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Tap... tap...
The sound of footsteps shattered the silence of the green pitch—there was no one else around, only grass and goalposts that had been standing guard through the night. After all, who comes out to practice at half-past five in the morning?
Except for Itoshi Sae, of course.
He always arrived early, back when the others were still fast asleep or struggling to make breakfast. His feet always stepped onto the grass of the pitch first—always.
Practicing alone on an empty pitch was his new daily routine. A routine forged after his dark defeat months ago at the hands of a man with a cross-shaped scar across his face. That asshole bastard who dared leave a permanent scar on his memories.
"Go back to your country and become the best striker there, Itoshi Sae. You won't be able to compete in Europe—because you simply don't belong here."
Bunny’s words echoed inside Sae’s mind like the whisper of a demon.
Sae clenched his fists. Months had passed since Bunny defeated him so humiliatingly, but his brain refused to forget that dark memory, ruthlessly playing it back like a broken cassette tape.
"I swear on every drop of blood in my veins—I will avenge that day's defeat, Iglesias."
...
Sae stood inside the penalty box, his back to the goal. Next to him was a metal cart filled with a dozen balls he had dragged out of the equipment room with great effort. The early morning sunlight reflected off the curved metal and the balls inside.
He took a deep breath. The cold Paris dawn air pierced his lungs, but he paid it no mind. He grabbed a ball and placed it on the dew-soaked grass.
He flicked the ball up with the tip of his left boot—not too high, just up to chest level, well below his head. In the blink of an eye, he spun his body—
Whoosh!
Before the ball could touch the ground, his leg whipped through the air, releasing a picture-perfect volley. The ball shot out in a straight line—slicing through the air—and slammed into the top corner of the net. The sheer force of his strike rattled the netting violently.
Sae stood still. He didn't smile, nor did he look satisfied—because this alone wasn't enough to beat Bunny. It wasn't enough to prove to that Spaniard that he was still worthy of being a striker.
Without stopping to admire his shot, he grabbed another ball from the cart and set it down. His teal eyes locked onto the goal with intense focus. He struck again, this time a low driven shot that grazed the grass, targeting a tight angle in the bottom corner of the far post—the exact blind spot every goalkeeper on the continent hated most.
The ball nested firmly in the net.
One ball, two balls, five balls.
Sae kept shooting from seemingly impossible angles, aiming for the blind spots goalkeepers always missed. Every shot felt like a scenario from a real match—European defenders blocking him from the left and right, and Bunny charging from down the pitch to snatch the ball away.
Bunny.
Just saying that name in his head was enough to make him sick. That blank stare, that subtle smirk holding some melancholic backstory Sae couldn't care less about—every single feature of that man’s face made Sae want to wring his neck.
"Fucking rabbit," Sae cursed under his breath, gasping for air.
The sun climbed higher over the skyline of Paris. People were stepping out of their homes to start their day—heading to work, school, or running errands. Sae glanced toward the edge of the pitch at the crowd flowing along the sidewalk. The morning light cast a soft reflection across his sweat-glistening face.
Still, there was no sign of anyone else showing up. Neither the other members of the New Generation World Eleven nor the senior players who were supposed to be their scrimmage opponents had shown their faces.
"A bunch of slackers," he muttered.
He picked up another ball for another attempt, having long lost count after drowning in his own focus.
Sae walked toward the corner of the penalty box, ball in hand. He rolled it down to the ground, took a few steps back, and widened the distance between himself and the ball. His teal eyes locked onto the top corner of the net.
He took a few deep breaths, then charged forward. Tilting his body slightly to the right, he drew his left leg back, calculating the exact trajectory to hit a beautiful trivela.
He whipped his leg forward with explosive speed. But just as his boot was about to hit the ball, his focus shattered.
Bunny’s stoic face flashed through his memory. Those blood-red eyes looking down at him as he lay on the grass, filled with disdainful look.
"You will never be worthy."
The Spaniard's words echoed in his mind like a shout in a cavern. His face, his tone—everything sent a surge of pure rage through Sae’s mind, mercilessly tearing his concentration to shreds.
That instant flash of anger ruined his calculation. His ankle locked up a fraction too soon, and the strike off the outside of his boot missed its intended angle.
BLAM!
The ball flew completely off course. Instead of curving gracefully past the post, it shot out in a straight line and slammed into the crossbar with a deafening noise.
CLANG!
Before Sae could even process that his shot had failed, the ball rebounded at high speed back toward him, slicing through the air like a chainsaw.
Sae hadn't even landed his foot back on the ground yet. His eyes widened, paralyzed as he realized the sphere was already hovering inches from his face.
Too late to dodge.
The ball hit his face with the exact force he had put into the strike. The rough leather scraped against his smooth skin. Sae felt as though his nose and jaw had been crushed, as if he had just taken a punch from a heavyweight boxer.
The force of the impact was so great that it utterly ruined his balance. His vision went black, and he collapsed backward—slumping onto the grass.
