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The match between Real Madrid’s youth academy and PXG’s academy had ended almost an hour ago.
The Santiago Bernabéu’s underground facilities had long since emptied, leaving only the distant, rhythmic echoes of the cleaning crew echoing through the concrete corridors. The high-intensity stadium lights had been dialed down to a dim, functional hum, casting long shadows across the polished floors.
Itoshi Sae stood completely alone in one of the unused tactical analysis rooms. His arms were crossed tightly over his chest, his knuckles white against the fabric of his training jacket as he stared blankly through the floor-to-ceiling glass window overlooking the darkened pitch.
They had lost.
It wasn't a blowout. It wasn't an embarrassing disaster that would make the sports columns tomorrow. But it was enough. It was enough for the frustration already simmering beneath his skin to become sharp, jagged, and entirely unbearable.
To make matters worse, his pre-heat was approaching.
He could feel the subtle, treacherous shift in his system—the internal temperature ticking upward by fractions of a degree, making the air in the room feel suffocatingly thick. Every ambient sound felt amplified, scraping against his raw nerves. Every emotion felt twice as heavy, and every silent critique running through his own mind felt like a physical attack. He felt exposed, volatile, and deeply defensive.
The sharp click of the electronic door lock breaking the silence made his shoulders instantly tense.
Sae didn’t need to turn around to identify the intruder. The air in the room shifted, carrying a faint, grounding trace of cedar and rain that bypassed his logic and went straight to his heightened instincts.
"Vivian Hugo." Sae's voice was flat, laced with a warning that could cut glass.
The alpha stepped inside, the door closing automatically behind him. He was tall, carrying himself with a relaxed, natural grace that Sae found entirely grating at this exact moment. He looked calm—annoyingly, impossibly calm. It was the complete, polarizing opposite of the chaotic storm currently raging inside Sae's chest.
"I wanted to speak with you," Hugo said, his tone even and unhurried.
Sae finally glanced over his shoulder, his teal eyes narrowed into a cold, dangerous glare. "Then speak. I don't have time for your pacing."
For a moment, Hugo simply stood there, studying him. His gaze wasn't judgmental, but it was perceptive—far too perceptive for Sae's comfort. Then, he delivered a sentence that made the blood freeze in Sae’s veins.
"You would make a better midfielder than striker."
The silence that followed was heavy and horrible. It stretched between them like a taut wire, suffocating the small room.
Sae felt his hands begin to tremble slightly within the folds of his arms. He dropped them to his sides, gripping the hem of his jacket just to anchor himself.
"…What?" The syllable was barely a whisper, dangerous and quiet.
Hugo tilted his head, completely unfazed by the sudden drop in temperature. "You heard me."
Sae laughed. It was a short, bitter, entirely humorless sound that scraped past his throat.
Of course. Of course it was happening again. Another person. Another self-proclaimed genius. Another dominant alpha looking at him from a pedestal, evaluating his worth, and casually deciding exactly what he could and could not become on the pitch. The phantom weight of his past, of expectations, and of his own biological vulnerability crashed down on him all at once.
"You think I can’t do it," Sae hissed, his voice rising, shedding its usual calculated indifference.
"No," Hugo countered calmly.
"You think I should just sit back and support someone else. That I'm meant to be secondary."
"No, Sae, that's not—"
"You think because I’m an omega—"
Hugo’s eyes widened, his calm demeanor finally cracking as he realized the sheer weight of the nerve he had just struck. "Sae—"
"YOU THINK I’M TOO WEAK TO BE THE ONE SCORING!"
The words exploded out of him, raw and unpolished, shattering the quiet of the room. The sheer force of his voice seemed to vibrate against the glass walls.
Hugo blinked, looking genuinely caught off guard for the first time all evening.
Sae absolutely hated it. He hated the surprise. He hated the proximity. Most of all, he hated the phantom pity he imagined was hiding just behind Hugo's dark eyes. The pressure that had been building inside his chest for days finally fractured completely. His vision blurred, a sudden, hot sting pricking the corners of his eyes. His throat tightened to the point of pain.
And before his pride could erect a wall to stop it—a single, heavy tear escaped, tracing a hot path down his pale cheek.
Sae froze.
Hugo froze.
Both of them stared at the unmistakable evidence of emotional collapse in complete disbelief.
Sae’s face immediately twisted into an expression of sheer horror and self-loathing. No. Not now. Not in front of him. Not in front of anyone, but especially not in front of an alpha who had just finished tearing down his ambitions.
He spun around sharply, turning his back to Hugo as he aggressively wiped his face with the back of his hand. "Get out."
Hugo didn’t move an inch.
"Leave. Now," Sae demanded, his voice trembling despite his best efforts to make it a command.
Still, there was no sound of footsteps retreating toward the door.
Instead, a broad shadow fell over him. Before Sae could react or lash out, large, strong arms carefully settled around his rigid shoulders from behind. It wasn't a restrictive hold. It wasn't a display of physical dominance or an attempt to lock him in place. It was just… steadying. A firm, grounding weight designed to keep him from spinning out of control.
