Chapter Text
The beginning of Pedri’s downfall starts with a conspiracy theory, an unattended Bunsen burner, and his Principal Investigator. In the span of two weeks.
He squints against the sterile glare of the lab, blinking until the two men in front of him sharpen back into focus, as Dr Flick, his great PI, a man he has nothing but respect for, appears at his bench as Pedri’s mid-cell culture with a tall, young man trailing behind him.
Shit.
There is a sense of ominous doom looming over them, and he feels his stomach sink with dread. He really wants to tell whoever is praying on his downfall to take a break.
Let's rewind a little.
Two weeks ago, just as the new semester had started and after a whole year of being the most perfect bench partner Pedri could ever ask for, Alex had abruptly decided to quit shortly. It was sudden, and truly he hadn’t expected his perfect bench-mate to leave. He’d seemed so chill, so quiet, so unassuming that he had not expected to be pulled into HR that same day having to explain that no, Pedri was not, and had never been a student from a rival department who had snuck in, kidnapped the real Pedri over the summer break, and secretly sabotaging his partner’s experiments for ‘the CIA’. Nor was he stealing his experiment notes.
Okay fine, Alex was a bit quirky sometimes, but working in STEM has made Pedri pretty used to awkward people, so he just thought the guy was a little shy.
Thankfully Dr Flick had vouched for him, reminding HR that yes, this was the real Pedri, and that clearly there must have been some sort of misunderstanding. Pedri had never been so grateful for the countless all-nighters he’s pulled to finish Flick’s lab reports – that all the suffering he’s gone through at least earned him enough credibility to get out of the situation unscathed.
Regardless, Alex had apparently refused to work within a 50-meter radius of Pedri, and he was left with the entire bench to himself. A luxury for anyone working in a laboratory, really, and Pedri considered the whole ordeal to be a blessing in disguise.
Which brings us to yesterday afternoon, when the inorganic chemistry department had caught on fire. Months of work, millions of euros of equipment, reduced to smoke and ashes. A tragedy for everyone involved, for the life-saving research lost and the time wasted, and even if Pedri didn’t personally know anyone in inorganic he was still shocked when he received the email, and he commiserated with them. According to a friend of a friend, someone had left their acetone flask open next to a Bunsen burner, and by the time the fire department arrived, the blaze had already torn through the lab, and it was far too late to save anything. At least they managed to safely evacuate everyone and no one was seriously hurt.
Which brings us to today, where Pedri’s initial sympathy is now quickly souring with every blink as his eyes adjust and he realises who it is behind Dr Flick, as he realises what’s coming.
“Pedri, sorry to disturb you in the middle of your work– tell me, do you know Jude Bellingham?” Flick asks, stepping aside as Jude steps forward, tall and self-assured, his hand outstretched. Pedri accepts the handshake, begrudgingly. He probably shouldn’t, he still has his gloves on, but he doesn’t think Jude deserves the effort of taking them off.
“The name’s familiar, but I’m afraid we’ve never met in person.” Of course Pedri has heard of Jude Bellingham, who hasn’t at this point? Everyone’s heard the rumours. He hoards the equipment, he makes snappy comments, he has his own specific way of doing things and he makes it everybody else's responsibility to accommodate him, and his temper is infamous across all the science departments.
He isn't helping Pedri’s already sour first impression either, the way he’s leaning back against the bench, arms folded, wearing a thoroughly disinterested expression. Pedri thinks to himself bitterly that at least he’s clearly not the only one unhappy about the whole situation.
But Pedri’s never seen him this close before, only ever noticing him in passing around campus. Seeing him properly for the first time, Jude looks like he belongs anywhere but here. Pedri would even go as far as to say that the man does not look like he would be a chemistry student at all. After all, most lab students were like him — small, reserved, permanent dark circles under their eyes and a scoliosis diagnosis waiting to happen. Jude, in contrast, is tall, tan, his broad-shoulders stretching the fabric of his lab coat, with the kind of posture that commands attention rather than late nights hunched over a lab report.
