A glorious, impossible weightlessness filled Leo's chest.
He'd ghosted past the last defender, the perfect through-ball from Alexis Mac Allister still singing on his laces.
The Anfield roar was a physical wall of sound, and he was its focal point. He drew back his foot, the goal yawning before him…
"LEO!"
The roar shifted, warped, became a single, familiar voice.
"Leo!"
He jerked awake, the dream-victory evaporating as the world lurched. He tumbled from the couch in a tangle of limbs and blanket, hitting the hardwood floor with a thump that knocked the last of the dream from his head.
His mother stood over him, her expression a mix of amusement and concern.
"It's 7:50," she said, her voice cutting through his groggy haze. "If you miss the 8 o'clock bus, you're doing the school run in your socks."
Leo's eyes shot open. His vision swam, then cleared. He wasn't at Anfield. He was in his living room, sprawled on the floor.
The TV played a muted highlight reel—Mohamed Salah wheeling away in celebration. All around him, like fallen leaves from a study tree, were the jewel cases of the striker CDs.
His jotter lay splayed open, dense with his own scrawl diagramming runs and finishes.
"Seven. Fifty." His mother enunciated each word, giving him a gentle tap on the shoulder with her foot.
Action. He was a computer booting up. He scrambled to his feet, a human blur of sleep-rumpled panic, and bolted for the stairs.
Six minutes later, he descended, a miracle of frantic efficiency.
His hair was damp, he smelled of generic soap, and he was dressed in a blue hoodie, black joggers, and his lucky, scuffed-white sneakers. His backpack was slung over one shoulder.
His mother was in the kitchen. With a magician's flourish, she placed a bowl before him on the table: steaming oatmeal, topped with a small, perfect pile of fresh strawberries.
He stared. Strawberries weren't in the budget. They were a 'good week at the market' fruit.
He looked at her, his eyes asking the silent question: Can we afford this?
She just smiled, a soft, private thing, and slid his watch across the table to him. "Eat."
He looked at the time: 7:57. He inhaled the oatmeal, the sweet burst of berry cutting through the hearty oats. It was fuel, and it was love.
He scraped the bowl clean, snatched up his jotter and bag, planted a quick, gruff kiss on his mother's cheek, and was out the door.
The morning air was a slap of chilly, damp cold. He saw the bus at the stop, its doors beginning to sigh shut. He put on a final, desperate burst of speed, sliding his foot into the narrowing gap just in time.
The doors hissed open again, and he stumbled aboard, dropping a crumpled five into the fare box before collapsing into the nearest seat, chest heaving.
"Looks like Coach Arkady isn't taking it easy on you guys."
The voice came from his left. A guy pulled off sleek, black-and-blue headphones—the design distinctly reminiscent of the Blue Lock anime—and turned to him.
It was Granger.
Leo's breath caught. The last time he'd seen that face, it was flushed with anger as Leo stared him down on the tryout field. He'd braced for a cold shoulder, or worse.
But Granger was just… smiling. A relaxed, easy grin.
Leo wiped sweat from his brow with a cold palm. "I… uh… I'm sorry you got kicked out of the tryouts."
Granger shook his head, his smile turning wry. "Nah, it's fine. Truth is, I was never really that good."
He held up the hand holding his headphones, revealing a professional-looking badminton racket case leaning against his leg. "Turns out I'm better at a sport where the ball doesn't try to break your ankles." He gave the case an affectionate pat. "Less ego, more shuttlecocks."
They shared a quiet chuckle, the tension dissolving. The bus rumbled on.
"So why'd you play football at all?" Leo asked, curiosity getting the better of him.
Granger's smile faded, replaced by a look of distant recollection. He ran a thumb over the stylized Meguru Bachira character decal on his headset.
"When we got into 10th grade, King asked me to join the school team with him. We tried every sport together—basketball, track. He was good at everything except football back then. I figured it was my one chance to finally beat him at something." He sighed. "It was fun. For a while."
He looked out the window, his voice dropping. "Then last year… he kinda changed. Became the best. Senior Jimbo was the only one who could even keep up. King just… retreated. Hardly spoke. Called himself 'the perfect Egoist.' He'd train for hours alone. Got bigger, faster, sharper. It was crazy to watch."
Granger turned back to Leo, his expression earnest, not bitter. "I'm not mad he got better. That's the point, right? But King… he changed. It's like he's chasing the stars while trying to outrun his own shadow. Hard to be friends with a comet."
The bus hissed to a halt at the school gate. "We were all about that 'ego' stuff back then. Wanted to be the main character. King just... took it to a whole other level. Became the only character in his own story."
Granger stood, shouldering his racket case. "Good luck out there, dude," he said, and melted into the stream of students.
Leo sat for a second longer, processing the unexpected glimpse into King's past, before the time on his watch registered: 8:20. He shot up and rushed for the field.
The vast green was almost empty in the morning mist. Only three figures moved: Frank, Thomas, and Max, already in their training kits, engaged in a casual game of keep-away, their touches sharp, their movements fluid even in warm-up.
A stray tackle from Max sent the ball skittering across the dew-damp turf, rolling to a stop at Leo's feet by the locker room door.
Frank, wiping his neck with a handkerchief, grinned. "You gonna pass, Reed, or are you just admiring the view?"
Leo dropped his bag, fished his father's glasses from his hoodie pocket, and slid them on.
The world snapped into perfect, tactical clarity. He nudged the ball forward and lunged into a dribble.
Thomas intercepted him instantly, a wall of confident muscle. But Leo, remembering a hundred viewed repetitions, didn't panic.
