It was already noon in Unique City yet the streets appeared to be almost void of anyone, but that was normal for the city during this time of the season.
While some of the countries surrounding them had already started getting snowfalls, all Bilbeth had seen was a few snowflakes and that was just for the cities near the coast.
The only way the citizens of Unique City could tell that they were in winter other than the calendar was that the weather was way colder than usual.
While the weather required people to wear thick clothing lest they catch a code, what they were experiencing was nothing compared to those living near the coast.
While the streets didn't have many people moving around in them, the buildings were surely bustling with a lot of people.
Cafes and restaurants where people brought their families to spend quality time during the holiday.
While the cheaper restaurants were filled with lots of civilians and visitors who came to spend their holidays in the city, the expensive ones had fewer people in them, and wherever they were fewer people, famous people got less attention, and because of that reason, the place was mostly filled with famous rich people.
Being a country that had football as their most important sport, footballers were the most popular bunch of people in all the cities of Bilbeth, and then when you're a superstar on the pitch, you dare not even take a walk on the street alone talk more of going to a space filled with lots of people.
As the sun slowly began to set, the streets slowly began to be filled with people, and by the time the sky was dark, the streets had gotten pretty lively.
Mateo agreed to grab dinner with Amber that evening and obviously, he had to take her to one of the expensive restaurants because dealing with a crowd was just not something he ever had the energy to handle.
The restaurant was on the twenty-second floor of a pretty tall skyscraper, and the interior was pretty nice and the reception was really good.
After getting there, the two got a seat and stood opposite each other.
There was this awkward silence between them as they waited for their order to arrive, and Amber kept turning her head to look sideways, it was obvious she wasn't feeling really comfortable.
Mateo on the other hand wasn't really feeling the awkwardness even after their order arrived.
It was after they began to eat that he noticed that she wasn't really being herself.
She had herself down the whole time so it was obvious she was avoiding his gaze.
"Hey, so, how was work today?"
He had to start a conversation to lighten up the mood.
"Everything went well, nothing out of the ordinary happened, it just went well." She replied.
"Oh, I see but can you please look at me when we're talking? You're the one who used to enjoy teasing me, what's with all the timidity now?"
After hearing him say that, Amber let out a sigh before slowly raising his gaze to look at him.
"Yeah, I miss those days, sorry I had to mess things up." She sighed.
"Yeah, you messed things up, but I think I may have overreacted a little, I'm sorry for that."
"You're apologizing?"
"Yeah, for overreacting a little." The winger replied with a poker face.
After keeping her gaze on his face for a while to see if anything would change, she let out a little chuckle before covering her mouth with her hand.
"I really can't take you seriously."
"Huh? What's funny?"
"Uh…it's nothing." She said before shaking her head. "I'm just glad you're talking to me again."
"Me too." The winger replied. "So, do you have any plans for the holiday?"
"I don't really know, I may head over to Spain to spend a week or two with my parents."
"Oh, I see." He uttered. "Maybe going to Spain would be nice." He muttered.
"Huh?"
"Nothing." He replied before shaking his head.
"Okay."
There was a little moment of silence between them before Mateo suddenly leaned a little closer to her.
"Hey, by any chance did you tell Sofia about the past few weeks?"
"No, I didn't tell her anything about it." She replied, staring directly into his eyes.
"Okay, that's good." He said before getting back in his seat.
When he got close to her like that, she was sort of expecting something else, but it turned out she was just way over her head, and now that he had backed away from her, she felt a sudden numbness in her heart.
______ _____
The players were given three days off after their victory against Lazio and that was Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
With the new week now here with the new day of Monday, it was time for the players to put their pleasures to the side and return to training.
Their match against Villarreal was by no means an important match for them at least, but that didn't mean they had to slack off, Norman wanted them to finish the group stage the way they started it, and he was keen on making sure that happened.
Losing against Villarreal just because they were already through to the next stage at the top of the table wasn't really going to make anybody angry apart from Norman, but it would show just how relaxed they could be in letting their guard down when they see things going their way, and that was something Norman didn't want his team to become that.
Before the start of the training, he told them that they were going to be doing something pretty special today, but it was mainly for the forwards.
However, that didn't mean everybody wasn't going to take part in it.
They started by running a couple of laps around the pitch, then they did some stretches and quick rondos.
After all that, it was time for the special training session Norman told them about.
They could already tell what it was going to be about because they could see one of the assistant coaches attaching a target right at the left-hand corner of the goalpost but it looked really small, and some of them doubted that a ball would be able to go through there.
Now that the target was fixed, Norman turned his gaze to the players to explain it.
"I believe you guys already know the drill, just get the ball through the hole, from twenty-five yards out."
"Okay, but isn't that hole a little too small?" Harry inquired.
"Yeah, it looks small but I think it's just size meant for the ball to go through, that means we'll have to be extra careful if we want to get the ball through," Mateo explained before Norman could say anything.
"Nice observation, Mateo, perhaps you should go first."
"Okay."
The winger picked up one of the balls and dropped it on the spot just twenty-five yards away from the goalpost and after that, he slowly took three steps backward.
A few milliseconds later, he quickly closed up on the ball and fired it toward the target.
The ball flew straight toward the target and ended up smashing right through the hole to the surprise of everyone including Mateo himself.
"That was nicely done."
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