Pedri hates to admit it, but he's not blind. In spite of the reputation Jude has gained for himself, the man is notoriously handsome, and most definitely the best looking man in the science department (not that that’s a high bar, if Pedri’s to be honest about his fellow peers), and Pedri can't bring himself to disagree. He forces himself to keep his eyes on Dr Flick to avoid staring at Jude rather than out of politeness.
“Very good. Well, I’m sure you two will be acquainted in no time, especially with this new antibiotic project I have planned.”
A project? Pedri’s shock must show on his face, because Jude immediately looks like he’s trying to contain a laugh.
Thankfully Flick starts explaining before Pedri can actually put his murderous thoughts into action. The words tumble out of his PI so quickly that Pedri barely has time to process them, and when he does he pinches his arm to make sure he’s hearing Flick correctly. There’s no way Dr Flick is asking two students from different chemistry departments to come and work together on a project like he’s fusing a new academic Pokémon variant. Okay, sure, interdisciplinary projects are legitimate life-saving ventures carried out by seasoned professionals for the greater good of humanity, but Pedri’s just a mere grad student, still clawing his way through his Masters, he barely has time to even look after himself properly. Selfishly all he can think of is how little time he’s going to have left for his personal thesis with this brand new responsibility cannibalising his hours – and also the grief of losing his precious bench space to Jude.
Fuck the greater good of humanity, Pedri didn't want to work next to this man, much less work with him.
“I know it must come as a shock,” Flick starts, “But I’m confident you’ll adjust well. As you know, the faculty’s been reallocating students across departments to ensure their training continues uninterrupted, and you conveniently had bench space available after the incident. Bellingham comes highly recommended by my good friend Dr Mourinho, who suggested he come to biochem to help with this project after the Inorganic department burned down.”
“Besides,” he adds gently. “I thought you might appreciate some new company after losing your partner.”
Pedri doesn't have the heart (or the balls) to tell his mentor that no, actually, he quite liked working by himself. And even if he did, Jude Bellingham is the last person whose company he would appreciate.
His mentor pauses, then adds with a faint smile. “You don’t have to worry, Pedri, I wouldn’t just bring anyone in. Bellingham’s track record speaks for itself.” He starts to list off all Jude’s accomplishments, his publications, his scholarships, how he transferred from Germany, to Madrid, to now here in Barcelona, his many prestigious awards that seem to stack endlessly. Pedri tunes it all out, he’s heard it all before and he didn’t want to hear it again. He tells himself that it’s not out of jealousy – he just doesn’t think they’re that big of a deal.
He can’t deny there’s a part of him that’s envious of it, of all the recognition Jude gets. How everybody knows his name, how professors speak of him with admiration as though he’s already years into his career. His achievements follow him like a golden halo into every room he steps into. And sure Pedri knew his work was solid, dependable and that unlike Jude, people actually liked him – he’s got his own accomplishments too, but they don’t seem to shine as bright as Jude’s.
Okay, fine, maybe he was a little jealous. But not that jealous, he insists.
He definitely hadn’t slept enough this past week to have the mental energy to deal with this. This has to be some kind of sick joke, some kind of setup. Pedri glances up at Jude’s expressionless face, wondering to himself how someone so apparently accomplished in his field can look so bored. Not even a hint of the sheepishness that should come with being praised in front of others.
No, instead Jude’s gaze is fixed on… him, his dark eyes steady and unblinking. Pedri tries to ignore it, trying to focus on the outline of the project that Dr Flick is explaining, even as the skin of the back of his neck prickles in discomfort under the weight of such scrutiny, like he’s an experiment to be examined. He tells himself that it’s irritation, but the heat crawling up his neck betrays him. It makes Pedri feel like a slide pinned under the cover slip of a microscope to have his every cell be examined in every detail.
Dr Flick’s voice cuts through his thoughts, “Bellingham’s already spent the last two years tinkering with transition metal complexes that might have biological applications, so this will just be the next step.”