As Thomas reached in, Leo pulled the ball back with the sole of his sneaker, then deftly poked it through the his legs, darting around to collect it on the other side.
Max whistled. "Ohhhhh! Thomas got megged!"
Thomas scowled, turning sharply, but Leo was ready. Another subtle feint, another nutmeg—the ball rolling neatly between Thomas's planted feet. And again. It was a simple, almost insulting move, executed with a repetition that felt like déjà vu.
Where…? Then he remembered. A grainy clip on one of the CDs. A Dutch striker, relentless, humiliating a defender with the same persistently timed move.
Emboldened, as a frustrated Thomas lunged more recklessly, Leo flicked the ball up with his toe, looping it over the his head. Leo spun, letting it bounce once off his own chest before killing it dead behind Thomas's back.
Max and Frank were howling, clutching each other on the bench.
Thomas sat down heavily on the grass, panting, a reluctant smile breaking through his irritation. "Let's be honest," he grumbled, "you only managed that because I've been running for twenty minutes."
"Fair enough," Frank chuckled, offering a hand to pull him up. He looked at Leo, his eyes glinting with competitive fire. "How about we make it official? Second recess. Right here."
They all nodded as the first-period bell screamed across the field, a tyrannical end to the moment. The others headed for the lockers. Leo just shouldered his bag, the ghost of a confident smile on his lips, and ran for class.
Mr. Marcus's Calculus class was a sanctuary of ordered logic. As Leo slid into his seat, still shrugging off his backpack, the teacher's gaze landed on him.
"Are you quite alright, Mr. Reed? You look like you've been chased."
"Fine, sir," Leo mumbled, uncapping his pen with deliberate calm.
The lesson was Sequences & Series. It was clean, solvable. A welcome anchor.
"Right then," Mr. Marcus said, adjusting his tweed jacket. "Peter. The board. Question six, if you please."
A sigh, almost collective, whispered through the room. Peter Fletcher stood and made his graceless pilgrimage to the whiteboard.
He was a social pariah—caught in 8th grade looking up a girl's skirt, and possessing a rejection record from every girl in the grade. Guys avoided him; his presence was social poison.
But Peter had one undeniable, mercenary talent: he was an academic beast. He topped the class in every subject except Physics and Chemistry, which were Leo and Kevin's domains.
You didn't like him, but you needed him for group projects.
In what felt like thirty seconds, Peter had not only solved problem six, but seven, eight, nine, and ten, his marker squeaking out elegant solutions with contemptuous ease.
He capped the pen, handed it back to Mr. Marcus with a slight smirk, and lumbered back to his seat.
On the way, he shot a oily smile at the girl next to Leo, who pointedly examined her cuticles.
Mr. Marcus sighed. "Well. Give him a round of applause, I suppose."
A smattering of claps, mostly from guys who'd copied his homework, echoed half-heartedly.
The lesson moved on. The math was straightforward, and Leo's mind, craving order, latched onto it easily. Then came English, then Biology, and finally, the bell for lunch.
For the first time, Leo felt a surge of excitement that wasn't football-related. He hadn't packed a meal. He didn't need to. The school was paying.
"Hey, wait up!" Max fell into step beside him in the hallway, digging in his pocket. He produced a simple blue silicone wristband and tossed it to Leo. "Team band. Everyone got theirs yesterday. You left early. Gotta wear it. Coach's orders."
Leo slipped it on. It was just a band, but it felt like a badge. "Thanks, Max."
A few other guys in the hall—a defender from the tryouts, a midfielder he didn't know—wore the same blue band. They didn't speak, but they gave a slight, acknowledging nod as they passed.
The cafeteria was a riot of noise and smell. Leo's eyes locked onto a towering, greasy cheeseburger at the hot station. It called to him, a siren song of fat and salt.
But as he took a step towards it, a soft chime sounded in his mind. A translucent, green-outlined plate of grilled chicken, brown rice, and steamed vegetables superimposed over his vision.
[DIETARY PROTOCOL REMINDER.]
[RECOMMENDED: LEAN PROTEIN, COMPLEX CARBS, FIBRE.]
[CURRENT SELECTION ANALYSIS: 'DOUBLE CHEESEBURGER' - 850 CAL, 45G FAT. REQUIRED FOR TODAY'S ENERGY EXPENDITURE: ~620 CAL, <20G FAT. SELECTION EXCEEDS PARAMETERS BY 37%.]
He sighed. The system was a relentless, healthy conscience. He loaded his tray with the recommended chicken and vegetables, a small mountain of broccoli that looked back at him with grim virtue.
Max, beside him, piled his plate high with crispy chicken wings and a lake of onion dip, giving Leo's tray a look of profound pity. "Living the dream, huh?"
They found Frank waving them over to a crowded table. Perez was there, along with a winger from King's Chosen Ten. They were hunched over Frank's laptop, faces grim.
"—sitting at 19th! It's a disgrace!" Frank was fuming, jabbing a finger at the screen showing highlights from The Diamond League, Europe's top tier. Their hometown club, Crossfield United, was languishing near the bottom.
Perez, who wasn't a fan, just laughed. "Maybe if they tried scoring instead of just looking good losing?"
The debate raged. Leo ate his chicken, listening, a strange feeling settling in his chest. He looked at the screen, at the professional players moving in systems he was just beginning to understand.
He looked at Frank's passionate anger, at Max, at the blue band on his own wrist.
What if I were in that team? he thought. Could I make a difference?
For the first time, the dream wasn't just about proving himself to ghosts or rivals. It was about being a part of something that mattered to the people sitting next to him.
He took a bite of broccoli. It still tasted like broccoli. But the future, for once, tasted like possibility.