He flew back to Dortmund on the twenty-second of June.
Lagos to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Dortmund, the specific reverse of the journey he had made in January except now he was carrying different weight — not the uncertainty of arrival but the accumulated certainty of a season completed, a trophy won, a shirt worn, a country visited and left and carrying him with it even as the plane moved north.
Chidi picked him up from the airport.
They drove through Dortmund in the early evening — the city in its summer version, warmer and looser than the Germany Richard had arrived to in January, the streets doing the specific thing that northern European cities did in late June when the light stayed until ten and the whole place seemed to exhale after the compression of winter.
Richard watched it through the window.
The yellow and black still everywhere. More of it since Munich — new flags in windows, new scarves, the specific accumulation of a city that had won something and intended to display it for as long as social norms permitted and possibly slightly longer.
A Champions League pennant in the window of the pharmacy he passed every day on the way to training.
A handwritten sign in the bakery — he could see it from the car as they passed Märkische Strasse: DANKE, RICHARD. Thank you, Richard.
He looked at it until it was behind them.
"Helga put that up the morning after Munich," Chidi said. "It's been there three weeks."
Richard said nothing.
Just let the city be what it was.
His city.
For now.
The house was exactly as he had left it.
Which meant Chidi had been in — the surfaces clean, the kitchen orderly, the succulent on the windowsill alive and slightly larger than it had been in May. Someone had watered it. Richard looked at it for a moment.
"I watered it twice," Chidi said, behind him. "She told me to."
"She?" Richard said.
"Ella. She knocked three days after you left and asked if anyone was looking after the plant. I said I was." A pause. "I was not. She gave me instructions."
Richard looked at the succulent.
Still alive. Still growing.
He put his bag down.
Stood in the kitchen for a moment.
The shelf was visible through the living room doorway — fifteen awards, the space around them. He would need to add things. The Champions League medal. The tournament awards. The physical objects that Munich had produced.
He had left them in Dortmund before going to Lagos — sent ahead by Evan's office, stored carefully, waiting for his return.
Tomorrow.
Tonight was just the house and the quiet and the return.
The knock came at eight-thirty.
Ella.
He opened the door and she looked at him with the expression she used when something was too large for her usual energy to contain — the quieter version, the genuine version.
"You're back," she said.
"I'm back," he said.
She stepped forward and put her arms around him briefly — the embrace of someone who had watched a season from the beginning and had been there for enough of it to have earned the right to the embrace.
He held her back.
Then she stepped back and her usual energy returned like a switch had been flipped.
"Krause wants to see you," she said. "He won't come over himself because he'll say he doesn't want to intrude. He does want to intrude. He has been sitting in his kitchen waiting for you to arrive." She paused. "He looked out his window four times while I was standing here."
Richard looked at Krause's house.
The kitchen light on.
"Tomorrow morning," Richard said. "Coffee."
"I'll tell him," Ella said.
She left.
Richard stood at the door for a moment.
The street quiet in the June evening. Yellow and black in the windows of every third house.
He went inside.
Made tea.
Stood at the kitchen window.
The garden fully green in June — more growth than May, the flowers along the fence properly open, the specific quality of a garden in the right season.
He looked at it for a long time.
Then picked up his phone.
Evan had called twice during the Lagos week and once during the Abuja camp. Richard had responded briefly both times — not yet, after Nigeria — and Evan had accepted this with the professionalism of an agent who understood that some things had their correct timing.
Now Richard called him.
Evan answered on the first ring.
"You're back," Evan said.
"Last night," Richard said. "I'm ready to talk."
A brief pause — the pause of a man who had been managing a very large and very loud situation for three weeks and was now receiving the information he had been waiting for.
"Wednesday," Evan said. "In person. You, me, Amara. The full picture." He paused. "Are you ready for the full picture?"
Richard looked at the garden.
"Yes," he said.
"Wednesday," Evan said. "Ten AM. My office."
He hung up.
Richard put the phone down.
Picked up his tactical notebook.
Opened it to a blank page.
Looked at it for a moment.
Then wrote nothing.
Closed it.
Some things were not for notebooks.
He went to Krause's at nine the following morning.
The old man opened the door before he knocked — of course — and looked at him for a moment in the doorway with the expression that was beyond the dry humor and beyond the warmth and was simply the expression of someone who had watched something from the beginning and was now looking at what it had become.
"Coffee," Krause said.
They sat at the kitchen table.
The 1997 Champions League final programme was on the shelf in the corner where it always was. The squad photograph from the same year. The specific accumulated history of forty-one years of supporting one club on every surface of the room.
Richard looked at it all.
"Nigeria," Krause said.
"Two matches," Richard said. "Two goals. Two assists."
Krause nodded. "I watched both." A pause. "The cross for Osimhen in the second match. The outside of the right boot. The timing." He paused. "That pass has won you things before."
"A few times," Richard said.
Krause drank his coffee.
"The summer," he said.
Not a question. Not an opening — a statement. The word placed on the table between them the way Krause placed everything — deliberately, without ceremony.
"Wednesday," Richard said. "Full meeting. Evan. Amara."
"And then you decide," Krause said.
"And then I decide," Richard said.
Krause was quiet for a moment.
"I will not tell you what to decide," he said. "That would be incorrect. You are not a child. This is not a small decision." He paused. "I will say one thing." He looked at Richard directly. "Whatever you decide — decide it for the right reasons. Not for money. Not for pressure. Not for what other people expect or want." He paused. "For what the football tells you. For what the game asks of you next." He looked at his coffee. "The same see that tells you where the pass goes. Trust it."
Richard looked at him.
Okocha had said the same thing in Victoria Island.
Trust what you see.