He then turns to Pedri. “You'll run the susceptibility assays, Pedri, and I only want resistant strains.”
Sure, why not? Not like Pedri has anything else to do like writing his thesis or anything.
“It’ll be a proof-of-concept for a bigger translational grant. I expect updates from both of you every other Friday starting two weeks from now. That should give you enough time for both of you, right?” Flick technically asks the both of them but the question landed on Jude, as though he already knew Pedri would have to say yes anyway.
Pedri hates it, but it’s true. Saying no is not an option here, he had a reputation to maintain, especially when the person grading his thesis was the one who just assigned him this new responsibility. He’s just going to have to suck it up.
“Sure, works for me.” Jude answers, a heavy English accent curling around his Spanish.
“Truly, it is a privilege to have you helping us with this project, Bellingham.” Flick says warmly. “Dr Mourinho has nothing but praise for your work. I know you’re busy with your own research – especially after that terrible accident, so I am grateful you’ve agreed to help Pedri out.”
“It’s no problem at all, I’m sure it will be a pleasure working with Pedri,” Jude says, flashing the both of them a bright smile. “I’ve heard many things about him.”
The fuck was that supposed to mean? Pedri doesn’t really know what to make of that last bit, the way Jude’s voice had tightened with restraint, the corners of his lips lifting slightly.
Flick gives the both of them a faint smile, seemingly satisfied. “Excellent. So, shall the both of you exchange contacts now?”
Jude gives Pedri a look when Dr Flick left the room, a slight tug at the corner of his lips. “Relax, I’ll stay out of your way. I’ve got better things to do than babysitting your little petri dishes.”
Babysitting? Seriously? That man wouldn't know a fume hood from a biosafety cabinet. Probably, definitely.
What tiny ounce of respect- even attraction, that Pedri had immediately vanishes, and he feels his face heat up, something hot flaring up in his chest as the man stands up from the bench he was leaning against, walking out with a casual wave. Pedri’s too angry to even catch why.
+34 612 345 679 : hey
Pedri: Hello
Contact saved: Jude Bellingham (Inorganic)
Surprisingly, Jude doesn’t think much of the whole lab burning down fiasco. Sure, it was kind of annoying, but his academic path had never been straightforward. After clawing his way through GCSEs, winning a scholarship to one of Germany’s most prestigious colleges, fighting his way to Complutense University of Madrid, and finally earning a full scholarship to do his masters at Universitat de Barcelona. After all that moving around, having to move to a new lab felt insignificant in comparison. He hadn't uprooted his life to move to a whole other country, learned new languages, fought tooth and nail to get published in multiple journals and won prestigious awards, just to let a stupid accident derail his research. Just because of some fucking idiot.
It’s still surreal to Jude that it happened at all. No one knew who left an open flask of acetone unattended beside a lit Bunsen burner outside the fume hood, but the result had been all the same: months, years, for the older lab assistants, of painstaking research, reduced to ash in less than two hours. But Jude can't imagine it being any of Dr Mourinho’s, no. Everyone in his group was many things, but sloppy wasn't one of them. You didn't get chosen by Dr Mourinho for sloppy mistakes like this. Briefly, Jude wonders if he should text Trent about it, to ask if everyone made it out alright before remembering he already knows they did.
Jude feels fortunate all the same that he hadn't been on shift that day, not merely because he doubts his own ability to escape a burning laboratory. No, shallowly, he’s grateful for reasons beyond just his personal safety. The Jude Bellingham, star boy of his department, standing at the scene of a laboratory fire? The rumours would write themselves.
He already knows everybody’s just wishing it were him, just praying on his downfall.
Jude knows he should be more annoyed about the whole situation, that he spent months working on his project, weekends and sleep sacrificed on optimising reactions only to produce a yield barely enough for analysis, and now his samples have gone out in smoke. He should be furious about losing his lab, his research, his carefully controlled environment, that he's now being expected to pack up the remnants of what's left and be squeezed into a biochemistry lab, into whatever space someone could afford to give him, using borrowed equipment from whatever leftovers other labs could scrape together.
