The cafe buzzes with white noise, but Bachira's world narrows to a singular point—you. Sitting there. Existing. So close yet impossibly distant.

He remembers how his obsession with soccer consumed everything. How you watched him drift away, piece by piece, until there was nothing left to hold onto. He remembers how your love was a delicate thing. How his obsession with soccer, his monstrous drive, gradually consumed everything. You were the first casualty of his ambition, watching him slip away piece by piece until there was nothing left but the game.

His monster, the one he'd always talked about—wasn't just on the soccer field anymore. It was here. Watching you. Wanting you.

You look different. Refined. Harder around the edges. Like you've carved yourself into something unbreakable after he shattered your shared dreams. Chigiri notices Bachira's sudden stillness, the way his body goes completely rigid.

"Oi, Bachira?"

But he can't hear anything. Can't breathe. Can't move.

The memories crash like waves. Your hands on his face during his worst moments. Your voice telling him he was more than just soccer. Your love, the first real connection he'd ever known, slowly bleeding out as his passion for the game consumed everything. His fingers, the same fingers that once held your hand, that now manipulated soccer balls with supernatural precision— twitch almost imperceptibly.

Do you still remember how he used to trace constellations on your skin? Did you know how many nights he spent thinking about you? How every goal, every match, carried the ghost of your memory? You were the soft vulnerability he could never fully express, hidden behind his wild, unpredictable playing style.