Chapter Text
Surprisingly, breakfast was more or less, uneventful. Not that Pau was really complaining.
He fully expected Ferran, Gavi, or maybe even Pedri, to make some sly passing comment when Lamine had wordlessly slid all the tomatoes that he picked out of his fruit salad onto Pau's plate, something that Pau hadn't even realized Lamine really even did in the first place.
Or when Lamine subtly nudged his plate closer to Pau's now empty one and Pau immediately took both of their plates to the growing stack of dirty dishes.
Or when Lamine's cup of apple juice was near empty, so Pau grabbed it without a word and came back with a full glass for him.
Or when Lamine had a crumb on the corner of his mouth and Pau gently brushed it away with his thumb, which only served to send a spark down his spine as he immediately remembered how his lips had been where his thumb was just half an hour or so ago.
Well, that, Ferran and Gavi did actually make comments about.
"If you guys are purposely being as gross as possible as payback for this morning, then it's working." Ferran cringed from across the table.
"Yeah, do you guys mind?" Gavi groaned and threw a wadded napkin at Pau's face, which Lamine had immediately intercepted before it even hit Pau and threw back at Gavi. "Holy shit, it's a napkin! It won't kill him, Lamine!"
Lamine had only chuckled at that before taking a piece of strawberry from Pau's fruit cup with absolutely no protest from the other.
Other than that little moment though, breakfast had passed without a hitch.
Warm-ups and training had also, thankfully, gone by peacefully in Pau's definition of the word.
Pau's definition of peaceful being that he didn't have Gavi or Ferran breathing down his neck every time he did so much as look in Lamine's general direction.
Hell, Pedri had even walked over to him during one of their few water breaks and apologized for essentially following him and Lamine to Lamine's hotel room, as well as not immediately dragging Gavi and Ferran out of the room when they saw how intimately him and Lamine were wrapped up in each other's embrace.
Pau insisted that it was okay and that there was only so much anyone could do about who he had now come to label the "terror twins".
Though, he didn't really know how to feel when Pedri had specifically described how they were found as intimate.
But, he just let it slip his mind after a few minutes and carried on with training without any issue.
After training, their head coach had rounded them all up to let them know the schedule for the rest of the day.
"Okay, you guys did a good job out there," He praised them, which was followed by several loud cheers and applause. "Our first match of the tournament is tomorrow, so I want you all to stay sharp and in perfect shape for it, regardless of if you're in the starting line up or not."
"I think he's talking about you, Gavi." Pedri snickered jokingly.
"Oh, shut up. I'm literally in perfect form and you know it!"
"Guys, stop bickering and pay attention." Rodri scolded the two with a small grin on his face.
"Which obviously means top physical form, but it also means top mental form. Your mentality is just as important as anything else, if not more." De la Fuente continued. “So with that in mind, I and the rest of the managing staff have decided to give you all the rest of the day off to do whatever you'd like."
Someone (Dani and Gavi) dramatically gasped at that and Rodri quickly asked, "Wait, really? What about the rest of the training exercises I thought you wanted us to do?"
"I'm more than confident that each and every one of you is more than ready for this entire tournament." He smiled as someone (again, Dani and Gavi) loudly sobbed 'coach!'. "As long as you're all back for team dinner tonight at 7:00, then you're all free to do absolutely whatever you'd like."
Once they were sure that their coach was done speaking, the entire team practically roared with excitement and several loud "thank you"s.
Pau couldn't resist laughing and cheering with his teammates, it wasn't everyday that they practically got an entire free day right before a tournament like the World Cup after all.
Gavi had excitedly gone over to him with a wild grin on his face. "Cuba! Do you know what you're going to do for the rest of the day?"
He hadn't really thought of it, he kind of just figured that he would end up finally going to his hotel room and sleeping until dinner time came around.
After all, he still hadn't even brought his luggage to his room yet, it was still sitting in Lamine's room. The only unpacking he even did so far had just been grabbing some new clothes, since he hadn't changed since they landed, and some basic toiletries to brush his teeth and style his messy bed head.
"I think I'm just going to go to my room and sleep honestly."
