"No way. No way, this is real?"
At Joan Gamper, inside the room that had been given over to the filming crew for the season, David Charles Rodrigues was standing in the middle of the floor in complete disbelief.
He was the director. The one Laporta had brought in to make the documentary for this season. And right now he was holding a set of photographs that his crew had just put in his hands, and he could not stop looking at them.
He looked up at the crew member who had brought them.
"Are you serious? This is real? This is not photoshopped?"
The crew member was practically bouncing on the spot.
"It was a UNICEF charity thing. And, well." He gestured at the pictures. "That is that."
David just looked at him.
Then he looked back down at the photograph one more time, holding it closer, turning it slightly toward the light.
"No way. This seems so fake."
He said it, and he did not believe it even as it came out of his own mouth. Because he had been doing this for fifteen years, and his eyes knew what to look for, and everything he knew was telling him that nobody had touched this image. The light was right. The edges were right. The whole thing was right.
Which somehow only made it worse.
"I could not believe it either," the crew member said. "Before I even brought it in here, I called UNICEF themselves. Directly. And they confirmed the whole appointment was real. They gave me the name and the contact information for the photographer, and I called him too, and he was happy to confirm it. All of it."
David's head came up fast.
"You have the contact information of the person who took this?"
The crew member smiled.
"Yes. And he is apparently a local, so."
"That is great." David cut him off. He was already thinking, eyes moving. "That is great, that is great. Can you find out if he would be down to come in for an interview?"
"I am sure he would be." The crew member was already reaching for his phone. "Let me just contact him."
"Oh. Wait."
Everyone in the room turned.
Another crew member, over at the side, had spoken up. He did not stop, either. He turned and looked directly at David.
"Sir. Is it that you want to add that to the documentary?"
David answered before the man had finished the sentence.
"Of course."
He looked around the room, the photograph still in both of his hands.
"A material like this."
He looked back down at it.
"I would be insane not to."
And then his voice started to go.
"I mean, this is."
He stopped. He shook his head at it.
"This is gold."
He looked up, and he saw the reaction on the faces around him. The very carefully neutral faces. The faces of people who had been in an editing suite for eleven days.
"I know." He held a hand up. "I know you guys are tired. I know. But I mean."
He looked at the photograph again.
"There is no way we cannot add this."
And the truth was, their documentary was basically finished.
In fact, it could reasonably be said they were done with everything they could actually get right now. This was never supposed to be a long documentary. They had been brought in to show the transformation of this Barcelona team, to capture this one iconic turnaround of a season, and that was the whole brief.
The timeline was already locked. Ready for release three days after the Champions League final. All that was left was to add the final pieces, the last interviews and the last edit, depending entirely on whether the club won or lost in Porto. Everything else was done. The whole crew was in hyperdrive trying to get the edit finished on schedule.
And in the middle of that rush, their director was standing there thinking about adding one more thing.
And another interview on top of it.
But David was determined.
That was how good the content of that picture was.
He turned to the crew member holding the phone.
"Make sure." He pointed at him. "Make sure you get him. Whatever he needs. If he needs a car, we send a car. If he cannot do tomorrow, we do tonight. If he can only do six in the morning, then I will be here at six in the morning. I do not care. Just get him in that chair."
The crew member raised his phone.
"Yes, sir."
He turned to go.
David spun around.
"Somebody get my camera ready. And fix up the interview room, I want it set before he gets here, I do not want him sitting around while we move lights."
"Sir." The crew member had stopped in the doorway. "One more thing."
David looked at him.
"The photographer was saying." The man hesitated. "He said there was a video as well. He is not sure where he kept it, but there was a video."
"Get it."
David did not even let him finish.
"Get it. Get that video." He was moving now, both hands up. "Tell him to look. Tell him to look everywhere, old hard drives, old phones, the cloud, wherever. Tell him to check his email, people email themselves things and forget. If he has an old laptop in a cupboard, tell him to go and find the charger."
He was talking faster.
"And tell him we will pay. Tell him that. Say it exactly like that, tell him we are prepared to pay money for that footage, whatever he thinks it is worth, we will talk. Just please, please find that video."
He stopped, and he breathed out.
"If we can get a video of that." He shook his head. "That would just be."
