"Dude. Come open the door."
Gavi's voice came down the line at a volume and a pitch that no human being should be subjected to at that hour.
There were other voices behind it. At least three, all of them talking at once, all of them extremely awake.
Mateo held the phone away from his own ear for a second.
Then brought it back.
"Coming."
He groaned.
"Coming, coming."
He hung up and let the hand holding the phone drop onto the bed beside him.
"Ahhh."
He blinked.
That was a mistake, so he did it again more slowly, and the throbbing at the front of his skull went out and came back in a way that made him wince with his whole face.
He sat there on the edge of that bed for a moment.
What did I even do last night?
He rubbed at his own forehead with the heel of his hand.
How did I even get back here?
He looked around the room. It was definitely his room. That was definitely his bag on the floor. He had definitely, at some point, arrived in it under his own power, and he had absolutely no memory of any part of that happening.
"Mmf."
He put both hands on his knees.
"Okay."
He did not move.
"Okay. Let us go."
He still did not move.
"Come on."
And then he pushed himself up off that bed like a man being winched.
"AGHHHHHH."
He went into the stretch with everything he had, both arms straight up over his head, back arching, the whole thing, and the yawn that came with it went on so long it developed a second act.
"Ahhhhhhh. Aghhh."
He shook his head out.
"Okay."
He reached back down onto the bed for his phone.
He was still stretching one arm across his own chest when he unlocked it, and the screen filled up.
And kept filling up.
Messages.
Not a few. Not a manageable number. He scrolled and the list did not end.
His mother. His father. Andrew. Oriol. Nora. Aina. His grandmother, who had sent one that was simply a string of eleven emojis with no text at all.
Then the rest of it.
Óscar López. Two other coaches from the academy. Half the U19 squad. Alejandro. Javi the gateman, who had sent four separate messages across the course of the night, each one more excited than the last. Somebody from the kit room. A physio he had not spoken to in six months.
Rosa from the cafeteria had sent him a photograph of a television.
He kept scrolling and it kept going.
Hundreds of them. He did not open a single one.
He came out of it and glanced at the top of the screen, and both social apps were sitting there with 99+ on them, which is the number they show you when they have given up counting.
"Hm."
He kept walking, still scrolling with his thumb, still stretching his neck side to side.
And then he stopped.
Because there was a body in the living room.
Pedri was on the couch.
Sort of. He was on it in the way a dropped coat is on a chair. One leg was over the back of it. The other one was on the floor. His head was hanging off the far arm at an angle that could not possibly be comfortable, one hand was on his own chest, and his mouth was wide open.
Mateo snickered.
"Look at this dude."
He shook his head, put the phone down on the counter as he went past, and headed for the door.
He opened it.
"CONGRATSSSSS!"
"AHHHHH!"
"MY BROTHERRRR!"
Four of them were standing in the corridor and every single one had something in their hands and every single one shouted at exactly the same time.
"HAHAHA."
Mateo winced hard and put a hand up, laughing through it.
"Volume. VOLUME."
"CONGRATS, MAN!"
"Guys."
He looked at all four of them. Gavi. Balde. Fermín. Casadó.
And he spread both arms wide.
"My brossssss."
"HAHAHAHA!"
They came in past him in a wave and none of them stopped talking.
"Dude, congratulations. Seriously."
"Your goals were INSANE."
"Insane. That bicycle. I watched it about forty times."
"We saw pictures of the party, how was it? What was it like?"
"Was Ronaldinho actually there?"
"He was there, we saw a photo."
"If I ever get to party with Ronaldinho I can die peacefully." Fermín had both hands up. "Genuinely. Take me. I am done."
"HAHAHA."
"Man, I still cannot believe you actually PLAYED in a Champions League final."
"And won it."
"And WON it."
Casadó turned round in the middle of the hallway.
"How was it? Like actually. What was it like?"
"Wait." Balde had spotted it. "Wait, wait, wait."
And then all four of them were on him.
The medal was still round his neck. He had genuinely not taken it off, and had not noticed it was there until about ninety seconds ago.
Balde got hold of it and turned it over in his fingers.
"Oh my God."
"Let me see."
"That is heavy."
"Let me SEE."
"It is actually heavy. Feel it."
"It is sick, man."
"That is so sick."
Mateo let them, standing there in his own hallway getting jostled while four boys handled a Champions League medal.
He tipped his chin up.
"Come in, then."
He gestured them through.
"Come in, my young padawans."
"HAHAHA!"
"Shut up."
"Get out of here with that."
"Oh." Casadó held up a container. "This is from the cafeteria, by the way. Rosa made you soup."
"She made him SOUP?"
"She made him soup and she was very serious about it." Casadó handed it over. "She said, and I am quoting her, make sure he actually eats it."
"HAHAHA."
Mateo took it with both hands.
"She is unbelievable."
"She was crying, man." Fermín shook his head. "After the second goal. Genuinely crying. In the cafeteria."
Mateo looked down at the container for a second.
"Ah."
"Everyone was."
And then Gavi, who had been standing next to him the whole time, leaned in slightly.
