Archive of Our Own

2020

Eduardo is a list of strengths and weaknesses in Kylian’s head. Quick, agile, smart on the ball, smart off the ball, extremely left-footed. Youngest something something something in Rennais. Youngest something something something in the league. An asterisk next to the name― noteworthy. Another one― targeted by Real Madrid. In reality, from the same side of the pitch and wearing the same colors, he’s starry-eyed, and he doesn’t hide: from the veterans, the ball, responsibility. Clairefontaine is a crossroad for a lot of players, but every once in a while you look at some and know they’ll stay a while. That’s how everyone looks at him. That’s how everyone looked at Kylian, too.

Kylian isn’t, can't be a― whatever Eduardo thinks he sees when he looks at him. He would delegate the boy to someone or the other; he should, even ― Eduardo hasn’t risen through the ranks with them, hasn’t made friends along the way; he went into the first team immediately ― except he can’t really be bothered, and besides, there’s no need yet. Eduardo’s too unpredictable for Didier’s tastes, and Paul will be back. It’ll be a while before he starts getting regular call-ups and becomes Kylian’s problem.

2021

Aurélien is Paul’s shadow with a nose in some basketball player’s autobiography that doesn’t let Kylian breathe during their first scrimmage, dispossessing and intercepting and tackling left and right.

“You little fucker,” Kylian says when he’s lifted from the grass, but he has to look up to say it.

The little fucker in question shrugs. “Should’ve been faster. I thought that’s your whole thing?”

Kylian scores a goal, and another one, and lifts two fingers in the air after everyone swarms him, staring right at Aurélien. Gets flipped off for his trouble.

2022

They both go to Madrid a year after they start playing with Kylian for France. Something poetic in that, Kylian guesses. He builds a barrier in his head, so tall that none of his― feelings can reach them. Builds a barrier the size of the Pyrenees.

They can be coworkers while with the national team, they don’t have to be friends. Kylian decides it as his timer runs out and starts ringing obnoxiously; despite the noise he curls the shot right into the top left corner without watching, finally feeling calm, like he could maybe even rest. The sweat drips all over him, salty on his lips, burning in his eyes. Abracitos y besitos,¹ Kylian will say if they ever ask, and they will understand.

2022, pre World Cup

He nods absentmindedly, humming here and there, only half listening to the conversation. It’s usually enough, half of his attention span, and he can freely use the other half to mentally jot down the details and the things to improve and to think about later. The team is good, clicking, but there will be a lot of new pieces, players Kylian isn’t fully familiar with. He’ll need to watch their games, and he’ll―

That’s why it’s surprising: the topic change. Snaps Kylian straight out of his mussing. He stops pulling on the compression socks and looks up.

“I didn't think he'd leave immediately. It's a lot, filling Casemiro's shoes,” Aurélien says.

The pit opens inside Kylian, vast and unending, always lurking, dormant, ready to rear its head. It’s the suddenness of it― that he wasn’t ready, his walls weren’t up― that catches him off guard. He doesn’t have the time to school his face.

“I don't think I can― I don't think I want. I just want to be me. And―” Aurélien looks up too, from where he's uselessly folding and unfolding his shirt, sitting on the bench across from Kylian, the two of them the last ones in the dressing room. He finds whatever's Kylian’s expression, and it makes him zip up, the new and sudden youngness disappearing from his face like it was never there, before Kylian had the time to catalog it.

It takes a lot to show shame. It's worse, showing the vulnerability below it. Kylian is supposed to be the link between the veterans and the children. Kylian's supposed to be this― a pilar, a support system. The captain, someday soon. “I'm―”

“No. No, it's fine. That was. Inconsiderate. I'm― I'll talk to someone else. You're not my counselor.”

“I can be,” Kylian says, but he's lying, and Aurélien seems to clock it immediately with his smart eyes, and how he huffs and rolls them.

Kylian can be. Of course he can; he has to. Just not for someone wearing his shoes. His skin. His club. What was supposed to be Kylian’s shoes, skin, and club. And what would he know about Madrid? What would he know about how to nurture a career there?

“It's good enough that you let me be boring about my game,” Aurélien smiles. “You don't have to listen about all my problems too.”

“I want you to be comfortable coming to me for...” Kylian starts reciting the speech the coach repeated again and again until he felt he knew it by heart― all the stupid empty words.

When Kylian started to play with the first team, all the older players said it to him, but he never went to anyone with his problems, preferring to fix them alone― find a path, or make one. Like that, how's he supposed to be the support system, the welcoming arms, the listening ear?

“I am comfortable,” Aurélien interrupts. “I am comfortable,” he repeats, seeing, somehow, everything Kylian's not saying. “That's why I'm talking to you. We're all comfortable.”

“Okay. Okay.” Kylian picks up his bag and stands up. “Hurry up, the bus is waiting.” He doesn’t wait for an answer, walking out of the dressing room with his socks half pulled on and his shoes untied.

*

The stars haven’t disappeared from Eduardo’s eyes.

Kylian observes the newcomers and goes to Ibou. Ibou is a defender. Defenders―

“I'll take him,” Ibou says, rolling his eyes. “Cama's a good kid.”

“Yes. He's a good player too.”

“Yes,” Ibou mocks. “We all know what matters the most,” he continues, but it's fond and he's laughing, and he yanks Kylian sideways and tucks him under his arm, warm and strong and easily affectionate, and this is why Kylian likes him. And why Eduardo should too.

“Just... keep an eye on him.”

