Become A Football Legend

"Who are you looking for?" Knauff asked, noticing Lukas's movements.

"Florian Wirtz. I really wanna talk to him."

"After what you did to him during the match, I doubt he would want to talk to you, though," Knauff responded, causing some players who were around them to burst out laughing.

"I don't think he's still here, but isn't the international break in two weeks? You'll both probably meet up there," Larsson said after he had stopped laughing.

"I haven't received any call-ups yet. I might not even be in consideration."

"Bullshit," Koch interjected. "They will most likely notify the club tomorrow or the day after. You will definitely be called up. Coach Nagelsmann isn't blind," he added.

"How can you be so sure that he's not?" Lukas thought before looking up at the stands.

Up in the stands, in one of the corporate hospitality boxes, a group of people — two men and a woman — watched the crowd sing Lukas's praises in silence.

They witnessed everything — Lukas pulling his team from 3-0 down to a 4-3 win in the final minute of extra time, the scenes after the fourth goal as the crowd embraced him, the cheers as Lukas peeled his shirt off his back and handed it to a young fan.

Everything.

They kept watching in silence as he now walked around the pitch applauding the fans for their support.

They could feel it.

The fans adored him so much.

A brief moment after Lukas left the pitch, the man sat in the middle of the group, donning a dark blue suit, spoke up.

"We're gonna have to review our offer considerably if we want to have him," the man said.

"I was just thinking the same thing. And once we initiate contact, you know it's only a matter of time before word spreads to the others. We could still be deliberating and one of them would snatch him up without blinking. Especially after his previous performance and now this masterpiece," the lady by the right responded.

"Doing this at only 16? Where have we ever seen something like this before?"

"I have never seen anything like it. Maybe only Pele was putting up numbers like this at that age."

"We had Pele, it's only right we have Lukas Brandt too," the man said with a smile. "You know what that means though, right?"

"Midnight shifts?"

"Exactly... Midnight shifts."

The man and woman by his side both made a grumbling face, but none of them uttered a single word from then on.

* * *

"Bro, you're disturbing me, I need to sleep," Lukas said, grunting as he turned on his bed. "Use a headset or something for God's sake."

"Sorry, man. It's just crazy the amount of press you're getting. Especially that last goal, they're gushing about it online," João responded as he reached down for his headset.

It was the night after the match, and after Lukas had gotten his fingers checked and cleared, he went with the gang who came to watch him play and they headed to the hotel they usually stay at.

As usual, he was sharing a huge room with João, Joanna had a room to herself, while Anne and Javi had their own room.

"Let me see," Lukas said as he stretched out his hands to João.

He scrolled through his Instagram and arrived at a post from 433.

"Scenes at the Deutsche Bank Park as 16-year-old Lukas Brandt scores the winner against Leverkusen in the 93rd minute," was the caption of the post with a front picture of Lukas screaming at the top of his lungs while grabbing the badge on his shirt.

He swiftly opened the comment section and immediately, a smile engulfed his face.

@bvbed: "This gotta be, hands down, one of the most dominant solo-performance a teenager has put up this century."

@Frankfurter4life: "I've been trying to tell you guys for the past 3 months but you wouldn't listen. Lukas is the truth!"

@Neverlosen: "I was at Frankfurt for the match, I can't lie, it was peak, can't hate the kid. Tf am I saying, of course I can hate the kid, HE'S TRASH!"

@ManSanMia: "This is the player we want this summer. And whoever we want, we are gonna get."

@SGElife: "Keep hallucinating @ManSanMia, he's not leaving the club. Already in the Balon d'Or conversation after 3 months, our own star!"

"Okay give me back my phone. Any more of that and your head would explode from all the praise," João said as he snatched his phone from Lukas and walked back to his bed.

"There are still enough haters to keep me grounded," Lukas responded.

"I guess that's true. There are always gonna be people that hate you no matter how good you are or get."

"Yeah. By the way, how was your game yesterday? Sorry I couldn't make it."

"That's okay. It was a 0-0 draw. Even with the defense, we couldn't score."

"You kept a clean sheet, so that's good. It's not your job to score. I will try and attend another match soon."

"That's okay. Come whenever you can. The local news would probably go crazy if you attend an under-19 Bundesliga match," João said as he laughed while imagining such a scenario.

"You think?"

"Of course! I don't think you understand how big of a star you are in Darmstadt and Frankfurt. I don't even know how your time at the Darmstadt academy is still not a big deal outside the town. Everybody in there knows, though, that's for sure."

"Thankfully it hasn't. It probably won't be long before it becomes news, though. Thinking about how my time in Darmstadt went, I can't even believe where I am now."

"Imagine how it must feel for me watching from the sidelines. It felt like you went from being dropped to becoming Maradona in the blink of an eye. I still haven't been able to wrap my head around how you did it."

"What can I say? It all just started to click one day. The years of training didn't go to waste."

"I'm so proud of you, man. I hope mine clicks too."

"You'll be great, bro, trust."

"I hope so, too. Anyway, I should let you sleep. Have a good nig—"

RING*

The sound of Lukas's phone ringing cut João off mid speech as Lukas answered the call in lightning-quick speed.

"Heyy... Yeah... I'll be right out," he said as he ended the call and got up from the bed immediately.

"Where are you going?" João asked, sitting up from his own bed.

"Where do you think I'm going?" Lukas asked as he threw on his shirt which was lying on the chair.

"Weren't you just complaining about being tired and wanting to sleep? Now you're off to see my sister?"

"What can I say? All of a sudden, I'm not that tired," Lukas responded as he grabbed his phone from his bed.

"Aren't you taking your jacket? It's cold outside, no?"

"I'm not leaving the hotel," Lukas said as he walked to the door.

"Where are you meeting, then? Her room? Motherfu—"

The door was slammed shut before João could complete his sentence.

"Haaa... I can't even get a full sentence in. They're in love, huh?.. I just hope they don't break up, and if they do, I hope it's not too messy.

Arghh! I'm getting a headache just thinking about it."

A/N: Final extra chapter for the gift. Thanks once again for the super gift.

Love y'all

-Writ