By the time Lamii left the academy, the sun had already begun its slow fall.
The orange light stretched over the training ground, long and tired, like even the day itself had been forced through drills. The grass still smelled fresh, cut short and sharp, but Lamii's body felt heavy. His legs ached. His shoulders burned. His ribs still remembered the tackles from the Ego Test. And yet none of that was the real reason his chest felt tight.
It was the feeling.
That strange feeling.
The kind that stayed under your skin long after the whistle ended.
Someone had been watching.
He could not prove it. No one had said anything clearly. No coach had called his name. No letter had been placed in his hands. But the academy had changed in one day. Players were whispering in corners. Passing rumours like contraband. Some swore a scout from France had been there. Others said a giant club from Spain had sent someone in secret. Nobody knew the truth.
But everybody felt it.
And once a young player feels eyes on him, football changes.
It is no longer just joy.
It becomes judgment.
Lamii walked home with his training bag slung over one shoulder, his boots knocking softly against his hip with every step. The streets felt quieter than usual. He passed a bakery where warm bread scented the air, passed a group of little kids kicking a torn ball between two backpacks used as goalposts, passed old men arguing over football outside a café as if the fate of the world depended on one missed pass from years ago.
He slowed down when he saw the kids.
One of them was small.
Too small compared to the others.
But every time the ball touched his feet, the game bent around him. The bigger boys chased. The smaller one escaped. One touch. Two. A quick feint. Then a finish rolled calmly between the makeshift posts.
The little boy didn't celebrate wildly. He only smiled.
Lamii stared for a second longer than he meant to.
That used to be him.
Maybe it still was.
He walked again, but his mind stayed behind on that street.
A small player with a big dream.
A dangerous combination.
At home, the apartment carried the soft warmth of evening. His mother was already in the kitchen, and the smell of tomatoes, garlic, and olive oil drifted through the hallway like a hand pulling him inside. There was comfort in that smell. The kind of comfort that reminded him he was still a boy, no matter how many academy systems ranked him or how many defenders tried to crush him into the grass.
"You're late," his mother called without turning around.
Lamii dropped his bag gently near the door. "Training."
She finally glanced back at him and narrowed her eyes. "Not just training."
He tried to shrug it off, but mothers saw through the lies that didn't even leave his mouth.
"I'm fine."
"Mm." She returned to the stove. "That means you are thinking too much."
Lamii sat down at the small table in silence.
The television in the corner was on low volume, a football program showing highlights from past Champions League nights. The bright lights of giant stadiums flashed across the screen. Crowds. Flags. Players running beneath the anthem that made every footballer in Europe feel like the game had become something holy.
Lamii looked up.
Then stopped moving entirely.
A replay began.
Barcelona.
Under the lights.
Blue and red shirts are moving across the field like fire and rhythm together.
Then he saw him.
Lionel.
Not as a distant legend in a poster.
Not as a name in stories.
But alive in motion.
Gliding past defenders as if they were standing in slow water. The left foot is attached to the ball with an invisible string. Eyes up. Calm. Deadly. He drifted inside and bent the shot into the far corner.
The net moved.
The crowd exploded.
The commentator screamed the goal as if language itself could not keep up with the moment.
Lamii leaned forward without realising it.
His mother noticed.
"You've seen that goal before."
"I know."
"But you still watch."
Lamii didn't answer.
Because the truth was simple.
He would watch it a thousand times and still feel the same thing.
Not envy.
Not exactly.
Something heavier.
Calling.
After dinner, the apartment darkened slowly except for the light of the television and the streetlamps outside. Rain began to tap softly against the window, thin and steady. His mother sat across from him with a basket of folded laundry, while Lamii sat close to the screen, elbows on knees, eyes fixed on the football like he was trying to look through the image and enter it.
Another Champions League replay started.
Another Barcelona night.
Another number ten.
Another reminder that football could make one player feel larger than life.
His mother watched him for a long moment before speaking.
"You know why people remember number ten?"
Lamii looked at her. "Because the best players wear it."
She smiled faintly. "That is what children think."
He frowned. "Then why?"
She folded a shirt, slow and careful.
"Because when the game becomes hard, people look at number ten."
Lamii said nothing.
She continued.
"They do not look for excuses. They do not look for the defender. They do not even look for the coach. They look for the player who must create something when there is nothing. The player who carries imagination when others carry fear."
Her words settled into the room.
Outside, the rain tapped harder.
On the screen, the number ten moved again, carrying the ball under pressure, surrounded by bigger men who wanted to stop him with force.
Still he kept moving.
Still he found a way.
His mother looked toward the television, too.
"People call him a star," she said. "But stars are far away. Heroes are different."
Lamii swallowed. "What's the difference?"
"A star shines," she said. "A hero gives people something to believe in."
The sentence hit him harder than any tackle.
Because suddenly he understood why the number mattered.
It wasn't only talent.
It was a burden.
It was a promise.
It was the shirt that said: When things break, fix them.
When the game is dark, create light.
When everyone is losing courage, be the reason they keep believing.
Lamii looked back at the screen, but now he was seeing more than football.
He was seeing weight.
Later that night, he went to his room.
The walls were simple. A few football posters, old academy schedules, medals from youth tournaments that now looked too small compared to the dreams growing inside him. On a shelf near the bed sat a framed photo wrapped carefully in plastic to protect it.
