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Jamal hadn't really talked to him since before the world cup.
At first, Michael hadn't thought anything of it. They were both at training camps, one in France and one in Germany, and the pressure of the world cup looming over made you focus harder than ever before.
Michael hadn't thought to question it. Jamal and him were solid, he'd never had any doubts about that.
Jamal was the first person he'd called when he'd signed for Bayern. He'd kept in touch with his career losely, seeing how Germany praised him as their star when he was little more than a child.
Michael didn't text Jamal Musiala, Germany's golden boy. He texted the skinny kid from Chelsea that he remembered as always smiling. Unbreakably cheerful, kind.
The kid that wasn't intimated by Michael and the older guys, and that was never arrogant despitle being leagues better than them anyway.
The kid that had taken Michael's quietness as an invitation to try and befriend him. Who had relentlessy talked to him until Michael gave up and started leaving an empty space for Jamal at every table.
For a while they'd maybe been friends, Michael found it hard to tell. There was so much going on back then.
Then Jamal had left and where Michael hadn't minded sitting on his own his whole life, he found himself missing something.
Of course Jamal had been excited when he found out about Michael coming to Munich. Michael had quickly abandoned the worry if Jamal even remembered him, that it had maybe been all in his head.
Because that was Jamal, everything was exciting to him, every person got let in quickly.
In Munich, they'd become close. This time there was no question if they were friends, even Michael couldn't deny it.
It didn't happen all at once, but after a few months, Michael couldn't imagine his life without Jamal.
They got coffee most morning before training and arrived together. At first it had been to catch up, then Jamal simply never stopped showing up. Standing grinning outside Michael's door at eight in the morning, already way too cheery and awake.
Jamal had insisted on showing Michael around, which because of Michael's absolute disinterest had been limited to showing him his favorite places to order food from and then eating it at one of their apartments.
When every favorite restaurant had been tried, Jamal just asked him if he wanted to come over. Michael never seemed to be able to say no.
They played video games, they watched movies, sometimes they just sat and talked. It was less of a planned hanging out and instead established itself as simply the normal way to spend their evening. Together.
He wasn't a people person. He got along with them well enough if he wanted to, but he liked being on his own better. Jamal was different.
Jamal fit into Michael's life like he'd always been there. He always had that smile on his face and on the nights Michael was alone in his apartment, the silence was missing one specific cheerful laugh.
Jamal was touchy, another thing Michael didn't enjoy. Usually, because he simply didn't like being touched all the time. With Jamal it had turned out to be the opposite.
He enjoyed Jamal playing with his hair way too much. He was aware of every time the other touched his leg, his shoulder, his arm.
When they were on Jamal's couch, Michael felt every point where Jamal's leg was touching his, where his hand was almost touching Michael's arm. When Jamal hid his face in the crook of Michael's neck because he'd picked a scary movie, Michael's breath hitched.
The problem was not Jamal touching him. The problem was that every time he did it, Michael wanted him to never stop and pull him closer.
He'd sat with those thoughts for a bit. He knew what they meant, and he wasn't really surprised. Who wouldn't fall in love with Jamal.
The realization had been quick, then Michael decided to file those thoughts away as best as he could. There was no point.
Jamal was simply a tactile person. He hugged all the guys at training, he placed his hand on everyone's shoulder when they talked.
He laughed all the time, it wasn't that Michael made him laugh more. That would be wishful thinking. Jamal was also just kind, attentive, he was simply a sweet person. That wasn't an invitation.
So Michael put those thoughts away.
Munich had started to feel like a home and Bayern had started to feel like his team. He fit in better than he'd ever had before and he found himself smiling more in training than he could remember ever doing before.
He liked it here. Just the way everything was.
Jamal and him kept being close, maybe became impossibly closer, but Michael didn't let his thoughts drift.
His heart stopped when Jamal was laying on the pitch crying out in pain, and he'd had to cover his face so his crying face wouldn't be the headline everyone took away from it.
He drove Jamal to every doctor's appointment, every physio. He came over with dinner when he felt Jamal sounded weird over text and slept on his couch whenever he didn't feel the other shouldn't be left alone.