"Sae," Hugo’s voice was right above his ear now, softer than Sae had ever heard it. It was dangerously, disarmingly gentle. "You completely misunderstood me."
"Shut up," Sae snapped, though the insult lacked its usual venom, muffled against his own shoulder.
"I wasn’t insulting you. I would never insult your football."
"Then what the hell was that?" Sae demanded, his shoulders shaking despite the solid hands holding him. "Tell me how that wasn't a rejection."
Hugo let out a long, slow sigh, his breath warm against the crown of Sae's head.
"You are the best playmaker I’ve ever seen," Hugo stated clearly.
Sae’s breath hitched, his fingers tightening against his own sleeves. "I don’t care about being a playmaker."
"I do," the alpha answered immediately. There was no hesitation in his voice. No calculating pause, no patronizing edge. Just absolute, unwavering certainty. And somehow, that stark honesty made Sae's chest ache even more.
"You see the entire field completely differently than everyone else," Hugo continued, his grip tightening just a fraction, pulling Sae slightly closer against his chest. "You create opportunities that nobody else in this academy can even comprehend. You control the entire rhythm of the game with a single touch."
Hugo leaned down slightly, his voice dropping an octave, carrying a rare spark of genuine passion. "That isn't a lesser role than being a striker, Sae. It’s greater."
Sae lowered his gaze, his defense mechanisms suddenly faltering against the sheer weight of the praise. "..."
"As a striker, you can score a goal," Hugo murmured. "As a midfielder, you decide who is allowed to score. You control the destiny of the match. I don't want you out of the box because you're weak. I want you in the center because you're the only one smart enough to rule it."
The room fell into a profound silence.
Sae felt his heart stumble. The defensive walls he had spent years building felt incredibly fragile. Hugo wasn't speaking with pity, nor was he mocking him. He sounded entirely, fiercely genuine.
Then, another shift occurred.
The air in the room grew perceptibly warmer, carrying a sudden, rich surge of cedar and rain. Hugo had become so intensely focused on communicating his thoughts that his alpha instincts had subconsciously responded to Sae's distress, releasing a wave of calming pheromones.
It wasn't a heavy, suffocating pressure meant to force compliance. It was a protective, soothing aura. For an omega whose senses were already heightened and raw from the oncoming pre-heat, the effect was instantaneous.
It felt like stepping out of the freezing cold and sinking directly into warm sunlight.
Sae’s breathing hitched again, but this time, the tension began to drain from his limbs. His racing thoughts slowed. The tight, defensive knot in his chest began to unspool, replaced by a heavy, enveloping exhaustion.
Without entirely processing the action, Sae took a small step backward. Then another, letting his back rest fully against Hugo’s solid chest.
Hugo stopped speaking entirely, his breath catching. "...Itoshi?"
The omega had gone completely quiet. The fierce, spiky hostility that had filled the room just minutes prior evaporated, leaving Sae looking small and incredibly tired. His rigid shoulders relaxed, dropping away from his ears.
Slowly, deliberately, Sae turned around within the loose circle of Hugo's arms. He didn't look up at the alpha's face. Instead, he leaned forward, burying his face completely into the crook of Hugo's neck, inhaling the pure, uninhibited scent of cedar.
Neither of them moved.
Hugo’s brain seemed to completely short-circuit. His hands hovered awkwardly at Sae’s waist for a second before gently coming to rest on the small of his back, terrified that any sudden movement would shatter the fragile peace.
Sae simply stood there, his eyes half-closed as the alpha's pheromones effectively quieted the static in his mind. The scent was incredibly nice. Safe. Annoyingly, frustratingly safe. His omega instincts, completely exhausted by the emotional outburst and the approaching heat cycle, latched onto that safety with absolute finality.
A small, soft, sleepy sound escaped the back of Sae’s throat.
Hugo felt his heart do a violent flip in his chest. "Itoshi," he murmured, his voice tight with a mix of surprise and sudden protective instinct.
No response.
"Sae."
The midfielder didn't answer, only nuzzling a fraction deeper into the collar of Hugo's jacket, finding a more comfortable position against his collarbone.
"Are you… actually falling asleep right now?" Hugo asked, staring blankly at the ceiling of the analysis room.
"…Maybe," Sae muttered, his voice muffled, thick with drowsiness. "Shut up. You're warm."
Hugo looked down, a completely surreal feeling washing over him. The genius midfielder who usually treated everyone with icy disdain looked entirely peaceful. There was no lingering anger on his face, no traces of the sharp bitterness that usually defined his expressions. Just pure, unadulterated exhaustion.
For the first time since they had met, Itoshi Sae wasn’t fighting anyone. He wasn't fighting the world, he wasn't fighting the media's expectations, and he wasn't fighting himself.
Slowly, carefully, Hugo brought one hand up, gently resting his palm against the back of Sae’s head, his fingers tangling slightly in the soft, reddish-brown hair. It was a silent, protective gesture.