He picked it up with both hands.
His fingers traced the edges.
The photo was old, a little faded, but to Lamii it felt more alive than anything in the room.
A baby.
A legend.
A moment.
Lionel holding him as an infant, as if destiny had once passed through a camera lens before either of them could understand what it meant.
Lamii stared at it for a long time.
As a child, the photo had felt magical.
Now it felt dangerous.
Because a picture like that can become a blessing.
Or a curse.
A blessing, if it inspires you.
A curse, if it makes you chase a ghost instead of building yourself.
He sat on the edge of his bed with the frame in his lap.
Could anyone really live with that kind of dream?
To wear the blue and red shirt one day.
To hear the Champions League anthem not from a television speaker but from the tunnel.
To walk onto a perfect pitch while the world watched.
To wear number ten.
That last thought tightened something in his chest.
Number ten.
He whispered it to himself.
Not with arrogance.
With hunger.
He imagined the shirt on his back.
Not oversized as a child pretending in the mirror.
Not borrowed.
Earned.
He imagined the name above the number.
Lamii.
He imagined a full stadium rising as he touched the ball. He imagined defenders backing away for one second too long. He imagined cutting inside with his left foot and sending the ball into the top corner. He imagined lifting the Champions League trophy. He imagined kissing the badge. He imagined children in the crowd wearing his number because he had become the reason they believed.
The images came so fast they almost hurt.
Then the doubt arrived just as quickly.
What if the dream was too big?
What if all of this—the academy, the rankings, the whispers, the scouts—was only a small flame that would die before it became anything real?
What if bigger players crushed him?
What if he stayed only a talented kid with a good left foot and no future strong enough to survive professional football?
His hand tightened around the frame.
For the first time that day, fear entered fully.
Not fear of losing a match.
Not fear of being tackled.
Fear of not becoming who he had already begun to see in his own mind.
That fear was worse than pain.
Because once a dream becomes clear, ordinary life starts to feel like failure.
A soft knock came at his door.
His mother stepped in without waiting.
She saw the picture in his hand and understood immediately.
"Heavy, isn't it?" she asked.
Lamii looked down. "Sometimes I don't know if it's helping me."
She sat beside him.
"You think that picture means you must become him."
Lamii didn't deny it.
She shook her head gently. "No. It only means life showed you something early."
He looked at her.
She touched the frame lightly.
"This is not a command. It is a reminder."
"Of what?"
"That dreams can be real enough to touch."
Lamii stared ahead in silence.
She continued, voice quieter now.
"You do not need to become Lionel. Football already had one. The world does not need a copy. It needs the best version of you."
The room fell still.
Rain whispered against the window.
From somewhere outside came the distant sound of a car, then silence again.
"But if you want that shirt," she said, "if you want that number, then understand this well."
Her voice sharpened just a little.
"You cannot only be talented."
Lamii lifted his eyes.
"You must be stronger than disappointment. Smarter than pressure. Calmer than the noise. You must survive days when nobody believes. You must improve when no one is watching. And when they finally do watch… You must make them remember."
Each sentence landed like truth hammered into place.
No sugar.
No fantasy.
Just the road.
He breathed out slowly.
The dream was still there. Huge. Heavy. Bright enough to blind him if he stared too directly at it.
But now it looked less like a fantasy and more like a mountain.
Something difficult.
Something real.
Something climbed step by step.
His mother stood and moved toward the door, then stopped.
"One more thing."
Lamii looked up.
She smiled.
"When people see number ten, they want a hero. So become one the right way."
He frowned slightly. "What's the right way?"
"Earn every inch."
Then she left him alone.
Lamii sat in the dark for several minutes after that, the photo still in his hands.
He looked at it again.
The baby in the image knew nothing of pressure.
Nothing of rankings.
Nothing of scouts from Monaco or silent men in dark jackets watching from the stands.
But the boy holding that photo now knew enough.
Enough to understand that talent opened the door, but mentality kept it from closing.
Enough to understand that dreams were not soft things.
They had weight.
They pressed on your back.
They demanded shape from your life.
Slowly, Lamii stood.
He set the photo back on the shelf, but not before placing it at the front where he could see it the moment he woke up.
Then he went to the mirror.
He looked at himself.
Not at a future star.
Not at a chosen one.
At a boy still growing into his own body, with tired eyes, bruised ribs, and a left foot that could change games if trained hard enough.
He spoke quietly to his reflection.
"If they are watching…"
He paused.
The sentence felt too important to rush.
He straightened his shoulders.
His eyes sharpened.
"I'll give them something they can't forget."
He turned off the light.
But sleep did not come quickly.
Because dreams, real dreams, do not let you rest easily.
In the dark, Lamii heard the crowd from his imagination again.
He heard the Champions League anthem.
He saw the blue and red shirt.
He saw the number ten.
And somewhere between hope and hunger, between fear and fire, one truth became clear:
The dream was no longer just inside him.
It had begun to shape him.
And tomorrow, when the academy gates opened again, Lamii would return carrying more than ambition.
He would return carrying the weight of a future he had chosen for himself.
Not because it was easy.
Not because it was guaranteed.
But because some dreams are so powerful that once they touch your life, you either run from them forever…
or spend every breath trying to become worthy of them.