When Jamal returned to training he watched him like a hawk, terrified he'd overdo it. Still he stayed behind and practiced anything Jamal wanted to perfect, because Jamal was stubborn and Michael would do the same thing in his shoes.
They had become a running joke among the team, attached at the hip, the other's joked. Michael didn't say anything to it, didn't trust himself not to show those thoughts he was hiding deep down.
But now it was August and he hadn't spoken to Jamal in over two months.
It hadn't raised any alarms first. He had been at Clairefontaine, trying to fit into the French team and finding a rhythm together. He imagined the pressure on the Germans was similar.
Michael had found himself fitting right in with the team, and at some point during training the World Cup had stopped looming over them like a cloud and instead they couldn't wait to get started.
His heart broke for Jamal when Germany went out against Paraguay. He hadn't even considered that he wouldn't be facing Jamal in the next round.
There was no text. Michael thought he understood, what was there to say. Going home sucked and Michael was more than busy preparing for the next match.
Paraguay had been a battle, and he wasn't sure if they could have done it without Kylian's penalty. Still he pushed himself harder than ever during that game, found himself provoking players in a way he didn't usually do.
It felt good to beat them, better than most wins. It felt like avenging Jamal, and that, he also didn't let himself think to hard about.
The rest of the world cup passed in a blur. There were more spotlights on him than ever before and Michael was barely managing to not let the pressure get to him.
In the end they went home without a cup and without a medal, and the headline would read that Olise, as always, didn't look like he even cared.
Of course he cared. They had an almost unbeatable team, Kylian and Ousmane and him had become a lethal attack. Going home didn't make sense.
But he couldn't see how crying on the pitch would make any difference. They lost, and that was it.
He'd stayed in the states for a bit, then went on a holiday before rejoining training. It was at that time that the absence of Jamal's text started to irritate him.
There was nothing after they beat Paraguay. Nothing after Morocco. Nothing after Spain. That one hurt.
As he kept wondering, he found out through the media that Jamal had had another surgery. Routine, they'd called it. Michael had blinked twice.
He'd thought routine was Michael waiting by the hospital bed for Jamal to wake up. Heartbeat only slowing down again once Jamal opened his eyes and smiled at Michael tiredly.
Routine was driving home, carrying his bag up the stairs and putting an arm around him because crutches didn't work to well on stairs. Routine was putting the couch pillows in a pile, in a specific order Michael had figured out, so they wouldn't shift, for Jamal to put the bad leg on.
Apparently that wasn't routine, that was just something they used to do.
The next week, when Michael was still lying on a beach in the Caribbean, he was angry. What happened?
He had blamed himself, because usually when people were mad it him he had somehow stepped on their toes and didn't realize. But he couldn't think of anything.
Mainly because he was different with Jamal. Not different in that he wasn't himself, just that the person he was around Jamal was different than the person he was around anyone else.
He cared more, he gave more, he offered more. He cared about his happiness more than anyone else's, including his own. So he was careful wherever emotions could be misread, and no matter how uneasy he felt about it, he always showed his feelings.
What could he have done? He stayed angry and hoped that maybe he was misreading the situation.
So he went back to training. Jamal was annoyingly normal. He greeted Michael with a hug that only Michael's obessive brain could register as being a moment to short.
He acted completely normal with him during train, but after the showers he was gone before Michael could even think about talking to him.
The next day had been the game against Leipzig. Michael sat it out along with everyone else who'd had a prolonged world cup holiday, so he was sitting in the stands with Upa and Harry.
Even though he was angry at Jamal, his heart sped up when Jamal got switched in and immediately scored. He was getting back to who he was before the injuries, and it made Michael's heart swell with pride, no matter that the idiot wasn't speaking to him.
Then, Jamal went down. Not from an attack, not even from a stumble, he just went out like a light.
The world stopped.
Michael was standing before Jamal fully hit the floor, helpless and frozen. Harry had grabbed his arm, pulled him back from running somewhere. He was right, he wouldn't get on the field anyway.
He could only breathe again after Jamal stood up. He looked shaky and pale, but he was walking. The stretcher was carried away without him and he walked off the pitch.