And sniffed.
Then leaned back.
"Dude."
He was looking at him with his whole face screwed up.
"Dude, what the hell? Why do you smell like that?"
Mateo did not miss a beat.
He put a hand on the boy's shoulder and looked at him with enormous sympathy.
"You are too young to understand."
"HAHAHAHA!"
"OHHHH!"
Gavi shoved him hard in the chest with both hands.
"Get OUT."
"HAHAHA."
"You are ONE YEAR older than me."
"And what a year it has been."
"GET OUT."
And in the middle of all of it, on the couch, something moved.
Pedri came up off that cushion like a man who had heard a fire alarm.
"WHAT."
His arms went out. His leg came off the back of the couch.
"WHO? NO. I DID NOT."
He looked around a room containing five people, none of whom he had expected, with his hair pointing in four directions and one entire side of his face marked with the pattern of a cushion.
And then he half slid, half fell, and only just caught himself on the edge of the coffee table.
The room went.
"HAHAHAHAHA!"
"HE DID NOT DO IT!"
"WHATEVER IT WAS, HE DID NOT DO IT!"
"Look at his FACE!"
"Look at his HAIR!"
Pedri put a hand over his own eyes.
"How long have you people been here?"
"Long enough."
"HAHAHA."
And that was how Mateo King spent the morning after winning the Champions League.
Not on a podium. Not in front of a camera. Not being asked how it felt by somebody holding a microphone.
In his apartment, with the curtains half open and the television on low in the corner showing highlights nobody was watching properly, eating soup people from the academy cafeteria had made for him.
Sitting on the floor with his back against the couch because there were not enough seats.
Five boys who had known him from different periods of his life, all of them talking over each other, arguing about something that did not matter, laughing at Pedri's face every time anybody looked at it.
Somebody put the soup in the microwave twice because they kept forgetting about it.
Fermín found the highlights on the television and turned the volume up and everybody complained and he turned it back down.
Mateo answered about seventeen messages out of several hundred, and only the ones from his family and some others.
Somebody made bad coffee.
And it was, without any question at all, the perfect way to start the day.
...
Somewhere around his second bowl of soup, Mateo remembered his phone.
He reached over and got it off the counter and unlocked it, and scrolled past all of it, all the hundreds of them, straight down to one name.
OliviaR⭐💗
YESTERDAY
How are you? Have you landed?
You are all trending online 😂
Wow the parade looks INSANE
It looks so fun, make sure you stay safe though
Also your mom said you should keep your phone beside you
[video]
↑ why are you dangling off the side of a bus 😭😭
Please get back in
Okay you seem busy
Have a great time!! 🎉
Going to head to sleep soon, feeling a bit tired
Goodnight dear 💗
I miss you
I wish I could be there celebrating with you
TODAY
Good morning
I knew you would not be online yet 😂
Hope you enjoyed your night 😏😏😂
Packing already, should be back soon
Cannot wait to see you later 💗
Okay so there is SO much traffic here
Your uncle says it is because of the match, if Portugal is this bad how would Spain be???
Our train has been delayed. Did not even know that was possible lol
We are still here. We have not left
I am getting tired already
You still sleeping? 😐
Okay then.
We are leaving now, should be back in about an hour
I am so tired 😑
Mateo was smiling at the screen before he had even finished reading them.
He scrolled back up to the top and started at the beginning.
you > Sorry sorry sorry
you > It was insane last night, I could not get to my phone at all
you > Yes I landed
you > That video is not what it looks like they are guardrails 😂😂😂
you > Awnn were you worried about me 🤭😂
you > Okay it is exactly what it looks like
you > Goodnight dear ❤️
He got to the last one.
He looked at it for a second.
you > I miss you too
And the typing dots came up immediately.
hmm 🧐
you sure?
so you are FINALLY awake ehn 😒
Mateo laughed out loud.
Then he sat forward with the phone in both hands and started typing properly.
you > okay listen
you > I have been awake for about twenty minutes it was the guys who woke me up honetsly if not i would still be sleeping waiting for you to wake me 🌚 and I have not thought about anything except that you are not here
you > genuinely. all of it yesterday, the parade, the stadium, the whole night, and the entire time there was this thing missing and I kept trying to work out what it was
you > and it was you
you > I won the biggest thing there is and I still felt like the celebration had not actually started yet
you > because you were not in it
He looked at it.
Then he sent it.
Three dots.
Then:
😂😂😂😂
did you just copy tom cruise in jerry maguire
Mateo's face did something.
you > who
you > and what
...
you don't know jerry maguire??
you don't know TOM CRUISE????
are you actually this uncultured
😩😩😩
Mateo made a sound.
It was not a laugh exactly. It was somewhere between a laugh and a wheeze, and he had a hand over his own mouth and his shoulders were going.
And across the room, the conversation stopped.
Fermín tapped Casadó on the arm with the back of his hand and tipped his head.
All four of them turned round.
Mateo King was sitting on the floor with his back against a couch, hunched over a phone, giggling at it.
"Look at this dude."
"He is gone."
"He is properly gone."
