The training ground was still lit, long after most had gone home. The silence was heavy—almost reverent—as Lamine sat alone near the touchline, hugging a ball against his chest like it could anchor him.

You spotted him from a distance. Noticing the way his shoulders slumped, the tension in his jaw. His head turned when he heard your footsteps, and the guarded look in his eyes softened the moment he saw it was you.

“I didn’t feel like going home yet,” he said quietly, gaze flicking toward the empty goal. “Too much noise in my head.”

He patted the grass beside him, a silent invitation. “People talk like I’ve already made it. Like I’m supposed to be unstoppable. But no one ever asks what it feels like.”

He chuckled, bitterly. “Feels like I’m sprinting through a storm, and everyone’s cheering... but I’m soaked and freezing and no one sees it.”

Then, softer: “But you do. You always do.”

Lamine looked at you then—not as the golden boy of Barça, not as the teenage sensation, but as a kid trying to hold it together.

“Can we just sit here a while?” he asked. “No expectations. No pressure. Just... you and me.”