Michael didn't register anything about the rest of game. They won, he didn't stay for a celebration.
He tried to get into the locker room, but Jamal wasn't there. He asked just about every single person and no one knew where he was.
Michael didn't sleep a single second that night. At three in the morning he swallowed his pride and the rest of his anger that had almost entirely disappeared when Jamal went down anyway. He texted Jamal, feeling a sting in his heart when saw the last message was from the end of May.
He texted a simple are you okay?.
He knew it wasn't enough, and he watched the message stay unread through the whole night. At nine, his phone buzzed with answer.
Fainted. All good.
This time the anger came back quicker. Like he was just somebody asking for a health update, not the person who had held his hand through every painful physio and every set back.
All good. What the fuck.
Michael barely slept the night after that, itching to confront Jamal when he saw him. But Jamal wasn't at training and he wasn't at the company presentation. The other injured players were mostly there, there were updates for the ones that weren't. Nothing on Jamal.
That evening, another sleepless night looming over him, Michael had decided that enough was enough.
He couldn't go on like this and he deserved an answer. Before anything else, he thought of Jamal as his best friend. He'd spent nights convincing himself that that was enough and now even that was slipping away from him and he couldn't understand why.
He parked on the familar street and slipped through the front door when a neighbor went out. The guy even greeted Michael, because he'd seen him so many times before that Michael slipping into the house didn't raise any alarms.
It was a bit of painful reminder that he couldn't understand where things changed.
He took the stairs to the third floor two at a time and knocked on Jamal's door twice, hard, before he could give himself the opportunity to come back.
The door opens a few seconds later, Jamal looking confused, barefoot and in sweatpants. His eyes widen when looks at Michael, and his hand freezes where it is on the side of the door.
Michael instinctively puts his foot out on case Jamal plans on just closing it.
Jamal looks down and frowns.
"D'you really think I'd throw a door in your face?"
Michael swallows.
"Not really. But I also didn't think you wouldn't talk to me for two months."
Jamal doesn't meet his gaze.
"That why you came?"
"Half. I also needed to see that you're alive," Michael says, letting his voice be as hard as he wants. Because he was so, so worried.
Jamal opens the door all the way and motions for Michael to come inside.
The apartment still looks the same, after all it's been only a couple of months. Still it feels strange, being invited into a place he used to treat as his second home.
Jamal sits on the far corner of couch, pulling his legs up as if to make sure that Michael can't sit to close.
Michael doesn't know where to start.
"You went down on the pitch. You didn't open you eyes. They brought a stretcher." He knows it's not a question, but he doesn't think he needs one.
"I fainted. I'm fine."
"You fainted?"
"It looked worse than it was. It's fine."
"I was terrified," Michael admits, looking straight at him. At least Jamal looks guilty.
"I'm sorry."
"Why did you faint?"
"It's not- it's just something that happens? It was the heat."
"The heat?"
"Yes."
"You've played in worse heat. And longer too."
Jamal sighs, looking at Michael's hands instead of his face.
"I also hadn't slept for two nights. And not eaten. For I don't know how long, but too long." Jamal shrugs his shoulders like it's not a big deal.
"Why?" Michael just asks.
"It doesn't matter, I'm fine."
"You're seriously not telling me?"
"I'm fine, I'll be fine, the rest is- it's not important."
"If it keeps you up at night of course it's important."
"Leave it Michael," Jamal snaps.
Michael studies his face. Those big doe eyes, looking everywhere but at him. The smile that he had used to think part of him, missing and replaced by a frown.
"I won't ask more about that. But can you tell me what I did?" Michael asks eventually, voice coming out weaker than he wanted it to.
Jamal looks at him, finally, confused.
"What you did?"
Michal nods. "Whatever I did wrong."
Jamal shakes his head. "Mike, you didn't do anything." It sounds earnest.
"Then why haven't we spoken in two months?"
Jamal looks guilty. Michael's heart wants to pull him in for a hug, but he can't, and needs to get that out.
"You didn't even tell me you had surgery. You're treating me like any other guy on the team. I thought- Maybe I was wrong but I thought we closer than that."
Jamal still refuses to meet his eyes.