The hustle and bustle of Paris turned into distant background noise as Sae tried to process what had just happened.
In all his years playing football, he had never suffered such a humiliating accident. And now? Here he was, lying helplessly on the grass, head spinning.
"This is embarrassing", Sae thought, brooding over the mortifying moment. He—Itoshi Sae, the prodigy and future face of Japanese football—had just been knocked out by his own shot.
What infuriated him most was that the Spaniard was the one who had ruined his carefully calculated strike. Sae clenched his fists, realizing just how deeply that dark memory had infected his mind. He hated it—hated the parasite named Bunny Iglesias that had taken root in his head.
A warm sensation on his face snapped him out of his shock. Something liquid was trickling past his lips and down his chin. Sae wiped his face with the back of his hand.
Red.
"Tch." Sae clicked his tongue. The pain from the impact faded, replaced by a burning mix of shame and annoyance in his chest.
"Are you okay?"
Sae instinctively turned his head toward the voice. Standing there was a young man with burgundy hair. From Sae’s perspective lying on the pitch, the guy looked like a giant. Dark eyes, deep as the cosmos, stared down at him with an unreadable expression.
"Hugo?"
...
"Here, a plaster."
Hugo handed over a bandage, which Sae took with his left hand while pressing a tissue to his nose with his right to keep the blood from dripping onto his jersey.
"Thanks," Sae said flatly.
Silence settled between them. Dark eyes met teal eyes as they both stared down at the grass. Sae applied the plaster over the bridge of his nose. His expression remained cold, but Hugo noticed his brow furrow slightly.
"How did you end up lying in the middle of the pitch like that earlier?" Hugo asked, breaking the silence.
Sae scoffed. He had zero desire to discuss the embarrassing disaster that had just taken place; the memory was a direct blow to his pride. "Doesn't matter."
Hugo raised an eyebrow. "Let me guess... a ball hit you straight in the face and made your nose bleed."
Sae’s scowl deepened, his hands gripping the bench tightly. "Shut up," he snapped. His reaction only confirmed Hugo’s theory.
"You don't have to deny it." Sae turned his head away, refusing to answer any more questions about why he had been laid out on the pitch from the French prodigy.
"You're still set on being a striker, aren't you?" Hugo blurted out suddenly.
Sae flinched, snapping his head back around in an instant. He glared at the dark-eyed boy, who returned his look with the exact same unbothered expression.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Sae barked, an edge of offense creeping into his voice.
"I observe you every time we train," Hugo explained calmly. "You keep insisting on playing as a striker—even though you always end up losing out to Kaiser, Loki, and Iglesias, which forces you into the midfielder role."
Sae fell silent, trying to dissect the meaning behind Hugo’s words.
Was.. this guy looking down on him?
"Are you looking down on me?" Sae hissed, his fingers clutching his shorts so tightly his knuckles turned white.
"No. I just see that you aren't built to be a striker. It's like... you're fighting against your own destiny."
Every word out of Hugo's mouth made Sae tighten his grip even further.
He doesn't know anything.
He doesn't know about the dream I share with my brother.
He doesn't know what I'm going to become in the future.
"You belong in the midfield—just like me. That's your destiny."
That was the last straw. Hugo's words ignited the rage Sae had been trying so hard to bury deep inside. How dare a mere human speak of destiny as if he possessed divine authority, acting as though he knew everything about something beyond human control?
"What the hell do you know about destiny, Vivian?!" Sae growled, standing up abruptly. The Japanese player glared fiercely at his companion, brimming with the raw anger that had breached his long-built emotional dam.
The burgundy-haired boy's dark eyes widened in surprise at Sae’s sudden outburst—whether it was because Sae had raised his voice, or because he had just used his first name.
"You aren't God. You're not a prophet. Yet your big mouth speaks as if you're some grand entity that dictates human destiny" Sae snarled.
"What do you know about fate? What do you know about anyone's future? It's laughable how you act like you're the one who decides how people's lives turn out."
"You're just talking nonsense, believing your ridiculous ideology is absolute, Vivian Hugo."
Sae’s sharp words left the French boy frozen. He had never seen Itoshi Sae unleash such a long, aggressive torrent of words, nor had he ever seen the Japanese youth display such raw anger toward anyone—except Bunny.
This time was different. The stoic mask Sae always wore had been violently torn off by one of the brightest young talents from L'Hexagone.
And that aggressive verbal attack was aimed straight at his core philosophy—the very foundation upon which his entire approach to football was built.
"I didn't mean to offend you..." Hugo ventured carefully, picking his words as if a single wrong syllable might set Sae off even further.
Sae scoffed, rolling his eyes in annoyance. "Oh, you're only now realizing that saying that might be offensive to most people? You really don't think before you let words run out of your mouth, do you?"
Hugo let out a sigh. "I truly didn't mean to make you angry, okay? I was simply offering my perspective on what your true destiny is."
