Become A Football Legend-Chapter 265: Just Leave

Lukas wasn’t looking at anyone anymore.

His eyes were fixed on the door, but they weren’t really seeing it. He was just gazing in that direction, unfocused, as if his mind had stepped outside the room entirely and left his body sitting there. The words Roger had just spoken still lingered in the air, heavy and unmoving, and yet they felt distant at the same time. It was as if they had been said underwater. He heard them. He understood them. But they hadn’t fully landed.

For a few long minutes, nobody spoke.

Javi sat still, his hands resting on his knees, staring somewhere between the carpet and the wall opposite him. Roger remained seated as well, his posture tense but restrained, waiting. The silence wasn’t awkward. It wasn’t angry. It was something else. It was the kind of silence that follows a truth too large to react to immediately.

Lukas swallowed, but even that felt like effort.

His mind tried to piece things together, but every time it reached for one thread of thought, another interrupted it. The timeline. The complications. Lexi. Adoption. His mother. The idea that his birth had altered the course of someone else’s body forever. The idea that there were entire years of history he had never known existed. It was too much. Not dramatic. Not explosive. Just too much.

He blinked slowly, then finally turned his head toward Roger.

His voice, when it came, was steady, but it lacked its usual clarity.

"Please leave."

Roger stiffened slightly.

Lukas inhaled and tried again, forcing the words out properly this time.

"This is too much information right now. I can’t... I can’t give you a response. Not now." He shook his head faintly. "Please. Just leave."

Roger opened his mouth, instinctively leaning forward as if one more sentence might fix something. "Lukas, I just— I really think you should at least give her a chance. She’s—"

"Please," Javi cut in firmly.

There was no aggression in his tone, but there was finality.

"You have my number. If he decides anything, I’ll let you know. For now, just... please go."

Roger hesitated, looking between the two of them, regret clear on his face. Whatever he had hoped this conversation would accomplish had clearly slipped out of reach. He nodded slowly, as though accepting that pushing any further would only make things worse.

"I understand," he said quietly. "I’m sorry."

He stood, smoothing down the front of his coat almost absentmindedly, and made his way toward the door. Javi followed him, opening it without another word. There was a brief exchange in the doorway that Lukas didn’t register. The door closed softly a moment later.

The room felt larger after that.

Lukas exhaled, though he hadn’t realized he had been holding his breath. He stood there for a second longer, then walked back toward the bed and let himself fall onto it, face up, staring at the ceiling again. The white surface above him blurred slightly as his eyes lost focus.

His mind wandered without direction. It wasn’t even forming proper thoughts anymore. Just fragments. His mother’s face from a distance in the stands. The way Lexi had said he looked like her mom. His father’s silence. The word complications. The number 13. The fact that none of this could be undone.

He felt suspended between something that had already happened and something that hadn’t yet begun.

He lay there without moving, unable to speak, unable to think clearly, his chest rising and falling steadily as if his body had decided to carry on even if his mind had temporarily stepped away. The room remained quiet around him, and he stayed like that, staring upward, as the weight of everything settled slowly into place.

Outside The Lowry, the air felt colder than it had any right to be for late May.

Roger stood near the entrance, the revolving doors spinning lazily behind him as guests moved in and out, oblivious to the quiet storm unfolding just outside. He ran a hand over his shaved head, exhaling through his nose before turning back to Javi.

"Please," he said again, and there was no ego left in his voice now. "Just talk to him. Ask him to reconsider. Ask him to at least meet her once. She’s not well."

Javi’s expression had hardened, not in anger, but in exhaustion. He looked older in that moment, like the weight of years had quietly settled on his shoulders all at once.

"You should go," he replied evenly. "I told you. I’ll leave the decision up to Lukas."

Roger shook his head faintly, as though trying to push past the inevitability of that answer. "You know how she is. You know what this is doing to her."

"I know what this is doing to my son," Javi cut in, his voice low but firm. "And if I had known you were going to walk in there and tell him everything like that... I wouldn’t have allowed you to come."

That landed.

Roger didn’t argue this time. The truth in Javi’s tone made it clear there was no room left for persuasion. Javi let out a slow breath, rubbing the bridge of his nose before speaking again.

"He’s sixteen. That was a lot."

There was regret in his eyes now. Not toward Roger. Toward himself.

"I regret even letting this happen today. If I’d known how much you were going to unload on him... I would’ve waited."

Roger swallowed, nodding slowly. There was nothing left to say that wouldn’t make things worse.

"I’m sorry," he murmured.

Javi didn’t respond to that. He simply stepped back, creating distance, a silent signal that the conversation was over.

Roger gave one last look toward the hotel façade, toward the floor where he knew Lukas was staying. Then he turned and walked toward his car without another word.

Javi remained standing there for a few seconds after Roger disappeared from view. His eyes lifted instinctively to the upper floors of the hotel, trying to calculate which window might belong to his son. He shook his head faintly, a quiet mixture of worry and doubt settling in his chest.

Maybe he should’ve handled it differently. Maybe he should’ve protected him from all of it a little longer.

He stood there for another moment before finally deciding to give Lukas space. He turned, crossed the pavement, and walked toward his own car.

Inside the vehicle, he didn’t start the engine immediately. Instead, he took his phone out, stared at the screen for a few seconds, and then typed.

I’ll be at the Airbnb. We’ll be heading home later tonight. Get some rest. I love you.

He read it over once, then pressed send.

Only after the message delivered did he start the car. The engine hummed to life, and without looking back at the hotel again, Javi pulled out onto the road and drove away.

* * *

At the same time, a few miles away from the Lowry’s hotel.

Inside one of the glass-fronted administrative buildings at the Manchester City complex, the lights were still on long after most of the staff had left. The room was sleek, quiet, modern—dark wood table, recessed lighting, muted blue carpeting. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked manicured training pitches that now sat empty under the fading Manchester sky.

On the large screen mounted at the front of the room, the clip rolled again.

Old Trafford. Noise. Chaos.

And then Lukas.

Txiki Begiristain sat forward in his chair, elbows on the table, fingers interlocked beneath his chin. Hugo Viana, set to replace him soon, leaned back with one ankle resting on his knee, watching carefully. Ferran Soriano, composed as ever, observed both men rather than just the screen.