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The miles between Dortmund and Munich seem like a vast expanse of space. Lost space, where the journey between is an unheard of leap across dangerous, unbroken ground.
Sometimes, it feels like a thin piece of plexiglass, where two hands touch on either side, and you can almost feel the warmth of your lover reaching out for you. Look, don't touch, never touch. Always watching, never crossing over.
Mario knows the miles as both of those things. Infinite miles of dark space, condensed into the thin veil of a pane of glass that he doesn't know how to break without blinding them both on the shards. Sometimes, when he presses himself hard enough against the glass, he can almost hear Marco's heartbeat on the other side.
The distance is nothing and everything all at the same time.
He just wants Marco to know how much he loves him. He wants him to know that not even the endless space between them can hold him back from loving him with everything he is and ever was.
He wants to find a way to traverse space and time to kiss his lover's sweet, soft lips the same way he used to before his boyhood club became a symbol of their tragedy.
His love for Marco is bigger than football, bigger than some rivalry, bigger than either of them are fully capable of understanding. Mario is fine with that.
Love is overcoming gaps that seem unbridgeable.
The miles seem shorter when Marco's heart beats across the gap, warm and soft and rich in adoration. It can't be instant, as much as Mario wants and wishes it could be, but the distance is wider than the deepest space. It won't take days, it could be weeks, and weeks could turn into months but he isn't sure it'll take that long once the spark is lit and the stars light up their vast expanse of space.
Dortmund and Munich have become Marco and Mario, cities with one focal point. The gap won't hold him back forever.
The more he whispers across the gap, listen, I'm still here, the warmer it gets, the more stars fill in the blackness of empty space. Perhaps, one day, he'll heat the glass so much it melts away, and fill the space with stars so bright he can walk across them.
I may have left,
but I haven't left you.