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There was no escaping the hype.
For weeks, the headlines had been blaring it like prophecy: First Clash of the Season: Lucas vs. Alpheus. The posters were everywhere, the hashtags trended daily. Even the broadcasters had stopped pretending it was about the clubs anymore. They slapped his name and Ijekiel’s side by side on the screen like it was some pay-per-view boxing match.
And okay, maybe Lucas had brought some of this on himself. Maybe he shouldn’t have said “I’ll break through any defense they put in front of me” in last year’s post-match presser. Or “He’s not special, he’s just tall and annoying” when a reporter shoved a mic in his face. Or the whole thing about how blondes didn’t scare him. (Which had been true, at the time, before the PR team yelled at him about professionalism.)
Point is, he wasn’t the one who kept replaying that tackle from last season in every promo reel. He wasn’t the one splicing together slow-motion clips of himself glaring while Alpheus jogged away with the ball.
He wasn’t the one turning it into a rivalry.
But fine. If they wanted a rivalry, he’d give them one.
Lucas sat in the tunnel with his headphones jammed in, bouncing his leg hard enough to rattle the bench. The air smelled like disinfectant and anticipation. Teammates stretched, joked, smacked each other’s shoulders to bleed off nerves. Lucas kept his eyes down, letting the beat in his ears hammer away at the restless buzz under his skin.
He wasn’t nervous. He just hated waiting.
When he finally glanced up, of course he saw him.
Alpheus, lined up neat with the rest of his team, like he was carved from something colder and smoother than the rest of them. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, posture too straight for someone about to sprint for ninety minutes. Calm. Always calm. Like the noise of the stadium didn’t touch him. Still, there was a gentle smile on his lips as he talked to his teammates.
Lucas looked away immediately, back down at the floor, at the laces of his boots. Didn’t matter. He’d seen enough.
The cameras were already catching it — panning over both squads as the announcers did their pre-match hype.
“This is what we’ve been waiting for. Lucas, the unstoppable striker. Alpheus, the unshakable wall. Two sides of the coin.”
“The question is, who breaks first?”
Lucas’s jaw tightened.
He didn’t care who broke first. He just wanted to put the ball in the net. Wanted to watch Alpheus’s face finally — finally — do something other than that cool, blank composure.
He pictured it for a moment, unbidden: that perfect line of calm shattering, eyes wide, jaw clenched, gold flashing with something raw instead of disciplined. Sweat running sharp down the side of his face.
Lucas blew out a breath, rolled his shoulders, fixed his eyes on the pitch ahead. Didn’t matter. Just football. Just ninety minutes. Just another defender in his way.
He didn’t even think Alpheus was that attractive. Objectively, sure, people said it — commentators, fans, Twitter threads that spiraled into fanart way too fast. But Lucas didn’t buy it.
That doesn’t mean he’s blind, though. He noticed the details because he had to. Because when you’re trying to beat someone, you watch them. Study them. Memorize their every tell, their every twitch. That’s all it was. Professionalism.
The way the floodlights caught white hair and made it almost glow? Irrelevant.
The sharp edge of a jaw that never seemed to loosen, even mid-sprint? Nothing.
The way golden eyes flicked sideways once, catching his across the tunnel for a half-second too long, like a dare? Lucas ignored it. Completely.
He cracked his knuckles.
He was going to break that composure tonight.
And if his pulse jumped when Ijekiel’s chin tilted up slightly, like he’d felt the weight of being watched? That was adrenaline. Just adrenaline.
The whistle blew. Time to play.
Kickoff hit like a punch of adrenaline.
Lucas thrived on the first ten minutes from the chaos, the scramble, the rush of a game still deciding what it was going to be. Most strikers eased themselves in, tested the defense, found the rhythm. Lucas didn’t believe in easing. He went straight for the jugular.
Third minute in, he peeled off his marker, sprinted down the left wing, and demanded the ball. The pass came — quick, low, tight spin — and Lucas took it in stride, body leaning into the speed, red eyes fixed on the box.
And of course, there he was.
Alpheus.
Golden gaze locked, stride perfectly measured, sliding across like he’d been waiting. Lucas flicked the ball inside, sharp as a knife, trying to ghost past him. For half a heartbeat he thought he’d done it — until Ijekiel’s leg snapped out, clean as a surgeon’s cut, and the ball was gone, sent spinning back upfield.
Lucas pulled up, chest heaving, fury already prickling under his skin.
Too calm. Too precise. Always.
By the tenth minute he tried again — cutting across the center this time, selling the dummy, shoulder drop, quick footwork. He felt the defenders scrambling, one caught flat-footed, the other sucked out of position. A sliver of space opened.
