God Of football

Chapter 986: A Fitting Beginning.

"Why me and not the best player or an already talented prodigy, because I am pretty sure it would have been way faster to get things done that way."

The response came slowly, like it had to travel a long distance to reach him.

[I cannot tell you that.]

Izan sighed, shaking his head slightly, already mouthing the words along with it, like he’d heard them too many times before.

"I know," he said. "You never can."

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staring down at the trophy resting beside him.

Then the system spoke again.

[But!]

"But?" Izan questioned sharply while sitting upright with a curious expression on his face, mainly because in all his time of questioning, this was the first time that the system had offered something more than the usual, "I cannot tell you that."

[But I can tell you this.]

[You did not receive me by chance.]

[I came into existence because something refused to let go.]

"Something refused to let go?" Izan muttered as his fingers tightened around the trophy, thoughts running as he thought about what refused to let go, and although his mind kept crossing the same scenario, he refused to accept it.

Or, denied it.

[Yes. In moments of extreme loss, some emotions do not fade.]

They resist.

They endure, and that resistance was what called me to life and to you.]

Izan swallowed, finally coming to terms with what he was thinking.

"Because of him?" he asked quietly.

The system hesitated, and once again, it sounded strained.

[I am limited—]

And then it went silent.

"No," Izan said under his breath, as he sat forward, like he was trying to claw back the system from sinking deep into his conscience.

"Wait," he called out again, but nothing came.

He tried again, softer this time, like he used to when he was younger and afraid of waking him up.

"Just tell me that."

He sat a bit still after that before falling back into the neckrest of his seat, right as footsteps approached from behind with familiar chatter.

"There you are," Olivia said, relief in her voice.

Hori appeared beside her a second later, already tugging her little coat tighter around her arms.

"Can we go ahead? I miss Miko. She’s probably furious, but Mum refuses to stop talking with strangers, and Miranda also refuses to stop with all her usual publicity pulls."

But Hori stopped and stared at the trophy beside Izan after all her sharply spat sentences.

"Oh," she said, eyes lighting up.

Before Izan could react, Hori stepped forward, plucked the Ballon d’Or from his hands with surprising ease, and turned toward Olivia.

"Phone. Now?" Hori said, but Olivia just raised a brow, causing Hori to sigh.

"Sorry, Olivia. Now, can you take a picture of me with the ball?"

"Yes, Hori, I can! Now was that so hard?" Olivia said as she pulled her phone out from a pouch in her dress.

Hori posed instantly, sitting in one of the seats while propping the award on her lap like she had won it instead.

"Take it properly."

A few photos later, Hori waved Olivia over, swapped places, then grabbed the phone back halfway through.

"Perfect. I’m editing these to death."

Olivia rolled her eyes but smiled, sitting down beside Izan once Hori wandered a few steps away.

"You’d think she was the one who won it", she said quietly before looking at Izan, who had been staring at her the whole time.

"Are you okay?" she asked, but Izan just kept on staring.

"What?" Olivia shrieked a bit before nudging Izan, who was still looking at her and now, the trophy beside her.

"It looks better with you," he said.

Olivia scoffed under her breath after hearing that.

"Liar," she called, even though she couldn’t keep the corners of her lips from going up.

He shook his head, stood, and held out his hand, and she took it without thinking as Izan gently lifted the trophy from her arms.

"You shouldn’t be carrying that," he said, already turning to lead her away.

Olivia smiled, following him as Hori trailed behind, still scrolling through photos and doing whatever she was doing before.

Outside the Théâtre du Châtelet and even after the afterparty, it was still swamped outside.

Once Izan stepped out, the flashes hit him again, with these feeling more extreme than when he had first arrived.

"Izan, just one word!"

"How does it feel?"

"Seventeen years old!"

"What should we expect from you now?"

Shielding Olivia from the side, he lifted a hand, more a reflex than a gesture, and gave a small wave in the general direction of the barricades, where it looked more like fans standing there than reporters.

With that out of the way, he moved towards the car and slid inside, after making sure Olivia and the other women were settled, but even with them still in the car, the camera flashes didn’t stop, not until it moved away.

And some 7 minutes later, they arrived at the Bvlgari Hotel and moved into the quiet lobby.

Even so, eyes followed him, with low murmurs accompanying the stares as Izan dragged a black case behind him, the wheels clicking softly against marble.

"We’ll be in our room," Komi said towards Izan and Olivia as she opened the door to the room where she was staying with Hori and Miranda.

Izan nodded before opening the door and giving way to Olivia, who immediately took off her shoes as they entered."

In their room, the city spread out before them, Paris glowing through the glass like it was not ready to go to sleep.

As he moved towards the bed, Olivia slipped past him toward the bathroom, already reaching for the zip at the back of her dress.

Izan stayed where he was, lowering himself into the chair by the window and then back at the bed where the case sat open now.

The Ballon d’Or trophy caught the light, dull gold and perfect, and beside it, curled like she was guarding it, was Miko.

The dog barely looked up, tail thumping once against the bedding.

"That’d look nice," Izan said suddenly as he pulled out his phone, crouched slightly, and framed the shot so the trophy and the dog shared the space.

"That will do," he said as he retouched the photo a bit.

A moment later, it became a draft on his posts on Instagram, to which he captioned with a little, "goodnight Paris and thank you."

Before long, the 369 million followers and counting began to react to the post, but Izan just locked the phone and set it down.

Standing again, he took off a bracelet and then shrugged off the upper part of the suit, letting it fall over the back of the chair while Olivia appeared in the doorway, hair loose now, watching him with a tired smile.