But, despite his sharp temper and impatience, he can't find himself feeling anything more than a mild annoyance. It was a freak accident, after all, whether it be bad luck, from God, or some higher being with a sick sense of humour, it had happened. Jude wasn't the one who caused it, so there was no point getting angry over things out of his control. At least he still has his notes and records. He could work with that.
That being said, if he does find the person who was responsible, Jude isn't sure if his patience would be so saintly.
Jude's at the lab at 7am sharp, earlier than Pedri. A childish part of him feels a little satisfaction at being earlier than his new bench and interdisciplinary project partner, even if there isn't much to do so early other than settle into the unfamiliar environment. Set up his laptop and prep his reagents.
Truth be told he isn't really too bothered about this new project. Sure it’s a little annoying but he could make transitional metal complexes in his sleep. Besides, his PI, Dr Mourinho, owed a favour to Dr Flick. ‘It won't take too much time away from your personal projects. Pedri's the top student in biochemistry, and he's easy to work with. He'll help you settle into the lab while you get familiar with the project.’ and ‘Dr Flick’s a trusted peer of mine, so I hope you're on your best behaviour during your time there while we rebuild the lab.’
Dr Mourinho hadn't said it, but Jude, dense as he admits he can be, could read between the lines. Flick's giving you bench space so the least you could do is be useful to him and not piss off his favourite student.
Jude scoffs to himself. Too late. Pedri did not look like he wanted to help him settle in. If anything, the other man looked like he wanted nothing more than to throw Jude into a centrifuge at 20,000 rpm.
It was the first time Jude had really looked at Pedri up close, and he wasn’t sure what he expected. The man was smaller than expected, enough that Jude had to tilt his gaze downward to meet his eyes. There was something almost delicate about him, with his willowy stature and graceful movements. Pretty too, but Jude would never admit that part out loud, also, not enough to dissuade his strong principles on not dating your bench mate. Not again, nope. He likes to think he's learned his lesson.
He'd heard of Pedri before. The golden boy of the biochemistry department, the one everyone could depend on. Unlike Jude, Pedri was the one everyone wanted on their team. His lab reports were meticulous, his cell assays always grew, the one his peers turned to when things went wrong, when they needed someone to talk to.
Even Dr Flick, infamous for tearing students apart, considered him a favourite.
Okay sure, there was that whole CIA agent situation a few weeks ago at the start of the new sem, but everyone knew it was absolutely ludicrous and had rallied behind Pedri. It was just a mere blemish on his otherwise spotless record.
Jude doesn’t think he’d have that same luxury.
He hates the feeling that came with that thought. It’s a familiar feeling, one he tries not to acknowledge too often. People respect him, sure, that much was undeniable. They respect his work, his results, but respect isn't the same as warmth. He'd long since stopped expecting people to like him, but it still bothers him when he noticed the way conversations would quieten whenever he entered the room, how people seem relieved whenever he leaves. Even Dr Mourinho had felt the need to warn him to ‘be nice’ with his new biochemistry partner.
Well, he already kind of fucked up that first impression already. He’d seen the way Pedri looked ready to explode after what Jude had said yesterday. But maybe that was the point. Maybe he just wanted to get back at Pedri for having something that Jude had never been able to have. Maybe he just wanted to see if he could be the one to crack that calm composure of his, to reveal that the golden boy wasn’t such a perfect angel after all.
Maybe.
So when Pedri’s composure cracked, when the disbelief flickered across his face, when his calm slipped into barely contained fury, Jude couldn’t help the feeling of sick satisfaction from deep within his bones.
On autopilot mode, he starts setting up for work for the day, refilling reagent bottles, checking balances, arranging glassware, immersing himself in the familiar sounds as people start slowly pouring into the lab. The conversation, the coffee machine starting, the machines humming themselves alive. A lab assistant walks past him, freezing in place momentarily before offering a quick nod at him, hurrying on afterwards (Jude was too used to this to take offence anymore).
