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Balde gave him an insinuating wink and Fermín made a gagging sound when Lamine told the team he would like to stay back with his friend. Only after Pedri physically pushed everyone out of the room could he find himself alone with Pau, which he should probably thank the guy for the next time he meets him.
“You know what Cuba?” Lamine whispered, reaching up to push a stray hair out of Pau’s face. “All these stitches are going to ruin your handsome face.”
“W-what?” Pau spluttered, and Lamine felt even more giddy.
“What will the ladies think now that your adorable baby face is all scarred up?” The younger teased easily. “At least I think it will be hot as hell.”
“I-wha-”
Lamine smiled fondly as he dapped the wet paper towel at his friend’s face, trying to clean off all the grime still stuck on it. He then frowned slightly at the pinkish spot high in Pau’s cheeks, which didn’t seem to go away no matter how much he swabbed at it.
When he told Pau about it, the spot just got a tad redder as his friend turned away from him. How strange.
“Hey Cuba, come back. I’m not done yet, I’m trying to help you over here.” He prodded at his friend.
Pau gave no response, stubbornly turning his back on Lamine and refusing to talk to him. Well, as much as a patient stuck on a bed could do with someone literally sitting by his side on said bed anyway.
Lamine furrowed his brows, this wouldn’t do. He was witnessing Pau retreating into his shell at record speed and, as his certified bestie, he had to do something before the damage became irreversible.
So he laid his head on his friend’s shoulder, hand wrapped around his arm and tried his best demure, the one he had statistically determined as having the highest probability to win over a pouty Pau.
“Hey, are you mad at me?” He looked at his friend through his lashes.
“...”
“Did you think I was lying to you when I said you would be smoking hot?” Lamine asked, “Because you would by the way. Imagine your already lethal face card with a mysterious battle scar to boot. You will have so much aura that footballers will have to kneel for mercy. Oh almighty king Cubarsí, please take me out of your pocket-”
“Okay, stop that.” Pau actually let out a little giggle. Mission accomplished.
Lamine felt the older shift as he ever so slightly leaned against him, as if he was afraid to put too much pressure on the younger, as if he wasn’t the one with a busted, bloodied face and forcefully confined to an infirmary bed.
“I am not mad at you, I don’t think I ever could.” Pau mumbled, sounding slightly embarrassed about his own admission. “I’m angry at myself. I made a rookie mistake in diving, got unnecessarily injured, then got everyone worried about me.”
“Cuba-” Lamine began to protest. He would not allow his best friend to do that self-deprecation thing that he always loved to do whenever he was anything less than perfect.
“And there’s you. Extraordinary you. The whole world knows how incredibly brilliantly you shine, and it’s the most blinding to those closest to you. To me.” Pau breathed out, shakily. “I keep feeling this urge to stand behind you, both to bask in your light and to do whatever I can to protect it.”
“For the longest time, I thought I was at least capable of that. Until today. These mistakes are not just simply occurrences, Lamine, they can cost me my position on the team.”
They can cost me you. He decided to omit.
The confession hung heavily in the air as the younger was stunned into silence. He felt his face warm as he slowly digested what his friend said, surprised about how highly the older regarded him.
“Forget about that, I will just-” Pau abruptly shifted from beside him.
That snapped Lamine out of his trance as he moved to grip tighter onto the older’s arm, desperately searching for the right thing to say as words tumbled out of his mouth gracelessly.
“Cuba, wait, listen to me.” He said, frantically. “I- I don’t know that you think of me that way, and really, I’m flattered. Truly.”
He took a deep breath. “You are really important to me too. But have you ever considered that I want you by my side, not behind me?”
Lamine dared a glance upward, and saw Pau’s eyes widened in shock. The younger continued, emboldened.
“Sometimes I look at you and wonder what sort of heroic endeavor I tried in my past life that made God deem me worthy enough to meet you.” He smiled. “You may not seem obnoxiously bright like the sun in the eyes of the world, but that is because they are too dumb to take a closer look.”
“But I do Cuba. I see you everyday with the same gentle light and the same comforting warmth, and could not help but admire you. I want you, rather selfishly, to be by my side because I know you will always have my back. And I will always have yours.”
Lamine’s breath hitched against Pau’s shoulder. He stiffened as the older took him into a tight embrace that sounded like a thousand words unsaid, then gingerly buried his face deeper into the crook of the defender’s neck.
“I want to conquer the world Cuba.” Lamine started, voice certain. “Would you be by my side when we sweep the world off their feet?”
“...Yeah, let’s kick everyone’s asses. You and I.”
“Yes! Let’s start with the guy who made your beautiful face turn into this, like payback!” The younger shouted, excitedly cupping his friend’s cheeks.
“Sure Lamine.” Pau grinned so widely that it actually hurt.
Wait.
They both looked in horror as blood started dripping from his chin.
Oh shit.
-
Clara could not believe that this was her fate.
First, the kid came in with a busted face that required 10 stitches for the wound on the chin from just playing football. Were they actively seeking to kill each other over a fucking ball out there or what?
Then, the boy’s team came and tried everything they could to make Clara’s job a living hell. She almost lost her patience and kicked all of them out, professionalism be damned, when that old man started encouraging her patient to strain his already wrecked facial muscles for a “big proper smile”.
Finally, she went out for just 15 minutes and came back to blood dripping from her patient’s newly stitched wound all over his recently changed bedsheet. The panicked boys even had the audacity to look lost and sheepish as if they didn’t know that tugging at the seam of a wound would pose a risk of tearing it and spilling hemoglobins every-fucking-where. As if she hadn’t just cautioned them like 4 times before that.
She smiled angelically, because the alternative would be second-degree murder of two literal teenagers.
“What the hell just happened here?”