Chapter 1.1

He watched television and thought about that name.

Christopher Paul.

That bastard was the problem. This year’s champion, who had flown all the way from Abu Dhabi to New York for sex. That bastard was the root cause of everything.

He couldn’t just lounge around in a hotel when he’d been fired from his job, so Dan checked out early in the morning. When he stepped out of the room he felt eyes flickering over him and thought it strange, but didn’t pay it any mind.

Then the moment he crossed the lobby and stepped outside the hotel, flashes went off from every direction.

At first he thought a Hollywood A-lister had shown up nearby. But the clicking sounds and the stinging flashes were fixed on him. Only then did he realize something had gone wrong.

A crowd of people, journalists or paparazzi he couldn’t tell, shoved a countless number of cameras in his face and shouted at him. Like ants swarming a melting candy, they lurched this way and that with Dan at the center.

Cameras suddenly snapping, voices screaming in chaos, Chris Paul’s name being shouted from all directions at once, battered by all of it, Dan let loose a string of words at the press that should never be said out loud.

Things had been depressing one after another lately. Ferrari, the team he’d been quietly cheering for a long time without being a fanatic about it, had been hovering around ninth or tenth place in the F1 standings. The bastard he could have happily hated to death had lifted his third champion’s trophy.

He’d run into someone he’d had trouble with back in his reckless days, hurled a document file at them, and ended up getting spectacularly fired. The irritation from ending the night in a daze after that man’s sudden late night visit came crashing down on him all at once.

The Dan on the television rattled off one expletive after another.

Beep beep, beeeeep, beep beep beeeeep.

Of all the words the Dan on television had let out, the only one that made it to air was “get lost!” and even that was cut at the front, just the tail end of it barely audible. The presentable version of himself on screen kept pouring out his irritation.

“Why don’t you go bother Chris Paul instead of doing this to me? How would I know where that traitor beeeeep is? Why are you asking me! Get out of the way, you beep beep! I don’t like that traitor Chris Paul. I hate him! You got that? I’m a Ferrari fan! Does it make sense that I’d do beep with that traitor Chris Paul who stabbed Ferrari in the back and became champion, at a beep beep? Get lost! Why is the street going beep beep beep and beep!”

That was about all that came through as actual words. With a large bright red heart-shaped graphic plastered over his lips and noise drowning out the expletives, Dan switched off the television, let out a small scoff, then heaved a long sigh.

Finding a new job any time soon was out of the question, he figured. [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] He collapsed onto the single sofa and tried to take stock of everything he owned, tried to think about how long he could hold out without work, but his brain refused to function.

‘I should’ve kept my mouth shut and gone straight home.’

He hugged the single sofa and reproached himself.

‘What was I thinking, a hotel. I should’ve waited at a café and just gone home.’

The sofa, worn with the feel of a lived-in life, gave a long creak under his weight.

‘So what if someone touched my wet pants. I should’ve kept my head down and stayed still. I should’ve ignored the door no matter who came knocking.’

A long sigh leaked from his lips. Without realizing it his hands were already grabbing at his hair and shaking it.

‘This is why things don’t work out for me. [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] This is why! This is exactly why things don’t work out!’

He was banging around well on his way to bringing the small sofa down when it happened. He’d unplugged the landline and switched off his phone because of the paparazzi and journalists and people he knew who had somehow found out and were calling and showing up and causing a scene. He’d locked the door too, but suddenly the sound of the front door lock disengaging rang out and the door swung open with a clack.

Dan pressed himself flat against the sofa and ran through the possibilities. A burglar? A thief? Gang members? The guy from the other day? Or someone else entirely?

His face had been plastered all across the Americas, and possibly all of Europe or the entire world, under the title of man who might be the F1 champion’s one-night stand.

He hadn’t handled it like a cool adult who brushes off nonsense and walks away, he’d acted like a childish kid and thrown every ounce of his temper at the cameras. The old grudges that had forgotten about him might see him there and think oh, there he is, and come rushing over delighted to find him.

Back in his reckless days he’d racked up plenty of small wrongdoings without quite realizing it. Regret always came after the damage was done, and right behind regret the next disaster was always waiting.

Dan ground his teeth without making a sound. Everything had completely fallen apart.

Swallowing his curses, he thought of the person responsible for all of this. Chris Paul, you. Just you wait.

Dan slid off the sofa and pulled out a modified toy gun. A knife would be more threatening, but bare-handed fighting was unpredictable. A hunting rifle would have been nice, but he’d gotten rid of it after his mother made a face like she was about to faint at the sight of it.

Instead Dan had a toy gun that looked like the real thing and could easily smash a beer bottle if you swung it. He got flak for still having a toy gun at his age, but people didn’t know what they were talking about.

Anyone who took a proper hit from a toy that could casually smash beer bottles wasn’t walking away in one piece. He’d already made a mess of things so he might as well land a good one on whoever’s unpleasant face was on the other side and get some stress relief, and he was getting into position when:

“Excuse me.”

A low, commanding voice rang out pleasantly.

“…”

Working life had taught Dan to gauge a person’s profession by their voice. His best guess at the occupation of whoever owned that voice was: lawyer, judicial scrivener, accountant, tax accountant, patent attorney, certified appraiser, or if none of the above, a con man.

“Is Michael Kim here?”

Dan stepped out from beside the sofa with the M16-lookalike toy gun tucked under his arm.