To his quiet amazement, Sae didn't pull away. Instead, he leaned directly into the touch, letting the alpha support the weight of his head entirely.
Hugo smiled faintly, the corners of his lips twitching upward in the dim light of the room. This conversation hadn't gone even remotely according to his tactical plan. But as he felt Sae’s breathing even out into a deep, rhythmic slumber against his shoulder, he decided it didn't matter.
Seeing Sae finally relax felt like a far greater victory than any academy match.
Even if he knew, with absolute certainty, that if he ever told a single soul that the terrifying, untouchable genius of Real Madrid had fallen asleep using him as a pillow ten minutes after screaming at him, nobody on Earth would ever believe it.
He tightened his hold just a fraction, anchoring the sleeping omega against him. It was a ridiculous situation, but looking down at the quiet expression on Sae's face, Hugo found it strangely, completely adorable.
***
The heavy silence of the analysis room was shattered by the harsh, metallic echo of footsteps marching down the corridor.
Sae didn't stir, completely dead to the world under the intoxicating, protective blanket of Hugo’s pheromones. But Hugo’s head snapped up, his alpha instincts instantly putting him on high alert. The scent of the hallway was changing—flooded by the sharp, aggressive, and highly defensive pheromones of several Real Madrid academy alphas and betas.
They were hunting for their missing ace.
"Sae! Hey, freeze-brain, the bus is leaving in ten—"
The heavy door was shoved open with enough force to rattle the hinges. Louis Leclerc’s youth-academy counterpart—the designated captain of the Madrid U-19 squad—froze in the doorway. Behind him, two of Madrid's towering starting defenders crowded the threshold.
The scene inside the room stopped them dead in their tracks.
The air in the analysis room was thick, smelling unmistakably of an omega’s vulnerable pre-heat—and completely smothered by the dominant, heavy scent of PXG’s star alpha, Vivian Hugo. And right in the center of it, their infamously untouchable, ice-cold genius playmaker was practically melted into the enemy alpha's chest, his face buried in Hugo's neck, fast asleep.
For a fraction of a second, there was absolute shock. Then, the Madrid players' expressions warped into pure, unadulterated fury.
"What the hell do you think you’re doing?!" the Madrid captain roared, his voice dropping into a guttural, territorial alpha growl that vibrated through the floorboards.
Instantly, the two defenders stepped into the room, their posture violently aggressive, shoulders squared, and fists clenched. Their pheromones spiked into a hostile, suffocating wave of warning, demanding that the foreign alpha drop their omega immediately.
"Step away from him right now, PXG bastard," one of the defenders hissed, his eyes flashing dangerously. "Get your filthy hands off our teammate."
They didn't see the peaceful relaxation on Sae's face. They didn't see the tears that had dried on his cheeks minutes before. All they saw was an elite rival alpha cornering their genius mid-pre-heat, using his pheromones to forcefully sedate him into compliance. To any team, finding their omega teammate in the arms of the opponent they had just fought on the pitch looked like an act of absolute aggression.
"Hey. Quiet down," Hugo whispered sharply, his voice dropping into a low, commanding register. He didn't flinch, nor did he step back. Instead, his grip on Sae tightened instinctively, his large frame shifting imperceptibly to shield the sleeping midfielder from the sudden influx of hostile presence. "You're going to wake him up."
"Are you mocking us?!" the captain snarled, taking a heavy, threatening step forward, his own alpha aura flaring to its absolute limit to challenge Hugo’s hold. "You corner him after a loss, force your pheromones on him when he's vulnerable, and tell us to be quiet? You've got a lot of nerve. Let go of him before we tear you apart."
The tension in the room skyrocketed to a dangerous, violent breaking point. The Madrid players were seconds away from throwing a punch, entirely convinced that Hugo had crossed a line, violated academy codes, and taken advantage of their ace.
The sudden change in pressure and the loud, aggressive barking of voices finally reached the depths of Sae's consciousness.
He stirred, a low, deeply irritated groan escaping his throat. His eyelashes fluttered open, his teal eyes cloudy and heavy with sleep. It took him three seconds to realize he was still holding onto Hugo's jacket—and another second to realize his own teammates were standing five feet away, looking ready to commit a felony.
Sae didn't move away from Hugo. He just slowly turned his head, his gaze cutting through the tension like a block of ice.
"Shut the hell up," Sae muttered, his voice raw and raspy, but laced with an undeniable, freezing authority that made his own teammates momentarily halt. "You're giving me a headache."
The narrow corridor outside the analysis room quickly turned into a pressure cooker.
Hearing the booming voices and the unmistakable, suffocating spike of territorial alpha pheromones, the rest of the Real Madrid youth squad came rushing down the hall. At the exact same time, a few of the PXG academy players—who had been waiting near the exit for Hugo—heard the commotion and traced the scent of rain and cedar to the room.