"Okay," he said.
"Good," Krause said. "More coffee."
Tuesday evening Amara called.
She had been in contact intermittently through the Lagos week and the Abuja camp — professional messages mostly, the financial administration of a summer that was generating significant commercial activity around Richard's name. Clean, efficient, warm at the edges.
Tonight felt different.
"Wednesday," she said. "I've prepared the full picture. Every scenario. Every number." A pause. "It's significant, Richard. All of it. The decisions being presented to you are — they are not small decisions."
"I know," he said.
"I want to say something before Wednesday," she said. "Professionally." A pause. "Whatever you decide — I have built financial structures around every scenario. You will be protected and positioned correctly regardless of the choice." Another pause, longer. "That is my job and I have done it."
"Thank you," he said.
A pause.
"Personally," she said. The word placed carefully, the distinction between professional and personal acknowledged directly for the first time.
He waited.
"Personally," she said again. "I think you know. I think you have known for a while. I think the decision is already made somewhere underneath everything else and Wednesday is the process of making it official." A pause. "That is not professional advice. That is — observation."
Richard sat with that.
"You sound like Krause," he said.
A brief surprised pause. Then, quietly: "Is that a compliment?"
"Yes," Richard said.
A silence that was warmer than the professional silences.
"Wednesday," she said. "Ten AM."
"Wednesday," he said.
She hung up.
Richard sat in the quiet of the house for a long time.
The succulent on the windowsill.
The shelf in the living room with the empty space where the Munich awards would go.
The garden through the window, fully green in June.
He thought about what Amara had said.
The decision is already made somewhere underneath everything else.
He thought about whether she was right.
He thought about the poster above the desk on Akinsanya Street.
He thought about the tifo at the Allianz Arena. VON LAGOS BIS MÜNCHEN. UNSER JUNGE.
He thought about Flick's words on the pitch after the final. The football you play belongs in the Camp Nou.
He thought about Dortmund's sporting director calling during extra time. Before the result.
He thought about all of it simultaneously and found that simultaneously was the correct way to think about it — not resolving any one piece but holding all of them together and feeling the weight of the whole picture.
He was still thinking when he went to bed.
He was still thinking when he finally slept.
Wednesday morning.
He was awake at six.
Made coffee.
Stood at the kitchen window.
The Dortmund morning — the street quiet, the yellow and black in the windows, Krause's kitchen light already on at this hour, Helga's bakery two streets away already producing the smell that had been part of his morning since February.
He looked at all of it.
Felt all of it.
Then he got ready.
And went to find out what he had already decided.
Evan's office was in the city center.
Richard arrived at nine fifty-five. Chidi drove him — as always, the morning quiet between them, Chidi understanding that this was not a morning for conversation.
At the door Chidi said: "Whatever you decide."
Richard looked at him.
"Whatever you decide," Chidi said again. "Is the right one. Because it's yours."
Richard nodded.
Went in.
The office.
Evan behind the desk. Amara in the chair to the left — her laptop open, documents arranged with the specific organization that was entirely her, the financial picture laid out and ready.
Richard sat across from both of them.
Evan looked at him for a moment.
"Before we go through everything," Evan said. "I want to confirm one thing. Real Madrid."
"No," Richard said.
"Final answer. No further discussion required?"
"No further discussion required," Richard said.
Evan made a note. "I will communicate that clearly and finally this week." He paused. "They will come back one more time."
"The answer will be the same," Richard said.
Evan nodded. Moved on.
"The full picture," he said. "Amara."
Amara opened her laptop.
"I have modeled four scenarios," she said. "New Dortmund contract. Barcelona. Manchester City. PSG." She looked at Richard. "I excluded Real Madrid per your instruction. I also excluded clubs whose approaches were preliminary rather than serious — there were several." She paused. "The financial difference between the four scenarios is significant but not determinative — meaning money alone does not clearly point in one direction." She paused. "Which means the decision is footballing and personal rather than financial. Which is where it should be."
She walked through the numbers.
Richard listened. Processed. Asked two questions — specific, technical, the questions of someone who had been paying attention in the meetings with Amara since January and understood the vocabulary she used.
She answered both clearly.
When she finished Evan leaned forward.
"Dortmund's offer," he said. "The sporting director asked me to convey something specific when I presented it to you. He said — this is not a contract. This is an invitation to build something. The Champions League was the beginning. We want to build the next five years around you." He paused. "He also said — we called during extra time. You know what that means."
Richard looked at the table.
"Barcelona," Evan said. "Flick spoke to you directly. The formal approach through the club has been made. The financial offer is — significant. The sporting project is genuine. They have Yamal. They have Pedri. They are building toward something." He paused. "Flick's specific message when he made the approach: the Camp Nou is waiting."
The room was quiet.
Richard looked at his hands.
The Camp Nou is waiting.
He thought about the poster.
He thought about Yamal on the pitch after the final — the jersey exchange, good season, next year.
He thought about what next year meant.
He thought about Krause's kitchen and Ella's pastries and Helga's sign in the bakery window — DANKE, RICHARD — and the tifo and the Yellow Wall and the city that had put his silhouette on a banner and written Our Boy beneath it.
He thought about his mother's voice note. This boy knows what he is for.
He thought about the wall on Akinsanya Street.
He thought about the Camp Nou at night.
The specific blue of the seats.
The greenest green.
He had thought about it for a long time.
He thought about it now, here, in this office, with Evan and Amara waiting.
And found — as Amara had said, as Krause had said, as Okocha had said — that the decision was already there.
Had been there for a while.
Underneath everything else.
He looked up.
Looked at Evan.
Looked at Amara.
Took a breath.
And said it.