Work Text:
When Julian opens his eyes in the morning, he knows it will be a difficult day. Not because something grand or unprecedented awaits him—since he knows he will do the same things as always—but because he will feel more than he usually does. It is because he wakes up with that anguish in his chest that he knows the day won’t be easy. That everything will be more melancholic.
Upon getting up, he is grateful that the weather dawned overcast, far too grey for the usual standards of a hot German summer. In truth, he isn't grateful for the break in the pattern, but rather because it isn't winter, and it isn't raining, so the sun's rays make his lonely, empty apartment feel at least a little warm. He couldn't bear to feel the cold that cracks his bones, not on a day like this.
He knows it’s a strange thing — it’s just an apartment. Or rather, more than an apartment, it’s his house. It shouldn't be just a piece of real estate, but it is, because it's empty and has nothing to do with a home. It’s large enough for the standards of a football player, but it’s as empty as a hollow shell. Empty enough for Julian to feel like a stranger in the place he should call home.
Still, when he sits at the table, having not turned on the coffee maker beforehand — a habit he developed by always waking up before the alarm — it is Nala who runs desperately toward him. Julian manages a smile at the sight of the frantic blonde blur, so his dog won’t think he’s at his breaking point. But he doesn't know if he can really fool her. Perhaps he refuses to accept that he is only fooling himself.
In fact, he doesn’t even know if he is at his breaking point. He has been on the edge for so long, walking the brink of the precipice, leaning to both sides, never falling and much less saving himself. When will he reach the limit of his limit? The limit is when his day begins half an hour before the alarm goes off, because first he can no longer sleep, and when he does manage it, it is something so dark that he yearns to be awake again. Because of this, he began to use this anxious habit to reflect on what he doesn't dare show others. To be who he is.
And therein lies the funny thing, because he no longer knows what he is like. Julian knows he is a football player — not one of the best, but good enough to secure the number ten shirt for the team. But, definitely, he is not something that can be shown to others. His true self hides something darker, which cannot even be said out loud. And he doesn't even know if the long-awaited moment of being himself will ever arrive. Perhaps, one day he will manage to wake up when the alarm goes off; perhaps one day he can allow himself to sleep a little longer because the bed was warm, because he had someone sleeping with him who made the delay worth it, because…
And then he reached the root of the problem.
The one who should not be named, not out loud. It worked like a curse: his name echoed through Julian’s mind every day, but Julian never allowed himself to say it aloud. He was afraid. Afraid that he might desire to be with him so much that, somehow, he would materialize in front of him. Because if that happened, Julian would finally be forced to consult the team psychologist, since it was impossible for Kai Havertz to show up at his house, given that he was on the other side of the world now and forever.
It wouldn't happen. Not on a random Monday, nor a Tuesday, nor a Wednesday. Maybe when it was his birthday. But only if Julian threw a party. And only if he decided to attach Sophia’s name to the invitation. And their son’s.
Of course. How could he expect Kai’s family not to be present? He had new priorities now, people to look after. He had an actual extension of himself, a son, something he had put into the world.
On Kai’s list of priorities, if Julian had any space at all, it was probably fourth place. And he wasn't even complaining. Given the gradual distance between them, Julian was surprised Kai still remembered to send birthday wishes. Since Kai got married, the messages they exchanged had been reduced to just that: "happy birthday" when it was one of their birthdays, congratulations for goals in rarer cases, or photos of Kai’s son that he used to send.
Such a beautiful boy. Until Julian was left with no response for the amount of love Kai felt for his son. Until Julian could no longer pretend he found it beautiful to see the eyes of the person he loved in a child that wasn't his.
And damn. Kai had a son. If they had told those two young idiots who once played for Bayer 04 Leverkusen — that Kai would be the first to have a child and that they wouldn't be best friends like before — Julian would have laughed. And Kai would have laughed too, but then he would have pretended to be offended by the implicit fact of being less competent in romantic relationships than Julian.
And truth be told, he had always been less skillful with those things. Perhaps because of the significant age gap between them, Julian had always been more developed. He’d gotten a girlfriend before Kai. He’d gotten drunk for the first time before Kai. He’d ended a relationship for the first time before Kai. And he’d fallen in love with his best friend before Kai.
Kai probably fell in love later, as Julian liked to fantasize. That was the only thing Kai had done before Julian. Oh, and falling out of love too, but he supposes that all comes in the same package.
Or maybe Kai was the first among them to use the other as an experiment, if Julian wanted the cruel version of his memories.
He sighs as he returns to reality, feeling Nala lick his leg. He moves his hand to pet her long fur and senses a new worry reflected in her eyes, though her tongue still wags in happiness as usual. It feels almost personal when she lets out a whimper and rubs against Julian’s leg, trying at all costs to remind him it was time for her breakfast kibble.
In truth, this is another bad habit Nala has been developing alongside Julian’s poor sleep quality: every day, she asks for food at least a few minutes earlier. Perhaps it’s a strategy to keep things from falling back into the same monotonous routine, and Julian recognizes she needs a treat for the effort. He feels truly grateful to have her, and this makes him decide that the morning run will last a few minutes longer today.
Julian likes the morning run. The part of Dortmund where he lives isn't usually so frantic at five in the morning — a specifically calm neighborhood where most of his neighbors are either kind elderly people or exhausted adults. But there is always one specific lady who waters the plants in her yard when Julian runs past. If he has time on the way back, he stops and lets Nala circle the old woman, who is almost overtaken in size by the dog. They talk about trivial things, just for the sake of talking, and Julian always feels awkward for forgetting her name and being too embarrassed to ask; she remains simply the "kind neighbor." Despite this, she always has a new topic, and that day, she asks him what he thinks about the World Cup.
