My Ultimate Gacha System-Chapter 318 - 305: After Rome I

Team Bus — Rome to Fiumicino Airport 12:41 AM

The bus moves through Rome’s late streets while most of the squad are already asleep in their seats or staring at phones with the particular absence of engagement that comes after everything has been spent, and the city passes outside the windows with the specific quiet of a major city after midnight when the restaurants are closed but the streets aren’t quite dark.

Demien rests his bag on the seat beside him and his head goes against the window while his phone screen lights up from his lap.

Twitter is moving faster than he can scroll and his name sits in the trending list with a number beside it that makes no immediate sense as a quantity of people, and clips of all three goals are already past seven figures in combined views while headlines run across the top of the page in Italian and English and Portuguese.

He finds Sophia’s Instagram story — a photo taken from a television screen showing him standing with both arms raised after the third goal, the caption So proud ❤️🔥 — and he opens her direct messages.

Sophia: I’m coming to Bergamo tomorrow. My driver is bringing me. I need to see you.

He types back.

Demien: You don’t have to do that.

Sophia: I want to. I’ll be there by 1 PM.

He locks the phone and closes his eyes, and outside the window Rome’s lights begin to thin as the city edges give way to the motorway.

Atalanta Charter — Fiumicino to Bergamo 2:14 AM

The plane is quiet when it levels off and the cabin lights dim, and most players have their eyes closed within ten minutes of takeoff while the city of Rome shrinks below until the cloud cover takes it entirely.

Demien sits by the window with his bag between his feet and his forehead against the glass while the darkness outside sits still and complete, and the exhaustion is the kind that sits behind the eyes rather than just in the legs — the specific weight of a hundred-and-twenty minutes of competitive football on top of weeks of training and two remaining league matches that matter.

Sleep comes eventually without him deciding to let it.

Centro Bortolotti Car Park, Zingonia 3:47 AM 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

The bus pulls into the facility while the car park sits mostly empty, and players file off in the particular silence of people who are too tired to coordinate their movements, and bags are pulled from the undercarriage while a few cars are still waiting with family members inside.

The squad disperses across the tarmac in different directions and engines start one by one in the dark, and Demien walks toward the street exit with his bag over one shoulder and the trophy wrapped inside it while the sound of cars pulling away fades behind him.

He calls a taxi from the street and stands under the facility lights while the night air is cold enough that his breath shows, and the cab arrives within four minutes and the driver doesn’t speak beyond confirming the address while the streets between Zingonia and Bergamo pass empty and dark outside the window.

Demien’s Apartment, Bergamo 4:22 AM

The apartment is dark when he comes in and he doesn’t turn lights on, and the trophy goes on the kitchen table before he walks straight to the bedroom and sits on the edge of the bed while his boots come off one at a time and get placed near the wardrobe rather than dropped.

The medal is still around his neck and he takes it off and sets it on the nightstand where the phone goes beside it, and when he lies back the ceiling is the specific grey of a room in deep night while his breathing slows and the sounds from the street outside are minimal and distant.

He’s asleep before the thought of what comes next can fully form.

Demien’s Apartment, Bergamo 11:23 AM

The light through the curtains is past morning and into midday when his eyes open, and his phone on the nightstand shows eleven-twenty-three while the screen is full of notifications that have been arriving for hours and overflow the display in stacked columns of names and numbers.

He picks it up and scrolls without opening anything, and the team group chat has a message from Gasperini at the top.

Day off today. Enjoy it. Training resumes May 17, 10 AM. Well done last night.

He scrolls past it toward Sophia’s message.

Sophia: My driver is bringing me to Bergamo. I’ll be at your place around 1 PM. Don’t go anywhere.

Demien: I’ll be here.

He sets the phone down and swings his legs off the bed, and his body protests in the specific way of the morning after a hundred-and-twenty minutes of football — hips tight, calves heavy, both ankles stiff until they’ve been moved through their range a few times.

Shower. Clean clothes. Coffee at the kitchen table while his phone continues buzzing against the surface and he doesn’t pick it up.

The trophy sits at the end of the table and he pulls it out of the bag and sets it down properly while the coffee cools in his hands, and the engraving catches the light coming through the kitchen window.

He checks Twitter once because the scale of it hasn’t registered yet.

His name is still trending. The three goals have individual clip accounts in multiple languages. A compilation of all three with slow-motion replays has passed twelve million views since it was posted four hours ago.

@FabrizioRomano: Demien Walter’s agent Marco Benetti has confirmed no conversations with other clubs at this stage. Atalanta’s priority is Champions League qualification in the final two matches. Summer window situation will be assessed in June. 🔵⚫️

@ESPN_FC: Demien Walter’s hat-trick in the Coppa Italia final was the first in the competition’s history. He is 19 years old. Premier League clubs are lining up.

He locks the phone and sets it face-down on the table beside the trophy.

The coffee is still warm when he finishes it, and he washes the cup and sets it in the rack before straightening the apartment — surfaces wiped, table cleared except for the trophy, cushions set back on the couch — because the space is small enough that a few things out of place makes all of it look untidy.

At twelve-fifty-eight a black Mercedes S-Class stops on the street below, and he’s standing in the building doorway when Sophia steps out while the driver closes the door behind her and she carries a leather travel bag over one shoulder and her sunglasses are pushed above the bridge of her nose and she spots him immediately.

She says something to the driver who nods and gets back behind the wheel, and the Mercedes pulls smoothly away from the kerb while she walks toward him, and when she reaches the door she puts her arms around his neck without speaking first and they stand in the entrance while her bag rests against his side.

"You were incredible last night," she says against his shoulder.

"Thanks for coming," he replies.

She steps back and looks at him. "Where else would I be."

He takes her bag and they go inside, and she looks at the apartment — the small kitchen, the living room with the couch and the laptop on the coffee table, the hallway leading to the bedroom — and her eyes stop on the trophy sitting on the kitchen table.

She walks over to it and stands looking at it for a moment without touching it, and her expression is the particular kind of still that comes when something real is in front of you rather than on a screen.

"Can I?" she asks.

"Yeah," he says.

She picks it up with both hands and feels the weight of it, and her eyes move across the engraving before she sets it back down carefully and turns toward him.

"Heavier than it looks," she says.

"I know," he says.

They spend the afternoon on the couch, and she sits with her feet tucked under her while he talks through the match and she listens without interrupting until the parts where she has questions, and outside the window Bergamo moves through a Thursday afternoon while the city doesn’t know or care that the trophy is sitting in his kitchen.

When the evening comes they order pizza and eat it from the boxes on the coffee table while his laptop shows Sky Sport Italia running their evening coverage, and the footage of the third goal appears on screen again while the presenter’s voice rises over it and Sophia watches his face while it plays.

"You’re going to see that for a very long time," she says.

"Probably," he says.

Later the laptop closes and the room goes quiet except for the sounds from the street below, and she’s asleep on the bed beside him while the room is dark and his phone is face-down on the nightstand with a week’s worth of decisions waiting inside it — journalists, sponsors, clubs, conversations that Marco has been deflecting since last night.

Two league matches remain and Champions League qualification isn’t confirmed and the summer window is eight weeks away.

He turns his phone over and switches it off.