The final bell of the school day was not a sound; it was a physical release.
A tremor that began in the floor and traveled up through the desks, unlocking spines and unfurling hunched shoulders.
Leo's mind had departed French class hours ago, somewhere between the subjunctive mood and the second recess bell. It had been orbiting a far more pressing tactical problem.
Who to pick?
The after-school match. It was supposed to be him and Max versus Frank and Thomas. Simple. But it wasn't.
Max was a brother-in-arms now, reliable, with a shot like a piston. But Frank… Frank saw the game. He anticipated passes Leo hadn't even decided to make, his football IQ a low, constant hum.
And Thomas, for all his early arrogance, was raw speed personified—a devastating weapon if you could spring him behind a defensive line.
Pair with Max for solidarity? Or with Frank for symbiotic understanding? Use Thomas as a strategic counter?
He was so deep in the silent calculus of partnership that Madame Leclerc's sharp "Monsieur Reed?" barely registered as a distant radio signal.
He blinked up, offered a vague, apologetic nod, and she sighed, moving on. It didn't matter. B+ in French wouldn't break his scholarship. The only grade he cared about now was posted on a tactics board in Coach Arkady's mind.
The last bell was a pure, sweet tone of freedom. He shoved his untouched French textbook into his bag and looked over his right shoulder.
Max was already rising, a mirror of his own intent. They moved in unison, a two-man unit exiting the flow of students, pulled by the magnetic north of the pitch.
Their momentum died at the field's edge.
Frank was there, but not in kit. He was walking away from the lush green, his expression one of profound disgust.
He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Forget it. Grounds crew. Mowing. Then they're repainting all the lines. It's a swamp and it'll smell like petrol for hours."
A collective groan slipped from them. Thomas jogged up, his hopeful expression crumbling at the news. "Seriously? I was gonna break Leo's ankles today."
"In your dreams," Max shot back, but the disappointment was palpable. The ritual was broken.
Leo felt the familiar itch of frustration, but offered a quiet, logical alternative. "I know somewhere," he said. "Just a bus ride. But… King trains there often."
The name hung in the air, a challenge and a warning.
Thomas shrugged, a reckless grin spreading. "Who knows? Maybe he'll give us pointers."
The laughter that followed was short, tense, and edged with defiance. It was enough. They turned as a pack, four boys united by thwarted purpose, and headed for the main gate.
The bus stop was an island of weathered plastic and faded ads. They slumped onto the bench, the cool spring breeze doing little to soothe the restlessness.
Frank let his head fall back against the Plexiglas with a groan that seemed to come from his soul. "I don't know how I'm gonna juggle Differential Calculus and the Griffin Cup."
He staring at the sky as if it held the answer.
The words were a bucket of ice water down Leo's back.
Exams.
The skeletal structure of his old life, the one built on scholarships and academic safety, reasserted itself with terrifying clarity. Finals were in a week. The Griffin Cup was in two.
A cold knot formed in his stomach. Study and train. The two pillars of his existence were now on a collision course.
Normally, he'd have already secured summaries from Peter Fletcher, would be in the library deconstructing past papers. Now, he'd been so absorbed in football's geometry, he'd forgotten the academic calendar entirely.
He'd traded Peter's sneering superiority for Thomas's aggressive marking. Was it a worthy trade? The uncertainty was new, and it tasted sour.
The bus arrived with a diesel sigh, swallowing them into its noisy, rattling belly. The ride felt eternal, a journey through the bland backstreets of their city, each stop stretching the anticipation.
Finally, the familiar storefront came into view: Hal's Sports Gear, a beacon of worn-out promise. Leo pushed the door open, the bell's jangle a familiar greeting.
"Whoa," Thomas breathed, his eyes wide as he took in the packed shelves, the gleaming boots, the smell of leather and ambition. "This place is awesome."
"Of course it is, kid." Hal looked up from arranging a display of goalkeeper gloves. His eyes, sharp as ever, found Leo. A slow smile spread under his white mustache. "Almost thought you weren't coming back here."
The memory flashed—the stolen goal, the pitying ticket, the cold walk out. It was a ghost pain, quick and sharp.
Leo just smiled, a tight, dismissive thing, and waved it off. Some battles were over. This field was neutral ground.
"Need the pitch."
Hal gave a grunt of approval, wiped his hands on his apron, and led them through the cluttered stockroom.
The heavy metal door groaned open, revealing the pristine, private turf under the afternoon sun. "It's all yours," Hal rumbled, and retreated back to his kingdom of merchandise.
They spilled onto the field, the artificial turf perfect and springy underfoot. Max let out a low whistle, spinning slowly. "This is kinda nice. No mud, no dog crap, no PE teachers."
The ritual began. Off came the school-day armor—hoodies, sneakers, shirts—folded neatly on a sideline bench. They were stripped down to singlets and joggers, athletes in their most basic form.
Leo saved his for last. He took his father's glasses from their case, polished a nonexistent smudge with the hem of his discarded shirt, and slid them on.
The world resolved. The goalposts snapped into razor-edged clarity. The subtle wear patterns on the turf became a topographical map.
He was online.
Thomas snatched a ball from the mesh bag, his competitive fire already lit. He pointed two fingers at his own eyes, then at Leo. "Middle. Now."
Max and Frank laughed, moving to the sideline but staying close, spectators to the opening duel.
Thomas dropped the ball. Leo lunged.
