BURN ✶ M. Verstappen

002 || worth it

The echoing sound of giggling children and whispered secrets had become commonplace around the karting circuits ever since that fateful day when Cielo had found Max crying to himself behind the garages.

When she had finally been able to coax him out of the alley, she had taken his small hand in hers and dragged the poor boy all the way to her parents and promptly introduced him as her new best friend.

The blond boy looked so flustered at the thought of being anybody's best friend that Cielo's parents couldn't help but coo at the child. Her father, having only been at this event with the sole purpose of writing a story about Max, quickly accepted the boy as one of his own. It didn't matter what the outcome of his races were now, due to the fact that he had made his daughter smile, Cielo's father decided that any and all articles he wrote about Max Verstappen would be positive only.

Although there was an obvious language barrier between the two, it did little to stop them. When Max wasn't busy training or listening to his father's tirades about his quote-unquote 'poor performance', he could be found at Cielo's side, sitting against a wall or beneath a tree, teaching the girl his native language of Dutch.

The same went the other way around, Cielo could often be spotted gesturing wildly to a very bewildered but encouraging Max as she explained the differences between certain pretenses of phrases.

"How do you say this," Max said and wrote something down on his notepad. His navy blue T-shirt stretched tightly across his shoulders as he hunched over. The two children were sprawled out in the grass surrounding the track, safely tucked away from the blazing heat of the sun beneath a large oak tree. It had been a couple of months since the two had met and yet they still treated each time they were together as their first, sweet and shy but slowly warming up to the other as time went on.

Cielo, who was dressed in a pair of jean overalls and a baby blue T-shirt, her hair pulled back into two braids that were tied off at the ends with delicate white ribbons, leaned over to read what Max had written and smiled.

"Quieres fresas," she translated easily, "That would be a question if you were saying, but I am telling so it's not."

Max, ever the dutiful student, nodded his head seriously and wrote down what she had said. His tongue poking out between his lips in concentration as well as his brows furrowing. Once he was done, he looked up at Cielo with his bright blue eyes and smiled so wide his cheeks turned red.

"So do you?" he asked her after a moment.

"Do I what?"

"Want strawberries," he elaborated, moving the notepad out of his lap and setting it on the grass. "I've raced here before and I know this place that has very good ones made with cream."

If she hadn't already been smiling, Cielo's expression would've lit up like a Christmas tree at the offer. Biting back a smile she leaned forward slightly, resting her elbows on her thighs, "You want to buy me fresas con crema?"

Max's head tilted to the side, "Is that what they're called in Spanish?"

She nodded eagerly, "Yes! They're so good. My mama makes them for me all the time."

"Oh?" Max's smile widened. "So you like them a lot?"

"They're one of my favorites." Cielo smiled bashfully.

"Ok," Max heaved himself up onto his feet and dusted off his clothes carefully before extending a hand to Cielo who was still sat on the ground watching Max's actions in confusion. "Come on, let's go."