“Who are you?”

Before him, standing ready for him to fire the toy gun at any moment, were well-built men. Not one but three of them. The man standing in the middle caught sight of Dan’s toy gun and leaned over to whisper to the person beside him.

“Was he in a gang?”

The black man whose trapezius muscles looked ready to burst through his skin shook his head. He was a massive man with so much bulk that his head looked abnormally small by comparison, and even more muscle than bulk. The kind of build you’d only see in a cartoon.

Beside him stood a white man with not an ounce of fat but so much muscle that a plain shirt looked like a compression top on him. The man with the shaved head had large light coffee-colored eyes that gave a frightening first impression, but he seemed extremely shy and was wearing an awkward expression.

Between the two of them stood a man of indeterminate nationality with an odd look about him and a pleasant manner of speaking.

In terms of height they went from tallest to shortest: the black man, the man in the middle who appeared to be mixed race, then the white man, and the ratio of muscle ran in the opposite order.

‘Who exactly is calling who a gang member?’

Dan tossed the toy gun onto the single sofa and looked at the three large and strangely atmospheric intruders. The moment the gun touched the sofa all three of the big men flinched at the shoulders.

Dan had been about to say that people like them were what gangs looked like, but instead he stared at the three of them, startled and quickly sheepish in the same moment. The white skinhead man who was about the same height as Dan gave a shy smile. The mixed race looking man in the middle cleared his throat, and the black man who seemed the most spirited of the three held his chin up straight.

“Who are you? And more to the point, how did you get in?”

He addressed the visitors again. At his words the man standing in the middle stepped forward. The man’s skin was a smooth brown like a tan. The man extended a large hand and said:

“Mr. Kim? Pleased to meet you, I’m Brian Paul.”

“Brian Paul.”

“I tried calling, tried reaching you on your mobile, but you weren’t picking up, so I came in person. I’ve spoken to the building manager so there shouldn’t be any procedural issues. Probably.”

Brian spoke in a businesslike manner.

“That Paul wouldn’t happen to be the same Paul as Christopher Paul?”

“You remember Chris.”

“…What exactly does one say to a building manager to get a door opened without the owner’s permission?”

“Well, you know.”

Brian was massive in build because of his height and muscle, but his basic facial structure was close to handsome. He could come across as intimidating given his imposing presence and low voice, but his first impression was that of a well-worn man of the world.

Pleasant in manner of speech but the type to ramble on about whatever he wants to say, dodge the point, and do it all very politely.

Dan frowned slightly. Even without Brian Paul introducing himself as Brian Paul, Dan knew well enough who Christopher Paul’s older brother Brian Paul was.

This man, Christopher Paul’s older brother and guardian, was a lawyer by trade but in practice served as his younger brother’s manager. Half the people who disliked Christopher Paul had come to dislike him because of his older brother Brian Paul.

Brian had defended his younger brother, who had become champion in his debut year in F1, to a degree that made people’s skin crawl. For a lawyer with apparently nothing better to do, he trailed after his younger brother everywhere and grated on the nerves of rival fans every single time after a race.

Not just Brian Paul but most of Christopher Paul’s family had conducted themselves in ways that reflected poorly on him. Brian and Chris’s father Daniel Paul was an alcoholic, and their mother Layla Paul was a shopaholic severe enough that people were grateful she hadn’t gone around buying up entire department stores.

It was rare for the family of a driver pulling in enormous amounts of money not to cause at least one problem, and looking at Christopher Paul’s family, each of them had a foot in something unflattering in their own way.

Brian Paul grated on rival fans as much as anyone, but at least he had a respectable profession, took good care of himself, and was the type to set a decent example for Christopher Paul. So, relatively speaking, he was the better option.

Dan had a rough idea of how Brian had talked the building manager around, given the manager’s tendency to go soft at the sight of money. Brian Paul was the older brother of Christopher Paul, who pulled in tens of billions a year. A manager who could be tempted by a few dollars would have been no problem at all for Brian.

“What brings you here?”

Dan asked, standing with his arms crossed.

“Before that…”

Brian glanced with a distinctly reluctant look at the single sofa where Dan had tossed the toy gun. Dan reached out and slid the toy gun further away. Brian and his companions all flinched at once.

“It’s a toy.”

Dan said flatly.

“A toy. I see, just a moment…”

It wasn’t good to judge people by appearances, but he did think it was something, big built men being so easily startled. Brian fumbled a little but didn’t abandon the composed manner of a seasoned man of the world. He was glancing around the room when Dan offered him a backless stool.

“Have a seat. There’s nothing for those gentlemen over there, I’m afraid.”

“That’s fine.”

Brian pulled the worn stool toward him with a face that said it was very much not fine, cutting in as if the offer had been meant for him as a matter of course even though it hadn’t been. Since there were no other seats, Dan didn’t press further and settled onto the single sofa.

“I’ll get straight to the point.”

Brian, perched with only the edge of his backside on the stool, continued in a smooth tone. He glanced at Dan and held out a hand toward the companion standing behind him. The most spirited looking of the companions placed a tabloid in Brian’s hand.

This time it’s a man?!!

Why did the F1 champion fly all the way from Abu Dhabi to New York?

The F1 champion who got turned down!

The man who turned down the triple champion!

The man who refused Christopher Paul, who is he?!