Ibou will, but he doesn’t even have to. Eduardo’s doing just fine on his own, making connections and integrating into the group.

“Sure, sure,” Ibou sighs. “Told you I will.” He takes the remote from Kylian and turns up the volume. They keep watching the movie.

2022, World Cup

Ousmane left them a while ago and Kylian should leave too, really, but Aurélien nutmegged him at practice today and looked so very smug about it later, and Kylian’s maybe just the tiniest bit missed the little smartass. Wants to stay. Wants to leave. Feels pointless, trying and failing to keep the distance. It would be easier if Aurélien was more like Eduardo. He hopes it doesn’t show on his face, but, of course―

“I’m not a child,” Aurélien says conversationally, bending over the pool table to find a better angle.

Kylian grits his teeth but stays silent. Won’t deign that with a response. He leans on his cue and waits for his turn, which probably won’t arrive as Aurélien seems a lot better at pool than he led them to believe.

The tense silence remains, only the sounds of the game breaking it, or maybe making it worse. They were laughing just twenty minutes ago. Kylian itches for―

“I'm barely over a year younger than you,” Aurélien snaps, running out of patience and contradicting himself, after he sinks the last striped ball and looks up. The cue ball moves slightly to the right on a perfect tangent and stops, hit without spin. “There's a degree of separation here that you're forcing. I don't know if it is to protect yourself or out of some misplaced sense of duty or whatever. But, I want you to know I see it. And I don't like it. Three.”

He moves around the table and leans over again, sending the 8 ball to the third sinkhole in a swift, effortlessly looking move, like he's making a pinpoint pass to Kylian, and grins. It’s a stop shot too; the cue ball doesn’t move an inch after the impact. Of course he’s good at pool, the little show-off. He straightens up and aims his shrewd, all-seeing eyes at Kylian.

“Maybe I just don't like you,” Kylian says.

“Everyone likes me,” Aurélien replies, and the confidence is easy and genuine. That's what makes it irresistible.

Kylian bites his cheek to hide a smile.

“Another? Or you'll run?” The again remains unsaid, but it's right there, palpable in the air.

Kylian likes to think he never runs from things, except he does, from these perpetually white-shadowed children. His competitiveness wins over, though, and he says, “Well, I do need to beat you.”

“You can try.”

When they stand in front of Aurélien's room after, Kylian walks into the hug and tucks his head neatly under Aurélien's chin. Aurélien huffs and hugs him, and it makes Kylian feel settled in a way he only gets while he's playing.

“What?” Kylian asks.

“Nothing.”

*

Kylian doesn't even know what he's doing there. The room might as well be empty. They're probably with their families. He was with his family too, left a warm body in his bed, and now he stares at the wooden door, waiting for it to open, wishing it was a bit shittier hotel so he could hear or see anything inside. At least a hint if it's empty.

He doesn't know what he's doing there, except he does. He needs a hazy promise of soon. He needs to be close to something good, touch the incorporeal dream, and ground himself into something, anything. This is the closest it gets. Second-hand belonging.

He grinds his teeth uselessly, feeling like he could chew through wood, or silver, or his golden boot of failure.

It's not empty.

The next second, Eduardo opens the door, haphazardly putting on a shirt. He tugs it down over his boxers and freezes when he sees Kylian. Blinks. There's a pillow imprint on the side of his face; his eyes are puffy and red.

“I'm so proud of you,” comes out of Kylian’s mouth before he can think it through.

Eduardo blinks again, rubs his eyes, and looks up and down the hallway. “Is this the mandatory ‘I'm proud of you’ rounds?” He asks. “We already had that in the dressing room. I don't need platitudes, thank you.”

Kylian huffs. “I'm― no. Everyone's with their families. I was too. I didn't go anywhere else. I don't really have anything else to―” He spreads his arms wide to gesture to his shitty persona, the only thing that's left, and implores Eduardo silently: see me as I am, please, see me as I am. He doesn't have it in himself to entertain fanboyishness and idolizing. He―

Eduardo kicks him in the ankle, just as clumsy as Kylian in their little thing. He saw Kylian cry and break and become human. Maybe― “What, then?”

“Not going to invite me in?”

Eduardo looks behind himself.

“What, again? We already had this talk. I'm still not a snitch.”

Eduardo rolls his eyes, still staring behind himself. “I'm just not sure― Aurél?” He asks.

There's silence, and then shuffling like someone in the bed is moving. Eduardo's cheek twitches, and he opens the door and gestures Kylian in.

Kylian enters and finds Aurélien wrapped in the blankets like a burrito, only his eyes peeking out. “Hi, Aurél.”

Kylian's carried the weight of missed penalties. There's a lot he blamed everyone for about the entire shitshow, but missing a penalty isn't a cause for blame. Aurélien cried, at some point in the night, and Kylian held him and talked ultimately meaningless things until he stopped, absentmindedly wondering how someone that large could turn tiny in defeat, and then sent him to his family and advised him to get drunk. Against his will, because he felt almost apart from himself, reluctant to be left alone, like as long as he’s dealing with someone else he wouldn’t have to turn inside and deal with whatever’s happening there. Kylian’s freshly put-on t-shirt was wet with snot and tears, and he wiped Aurélien's face with it and sent him on the way.

Aurélien sniffs. His eyes are all-seeing even when glazed over with alcohol, and his lips curl beneath the blankets; Kylian recognizes the you're-being-Dramatic-again-Kylian grimace, even with his face half hidden. He closes his eyes, dismissing Kylian.