"What? We have the whole day to do whatever we want in Atlanta and you're just gonna go to sleep?" Gavi asked unimpressed. "Come on, Cuba! You already slept the whole night with Lamine, how much more sleep could you want?"
"Gavi, stop saying it like that so loud!" Pau hissed as he glanced around. "People are going to get the wrong idea."
"Cuba, I don't think there is a wrong idea. That's literally what you guys did."
"Just, whatever. Forget it." Gavi snickered at Pau's dejection.
"Hey guys!" Pau whipped his head around so fast that he was surprised he didn't immediately get whiplash. "Crazy that we get the rest of the afternoon to ourselves, right?" Lamine naturally gravitated to Pau's side.
"Right? I was just asking Cuba what he was planning on doing, but he's just going to be lame and sleep." Gavi rolled his eyes at Pau, who childishly stuck his tongue out back at him.
"Oh, really?" Lamine turned to Pau. "That's a shame. I actually came over here to ask if you wanted to go to the aquarium with me."
"The aquarium?" Pau echoed.
"Yeah, there's a really cool aquarium not too far from here and I wanted to see if you'd come with me. But, if you want to just sleep, then that's okay."
"Ooh! I'm down to go to the aquarium with you, Lamine-" Gavi interjected excitedly.
"No, I'll go with you!"
Gavi looked like he wanted to throw something at him at that moment, which Pau honestly didn't blame him for once. Gavi then looked at Lamine and suddenly looked like he wanted to throw something even larger at Lamine.
While Gavi looked absolutely done with the both of them, Lamine was looking at Pau with what could only be described as a completely and utterly lovestruck look. He was softly smiling at Pau while he gazed at him like he was the only person on the training grounds.
Pau felt the world go silent as sea green met deep autumn brown. He wondered if Lamine could count all of the blue flecks sprinkled in the green of his eyes with how intensely he was looking at him.
"God, you two are actually disgusting!" Gavi suddenly groaned. "There is no way you thought that was actually cute, Lamine."
Lamine darted his eyes away from Pau and just pursed his lips, clearly opting to avoid actually answering Gavi.
"Dis. Gust. Ing." Gavi emphasized every single syllable and fake gagged between the two of them.
Lamine continued to ignore Gavi and looked back at Pau. "So, you want to go with me?"
"Of course,"
"Okay." Lamine smiled.
His braces are so cute on him. Pau thought to himself dreamily.
"Okay." Pau smiled back.
"I'm still here, y'know!" Gavi interjected all annoyed. "Get a room you two!"
—
Word travels fast when you're in a team with a bunch of, apparently, really nosy men.
That's the only explanation that Pau could come up with for why half the damn team had come to the aquarium with him and Lamine anyways.
It wasn't that he minded it that much, most of them had split up into their own little groups and went their separate ways almost as soon as they all arrived at the aquarium. But, he couldn't lie and say that he wished that it had just been him and Lamine.
After all, Lamine had specifically asked him to come to the aquarium with him.
Not Gavi, not Ferran, not Pedri, not Dani, not Nico, not Pedro, not anyone else who had decided to tag along on what was supposed to be their hangout.
No, he asked Pau.
He probably wouldn't have even cared this much if Lamine was actually with him right now. But, of course, he had gotten swept up by Nico and Dani, who wouldn't stop gushing about waning to see some jellyfish or whatever, Pau didn't care.
His eyes had met Lamine's briefly before Nico and Dani dragged him away. Pau could tell by one look that Lamine felt guilty about not being able to hang out with Pau right away. He just smiled thinly and motioned for Lamine to go with the pair.
Lamine's gaze quickly shifted into worry, but wasn't able to do much since Dani had seemingly gotten impatient and just full on dragged Lamine with him and Nico, very much ignoring Lamine's protests.
Pau watched as the three of them walked away before realizing how pathetic he probably looked at that moment and decided to explore the aquarium for himself.
He had grabbed a pamphlet with a map of the aquarium when all of them had first walked in, though, he was pretty sure that he had accidentally grabbed the one for kids because it just had a bunch of doodles of all of the sea life that they had there.
Oh well, he guessed that it would work just fine.
He looked through the various different doodles and decided on making his way over to one of the shark areas.