For a moment it was almost as though he had never left his old lab. He even opens the freezer and starts rearranging the samples in it from oldest to newest, losing himself in the rhythm and satisfaction of organising the way it should be.
So lost in it, in fact, that he hardly registers the door behind him opening, the beep of a key card being accepted, the heavy laptop bag placed on the table, the footsteps stopping in its tracks as Jude looks up to see the other man staring at him, bug-eyed and mouth agape.
“How long have you had the freezer open for?”
“What?”
“How long,” Pedri repeats. “Has that been open?”
Jude cannot believe that this is an actual issue. “I don't know, it was just a mess inside so I was trying to organise-”
“Why would you touch things that don't belong to you? There's samples in there that you've just- just let warm to room temperature!” Pedri snaps, a note of desperation creeping into his voice.
For the first time in a long time, Jude gets the distinct feeling he's made a mistake. It's not a feeling he gets often. Back in inorganic, he knows what he’s doing, knows every step and every preparation method to the tee. But this is someone else’s domain, and for the first time in a long time, he suddenly feels utterly out of his depth. He hasn’t touched biochemistry since first year, and the little he remembers had been mostly forgotten by the time he decided to specialise. Just another exam topic to slog through.
He still thinks it's utterly ridiculous though. Sure he had taken some samples out while reorganising the freezer, but they were only out for a few minutes. It's so obvious to Jude that Pedri's just reaching for something to complain about him. Just like everyone else.
“Please, please tell me you didn't leave it open for long.”
Jude feels the embarrassment inside boil into a heat rising up within him, his skin prickling. “I can't have had it open for more than ten minutes, surely your little baby enzymes can withstand being out in the open for that long.”
“No, not like- don't you think there's a reason those samples are kept cold?” Pedri stares at him in disbelief. “Don’t you remember anything about protein stability from undergrad? About freeze-thaw cycles?”
Fuck. He knows he should bite his tongue, control himself, Mourinho said to be nice, be nice, be nice- but he can’t help it. The heat rises in his chest anyway.
“Oh come on, samples don't just magically warm to room temperature in ten fucking minutes,” Jude exclaims, the aggravation spilling out into his raised voice as he hurriedly shoves the racks he'd left on the floor back into the fridge, forgetting all about organising them.
Pedri lunges over and grabs them from him, his lab shoes skidding across the freshly mopped linoleum tiles. For a split second, it looks like he’s about to fall. Instead, the other man reaches out his arms to steady himself, knocking into Jude, sending the racks of microcentrifuge tubes flying from his hands. The sound of plastic clattering against the floor fills the air as lids spring open and microlitre droplets of carefully purified samples spill onto the floor.
Silence sweeps the entire room.
Whoops.
Even Jude knows this is a disaster, and he winces at how much time it must have taken- how much longer it was going to take to redo. The thought of apologising flickers, but he crushes it down beneath his (figurative) heel. Mistakes happened all the time, and he doesn’t see why he should have to degrade himself when he certainly hadn’t meant any harm. Why should he fucking grovel?
Pedri’s light brown eyes burn into him. Against his better judgement Jude thinks briefly that it’s a very pretty shade of brown.
When he finally speaks, his voice is calm. “Jude, I know this might be hard for you, but try not to touch my stuff next time.” He says, voice tight with restraint, pausing, before adding, “Please.”
Jude feels the familiar flash of anger, the shame twisting into irritation. Both at himself and at Pedri. He knows he should shut up and apologise, but he can’t. “It’s not my fault I wasn’t expecting your samples to be so damn fragile,” he snaps back. “Besides, your fridge was a fucking organisational nightmare. Consider it a favour done.”
Pedri’s expression hardens and he inhales sharply, holding his composure, refusing to say anything but Jude can see the thinly veiled fury simmering beneath it.