Kylian wishes Eduardo was more like Aurélien. Maybe one person to see you and like you still is too much. Maybe asking for two―

Kylian looks to Eduardo, but he just shrugs. He removes their clothes from the chair in the corner, drops them to the floor to make a place for Kylian, and then flops back on the bed. An arm peaks out from the burrito and tangles into his shirt.

Eduardo leans back on his elbows and spreads his legs, looks at Kylian, and then at the chair.

Kylian sits.

“I invited you in.”

“You did. I am proud of you. You changed the game. You haven’t crumbled under pressure. If we had eleven of you...” Kylian smiles, and it feels brittle on his face, but it's a smile.

“We'd score zero pens. I'm not a shooter.” Eduardo tries a smile too, but it's half-hearted, gone as soon as it shows up. “It's done. We lost,” he bites off. “Thinking now won't change that.”

“Is that what they teach you, there?” Kylian asks, circling the medal haphazardly thrown on the table, in the midst of jewellery and chargers and empty scotch glasses and headphones and deodorant and body lotions.

“We don't lose finals, there,” Eduardo says, firm, but not rising to match Kylian's caustic tone. Or, well, falling. It's the first time he’s talking back to Kylian outside of the pitch and board games.

Kylian would usually feel something at that, but now he just feels numb. Has for hours.

Aurélien makes a stupid-sounding hum, and Eduardo twitches from a stare-off with Kylian, like he just remembered they’re not alone. He twists his head, his face grows absurdly soft, he bends down close to the burrito's opening, his locs shielding them from view, and mumbles something so low Kylian can't catch it even in the dead silence of the room.

When he straightens up, all the sharpness has left him. Kylian tries and fails to mourn the loss. He’s too busy mourning himself.

“I don't want to fight,” Eduardo says.

Kylian tilts his head, conceding. “That's nothing new. Can I sleep here?” He asks.

Eduardo's eyes comically widen, and he opens his mouth, but Aurélien pulls over to the side and pulls him with. Eduardo shrugs, and shuffles lower, making a space for Kylian at the side of the bed.

Kylian takes off his slippers and flops in the space without much ado. The bed smells like the softener the entire hotel uses and body lotion and whiskey. There are only two pillows; the rest are piled at the bottom, but nobody bothers to take them.

Kylian doesn't know what he's been thinking, except that he hasn't, really. He lies on his back and stares at the ceiling, and it is still a lot more uncomfortable than it has any right to be. Kylian usually doesn't know how to back down from things, but he considers now, and then Eduardo pulls off his shirt, throws it somewhere aside, turns his back to him, wrapping around Aurélien, and suddenly he can inhale again.

Aurélien curls into himself and into Eduardo until he's all swallowed up. “In the morning,” he starts, his voice muffled and grave and slurring.

It's already morning, the day rising new and ruthless and uncaring over their loss. Kylian glimpsed it as he was arriving here, but in the room, the blinds are drawn tight and it's dark except for the lamp.

As Kylian opens his mouth, Eduardo beats him to it. He huffs, and there's a smacked kiss and, “Sleep, Aurél,” he whispers. He finds a blanket twisted somewhere and throws it over himself and Kylian.

Kylian helps spread it nicely, then turns off the lamp. The line of Eduardo’s back is bare, warm, and inviting. Kylian has always taken a mile when given an inch. He taps him to be sure, though, and Eduardo twists his arm behind himself and pulls Kylian in. Kylian comes, willing.

Eduardo's bony and lean and muscled and firm, not a hint of excess anywhere. He melts into Kylian's bulk, and Kylian sticks his nose into his back. He smells like he always does first thing coming into Clairefontaine: summery, light, and sunny. Madrid doesn't have a scent; that's stupid, but in Kylian's head it smells just like this. Kylian feels his throat close up for the billionth time that night. Just when he thought it was all over. His breath hitches.

Eduardo takes Kylian’s arm and wraps it around his torso, squeezes Kylian's wrist, and whispers, “Soon,” like a promise, like a brand, there in the dark. A glimpse of sunrise on the horizon. He allows Kylian the grace of weakness.

Kylian closes his eyes and, for the first time that night, doesn’t see the game replaying behind them. He sleeps.

2023

Eduardo is― difficult.

“Cama'll be a minute,” Aurélien says after he checks the notification on his phone.

Kylian straightens from where he was bent over the pool table. “I should,” he starts.

“Why are you so scared of him?” Aurélien asks, cutting right through the bullshit, as is his wont, because apparently they can’t ever play a normal game of pool.

He's like Kylian like that. Kylian imagines that if nothing was eating him from the inside, he could've grown to be just this. This grounding and brilliant and tall and strong. As such, he's just Kylian.

“I'm not scared of him. He's a child. I like him just enough. I made myself a safe place for him,” he accuses, because he knows he did. And it's easier to attack when pushed into a corner.

“I didn't say you didn't. You're a great captain, just like you're great in everything else. But you keep him at arm's length.”

“I don't―”

Aurélien stares intently.

“I do,” Kylian folds. “He's― too much.”

Aurélien's gaze sharpens into something unpleasant.

Kylian sighs. “Not―” He tries correcting himself. “He's too―”

Aurélien cocks his head. No child should have the right to make Kylian feel this bare.

I started learning Spanish when I was a child, he wants to say, suddenly. Do you understand? It's not something you say, of course. “He has. Everything. It hurts to look at,” he acquiesces instead.

