My Ultimate Gacha System

Demien turned at the words on his screen, and there she was.

Sophia stood closer to the private parking entrance, away from the barriers where the last of the supporters pressed together calling names whenever another red tracksuit appeared. The stadium floodlights still burned above the roofline behind her.

Security staff worked the glass doors in slow, practiced rotations. Camera flashes caught players crossing toward their cars, and the wet pavement threw the red stadium lights back in broken streaks.

She had a long coat pulled over business clothes, an overnight bag resting against her leg, and the cold Manchester wind had pulled a few strands of hair loose across her face. When she saw him stop and stare, her smile widened into something unguarded, the professional composure she usually carried in public dropping away entirely.

Demien’s tired expression changed before he’d even decided to let it. He crossed the distance faster than he meant to, closing it in a handful of long strides, and pulled her into him before she’d fully raised her arms to meet him.

He held on a second longer than a greeting required, breathing out against her shoulder, and some of the irritation that had been sitting in his chest since the shot against the post finally let go.

When they separated, he kissed her first, cutting off whatever teasing remark she’d clearly been building toward.

"I saw the post," she said anyway, the moment their lips parted, her eyes already bright with it. "Twice. You watched the replay in the tunnel."

"I did not watch it in the tunnel."

"You absolutely watched it in the tunnel."

He gave her a look that had no real weight behind it, and she laughed hard enough that a nearby security guard glanced over before deciding it wasn’t his business.

He reached down and took her overnight bag before she could argue, waving off her protest that she could carry it herself, and guided her away from the exit with one hand settling naturally against her back. The last thing either of them needed was for this reunion to become tomorrow’s headline photo.

The drive to his apartment stayed easy rather than heavy. Sophia asked about the match, but her questions circled around how he’d looked sitting on that bench rather than his numbers off it.

"You gave me the sensible answer already, in the tunnel interview," she said, watching him rather than the road. "Rotation made sense after Bayern and Burnley. I believe you understood it."

"I did understand it."

"Understanding it and enjoying it aren’t the same thing."

He didn’t answer immediately. When he did, it came out quieter than his usual match-day composure. "I hated it. Watching it move without me." He shook his head once. "I was happy for Alejandro. For Casemiro, for Anthony — genuinely. I just wanted to be part of it instead of clapping for it."

Sophia reached over and rested her hand against his forearm before she spoke again, no lecture in her voice, just something closer to observation.

She told him he’d gotten so used to controlling what people saw — because any real reaction became a headline within the hour — that he’d started doing it around people who weren’t reporters too. Around her. She said it made her feel kept at a distance sometimes, even when he was sitting right next to her.

Demien didn’t answer with a speech. He reached over and found her hand, keeping hold of it the rest of the drive, and told her plainly that he was glad she’d come tonight. He said it simply enough that it landed harder than something more polished would have.

His apartment still looked more like a hotel suite than a home — expensive furniture that hadn’t been chosen so much as approved, football boots lined up with more care than anything else in the room, recovery equipment stacked against one wall. The Burnley match ball sat on the shelf exactly where he’d left it.

Sophia’s overnight bag, dropped by the door, already made the place look more lived-in than it had in weeks.

She spotted the ball almost immediately and raised an eyebrow. "You’re one match away from turning this apartment into a trophy room."

He picked it up without any of his usual deflection, turning it in his hands until the marker pen writing caught the light — the date, the score, hat trick underlined twice. "This one I’m keeping." A private flash of pride crossed his face before he set it back down carefully. "The next one’s going to have to earn a shelf of its own."

They ate late and simple rather than pretending a full dinner made sense after a night match — Sophia taking over part of the kitchen while Demien changed out of his club gear, the two of them eventually eating straight from containers at the counter because nothing about the apartment had settled into a proper home yet.

Sophia talked through the meeting that had brought her to Manchester, a decision about expanding her father’s company into a partnership she wasn’t sure she trusted yet.

Demien listened properly, asked who else sat on the other side of the table, and told her honestly that the numbers she described sounded better for the partner than for her.

She considered that longer than she expected to, and thanked him for actually thinking about it instead of just agreeing.

The bench frustration came back on its own when she caught him glancing at his phone, the post replay paused mid-scroll. She pulled the phone toward her and played it deliberately, narrating the flight of the ball in mock commentary. Demien lunged for the phone, and the short struggle turned into her laughing against his shoulder and him giving up the chase entirely in favor of pulling her closer instead.

When the playfulness settled, something more honest followed it. "Sometimes I think if I look too happy, people call it arrogant," he admitted. "And if I look frustrated, they call it ungrateful. So I stopped showing either."

"I’m not a reporter," Sophia said, watching him rather than teasing now. "Not a teammate. Not your manager. I don’t need the controlled version every time."

He didn’t answer with words. He drew her in, rested his forehead against hers for a long moment, and kissed her without any hurry behind it, then asked — quietly, directly — if she’d stay.

She did.

Wednesday morning, September 27th, found them moving around the apartment with the kind of ease that hadn’t existed a few hours earlier.

Sophia stood at the mirror finishing her coat while Demien made coffee behind her, reaching over without being asked to fix the collar that had folded the wrong way.

She stole a piece of toast off his plate on her way past, insisting she was in a hurry even as she took the time to eat it standing at the counter.

The television murmured in the background, running through cup-match highlights for the third time that morning.

The coverage credited Casemiro as the game’s central figure, praised Garnacho and Martial for taking their starting chances, gave Højlund his due for the fourth goal, and mentioned Demien’s twenty-five minutes — three chances created, the post, the assist — without pretending the whole 4–0 belonged to him alone.

A pundit noted that Palace would return to Old Trafford in the league on Saturday with a very different, senior lineup, and that nobody outside the building knew yet who Ten Hag would select.

Sophia noticed him watching the post replay again, this time without bothering to hide it. "It still bothers you," she said, not a question.

"It’s still bothering me," he agreed, and didn’t look away from the screen.

"You’ve watched this six times since I got here."

"Seven," he said, and she laughed loud enough that he finally cracked a smile of his own.

Before she left, he asked whether she could come back after her meeting, or stay another night if her schedule allowed it.

She looked faintly surprised — he normally waited for her to offer rather than asking first — and told him honestly that she couldn’t promise anything yet, not until she knew how the meeting went. But the way she said it made clear she appreciated being asked.

Their goodbye at the door held a proper kiss, and he watched from the window until her car pulled away rather than turning back to his coffee.

The quiet that settled over the apartment afterward felt temporary rather than empty, because she might still come back tonight.