My Ultimate Gacha System-Chapter 333 - 7: Florence II

They finished dinner slowly and she made coffee afterward and they sat with it for another hour, and the conversation moved to easier territory — Luca coming to Bergamo tomorrow, something she’d been watching on television, a story about a neighbour she’d mentioned twice before but that he listened to as though he hadn’t.

She didn’t raise England again and he didn’t either.

At half past nine she stood and collected the cups, and he helped her clear the table while the kitchen returned to its after-dinner state, and when they’d finished she touched his arm once in the hallway and said goodnight and went to bed.

He went to his old bedroom.

11:40 PM

The room was the same as it had always been — the single bed, the shelf with the old books he hadn’t touched in years, the curtain that had never quite hung straight on its rail — and he lay on his back in the dark with his arms at his sides and looked at the ceiling where the streetlight from below created a faint pale rectangle on the plaster.

The conversation sat with him rather than leaving when the lights went out, which was the thing about conversations that mattered — they didn’t resolve themselves by ending, they just continued in a different register.

He lay awake for a long time before sleep arrived, and when it did it was the shallow kind that left him aware of the room rather than absent from it, and the streetlight rectangle moved slightly across the ceiling as the night went on outside.

Friday, May 26, 2023 Isabella’s Apartment, Florence 12:33 PM

Luca knocked on the front door rather than buzzing from the street because Isabella had given him the door code years ago, and when Demien opened it he was standing with a backpack over one shoulder and an expression of exaggerated assessment, looking Demien up and down before speaking.

"You look terrible," Luca said.

"Good to see you too," Demien said, and let him in.

They sat in the living room while Isabella made coffee in the kitchen and brought it through without being asked, and she stayed for five minutes of conversation before excusing herself because she understood what kind of visit this was, and the door to her bedroom closed with the particular quiet of someone deliberately giving space.

"Portugal," Demien said. "How was it?"

Luca leaned back in his chair. "Good football, terrible weather, unbelievable food." He considered for a moment. "Braga’s a good club. Serious organisation, proper training. The league level is obviously different from Serie A — the intensity drops off in some matches — but the tactical structure was good and I learned things." He paused. "It was harder than I expected."

"The football?"

"No, the football was fine." He was quiet for a second, and it was the kind of quiet that meant he’d decided to say the thing he hadn’t planned to say. "The first two months were lonely. Properly lonely. My Portuguese was functional, not fluent, and after training everyone went their separate ways and I’d go back to my apartment and there was just — nothing." He glanced at the ceiling. "I called Sophia one night in January, half two in the morning. I was sitting on my kitchen floor eating cereal and I just — called her. She talked to me for two hours."

Demien looked at him. He hadn’t known that.

"By April it was fine," Luca said, and he said it plainly without performing the resolution. "I had people at the club I could call. I knew the city. It stopped feeling like a place where I was temporarily and started feeling like a place where I lived. But the first bit was hard." He looked at Demien. "I’m telling you this because it applies to you and you know it does."

"I know," Demien said.

"If you go to England — whichever club — the first two months are going to be difficult," Luca said. "Not because of the football, you’ll handle that. Because of being genuinely alone in a city where you don’t know anyone outside the training ground, and the training ground is work, and work isn’t the same as having somewhere to go." He paused. "But that’s two months. Month four, month five — you adapt. Humans adapt. You’ll adapt."

"And if I stay?" Demien asked.

"Then you stay," Luca said, as though the question was simpler than it felt. "Champions League with Atalanta next season. Gasperini builds around you. Serie A is a real career — plenty of players build something serious here without ever leaving. It’s not weakness." He held Demien’s gaze. "What neither of those is, is the wrong choice. There isn’t a wrong choice here. There’s just the choice you make and then the life that comes from it."

Demien turned his coffee cup in his hands.

"What do you want?" Luca asked. "And before you say you don’t know — I know you don’t know for certain. I’m asking what you’re leaning toward."