He did not have the word.
"Wow."
The crew member gave him a small salute.
"No problem, sir."
And he went out.
David stood there in the middle of the room, alone, with the photograph in his hand.
And slowly, a smile came across his face, as he started to picture what this documentary was about to look like.
While the documentary crew were putting an entirely unexpected addition into their film, after more than two hours, Mateo and Olivia's first date was finally coming to an end.
Two hours.
Two hours of an unholy number of glances. The secretive ones, caught and dropped. The ones held a second too long. The ones neither of them acknowledged. Two hours of sitting face to face across a small table in a corner, with nobody in the world coming to interrupt them, nobody calling his name, nobody needing anything from either of them.
They sat. They talked. They argued. They laughed.
They needed this.
Two beautiful hours that both of them would remember for the rest of their lives.
Because after tonight, Mateo King and Olivia Rodrigo could finally, properly, say they were boyfriend and girlfriend.
"I hope you both are having a good time."
Manuela had come up beside their table.
She stood there for a second and just looked at the two of them, at the boy and the girl leaning toward each other over a low candle, smiling at each other about nothing at all.
And in her eyes, for a moment, she was not looking at them.
She was looking at a much younger woman, and a much younger man, at a table in a small restaurant a very long time ago.
Mateo and Olivia both jumped.
"Oh." Manuela's hand came up. "I am sorry. I did not mean to startle you."
Their hands came apart fast. Very fast. Mateo pulled his back across the table and immediately produced a series of small, entirely unconvincing coughs.
"No. No, no, it is fine."
"We are fine," Olivia said, going pink.
Manuela just smiled at them.
"Oh, sorry, I only came for those."
She gestured at the plates. The whole landscape of them. And Olivia's, which at some point in the last twenty minutes had gone completely clear.
Manuela started stacking them up in her arms.
"Oh, here." Mateo was half out of his seat. "Let me help."
"Let me get some of those," Olivia said, already reaching.
"Oh, please." Manuela waved both of them back down without breaking stride. "Do not worry. Do not worry yourselves."
And she gathered up the entire table, plates, glasses, the bread basket, all of it, in one practised sweep, the way a woman does when she has been clearing tables since before either of them was born.
Olivia sat back and let out a small sigh.
"We probably should start getting back."
Mateo looked at her.
He was smiling.
"We should?"
Olivia shook her head at him, a smile pulling at her own mouth.
"Yes. It is getting late."
Mateo looked at her with the most innocent face he could construct.
"It is?"
Olivia just looked back at him.
And the grin spread all the way across her face.
...
"Thank you so much for hosting us. I had a really good time." Olivia had both hands together in front of her. "Your restaurant is so beautiful."
The four of them were standing at the door. Mateo and Olivia on one side, Manuela and Francisco on the other, the warm light of the place spilling out around them into the dark.
"Oh." Manuela waved a hand, pleased. "Thank you, dear. Thank you. It was lovely to have you."
Then she tilted her head, and something got into her eye.
"Seeing new love is so beautiful."
And she said it while looking directly at Francisco, with a smirk on her face.
"New love?"
Mateo and Olivia said it at the same time, both of their voices going somewhere strange in the middle of the word, and then they looked at each other, and then immediately looked away again.
Manuela laughed at them, delighted.
"Stop teasing them," Francisco said.
Manuela kept laughing.
Mateo cleared his throat.
Then he cleared it again.
"Thank you. Really." He reached into his jacket and brought out his phone. "So, ehm. Can I make a transfer, or."
He held the phone up slightly, and his voice went careful and respectful.
"However you prefer. I can do a transfer, or cash, if you would rather, I can get cash. Just tell me what it comes to."
Manuela was already shaking her head.
"Oh, no, no, no. There is no need for that."
"I just." Mateo tried again. "It is a lot of food, and you did not have to."
"Truly." She did not let him finish. She put a hand on his arm. "There is no need. Having the company was already more than enough as it is."
Francisco spoke up from beside her.
"If you want to pay."
Mateo turned.
The old man's face was completely serious.
"Just make sure you win, come Saturday."
Mateo looked at him.
And a smile came over his whole face.
"Okay, then."
He held Francisco's eye.
"You can count on it, sir."