On the walk over to the shark exhibit that Pau decided on, he bumped into a couple members of the team. Pau could see in their eyes that they could easily tell he was just moping around the place without Lamine. Pedro and Cucurella offered to accompany him to the shark exhibit, but he just smiled and insisted that he didn't mind going by himself.
He knew that he was lying through his teeth and he also knew that the two of them could definitely see through his lie. But, by some miracle or just because they knew exactly why Pau was essentially sulking by himself and they just didn't want to rub salt into the wound, they accepted his answer and reminded him that he could join them at any time if he changed his mind.
When Pau finally made it to the exhibit area, his mouth dropped in awe at the sheer size and overall beauty of everything. There was an underwater tunnel across the entire room with tons of different types of beautiful sea life that Pau swore he didn't even know actually existed in real life.
As he walked further down the tunnel, he spotted some of the sharks that he'd originally came there for and pulled his camera out of his pocket. He turned it on and snapped a few photos of the sharks, making sure to get the best angles to show his family.
While he continued taking photos, he couldn't help but feel like there was something missing in all of them.
Or more like someone missing.
"Don't you guys think this one looks just like me?"
That was definitely not the someone that was missing.
Maybe if Pau stood still enough and just didn't breathe, then maybe they wouldn't notice him and walk right past them.
"Oh, hey, Pau!"
So much for that idea.
Pau slowly turned around with his camera still in hand. "Hey guys," He offered a semi-crooked smile.
"Are you all by yourself?" Pedri asked with a genuine hint of sympathy in his tone.
"Yeah, but it's fine. It's nice and quiet honestly." He was pretty sure that the more he lied, the more pathetic and lonely he actually ended up sounding if Gavi and Ferran's matching furrowed eyebrows said anything.
"Where's Lamine?" Gavi asked.
"Uh, he went with Nico and Dani to go see some jellyfish or something. I don't know."
"I'm going to choose to act like I just believed that you, of all people, seriously don't know where he went."
"Do we really have to do this in an aquarium of all places? Why are you guys even over here in the first place?"
"God, I didn't realize that being without Lamine for extended periods of time made you snappy like this, Cuba." Ferran laughed. "We can't also just want to look at all the nice fish and stuff?"
"Ferran, shut up. Leave Pau alone, I'm sure we aren't helping his situation at all." Pedri chuckled. "But, Ferran wanted to look at the sharks and find the one that looked the most like him and take a picture with it, so now we're here."
"There is no situation-"
"Hush, my sweet summer child." Gavi started (weirdly) patting Pau's head, something that immediately made him enter some form of fight or flight. "We know that you're sad that you haven't gotten to spend your date time with Lamine yet, no need to lie to your trusty brothers."
"Um-"
"What we're trying to say is that we know you wanted this to be something for just you and Lamine. Gavi told us how lovestruck you looked when he asked you to come along with him and we're so sorry that everyone else ended up crashing your date." Ferran added.
"Dude, Gavi. Why do you keep assuming all these things and then decide to put them on blast for everyone to hear?" Pau threw an unimpressed glare at the man in question, who was still stroking his hair like a doting mother.
"I didn't assume anything, Cuba. I have eyes, you know."
Pau just sighed loudly at that and forcefully swatted Gavi's hands away from his hair. "It wasn't going to be a date, I just really like spending time with him and I've just been a tiny bit bummed out that I've barely seen him since we all got here." Pau finally admitted while he fidgeted with his camera.
"Cuba, I think you have some magical manifestation powers or something because Lamine literally just walked in." Gavi pointed behind Pau with wide eyes.
"Gavi, don't make fun of me." Pau groaned as he dug the heel of his palm into his eye. "I get it, I look like a pathetic wimp just moping around here all by myself without Lamine."
"Well, I'd probably say that you look more like a lost puppy, but that works too." Ferran added.
"Not the time, Ferran. Though, I agree with you on that puppy thing, you think Lamine's like a cat then?" Pau didn't even want to give what either of them were talking about another thought, he felt like he'd already lost his last ounce of human sanity forever ago.