It was over in two seconds. Thomas shifted his weight for a feint, but Leo's heightened Perception saw the tell in the micro-tension of his shoulder.
He was already moving to intercept, stealing the ball with a clean, dismissive poke. He exploded towards the far post, a grin on his face.
Frank was already there, a mountain of intent planted in his path. Leo didn't fight it. He grinned wider, and with a flick of his ankle, sent a blind, back-heeled pass skipping over the turf.
It bounced once, perfectly weighted, and arrived at the feet of a charging Max Freeman.
Thomas, furious, wheeled and descended on Max. Max simply rolled the ball backward with the sole of his foot, turned his body to shield it, and became a fortress.
He juked right, then left, a simple dance that drained Thomas's frantic energy. Thomas overcommitted, his momentum carrying him past, and Max was through, gliding towards Frank.
Frank pressed, but Max didn't engage. He looked up, saw Leo making a curved run, and lofted a delicate chip over Frank's head.
Leo was waiting for it. But Thomas, a engine of pride, had recovered with shocking speed. He planted himself in Leo's path, chest heaving but eyes fierce.
A solution presented itself in Leo's mind—a ghostly overlay from a grainy CD highlight. Luka Modrić. The Croqueta: a swift, inside-to-outside touch to wrong-foot a defender. He saw the angle, the timing.
He tried it. A quick tap with his right instep to the left, then a push forward with the outside of the same foot.
It was clunky. Hesitant. Thomas didn't buy the faint sell. He stood his ground, unmoved.
Trapped, Leo panicked. His passing lane evaporated. He could only shove a weak, hopeful ball into the dangerous space between defenders line.
It was a terrible pass. But in its terrible-ness, it created chaos.
The ball rolled into a vacant pocket 20 yards out, at a 30-degree angle to the empty goal. A terrible position for buildup, but a pristine one for a certain kind of shot.
The System activated.
[TEAMMATE ANALYSIS: MAX FREEMAN]
[WEAPON DETECTED:'LEFT-ARC SNIPER']
[ZONE PARAMETERS:20-25 YARDS, LEFT HALF-SPACE]
[WITHIN ZONE DATA:]
· SHOT PROBABILITY: 97%
· PLACEMENT ACCURACY: 91%
· GOAL CONVERSION RATE: 78%
[ADVISORY:FEED SUBJECT IN ZONE. DO NOT BLOCK LINE OF SIGHT.]`
Max didn't need a second invitation. He didn't take a touch. He met the rolling ball in full stride, his body a coiled spring of pure technique.
Boom.
The shot was a white streak, spinning with vicious intent. It curved away from where a keeper's dive would have been, kissed the inside of the side netting, and billowed the mesh with a soft, authoritative sigh.
Leo and Thomas, still tangled in the failed Croqueta, both sank to the grass, watching the net ripple.
Max just raised a fist to the sky, a quiet, fierce celebration.
Frank fetched the ball from the net. "We," he announced, "need to work on our endurance. And Leo, whatever that was… don't do it again unless it's smoother."
They played for more than an hour. The sun arced across the sky. The game was their only world. They rotated teams, argued calls, celebrated ridiculous goals.
Leo's Croqueta improved from disastrous to merely bad. Max's shooting range seemed to expand with every attempt, a predator testing its domain.
Thomas ran himself into the ground, his earlier arrogance replaced by a grinding determination to last longer, press harder. Frank became an immovable object, his positioning and reading of the game growing more formidable by the minute.
When Leo slotted home his twelfth goal—a simple, system-calculated finish after a dizzying sequence of passes—they all collapsed.
Sprawled on the turf, lungs burning, muscles singing with a deep, pleasant ache, they were equal in their exhaustion.
They stumbled to the little shower room, dousing their bodies, the cold water a shock of bliss. They put n their clothes, the sweat-soaked singlets went into plastic bags—trophies of effort.
Hal had left a few chilled water bottles and a pile of chocolate bars on the bench. They accepted the gifts like kings, slumping onto the wood, letting the cool evening air dry their skin.
The silence was comfortable, filled with the hum of fading adrenaline.
Max broke it, staring at the wrapper in his hand. "Twenty thousand dollars." He said it like a foreign word. "Hm. I doubt the school would let us touch a penny even if we win."
Frank snorted, standing up. He held his half-eaten chocolate bar like a scepter, puffing out his chest.
In a pitch-perfect imitation of their frugal, perpetually disappointed Principal, he boomed, "I hereby present to you, Leo Reed, for your discipline, hard work, and indispensable support to this team… this award worth less than a vegetarian steak!"
Leo sprang up, playing along. He accepted the imaginary plaque with exaggerated reverence. "Why, thank you, sir! This award means so much to me. It almost makes me forget we won twenty thousand dollars, and not twenty cents!"
The laughter that erupted was loud and real, echoing in the empty training ground. It was the laughter of shared understanding, of cynicism born from experience.
But as it faded, and Leo took another bite of his chocolate, the humor settled into something colder in his gut.
Frank's joke was a little too true. The school needed the money for renovations. The Principal had already shown he'd bend rules to win.
Even if we win… what do we get?
The dream of solving his mother's worries, of a new refrigerator, of breathing room… it shimmered, then threatened to dissolve into the pragmatic gloom of institutional greed.
He pushed the thought down. It was a problem for later. For now, he had chocolate, a quiet field, and the tired, easy company of guys who spoke the same exhausting, beautiful language.
The grind, he was learning, had its own collateral rewards. Even if the grand prize might remain just out of reach.