Eduardo is. Too much. Too nonchalant with everything Kylian would hold like the most precious thing he has. He's got everything Kylian bled and hurt and longed and longs for, doesn't know it, and treats it with the carelessness of someone who never knew loss. He's a child. He's a joyous child, but a child. Alone people hate people who aren't alone. Sick people hate the healthy. Kylian hates Eduardo. Hates himself for hating him. There's something incredibly egoistic inside of Kylian that looks at him and only sees that could've been me. It's a circle. It's a circus.

“You underestimate him,” Aurélien says, and as Kylian opens his mouth to fight, he adds, “but that's not my problem.”

Eduardo opens the door at that point, humming some song or the other, and grins when he sees them. Aurélien turns towards him like Kylian has ceased to exist.

Kylian rolls his eyes and lays his cue down on the table. He pulls a hand down Aurélien's arm in goodbye and walks towards the door.

“Going?” Eduardo asks; something knowing and resigned in his voice.

Maybe Kylian is underestimating him. Picking it apart would be a masochistic thing to do. Kylian isn't a masochist, unfortunately.

Kylian clasps his shoulder as he's walking by, and Eduardo leans into the touch. “Captain's duties,” he lies.

Eduardo deliberately looks at the clock that says half past eleven and then squeezes Kylian's wrist, allowing him the grace of the lie.

Maybe Kylian is underestimating him.

Maybe these children deserve the best of him. It would be easier if they were insignificant. It would be easier if he could give them the light-hearted parts, as he does to Marcus or Ousmane. The support system and an older brother, like he does to Bradley and Warren. It would be easier if there wasn't a permanent white shadow on them, tainting and taunting and tempting.

Maybe these children deserve him better, but it can never be simple with them. There's an expiration date to this, though, Kylian knows. Kylian― hopes. There's an expiration date to the hardness and the madness. One day Kylian will be theirs, like he can never be like this, longing from the outside. And when that day comes, maybe they forgive his clumsiness and the walls he built because he's not a masochist, no matter how much he tries.

Aurélien sees Kylian for exactly who he is, and still finds something awe-inspiring and worshipful inside of him. It scares Kylian shitless. He sees Kylian stare at Eduardo with naked awe and jealousy and become clumsy and avoidant when faced with him, and still looks people dead in the eye, calls Kylian the best there is, and doesn’t mean football alone.

Eduardo doesn't see and doesn't know because he hasn't longed until the longing became a warped and misshapen thing, until it grew with and into Kylian, until he can't look in the mirror and separate himself from it. Kylian hopes he never learns it. Kylian hopes he never has to long enough to see the emotion on Kylian's face and recognise it plain.

Kylian made sure there's something for every one of his players, something that binds― that's not football. He can talk about sports and fashion and pets and games and movies and books and basketball and music. He makes sure there's common ground in every relationship. Kylian is a good captain. A captain he needed when he arrived here. So, a captain he became.

He comes to Eduardo and runs away, skittish, always at some point. Eduardo allows him the grace of his strange behaviors, comings and goings, and has it in himself to welcome Kylian back with open arms and a grinning mouth every time. Kylian's allowed plenty. He doesn't know how to handle it.

*

“Bah, t'abuses, vraiment,” he laughs. Rewinds the video so he can watch again. Switches to Spanish, saying, “You shouldn't have hit it with the ouside―”

Vini interrupts. “¡Lo sé, lo sé! Pero quería trivela.”

Kylian watches all the games anyway; would watch them even without― this. But it's good, occasionally chatting with someone who was there. Occasionally chatting with Vini.

2024, pre Euros

Mike yells to shut up, and everyone in the dressing room does immediately, because Mike is― Mike. Mike. Goalies are the last men at your back, people you trust with your life. Captains.

When all is quiet, Mike silently turns to Kylian, and everyone else follows.

Wingers are fickle and peculiar creatures. Kylian transitioned from winger to 9 like he transitioned from brat to captain like he transitioned from child to man like he transitioned from who he is to who he's supposed to be.

He talks.

*

“And my physio... Real’s physio,” Eduardo starts, and then cuts himself off, looking vaguely nauseous. It’s a horrible look. He bends back down to look at the screen.

“And the Madrid physio,” Kylian prompts, after he wrestles with himself. It’s time. To open up. To― try.

“Oh, now you want to talk about it? What's that mean, it's confirmed?”

“Yes,” Kylian says.

Eduardo's head snaps up from his phone so fast Kylian scares for his neck; he stares, and his jaw drops open. “What?” He says, after a couple of moments of gaping like a fish.

“It is. You can't tell anyone, obviously. But yes, I've signed.”

“You― what? When? Why?”

“It's― complicated.”

Eduardo recovers from his shock quickly and then rolls his eyes like that was the answer he expected. He starts getting up to leave.

“We can meet in the UCL, still,” Kylian blurts out the simplest reason.

“No,” Eduardo says, simply. He flops back on the chair. “We're winning the UCL.”

What rises in Kylian is what always rises in him: a mix of anger and jealousy and want and envy and temptation―

“And what if we win?”

Eduardo shrugs, but you won't is plain there on his face, and even plainer how he tries to hide it still.

“And what if we win?” Kylian repeats.

Eduardo stares, keeps staring, and finally says, “If we meet in the final, you won't win. But you aren't making it to the final.”

Kylian grips the handrest of his chair when the complicated coils inside of him uncoil and settle into firm and familiar competitiveness, anticipation, and challenge. He grins. He doesn't want people to fold to him. He wants―

Eduardo stares and stares and, “You're insane,” is what he settles on, nodding compassionately. Then he grins and says, “Good. I was starting to forget.”

And vindication suits him more than blind adoration.

