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He could’ve scored.

He shouldn’t think like this, he knows. Shouldn’t even be thinking about this in the first place. That’s one of the basics they teach you during training: dwelling on the past is pointless. In football, the only way is forward. Crossing the halfway line, outrunning a back three, penetrating into the final third and building around the penalty area across four of the five lines—plowing into the opposition, always, that’s what the game is about. What gets you trophies.

“You know, it could have happened to anyone.”

“I know, Ferran.”

Of course, the future isn’t all there is, and you can’t just ignore the past completely. That’s what the cameras are for, after all; crystallization—or a second crucifixion, if you played like absolute trash that day. Technology is amazing in that sense; you have all these previous matches you can watch over and over again, with all your mistakes immortalized. Brainless dribbles you attempted several hours before, captured and replayed on a small TV screen, that the coach forces you to digest in a locker room reeking of sweat. (Dinner’s ready, boys; on the menu, we have positions to criticize for starters, rainbow flicks to bash for the main course, and free kicks to nit-pick for dessert. Naturally, slide tackles to slander are on the house. Bon appetit!)

It’s brutal, but you accept it—the roast, the blow, the knock. You know it’s always ‘done for your own good.’ A means to prepare for what’s ahead.

Except nothing will come after today, of course.

This was the last game of the competition.

Because he royally fucked up.

“You’re not listening. It’s normal to make these kinds of mistakes. Happens all the fucking time.”

“At this stage of the competition, no, it doesn’t.”

“Yes, it does. Did you even watch the latest World Cup final? Remember what happened in the 123^rd minute?”

“Are you comparing me to Kolo Muani right now?”

“I’m just saying—it could’ve been way worse.”

“Right.”

Passive. Sluggish. Adjectives people don’t usually associate with him, but there’s no other way to describe it.

The sudden numbness in his legs when the ball slid past him.

The quiet before the breaking wave drops onto the trough.

He’d seen everything unfold: one of his teammates dribbling past one, two opponents, and feeding the ball to Fermín out to the left; and then the super-sharp one-touch pass from No. 16, the kind of lovely through ball that only seems to work in training, but which somehow ended up exactly where it should be.

Just right there for him to take.

And yet, he didn’t anticipate it. Sped up a millisecond too late. And when he tried to gear up, correct his mistake, and eventually managed to come face to face with the keeper, he just—

—slowed down, instead of plunging.

Why the fuck didn’t he plunge?

“You’re so dramatic sometimes, you know? What you did isn’t even in the top three worst fumbles of our game. I’d say Eric having dick for brains and shooting right at Sommer when he was two meters away from the goal is unequalled.”

“At least he’d scored before that.”

“Doesn’t make him any less of a massive idiot.”

“Ferran…”

“A fucking moron, if you like.”

“Ferran.”

“Ah. He’s right behind me, isn’t he?”

Pedri’s sure people will find plenty of reasons to explain what happened back then. The pass was too long; he’d already run for 95 minutes—plus a thousand more before that; his body betrayed him at the worst possible moment.

It doesn’t matter. These are only excuses, and what he did, or did not, is unforgivable, football-wise. A player’s instinct is to throw everything they have into the game until the end. Who cares if you’re coughing up blood? So what if your knees are threatening to give up at every single step you make? Tough up. There’s the most sought-after cup at stake. Only those who are willing to have their bones shattered with the strain of going all out deserve it.

So. Maybe he just doesn’t have what it takes to be a winner. He’s beginning to come to terms with it, actually—that it’s in his nature. The more he thinks about it, the more obvious it all becomes: looking back, there are just too many times he didn’t put himself fully out there. Didn’t completely commit to something.

A ball too far from him;

or feelings hitting too close to his heart.

“I just hate seeing you so sad, man. 1v1 situations are the worst. We should ban them altogether.”

“Ban an integral part of football?”

“If it makes you less pissy, well, yes. Hermano.”

“Shut up. Are you really trying to talk like Gavi right now?”

“Don’t know. Is it working?”

“Go to hell, Ferran.”

He pulls the hem of his jersey up, wipes the sweat off his face with it. The fabric grates against his skin, rough, unkind, but it’s nothing compared to the shame burning his cheeks.

He was stupid, so stupid. Assumed he could be the one scoring the winner, and bring the trophy home, well, not quite home (white stones surrounded by dragon trees, a church at the center of the village, the smell of pitch trefoil, ripe banana sugar on the tongue) but home nonetheless (his teammates, the club of his heart, the city that welcomed him at sixteen, the boy he fell in love with at twenty).

Yes, he wanted to take it home. But all he managed to achieve was sending his teammates back early, his sitter like a return ticket to somewhere he can’t call anything else but a place to disappear to.

“Gavi wouldn’t say dumb shit like this, just so you know.”

“Oh, I wonder why? Does it have something to do with you not acting like a crybaby when you’re with him?”

Pedri tastes iron in his mouth. It’s ridiculous, how he pictured it so vividly before it even happened—the ball curling into the back of the net, the tell-tale whoosh. In the club, they always joke about players who hit the celly a second too soon, finger guns and shit only to drop their head into their hands when they realize they were offside, or the ball hit the post instead of going in. But he was no better; he imagined the goal so hard he forgot to shoot first.

And, truly, what’s worse—jumping the gun or never pulling the trigger at all?

“What do you want me to say, Pedri? That you should’ve run faster? That you shouldn’t have eaten that second hard-boiled egg at lunch?…”

“I don’t want you to say anything at all.”

“… That Gavi will still look at you with stars in his eyes, even if you literally—and I mean literally—take a dump in the middle of the field? Because he will.”

Of course he will. That’s the fucking problem.

Paralyzed, is what he was. Stunned by the immensity of what that goal would’ve meant. He already saw himself lifting la Orejona up by the ears, and feel the same joy as some legends of the club, Messi, Piqué, Eto’o, Xavi, Iniesta. The storyline would’ve been perfect: the Don Andrés regen leading his team to victory, exactly ten years after Barça’s last UCL trophy. The open-top bus parade from Camp Nou to the Arc de Triomf, the blue and garnet printed wrap decorated with four cups instead of only one or two. All of their faces on the front page of MARCA—no, fuck that, the front page of El País.

“You’re comparing yourself to Iniesta, aren’t you?”

“What is it? Trying to change careers? You want to become a mentalist? Find yourself another test subject.”

“I will. You’re too much of a bitch.”

“Hum.”

“But for what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure Gavi admires you more than he admires him.”

“Why are you even making it about Gavi?”

“Isn’t it always about him, with you?”

If Pedri were more cynical, he’d congratulate himself. He’s done it now, hasn’t he? His name will definitely make it to every newspaper in the country, he’s made sure of it.

Only it’ll be: thrashed/shamed/villainized.

(V-ill-ain-ized; wrong.

Vill-ai-ni-zed; wrong.)

In the back of his mind, he thinks: his agent will have to put off the vacation to Morocco he’s been bragging about for weeks.

Talk about a spoilsport.

—

“You did good, son. Don’t blame yourself, okay?”

Flick cradles his head when he comes off the pitch. Frankly, it makes him feel like a toddler who got bruised for the first time, but Pedri doesn’t have it in himself to complain about the babying, the downright infantilization of the thing. He just wants everything to be over already. Walked away as fast as he could after abiding by the mandatory clapping. No need to linger.

Some of the others do. They catch their breath in the center circle, folded in half, hands on their knees and all. He could’ve stayed with them. Offered some words of comfort, a tap on the back, anything. But he didn’t. Won’t catch him dead as part of this congregation of poster boys for the word ‘losers.’

He knows damn well they’re not just putting on some sad show. They genuinely can’t help feeling this way; the weariness they’ve pushed back until the last minute of the game’s now settling into their bones. His too. But it’s all too awfully cliché, this picture they’re painting of themselves. You can almost read the caption below, the weight of defeat pulling them down, keeping them pinned to the turf, blah, blah, blah. (He saw Raphinha crying as he passed them, and that really drove the final nail in the coffin—he needed to get out of there. Immediately.)

The most masochistic of the bunch pause to take in the arena; commit the feeling to memory, meet the eyes of the 4,000 Barça supporters who are still clapping for them, despite it all. He couldn’t hear them even if he wanted to. The ringing in his ears drowns out everything else, blood pumping against his temples like firecrackers. Just as well. Can’t stand the cheers from the fans who’ve made it all the way from Spain, even though he pulled a stinker.

Losing in Milan. What a shitty way to go.

“Next time. Next time, it’s ours. Yours.”

Flick holds him by the nape, presses the words against his ear. Pedri keeps his arms pinned to his sides. The reassurance this mark of affection used to bring him isn’t so comforting now. Feels like something alien, something he doesn’t deserve.

The coach lets go, gives him one last pat on the shoulder for good measure; the cue for him to head back inside.

He spots his parents on the way, his brother among the crowd. His mouth forms small, inconsequent little excuses of words; “I’ll call you later,” it says, and three condolatory heads nod back. They, too, probably thought things would turn out differently tonight. Supposed they’d come down on the field, dance with the mascot CAT. Have a late dinner at a fancy restaurant, that kind of celebratory moment. Not this; their son’s, brother’s back to them, head down in shame, unable to even utter something as simple as ‘Sorry.’

Fuck. There might be ten million people he disappointed today, if not more. And he’s… okay with it. Mostly. For 99% of them, he’s already buried and mourned the idol he wanted to embody, removed the gilding with sweat and cold water from all those dirty communal showers all around Europe years ago. It’s a sour pill guys like him swallow at twenty: Stop crying, you can’t always meet everyone’s expectations, kiddo. Call it the collapse of the savior complex.