Lucas pushed through, legs pumping as he slammed shoulder-first into something solid.
He hit the turf hard, breath knocked out of him, grass clinging damp to his sleeve. The whistle didn’t blow. Play on. Crowd roaring.
He looked up.
Of course.
Alpheus, standing over him, face unreadable, chest rising steady. Not gloating, not smug. Just maddeningly composed.
Lucas spat dirt from his mouth, shoved himself upright, and snarled, “Missed me?”
It came out sharper than intended, teeth bared, but whatever.
A flicker of something in those golden eyes — barely there, gone in a blink. Then, smoothly, like he’d rehearsed it: “Professional courtesy.”
Lucas barked out a laugh, short and rough, and jogged back into position before he did something stupid.
The cameras, of course, caught all of it.
Up in the commentary box, the voices were practically vibrating:
“That’s not just football, that’s personal!”
“Look at the way they’re tracking each other, it’s like a game within the game.”
“Forget the scoreline! Tonight’s real question is who wins this duel.”
Lucas barely heard them. He was too busy plotting the next run, jaw set, mind already chewing over angles, speed, space.
He wasn’t going to let Alpheus keep him out. Not tonight.
Not when every second on the pitch felt like a dare he had no choice but to answer.
The whistle blew sharp and cruel, echoing like a taunt. First half over, score still locked, and Lucas stormed into the locker room with the kind of restless energy that made even his teammates edge away. He dropped onto the bench, towel slung around his neck, bouncing his knee like it owed him something.
“Relax, man,” one of the midfielders said, chucking a bottle of water at him. “You’re playing fine.”
Fine. Lucas nearly laughed. Fine wasn’t good enough when across the pitch he was gliding through the grass like it was his private runway.
Ijekiel Alpheus hadn’t broken a sweat, hadn’t lost a step. White hair slicked back, golden eyes scanning with surgical precision — he was still moving in Lucas’s head like the game hadn’t stopped. Every tackle, every brush of contact — burned into the back of his eyelids like film reels on repeat.
Lucas twisted the cap off the water bottle too hard; plastic cracked under his grip.
“Yo,” another teammate piped up, grinning as he peeled off his shin guards. “What’s your deal with Alpheus, huh? You two playing your own game out there.”
“Yeah,” someone else chimed in, laughter spilling. “Crowd’s not even watching the ball half the time, just waiting for you two to crash into each other again.”
Lucas gave them his best deadpan glare, one that usually shut people up. Not today.
“Don’t flatter him,” Lucas muttered, kicking his boots off with more force than necessary. “He’s not all that. Just… long legs and a good PR team.”
“Long legs,” one of them echoed, smirking. “Noted.”
That earned them a wet towel to the face, but the damage was done. The room was buzzing with it now.
Lucas raked a hand through his damp hair, forcing out a sharp laugh like it was no big deal. “Seriously. You guys are acting like he’s a god or something. He puts his socks on one at a time like the rest of us.”
Except he didn’t, not really. Alpheus moved like he’d been sculpted for the game, like gravity held doors open for him. Even when Lucas slammed a shoulder into him, it was like hitting a wall carved out of marble — immovable, irritatingly graceful. And when he walked away after, there’d been this infuriating sway to his stride. Confident. Balanced. Like he knew exactly how much attention he pulled without even trying.
Lucas had noticed, but only by accident. Obviously. Anyone would. Hard not to, when you were stuck chasing him up and down ninety yards of field.
Someone snapped a wet towel at his thigh. “Dude, seriously. You’re obsessed.”
Lucas smirked, sharp enough to hide the truth. “Obsessed with beating him, maybe. Don’t get it twisted.”
But even as he said it, leaning back against the cool tile wall, his mind betrayed him. The half wasn’t over — not by a long shot. The second whistle would come, and when it did, he’d be back on the field, chasing the shadow of a boy who never seemed to lose his balance.
And Lucas would be damned if he let himself blink first.
The second whistle ripped through the stadium air, and Lucas came out of the tunnel like a man possessed. The crowd roared back into motion, half jeers, half chants, all of it blending into the same static in his ears. Ninety minutes — well, forty-five more, plus stoppage. He didn’t need all of them. He just needed one moment to tip the scales.
And of course, the scales were currently balanced on the lean, maddening figure in white across the pitch.
Ijekiel jogged into position with that same infuriating composure, not a hair out of place, jersey clinging in ways Lucas told himself he didn’t notice.
It wasn’t even that impressive an ass — Lucas had seen better, touched better — but somehow it had a way of being exactly where Lucas’s eyes landed after every challenge. Efficient, balanced, calculated down to the damn posture. If Lucas tripped over his own feet once tonight, it’d be because he was busy glaring at Alpheus’s spine.
