Chapter Text
Pedri didn't understand why God was extra benevolent on a Thursday evening, but he shall be damned if he uttered a single complaint. It was precisely 7:43 p.m., meaning that all of his teammates had to have left the locker room, leaving Pedri behind, who had taken a little nap, sitting on the bench in front of his locker. Why his teammates didn't wake him up was one of the million questions floating in his mind. If it weren't for Señora Perez, the kind, elderly lady who always cleaned the locker rooms after the players finished their training, he would've slept till tomorrow's training session.
"Pedri, Cariño , I gotta start cleaning," Señora Perez explained patiently to the Canarian. "I am so sorry, Señora Perez," Pedri muttered hoarsely, still tasting the taste of sleep on his tongue, attempting to rub the sleep away in his eyes. "You can start cleaning; I don't mind. I am already changed," Pedri continued apologetically. The brunette woman smiled at him and began to sweep the floor with her broom. The Canarian would have loved to help her, as he sometimes did, if it weren't for the feeling of fire erupting in his quadriceps once he tried to stand up.
He sighed as he stuffed his training uniform in his black Nike gym bag. Once Pedri tried to forcefully make room for his shoes in the black bag, a weird sensation brushed his fingertips. There was a foreign object in his bag. Pedri continued to blindly run his fingers along the object. Maybe a fan snuck something into his bag when they stopped his vehicle today? That was highly improbable; Pedri always hid his bag beneath the backseat of his black Cupra (He really missed his dark green Mini Cooper, now that he thought about it), so whatever was in his bags had to have gotten in his bag within the Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper, which was off-limits to unauthorized people. He chuckled as he remembered Hector Fort, an FC Barcelona B right-back, getting stopped by security when the first team invited him to train with them.
Pedri closed his eyes and dared to fish the foreign object from his bag. His eyes remained shut as he felt for it: it was square and made of faux leather.
He allowed his fingers to dig for more and ripped his eyes open out of pain after his middle finger began to burn. Was that paper? Had Pedri just cut himself on paper? Instinctively, Pedri brought his left hand to his lips and sucked the few droplets of blood from his finger.
He looked down at the weighted object in his right hand. Pedri was holding a book . A book? No, Pedri couldn't see a title. Therefore, it must have been a memoir. And it was a fancy memoir, too: blue and red faux leather hugged the square shape of the notebook, gold paint decorated the corners and sides, and when Pedri flipped the notebook, he saw a word or a name engraved in the leather, awakening the assumption that the notebook was custom made.
The squiggly, obviously cursive lines became indecipherable to Pedri as his view began to resemble the picture of an out-of-focus camera. He called Señora Perez: "Señora, excuse me, I'm a little light-headed. Could you come over for a second?"
The slightly chubby woman hurried over in worry upon hearing Pedri's faint call.
"Oh, no, dear! Sit down! I'll get you something sweet to drink; is your insomnia getting worse again-" Pedri interrupted her, holding his head with his priorly bleeding hand. "It's all right. I'm feeling better," he whispered. "Can you just tell me whose book this is? My eyes are a bit blurry," he asked. Without even looking at the engraved name, Señora Perez answered: "Oh, this is Pablito's diary! He must've lost it. Good that you found it!" she smiled gently.
The fog in Pedri's view cleared, and he stared at the booklet. "Gavi" the gold engraving read.
"Gavi?" he repeated, not believing the combination of vowels and consonants that left his mouth. "Yes," Señora Perez laughed. "I was surprised, too! Especially when I saw how important it is to him! He had forgotten it here before, and when I tell you, the day after that, he was here 50 minutes early to look for it."
Gavi had a diary? Pedri still couldn't wrap his head around the revelation. Gavi? Diary? Gavi? Dear Diary? Gavi? Diary? Writing his feelings onto a little book, decorating the pages with washi tape, and doodling hearts on the corners of each page? Gavi? Diary?