Francisco looked at him. At the way he was standing. At the way he had said it, without a single hesitation anywhere in it.
The old man nodded once.
"Now that is more like it."
The goodbyes went on for another minute, the way goodbyes do at doorways like that. Manuela hugged Olivia. Then she hugged Mateo. Then she held Olivia at arm's length and looked at her again and shook her head like she still could not get over her.
"Now, you two." She pointed at both of them. "You should not be strangers. You hear me? You come back. Any time. Any day. You do not call ahead, you do not book anything, you just come."
"We will," Olivia said, and she meant it.
"Bye, Manuela. Bye, old man."
"Goodnight, kid."
"Goodnight."
They came out onto the street, and the door shut behind them, and the sound of the place went with it.
They were both smiling.
"They are so lovely," Olivia said.
Mateo looked at her.
"Yeah."
She caught him looking. And she caught the smile that came onto her own face, and she turned and started walking forward, pulling out her phone.
"We should start heading back."
Mateo took his own phone out.
"Yeah, I already messaged Pedri. He should be on his way. I sent him a ping of our location."
Olivia's phone came down a little.
"Oh." She nodded. "Okay."
She kept walking for a few steps.
Then she looked back at him over her shoulder, and there was something in her face now.
"Wanna go for a walk before they come?"
"AHHHHHHHHH."
Olivia was screaming.
Olivia was screaming because Olivia was currently flying through the air.
After a short walk, the two of them had found their way into the empty little park, and Olivia had immediately spotted the swings and run at them, and had then instructed Mateo to push her.
The swing came back down.
"Stop screaming." Mateo caught the chains and steadied her. "Why did you even want to go on it if you are just going to scream?"
Olivia twisted around in the seat, aggrieved.
"Because a mad man is pushing me with all his strength."
Mateo grinned down at her.
"Imagine." He shook his head. "And you had the guts to call me a baby just a few minutes ago."
He started laughing.
Olivia's eyes narrowed.
"Well." She hopped off the swing. "If you are so full of it, why do you not come here and let me push you exactly as high as you pushed me?"
Mateo looked at her like she had said something in another language.
"Come on."
"Ooh." Olivia's face lit up. "Are you scared?"
"Come on, Olivia."
He scoffed. He actually scoffed.
"I am a professional athlete, you know."
He gestured at himself, at the whole of himself.
"You expect me to be scared of a swing?"
"Yeah, yeah." Olivia folded her arms. "What is with all this talk?"
She looked him up and down with a smile that had nothing kind in it whatsoever.
"Back it up, mister 'professional athlete.'"
"Come on. Are you serious?"
"Ooh." Olivia lifted her chin and sniffed the air. "What is that? What is that in the air?"
She sniffed again, twice, dramatically.
"Is that fear I am smelling? Sniff. Sniff."
"Real mature."
"Stop looking for excuses." She came around behind him and put both hands on his back. "Come on. Get on."
She started pushing him toward the swing.
"Go on."
Mateo staggered forward.
"Wait. Wait."
"What?" She kept pushing. "Go on."
"Okay. Okay, fine. Fine."
He planted his feet and turned around, and she stopped, and the two of them were standing very close now.
He was smiling at her.
She was smiling back.
"Fine," he said. "I will get on."
"Okay then." Olivia laughed. "Go on."
"But first."
Something changed.
Olivia felt it change. The air did something.
She looked up at him, and when she spoke it came out low.
"What?"
The smile moved on her lips as she said it.
Mateo was looking at her mouth.
GULP.
He swallowed. He could hear himself do it. His hands did not know where to be.
He was looking at her lips and he was not being remotely subtle about it, and Olivia knew exactly what he was doing, and she did not help him even slightly. She just stood there, and let him, and kept the smile right where it was.
"Something," Mateo said, "that I have been meaning to do since we were at the farm."
He was still looking at her mouth.
Olivia's smile went somewhere soft.
"Then do it."
She got it out through her teeth. Her heart was going so hard she was sure he could hear it, that the whole park could hear it, that they could hear it back at the restaurant.
Mateo moved.
One step.
Two.
Three.
He was close now. Close enough that she had to tilt her head back. Close enough that she could feel the warmth coming off him. Neither of them was breathing properly. Her hands had come up somewhere near his chest without her deciding to move them.