"Yeah, especially the way he's always so cuddly around Cuba! Like this morning-"
"You two are actually so irritating." Pedri pinched the bridge of his nose before grabbing Pau's broad shoulders and spinning him around. "Right there!" He whisper shouted as he motioned to Lamine, who had actually just walked in, just like Gavi said.
He couldn't tell if he was grateful to Gavi for spotting Lamine or annoyed with him for almost immediately ditching the subject to intellectually discuss whether Pau was a golden retriever or a German shepherd with Ferran right in front of Pau.
Lamine looked somehow even more beautiful like this.
Well, nothing beat how Lamine looked sleeping peacefully in Pau's arms, but this could come a close second.
Blue light reflected off of the glass and onto Lamine's face, making his eyes look like a literal ocean with more life than any actual ocean could ever hold.
The shadows of ripples of water in the overhead tunnel above made Lamine's eyes and entire being shine so much brighter in Pau's view than they usually did, as he somehow coincidentally stood in the one perfect spot in the entire exhibit area where light reflected perfectly off of the water and onto the ground in an almost spotlight-like beam.
Like everywhere else, Lamine looked like a shining star under the light.
Pau truly believed that Lamine was meant to shine in every single lifetime and in the eyes of the entire world no matter what.
But, he was always more than grateful that he was the one who got to see Lamine shine like this, not like the global superstar that the world knew, but like the boy he grew up with and watched grow during their La Masia days, the boy who hated thunderstorms, but always tried to brave through them because he wanted to seem cooler, the boy who Pau almost always beat in FIFA and just laughed into Pau's shoulder after every single loss.
The boy who Pau fell in love with.
Because while the world was in love with Lamine Yamal, #19 of the Spanish national team; Pau was in love with Lamine Yamal Nasraoui Ebana, #1 in his heart.
"If I have to watch these two give each other heart eyes one more time today, I'm going to lose it." Gavi muttered under his breath.
"I thought that's what you wanted them to do." Pedri stated.
"I mean yeah, but this is just disgusting." He punctuated the end of that sentence with a loud 'blegh' sound. "They'll thank me for all of my assists on the pitch and off in the future."
Before Pau could even turn around to see what was happening behind him, he felt someone (Gavi, because who else?) roughly shove him into Lamine's direction.
He stumbled awkwardly and recognized the sneakers now right in front of him. He looked up to meet Lamine's gaze, hoping that he hadn't just embarrassed the shit out of himself; though, that was definitely more Gavi's fault than his.
"Hi, Cuba." He greeted as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened and Pau didn't almost just eat shit right in front of him.
"Lamine, hi." Pau smiled. He looked around Lamine, expecting to see either Nico or Dani still around, only to not see a single glimpse of them. "Where'd Dani and Nico go?"
"Oh, them?" Lamine suddenly chuckled, the sound like medicine for Pau's lovesick heart. "They kept saying something about wanting to help Ferran find a shark that looks like him, so they basically dragged me over here." He pointed somewhere behind Pau where loud laughter could be heard from their teammates.
"Holy shit, that one looks just like Ferran!"
"Nah, I think this one over here looks more like him. It has his signature grin that he keeps thinking is sexy."
"It is sexy!"
"Literally nobody, other than you and Pedri, think that it's sexy, mano."
"Wait, why am I suddenly being brought into this conversation?"
"Oh," Pau finally replied. "I see then."
"Mhm," Lamine hummed back before taking a step towards Pau. He was now somewhat crowding Pau's personal space, not that either Pau or Lamine really ever cared about that. "Hey, I'm sorry that I haven't gotten to spend any time with you here so far." Lamine lowered his voice, now making Pau hyper aware of how close they really were.
"It's okay." Pau swallowed. "I didn't mind."
"You might not have," He continued, very much not believing Pau one bit. "But, I did."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," Lamine suddenly grabbed one of Pau's hands, the one not holding his camera and intertwined their fingers. "I wanted this to be like a little thing for us, y'know?"
Pau glanced down at where their hands were now connected and blushed. "It's okay, the team's allowed to be here too, I guess."
"I know, but I invited you here specifically for a reason."
"You did?"
Lamine shyly averted his gaze down to where he was holding Pau's hand and began softly caressing Pau's sweaty skin with his thumb. "It's stupid."