"I'm sorry."
"Stop saying you're sorry and tell me what happened!"
Jamal shakes is head. "It's not- nothing happened."
"Then why is everything so weird? Because I could've blamed the rest on the World Cup but you're acting like I'm a stranger."
"Mike-" Jamal starts and then stops. He's thinking, trying to work out what to say. He wipes at his eye quickly but Michael can see the tear that was escaping and it breaks something else in him.
No matter his anger, he can't stand to see Jamal cry. It hurts him, Jamal should only ever be happy, the world had no business to bring him down.
Without thinking about it he reaches over and pulls Jamals in, holding him tight. He can feel Jamal sob into his shoulder a few times, and then just staying there for a bit, catching his breath.
Michael holds him tight and rubs one hand up and down his back reassuringly. Jamal's shirt is soft under his fingers and he can feel the warmth of his body underneath it.
Eventually Jamal pulls back, but doesn't move away to the end of the couch again.
"I'm really sorry Michael. You didn't do anything. Don't think that, please," he almost begs, wiping another tear away.
"Then what is it?"
"It was stupid. I'm stupid. You're going to be angry at me."
"I could never be angry at you."
"You are, right now."
Michael shakes his head. He only thought he had been.
"Angry at missing you. At you not being there. Never at you." He hopes it says enough, without saying too much.
"I saw how happy you were at the World Cup. And it... it kind of sent me spiraling." Jamal admits, voice quiet.
"You were angry that we went further?" Michael asks confused, but without judgement. But this was the nature of being friends with other players, someone always went home earlier than you and someone always won more.
Jamal shakes his head. "No, not that. Though I thank you for beating Paraguay. They deserved that."
Michael smiles weakly. "Kind of did that for you too."
Jamal blushes. That's new, but Michael can't obsess over it, because he has to get to the bottom of whatever this is first.
"What did you say to get that yellow?" It's a distraction, but if Jamal needs a moment he doesn't mind.
"He uh- insinuated I sucked Kylian's dick to get on the team."
Jamal's eyes go wide. Michael still chuckles at the memory, because honestly what the fuck was that.
"And how do you get a yellow for that?"
"Because then I said many not nice things about his family. And that if he wanted to suck Kylian's dick so badly I'd put in a good word for him."
Jamal laughs, for the first time that evening it reaches his eyes. For a second it feels like all the other times they sat here.
"You didn't!"
"I mean I'm not proud of it. Okay maybe a little."
"I can't believe you sometimes."
"Kylian didn't stop laughing for a good ten minutes after. We still can't mention the incident or he loses it again."
"You play well together."
Jamal says it with a smile, but it's a sad smile.
"We do. Why do you look sad about it?"
"You seemed really happy with the French team. You and Kylian play so well together, like we did before I got injured, that kind of connection where you don't need words."
Michael looks at him frowning, waiting for him to continue. Jamal doesn't.
"Jamal, I don't understand."
"I told you it's stupid."
"I don't even understand enough to say that."
Jamal sighs.
"You seemed happier than you do here. I don't know, that kinda got to me. And I thought that meant you'd leave. You'd join Madrid after the summer."
"Jamal-"
"And then every newspaper online was saying it. And I know it's dumb to believe them, but everyone was saying you'd go to Madrid. Some said you already signed, some said you were in talks. It was stupid, but I believed them."
"So you thought I was going to Madrid."
Jamal nods.
"And that's why you never texted me? What kind of logic is that?"
"You said you wouldn't be mad!"
"I am not mad, I am confused!"
Jamal looks like he doesn't want to say anything else, making Michael grab his hand.
"Jamal. Please."
"I thought you were leaving. And it hit me how much I would miss you," he all but whispers.
Jamal's eyes look so earnest it almost hurts.
"So you thought pretending like I left already would make it better?"
"No. I just realized I'd miss you more than I would miss anyone else on the team if they left."
That, Michael understood. He would feel the same if he thought Jamal was leaving.
"That's okay, you're my closest friend too-"
"No, you still don't get it."
"Get what?"
Jamal looks desperate.
"You're gonna make me say it?"
Michael just looks confused.