The moment Leonardo Luna—the senior team's star striker who had been trailing the academy bus—shoved his way through the crowd, the situation degenerated into absolute chaos.
"What the hell is going on here?" Luna demanded, his eyes narrowing as he took in the scene. He looked at Hugo, then at Sae, who was still blinking sleepily against the French alpha’s shoulder. Luna’s expression hardened into something incredibly dangerous. "PXG thinks they can put their hands on our genius just because they won a match? You've got some nerve, kid."
"Hold on a minute!" a PXG player barked back, stepping into the doorway to back Hugo up. "Hugo didn't do anything! Your guy is the one practically glued to him!"
"Shut your mouth!" a Madrid defender roared, shoving the PXG player back. "Look at him! He's clearly in pre-heat! Your alpha forced his pheromones on him to suppress him!"
"We don't play dirty like that, Madrid bastards!"
Shoves were exchanged. The narrow space erupted into a flurry of raised voices, flashing tempers, and aggressive, suffocating pheromones as both sides instantly formed a wall to protect their own. The threat of a massive, multi-team brawl hung by a thread, the shouts echoing loudly off the concrete walls.
"Stop it..." Sae tried to speak, but his voice was completely swallowed by the roar of the argument.
His pre-heat was hitting him in full force now. The sudden rush of hostile, conflicting alpha scents in the room was making his stomach turn. His head throbbed violently, his vision swimming with hot, blurred colors. He tried to push himself off Hugo's chest to stand on his own two feet, but his knees felt like lead.
"Hey, calm down," Hugo whispered to Sae, his hands still securely holding the omega’s waist, trying to anchor him against the overwhelming sensory overload. Hugo looked up at the Madrid players, his voice cutting through the noise. "He's telling you to stop. Look at him, he's in no condition for this—"
"Get your hands off him!" Luna snapped, stepping forward to violently wrench Hugo away.
"Don't touch him!" a PXG forward countered, stepping in to block Luna.
"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!"
A booming, authoritative voice echoed down the hall, instantly freezing everyone in their tracks. The crowd parted as the head academy coach marched into the room, his face dark with fury. "Are you professional athletes or street brawlers? Explain yourselves!"
"Coach, the PXG alpha took advantage of Sae's condition—" the Madrid captain began, pointing an accusing finger at Hugo.
"No... he didn't..." Sae panted. He gripped the edge of the analysis table, his knuckles turning white as he tried to force the words past his throat. His chest was heaving, his skin flushed red from the fever of his heat. He looked at his teammates, desperately trying to get them to see reality through their overprotective fury. "Hugo... didn't do... anything..."
"Sae, don't protect him just because your instincts are compromised," Luna said, his voice softening slightly but his eyes remaining hard as he glare at Hugo. "We're taking you to the bus. Someone call the medical staff."
"Listen to me..." Sae choked out, his breathing becoming shallower, more erratic. The room was spinning. He could hear them arguing over him again, treating him like a prize or a victim, completely ignoring his words. The frustration, the heat, and the sheer exhaustion of the day boiled over into a single, desperate breaking point.
Gathering every last ounce of strength left in his trembling body, Sae sucked in a ragged breath and screamed.
"YOU ALL MISUNDERSTOOD!"
The sheer desperation in his voice was enough to make the entire room fall dead silent. Every single player, including the coach, stared at him in shock.
"Hugo... Hugo just..." Sae gasped, his voice breaking, completely breathless as the room began to turn black at the edges. He looked toward Hugo, his eyes wide and unfocused. "...He just... helped me..."
Before he could finish the sentence, the last of his strength evaporated. His eyes rolled back, his grip slipped from the table, and his body went entirely limp.
"Sae!"
Hugo didn't care about the Madrid players or the coaches anymore. Diving forward, his reflexes as a world-class athlete kicked in as he caught Sae before the omega could hit the hard floor. He pulled Sae’s unconscious body securely into his arms, lifting him completely off the ground.
"Medical staff! Now!" Hugo barked at the stunned room, his dominant alpha voice leaving absolutely no room for argument.
The Madrid players stood paralyzed, the fury dying in their throats as they finally realized that the only person who had actually been keeping their ace safe and calm... was the opponent they had just tried to attack.
The silence that blanketed the room was absolute, heavy and suffocating.
For all their posturing, their territorial growls, and their fierce desire to protect their ace, the Real Madrid youth squad stood frozen. The reality of Sae’s final, desperate words hung in the air, making the aggressive pheromones they had flared look clumsy, foolish, and entirely misplaced.
Hugo didn’t waste a single second looking at them.
His focus was entirely narrowed down to the unconscious omega in his arms. Sae’s head had fallen back against Hugo’s shoulder, his usually sharp, calculating features softened by a deep, feverish unconsciousness. His breathing was rapid and shallow, a clear sign that his system was entirely overwhelmed by the combined stress of the loss, the emotional outburst, and the oncoming pre-heat.
"Out of the way," Hugo ordered, his voice low and dangerous.