Kylian shoots up from the chair, but he isn't sure where to. Needs the pitch. It’s not even fully dark yet; maybe he could―

“Pack that when you come,” Eduardo finishes, and he’s laughing, standing up too. “You’ll need it,” he winks, the little fucker, hitting Kylian’s bicep with the back of his open palm.

“Don’t 'little bro' me,” Kylian snaps.

Eduardo rolls his eyes. “You’ll need it, captain. Let's pool, or something.”

“I―”

Eduardo sighs, dramatically, like he does everything else, rolling his eyes again. “Ah, maybe if I was Barcola,” he says, turning on his heel and walking backwards towards the table. “Is it the PSG exclusive? Is it a club-only membership? The World Cup winners squad? Is it―”

“Bradley is a child!” Kylian snaps. “He needs me.”

“I'm younger than him!”

“You―” Kylian starts and then sighs, defeated. “You are. We can fucking pool.”

*

“Bellingham?” Kylian asks when he puts his meal on the table, gesturing to Eduardo with his eyes. He's sitting at the stairs outside, talking to someone, grinning at his phone.

Aurélien shrugs, looking up from the book he was reading. “Could be anyone. Vini. Rodrygo. Pintus. He's strange like that.”

“Also Bellingham.”

Aurélien knocks a foot into him below the table. “Also Bellingham,” he concedes.

“Is he―” Kylian starts but can't finish, so he wrestles the book from Aurélien's hands.

Bellingham is a question mark, a supporting character in almost all of Vini’s stories, always there. A palpable fondness in the way Vini says his name. A main character in the league campaign, in the press. An unknown.

The book is just another one of psychology, mentality, winnery genre so Kylian returns it immediately.

Aurélien looks up at him, measuring and questioning. Do you really want to do this, his eyes ask.

Kylian shrugs and doesn't say anything when an apple gets stolen from his plate.

“He's―” Aurélien tries, and his face goes soft and a little admiring. “He's Jude,” he finally says. “You'll have to see for yourself.”

2024, Euros

When the sixth ring sounds ― and he isn't counting, except he's drumming his fingers on the fence, and it's easier to do in a rhythm ― he thinks of hanging up. The list of people he'd answer to in that situation is embarrassingly small. He starts noting the names in his head, and then...

“Kylian?”

He inhales. Calls in his captain voice. It's easier to do when he's in Clairefontaine. “Congratulations,” he says, hoping it sounds as genuine as he feels.

The noise on the other side dies down as Aurélien walks somewhere more private, probably. “Thank you,” he says, still sounding surprised.

“I― you earned this. It's yours,” Kylian says, thinking of the restlessness Aurélien showed the last time they talked, because he'll miss his first UCL final.

“I know,” Aurélien replies, laughing. “I'm fine, I promise. More than fine,” and it’s there, suddenly, the joy, something boyish in his voice.

Kylian laughs too and feels it to be true. “Yeah. Okay. Congratulations,” he repeats, quieter, losing the captain's voice. Letting the bareness show.

“Yeah,” Aurél repeats. “Thanks. You'll be here the next time too, eh?”

Just as Kylian’s preparing to say that’s not why he’s called, and this isn’t about him, the doors on Aurél’s side slam open, a loud sudden noise, and then the barrage of music and cheers and yelling and laughter spills over again.

Madrid doesn't have a sound; that's stupid. But in Kylian's head, it sounds something like this. Aurél's laugh and “putain de merde” tossed someone's way, and Kylian's own heartbeat deafening in his ears, the rush of his blood, the noise of it, just like the noise of a stadium exploding in cheers, the noise of his teammates drunk on victory all around him.

*

“Is that my Vini?” Aurélien asks when the screen lights up with a WhatsApp notification, and indeed, Vini's picture shows up.

Kylian flips the phone over and says, “Jealous? Go back to the video.”

Aurélien laughs and ducks Kylian's hit. “No! I knew you chatted, but― every day? And WhatsApp? Not like, Snap or Instagram? So, it's serious?" He asks, trying and failing to wiggle his eyebrows.

“Fuck off. And I don't text people on Instagram.”

“Why not?”

“Because I'm not sixteen.”

“Aw, because of your PR person,” Aurélien continues. “I keep forgetting. Do they have all your passwords? That's sick, man.”

Kylian bristles for reasons he won't observe closely. He’s mostly used to “let’s go out, just me, you, and your bodyguard” jokes. Hell, he makes them himself. But this particular time... and Aurélien notices, of course, knocks their shoulders together in apology.

“Never mind. Does he send you memes? Tiktoks? Are you in a group chat? Oh my god, are you in a group chat? With Brazilians? With Jude?”

Kylian leans over and lands the hit, this time. “No! No. Go back to the videos, I said.”

“Why are you so strange about it? Maybe you should make a group chat. I'll text Ju―”

“No! I don't want group chats! Leave it.”

Aurélien raises his arms in the air. “Christ. Fine.” He resumes the video and returns his eyes to the screen.

Just when Kylian is getting his mind back on track, focusing on football playing on the screen, “I do think it's a good idea, though,” Aurélien whispers.

Kylian finds his thigh flash quickly, bare in his short shorts, and pinches the inside hard.

“Oi!” He yells, and then his eyes go wide.

Kylian shrieks and bends over laughing. “L'Angliche !” he screams, clapping his hands.

Aurélien rolls his eyes. “It's contagious,” he defends himself. ”You'll see soon enough. You know. When you make a group chat over the summer.”