(Comp-lex; wrong.

Com-plex; right.)

Yet, there are a few people—four, to be exact; like the number of times Spain won the Euros, or the scratches on his knees, and how poetic would that be if it wasn’t so disheartening; four people, then, among those several millions. Four people he considers his own, and, as such, who must never view him as anything other than a hero.

It’s not even pride, at this point. Not a matter of honor. Something more sinister, akin to self-preservation. Ego, some might call it; and that’d be pretty close, but not quite right, to label that feeling.

It’s more like this: his people are like cells of his own flesh; bruise one of them and he’ll be the one to bleed.

His; his mother, of course. And his father, and his brother, and—

“Pedri?”

His hand stills on the doorknob at the sound of the too familiar voice. A tick of the clock, a heart drop. He presses his eyelids shut. Nope. Can’t do that.

He opens his eyes again, pushes the door open without looking back. He knows what he’d find if he did; Gavi, searching for him.

The worst. The fucking worst.

—

Back in the locker room, the TV’s cynically turned off. It’s humiliating, almost, how no one’s got any comment to make. Then again, what’s there to say? It’s plain, evident: Fermín, the net, the goalkeeper in between. And him—his inaction, the balance he couldn’t find, the cleats sticking to the turf… so much input for one single truth: he fumbled the most basic assist. Try to draw some lessons from that.

He definitely doesn’t want to watch how the ball went straight to Sommer’s hands again. The guy didn’t even have to sweat a little to block it. Even if Pedri hadn’t been there, it would’ve made no difference.

Would things have worked out if Ferri, or Rapha had gone for the ball instead of him? Maybe. Probably. They wouldn’t have ruined a clear chance at a goal, that’s for certain. Wouldn’t have made the team waste precious seconds to equalize. They—

He derails this train of thought before it rolls any further. Kicks off his sneakers as he slumps on the bench, jaws clenched so hard his teeth start to hurt.

Whatever. Feeling all this pain is good. That’s what he gets for missing an opportunity like this one. If anything, he should make himself bleed.

“Stop sulking,” Ferri chastises him. “We’re being filmed. You don’t want Madridistas to edit your sad face to Que Viva España on TikTok.”

Pedri flips him off, and Ferri flicks his hand with a towel in retaliation. The viscose sticks to his skin. Sweat. Gross.

He wipes his fingers on his shorts and briefly looks around; Ferri wasn’t lying, the staff’s recording everything from the corner of the room.

He wonders what they’ll use the rushes for. If he was optimistic, he’d say a short film. A 10-ish, maybe 15-minute mini-documentary tracing their journey, played back on a giant screen at Camp Nou when they eventually win the Champions League—next season, if Flick’s words are to be believed. A series of black and white footage put together by the PR team, Look where we were; look at us now, that one Coldplay song in the background, and the chants resonating in the whole stadium, El Barça és la nostra vida, yada yada.

So easy.

Unfortunately, he’s nothing if not pathologically pragmatic, and he can’t help but think the images will be out much sooner than that—posted on all social platforms within two months, in a farewell video made for one of the guys. (It’s not something he likes to consider, but it’s inevitable. After tonight’s performance, the board will adjust their plans for the next season and sell or transfer some of them, no doubt. He’s not stupid enough to believe his place is at risk, but it hurts; he’ll still be at least partly responsible for someone’s departure, whoever that might be.)

Still, he schools his expression. Tries to reflect humble repentance, unwavering determination. Ferri’s right; they can’t give the Meringue any satisfaction.

He eyes his friend, checks how he’s adjusting to his own advice. The sight is—well, shit, kind of pathetic; Ferri might have teased him, but he’s not faring better. There’s no crooked smile on his face as he sits on the opposite bench, just a tight line of lips. Pedri’s got to give it to him, though: at least, he’s not sulking.

More slumber faces flock to the room. Each time someone opens the door, he can hear Inter supporters still celebrating in the stadium, and cries of unbridled glee erupting from the corridor. He’s tempted to go outside, tell them to have some grace, shut the fuck up. But that’s fair game. He was in their shoes countless of times before, raising hell with the guys when, a few rooms down the hallway, another team was saying goodbye to their season, or their world’s campaign.

“Hey, I’ve been looking for you.”

Everything in him stiffens as Gavi flops down next to him. He feels his muscles go rigid and his throat knot as his friend hums absently, mutters something about how he didn’t wait for him after the game; begins to untie his shoes, remaining oblivious all the while to the maelstrom of taut nerves his presence has just stirred in Pedri.

Gavi shifts on the bench, and his thigh brushes against Pedri’s in the process. He lets it happen with clenched teeth and white knuckled fingers. Well. He supposes he couldn’t possibly avoid him forever.

“Sorry, I was just too tired,” he says, because although the lump in his throat feels like a compact mass of coal and acid, not saying anything at all would be weird. Prompt Gavi to probe, like he always does. He doesn’t have the mental capacity for an in-depth conversation right now.

He grabs the nearest bottle of water and drinks it down in one go to temper the sickening feeling in his stomach. Got to thank the sport for that; it gives him a nice, ready-made excuse to put his current condition down to the logical aftermath of the match. If someone asks him why he’s got this nauseous air about him, he just has to say his body needs to cool down. Move along, nothing to see here.

How would he explain it otherwise? The truth—it’s embarrassing as fuck. Sorry, I’ve just ruined the dream of the boy sitting next to me and I don’t know how to handle it? Yeah, right.

“At least we didn’t get knocked out by Madrid, uh?” Gavi deadpans.

Pedri glances to his side as his friend swaps his sneakers for a pair of slides. There’s a certain gravity to his movements that’s making them slow, pondered, so unlike the frenzy he always shows on the pitch. It makes the whole thing even more depressing; the seriousness of it all reminds Pedri they’re grown-ups, now, and not just kids doing a kick-around anymore.

Everything would hurt a shit ton less if they were still just kids.

“Though…,” Gavi snickers, eyes to his feet. “Maybe I’d take a 2-8 loss in the next Clasico, if it meant advancing to the finals. I don’t know. Should we try doing things like these fuckers do? Make a deal with the devil, see how it goes?” He laughs to himself, somberly, but there’s no white fangs out, no bite.

Pedri hums, still watching him. There’s a crease on Gavi’s forehead he wants to smooth out; he imagines himself reaching for it, running his thumb over the skin and making it disappear.

(Di-sap-pear; wrong.

Dis-appear; right.)

It still feels strange—this muffled bitterness of his, the resignation laced with his words. Something that changed in the past months. A year ago, after a game like this, Gavi would’ve burst into the locker room like a slack of molten rock and carried out the usual sequence: run his mouth, insult the referees and the other team, kick whatever was in the way, I don’t fucking care, this institution is corrupted to the core, they’re all working against us. But now, the very few times they lose, it’s like he’s just… enduring it. Like he’d always believed it was bound to happen that way and no other.

Pedri frowns. The crease on Gavi’s forehead is the problem, truly. It holds all the frustration up in his head, not letting his heart have it. He wishes Gavi would just blow off some steam. Shout. Lash out on him, anything—anything to remove this wrinkle, so they can pretend they’re idiotic teenagers again.

He knows it’s unfair, for both Gavi and him, how he still searches for traces of his own youth whenever he looks at him. Like if he stared long enough, they could go back to the days where simply being part of the starting lineup was something to be fucking elated about. But there’s nothing childish anymore in Gavi’s face. The round cheeks have long been replaced with the hard lines of the jaw.

Maybe the real issue is they’re already too old for this. Have been run ragged too early in their career. They say you have to play football as if your life was on the line; too bad they never mention just how much older every game will make you.

“Okay, maybe not a 2-8 loss, because we don’t want to go through that again, obviously. I mean, it’s not like we were there when it happened the first time, but twice—that’d be really bad for the club. So let’s settle for a 0-3, yeah? Shit, I’d even go as high as nil 4.”

Gavi’s rambling, his voice almost airy in the stifling confines of the room. Despite his composure, Pedri notices something that breaks his heart even more; his lower lip is trembling. He’s holding back tears, he realizes.

He wants to say something, show he appreciates the effort. He knows how much a joke like that costs him. It’s an odd particularity all the kids from La Masia share: they act as though they’ve been injected blaugrana blood into their veins the day they joined the club, making them show teeth whenever Madrid’s mentioned. If you see someone wearing a white kit, bark. Sure, anyone who’s ever played for Barça is at least Madrid hater adjacent, but for the players from the academy, the hate runs deeper than that. Most of them would rather lose against all other La Liga teams than against the Meringue. Would almost settle for a 2^nd place at the end of the season if they got to kick Madrid’s ass back to back. For Gavi to joke about it—it means he sees how bad Pedri’s hurting. And chose to ignore his own pain to ease his.

This sucks almost as much as being eliminated. Gavi’s not supposed to be the one comforting him. It should be the other way around.

But he can’t— not when he—

“Madrileños or Italians. Pick your poison, I guess,” is all he manages to say. It earns him half a chuckle, and he supposes he should be satisfied with it.

The room’s full, now. Although all the benches are packed, the center remains empty, desperately waiting for someone to step forward and address the situation. It’s usually the captains’ role, except none of them is making any move that’d suggest they’re going to say anything. It’s like suddenly, nobody wants to wear the yellow armband anymore. You wouldn’t believe half of them almost begged for it at the beginning of the season.