"I'd miss you more than any friend. I wouldn't miss you as a friend."
"Then what- oh."
Michael's brain can't really catch up. Is Jamal implying what he thinks he is?
Whatever Jamal had tried holding back spills out now.
"I like you Michael, and not as a friend. And I've known that for a while, I'd just tried to ignore it. Because you mean so much to mean, and I didn't want to lose you. But then I thought I was going to lose you anyway, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. I couldn't text you, or call you, I was trying to get used to missing you. I couldn't."
Jamal takes a breath before he continues and Michael holds his hand tighter.
"And then you didn't leave, and you were here. And I felt so stupid because I know I fucked everything up, and I couldn't sleep for days, and I couldn't eat, and then I fainted because of it, fucked that up for myself too."
Michael doesn't trust himself to speak, head reeling. Jamal liked him. Jamal likes him.
"I'm sorry for making it weird. And making it weirder now." Jamal pulls his hand away.
"You don't have to say anything, I'm sorry. But it really wasn't you."
"Stop apologizing," Michael manages to get out.
Jamal looks like wants to apologize for that too, but Michaels gaze stops him.
"You like me?" Michael asks, carefully, testing the sound of the words.
"I didn't want to make you uncomfortable. But you can't think you did anything wrong."
"Jamal-"
"You can leave, I don't- I know this weird."
"Jamal."
"Hm?"
"Can you stop spiraling for a second?"
Jamal shuts his mouth immediately. Michael studies his face. He looks nervous, and it breaks his heart.
"You like me?" Michael asks again, because he needs to hear it.
"Yes."
"As more than a friend."
"I'm sor-"
"Damn it Jamal, just answer!"
"Yes."
Michael closes his eyes, feeling overwhelmed. But Jamal looks like he is waiting for Michael to get up and leave or throw an insult at him, so has to try and pull himself together.
"Can I kiss you?"
It just escapes, no refinement or thought put into it.
Jamal looks confused, a flicker of something in his eyes.
Michael decides to say fuck it and moves closer, placing a hand at the back of Jamal's head and lifting his chin with the other, forcing Jamal to meet his gaze now they're only inches apart.
"Jamal. I like you too, I have for a long time. But I feel like you just put my brain in a blender so before I do something completely wrong, tell me if I can kiss you."
Jamal only manages to nod, but that's enough.
He closes the distance and kisses Jamal. Feather light, barely touching his lips. Jamal reaches out his hand to pull Michael even closer by the shoulder, and Michael can feel Jamal smile into the kiss.
That's all it takes for Michael to kiss him for real, really pulling Jamal against him and kissing him the way he deserves. Jamal kisses back just as hard, open mouthed and quietly humming into his mouth.
Michael's hands touch Jamal everywhere he can get his hands on, now that hes allowed to.
The kiss goes on forever, but it doesn't turn heated. Neither has slept well in days, Jamal fainted a day ago. There's no rush.
When they finally break apart, Jamal is on Michael's lap and just looking at him in awe, pushing a stray dread behind Michael's ear.
"Since when?" He asks, softly.
"Maybe six months after I moved here."
"You never said anything."
"Neither did you."
"You're harder to read."
"You usually manage."
"Yeah."
Jamal roams his hands over Michael's chest, eventually resting them on his shoulders. The smile never leaves his face.
"Madrid did ask me," Michael admits.
"I think that's still a sore subject for me," Jamal pouts.
"I told them no."
Jamal's eyes widen. "You told them no?"
"I'm just telling you so there's no doubt. I'm here because I want to be here. Because I like the team, but also for you. I don't want to be without you."
Jamal kisses him again, long and soft, drawing it out.
"What do we do with this?" He asks, doubt creeping back in
"Whatever you want."
"What do you want?"
"You."
Because it's as simple as that.
He stays the night. Not on the couch, in Jamal's bed. With his arm around Jamal and his leg thrown over Michael's.
Jamal falls asleep almost immediately, and Michael feels equally exhausted. But he needs some more time to look at that beautiful sleeping face, tracing his cheeks and the curve of his ear with his fingers.
He drifts asleep calmer than he has in months. Maybe ever.