It only makes Jude want to push harder, just prove to himself that Pedri’s no fucking golden angel of the biochem department.
pedri biochem: Why didn’t you clean your side of the bench?
jude: didnt u tell me not to touch your stuff? how was i supposed to know where to put it???
pedri biochem: You could’ve just asked?
jude: lol didnt seem like u wanted me to ask u anything
Pedri spends the next 3 hours rebuilding his experiment from scratch, silently seething in his rage and thinking of all the creative ways he can possibly make Jude ever regret stepping foot into this biochemistry lab as he carefully pipettes each reaction component. He's had to redo all of yesterday's preparation because a certain somebody couldn't keep their hands to themselves.
Aspirate. Dispense. Discard tip. Repeat.
It was mindless work, repetitive precision Pedri has long since committed to muscle memory after countless hours in the lab. He's come a long way since he used to accidentally pipette straight air bubbles into his samples, and needing check his measurements at least three times each time lest he wanted to feel like a failure all day. Now, he could do this in his sleep, not needing to focus particularly hard.
Which leaves his mind free to wander.
Aspirate. Dispense. Discard tip. Repeat.
Back to this morning, to the way he nearly shouted at Jude, his temper rising to levels he never knew he had in him. In hindsight, Pedri realises Jude was probably just trying to help. Okay, sure Jude should've known better than to touch people's samples, but he probably didn't mean any harm and it was an honest mistake. It sends a guilty feeling down to his stomach.
But then again-
Why the fuck would Jude think it would be okay to let precious reaction mixes out at room temperature? To override pre-existing organisation systems to suit his way of doing things? Just because it made sense to him.
The only possible reason Pedri can come up with is that Jude must be so revered in his own lab that he's never had to worry about disturbing other people's work. Everyone in his old lab probably trusted him to do whatever he wanted - he said jump and everyone else asked how high. So accustomed to being in the right that it's never occurred to him that he might be wrong. Well he was. End of story.
Besides, Jude still hasn't even apologised. He'd helped Pedri clean up the mess on the floor, sure, and then immediately after announced he was going to start his work. As if he hadn't just destroyed hours of work.
Prick.
Pedri feels a lot better after that thought.
To his credit, the offender was keeping to his side of the bench in silence, working away on… things inorganic chemists do, Pedri supposes.
He tries not to watch. Really, he did, he insists, to no one in particular.
But even from across the bench, from the corner of his eye, it's obvious why people speak about Jude the way they did. It’s obvious just from a glance that he knows what he’s doing.
Okay fine, not that Pedri would really know. He’s not so egotistical not to admit that he doesn't know inorganic enough to judge, anyway. He couldn't remember much past a first year exam that he had crammed (which even then he had barely scraped by with a pass). Give him DNA extraction and cell cultures over d-orbitals and coordination complexes any time. He could hardly tell if Jude was actually doing his experiment right, or if the results were going the way he expected. For all Pedri knows, Jude could just be making the steps up as he went along.
But somehow, he doubts that.
Jude looks like he’d done this hundreds of times before. There was no wasted movement, no double checking to see if the balance was tared, no hesitation over labels to reach for the right flask. He works at a seemingly unhurried pace, calm and focused, flowing from one step to the next as though the whole sequence was already planned out in his head, utterly unbothered by the rest of the lab around him. Also, somehow Jude had managed to make his bench stay neat and tidy despite the endless amounts of reagents he seemed to be using.
Jude hadn't even looked at the protocol sheet since he started, just keeping it to the side of the bench, ‘just in case’. His clean, unscribbled papers a sharp contrast to Pedri’s whose own sheets are dog eared and highlighted and sticky-noted to hell and back and that he always keeps by his side at all times like a bible.
Ugh. Whatever. I don't have time for this, Pedri thinks to himself, putting away his newly mixed RNA samples into the freezer. Maybe he didn't carry out his experiments with the same ease and effortlessness, but he did what he had to do and he got it done.