He thought about it properly rather than deflecting. "I think I want to test myself at the highest level," he said. "I think staying at Atalanta, as good as it’s been, starts to feel like the safe option if I’m honest. And I don’t know if safe is right at nineteen." He looked at Luca. "But I also don’t know if that feeling is real or if it’s just the noise of fifty million euros and everyone telling me what I should do."

"That’s the actual problem," Luca said. "You can’t hear yourself think because everyone else is too loud." He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. "Three weeks until England camp. Use them to find some quiet. Not hiding from it, not pretending the decision doesn’t exist — just enough quiet that when you do decide, it’s yours."

Demien nodded.

"And whatever you choose," Luca said, "I’m proud of you. Which is something I’m not going to say again because you’ll get insufferable about it." He stood and picked up his backpack. "Three PM train, I have to move." He held out his hand and Demien stood and took it and Luca pulled him briefly into a one-arm embrace before stepping back. "Call me."

"I’ll call you," Demien said.

"From England camp," Luca added, and there was something in the way he said it — not a prediction, not a push, just the way someone says a thing they suspect is already decided.

He went down the stairs and the building door closed below, and Demien stood in the doorway of his mother’s apartment for a moment before going back inside.

Demien’s Apartment, Bergamo 8:45 PM

He’d taken the five-thirty train back from Florence and the apartment was exactly as he’d left it two days earlier, and the Marco briefing document had arrived by email while he was on the train — three attachments, each labelled with a club name and a date, the figures in the subject line already visible in the preview without opening it.

He made a drink and took it to the balcony.

The city below was at its Friday evening pace — people heading out, restaurants filling, the particular ambient noise of a warm May night — and he sat with his back against the wall and his feet up on the railing and opened Instagram on his phone because that was lower intensity than Twitter and had the England reaction content without the transfer noise underneath everything.

Kane had posted a squad photo from the announcement — the standard grid format, player photos arranged in rows with the squad number beside each name — and the caption was brief: Excited for the camp. Welcome to the new faces. Sixty-two thousand comments. He scrolled the first few: love to see it, gaffer, let’s go, finally, and then the ones about Demien: Walter’s going to be special, can’t wait to see him alongside Rice.

Rice had tagged three of the new call-ups in a separate story, clean white background, Three Lions badge, nothing else. Saka’s post was a short clip from a previous qualifier, the caption just June. Kane’s pinned post showed the training complex at St George’s Park from a previous camp, empty pitches in early morning light.

He scrolled through it without engaging and set the phone face-up on the railing.

Three weeks until St George’s Park. Then Malta on the sixteenth, North Macedonia at Old Trafford on the nineteenth. Then back from England on the twenty-first and Marco and the decision and everything it set in motion.

He opened the system interface because he hadn’t checked it since before the season ended, and the panel materialised in his peripheral vision with its clean blue text.

「PLAYER STATUS — OFF-SEASON」 「Current Phase: Rest Period」 「Active Missions: None」 「Training Sessions Logged: 0」 「Next Recommended Check-In: Pre-Season」

A second panel appeared beneath it without prompting.

「CAREER DECISION POINT DETECTED」 「Multiple transfer opportunities active」 「Trajectory variables: HIGH」 「System note: This decision determines next phase parameters — club environment, competition level, development pathway. System cannot model optimal outcome. This choice belongs to the user.」

The panel held for five seconds and faded without offering anything further, and the balcony was quiet except for the city below.

He sat for a while longer.

Then his phone buzzed once — a single message, not a call — and when he turned it over the name on the screen was Sophia Bianchi.

Saw the England news. Congratulations. You deserve it.

He looked at it for a moment.

Three replies formed and dissolved — something about the camp, something about how it felt, something about her — and none of them were right, and after a while he typed what was left when everything unnecessary had been removed.

Thank you.

He sent it and set the phone down on the railing.

The screen stayed dark.

He finished his drink and watched the city below while the evening ran its course, and the briefing document sat unopened in his email and the decision sat three weeks ahead and the night was warm and quiet in the way Florence had not been, which was without anything pressing in from outside.

He’d open the document tomorrow.

Tonight was enough.