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His roommate's horrible attempt at quieting their footsteps roused Leo from his slumber. He cracked his eyes open and followed Ota through his eyelashes. As awareness slowly seeped into Leo, the sound of his teammates whispering and shushing each other beyond his room door became more and more apparent. Leo resisted the urge to fondly roll his eyes in favour of pretending like the oncoming shouts of, "Happy birthday!" were what woke him up rather than the obvious truth. It was the least he could do for his teammates' sakes.
It's like this every time he spends his birthday with the international team. Try as they might, and they really do, Leo's teammates fail to keep the noise down. Though, Leo can't really fault them. Who wouldn't get excited about surprising their fellow teammate and friend on their birthday? Leo would be a hypocrite if he said that he didn't act the exact same way as his teammates were now on any of their birthdays.
The sound of the room door creaking open brought Leo out of his thoughts. He shut his eyes quickly and relaxed to keep up the ruse as Ota, assumedly, stuck his head out of the gap in the doorway. Their teammates' piss poor attempt at whispering almost immediately ceased. Leo could perfectly picture the stern look Ota must have given everyone to make them actually be quiet. The whisper-shouted, "You guys could have woken him up!" confirmed it. The corners of Leo's lips twitched as he fought down a smile. He just needed to keep up the ruse for a few more minutes until-
"Happy birthday Leo!"
-that.
Leo opened his eyes as groggily as he could muster and began to sit up in bed. He had to shut his eyes almost immediately and put up one of his hands as a shield to block the light from someone's phone. He vaguely registered a muttered, "Sorry Leo," before his teammates began singing him happy birthday. A smile made its way onto his face as Leo fully sat up and took in the scene around him. His teammates, all clad in pajamas, surrounded his bed. Dibu, Lautaro and Cuti were waving around sparklers that were starting to get too close to their fingers, Rodri and Leandro were throwing copious amounts of confetti over him and Enzo was giggling every other lyric alongside Julián. The former's phone was pointed directly at him so they had undoubtedly put a funny filter on his face. Which one was yet to be determined.
As the singing wound down, Ángel moved closer to Leo's bedside with the cake. It was a decently sized plain cake with number candles displaying 37 blazing atop it. Leo sat up a little straighter as the last, and horrifically off key, "Happy birthday to you," courtesy of Molina, rang out and the cake was hovering in front of his face. He laughed a little to himself and blew out the candles. Cheers promptly erupted from his teammates and Licha handed him a knife to cut into the cake.
After cutting a small slice for himself, Ota took over cake cutting duty so Leo could enjoy it. The room lights were soon turned on as the cake was shared out. Once everyone who could stomach the sugary delight this late at night had received a slice, idle chatter broke out. Everyone split into groups and spread out around the hotel room after giving Leo a personal happy birthday of some sort. (Leo's ears still slightly stung from Ota pulling them thirty eight times.)
"Are you going to keep up the ruse forever?" Ángel asked quietly as he took Leo's crumb covered napkin from him.
"Keep up what ruse?" Leo asked knowingly, "I haven't been doing anything."
"Sure you haven't," Ángel replied with a playful roll of his eyes which earned him an equally playful swat on the arm from Leo, "but you still have to tell everyone eventually."
"Tell us what?"
Leo and Ángel turned their heads in the direction of the voice. It was Alexis. The redhead glanced between them a nervously, slightly fiddling with his fingers. The elder two figured he was worrying that he overheard something he wasn't supposed to. As such, Leo shot Alexis a small smile and reached out to give him a reassuring pat on the arm to quell his worries.
"I'll tell you when you're older," Leo said.
"Huh?" Alexis said confused, "But I'm twenty five."
"Exactly," Ángel and Leo said in sync. Alexis only felt more confused as Leo and Ángel shared a laugh. He opened his mouth to ask for further clarification but was interrupted by the arrival of their coach.
"All right everyone," Scaloni said, his voice rising above the chatter, "back to bed. We have a match to win tomorrow."
That statement was met with several grumbles and groans, but ultimately everyone started to prepare to leave Leo and Ota's room. Alexis sighed and lightly shook his head, deciding not to dwell on whatever his elder teammates were keeping from the rest of the squad. It was probably nothing more than an inside joke anyway. Or so he hoped.
Leo watched as his teammates file out the door past Scaloni and said several goodnights in response to those he received. Soon it was only him, Ota, Ángel and Scaloni left in the room.
"Happy birthday Leo," Scaloni said with a small smile, "See you in the morning."
With that, Scaloni left and signalled for Ángel to do the same. Ángel bid his two teammates goodnight and followed after his coach. He flipped the light switch off and closed the door behind him, descending the room into darkness.
"Night Leo," Ota said with a yawn before he turned onto his other side on his bed.
"Night Ota," Leo replied. He couldn't help the small, contented smile that found its way onto his face as he curled back up under the covers. His birthday was shaping up to be great as it always was when he spends it with the national team. And better yet, the ruse was a success for another year. So, with happy thoughts for the rest of the day to come, Leo drifted off back to sleep.