He didn't wait for permission. Carrying Sae against his chest as if the midfielder weighed nothing, Hugo marched straight toward the door. The Madrid defenders, who moments ago had been ready to swing at him, instinctively stepped back, looking at their own captain and Luna for direction.
"Wait," Luna said, his voice dropping its sharp, combative edge, replaced by a sudden, tense worry. He stepped into Hugo’s path, but his hands were open, no longer reaching to attack. "He’s our teammate. We have an emergency suppressant kit on our bus. Give him to us."
"He was literally screaming at you because you weren't listening to him," Hugo said, stopping right in front of Luna. Hugo’s dark eyes locked onto the senior striker, completely unblinking. "He doesn't need a chaotic bus full of aggressive alphas right now. He needs a quiet, climate-controlled medical room. And he needs it immediately."
"The boy is right," the Madrid head coach broke in, his voice cutting through the lingering tension like a knife. He looked at his own players with a stern, reprimanding glare. "You all acted on blind instinct and nearly caused a riot while one of your own was collapsing. Stand down. All of you."
The coach turned to Hugo, his expression softening with a look of profound respect and apology. "The stadium's primary medical wing is just down the hall to the left. Follow me. I will authorize the medical staff to let you stay until he stabilizes, since your... presence seems to be what kept him grounded."
Hugo nodded once. "Thank you."
As Hugo followed the coach out of the room, the PXG and Madrid players parted down the middle, creating a silent, tense corridor. Luna watched them go, his expression unreadable, though a muscle twitched in his jaw. He looked at the floor where Sae had been standing just minutes ago, realizing how completely they had misread the situation. Sae hadn't been cornered; he had been shielded.
***
The medical room was stark, white, and blissfully quiet. The overwhelming, chaotic blend of rival pheromones from the hallway vanished the moment the heavy, soundproof door clicked shut behind them.
The stadium’s on-call physician moved with practiced efficiency. "Lay him on the examination bed, please. Carefully."
Hugo lowered Sae onto the crisp, white sheets. The moment his physical contact broke, Sae let out a faint, subconscious whine, his brow furrowing as if the sudden distance caused him physical discomfort.
"He’s in a highly volatile pre-heat stage," the doctor murmured, checking Sae's pulse and running a scanner over his wrist. "His temperature is quite high, but it’s mostly driven by acute physical and emotional exhaustion. His system simply shut down to protect itself. I'm administering a mild, localized temperature-regulator through an IV. It won't stop the cycle, but it will take the dangerous edge off the fever."
Hugo stood by the side of the bed, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes never leaving Sae’s face. "Will he be alright?"
"He will be fine," the doctor assured him, setting up the IV drip. "But his instincts are currently in a very delicate state. In these situations, an omega’s body naturally seeks a stabilizing anchor. From what the coach told me..." The doctor looked up at Hugo, a gentle, knowing smile on his face. "...your specific pheromones were acting as that anchor before the interruption."
The doctor adjusted the monitor and stepped back toward the desk. "I'm going to leave the room to prepare his discharge paperwork for the Madrid staff. If you could sit beside him and keep your scent at a low, consistent, comforting level, it will help his subconscious realize he is safe. It will prevent him from waking up into another panic."
"I can do that," Hugo said quietly.
Once the doctor left, the room fell into a serene, rhythmic quiet, broken only by the soft beep of the heart monitor.
Hugo pulled a rolling chair up to the side of the bed. He looked at Sae’s hand, which was resting limply on the white blanket. After a moment of hesitation, Hugo reached out and gently slid his fingers into Sae’s, letting the omega feel his physical presence.
Simultaneously, Hugo let his guard down, allowing the warm, soothing scent of cedar and rain to slowly radiate from him, filling the small room like a gentle, protective cocoon.
***
It was nearly forty minutes later when the tension finally left Sae’s face.
The heart monitor slowed to a steady, relaxed pace. The flush on Sae's cheeks had receded, leaving his skin its usual porcelain pale. Slowly, his eyelids fluttered, squinting against the dim, adjusted lights of the medical room.
He didn't panic. He didn't jump. The very first thing his senses registered was the absolute safety of the room—and the unmistakable, comforting warmth wrapped around his right hand.
Sae turned his head slowly on the pillow.
Hugo was sitting right there, leaning slightly forward, his dark eyes watching him with a quiet, relieved intensity.
"You're awake," Hugo said softly, his voice a low rumble in the quiet room. "How do you feel?"
Sae didn't immediately pull his hand away. He let his fingers twitch against Hugo's, feeling the solid, unyielding reality of the alpha's grip. He swallowed, his throat still a bit dry.
"Like I got hit by a truck," Sae muttered, his usual biting tone returning, though it lacked any real venom. He looked around the sterile room, memories of the hallway chaos slowly piercing through the fog in his brain. "Where... where are the idiots?"
"Your coach sent them all back to the bus," Hugo explained, a small, amused smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "I think they’re currently getting the lecture of their lives about professionalism. And... I think they realize they owe both of us an apology."