"I don't think it's stupid."
"You don't even know what it is, silly." He giggled.
God, Pau would never get used to hearing that sound. He hoped that he would be blessed enough to hear it for the rest of his life.
"It's something that you think," Pau squeezed Lamine's hand. "That's enough of a reason for me to think that it isn't stupid."
"When'd you get so charming, hm?"
"I've always been charming."
"Good point,"
The two laughed softly before fading into comfortable silence for a few moments.
"Back when we were like 15," Lamine began. "You said that you'd never been to an aquarium before and I remember promising you that I would take you to one someday."
Pau was speechless. It was something seemingly so small back then when they were barely teenagers still figuring out how to juggle being normal kids and future football superstars at the same time.
Though, the craziest thing was that Pau remembered that entire conversation, it had never really left his mind after all.
He remembered how the light from the moon and the stars glowed above them as they laid on the turf together. The exact way that their pinkies had interlocked in a promise that Pau would've never guessed that Lamine would even remember all these years later.
But, he remembered absolutely nothing more clearly than the way Lamine had looked at him.
Pau's pretty sure that he had liked Lamine since even before that one El Clásico in 2024, he just didn't really know what exactly it was until that fateful night in October 2024.
"You remember that?" Pau whispered.
"Of course I do. I pinky promised you, didn't I?" Lamine squeezed Pau's pinky with a bright smile.
"You're pretty good at keeping your promises then, huh?"
"Only the ones about you really."
Pau just chuckled at that, if you could really consider a deep exhale a chuckle in the first place.
He expected Lamine to let go of his hand, but to his surprise, he held onto Pau's hand even tighter as he dragged him along to finally go look at some of the sea life.
They were standing in front of one of the glass panes as they watched some fish swim by, Lamine rambling on about the first time he'd been to an aquarium when he was younger, and Pau just smiling at him instead of looking at any of the fish Lamine was pointing out to him.
Their fingers were still tightly intertwined in between them when Ferran, Gavi, and Pedri spotted them.
"Oh, there's Pau and Lamine. Pau!-" Pedri was about to exclaim before Gavi slapped a hand over his mouth.
"Dude, shush! Do you see this?" Gavi shouted in a hushed tone.
"See what?" Pedri speech came out muffled from behind Gavi's palm.
"That!" He pointed excitedly to Pau and Lamine's intertwined hands.
"Oh!"
"Exactly!" Gavi began looking around until he spotted Ferran looking at another shark.
"You guys think this one looks more like me or-"
"Ferran!" Gavi hissed. "Take a photo of them before they notice us!"
"What- oh!" Ferran comically jogged over to Pedri and Gavi before pulling out his phone.
"Wait," Pedri shoved Gavi's hand off his face and silently grabbed something off of the banister to the side of Pau. He was extremely lucky that both Pau and Lamine were too engrossed in each other to notice literally anything else happening around them.
"What did you just grab?" Ferran tried looking over Pedri's shoulder.
"This." He held up Pau's digital camera, clearly Pau's since there was a little sticker reading "22" with a football next to it.
Gavi and Ferran's eyes practically lit up as they both clapped Pedri on the back in a silent "hell yeah!". Pedri laughed at the two's antics before powering on the camera and making sure that the flash was off, not wanting to get caught like they did that morning.
He fiddled with a couple different angles, finally settling on just standing behind them in the center. He snapped a quick photo before slowly setting the camera back where it was.
The three of them looked at the pair for a few more moments and just smiled fondly, none of them wanting to disrupt Pau and Lamine's bubble.
Pau wished that he could get a photo of the moment, but he was too occupied with all things Lamine to even make an attempt to take out his phone or reach for his camera.
What he didn't know though, was that a photo had already been snapped of them when neither of them were even looking.
Pau looking at Lamine as Lamine freely laughed about one of the sharks genuinely looking like Ferran. Their fingers tightly intertwined between them without a single care in the world about who saw them like that.
Dated 6/14/2026.
A four year old promise fulfilled in waters behind glass.
Lamine Yamal's future promised in the green ocean of Pau Cubarsí's eyes staring right into his heart.