'Not meant to be offensive, my ass,' Sae thought bitterly, his eye twitching at Hugo's continued lecture on fate. However, he chose to stay quiet; a part of him wanted nothing more than to punch Hugo in the gut until he collapsed onto the grass just like Sae had moments ago.
"Based on my observations, you don't possess the qualities required of a true striker." Ah, here it came—the lecture on "natural talent" and "suitability."
"You're different from Kaiser, Iglesias, or Loki. Your greatest asset is your ability to read the pitch, orchestrate attack developments, progress the ball, and deliver perfect passes—just like me," Hugo explained, looking up at the Japanese genius standing over him.
"Those three possess a feral instinct to score goals. You and I are more... rationalists. I feel that if you force yourself to play as a striker when your talent lies elsewhere, you'll only exhaust yourself competing against people whom the universe literally created to be strikers."
Hugo paused, looking at the Japanese boy and watching as his sharp glare softened into something else—a flick of doubt.
"God didn't bless you to be a striker. He created you to be a midfielder—a magnificent one. Your ability to read the pitch is the very mark of God carving out your destiny to control the midfield."
Sae stood frozen. Hugo rose to his feet as well, tilting his head down slightly to lock eyes with the teal-eyed youth once more.
"Besides, pushing yourself to do something beyond your natural limits takes a heavy toll. Look at you right now—you look noticeably thinner than you did four months ago."
Hugo’s words stirred a sharp discomfort within Sae—the annoyance of being worried about. He was fine. Why did anyone need to pity him? He didn't need it.
"You're full of it. I'm perfectly fine," the reddish-brown-haired youth snapped.
But to an outsider like Hugo, Sae was clearly far from fine.
"Full of it? Or are you just being stubborn and ignoring your own body?" the burgundy-haired midfielder countered.
Sae fell silent. It was true that he had been pushing himself far harder lately to avenge his defeat against Bunny. He hadn't given much thought to his physical health during that time.
Ah, Sae, you really are ridiculous. Did it really take someone else worrying about you for you to realize something was wrong with your own body?
"I don't need a lecture from you, Hugo. I can take care of my own health," Sae said, turning his face away.
"I hope so. You're an athlete—it's your job to be mindful of your own body," Hugo said softly.
"And stop chasing something that's clearly out of your reach. Be realistic. Not everyone gets to fulfill the exact dream they had as a child. Sometimes, the universe prepares a different, better path for you."
The Arsenal midfielder's words left the Japanese player stunned.
"You speak as if you understand everything about someone else's dream," Sae retorted coldly.
"I've seen young players in the academy force themselves into positions they weren't suited for," Hugo explained, his gaze dropping to the stretch of green grass. "One by one, they fell by the wayside. I felt genuinely sorry seeing all that talent wasted when it could have flourished somewhere else."
He turned back to the Japanese star. "You're just like those people I met, Itoshi. If you keep forcing it when it's beyond your capabilities, you'll only end up becoming a stepping stone for strikers who are more suited for the role."
Every word hit Sae like a blow, making his hands clench into fists at his sides. Yet, at the same time, his head remained lowered, staring down at his football boots.
"Look, I know I sound preachy, and I know it's annoying. But this is for your own good. If you keep training at the expense of your health, you won't find success—you'll only break your own body."
Hugo turned to face the star of the Land of the Rising Sun. He reached out and gently grasped Sae’s hand, lacing their fingers together and raising their joined hands to chest height.
The sudden gesture made Sae gasp softly. He looked up, his teal eyes locking with Hugo’s dark eyes once more.
"So, try choosing a path that matches your natural abilities as they are right now. It's not a step down; it's simply changing lanes to suit your strengths—for your own sake."
Sae remained motionless, his brain processing every single word Hugo spoke.
"You can still become the best midfielder in the world, Itoshi Sae."
Sae froze like a statue. Hugo’s words echoed relentlessly in his head, creeping in like a thief and quietly altering how he viewed his own talent, his dreams, and his capabilities.
You can still become the best midfielder in the world.
The Japanese player broke eye contact. His mind raged in a silent war between his childhood dream of becoming the world's best striker and the path of a midfielder—a role that honestly fit every single one of his natural strengths.
"You don't have to decide right now. Just think about it. I'm only trying to open your eyes to where your natural talent lies," Hugo said, his tone softening just a fraction. He gently released his grip on Sae's fingers.
The Gunners' midfielder turned and walked away, leaving the Los Blancos talent alone to wrestle with his own thoughts.
Sae watched the retreating back in the red jersey with white sleeves as Hugo headed off the pitch, presumably to grab a bite from a food street vendor nearby.
Sae's head dropped once more. The promise to become the world's best striker alongside his brother clashed violently with Hugo’s words—words that felt painfully, undeniable true.
"You're just as infuriating as Bunny, Hugo," Sae muttered weakly.
Now, the dark memory of his defeat against Bunny Iglesias wasn't the only thing haunting his mind. He was also trapped with the lecture from the French prodigy—the genius midfielder of The Gunners.
Striker or Midfielder?
The choice was now his to make.