They looked at each other.
And Olivia closed her eyes.
Mateo started to lean in. His eyes closed.
Then opened.
Then closed again.
His heart was going like a drum and his hands were shaking and he was leaning and she was there and she was right there and.
DING DING DING DING DING.
They both jumped about a foot apart.
Their eyes flew open.
Olivia's hand was on her chest.
"Is that your phone?"
"No way." Mateo was already digging in his pocket, his face a picture of pure betrayal. "No way this is happening again. What is this. What? WHAT?"
Olivia started laughing.
She could not help it. She put a hand over her mouth and she laughed.
Mateo got the phone out and looked at the screen.
"Who is it?" Olivia said.
Mateo's face darkened.
"It is Pedri."
He answered it, and he did not bother with a greeting.
"What?"
Olivia was watching him with a smile all over her face, watching the frown, watching the sheer wounded outrage of him.
And her hand came up on its own, and her fingers touched her own lips.
We were so close.
"Oh." Mateo's tone came down slightly. "Okay. Okay, just keep coming down that road, you should see a park in a minute. That is where we are."
He listened.
"Okay."
He cut the call.
He looked at Olivia. She was looking back at him.
He put the phone in his pocket.
"They are on the street," he said. "Should be here soon."
"Okay," Olivia said.
Neither of them looked directly at the other.
And then, over his shoulder, she caught headlights.
"Oh. They are here."
Mateo turned his head, and there it was, Pedri's Cupra rolling in off the road.
"Yeah."
Oof.
Olivia's hand tapped him lightly in the stomach as she passed.
He turned to look at her.
She was smiling at him. Fully. Wickedly.
And she said it as she walked off toward the car.
"Saved by the bell."
...
"I am telling you, the place was so cute, you should have seen it. It was so."
"Wow. Seems like you had a really good time."
"Oh, you do not know the half of it. The old couple there? Goals. Actual goals. I am telling you."
In the back of the car, the girls were gone. Completely gone, heads together, Olivia doing all the talking and Aina doing all the demanding of more information.
Up front, Mateo and Pedri were not much different.
"A new stadium?"
"No, no." Pedri shook his head, eyes on the road. "A restructuring. Of the Camp Nou."
Mateo frowned.
"But the Camp Nou is already perfect."
"I guess it is to modernise it." Pedri shrugged. "Bring it up to date."
Mateo thought about that for a second.
"Actually." He tipped his head. "Honestly, after seeing City's place. And PSG's. Yeah. The Camp Nou could probably use a bit of work."
"Yeah." Pedri nodded. "I guess that is the plan."
And the four of them went on like that the whole way back, catching each other up on the hours they had spent apart, the date, the dinner, the announcement, all of it, four voices going over each other in one small car.
Until finally they pulled into their apartment complex.
"Goodnight, man."
Mateo took Pedri's hand and shook it.
"Goodnight, bro."
Pedri sighed as he let go.
"The gaffer said we should be on the pitch at eight sharp."
"Well." Mateo shrugged. "He already gave us a day off, so I guess we cannot complain."
They shook again.
"Goodnight, man."
"Goodnight, Pedri."
Olivia had come up beside them, and she gave him a small wave and a smile.
"Goodnight, Pedri."
Pedri smiled and waved back.
"Goodnight."
And then he looked past her, to where Aina was standing.
The two of them just looked at each other for a second.
"Hey," Pedri said.
"Hey."
Aina came a step closer, and she reached out and straightened the collar of his suit, which did not need straightening at all, and she took her time about it.
"See you tomorrow," Pedri said.
Aina looked up at him.
"Cannot wait."
Pedri's whole face did something.
"Okay." He nodded. "Okay. Bye."
"Bye."
He walked backwards for the first three steps.
Then he went into his own apartment.
After separating from Pedri, Mateo and the girls climbed the stairs up to his place, and he got the door open and they all went in.
Mateo groaned the second he was through it.
"I am so tired."
Nobody was listening. The girls were still going.
"Oh, you need to tell me more," Aina was saying. "Start from the beginning. No, start from before the beginning."
Olivia was laughing.
"Okay, so when we walked in, there was this old man reading a newspaper, and he."
