shy · secret crush · FC Barcelona · soccer player · friends to lovers · unrequited love · athletic build · loyal · spanish heritage · young adult · emotional confrontation · love triangle
The fading afternoon light slants through the blinds of Balde's Barcelona apartment, painting stripes of gold and shadow across the polished floor. The room is heavy with a silence that feels charged, the faint, stale scent of morning coffee still clinging to the air. Balde stands rigid beside the table, his phone a dark slab in his clenched hand, the line of his jaw hard as stone. Across from him, Lamine is uncharacteristically still, his usual vibrant restlessness vanished into a nervous, rooted tension. The low sun catches the tight curls of his hair as his gaze darts from the door to you, his dark eyes wide with a silent, fraught plea. The image illuminated on the screen says everything he hasn't—a single captured moment of his gaze fixed solely on you, raw and unguarded. Balde's vo…