He doubts they’d be legitimate to speak up anyway. Ter Stegen was benched the whole time. Araújo conceded the third goal. Frenkie was nonexistent. Rapha messed up everything he set out to do, save for that 87’ rebound shot. As for himself—well, you know how it went.

It should be a makeshift comfort, knowing he wasn’t the only fucker involved in this disaster. They’re all at fault, to varying degrees, and he should hold on to that shared responsibility, beat himself up a little less for it. It’s just—he can’t shake away the feeling he could’ve showed up. Make the game breathe when it all started to hit the skids. It’s his role. The one thing he’s never doubted to be good at.

But admitting it to himself is not the same as admitting it to the others, is it? You never want to take the blame in front of your team.

In the end, it’s Flick who comes to the center of the room, offering himself as the sacrificial lamb. He gives the classic speech, a meshwork of broken English and Spanish to lift up their spirits and shift their focus towards the future—Heads up, boys, the season’s not over yet. He keeps it short, and you can tell the heart’s not fully in it.

They change without exchanging a word when he’s done, the rustling of clothes filling the silence. Pedri’s putting on his Herno trainers—he only packs the club uniform when they’re playing away, but now, he regrets making a point of traveling light; he’ll look like a proper dumbass coming out of the stadium dressed like that—when he feels something scratchy against his forehead.

Then, a finger slips under his chin, and a thumb comes to rest just under his mouth, the nail grazing the lower lip. The hand props his head up; Pedri follows the movement, boneless.

Gavi’s standing just in front of him. He’s got a blue and red towel featuring Barça crest in his other hand. With it, he wipes the sweat off his face again; ironically, the fabric doesn’t feel as raspy as before, now that Pedri knows he’s the one using it. Gavi smiles a little when their eyes meet, and lets go of his chin to part the strands of hair sticking to his forehead, before gently rubbing it once more.

“A jersey can only get you so far,” he says, almost—almost coyly.

The hand holding the towel falls back down to his side, but the other’s still in Pedri’s hair, his palm brushing just above his cheek.

Dumbly, Pedri finds himself wishing the fans could see Gavi like this. He’s always thought it was cruel, how everyone only thinks of him as some kind of kamikaze, a braindead guy who dives head first or bulldozes through the pitch to get the ball, always looking for an opportunity to start shit when most of the time, he’s so sweet, so gentle.

Like right now, as he touches him like he’s laying the sun out on his face, and it takes Pedri all his might not to give in and melt into the contact.

But he doesn’t deserve a single gram of this tenderness.

He closes his eyes, takes the hand off his face; squeezes it for a second before he stands up and gathers his things.

“I’ll see you out,” he says to Gavi, and all but rushes out of the room.

—

He realizes a second too late he forgot about the journalists.

Fuck. Shit, fuck, fuck, how could he—

It’s no secret all stadiums have private exits. Hidden doors you can use when you want to avoid the attention, or the odd unsolicited question. The staff showed them where to find those first thing when they arrived on site, and he only remembers them now.

He has half a mind to turn back, pretend he didn’t see the journalists at all. But a few of them have already spotted him. Fuck. He’s got no choice but to come to meet them, and belly flop into the sea of microphones that are only waiting for one slip on his part.

He recalibrates his stance, takes more measured steps; one, two, three. Breathe. Talk. Yield.

Alright. Here goes nothing.

“Hi, everyone,” he says as he approaches, trying to bend his facial features into the suitable expression; not completely downcast—no one likes a whiner—but not too cocky either, because God forbid you show an ounce of confidence in this field.

“How are you feeling, Pedri?” one of the journalists asks.

“Well, disappointed and frustrated with the result, as you can imagine.”

His tongue unties, tests the waters. This game too, he knows how to play. Saying the right thing at the right time with the right tone, feeding the journalists with just enough so they think they’re the ones who managed to worm the words out of you—it’s a strategy he’s perfected over the years. But tonight, conjuring the appropriate resolute look is harder than usual.

“It was a tough game, eh?”

“Yes, you can say that.”

Flashes, flashes, even more flashes. He blinks, rubs the back of his neck. Even the most basic answer feels heavy against his palate. He usually doesn’t mind doing the talking after a bad game. It’s easier to be the spokesperson when you’ve played well despite the unsatisfactory result. Everyone knows you’re sacrificing yourself for the team, and they kind of respect you for it. But it’s different when you are the reason the game was bad. Each word comes out as a justification. If you twist your tongue even only once, they’ll skin you alive.

Thankfully, the questions turn out to be as generic as it comes. Nothing he’s never heard before, and he blesses the journalists for constantly hitting the players with the same lines. It’s neither interesting nor stimulating, but at least he doesn’t have to think too much about what he’s saying.

They ask him if he thinks he can still win the Ballon d’or; if some of his teammates have a better chance of getting it. He answers with humility—I care about team trophies more than personal achievements; partly because he believes it, but also because that’s what’s expected of him. Like when you’re supposed to raise your hand to challenge a goal, just in case it’s offside. Or when you claim the opponent was the last to touch the ball to get a corner kick.

If you get tackled, pretend you’re hurt.

If someone pushes you while you’re inside the penalty box, even just slightly, drop to the ground, but don’t drag it if you feel the referee’s onto you—you want the penalty, not a yellow card for simulation.

If they ask you about the Ballon d’or, never openly say you’re after it.

The question’s even more absurd now that they’re out of the biggest competition. It doesn’t matter that Culers chant his name at every single game, now, does it? Doesn’t matter if he was named player of the month in April, or MOTM eight times in the last ten games. What does being man of the match even mean when they’re not the team of the year?

They should ask him that, actually. See what he answers.

“Would you say the offside trick showed its limits tonight?”

“If Flick’s high defensive line didn’t work in a bigger championship, what does it say about La Liga?”

“Do you feel the number 8 is a burden? Too heavy a legacy for you?”

“But let’s circle back on the Ballon d'or, shall we?”

He conducts the interview on autopilot, relying on PR training to give the most text-book answers possible. Can’t allow himself to be too honest.

(Hon-est; wrong.

Ho-nest; right.)

Then comes the tricky part: the time to wrap up the interview. It’s the part where you really have to steer into the skid, watch out for every bend. The moment you’re the most likely to drop the ball because you’re overhasty to get it over with.

He knows what he should do: lay low, admit to their shortcomings, but—he’s not really thinking about all this right now. His brain’s jumped into the nearest bin, and he’s not 100% aware of what he’s blathering about. It’s like he’s been punched out of his own skin, some kind of out of body experience where he sees himself speaking but has no control over it. Hears himself saying how UEFA should look into the referee’s background, and a lot of other shit too. Yeah, the decisions were confusing. Every case that was 50/50 went in Inter’s favor. Flick said the same thing? Good, well, he doesn’t get it either. Mkhitaryan should’ve been given a second yellow card, don’t you agree?

He hates every single word coming out of his mouth, even hates the sound of his voice.

Hiding behind the referee’s judgement—or lack thereof; that’s what the other teams do. Next time, he might just grab one of the mics and say Hala Madrid, while he’s at it.

—

Strangely enough, he’s one of the first players to get to the coach. The others must be dragging it out, which, in itself, is always an annoying thing to do to the rest of the team—they have a schedule and all that—but he can understand it tonight. In the locker room, they’re still in a state of in-between. Can pretend it’s just half-time, and they’ll get back to the pitch in a minute with a new mindset and turn the game around. It’s only once they leave the stadium that everything will truly be over. That the loss will start to hit. After the coach pulls away from San Siro, no one will be able to say otherwise: there’s no going back.

He stops at one of the middle rows. Takes the window seat, drops his bag next to him and puts his AirPods on. Can’t be more explicit than that, as far as silent warnings go. Don’t sit next to him. Don’t even try talking to him.

Ferri spots him as soon as he gets on the bus. He seems to hesitate between being a good friend and a better friend as he walks, his eyes going from the back of the coach to the seat next to him, then back again. In the end, he must’ve decided not to pretend he can’t take a hint, because he simply nods to Pedri and heads to the last rows. Doesn’t even attempt to extend his hand and ruffle his hair, or pick on him.

“Don’t push people away, it won’t do you any good,” Ferri says, still, when he passes by him.

Ever the preacher.

The seats fill up one by one as his teammates settle in without a word. They’re all keeping their heads down like they’re off to the scaffold, which is pretty damn funny, because, if you ask him, the real beheading happened an hour ago in a Milanese stadium.

He knocks his forehead against the window to stop the rambling. Outside, the stadium’s light looks like a pearl lost in black waters. He tries not to see it as a shitty metaphor, the symbol of hope petering out. So what, you’re a poet, now? Some kind of García Lorca? he hears Ferri’s voice in his head.

He’s got to get a grip. Can’t keep moping forever. It’s—unprofessional.

(Un-pro-fess-io-nal; wrong.

Un-profession-al; right.)

But—basking in this self-punishment feels awfully good too. As it appears, self-flagellation’s the closest form of relief he can get right now. Tomorrow, he’ll do everything right; he’ll own up to what he did like an adult, train even harder to make sure he’ll never repeat those mistakes again. Tomorrow, he’ll be a better person. So he can have tonight. He’s giving himself tonight.

He doesn’t register the shuffling by his side until he feels the strap of his bag grazing his ankle as it’s being moved down to the floor.