Sae let out a soft, dismissive huff, closing his eyes for a moment. "Good. They're annoying. Loud. Unbearable."
He opened his eyes again, his teal gaze fixing directly onto Hugo's face. The silence stretched between them for a few seconds, no longer heavy or defensive, but deeply intimate. Sae knew exactly how vulnerable he had been. He knew he had cried, he knew he had screamed, and he knew he had completely collapsed in front of an opponent. By all accounts of his own rigid logic, he should hate the person sitting next to him.
But looking at Hugo—remembering the steady arms that caught him, the voice that validated his football, and the scent that kept him safe—he couldn't find a single ounce of anger.
"You're still here," Sae said quietly.
"I told you," Hugo replied, his thumb gently brushing across the back of Sae's hand. "I care about your football. And I care about you. I wasn't going to leave you alone in a room full of people who weren't listening to you."
Sae looked down at their joined hands. A faint, almost imperceptible pink hue dusted his cheeks, completely unrelated to his fever. He gave Hugo's hand a very small, tentative squeeze.
"A midfielder, huh?" Sae murmured, his voice incredibly soft as he looked back up, a tiny, rare flicker of something resembling a challenge—and a promise—shining in his eyes.
Hugo’s smile widened, his eyes softening. "The best the world will ever see. I'll be watching from the front row."
Sae lay quietly on the sterile mattress for a moment, the rhythmic, muted beep of the heart monitor filling the small gap in their conversation. The localized temperature-regulator was doing its job, leaving his mind remarkably sharp despite the lingering physical heaviness of the pre-heat.
He didn't release Hugo’s hand. Instead, his fingers tightened just a fraction more, grounding himself against the comforting, cedar-scented air.
"Explain it to me," Sae said suddenly, his tone shifting back to that cold, demanding precision that defined him on the pitch. He turned his head squarely toward the alpha. "And don't give me any poetic nonsense about 'ruling the center' or 'deciding who scores.' Give me the actual football logic, Hugo. Why do you think I should abandon being a striker?"
Hugo didn't blink at the sharp transition. He knew Sae’s mind; the omega couldn't be sustained on empty praise or emotional comfort alone. To truly reach him, you had to speak the language of absolute tactical truth.
Hugo leaned forward, resting his free forearm on the edge of the mattress, his dark eyes locking onto Sae’s with intense focus.
"Because as a striker, you are starving yourself," Hugo stated flatly. "I watched your movements during the entire first half today. Every time you made a run into the box, you were entirely dependent on the quality of the pass coming from behind you. And frankly, the Madrid academy’s current midfield is blind."
Sae’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn't interrupt. He knew Hugo was right.
"You have a vision of the field that operates three, sometimes four steps ahead of everyone else," Hugo continued, his voice dropping into a low, analytical cadence. "When you play up front, you are trapped in a bottleneck. You’re waiting for players who don’t see the lines you see, who don't understand the timing of your runs, and who can't match your weight of pass. You're forcing a genius intellect to compress itself into a single, final touch."
Hugo shifted slightly, his thumb absentmindedly tracing a slow circle on the back of Sae’s hand.
"But if you drop down into the midfield... the entire pitch opens up. You aren't just the executioner anymore; you become the architect. With your technique, you can dictate the exact velocity of the match. You can destroy a defensive line before the ball even reaches the final third because you see the fatal flaw in their structure before they even form it."
Sae listened, his breathing steadying. The raw frustration that had exploded out of him in the analysis room was completely gone, replaced by a cold, calculating absorption of Hugo's words.
"A striker is a weapon," Hugo murmured, leaning in just a fraction closer, his scent flaring with a warm, encouraging intensity. "But a midfielder of your caliber? You become the hand that wields every single weapon on the pitch. You wouldn't be abandoning your ambition, Sae. You would be expanding it until the entire game bends to your will."
Silence settled over the medical room once more.
Sae stared up at the ceiling, processing the tactical breakdown with clinical detachment, filtering out his own pride. For years, the dream of being the world's number one striker had been his absolute directive. But hearing it broken down like this—not as a failure to meet the standard of a striker, but as an intellectual evolution that the striker position simply couldn't accommodate—something inside him clicked into place.
The suffocating weight of his earlier frustration completely dissolved, leaving behind a pristine, dangerous clarity.
"You speak as if you've already pictured it," Sae said softly, breaking the silence as he turned his teal eyes back to the alpha.
"I have," Hugo admitted without a shred of hesitation. A faint, confident smirk touched his lips. "I pictured it the entire second half. If you're the one pulling the strings from the center, the striker position becomes irrelevant, because whoever is standing up front will have no choice but to score exactly how you demand it."
Sae let out a very small, genuine huff that was closer to a laugh than anything Hugo had heard from him all day. The tension in his shoulders was entirely gone.
"You're incredibly arrogant, Vivian Hugo," Sae muttered, though he slowly pulled his hand from Hugo's grasp—not to distance himself, but to shift his body, turning on his side to face the alpha comfortably, his cheek resting against the white pillow.