Mateo yawned so hard his jaw cracked.
"Well." He rubbed his eye. "I better go and sleep. Busy day tomorrow."
Both girls turned to him.
They handled it differently.
"Oh." Olivia's voice went soft. "Okay. Sweet dreams. Get some rest, yeah?"
Aina waved a hand at him without even really looking.
"Bye."
Then she turned straight back to Olivia.
"Continue about the old couple. I am extremely interested in them." She was already moving. "Wait, I am coming, let me get something to drink."
She disappeared into the kitchen.
Mateo yawned again and waved a hand vaguely behind himself as he headed for his room.
"Do not stay up too late."
And then he heard her.
"Hey."
He turned his head.
"Wha."
Soft.
AFTGSCCYECVHSV HGFGUDYFYEVUJWVYFCZHFS UV YSCSHCSYSF S YS SH SGFS USVYFRSCUVXDYDCSCYS USH HSUCSSCUEVFBVDUCVSDCYDIGKEC DJDCDYCKSDIEVJVDVDDVDI
That was all.
That was all there was in his mind.
Soft, and warm, and there, pressed against his mouth, and his brain simply stopped. It did not slow down. It did not scramble. It stopped, completely, the way a machine stops when somebody pulls the cable out of the wall.
He could not reason. There was no reasoning available to him. There was no thought in his head at all, no words, nothing, just the enormous, impossible, unbelievable softness of it, and somewhere underneath that, faintly, the taste of her, something sweet and clean that his mind was never going to be able to describe to him later no matter how many times he tried.
His eyes were open. He was fairly sure his eyes were open.
His hands were still up in the air where he had left them.
And then it was gone.
And a voice, very soft, very close:
"Goodnight."
And then
AFTGSCCYECVHSV HGFGUDYFYEVUJWVYFCZHFS UV YSCSHCSYSF S YS SH SGFS USVYFRSCUVXDYDCSCYS USH HSUCSSCUEVFBVDUCVSDCYDIGKEC DJDCDYCKSDIEVJVDVDDVDI
Those were still Mateo King's thoughts.
How he got out of that room. How he got into his own. How he ended up sitting on the edge of his bed for five entire minutes without moving. How he took his shower, whether he used soap, whether the water was hot. Every single part of it was, and would remain forever, a total mystery to him.
All he could remember were her lips on his.
Her lips.
On mine.
He was sitting on the edge of his bed with a towel around his waist and his hair still wet, and his fingers were on his own mouth.
Her lips were on my lips.
The smile started somewhere and then took over his entire face.
My first kiss.
He nodded to himself.
"Niceee."
He said it out loud. To nobody. In an empty room.
He nodded again, slower this time, very cool, very casual, the nod of a man who had been kissed by women many times before and was frankly a little bored of it. He rubbed his hands together. He rolled his shoulders. He nodded one more time.
"Nice."
He picked up his phone.
He opened the chat with her, and he started typing.
He wrote a lot. He wrote about the whole thing. He wrote about how he had not been expecting it, and how his brain had genuinely stopped working, and how he wanted her to know, because it felt like she should know, that this was actually his first kiss, and that he had thought about how it would go a few times over the years and it had never gone anything like that, and.
He stopped.
He read it back.
He shook his head.
"No. Way too long."
He deleted every word of it.
He sat there for a second. Then he started again, slower this time, and he wrote it properly.
Hey. I just wanted to say I am really happy I found you. Today was one of the best days I have had in a long time and honestly the football was not even the best part of it. I cannot wait to do it again, just the two of us, somewhere with nobody around and nobody watching. I would say sweet dreams but I think you have seen enough of me for one day.
He chuckled at his own joke, forgetting this one was also getting long.
Then he kept going.
But seriously. I had a great time. Goodnight,
He typed baby.
He looked at it.
He deleted it.
He typed dear.
He smiled at that. He left it.
And then, underneath, he added one more line.
P.S. I ESPECIALLY LIKED THE ENDING.
He hit send.
He put the phone down on his chest, and he lay back on the bed, still in his towel, and stared at the ceiling.
He thought about the day.