Julian doesn't know if the neighbor knows he’s a football player. Probably not. She never asks him about Borussia, so she probably doesn't know how wounded Julian’s pride is for not being called up to the national team. Actually, if he were five years younger, he would have been more upset, so he just replies that he hopes Germany finally wins its fifth trophy.
He doesn't really believe they will win the World Cup. He was never much of a pessimist, nor does he have enough of an ego to think the cause of his pessimism regarding the national team is a tantrum over not being called up. He knows the team's situation. He knows about the changing of the guard. It’s a phase where they have more rookies, and only a few veterans remain. It’s hard to have the chemistry a World Cup winner needs under those conditions.
A selfish part of him doesn't want them to win, because it will be hard to see Kai lifting the trophy and smiling at teammates who aren't Julian.
And there he was again. Julian feels his heart sink and doesn't want the neighbor to think it’s because of her, so he says he’s late for work before running away with his tail between his legs. She invites him to visit her house when he has free time, and Julian agrees, even knowing that moment will never happen. She has been making that request for a long time, and perhaps Julian should mirror his perseverance in hers, because he has never met anyone so obstinate. But in the right things—not in a teenage fling with his best friend that happened a long time ago and that he cannot, for the life of him, get over.
Even if he doesn't want to, the subject stays in his mind during the entire run back. Nala starts to get impatient because Julian is running slower, but Julian cannot dissipate the lethargy that begins to consume his vitality. The thought that he might cry in the middle of the street is alarming enough to make him speed up again, suddenly desperate to finish the route.
When they get home, Nala throws herself on the floor, exhausted from having run too much, but with her tail wagging in contentment. Julian, for his part, cannot stop his legs from giving way. He has run more than this and hasn't been so shaken, so why can't he control his legs to stop them from failing, slowly sliding down the door until he finally lies defeated on the floor?
Julian Brandt is ridiculous. Even breathless and soaked in sweat, he still can't get over something that happened many years ago.
He should have gotten over it when Kai announced he was dating. But relationships began and ended. There was still hope when Kai said "I do" to her at the altar, because if there were marriages, there could also be divorces. And then they started a family, and the probability of it all ending was reduced to practically zero.
And Julian wasn't a monster for wanting to destroy that, was he? He just had at least ten years of unrequited love. And a great hole in his chest that he couldn't scar over.
He didn't know how long a human being could sustain a love of this dimension, but he suspected he was breaking records.
If Julian were honest with himself, he would know he was at his limit. But he wasn't, and so he would continue testing his capacity to suffer without complaining — stubborn and childish — until someone found him fallen in a ditch and forced him to pour out his hidden feelings.
When that happened, maybe Julian would feel grateful. He didn't know if it would help at all, but the only one who knew about his terrible crush was his dog. And she couldn't talk. Couldn't comfort.
Julian didn't even know if he wanted comfort. If he deserved comfort. I mean, he thought about destroying a family! He thought about a married man. He wanted a married man to want him.
He was the most ridiculous human being on Earth. He had the most ridiculous heart in the Milky Way. He should have gotten over it, and he hadn't. He had almost grown used to the pain. Almost felt comfort in the pain.
It so happened that normally, his heart could handle it well. The pain of longing, of rejection, and of unrequited love usually remained hidden in the depths of his heart. It functioned like a bittersweet feeling, a hidden wound that only hurt more when it was poked. And even though Kai’s name was enough to make the wound sting, Julian could usually endure it. He endured, but from so much enduring, it became a time bomb, accumulating suffering until it exploded. It was so he wouldn't go mad, but Julian didn't know if it was working.
Kai used to haunt him at night, appearing vividly when Julian closed his eyes. He appeared in the most painful memories, the happiest ones, the most passionate, and the most wretched—blurring what actually happened and what was a fruit of Julian’s desire when he invented wild dreams. Some were nightmares; others were so good and so vivid that they left a feeling of profound loss when Julian woke up. Some dreams could go on forever, and even if it were a lie, Julian suspected he would embrace it without hesitation if it meant that in that reality, he and Kai could be together.
But none of his pleas were answered; there were no infinite dreams, and reality hurt so much that he could never get used to it. Since today was the day his body refused to bear the pressure — from the team, the fans, his mother, Nala, his teammates, the haters, Kai — and needed to explode, he was forced to let his body relieve itself. Well, Julian still laughed with his teammates. He still scored goals. He wasn't always a starter, but what did he expect nearing thirty? Few were exceptional at that age, and he certainly wasn't one of them.
But the wound in his heart remained. Sometimes, he felt it was healing, but it was a process as slow as the decomposition of plastic in nature. Constant, but long enough to span decades. And to cause damage.
He wasn't hopeful enough to think he could heal completely. What Kai represented to him was much more than something that could be overcome in a few years. Worse than a ghost, he pursued him relentlessly, like an obsessive spirit, even if it was Julian who was the obsessed one.
And worst of all, Kai had no idea about any of it.
Julian laughed suddenly. How many times had he thought about telling him? Relieving guilt worked in more trivial cases. Would it work in this one too?
Would Kai one day finally find out how much Julian suffered for him? Would that ease the pain?
Would Julian receive a positive response? The thought of Kai being willing to be with him made Julian feel like he might vomit. Would it be worth having suffered so much?
Did Julian really love Kai, or did he just… want Kai to love him?
My God, he was going crazy. And what could he do about it? Get ready for work, in the hope that one day he could come to terms with the fact that he was in love with someone unreachable, and dream of the day when, finally, he wouldn't be.