"Just observant," Hugo replied softly, watching the sleepy, relaxed posture of the omega.
Sae’s eyes heavily drifted shut again, the soothing cedar pheromones wrapping around him like a physical blanket, lulling his post-collapse system back toward a deep, healing sleep.
"If I change positions..." Sae’s voice trailed off, growing thick with slumber, but the underlying threat was still entirely intact. "...and the strikers still fail to meet my standard... I'll destroy them myself. And I'll hold you personally responsible."
Hugo smiled, reaching up to gently brush a stray lock of reddish-brown hair away from Sae's forehead. "I'll accept the risk. Sleep, Sae. The pitch will still be there when you wake up."
Hugo remained by the bedside, watching the steady rise and fall of Sae’s chest. The monitor beeped in a comforting, regular rhythm, and for a moment, it truly looked like the genius midfielder had drifted off completely.
But Hugo knew the thoughts in Sae's head didn't just turn off. The tactical logic had landed, but the emotional root—the deep, jagged core of why Sae was fighting the shift so violently—was still raw.
"And there's one more thing, Sae," Hugo said softly, his voice cutting through the quiet room like a low chord.
Sae didn't open his eyes, but the slight twitch of his jaw proved he was listening.
"Watching you try to play striker right now..." Hugo paused, his expression turning solemn, his dark eyes fixed on the pale, tense lines of Sae's face. "...it doesn't look like someone chasing a dream. It looks like you're hurting yourself. Like every time you force yourself into that box, you're suffocating."
The heart monitor suddenly spiked, its steady beep... beep... jumping into a rapid, frantic rhythm.
Sae’s eyes snapped open. The sleepy, relaxed haze evaporated in an instant, replaced by a cold, wide-eyed tension. His entire body went rigid beneath the sterile white sheets.
Hugo's words hadn't just struck a nerve; they had violently ripped open a locked door in Sae's mind.
Instantly, the white medical room dissolved. Sae was shoved back into the suffocating heat of a completely different stadium months prior. He was back on the pitch against FC Barcelona’s youth academy, the roar of the Catalan crowd ringing in his ears like static. He was staring at the back of a jersey—a Barcha striker whose sheer, terrifying, overwhelming genius had utterly broken the game.
Sae remembered the exact moment his reality shattered. It wasn't just a loss on the scoreboard; it was a total, systematic annihilation of everything Sae thought he was. Standing before that absolute, monstrous talent in Spain, Sae hadn't just lost the ball—he had lost his footing. He had looked at the gap between them and felt an icy, paralyzing truth take root in his chest: I cannot be the world's best striker. The world is too big. The monsters are too real.
The defeat hadn't just bruised his pride; it had dismantled him mentally. His confidence, once an unbreakable shield, had been reduced to ash. For months, every single training session, every run into the box, every desperate attempt to force himself to be a striker had been a suffocating act of denial. He had been trying to beat a ghost, trying to force a broken piece into a puzzle that no longer fit, agonizingly aware of his own limitations while trying to scream over them.
Hugo noticed the sudden spike on the monitor and the tight, panicked shallow breaths Sae was taking. He didn't push. He simply reached out, firmly but gently laying his large, warm hand over Sae's trembling shoulder, letting a fresh, deliberate wave of grounding, cedar-and-rain pheromones flood the space between them.
"Sae. Breathe," Hugo murmured, his voice an anchor. "You're here. You're in Madrid. The match is over."
Sae swallowed hard, his throat tight, his fingers violently clutching the bedsheets. He stared at the blank white wall, the phantom weight of that Barcha striker slowly lifting as Hugo’s scent forced his racing heart to slow down. The monitor’s frantic tracking gradually leveled out, dropping back into a bruised, exhausted rhythm.
"You..." Sae started, his voice barely a rasp, stripped of all its usual arrogance. He didn't look at Hugo, his gaze fixed entirely on the ceiling. "...You don't know anything."
"I know what a suffocating ego looks like," Hugo replied quietly, keeping his hand steady on Sae's shoulder. "And I know that true genius doesn't die just because it changes its shape."
Sae lay completely still, processing the cold, stark reality of his own internal wreckage. He had spent months viewing the midfield as a death sentence—a cowardly retreat, a public admission that he wasn't strong enough to be the vanguard. He had thought that dropping back meant admitting defeat to the monsters of the world.
But looking at the tactical blueprint Hugo had just laid out, and feeling the sheer, agonizing relief of finally admitting to himself how much it hurt to keep fighting a losing battle up front... something profoundly shifted.
Changing to a midfielder wasn't a retreat. It wasn't a white flag.
If he couldn't be the weapon that pierced the world, then he would become the one who controlled the entire battlefield. He would create a midfield so absolute, so flawlessly cruel, that even the monsters who had broken his confidence would have no choice but to dance to his tempo.
For the first time since that devastating day against Barcha, the suffocating pressure in Sae's lungs finally gave way to a clean, icy breath of air. The midfield was no longer a forced demotion.