The game turned ugly fast. First, a clipped ankle that earned Lucas a warning glare from the ref. Then a shirt tug from Ijekiel that had him nearly stumbling face-first into the grass. The crowd ate it up, every whistle and near-card a new round of blood sport. By the time Lucas hooked his arm around Ijekiel’s in a corner challenge, it was less football and more gladiator match.
Somewhere, the internet was already exploding. His phone would be a graveyard after this. He could picture it: screenshots of their snarls, gifs of every too-close clash, memes captioned “Just kiss already”.
And maybe that’s why, halfway through, Lucas realized he wasn’t even watching the damn ball anymore. His mark wasn’t leather and air. It was white hair glinting under floodlights, gold eyes flicking to scan the pitch, the broad line of shoulders cutting him off at every turn. Lucas matched him stride for stride, shove for shove, not because it was good tactics but because it felt impossible not to.
Then, it led to an aerial duel. Cross swung in, both of them leaping like rockets launched off the same fuse. Elbow, shoulder, sheer stubborn gravity — they tangled midair, and when they came down, Lucas hit the ground with a thud that rattled teeth.
The stadium gasped. Lucas blinked up at a blur of lights, and found Ijekiel above him, calm as ever, boots planted beside his ribs like the pitch itself bent to keep him steady.
“Are you always this dramatic?” Ijekiel’s voice was smooth, carrying just enough bite to cut through the noise.
Lucas barked a laugh, low and rough in his throat, even as his lungs protested. “Careful. You’ll make me think you care.”
And then, shockingly, for the first time ever — Lucas noticed the tiniest fracture in Ijekiel’s mask. Not a grin, not even close. But a twitch at the corner of his mouth, a flicker of amusement he couldn’t quite bury in time.
Lucas’s chest clenched, airless in a way that had nothing to do with the fall. He shoved himself upright, teeth gritted, pulse racing too fast. He told himself it was adrenaline, pure and simple. But the way that flicker replayed itself in his head — looping, taunting, refusing to fade — said otherwise.
And Lucas hated it. Almost as much as he couldn’t wait for the next whistle.
The final whistle cut like a blade. Sharp, merciless, and entirely unsatisfying.
Nil-nil. After ninety minutes (and stoppage), that was all the scoreboard had to show. No winner, no bragging rights, no release. Just a whole stadium full of noise and the ache of a fight paused mid-punch.
Lucas ripped his armband off before he even crossed the touchline. Teammates were clapping backs, swapping jerseys, grinning for the cameras like a draw was something to celebrate. He couldn’t hear any of it. His pulse was still in his throat, pounding hot, insistent.
The match felt unfinished. Wrong. Like a door slammed shut just when it was about to open.
He didn’t care about the fans still chanting his name. Didn’t care about the cameras angling for post-match reactions. He shoved past the cluster of bodies, head down, boots hammering a straight line for the tunnel.
And then, of course, he saw him again.
Alpheus was already ahead, hair damp but perfectly in place, kit clinging in all the right places like it had been designed just for him. Moving unhurried, unbothered. Composed, the way only someone who’d never lost his balance a day in his life could be.
The sight of it lit a fuse under Lucas’s ribs. Because how? How could Alpheus walk off that pitch like ninety minutes hadn’t just been spent clawing at each other’s throats? Like the game wasn’t still burning in his chest?
Lucas’s jaw locked. Every muscle in his body itched to close the distance, to force some crack in that composure, anything to prove he wasn’t the only one still choking on the tension.
The cameras were behind him. The tunnel stretched ahead. And Ijekiel — damn him — was right there.
Lucas’s stride quickened.
“Alpheus.” The name cracked out of him like a whip, too sharp, too loud in the echoing tunnel.
Ijekiel slowed. Turned. Gold eyes met red, cool and steady, and something in Lucas broke.
He surged forward, slamming a palm into his chest, pinning him hard against the wall. The thud echoed; cameras at the tunnel mouth caught the motion in rapid flashes. A shove, a scandal, another entry in the long-running highlight reel of their rivalry.
But the cameras couldn’t hear. They couldn’t see the twitch in Lucas’s jaw, the way his breath came too hot, too close, as he leaned in until the space between them shrank to nothing.
“Bet I could make you lose control faster than I did your defense.”
The words rasped from his throat, low, filthy, wrapped in a grin that was half-snarling. They dripped of arrogance, but the truth underneath curdled hotter: it wasn’t just about the match. It never was.
Lucas’s chest was pressed to his, close enough to feel the slight hitch of Ijekiel’s inhale, the sharp drumbeat of a pulse at his throat. It was the tiniest thing, but it fed Lucas like oxygen. Proof that he wasn’t the only one coming undone.