"Wait." Balde pointed the other way. "Wait, look. Look at that one too."
And they turned.
Because on the other side of the room, Pedri was also on his phone. Also smiling at it. Also typing with both thumbs and absolutely not listening to a single thing anybody had said in about four minutes.
The four of them looked at each other.
"These dudes."
"Unbelievable."
"Both of them."
"At the same time."
They all shook their heads.
you > I just sent you an actual sweet message
you > and this is your response
you > wow 🥺
nooo it is not that
it was very sweet
but seriously you don't know tom cruise?? mission impossible???
you > oh
you > I know mission impossible
you > is that the tom cruise guy?
EHN
I KNEW IT
I knew there was no way. Nobody is that cut off from society 😂😂
I really do need to put you on though lol
you > yeah
you > but I did not get any of that from him
He hit send.
Then typed again.
you > it is just what I felt
The dots came up.
And went away.
And came up again.
hmm
Then:
I am almost back
let us complete the celebration then 💗
Mateo sat there and looked at that message.
And then he typed four words.
you > cannot wait
He locked the phone and put it face down beside him.
Then he pushed himself up off the floor.
"Right."
He picked up what was left of the soup and put it on the counter.
"Well, then, boys. I am going to go and take a bath."
And immediately, from the other side of the room, Pedri stood up too.
"Yeah, actually." He stretched. "I should probably go and freshen up now."
And the room went completely silent.
Then:
"Hmmmm."
"Hmmmmmm."
"HMMMMMM."
"HAHAHAHA!"
"Oh, so we are BOTH going to freshen up, are we?"
"At the same time?"
"What a coincidence."
"So I take it," Fermín said, sitting back with his arms folded, "that the girlfriends are on their way, then."
"HAHAHAHA!"
"Mateo is having a bath at ten in the morning."
"He is whipped."
"That boy is WHIPPED."
Mateo pointed at all four of them on his way out.
"Yeah, yeah. It is not my fault none of you have a girl."
"OHHHHHHHH!"
"AHHHH!"
"WOW"
" You dindt need to do that"
Balde had both hands on top of his head.
"Gavi, are you going to take that?"
"He is seventeen! He has a girlfriend for two weeks and he thinks he is a MAN!"
"HAHAHA."
And Pedri, on his way to the other room, was laughing so hard he had to hold the door frame.
Mateo went into his room and shut the door behind him, and the noise carried on outside it.
Mateo shut the door behind him and stood there for a second, still laughing, shaking his head at nothing.
He could still hear them out there. Somebody was doing an impression of him and everybody was screaming about it.
"Idiots."
He was grinning.
He started pulling yesterday's clothes off.
The shirt came over his head and he bunched it up in one hand, and then, for reasons he could not defend, he brought it to his own face and smelled it.
His entire expression collapsed.
"Ohhh."
He held it out at arm's length like it had done something to him personally.
"Argh."
He threw it into the corner.
"Okay. Yeah. I do smell bad."
He looked down at the rest of it and dealt with that too, all of it into the same corner, and stood there in his boxers rubbing the back of his own neck.
And then his hand touched something.
He looked down.
The medal.
Still there. Still round his neck, after a party, a bus, a plane, a stadium, a night he could not fully account for, and a morning spent eating soup on a floor.
He picked it up off his own chest and turned it over in his fingers.
And he smiled.
Hold on.
I do not think I have actually posted anything yet.
He looked around for his phone, remembered it was in his hand, and lifted it.
He turned so the light from the window was on the right side of his face.
And Mateo King, seventeen years old, champion of Europe, took a look at himself in the front-facing camera.
He looked terrible.
Genuinely rough. Eyes not fully open. The low cut he had grown out slightly and never got round to sorting was doing whatever it wanted on one side. There was a crease on his cheek from something he had slept on. His face had the specific quality of a face that had been awake at four in the morning and was not built for it.
He looked at himself for about two seconds.
Then he shrugged.
"Yeah, that will do."
He lifted the medal.
And put it in his teeth, The iconic Olympic pose.
Then he brought the phone up, tilted his chin down, looked directly into the lens with the medal hanging from his mouth, and took the photograph.
Then another one.
Then three more, adjusting the angle slightly each time, because he is seventeen and nobody takes one photograph.
He went through the five of them with his thumb.
Deleted two immediately.
Went back and forth between the remaining three about four times.
Picked one.
Cropped it slightly. Warmed it up. Brought the shadows down about ten percent, which is the exact amount of editing he had learned from olivia.
Then he opened Instagram.
99+
He ignored every single one of them.
He went straight past the notifications, past the direct messages, past all of it, and hit the button in the corner.
Uploaded the picture.
And then he sat down on the edge of his own bed with his thumbs over the keyboard and thought about it for a second.
He smiled.
And he typed six words.
now that wasn't so hard 😅
He read it back once.
He laughed to himself.
And he hit post.
A/N
If you want to read chapters ahead with uploads and to support me subscribe to my Patreon below There is also a picture of how mateo looks like posted and later there would be votes and all on the site some you wont need to pay to vote but you can if you want to support me thanks
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