It was an option. A real, dangerous, and terrifyingly viable option.
Sae slowly turned his head back toward Hugo. The raw vulnerability from a moment ago was being locked away, replaced by the first true embers of a new, revitalized ego.
"If I do this," Sae whispered, his teal eyes locking onto the alpha with a chilling, absolute gravity, "I will never let anyone stand ahead of me again. Not in Spain. Not in the world."
Hugo met his gaze, his hand squeezing Sae's shoulder with unyielding support. "I'd expect nothing less from you."
Before the Madrid medical staff could officially clear Sae for discharge, a tense, silent understanding settled between the two players. Sae sat up on the edge of the examination bed, the IV removed and his temperature finally stabilized. Without a word, he reached for his phone on the bedside table and slid it across the clean white sheets toward Hugo.
Hugo picked it up with a faint smile, typing in his contact details before handing over his own device so Sae could do the same. It was a silent pact—a bridge built between Spain and France, between an omega who had just discovered a new path and the alpha who had cleared the fog to show it to him.
***
Years Later: The Global Stage
Time on the pitch moves at a brutal, unyielding velocity. The years that followed that quiet night in Madrid saw a complete restructuring of the global youth football landscape.
Itoshi Sae did exactly what he promised. He dropped back into the midfield, entirely dismantling his old identity to forge something infinitely more terrifying. He became a cold, calculating monster in the center of the pitch—a master puppeteer who treated strikers like mere tools to execute his flawless mathematical visions. His football wasn't just beautiful; it was a dictatorship of absolute precision.
Meanwhile, across Europe, Vivian Hugo’s rise was nothing short of meteoric. His natural authority, tactical brilliance, and unshakeable presence on the field turned him into a defensive and transitional powerhouse that clubs across the world desperately tried to recruit.
They kept contact through brief, analytical texts, occasional tactical debates, and quiet check-ins during brutal heat cycles, their bond remaining a private, unshakeable anchor away from the glaring lights of the media.
Then came the official announcement from the International Federation of Football History & Statistics. The selection of the World New Generation XI—the eleven most exceptional youth players on the planet, destined to rule the next era of football.
The grand backstage holding area of the Zurich opera house was a sea of tailored suits, flashing cameras, and intense, heavy pheromones. The eleven chosen players from across the globe were gathered together before taking the stage, the atmosphere thick with rivalries and immense, suffocating egos.
Sae stood near the heavy velvet curtains, looking immaculate in a sharp, slate-gray three-piece suit. His reddish-brown hair was perfectly styled, and his teal eyes scanned the room with his trademark icy indifference. He looked entirely untouchable, his omega scent meticulously suppressed by premium blockers, leaving only a faint, crisp chill in the air around him.
"You haven't changed at all. Still looking at everyone like they’re insects."
Sae didn't need to turn around. The subtle, incredibly familiar scent of cedar and rain cut through the suffocating blend of foreign alpha and beta pheromones in the room, instantly grounding him.
Vivian Hugo walked up beside him, looking devastatingly handsome in a classic black tuxedo that emphasized his broad shoulders. The years had made him taller, his presence even more commanding, yet the look he cast down at Sae was filled with the exact same warmth from the Madrid analysis room.
"They are insects," Sae muttered smoothly, though the tight line of his shoulders relaxed imperceptibly at Hugo's proximity. He glanced up, his gaze tracking the line of Hugo's jaw before meeting his dark eyes. "You managed to drag your way up here too, I see."
"I told you I'd be watching from the front row," Hugo reminded him, a confident, easy smirk touching his lips. "Though technically, tonight we're standing side-by-side."
Sae let out a soft, familiar huff—the closest thing to a laugh Hugo ever got from him.
Looking around the room at the other nine players—the absolute apex monsters of their generation, including the very Barcha striker who had once broken his confidence—Sae felt absolutely no fear. The suffocating weight that used to crush his chest was completely gone, replaced by a pristine, lethal clarity.
He was the World New Generation XI's crown jewel midfielder. He didn't need to score the goals to rule the world; he controlled the entire theater of war.
"Ladies and gentlemen, please prepare to take the stage," a stage manager called out, gesturing toward the blinding lights of the main auditorium where thousands of journalists and fans were waiting.
As the players began to file out in formation, Hugo stepped up right next to Sae. Under the cover of the heavy velvet curtains, just before they stepped into the white-hot glare of the cameras, Hugo’s hand briefly brushed against Sae's, his thumb tracing a quick, reassuring line across the back of the midfielder's knuckles.
"Let's go show them who rules the pitch," Hugo murmured.
Sae didn't pull his hand away until the very last second. He adjusted the lapel of his suit, his teal eyes flashing with a dangerous, revitalized ego as he stepped out into the light.
"Don't fall behind, Vivian," Sae whispered back, his voice laced with absolute authority. "The view from my midfield is flawless, and I don't tolerate anyone missing their cue."
End.