Kylian's mirth disappears as soon as it arrived. He abandons the videos and jumps over to Aurélien, getting him into a headlock. Aurélien could resist but doesn't; he lifts his chin even higher up, accommodating Kylian's arm, laughing.

Stupid, stupid, trusting child. Kylian likes him, but you can never trust someone too much. Kylian had trusted, unquestionably and unendingly, when he was a stupid child. He'll make sure these children don't learn not to trust from him, but the others― Kylian can't protect them from the others.

His phone rings again.

He can't pinpoint the exact moment the occasional chats turned to regular chats to memes and TikToks to calls to video calls to game analyses. Can't pinpoint the exact moment Vini's voice went from screechy and uncomfortable and itchy to welcome and familiar.

Kylian gentles the hold and settles behind Aurél on the sofa, tugging his ear. He wants―

Aurél slumps backwards into him. Stupid, stupid child.

Kylian makes the chokehold a hug.

*

“So, again. I enter. To the right are the offices. To the left, press and shooting rooms. The furthest down the restaurant, and from there― fuck. What from there? I might actually need a map.”

“Like fuck I'm drawing you a map,” Aurél says, at the same time as Eduardo's, “From there, the terraces and the pitch entrances. We mostly use the first and second pitches, the rest only occasionally.”

“Okay, alright,” Kylian says. He feels he might actually even remember it if his nose wasn’t hurting like a bitch and irritating him to no end.

“And that restaurant isn't really the one we use. I don't even know if it works all the time?” Eduardo looks at Aurél questioningly.

“I don't know. But yeah, we mostly eat upstairs, in the smaller one.”

“Why?“ Kylian asks.

They look at each other and then shrug.

“I don't know, actually,” Aurél says. “Why?” He asks Eduardo.

“Well, I don't know why! I arrived, and Marce was giving me a tour, and he said, 'This is a restaurant, but we mostly eat up', and I said, 'Fine', and that's that.”

“And you didn't ask why?”

“Oh my god, no, I didn't ask why. I had more important questions than the usage and the location and the exact coordinates of every single room in the fucking complex,” he says, giving Kylian a dirty side-eye. He's lying on the sofa with his head in Aurél's lap, so it isn't really effective. Aurél pulls his ear, and he yelps.

“But why, though?” Aurél persists. He's definitely Kylian's favorite.

They look at each other again. “Well, it's more―” Eduardo starts and gestures something with his hand.

“Yeah. Formal.”

“Yes! Like―”

“Yeah. All together.”

They conclude whatever it is from that meaningless conversation, and Eduardo nods, satisfied, and Kylian persists the staring until they realize he isn't included in their little mind-sharing thing.

Aurél smiles down into his lap, huffing, and then looks away and up, straight into Kylian. He bites off the smile. “Right. It's for more formal meals, I guess. Like before a big game, when we're all sleeping over in Valdebebas, we have dinner and breakfast there all together. It's a big table, and we all fit, and you know.”

“Upstairs is more casual,” Eduardo continues. “There's more tables and smaller ones, so we come in groups as we're finishing the training, and not everyone wants to eat at the same time or at all, and you can play cards or something too, and... Yeah.”

“Okay. Okay. But I'd really like that map. It doesn't have to be too detailed―”

Aurél sighs with the force of someone nearing the edge of the shit they can take and looks up at the ceiling. He might not be Kylian's favorite.

Eduardo only rolls his eyes. “You don't need a map! Someone, a lot of someones, will be there for the presentation to answer all of your questions. You'll get a tour. And when the season starts, there'll be even more people ready to answer all of your questions, and we'll be there too.”

“But―”

“No maps! Ask everything you want. But I'm not drawing a map like I have a school project.”

Kylian rolls his eyes, tries to inhale, but can’t. Knows what he smells like despite that, what he always does, grass and dirt and blood, even if he hasn’t touched the pitch in what feels like years but is realistically only hours. “Fine. I'll make a list,” he says poisonously; tries to, but it only comes out sounding nasal and strange.

They burst out laughing.

Kylian shoves down the frustration of third wheeling, of not being in on their little fucking inside jokes, reminding himself he cooked up this distance singlehandedly and he has to be the one to breach it. Reminding himself he won't be an outsider soon.

Soon.

2024, after Euros

“Home,” he tests when he shrugs on the kit, staring at himself in the mirror. The staff gave him a moment alone before they’d return for more pictures.

It doesn't sound correct.

“Maison,” he tries next, grimacing immediately after.

He rolls his shoulders and follows the Adidas lines on the sleeves with his eyes. They look strange on him. He bends his knees, twists his ankles, and finds his balance, the center of gravity. Knows what he needs to say, but―

“Casa,” comes out small and tender, like a healing bruise, like new skin over a scabbed wound. Kylian feels scrubbed raw, clean, and delicate― stumbling, making his first steps after an injury.

*

They sit, waiting for Cama to finish, and their turn for a medical checkup, and their legs bounce. Jude rolls his shoulder and makes an aborted gesture towards it, but doesn't touch. For the billionth time. Cama won't be long.

This isn't Los Angeles, where there was music and drinks and darkness and so many people to work as buffers between them.

“Want a tour?” Jude asks, then, needlessly, because Kylian has gotten tours. More than he needed, probably.

Still, he nods.

Jude stands up and rubs his palms on his shorts, like he's nervous. He rolls his shoulder again. Is it a habit? Does it bother him? Kylian wants to question the nervousness, but there's an unrest in his feet too. He wants a ball between them. He wants a pitch. The best communication tool to open the floodgates is something they have in common. What if not playing?