For a second — a fraction of a heartbeat — he imagined it. What it would take to tip him. To push harder. To see Ijekiel’s composure shattered not by a foul or a card, but by him.
The thought twisted dark and sweet in his gut. His body ached with it.
“You overestimate yourself,” Ijekiel said finally, voice level but strained at the edges, like glass stretched too thin. “On the pitch and off.”
It should’ve been a dismissal. A brush-off, clean and final. But the fact that it wasn’t effortless — the fact that Lucas could hear the strain under the steady — made his blood sing.
Ijekiel shoved him back with a measured push, sharp enough to sting, and stepped away. He straightened his kit, smoothed his damp hair, his dignity folding back over him like armor. He walked off down the tunnel, long strides eating the distance, leaving Lucas in the shadows.
Lucas leaned against the wall where moments ago he’d pinned him, chest heaving. His grin cracked wide, teeth bared. It wasn’t joy. It wasn’t victory. It was something hungrier and rawer, like he’d just stolen something forbidden and couldn’t wait to do it again.
Because Ijekiel had faltered. Lucas had felt it. And now his head was a mess of fury and lust and denial that looped and looped, feeding on itself, impossible to quiet.
He told himself it was the rivalry. That was all. Competition. Hate. The usual.
But his body didn’t buy the lie.
And as he pushed off the wall, following the echo of footsteps ahead, Lucas couldn’t shake the truth burning under his skin:
He’d lost his mind somewhere in the ninety minutes. And he wanted, needed, another round.
The press room smelled like cheap coffee and too many microphones. Lucas sat at the table, fresh kit swapped for a crisp club tracksuit, hair damp but combed back, posture straight. Cameras flashed like gunfire. Every journalist in the room wanted blood — or at least a soundbite they could chew into headlines.
He gave them neither.
“Strong opponent,” he said smoothly, voice even. “Respect where it’s due. Both sides played hard. A draw’s not ideal, but we take the positives, build on them, and move forward.”
Professional. Respectful. Every word sounded like it had been scripted by PR, but it came out in his trademark low drawl, so the room leaned in anyway.
Lucas wanted to laugh. Respect where it’s due — please. He wanted to bite that composure right off Alpheus’s face. Wanted to shove him against more than a concrete wall and see if his pulse would skip again.
Another question came, about “that moment in the tunnel.” Cue the grainy replay on the big screen behind the journalists: Lucas’s hand on Ijekiel’s chest, the slam against the wall, the flare in his eyes. The footage froze at the perfect second, like a movie still.
Lucas tilted his head, lips quirking like he found the whole thing amusing. “Emotions run high,” he said mildly. “Part of the game. Nothing more.”
Nothing more. As if his blood wasn’t still running electric, replaying the way Ijekiel had looked at him. As if he hadn’t memorized the exact sound of his inhale.
The press scribbled, the cameras clicked, and Lucas leaned back in his chair with the picture of composure. Dramatic irony at its finest: they thought they were looking at a pro athlete shutting down a controversy. In reality, they were staring at a man still vibrating from the feel of another body pressed hard against his.
Later, alone in his apartment, Lucas sprawled on his couch with the lights off and his phone glowing in his hand. He’d told himself he wasn’t going to look. Absolutely not. Social media was a cesspool; only idiots scrolled through their own discourse.
Naturally, he was scrolling.
And naturally, it was worse than he expected.
The tunnel shove already had its own hashtag. #LucKel. #TunnelTension. #JustKissAlready. He tapped into one by accident (fine, not by accident), and the flood came: gifs of the shove in slow motion, edits spliced with dramatic music, tweets screaming about “sexual tension you could cut with a knife.”
Lucas groaned and tossed the phone onto his chest. “People are delusional,” he muttered to no one.
Except then he picked it back up. Rewatched one of the gifs. Watched it again, because the loop caught the exact second Ijekiel’s composure cracked, and God, it looked even better slowed down.
He rolled his eyes so hard it hurt. “Not hot. Not at all.” He scrolled faster, muttering insults at every shipper tweet, but his smirk betrayed him. He was feeding on it. Thrumming with the secret, stupid little thrill of seeing what the world thought they’d seen.
One particularly dramatic edit cut from the shove to Lucas grinning in the aftermath, overlaid with the caption ‘enemies to lovers speedrun (90 mins)’. He barked out a laugh before he could stop himself, smothered it into a pillow, and scrolled past like he hadn’t lingered.
It was ridiculous. It was humiliating. It was everything he’d wanted.
And if he found himself replaying the tunnel scene in his head as he fell asleep, pulse still spiking with it — well. Nobody had to know.