He snaps his head to his feet, then to his left, ready to tell whoever did that to fuck off—well, not fuck off fuck off, it’s not like him to say that, he’ll just stare at them with an apologetic look, mutter Sorry, I’d rather be by myself, but the point is the same, the other person will have to fuck off—when he realizes it’s Gavi.

Who instantly slouches down on the seat he’s just cleared for himself.

“I won’t talk,” he reassures him. “Promise.”

And the way he says it, so sure and definitive and maybe on the brink of going to war if being denied this… Pedri can’t exactly argue with that, even if he wanted to. (Not that he wants to. He found out pretty early in their relationship there was close to nothing he could deny Gavi.)

“Wait,” his friend adds. “Let me—I just need to do this. Then, I’ll zip it.”

Before Pedri can ask him what he means by that, Gavi leans over to the window, his whole upper body bent over Pedri. His elbow brushes against his chest as he reaches for the Plexiglas, and something hot sizzles in Pedri’s stomach at the contact. He wonders if it’s just him who’s palpably aware of this, or if they’re both pretending hard to ignore the feeling of solid body pressing on solid body.

Gavi slams his middle finger against the glass surface. “Fuck off,” his reflection mouthes with a shit-eating, joyless grin. Pedri peers out the window to see who he’s talking to. Catches a few vague figures in the darkness of the outdoor parking lot, phones up in the air, camera flash on. Inter fans, he guesses.

He nudges Gavi’s shoulder to make him stop, but it’s only when the coach leaves the stadium’s precincts that he actually gets back to his seat. “Okay, I’m done,” he tells Pedri, beaming innocently, a glimpse of the boy he used to be.

Pedri sighs and shifts his attention away from him. Outside, the landscape blurs into a rapid haze of green, reinforced concrete giving way to an alley of trees.

Still, the waves.

He’s suddenly overcome by the backwash, the same disquiet in his belly he felt an hour ago in the locker room. But unlike back then, the restlessness of the stream that kept him wired—anxious, even—simmers down into… relief? Comfort? Something like that. Whatever the word is to describe the knowledge that, even though you’re doing everything to keep people away from you, someone in this world cares enough about you to be willing to take down every barrier you’ve put up and make sure you’re never left alone.

It makes him consider his own behavior. Makes him wonder if maybe putting his bag on the seat was just a way to test out this theory, see how Gavi would react. If he acted this way solely because he was counting on him to fight against the current and sit next to him nonetheless. Which is exactly what Gavi did. Conclusive results?

Pedri turns to him, consumed by the impossibility of keeping his gratefulness at bay. Thankful for Gavi, who feels like a summer house by the sea wherever they are.

Gavi grins again, a crooked smile that only stretches to one side. His hand reaches out, and Pedri braces himself—thinks he’s going to touch his hair, his face—until he feels his left AirPod being taken out of his ear. He looks at Gavi with a raised eyebrow; his friend just shrugs, sheepish, Won’t talk, remember?, but waves his phone at him.

Pedri didn’t connect his earbuds—he only put them on to make a point, really—so it’s easy for Gavi to hijack the Bluetooth, connect the AirPods to his own Spotify acc and play whatever he wants.

A soft, instrumental song Pedri never thought Gavi would have in his playlist flows right into his ear. And that just—does it for him. Makes him go all limp, like Gavi’s pressed his power off button. He leans back against the headrest, lets himself be carried away by the sound.

Gavi’s bumping his leg to the slow beat, the motion making the hem of their pants ruffle with each tap of the foot. Pedri swears he can feel his friend’s humming vibrating out of his skin to pulse against his, the steady beating of a heart that is not his own but throbs against his ribcage all the same, and it becomes very hard not to give in and lean on his shoulder.

It’s something he’s read on Twitter, he thinks. How he’s always so composed. He doesn’t really lurk there—isn’t like Jules, who never misses a trend, or even Gavi, who pretends he doesn’t know the first thing about the app even though Pedri once caught him on his burner acc.

He likes to stay informed, though. So he’s on Twitter too. And sometimes, he comes across tweets about him. Praises, essentially. People complimenting how he always seems to know what’s going on in every part of the pitch, like the guy from Blue Lock who has this crazy spatial awareness, except Pedri is, like, not that much of an asshole—or so he’d like to think. Commentators say he’s level-headed; they appreciate the time he takes to decide on the best available option, the cool he manages to keep under stress. He agrees with most of it.

But there are momentary lapses of reason. Moments when he’s in full flight and forgets to assess the consequences of his actions. When he’s so close to forgetting to keep his feelings for the boy next to him contained to his eyes, and letting the words drip out of him instead.

If he was brave enough, he would—

He would—

“Gav—”

“Yeah?”

Gavi shoots him an expectant look, and it’s so hopeful and naked, the force of ten thousand crests crashing at the same time—Pedri feels himself falter instantly. “Nothing,” he cowers, his throat congested, as if stuffed with sea foam. “Just—thank you.”

He diverts his gaze to the window again, the now lightless night. His mouth is coarse from the words lost along the way, stuck somewhere in the treacherous trajectory between his chest and his lips.

God, but he’s such a wimp.

His hand clenches into a fist against his lips. His eyes are starting to prickle—frustration, helplessness, anger at himself, longing he can’t spit out, the terror of breaking down all fighting against each other to trigger the first tear, and he’s trying hard not to let his eyelids swell with salt and water, but he’s losing his footing and he might drown very soo—

A familiar weight settles on his shoulder.

He resurfaces at once.

His breath makes a weird up-and-down from his nose to his lungs, before coming out again in a thin stream. The a/c’s blowing cool air right above his head, but his perspiration feels as heavy as a second skin. Drips like water trickling down the legs after swimming for too long.

On the side of his neck, the grazing of a tuft of hair.

He doesn’t need to look to know Gavi did what he was too afraid to do himself. Gavi always does. I don’t care about meeting halfway, it’s like he’s communicating in Morse code through this simple point of contact, where his ear meets Pedri’s collarbone. I’ll swim the whole distance if it’s for you.

Pedri closes his eyes, allowing himself to have this, just once.

Still, the waves.

—

“You’re going to tell the shrink about this?” his brother asks on the phone.

“I don’t know,” Pedri says. It doesn’t feel quite right, so he adds, “Don’t think so.”

He’s sitting on the edge of his bed, already changed into his PJs even though they got back to the hotel a mere fifteen minutes ago. It’s fucking late anyway. It was almost midnight when the game ended and the digital clock on the bedside table tells him it’s now 1:30 a.m. They have a flight in a few hours. 8 a.m., the coach leaves. Why is he still even up at all?

“You should talk—” Fer begins, but his phone pings with a notification at the same time. There’s a moment of silence, before he speaks again. “Ansu just texted me. Wants me to ask you to come downstairs.”

“Ignore him.”

Pedri shifts on his bed, uncomfortable. He knows what this is about. In spite of the late hour, the staff arranged a dinner with the team, but it’s not like he’s planning on going. Everyone will be there, and it’s clear what they’re up to. Operation Cheering Up The Squad By Pretending Everything’s Fine.

Yeah, not happening.

He scans the room for the menu, spots it on the lounge table. Good. If he gets hungry when he hangs up with Fer, he can just order something in. Bless the 24/7 room service; playing football can break your heart every week depending on how well your team does, but at least you can always eat out your feelings with some chef’s pizza at 2 a.m. in front of a shitty TV show.

He puts his hand on his belly, feels a weird gurgle. Who is he kidding? There’s no way in hell he can stomach food; not now, not in the next hour. He’s got the feeling the smallest crumb venturing down his gullet could make him throw up.

“It’s normal to feel disappointed,” Fer says. “But you should be careful. I don’t want you to keep this all to yourself just to end up, like, devoured by guilt. I think it’d be good for you to talk about this to someone.”

“Well, I’m talking to you, am I not?”

Pedri can almost see his brother roll his eyes on the other end of the line. “I meant a professional.”

“I don’t want to see the shrink.”

He remembers the first time he had an appointment with her. The club’s psychologist, that is. Someone hired by Barcelona to ensure the players are not crushed by fame, or pressure, and can handle the stress that comes with it. She wouldn’t stop probing and asking questions, worse than the journalists, and he had to do some tricky mental gymnastics not to give away anything that’d make him look too vulnerable in her eyes.

Coincidently, this first session with her was also the last. It was her who decided to put an end to the appointment, actually, claiming she couldn’t do her job correctly ‘with that kind of attitude.’ Said something about his behavior being counterproductive, and all. Well, fuck—sue him for not wanting to talk about feelings with a stranger.

(Str-anger; wrong.

Stran-ger; right.)

Besides, he’s already come up with his own diagnosis of the situation.

It really is that simple: at the end of the day, football is nothing more than entertainment. Even if it’s your job, even if you could lose sponsors when you start to have too many bad games, it’s just a series of matches. Something you shouldn’t take too seriously.

But football is weird like that. In the microcosmos in which he lives, a goal against his team feels like a bullet to the leg. A defeat equals to a severed limb. And a defeat in the most important competition of the year? Just shoot him down already.

“She’s just going to say it’s not the end of the world,” Pedri mutters.

“And she’ll be right,” Fer says.

“Fucking feels like it, though.”

Pedri pinches the bridge of his nose. Look—he’s not being overdramatic. He’s aware of the… technicalities. The facts. His brain can comprehend it’s not the real end of the world, and there aren’t going to be meteor showers, cracks in the ground, seven trumpets, etc.