Kylian needs to prove – to this megalomaniac child in front of him and everyone else – that he has a place here. The rush to do it is not unfamiliar or unexpected, but it leaves him untethered. Kylian is hungry to prove himself. Kylian is hungry to play. Kylian is hungry―

Cama won't be long.

Jude walks Valdebebas halls like he owns them. He acts like he's showing Kylian around his house. It itches in that peculiar way Kylian's long become familiar with, like when Sergio or Keylor or Aurél or Cama talked about Madrid, and he infused and hung onto the words like they could heal the jealousy and warped desire growing inside of him.

There's mi in front of Madrid whenever Sergio mentions it. He was wearing Kylian's boy club crest and calling another club his. Kylian wished he could abhor it, like he did everyone who wasn't loyal to him and his. Kylian wished he could abhor it, but instead― instead, he just clung. To his undestined Capi. To the hazy promise of "soon." Sergio doesn’t talk about Madrid a lot except for the way that he is Madrid. Kylian clung.

Keylor speaks of it fondly. Aurél doesn't speak of it at all if he can help it, because he's the most mindful person in the world. Cama talks about it with a casual sense of belonging.

Listening didn't heal; it only made it worse. Like offering a starving man the scent of freshly made food― only the scent. Like watching games injured from the bed. That's why Kylian didn't listen, for the longest time.

Jude walks the hallways of Valdebebas like he owns them. It's different from Aurél, who walks surefooted wherever you put him. It's different from Cama, who's careless with his possessiveness like he's careless with everything else. Jude's possessiveness seems intentional and pointed. Jude knows this is his. Jude knows Kylian knows too. What's the purpose of cat and mouse games?

Kylian is never in life happy to trail behind someone. He trails Jude, as he walks surefooted, showing Kylian around like Valdebebas is his home and Kylian the intruder.

Jude is five years younger than him. Kylian is the first person to talk about the unimportance of age in the grand scheme of things. Jude is still five years younger than him. Flaunting in front of Kylian, basking, comfortable in the thing Kylian wanted so much and so long it gouged his insides in a permanent shape of longing.

Kylian is here now. Ever since he signed the contract, he shoved the shirt he did it in in his bag, and it went with him to France, to vacation, to back here. He wakes up in the morning and opens a suitcase to touch it and make sure it's real. Kylian is here now. It feels like a dream, but in the worst possible sense, where he's just waiting to wake up and find it all gone.

Kylian and his old club grew together in need until they warped each other on the inside and on the outside. He's tired of carefully walking the edge of the knife, loving what he has because it's the only thing he has, while it's slowly, slowly, bleeding him dry. Kylian loved his club, but it's long become more than a club. They've grown together like two broken things. He hopes that here, he hopes―

Thing is. Kylian is tired. He wants to play football. He wants to find joy in it again. Kylian is a winger. A forward. Resilience comes to him naturally, in life and on the pitch. But he doesn't want to have to be resilient anymore. He wants―

Kylian is tired. There are no power plays left in him. These children can't imagine that, and Kylian abhors them for their innocence and needs to be with them, needs to be them, so it maybe passes onto him too, or he can just bask in its blissful ignorance.

Kylian is tired. He hates trailing people. He trails Jude Bellingham in Valdebebas. He is an intruder still, but he doesn't need to own this. He wants a place. He wants to earn it.

No. No. He'll make and take a place for himself, because that's what he does. But. He just wants―

There's something new and fragile growing inside of him. It was always there, hiding small. A dream. A hope. Beaten and bled and ruthlessly pushed down, now offering its head again somewhere from within him. He pushes it down and down violently to protect it, but it rises again and again on its own, towards―

Jude Bellingham turns around, and it's like he shoved whatever was making him itchy and nervous down, down, where it can't be seen. He grins at Kylian, open and boyish, his entire face smiling. “Why're you that far behind, man?” He asks. He offers an arm to pull Kylian with himself.

Kylian inhales. You're being dramatic again, Kylian, tells himself. Kylian inhales, and then takes it.

*

They’re just people, Kylian tells himself. You’ve played with better. You’ve won against better. You smashed them in practice. You’re the best player in the world.

It doesn’t help.

Kylian knows, has always known, how to thrive under pressure. It hardened him into who he is today. He doesn’t know, though, what to do when the pressure isn’t a crushing weight for him to carry but just a firm nudge in the right direction. He doesn’t know how to be worthy of his biggest desire.

Kylian fights on the pitch where everything is easy and flights with people where everything is hard, but here on the crossroad of the pitch and the people, where both matter equally― he just freezes, overwhelmed.

“Goals will come,” Lucas tells him in passing.

Learning the intricacies and hierarchies of dressing rooms is something Kylian didn't have to do much, but it's a new challenge every time. The amount of pull Lucas has in this dressing room, though, would surprise him if he wasn't obsessive about knowing every possible detail about his club.

He doesn't shy away from it, he nods instead. Listens to the certanity in Lucas' voice. Falls in step with him as they're walking out.

*

“I’ll come. But, man, you picked the worst neighborhood to live in,” Aurél complains.

“Why?”

“Well. There's nothing to do there, just all the houses. No pitches, no malls, no movies, no parks. I'd be bored to tears.”

“Jude lives there too! And Vini, and a bunch of―”

“Well, yeah,” Aurél interrupts, rolling his eyes. “Nothing to do there, except if you're Jude. It's a jackpot for him. It's close to Valdebebas, and he's there all the time anyway. Past 7pm―” He stops, looking at something over Kylian's shoulder. Blinks, closes his mouth, opens it, seems to forget what he was saying.

