Manchester has a temperate maritime climate. It is mild and rainy all year round, so even in the hottest part of summer, the temperature barely rises above 20 degrees Celsius, and it never really feels hot.
In the coldest part of winter, the temperature rarely drops below 0 degrees. It simply rains often.
On Christmas morning, Ethan lay in bed, listening to the pitter-patter of rain outside the window.
After spending half a year in Manchester, Ethan was already familiar with that sound, and he could naturally guess what the weather was like outside.
He grabbed the quilt on the bed and pulled it over his head. Ethan felt that this kind of weather was perfect for a lonely man like him, someone who could not find anything to do outside.
"Lonely, lonely Christmas. Merry, merry Christmas. Who can I send the card I wrote to? My heart is broken like scraps of paper scattered along the street. No one answers the phone. Don't let anyone discover that I have been locked in my room all night. The sound of celebration feels like funeral music. The tears in my eyes are warm, but they seem frozen. I stare at the dull programs on TV, lying on the sofa, slowly turning into a numb vegetable."
This perfectly reflected Ethan's current mood.
Two days ago, when Walsh reminded him that Christmas was coming, Ethan had specifically gone to Curtis and Evra, hoping that the three lonely men could spend Christmas together. Who would have thought that Curtis's parents had decided to come over from London to spend Christmas with him, while Evra flew back to Paris yesterday. Ethan had even bought his ticket.
Walsh, Bruce, and Messi had all specially called to invite Ethan to spend the day with their families, but Ethan had declined them all. After all, they were families. During a holiday like this, it would be inconvenient for him to go over and trouble them.
No matter how bored he was, it was his own problem.
Previously, he had been busy with club matters, with things to do every day. Now that he was suddenly free, Ethan felt very unaccustomed to it and did not know what to do.
So he wandered around the apartment, looking at the rain from the windowsill, reading magazines on the sofa, or turning on the TV to watch programs. But boring time always passed especially slowly.
Just as Ethan was hesitating over whether to go out for a walk, the phone rang.
"Hi, Ethan, Merry Christmas!" As soon as the call connected, Eva's greeting came through.
"Merry Christmas! What made you suddenly think of calling me?" Ethan asked happily.
At such a boring time, receiving a call from a friend was undoubtedly a wonderful thing.
"I'm bored, so I called. I don't have many friends, so I could only call you. By the way, did I disturb you?" On the other end of the line, Eva was laughing, clearly in a good mood.
"Not at all. I'm bored too and don't know what to do!" Ethan said frankly.
"Yeah. Usually, I'm so busy that I wish I had some time off, but now that I'm finally resting, I find it so boring. Everyone else is busy celebrating the holiday, but I can only hide in my hotel room, bored."
"Are you still filming in Australia?" Ethan asked with a smile.
Regarding the two movies Ethan had suggested before, Eva had to turn down "Cast Away" because of a schedule conflict. After successfully passing the audition and finishing filming for "The Matrix," she joined the cast of "Gladiator," playing the Roman princess Lucilla in the film.
"Yes, but in a little while, the filming in Australia will be finished, and the crew will move to Farnham in the UK."
"That's right next to London," Ethan said with a smile.
Eva was silent for a moment on the other end of the line. "I don't think I'll be going back!"
"Did you have a falling out with your family?" Ethan tried asking.
"Hmm!" Eva hesitated for a moment before answering.
"Because you broke up with your boyfriend?" Ethan asked again.
There was another silence on the other end. After a while, she spoke again. "My mother liked him a lot and thought he was very good. I had a big fight with her over this. I feel sorry, but I have to stick to my own decision."
"Then I'm relieved. Fortunately, it isn't because of the reasons stated in the magazines!" Ethan deliberately joked.
Eva probably laughed too. "Actually, my family and I have always held very traditional views, so what the newspapers said wasn't entirely wrong, but that wasn't the main reason."
"That's fine. As long as you know what you're pursuing, you shouldn't hesitate."
Eva was happy to be understood by a friend, but she clearly did not want to dwell on this issue.
"By the way, tell me about you. You should be preparing to spend Christmas with your family now, right?"
Ethan gave a bitter smile. "My parents have both passed away. I'm all alone now!"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know!" Eva quickly apologized.
"It's okay. Actually, I'm not sad anymore, because I've found another family member."
"What?" Eva was a little curious.