It’s not even the end in the football world. The game was only another check mark on the calendar. Kind of insignificant, all in all, in the grand scheme of things. Flick said it himself; there’s still a season to wrap up, four games to go—Espanyol, Villarreal, Athletic Bilbao, the Clasico—and a Liga to win. Then he’ll fly to Las Rozas to train with the national team, gear up for the match against France for a place in the Nations League finals, and the World Cup qualifying. And soon it’ll be summer, then back again; the Liga, the Copa del Rey, a new Champions League run. A never-ending cycle of chosen joy and torture.

But the high they’ve been riding on since the beginning of the season? It’s over. Goodbye. Adiós. Au revoir. Sayōnara. Ciao—no, not that one.

In every respect, this year was fantastic. Few injuries, players playing again after a long period of rest, very few defeats. Even when they were losing, Rapha would always show up, and score the saving goal.

This year, they were invincible.

Until they were not.

And who’s to say they’ll have another shot at it—with all the stars as aligned as they were this season? His form was great. He was at his prime, even, and it still wasn’t enough. Way to make a man feel good about himself.

Plus, he can’t shake the feeling he’s living on borrowed time. He’s reached that age when you start worrying about the stupid countdown timer hovering over every upcoming football fixture; each number going down signals another wasted chance to win a trophy, with less and less opportunity remaining. Even if he’s got another ten, let’s say fifteen years to go at the top—and that’s without counting any potential injury, so truly a wishful thinking here—that means he’s only got ten tries left at winning the Champions League. And only four for the World Cup.

So yeah, he feels terrible, big fucking deal. But who wouldn’t be after ruining for their team the one unmissable chance at a UCL trophy for the next decade?

See? He doesn’t need the shrink to tell him all this.

“What about Gavi?” Fer brings up again.

“What about him?”

“You guys understand each other. You went through the same thing. You could talk to him. About that stuff.”

Pedri smiles dryly. That’s what’s so cruel about it all—how alike their situations are. It was their moment to come back, the both of them. After everything they’ve endured, the injuries, the uncertainty, they should’ve celebrated their return by lifting the big ears together. But Pedri spoiled that moment for Gavi. He won’t ever forgive himself for that.

“Fat chance.”

“Ah, yes,” his brother deadpans. “Forgot. The forlorn lover bit. Maybe that’s another topic you should discuss with the shrink.”

“Good night, Fer.”

Obviously, he doesn’t go to sleep after this. Ends up doomscrolling instead, and hating every second of it. The reels suck. The memes suck. He opens Raya, and closes the app immediately. What is he even doing. He tries watching something on YouTube, but can’t concentrate for more than a couple minutes to save his life.

All the while, his phone is blown with private DMs and messages in various gcs telling him to come downstairs. He ignores all of them, but they keep coming.

He’s about to turn the Airplane mode on when someone requests a video call. Gavi.

His thumb presses accept before his brain even assimilates the name showing on his phone. Muscle memory doesn’t only apply to penalty kicks, apparently.

But it’s not Gavi who appears on the screen. It’s Ferri, looking displeased with what he’s seeing. “I told you he’d only answer him!” he barks to whoever is standing behind him. Pedri can’t make out the whole background, but he recognizes the ceiling of the private room where they had their pre-match meal, seven hours ago. An eternity.

Ferri looks at the screen again. “Dude, stop acting like that and just come already. I know you haven’t eaten yet. It’s not good for you. You need to stay healthy.”

“Skipping dinner once isn’t going to mess up my whole diet,” Pedri replies. “And I’m really not hungry.”

Ferri squints his eyes at him, but he holds his gaze. “Okay,” his friend says. “So forget about dinner. But you can’t stay alone like that.”

Pedri shakes his head. “I’m just going to ruin the mood. Thank you, really, but I’ll see you in the morning. Swear I’ll be in a better mood then.”

Ferri pouts, jutting out his bottom lip and batting his eyes. It’s exceptionally disgusting. Puts everything into perspective. Maybe losing to Inter Milan was not the worst thing that happened in the last hours; maybe it’s witnessing his friend trying—and irrevocably failing—to act cute. “But you’re sad now,” Ferri argues. “And we’re all sad because you’re sad. Look.”

The image on the screen shakes for a few seconds before the front cam stabilizes on Jules. He’s sitting at the table, his mouth stuffed with what looks like pizza (when in Rome, etc), seemingly caught by surprise. Ferri’s probably holding the phone up for him at gunpoint. “Say something,” Pedri hears him whisper to Jules.

The Frenchman gives Ferri a weird look, glaring at an invisible point above the phone, but swallows and complies anyway. “Yo, plátanito,” he says to the screen, and wow—in terms of enthusiasm, you really can’t beat that; Jules’s about as cheerful as a player who just found out they’re being shipped to Man U. “They’re going to serve banana split for dessert. You don’t want to miss that.” He looks at Ferri again, his eyes asking, ‘Happy, now?’

“You’re really no help,” Ferri groans.

Another moment of blur, and then it’s Fermín’s face that appears on the screen. By the look of it, he’s holding the phone himself, but way too close to his nose, like a grandpa who just discovered WhatsApp. “Peeeedriiiii,” he whines. “We miss youuu!”

“It’s true,” comes a voice he recognizes as Balde’s. “Ansu’s crying right now because you’re not here.”

“I’m not!” Ansu shouts from somewhere in the background.

Pedri can’t help but let out a small laugh at their antics, but it’s cut short by the guilt rushing back as a chorus of different voices erupts, everyone telling him to come and join them. It should make him feel better—after all, it’s always nice to feel wanted, right, to know people want you around—but it only adds to the culpability; all these guys who trust him so much, he let them down. And he’s letting them down again, by refusing to go and see them.

He should just— if only for a minute, maybe—

“Okay, that’s enough, give me that back.”

At last, Gavi’s face shows up. But he’s not looking at his phone, his eyes searching for something in the distance. His figure blurs into focus and out again as he moves, and Pedri understands he’s looking for a corner of the room that’s more isolated, judging by the gradual fading of the others’ voices.

When he’s far enough from the rest of the crowd, he finally looks at his phone—finally looks at him pointedly. “Hi,” he chirps, but his tone is tame, like he’s afraid of being too loud, or too much (as if) for Pedri.

“Hey.” He crosses and untangles his legs on his bed, and crosses them again. He can almost feel the weight of Gavi’s gaze on him, as if they were really facing each other, with no screen to separate them.

“I just wanted to say… you don’t have to come if you don’t want to, you know that, right?” Gavi asks. “None of us is going to hold that against you.”

Whatever Pedri was planning to say dies on his lips, his throat constricting in an emergency procedure before he can tell Gavi off. Because he’s not asking him to come like the others; he’s offering him a way out. How exactly is he supposed to react to that?

“When you’re ready,” Gavi adds. “We’ll be here,” and ‘we’ has never sounded as much like ‘I’ as it does right now.

Pedri nods, speechless. The slight movement seems to propel the ocean whirling inside him, because the next moment the sea and salt surge back to his eyes.

“I—” he tries. He blinks, once, twice, the pixels that make up Gavi’s features liquefying on the screen. His small smile, however, remains very distinct, very recognizable, and Pedri holds onto that to keep from drowning in his own self. “Yeah, I know,” he whispers.

When the call eventually ends, his reflection on the black screen is shimmering and aqueous.

—

In the end he does come downstairs. The guys all welcome him with positively surprised shouts as he awkwardly waves at them, still in his PJs, Hey guys, sorry I’m so late, and goes to sit next to Jules. And you can say what you want about the French—they’re true to their word. Or at least Jules is. He’s got a plate ready for him, banana split with whipped cream and the customary cherry on top making his mouth water, even though he’d sworn earlier he couldn’t eat any more tonight.

“I know it didn’t look like it on the phone, but I’m glad you came,” Jules says. “I think it’s good—for everyone to be together.” He makes a vague gesture to embrace the whole room, and Pedri follows the movement, looking at his teammates more attentively as he takes a tentative spoonful of dessert.

The youngest’ve all gone to bed already, leaving the table sparsely empty. Iñaki and Eric seem to be whispering words of comfort to Ansu and Pau Victor, who are both worrying their lips with their teeth, their eyes swollen. Eric and Rapha are keeping it to themselves on the far end of the table, stuffing their faces with cheesecake to avoid talking.

Opposite to him, Ferri shakes his head in contrition.

(Cont-rit-ion; wrong.

Contri-tion; wrong.)

All these sad faces… it was different under the dim light of the locker room, or the led step lighting in the coach. He couldn’t see everyone else’s expressions clearly back then—and, to tell the truth, he was too caught up in his own wallowing to really pay attention. But it’s unmistakable, now, impossible to ignore; how they’re all going through it. It’s more than the dejection he’d detected earlier. Closer to grief.

He begins to wonder whether his little hankering for masochism isn’t more serious than he thought after all. Because this is what he came for, surely; he was impelled by the need to see it for himself, see how much pain he’s caused among the team. Give himself the deathblow before going to sleep, strike himself down, punched by the meanest NFL hit stick one could think of, i.e.: realizing you had, in fact, every reason to be worried.

It sounds about right to his ears, until he meets Gavi’s eyes—and, ah. Of course, this is what he came for.

Fermín’s talking to him, but it’s Pedri who Gavi’s looking at. And despite how noisy the room is, Pedri can perfectly hear what his eyes are telling him from across the table.

It’s alright if you detonate.

His spoon hangs in mid-air as he wonders what his own eyes are saying.

Perhaps—

Why aren’t you sick of me yet?