"What is wrong, Cariño?" Señora Perez asked the shaken adolescent. Actually, Pedri didn't know what was wrong. He had no idea; he just knew he needed to know what was inside the diary. Pedri thanked Señora Perez for her help, excused himself, and sprinted out of the training facility than he had sprinted in any of the official games so far. The raven-haired midfielder nearly fell into his car, fighting against the urge to open the book then and there to start reading the contents.
Just as the Canarian started his car, guilt showered over him as the rain outside of the facility showered over the ground. Gavi wasn't someone who trusted others quickly despite being overly social and talkative. Reading Gavi's diary not only meant that Pedri would invade Gavi's privacy. He would also risk losing Gavi's trust once and for all. Pedri could taste the breakfast and the sour taste of his feelings. What if Pedri read something he didn't want to read? What if Gavi had a girlfriend? What if Gavi was in love with someone? How could Pedri look in his eyes with that knowledge?
Pedri could feel his intestines turn inside out from the pure thought of Gavi's, hopefully nonexistent, girlfriend. He was scared to open his mouth. Perhaps Pedri's heart was going to jump out and escape his anxiety-riddled body. He had never really been in love and, therefore, didn't know what it would feel like if he found out his crush was already with someone else. He didn't even know what exactly he felt for Gavi. All he knew was that the thought of Gavi being with someone else disgusted him even more than the thick air in the locker rooms after a training session.
But these were just hypotheses, right? Hadn't Gavi recently mentioned that he was single? Pedri was going to be alright, right? Pedri couldn't afford to lose himself to his anxiety. He was merely overreacting, as always. Poor Gavi probably just used the diary to keep track of his feelings and worries as a young professional footballer. The Canarian tried to regulate his staccato breath so he could resume his drive home.
It was alright; Gavi was single.
Pedri knew why he cared so much, why the curiosity was devouring him from the inside, or why the existence of Gavi's girlfriend was enough to tear his lungs apart, allow his soul to escape the world, and travel to the hereafter. Pedri knew it all, however, admitting it was more bitter than actually feeling it. He had never thought about being in love with his best friend, and there he was, 20 years old, with no idea what to do or how to feel. He was supposed to act like a reasonable adult: return Gavi's diary and continue with his daily life. But no, he couldn't do that. He had to satiate his hunger, his curiosity. Yes, curiosity might have killed the cat, but satisfaction definitely brought it back.
Señora Perez knew about Pedri's crush on his best friend, and that poor woman was a great help in braking the 300 km/h speeding insecurity of the young midfielder. She kept listening to his ramblings and gave him advice whenever he helped her clean their lockers, but nothing she said could freeze the hellfire of Pedri's chaotic feelings.
Nothing but the sheer, hopeful, and optimistic adoration of Gavi acted as gasoline to the fire of Pedri's curiosity. Pedri was terribly hopeful, but what if, what if Gavi liked him back? Maybe the Sevillian midfielder was just as enamored as Pedri was?
He chuckled at the absurdity of his own thoughts. Of course, that wouldn't be the case. Still, the Canarian refused to pass on the possibility of learning more about his best friend and his love, no matter the graveness of the consequences.
Before Pedri knew it, he had parked in the garage of his two-story house in Barcelona. He opened the driver-side door gently but tore the left-side backdoor open with such force that Pedri began to wonder whether he had broken his car door. He snatched his back and made his way inside the house, where the sound of male laughter greeted him. "Hello, Pepi," Fer grinned at his brother, guiding him to the living room. "What took you so long?" Pedri's older brother asked.
"He fell asleep in the locker room," a familiar voice answered from a small distance. Fer laughed at the answer, pulling Pedri further towards the soda.
