Leo had just entered the stadium and was only making way towards the locker room, but he could hear and feel them.

He slowed for half a step and shook his head slightly.

The message for the open session had gone out less than an hour ago, and it already sounded like that up there.

He made a few turns, and as he came up to it, he stalled for a moment and then pushed through the dressing room door.

The conversations inside broke immediately as heads turned, and as it did, three of the squad members closest to the door came forward before Leo had fully cleared the door and hugged him.

"Welcome, bro!"

"Welcome? I think I should be saying that. Man, how was the break?" Leo asked, moving through them.

"Spain," one of them said. "Two weeks. Needed it."

"Barbados," another offered. "Never going home."

As this went on, James McClean appeared from the other side of the room, wrapping a band across his wrist.

"What about you? How was yours?"

"Training mostly," Leo said as he tossed his bag onto a seat.

McClean stared at him for his answer and then raised his brow.

"The whole time?"

"Most of it."

"That’s not a holiday, that sounds like punishment!"

"We’ll have to wait and see!"

As the duo talked, a hand came down on Leo’s shoulder from behind, and he turned to find Darikwa, who looked at him with the expression of a man making a gentle but serious point.

"You keep this up," Darikwa said, "and Dawson’s going to start expecting the rest of us to do the same. You want him to think badly of us oldies?"

"Dawson already thinks badly of the rest of you," Leo said. "I can’t make that worse."

That got ripples of laughter echoing through the room, but before it could subside, the door swung open, and Jake came through it at full volume with Ezra behind him and looking like he was already tired of the morning.

Ben Amos looked up from his seat.

"Can someone send him back to the U21S?" he said.

"He’s too loud!"

Jake stopped, looked at Amos, then turned to the room with the expression of a man who needed witnesses.

"I scored on my debut," he said. "My debut. In a playoff semi-final. You need me!"

"Beginner’s luck," Amos said again, not looking up.

Jake huffed at that as he turned to face Leo, only for the latter to turn away.

Following this, Darikwa held Leo by the shoulder again and steered him a few paces to the left, where two men were standing slightly apart from the main group with the careful quietness of how you’d be in new surroundings.

"You know these two?" Darikwa said to Leo, which made the latter roll his eyes at the question.

O’Shea extended his hand first, to which Leo took, as the veteran defender proceeded to make some small talk.

"Looking forward to the season with you", he ended after realising he had gone on a bit too long.

After him, Leo turned to Seriki just a few feet away.

"It’s really good to have you," he said, looking at the duo before he turned around and scanned the room, only for Jake to stop him.

"Carlo’s outside with Dawson," he said.

Leo nodded.

"And the other one?"

"Not in yet," Darikwa said.

Leo’s eyes widened a bit at that since first impressions were something he took very seriously.

A second later, he shrugged and turned towards the locker with the number 8 on it. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

It was really going to take some getting used to since the place where Leo had dropped his bag earlier had been in front of the number 22 locker.

He sat, unzipped his boot bag, pulled out the dark neon green Skechers and began putting them on.

"Oi," McClean said from across the room, causing Leo to look up.

McClean was pointing at his feet, then at Jake’s, then at Ezra’s, his finger moving between the three of them with the expression of a man noticing something he wasn’t sure he was reading correctly.

"Are you lot matching?"

"Boot deal," Jake said, standing up and walking over to him.

He pointed at the boots and then at McClean. "You might not have seen one of these in your playing days."

The room went quiet for exactly one second and then didn’t.

"Oof, he got your Mac," Max Power said with a smile as he laced his own boots.

McClean looked at Jake for a long moment, and then he was on his feet in a snap.

His arm locked around Jake, who was struggling to get his head out of the noogie but couldn’t stop laughing despite that.

"Boot deal," McClean said, applying the noogie with commitment.

"Your agent must be doing miracles. Absolute miracles if he’s getting a boot deal for this, you."

Jake was trying to say something, but it wasn’t coming out clearly.

"What’s that?" McClean said. "Can’t hear you."

The room was fully gone at this point, with Fletcher wiping his eyes in the corner and Amos finally looking up from his phone.

McClean released Jake and sat back down before he straightened his shirt like nothing had happened.

Right after that, Dawson came in with Nolan behind him, and behind Nolan was Carlo, who peeled off immediately and came to stand beside Leo without making anything of it.

"Welcome," Leo mouthed as Carlo nodded once and then looked forward.

Dawson waited for the room to come down from whatever it had been doing and then looked around at his squad.

"This is the Wigan squad for the 2023/23 Wigan—"

Nolan touched his arm and leaned in.

Dawson listened to him for a moment before his jaw tightened slightly in reaction to whatever he had heard.

Then he closed his eyes briefly and then opened them.

"This is most of the Wigan squad," he said, "for the 2023/24 Premier League season."

The adjustment was subtle enough that only the people paying attention caught it.

"We’ve earned the right to be in this league," Dawson continued.

"There are going to be expectations, but honestly, to me, that is secondary. What we are to do now is play for ourselves because I do not want to go back to the Championship after tasting what it feels like here."

He looked around once more. "Let’s make it count."

After he was done, nobody spoke.

They all watched him, and Nolan turned before they followed right behind him as they filed out through the tunnel in ones and twos, first into the tunnel, then out of the tunnel.

Boots met the DW turf for the first time since the playoff final, and the sound that came down from the stands as they emerged was immediate.

The west and east ends were full, the north and south sparse but present.

After a moment, the announcer’s voice came across the speaker system, unhurried and clear.

"Ladies and gentlemen. Wigan Athletic. 2023/24."