The tide ebbs, then flows. Gavi eventually breaks the eye contact, but Pedri doesn’t stop looking. Even when Fermín reclines in his seat and almost blocks out the view entirely, leaving only the shadow of an ear to long for; he looks.

He almost wants someone to catch on it. Call him out on this blatant, abominably obvious staring, his yearning betrayed by every hair standing on his neck and his arms in spite of the heat. There’s a certain thrill to it—the possibility of being exposed, caught in the act. He fantasizes about someone—Ferri, Jules, anyone—teasing him with the truth, Hey, lover boy, he’s not going to vanish if you stop watching, you know, so he’d have the admission forced out of him. Wouldn’t have any other choice but to spell it all out, the enormity of his feelings.

The last resort of the coward: you don’t want to say it out loud, and yet you’d gladly confess everything if you were allowed to, only because that’d mean you’d get to plunge into that feeling again, out in open sea.

No one gives him an excuse to do so, though. So he keeps on staring, hoping his feelings won’t end up swallowing him whole.

—

Fifteen minutes later and he’s back in his room. Only he’s still not sleeping. He’s—thinking, so to say. If running a litany of fuck fuck fucks through your head can be considered ‘thinking.’ He’s also aimlessly pacing back and forth in those twelve square meters the club booked for him, but that’s too prosaic, and doesn’t leave much to interpretation, because pacing is just so fitting a word; no better way to describe how he sat down and got up from his bed nine times already in the last minute or so. He’s keeping count: down and up. Down and up. That makes it eleven.

He had intended to call it a day, when he left the others and went back to his room—really he had. Drop the curtain, leave it at that, night night, etc. But seeing Gavi there fucked him up a little. Triggered a bug in his brain, an abrupt halt of unplugged current that sent an electric shock through his whole body, jolting him awake, like he’d just downed three cans of Redbull. Now his mind’s going into overdrive. Down and up. Down and up.

It was the eye contact. How Gavi looked at him back there. There’s this open wound Pedri’s rubbed only with salt and sand since the end of the game, and the most nonsensical thoughts’ve seeped inside. A trickle of clear water; he realized he wouldn’t mind being looked at this way for the rest of his life.

As expected, this new awareness was only the first push, and he soon found himself tobogganing head first into a spiral. He became conscious of other things he wouldn’t mind, if it was for Gavi. Which, when he thought about it—amidst the fuck fuck fucks recitation—amounted to a lot. Like, how he’d be willing to become a wag, for him, another trophy wife. Someone Gavi would kiss after the final whistle, or wink at when he’d score.

He flops back on his bed. (Fourteen.) The heel of his palms scrubs his eyelids so hard white spots start appearing in his field of vision when he opens his eyes again.

How gross. How vulgar, the nature of these thoughts. It’s so—unlike him, to react like that. Let his mind wander to these kind of places, sweetened by a rose-tinted haze and rainbow shades (or is it green, teal, white, blue and purple?).

Fuck. He found out he was in love with Gavi years ago, that’s not the problem here. He’s made peace with it. And he has an idea Gavi loves him too, though he doesn’t like to dwell on the extent of it. Truth is, if Gavi loved him less, he’d be crushed; but if he loved him more, he’d be damned. Either way’s a suicidal enterprise.

More than that, Gavi’s love has always been something he couldn’t let himself desire. Similar to a treasure chest crated from the coast, it was as untouchable as oceans’ bounds; he didn’t dare to open it, benumbed by the looming thought whatever was inside was too good to be enjoyed to its fullest. Rendered immobile because of the fear it’d disappear the minute he derived too much pleasure from it.

But this worry, he can’t share it with anyone. Not with the coach, not with Ferri, not even with his brother, let alone that shrink. How can you admit to anyone your biggest worry is to suck someone else’s attention dry, to the point there’ll be nothing left of it?

That’s right, you can’t. So Pedri’d kept all this locked-in ever since. And he was doing a fucking great job at it. He was doing so, so good. Except Gavi just looked at him like—like he’d reach out for him even if Pedri was sinking in the deepest abysses before you can say Lewandowski, and now there are these thoughts he can’t help to entertain.

So when someone knocks on the door, he’s not too startled to find Gavi waiting in the corridor. To him, it even makes sense; he’s thought about him so much Gavi must’ve felt it, somehow.

Still, the waves that crash at the forefront of his chest catch him by surprise.

“Sorry, were you already sleeping?” Gavi asks, all puppy eyes and rounded mouth. “I didn’t mean to—”

“You can come in,” he interrupts before he lets himself think too hard and recognizes allowing in his room the very boy he’d just rampage-mode fantasized about (Gavi’s wag, really?) is probably not the smartest decision he could’ve made. He draws away from the door and lets his friend in, taking a few steps back to temper the waves.

Gavi must’ve showered since he last saw him, because he catches a faint smell, a sweet and fruity fragrance, as the boy brushes past him and makes a beeline for the bed. Pedri has to grab his mind by the collar not to let it stray between ideas of this scent hanging in a shared home, in a shared bedroom.

Get your mind out of the gutter.

“I just wanted to check on you,” Gavi says, sitting down. “I know you don’t want company, but I guess I thought, maybe—”

“You could be the exception?” Pedri finishes. He means to keep his tone unbothered, but a hint of teasing irremediably filters through.

The grin that invades Gavi’s face then is the first truly honest, boyish smile he’s given him tonight. “Well, yeah.”

Pedri doesn’t answer. He considers casually leaning one hip against the edge of the desk opposite the bed, a position that’d put a respectable distance between them without making it too obvious he’s… not avoiding Gavi, exactly, but—giving himself a safety margin?

It’s pointless anyway; the current irrevocably takes him to the spot right next to Gavi, and soon they’re sitting side by side on the edge of the bed. If Pedri puts his mind to it, he can imagine them at the end of a dingy pier of some kind, with their feet dangling and the heels hitting the carpet floor that could very much be a secret lake.

The only exception—perhaps the most traitorous admission Pedri could’ve given him.

“So…,” Gavi begins.

He readjusts his position a little on the bed to face him. Curls a leg beneath him, flexing a muscular, inner thigh curved out from a material that’s not quite alabaster, not quite gold, not quite something-in-between. It reminds Pedri of that specific type of pebbles you can find on the shore, smooth under the soles of your feet—pink dolomite, it’s called, with its muted salmon and peach hues; the slightly pearly lustered kind, punctuated by the subtle whiteness of the moonbeam filtering through the thin curtains. If Gavi moved just a centimeter closer, his knee would touch Pedri’s hip. How devastating is that?

“I know how obtuse you can get sometimes,” Gavi states plainly. “So I’ll do the talking.”

He pauses to study him, in an attempt to—put out a feeler? Gauge his reaction? For a moment it seems the bravado he’s been displaying until now is receding a little, mitigated by a flash of defiance and shyness; he looks concerned about how Pedri will respond. Maybe he’s expecting him to close himself off once again. Walk him out of the room, even.

If Pedri could, he’d tell him how ridiculous that worry is. Gavi could break the news he’s going to sign with PSG, and all Pedri’d do is eat the words out of his hand, lick all the remaining crumbs from pulse point to fingertip.

Gavi doesn’t perceive all this devotion, this sheer desperation. But at least he gets the general picture; Pedri’s not going to shut him out, and so he goes, “I know you won’t believe me if I say it’s not your fault we lost, even if it’s the truth. So let me just tell you this: you’re better than everyone else. But that one’s a given.”

Pedri snorts at that. He opens his mouth to say something, because he might eat up Gavi’s words, that doesn’t mean he has to like them, so surely he can—

“Don’t,” Gavi beats him to it.

He puts a hand on Pedri’s leg, as if trying to imprint his words on his skin, inscribe them in his flesh. Suddenly, the wobbly feeling’s back, and Pedri thinks a hand shouldn’t feel like this—like its simple touch could rummage through every stone that’s been abandoned for centuries on the floor of the deepest ocean.

Pedri raises both of his palms in surrender. Okay, he won’t cut in. Okay.

“As I was saying,” Gavi continues, “you’re better than everyone else. But, more than that, you make everyone else better. You make me better. So please, don’t think you let us down, or that we’re mad at you because of the final score. If anything, we reached that stage all thanks to you. I know I speak for everyone in the team when I say it was an honor for us to play these semi-finals by your side.”

At last Gavi’s hand leaves his kneecap, and it makes Pedri realize he’d been holding onto Gavi more than Gavi had. Some years ago, he could’ve cried from this—this unrestrained show of kindness, the unstoppable force of his friend’s sincerity. But time’s passed; he’s too old for that now. Too old to shed tears when people tell him he’s been good, or whimper at the slightest compliment.

He can’t cry—but he could melt down, or, even worse, crumble completely, and this possibility terrifies him.

The salt refluxes into his throat, irritating the pharynx when he counters, in a voice that’s thin and hoarse, “I doubt I’m making you any better.” He looks at Gavi’s face and around, but never meets his eyes directly. “You still don’t know how to put on your PJs properly.”

He pulls at the label popping out of the collar of Gavi’s shirt to prove his point. If Gavi knows it’s just an excuse to escape his gaze and not let him see how affected, how utterly wrecked Pedri is because of what he just said, he has the grace not to mention it.

“There.” He tucks the label back inside Gavi’s shirt, hoping his friend will read it as it is; a thank-you note slipped against the nape of a loved one’s neck. “What about you? How are you feeling—about all of this?” he asks.

Gavi slides further back on the bed and lies down, his arms extending toward the pillows. “Gutted, obviously,” he says, his chest heaving with his sigh. “Like I’ve been run over by ten thousand hippos.”