"Ferran, what are you doing here?" Pedri asked, eyes wide when his teammate Ferran Torres reached out to hug him. "Slept well?" was all that the fellow footballer retorted. Pedri shook his head, smiling sheepishly. "Still exhausted," he yawned. The Valencian attacking player critically mustered Pedri, seeing the almost bruise-resembling eyebags painting the face of the young midfielder. "So, you still don't sleep enough?" the older player accused.
Pedri waved his teammate and dear friend off and excused himself to his room.
"What about dinner? I grilled some chicken breast for you!" Fer called Pedri back, who couldn't be bothered to eat in the state of not even being able to tell sleep and death apart. Pedri couldn't even care about Ferran sitting in their living room; he practically lived with them anyway with how often he was over.
Once the midfielder reached his room, he gently placed his gym bag on the ground but hauled himself onto his bed. It was 9 p.m. and Pedri could feel his soul sink deep into the feathers of his mattress, even forgetting about the little booklet in his bag he was so excited to hold. Luckily, Pedri had no responsibilities tomorrow other than a tactical meeting with the team.
--
The Canarian didn't know how long he was in a coma. But feeling that he was shivering and hungry so that his stomach started digesting itself, he figured it was long enough.
Pedri shakily put his feet down on the ground and put himself away from his comfortable blanket -which he was lying on instead of beneath it- and looked at his phone to discover he had awoken at 5:37 a.m. 5:37 a.m.? Today was one of the few days he didn't have to rise before 8 a.m., yet he was awake before the sun even began to illuminate the morning sky.
Pedri could hear the threat of his bones playing a shrill melody once he attempted to go downstairs. He had never been this thankful to this brother when Pedri saw that Fer had made him a bowl of oatmeal that only needed to be heated. Pedri popped the bowl into the microwave, grabbed one of the eight wooden stools neatly placed around his kitchen table, and pushed it toward his kitchen counter. Ever since he was little, Pedri adored eating on kitchen counters; it reminded him of when he would spend his free time together with his brother in their parents' restaurant, hastily devouring scorching hot food while sitting on barstools and listening to the adults discuss politics or football alongside his uncle, Juan, who made drinks for everyone.
The shrill, electric noise of the microwave tore into the adolescence's picturesque nostalgia. It made Pedri's heart quiver; he didn't get many quiet moments. Lately, the exhaustion -that naturally came from being a professional athlete- had caught up to him, burning into his bones, mirroring his fear of chasing the ball in games. He had never been more thankful to have a morning this peaceful. The Canarian wanted nothing more than to keep thinking. He had missed letting his thoughts run and play the playground of his memories. Oh, memories.
Upon finishing his oatmeal and saving the last spoonful of a salted-caramel-flavored breakfast, Pedri tasted a sweet but salty thought. Wasn't he forgetting something? Pedri had definitely forgotten something.
He quietly put his dishes aside and walked back to his room, tracing each step - and reflecting on each thought he thought. He woke up too early, he was hungry, and then Pedri remembered how he and Fer were always in their parents, restaurant and curiously listening to the adults speaking –curiously? Pedri was curious! Curious because of... what?
Less than a second after he gained awareness of his emotional state, Pedri felt his shoulders radiating pain. He had slipped and hit his head on the side of his bed. Groaning in agony, Pedri rubbed his head, rolling over on the ground only to see his black gym bag two meters away on the ground inside of his barely lit room. Oh.
Of course, he cursed himself for being so stupid. How could he forget? Was his chronic exhaustion eating away at his brain? He crawled over to his gym back, trying to ignore the scream his shoulders gave him as he accidentally put just a little too much weight on them. In times like these, he kept forgetting how injury-prone he was.
Theraven-haired adolescent fished the blue and red notebook out of his bag and climbed back into his king-sized bed. Both his body and Gavi's deepest secrets hit the clouds that were stacked chaotically on his bed. Could he really do this? Was he really ready for this?
He sighed, holding the notebook in front of his window, where the sun greeted the gold engraving on Gavi's diary.
That wasn't about whether Pedri could do it; he knew he had to do it.
Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.