Even though our cars have a Ferrari engine, the power unit ²Basically the heart of the car. It consists of six main components. The internal combustion engine(ICE), turbo charger(TC), motor generating unit – heat(MGU-H), motor generating unit – kinetic(MGU-K), energy store(ES) and control electronics(CE). All of it works together to ensure that the car is as efficient as possible. from our package ³Refers to the different set ups (be it aerodynamics, camber, tires, brakes, etc) catered to different track characteristics, ensuring that the car can perform at it’s best. Of course, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t… can’t be compared to those of the bigger teams! Moreover, there’s a lot of accidents in Silverstone, so try not to crash and break your leg!” McGrady snorted.

“Then thanks for telling me. Now my question is, what if I could still take the sixth position?” Hunter continued to press.

McGrady suddenly felt that his gaze was a little frightening.

“What do you… intend to do?”

“It’s very simple. You can mock me no matter how much you want in the future, but don’t even mention Winston Vann ever again.”

That was right, for him, he was a stutterer. Maybe not usually, but once stirred up, he really couldn’t say anything. So when McGrady mocked him for being a stutterer, it wasn’t hurtful to him at all.

Insulting his parents… Actually, it wasn’t such a big deal, since they were no longer here. For those who weren’t on earth anymore, whatever McGrady said, they wouldn’t be able to hear it.

But Winston Vann was different.

For a man who towered over others with his strength, how could Hunter let anyone insult Winston?

McGrady gazed at Hunter. It was now his turn to be speechless.

“Is it possible or not?” Hunter asked.

“…Possible, if you really have the ability to!”

Marcus wrinkled his eyebrows as he walked over. “Hey! You two! Don’t cause any trouble for me!”

“We’re not causing any trouble. Don’t you see the food’s still on the table and McGrady hasn’t used a dining knife to stab me, right?” Hunter shrugged his shoulders as he spoke.

–

The author has something to say:

When frying eggs:

Hunter: Hahaha, Donald said you love me to death!

Winston: Yeah.

Hunter: I love you to death as well!

Winston: Thanks. Other than loving you to death, can I do you to death too?

Hunter: I want to drown in someone’s gentleness. 

Winston: I’m still not gentle enough for you? You’re really courting for disaster. 

–

[1] Silverstone circuit: An iconic track in the UK that’s used during the British Grand Prix

[2] Power unit: Basically the heart of the car. It consists of six main components. The internal combustion engine(ICE), turbo charger(TC), motor generating unit – heat(MGU-H), motor generating unit – kinetic(MGU-K), energy store(ES) and control electronics(CE). All of it works together to ensure that the car is as efficient as possible.

[3] Refers to the different set ups (be it aerodynamics, camber, tires, brakes, etc) catered to different track characteristics, ensuring that the car can perform at it’s best. Of course, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t…

---

Notes: 

Silverstone circuit: 

Photo by Carl Jorgensen on Unsplash

Power unit: 

The current era of hybrid power units was ushered into the sport in 2014. The engines moved away from 2.4-liter V8 engines to the current 1.6-liter turbocharged V6 power unit. As the name implies, there’s a downgrade in the engine, but a turbo and various complicated components, maximising the energy use, were added in to form the current power unit.

I’m no physics major, so if you’re interested in learning more about it, here’s the video that I’ve referenced to for the footnote. Based on the current teams on the grid (esp team Lotus who had a short stint before leaving the sport again in 2012 to 2016), the bois should be driving in the earlier years of the hybrid era, or the end years of the V8 era. 

–

nura: 

Hunter accidentally activates a Winston doki doki scene

BTW! I’ve made a change in the warning in the previous chapter, I initially thought that it’s a pissing scene but I was so wrong about that. I’m really sorry to have made such a mistake, and kisses to the people in dummy for pointing it out!~ 

Please re-read the previous chapter again for the maximum experience if you’ve got influenced by my previous tag! I’m really so sorry about that ><

• 1
  Silverstone circuit: An iconic track in the UK that’s used during the British Grand Prix
• 2
  Basically the heart of the car. It consists of six main components. The internal combustion engine(ICE), turbo charger(TC), motor generating unit – heat(MGU-H), motor generating unit – kinetic(MGU-K), energy store(ES) and control electronics(CE). All of it works together to ensure that the car is as efficient as possible.
• 3
  Refers to the different set ups (be it aerodynamics, camber, tires, brakes, etc) catered to different track characteristics, ensuring that the car can perform at it’s best. Of course, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t…