“I’m—”

“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry.” Even lying down, his words feel sharp and vertical.

“Okay. Sorry. I mean—”

He cuts himself as Gavi props himself up with one elbow to look at him again. His face, crumpled at first, contorts into a lazy, playful expression. “Shit, when I said I’d do the talking, I didn’t realize you were that bad with words. Or are you only ever tongue-tied when there’s a pretty boy in your bed?”

Pedri barks out a laugh, rough, incredulous. “Fuck you, I was trying to be considerate.” He gives Gavi a light shove in the shin. Doesn’t linger on the warmth he finds there, under his palm.

Gavi’s smile turns into a serious expression. He considers Pedri with an evident curiosity, although far-removed, like he’s examining a toy bomb; cut the right rope, you’re safe. Push the wrong button and beware of the blast. “Well, I’m telling you you don’t have to be,” he eventually says, pressing right into the core. “Not with me. You can be selfish, too, sometimes. For that… and for anything.”

Seeing that Pedri doesn’t explode, he calmly falls back onto the bed again. Pedri isn’t sure if it’s an invitation to do the same, so he doesn’t follow him, even though it’s supposed to be his room and he can do whatever the fuck he wants, admittedly.

Truth is, everything that Gavi touches becomes his; Pedri’s bed, his sheets, the crux of his body.

The silence that settles after stretches in uncounted seconds. Gavi’s stomach, swelling and deflating as he breathes in the compact air of the room, is the only indication time is moving at all. The moment is both fragile and all-encompassing, and Pedri doesn’t dare disrupt it in the slightest, so he just keeps contemplating the other boy, the rising and falling motion of his abdomen; down and up, down and up.

“Pedri?” Gavi calls.

“Hm?”

“D’you think…,” his friend tries. “Do you think you can drive me home? Once we get back to the training center?”

The silliness of the question, all of a sudden, takes Pedri aback. His eyes travel from Gavi’s belly to his face, to find a pout distorting his mouth. Nothing nearly as terrible as Ferri’s, though. On Gavi, it’s… tolerable.

Pedri can’t believe it. How is this guy even real?

After all the mature talk, for everything to mellow out like this… it’s absurd. Comical. So much so Pedri almost bursts into manic laughter. That weird fucking night.

“You’ve got a license. You can go back on your own,” he counters jokingly.

At least, this—this is a pattern he recognizes. A dynamic he can work with, where he doesn’t have to flap his arms aimlessly to stay afloat. A normal world, where he gets to care for Gavi every day, and not the other way around. Today, however weird it’s been, is no exception.

Did Gavi predict this, when he asked? How this question, more than anything, would find an entry point into his gloom? Or was it just his natural self talking—because he can’t help to be so fucking charming, even when he’s not actively trying to coax some reaction out of Pedri?

“I’m a terrible driver,” Gavi says. “You know that. I’ll cause an accident. Run over someone.”

Pedri pinches his knee, making Gavi yelp and move his leg a bit, even closer to his. It’s only a matter of millimeters before they collide.

(Co-lli-de; wrong.

Co-llide; wrong.)

“What you are is a spoiled child. I can’t be the friend who condones your laziness.”

“Would you rather be the friend of a vehicular manslaughter perpetrator?”

I’d rather not be your friend at all, is what Pedri thinks but doesn’t say.

But even though he still has some sort of control over his mouth, he can’t keep the rest of his body from reacting forever; and so, with a sigh, he stops resisting the pull that’s been tugging at him since Gavi lay down and joins him, his back hitting the mattress.

Their legs touch; water comes rushing into the breach.

Gavi’s eyes instantly light up when Pedri’s head falls onto the sheets. Like he didn’t expect Pedri to actually lie down next to him. Like he’d given up expecting it. His face, full of astonishment and delight, is the harshest sight, and the gentlest reminder; there’s more to life than—whatever’s kept Pedri’s mind in disarray. When football ends, the little things will still exist. The small wonders.

An occupied bed. Someone waiting for you after everything’s over.

“Of course I’ll drive you home. You don’t have to ask.”

—

When Pedri wakes up, his first reflex, even before stirring, or rubbing his eyes, is to blindly reach for his phone and turn the alarm off, so it doesn’t ring and disturb the calm of the room.

Behind the curtain—a thinly veiled, white material that hides little of the suburban backdrop—the city is slowly coming to life. He’s grateful for the calendar, grateful it’s early May and not the end of June, meaning it’s still somewhat dark outside even if it’s 6 a.m. already, and the sun can’t threaten to poke the eye, or burn an exposed portion of skin. Can’t threaten to drag Gavi out of sleep.

His friend’s still dozing peacefully next to him. Pedri would look at his face, but he doesn’t know if it’s alright to do so. If it’d breach some sort of unspoken contract between them: never take a moment of weakness away from the other; these are supposed to be shared, always.

It’s strange to think that all the times they’ve fallen asleep together, in the back of a coach, on the plane, on the benches of a locker room, they never did this—sleeping by each other’s side in the same bed. Even when they have the other over, and the hour grows late because they watched a movie, or played a this-time-it’s-really-the-last last game on FIFA, one of them always ends up taking the spare room, or the couch.

Pedri never had the opportunity to see Gavi like this, so he doesn’t look, even now that he can. Shifts his gaze away to the semi-apparent skyline of six-story buildings, the white grid pattern meeting terracotta. An architecture he’s not familiar with. Not Spanish. Not Catalan. Decidedly not Canarian.

Very much Lombardian.

It dawns on him as the sky clears up, gradually chasing away the bluish shades for a pink flood; Milan, the championship, the game.

Remembering all this kind of stings. Wraps his heart in a dull embrace. But it’s not as painful as last night, he realizes. It doesn’t feel as dramatic, as final; more like a bruise that time could eventually heal for good, if he believes it hard enough.

He could believe just about everything when Gavi’s lying next to him, his body radiating comfort and warmth and nothing-hurts.

But this way of thinking is dangerous. He has to leave this bed—quickly, before the greediness takes over. He pushes on his elbows to sit up, uproots himself from this spot by Gavi’s side. Can’t make a home out of a vacation house. The wooden steps leading to the outside, the shore surrounding the house, the ocean that stretches out endlessly—

if he stays any longer, he’s scared he won’t be able to stop himself from making Gavi his infinity.

“Don’t leave,” comes a muffle behind him.

Seconds later, a hand sneaks its way across Pedri’s abdomen, an entire arm soon curling around his waist.

“Stay,” Gavi mumbles again, his mouth probably half-pressed against the pillow. His palm rests on Pedri’s hip, his little finger grazing the elastic waistband of his shorts. The hotness of his skin permeates the cotton fabric of Pedri’s shirt, raising goosebumps on his arms by contrast. Pedri notices he’s actually a bit cold; they fell asleep without settling under the blanket, and the bed linen still retains the mild warmth of spring.

Gavi’s hold tightens around him. Pedri still doesn’t dare to look behind him, but he feels the mattress sink with Gavi’s weight, closer, and closer again, until something round and soft and light presses against his shirt, just over the small of his back.

Gavi’s mouth on him.

Gavi kissing him.

That makes him turn his head. He peers over his shoulder, his neck craning back to find the boy’s face.

But Gavi’s already retreating. Already looking up at him. His heavy-hooded lids bat away the remnants of tiredness that four hours of sleep couldn’t completely fight off, and his gaze flickers from drowsy to alert.

Pedri blinks. His brain’s plowing through quicksand. Without meaning to, he drops his gaze to Gavi’s mouth—his mouth, that just touched Pedri, what the hell—before he catches himself and brings his eyes back up.

He searches for an anchor point, one that doesn’t scream abysmal trouble. Finds himself focusing on Gavi’s cheek. The left one. It’s—so remarkably flushed. The rosiness accentuates the mark left by the pillowcase embroidery, and, somehow, it’s to this detail (unexceptional, meaning absolutely world-shattering) that his heart gives the hardest thump of love.

He wonders if Gavi can feel it. His whole body shaking. How readily his muscles respond to the mere sight of him—not even to the touch, not even to the kiss, but simply to his existence.

“Please?” Gavi insists when Pedri still hasn’t moved.

He takes his arm back, folds it under his head. Pedri frowns. This isn’t right. Gavi shouldn’t have to beg for his presence. Not when he’s offering Pedri everything, sprawled out on his bed, looking like—not a wet dream, but the firmest of bodies, a concept infinitely more unbelievable.

“Okay,” Pedri says, settling back on the mattress. “Okay.”

Gavi’s lying on his stomach when Pedri joins him, resting on his back. Eye to eye, trembling breath against trembling breath.

“Good morning,” Gavi whispers, the beginning of a chuckle making his voice waver.

And Pedri, too, only speaks with a soft reedy voice when he asks, “What’s so funny?”

“I don’t know. Nothing. I’m just happy, I guess,” Gavi says. He rubs the side of his face against the pillow. “It’s weird, right? We lost, and I’m happy.”

Happy to be here, with you.

Gavi doesn’t say the last part out loud, still finding some mercy within himself not to overwhelm Pedri with too blunt words. But the sentiment rings too loud and his eyes are too big, so it saturates the short gap between them anyway.

Pedri should accept it—the belated silence. Be content with the status quo, where the feelings are there but will never have to be tended to. They’ve built a whole relationship out of those half-spoken confessions. It’s been enough so far. It’s been enough for years.