Ethan said with a grin, "I treat the club like my son!"
Eva burst out laughing. She had truly never heard anyone say that before.
"It's really your boss's good fortune to be able to hire an employee like you!"
Ethan raised an eyebrow. So she thought he was working for someone else. Well, that was fine too.
"Seriously, I just realized that you and I don't have many common hobbies. You like movies and know nothing about football, while I like football and don't know much about movies, yet we can still be friends!"
"Perhaps this is what they call fate!"
"What do you usually like to do? I mean, after you finish filming," Ethan asked casually.
"Travel. I hope I can go everywhere. Also, when I'm at home, I prefer sleeping or watching TV."
"Heh, sleeping and watching TV are the things I like the least, but I also like traveling. I hope to have the chance to visit the home stadiums of all the world's football giants and experience the local football culture." Ethan was speaking of the wishes he had carried over from his previous life.
"You really are a hopeless football maniac!" Eva teased.
"Then you are a hopeless movie maniac!" Ethan retorted.
Two lonely and bored people, on this special holiday of Christmas, both with the mindset of killing time, chatted on the phone. Unexpectedly, they found some happiness in this long phone call and discovered a bit of holiday joy.
"Oh, shoot, I'm hungry!" Eva called out playfully on the other end.
"My God, you haven't eaten lunch yet? It's past 2 o'clock!" Ethan laughed with a hint of schadenfreude on his end, then ate his own freshly cooked packet of noodles.
Although the packet noodles in a foreign country tasted different from the ones he used to eat back home, eating them while chatting on the phone brought back some wonderful memories from Ethan's previous life. In the past, he used to eat packet noodles while watching football matches or playing on the computer.
"I didn't even eat breakfast. I just ordered lunch. Ugh, the food here isn't very good. I suddenly want something comforting, like a proper roast dinner or a plate of pasta. My mom used to say that people like us never feel settled unless we've had a proper meal!"
"Exactly. At the very least, I need something hearty with every meal now. For example, my favorite, steak and chips. Wow, that steak, fragrant, tender, juicy, and with a great bite. Oh, and a rich beef stew with warm bread. That thick, savory taste makes your mouth water..."
If Walsh, Bruce, and the others were here now, they would definitely be surprised, because they really had not realized that Ethan was such a chatterbox. When introducing his favorite foods, his eloquence was truly animated, making Eva on the other end of the line drool.
One had to admit that Ethan was quite eloquent, and the language he used was relatively colloquial and interesting. Ethan could always make Eva giggle with just one or two sentences.
Time passed unknowingly like this.
The two chatted from morning until afternoon, and then from afternoon until evening.
One really had to admire how compatible these two were. Eva had never heard of the topics Ethan talked about, but she was very interested, and Ethan had never heard of the topics Eva talked about, but he was equally interested. So the two of them took turns speaking, without feeling the passage of time at all.
The Christmas that he had originally expected to be quite difficult to get through passed in this one phone call. It was not until he woke up the next morning that Ethan discovered he had actually fallen asleep on the sofa in the living room last night, while his mobile phone was still plugged into the socket, charging.
"What a crazy Christmas!" Ethan twisted his aching neck and said with a bitter smile.
He really had not realized he could chat so much.
However, the price was certainly high. At least, sleeping curled up on the sofa meant his body was definitely going to suffer today.
He struggled to stand up from the sofa, walked back to his room to shower, brush his teeth, and change into clean clothes.
After going out, he came to the community entrance, took a bus, and arrived at the Newton Heath training ground office.
As soon as he entered the door, he saw that Walsh, Bruce, Cassel, and the others had arrived even earlier than him. When they saw Ethan, they all had suggestive expressions.
"Hey, guys, did you have a good night?" Ethan felt the atmosphere was a bit off, and after speaking, he walked over to pour a glass of water.
Perhaps it was the aftereffect of talking too much yesterday, because his throat still felt very dry.
"We were fine, but you must have had a good one too!" Bruce laughed with hidden meaning.
Ethan was stunned, not quite understanding.
"Confess. Who were you chatting with yesterday? You actually chatted for an entire day. I didn't know you could talk so much!" Walsh looked at Ethan with an expression that seemed to say, "I didn't know you had it in you."
Ethan laughed guiltily, but he was determined not to say a word.
"This is an untold secret!"
(To be continued.)