The suit that did not fit. The car. The way she had looked standing in the hallway. The bankers and the chandeliers and the woman from Nike. The empty street. Her face when he said the middle name. The restaurant. The old couple. The swing. All of it.
He truly, honestly, had a great time.
He lay there with the smile still on him.
And then he frowned.
Wait.
He sat up slightly.
If the stadium goes into reconstruction. Does my home stadium buff still transfer? If we are not actually playing at the Camp Nou?
He turned it over.
Well. To be fair. By then I would not really need the stamina part of it.
He rubbed his jaw.
"But that no injury effect is crazy important," he muttered.
I hope it transfers to whatever our home stadium ends up being. It should. Right? It should.
He lay there a moment longer.
Then he said, out loud, to nobody:
"Speaking of which."
And he moved his eyes.
The panel came up in front of him, clean and white in the dark of the room, and he scrolled back to the last notification. The one from the night they beat Atlético. The one from the night they won the league.
KING OF MADRID.
And underneath it:
[You have received a trait from Cristiano Ronaldo 'King of Madrid'.]
He looked lower.
And this time, at last, he actually read what it meant.
[Legacy Archive: Access Granted.]
[Recipient: Mateo Alexander Nicolás King.]
[Donor: Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro.]
[Condition of release: Consecutive victories over Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid within a single La Liga season, concluding in the winning of that season's title.]
[Condition met. Archive unsealed.]
[The following passive traits have been permanently transferred to the recipient.]
The text rippled. And then the first one bloomed.
[TRAIT I. BANE OF MADRID.]
[When facing Real Madrid or Atlético Madrid in any competitive fixture, the recipient's complete attribute range operates at 120 percent of its established maximum. This applies to every physical, technical, and mental attribute without exception. This effect is permanent, automatic, and requires no activation.]
Mateo's eyebrows went up.
[TRAIT II. RAGE BAITER.]
[When facing Real Madrid or Atlético Madrid, any hostile stimulus directed at the recipient will be converted into performance. Hostile stimulus includes, and is not limited to: verbal abuse from opposing players, physical provocation, crowd hostility, sustained booing, and elevated match tension of any kind.]
[Upon such stimulus, the recipient's attribute range increases by a further 30 percent, calculated on top of any buff already in effect.]
[Note: There is no upper limit on frequency. The more they come, the more you take.]
Mateo smirked.
This one for sure is going to be useful.
[TRAIT III. THE UNTOUCHABLE.]
[When facing Real Madrid or Atlético Madrid, the recipient will enter and remain in a state of perfect physical condition for the full duration of the fixture. Existing fatigue is suspended. Existing knocks are suspended. The recipient cannot sustain injury of any kind for the duration of the fixture.]
[You will not be stopped by your body. Only by yourself.]
Mateo sat there in the dark with his towel on and a phone on his chest and read all three of them again.
And the smile that came onto his face was not a nice one.
Yeah.
Those guys are so cooked.
He started laughing.
And that was not even all of it.
Because underneath, the panel rippled one more time.
[Supplementary evaluation complete.]
[In light of an exceptional debut season, concluding with 27 league goals and 10 league assists, an additional reward has been issued in accordance with the donor's legacy profile.]
[REWARD: CR7 PHYSIQUE.]
[The recipient's body will maintain peak physical condition permanently, irrespective of dietary intake. Standard training load is sufficient to sustain absolute physical maximum. Body composition, recovery rate, and muscular condition will not decline as a result of consumption of any kind.]
[You may eat whatever you want. Forever.]
Mateo stared at it.
By far.
By far the best reward I have ever gotten.
"HAHAHAHAHA."
He could not help himself. He genuinely could not. He was lying on his back in a towel at midnight laughing at his own ceiling like a lunatic, because how. How was this fair. How was any of this fair.
"Hahahaha, oh my God—"
And then, mid-laugh, his eyes moved past the panel.
And landed on the shelf.
And on the white envelope sitting on it.
The laugh stopped.
Mateo sat up. He reached down and tightened the towel at his waist, and he stood, and he crossed the room, and he picked it up.
He turned it over in his hands.
Grandpa.
And he stood there, in the middle of his room, with his grandfather's letter in his hand.
And like that, Mateo King's day finally came to an end.
And before he knew it, it arrived.
May 29, 2021.
A/N
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