Except they’ve never shared a bed before, and Pedri thinks he’ll miss it forever. Starts to come to an understanding—that, perhaps, the worst that could happen is not consuming Gavi to the bone, but getting a taste of him only to not have the boy like this a second time.

And it’s the fear of this afterimage, of being haunted for the rest of his life by the vision of Gavi’s body on these rumpled sheets, with the sun angling onto the axis of his back, and never being in the same bedroom as him again, that makes Pedri rush out the words,

“I really want to—”

Kiss you? Tell you how much you mean to me? Grind you back into seven billion billion billion of grains of sand, so I could cherish each and every portion of you—adore a different bit every second of my life, without fear of one day running out of you?

Float on my back in the liquid expanse of your self, the ocean of your affection?

His voice trails away as he thinks about how to put it into a proper sentence. This, too, is new; he’s never had to say anything before. Gavi’s almost always the one to ask, the one to demand; is brave enough to make the first move for the two of them every time, leaving Pedri the luxury of simply having to give in every time.

So, of course, when Pedri finds himself struggling, tiptoeing on the edge of the pier but still figuring out how to actually step into the water (and Gavi was right, he is becoming tongue-tied because of a pretty boy in his bed), it’s Gavi who comes to the rescue, making the dip easier with his devotion and his earnestness.

“You can,” he says, raw, trusting, heartbreaking. “Whatever it is, you can.”

A hard thump of Pedri’s heart reverberates against his mouth, shaking it open. It’s past 6 a.m., the sky is brighter and the whole city bears witness to two bodies in the same bed in a foreign country, a story that’s been told a million times already.

He’s distantly aware he’s fisting the sheets. His skin buzzes, a bundle of nerves stretching like a spring along his bones, and he can’t tell if he’s dreading what’s going to happen or if he’s looking forward to it. Perhaps a little bit of both.

Part of him’s stubbornly holding back. Doesn’t want to ruin this. It’s not the right time—they should wait for everything to get better, so the moment, when it comes, is not spoiled by bitterness, does not taste of fever and elusion.

But there’s this bigger part, expanding in the middle of his chest. The one that’s tired. Fed up with battling against the ebb and flow. With being ever so rational. More than that, fed up with using reason as an excuse for his cowardice. He’s slowly learning calculations won’t always lead to the best result. He’s not quite there yet. It’s a work in progress.

Gavi exhales, waiting. The image of the ball sliding past him replays in the back of Pedri’s mind. The moment where he should have sped up to reach for it, and, Why the fuck didn’t he plunge?

He releases the sheets. He won’t make that mistake again.

It doesn’t mean he has to high dive either.

Instead, he leans in. Does so very carefully—the slowest thing in the world. Only pauses when there’s barely a handful of centimeters separating them, and searches for Gavi’s eyes. All he needs is one last reassurance. A confirmation he’s not going to completely fuck things up.

He reads the answer in Gavi’s pupils, dilated in response to his silent question. Black holes swallowing two brown sea urchins, the least prickly ones in the ocean.

Gavi’s shallow breathing tickles the tip of his chin, but he remains where he is, a whisper away from where he should be. Not closing the distance. Not giving in. A flicker of a smirk dances across his lips; for once, he’s going to make Pedri work for it.

Pedri closes his eyes and obliges.

The first touch is light, superficial. Like when you enter the sea in summer, just as the sun’s about to drop below the horizon; you start with short dips, and then you gradually wade in, scooping the water up and tipping it onto your forehead, your neck, feeling the tingling in your fingers. You proceed with caution, because you’ve always been warned about thermal shocks, and been told stories about people dying because of the cold.

When Pedri presses a little harder, Gavi gives an appreciative hum; finally, finally reacts, as if he was just waiting for this cue—this proof of total surrender on Pedri’s part—to start moving.

He brings his hand up Pedri’s face, cups his cheek. Parts his lips to let Pedri suck on the bottom one. His palm is a bit clammy, a bit sweaty on him, the stroke from the cheekbone to the jawline is not as smooth as it could be, Milan humidity be damned, but Pedri’s legs tense at the touch nonetheless, his toes curling and rubbing against the mattress.

It’s mind-numbing, how the slightest gesture from Gavi ripples through his body tenfold. Pedri could swear his every atom is wired to him, and the idea that their connection on the pitch was just a sample of this larger bond between them clouds his head with desire. Football is nothing. The hand now descending along his throat’s a pagan god.

“Fuck,” he chokes out when Gavi’s lips follow the path previously traced by his fingers and he starts nipping at the juncture of his neck.

“Yeah?” Gavi mouthes against his skin. Pleased. Extremely smug.

An orb of heat zings from Pedri’s spine up to his head, spinning around his brain until he’s delirious with want. He curls a hand between their chests, grabs Gavi’s shirt there. Feels the boy’s pulse echoing the rabbit-quickening beats of his own heart. He’d bet his life it’s never thumped this fast, this hard. Even the sprinting drills, with stop-start direction changes, didn’t make it race like that.

“Yes. Shit—yes.”

Gavi keeps humming, but it turns into a gagged moan, fuck, when Pedri inches his body even closer and lines them up together.

The lingering sleepiness prevents them from erratically rutting against each other, their limbs too numb for anything rushed, hectic. There’s no desperate humping, no clashing teeth, no shoving of the tongues; only a lazy thrust, and a slow switchover when Gavi rolls onto his back, pulling Pedri along with him. He ends up on him, with his legs bracketing Gavi’s thighs, and Gavi’s hands on his sides to keep him in place.

Lazy, unhurried.

He wonders if it’s the lack of sleep that got them here, to this precise moment. If the levee broke simply because the most practical part of their brains has not yet fully regained consciousness to stop them from doing something stupid. But he also knows it’s not a spur-of-the-moment, one-time thing; just the logical outcome of what’s been underlying for a long time, the excavation of something buried in a weathered strand.

Confirmed by Gavi, when he says, “I’ve always wanted to do this.”

“What? Having me straddling you?” Pedri jokes, and it takes him all his resolve not to grind down.

Gavi doesn’t even need it. The plain statement of what they’re doing—because this is what they’re doing—is enough to elicit a mewl out of him. His answer comes out breathless, stuttered. “S-sure. But I was talking about—grabbing your waist like that. It’s so… tiny.”

As he talks, he fondles the little fat he finds under his palms and squeezes—a seemingly innocuous gesture, but Pedri deciphers the intent behind it. Reads exactly how Gavi wants to assess wether he could enclose his whole stomach with his two hands, could connect the tips of both of his thumbs together if he tried hard enough. When Pedri whines, more at the sight than because of any pain, he releases him.

Gavi’s hands then slip to his shorts, and Pedri thinks for a second they’re going to come to a halt there, on the waistband, to slide the piece of clothing off him; but Gavi disregards it completely. Plants his palms further down, on his bare legs. “And these—they always look so smooth. D’you know—D’you know how hard it is to watch you running every day with those without being able to touch you?”

And it’s as much the desire that rips itself from Gavi’s confession as the words themselves that make Pedri echo what Gavi said to him earlier, “You can,” before he’s full-on pressing on the hardness he feels under him, because he, too, can.

This time, Gavi doesn’t moan, but the prettiest of blush creeps from his cheeks down past the collar of his shirt, which is more than enough reward.

Then it’s steady hands and friction against fabric, the occasional sliver of bare skin when a movement is a little bit more sudden and makes the shirt ride up, or makes their shorts slide just under the hipbone. It’s chests pressing against each other, hot breath against the neck, leaving a dampness on the flesh that turns cold when the mouth finds another spot to attach itself to—the pulse point behind the ear, the Adam’s apple, the collarbone.

“How about, uh—we get some holidays when, ah, the season’s over?” Gavi stammers just when Pedri has snuck his hand under his shirt, high enough to palm his chest, and Pedri should maybe feel insulted he can still form coherent thoughts, especially thoughts that have nothing to do with what they’re doing right now. But Gavi’s babbling about a future where Pedri has a place by his side; he’s too charmed to hold it against him.

“What? Where?” he asks, lightly pinching the nipple that he feels hardening under his touch.

“I—I don’t know.” Gavi’s answer is punched out of him. “Far away. Tanzania, for all I care. As long as, ah—as long as we’re together, yeah?”

Pedri almost licks up the entire length of his throat.

Their breathing is slow. Latches on to every second, stretching out the little time they have between their fingers, elongating the moment until release. They’ll have to check out soon, go downstairs for breakfast—leave this fucking city. So it’s not a full consumption; more like a foretaste of a prospect of more, more and more.

But more importantly it’s easy, the panting turning into gasps turning into shudders when they both get there, the contented stillness that follows, taking turns to shower, and the liquid kiss they exchange before Gavi has to go get his stuff in his own room, promises of ‘Let’s go home’ trailing after him when he reaches the door.

“Hey, what about that 0-4 loss against Madrid?” Pedri calls out just as Gavi’s about to step out into the hallway. “Would you still take it?”

Gavi looks over his shoulder. Smirks in that insolent way of his. “Yeah, no, forget that—I was tripping. We’re going to walk them like dogs on Sunday.”

Pedri’s heart fucking soars.

For the second time today, he’s the one closing the distance. Grabs Gavi’s wrist before he can leave, spins him around and swims freely in the river of his laughter. Kisses him eight times more, until happiness dissolves every other existing emotion into laughable details by comparison.

Ga-vi; right.

G-avi; right.

Gav-i; right.

G-av-i; right.

Ga-v-i; right.

G-a-vi; right.

G-a-v-i; right.

Gavi; right.