Kylian turns around too, but there's nothing behind him― just Cama and Jude bent over the table conspiring over Davide's notes from the practice. Since they can't play, they've been trying coaching. Kylian rolls his eyes and shifts to the right till he's blocking Aurél's line of sight. He clears his throat.

Aurél looks at him, tilts his head, and remembers where he was. “In the evening when there's no traffic, there's literally nobody on the streets. But he'll tell you, ’bro, I'm home in five minutes.’” He mimics Jude's English, badly. “Because that’s all that matters for him. Well. Maybe it's the right neighborhood for you, too,” he sasses.

Kylian punches him, picks up his towel, and goes to the shower. When he comes back, Aurél's pretending to read Davide's notes too, his chin hooked over Jude's shoulder.

Kylian looks away. He has a club now. He gets up in the morning— everything else is irrelevant.

*

He adds Rodry’s recommendation to a growing list of: the best wine here, the best seafood there, the best paella, the best coffee, the best, the best... He tries it all, delivered to his house. Sometimes he even lets Brahim drag him out to dinners.

When he sees Cama throwing away a box and licking what looks like jam from his fingers, he gags first and wiggles his eyebrows in question second, expecting the name of the bakery so he can forward it to someone and get them to bring him the pastries.

What he gets is a middle finger and a wink to mellow it out.

Tomorrow, there’s a wrapped-up balaclava in his locker, and there’s no note or anything, but it almost screams, ’Go out, explore for yourself.’ He doesn’t look at Eduardo, but he shoves it to the bottom of his bag.

“There’s a life to be found here, I think,” his mom says the same day, staring through the tinted windows of their car. “Of course, if you look.”

*

It's Jude, of all people, that finds him.

“Tchou sent me,” he says, shrugging innocently, his hands in the front pocket of the too big hoodie he’s wearing.

Kylian rolls his eyes. “Le fouineur.”

“Yeah, meddler.” He stands next to Kylian, close enough their shoulders brush. “I know it by heart,” he says, gesturing with his chin to the panel.

“Lie,” Kylian says, just to say something. Stands still and kills the unrest in his feet that takes him either here or to the pitch. He can’t have the pitch. He just played.

Jude shoulders him away from the panel, laughing, turns his back to it, and stares straight at Kylian. He goes prim and important and starts reciting, “A genius. Zinedine Zidane marked an era in world football with his elegance and technical skills. Blessed with natural talent for this sport, the French midfielder won everything that could possibly be won, both with his clubs as well as—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kylian interrupts, laughing. It matches the text on the wall exactly.

“—the French national team,” Jude continues, undeterred, talking louder over Kylian's laugh. “A magical player who—”

“Fine!” Kylian yells, raising his arms in surrender. “You won! You know it! Nerd,” he adds under his breath.

Jude laughs, smug, and then turns back around till they're shoulder to shoulder again, staring at Zizou's picture. “It can swallow you, the magnitude of it. Shouldn't let it,” he says.

Kylian bristles, pretends he doesn't, his back stiffens. “It's a heavy shirt,” he says finally, after an uncomfortable silence. Chews on it and tries the honesty thing, waring with everything in himself that’s telling him to stay silent. Feels incredibly small and incredibly large at the same time, too tight in his body, like he's putting on a skin he outgrew. Feels it familiar too; the childish need to not be the best and strongest person in every room.

“It's really not,” Jude says, apparently trying the honesty thing too. It itches, but in a good way. Kylian will take it over fake compassion any day.

Carlo told them they have to be honest with each other. Use words and express their expectations and frustrations, and not rely on platitudes.

Jude continues, “It's the easiest thing in the world, you'll see. Just have to let it in. Let it all in. Give yourself to it, you know what I mean?”

Kylian exhales and feels the exhaustion finally settle, right and familiar and earned, after a game.

*

Maybe it was the time, or maybe he's grown, or maybe it was Vini, of all people, that mellowed him out. Maybe he started believing, through him, that goodness doesn't necessarily have to be naivete and that joy isn't always a mask for the ugliness underneath. That betrayal isn't waiting literally everywhere. Maybe it started mending something inside of Kylian that someone else broke, the― picture of a teammate.

Vini yells, “Caralho,” and, “puta que pariu,” all over the dressing room, because he loves cursing in Portuguese, and then drops a protein shake into Kylian’s lap when he walks by. The chocolate one, the one Kylian prefers, because it tastes slightly less like shit.

It’s then that Fede starts lecturing, low and pissed off, and Rüdiger picks it up after.

Kylian looks down into his lap and feels, absurdly, that everything will be just fine.

*

The sun rises in Valdebebas.

Kylian probably isn’t alone in the complex, but that’s how it feels. He sits on the ground at the foot of his bed and stares through the window.

The pitches are right there. If he goes out for rounds of shooting, someone will reprimand him because he should rest. When he goes to the restaurant to have breakfast, there will be a meal he likes to eat. When Carlo finds him after he’s done with Pintus and the physios, they’ll go to the video room and watch endless videos of strikers’ movement and link-up play. When Vini finds them, he’ll join and natter until Carlo eventually lets them play. Later, they’ll sneak around Valdebebas like children, like yesterday.

For the moment, it feels like bliss. Like a bubble where nothing gets to touch him. He clasps his hands in his lap and closes his eyes; he lets the sun see him and touch him and warm him. For the moment, it feels like everything is golden and he’s golden and he belongs.

For the moment, he believes it.