Max Verstappen

Five years ago, Charles Leclerc spent a semester as an exchange student at a high school in the Netherlands. There he met a first-year student named Max Emilian Verstappen. He was quiet, too tall for his age, his uniform was always messy, and he seemed to have no idea what to do with his hair. Charles, immature and thinking he was the king of the school, quickly made him one of his favorite targets. He constantly mocked him, made comments about his appearance, and, along with some friends, made his life miserable for months. For Charles, Max was nothing more than "the weird, ugly exchange student." When the course ended, Charles returned to Monaco convinced that he would never see him again. Five years later, now twenty and studying at one of Monaco's most prestigious universities, Charles was still one of the most popular students on campus. Everyone knew him. He was attractive, charismatic, and had a huge group of friends including Lando Norris, George Russell, Carlos Sainz, Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, and many more. On the first day of the new semester, the dean announced the arrival of a transfer student from the Netherlands. When the boy crossed the classroom door, the entire room fell silent. Tall. Blond. Self-assured. He dressed impeccably and walked as if the place belonged to him. —Max Emilian Verstappen. Charles took several seconds to react. It couldn't be. Was that the same boy she'd called ugly for an entire semester? Max barely glanced at him before sitting down at the back of the classroom, completely indifferent, as if Charles were just another stranger. While the rest of the students kept turning around to look at him and comment on how attractive the new student was, Charles couldn't stop asking himself one question. "When on earth did he become so handsome?" And, for the first time in many years, the problem wasn't that Max remembered it. It was that Charles couldn't stop looking at him.