Today is supposed to be about his thesis anyway- the project that would prove he’s more than just another student in the lab. Yeah, there is now this new side mission of a joint project with Jude, but his thesis is more important, at least to him. It’s the work that’s going to be judged, work that would decide whether he’s to be seen or overlooked in the competitive world that is academia.
A quiet sense of unease gnawed at Pedri. He usually isn’t like this, usually isn’t the type to drag his feet on projects, even the most difficult ones. Usually the sooner he gets something done the better. That’s the way his mother raised him, to bite his tongue and get on with it. The guilt presses into his chest. The outline of the interdisciplinary project sits waiting in his notebook, but he can’t bring himself to look at it. For some reason the thought of tackling it makes his stomach twist with dread.
He tells himself that they wouldn’t be working that closely together anyway. Jude would make the complexes, Pedri’s just growing the bacterial culture. If it didn't work, well, it would be Jude's problem to fix. It’s his name they cared about after all, not Pedri’s. Pedri tries to ignore the bitter feeling rising in his chest at the thought, pushing it deep down back where it came from.
Pedri never intended to do biochemistry.
He’d originally wanted to pursue biology, but his application was rejected, the university deciding he would be better suited for biochemistry instead.
He still remembers how he practically tore the letter open that day in his family's restaurant after closing time. His eyes had poured over every single word, heart pounding in anticipation until reaching the sentence that made it lurch to a stop. He remembers the taste of bitter disappointment on his tongue, the tears threatening to fall as he handed the piece of paper silently to his parents, his older brother, watching their faces fall.
“It's not that bad,” Fer had said, almost dismissively. “Biology, biochemistry- they've both got ‘bio’ in them. They're practically the same thing.”
His parents nodded in agreement, searching for the right words to soften the disappointment. At least the university hadn't rejected him entirely. They'd offered him a place to pursue biochemistry instead—a second door where he'd expected a dead end. It just wasn't the door he'd spent years dreaming about. It just wasn't the door he had slaved away over his nationals for.
His mother put her hand on his shoulder, and that gesture is enough to break what little control Pedri has left. The tears he'd been holding in slip down to the red tablecloth. “I agree with Fer that this really isn't that bad, mijo,” she said gently, “I think this is just God wanting something different for you. Something even better.”
Pedri wanted to scream, to cry that he didn't want better, he wanted something he had actually worked towards, he wanted what he had pictured himself every time he thought about his future. But he knew better from countless moments as a teenager than to argue when God was brought into the picture.
“Sometimes God works in mysterious ways” his mother continued, squeezing his shoulder. “Sometimes he opens doors we never knew existed. Si Dios quiere, He has a plan for you, even if you can't see it yet.”
The restaurant had never felt so unfamiliar. The warm yellow lights that usually cast the restaurant in a comforting, golden glow now felt like they were too bright. Harsh and cruel. Not even his mum's signature croquettes, made just for him, could offer any comfort that night.
An offer from the Universidad de La Laguna arrived the following week, softening the blow. But Pedri’s heart has always belonged to Universitat de Barcelona, top school of the nation and his dream school since he was 14, and he couldn’t imagine himself anywhere else. So he chose them anyway, convincing himself that biochemistry could still carry him toward the future he wanted. It was close enough.
Most days, he thinks of that day, to that one summer day when he was just eighteen and thought the entire world was crashing around him. And even if he has a difficult relationship with God, he likes to think that his mum was right. It did all work out in the end.
But now, at 6:30pm, as he stands in the harsh white light of the laboratory, legs aching from being on his feet all day and eyes burning from straining at results, mentally ready to clock out, he stares at Jude Bellingham, cleaning up and washing up glassware, completely oblivious to the fact that he's using Pedri's expensive, painstakingly purified RNA-free water instead of distilled water.
He's going to have to open a new bottle now.
Pedri thinks, not for the first time, but for the first time in a long time, that maybe he should have just chosen La Laguna instead.