My Ultimate Gacha System-Chapter 327 - 1: Summer Begins I

Monday, May 22, 2023 Centro Bortolotti Training Complex, Zingonia 9:34 AM

The recovery room was noisier than it had been all season, which wasn’t saying much because the recovery room was never noisy, but the difference was noticeable in how the conversations overlapped and nobody made any effort to keep them quiet.

Hateboer was already in the first ice bath with his arms folded across his chest and his eyes closed and his chin tilted up, and beside him Tolói had his phone balanced on the lip of the adjacent bath watching something with the volume low while his legs stayed submerged, and Scalvini was on the nearest massage table with a physio working on his left calf while he spoke at length about the apartment he’d looked at in Bergamo that he still hadn’t decided about.

"Forty-two hundred a month," Scalvini said to nobody specific, staring at the ceiling. "For three rooms. In Bergamo."

"Location?" the physio asked without changing rhythm.

"Near the Accademia. Nice street. But forty-two hundred."

"That’s not bad," Mæhle said from two tables over without looking up from his phone.

"For Denmark, maybe," Scalvini said.

Demien sat on the bench near the wall with a towel around his neck and his boots untied, and yesterday’s 2-1 win over Parma was already receding in the way final-day matches did — the season complete, the position confirmed, the number settled at seventy-three points in fourth, and the relief of it had converted overnight into the particular lightness that came from realising there was nothing left to prepare for.

Koopmeiners emerged from the shower room still toweling his hair and sat on the bench beside Demien while reaching for his bag, and his voice was casual in the way that matched the room’s temperature.

"You going somewhere?" he asked.

"What?" Demien said.

"For the break. Where are you going?"

Demien considered it because he hadn’t actually decided. "I might stay in Bergamo for a bit," he said. "I don’t know yet."

Koopmeiners looked at him with mild disbelief. "You’re staying in Bergamo."

"Maybe," Demien said. "I haven’t planned anything."

"The whole city smells like pre-season if you stay too long," Koopmeiners said, and he pulled a shirt from his bag. "My family are coming out. We’re going to Portugal for two weeks, then back to see my brother." He paused. "You could just go somewhere. Anywhere. You’ve earned two weeks of not being here."

"I know," Demien said. "I’ll work it out."

Koopmeiners shrugged once and didn’t push it, and the conversation moved naturally to nothing important — Hateboer’s claim that Sardinia was overrated, which produced a strong counter-argument from Mæhle who had been there twice, and then Scamacca’s assessment of Ibiza that made Lookman laugh from the other side of the room.

At five past eleven De Roon came through the door from the corridor and his expression had the mild amusement that meant something had just been confirmed rather than speculated, and he leaned against the doorframe rather than sitting.

"England confirmed the camp dates," he said, and his voice carried across the room without effort. "Twenty-seventh of June." His eyes found Demien. "You’ll be there."

"He already knows," Lookman said.

"I’m telling him officially," De Roon said.

"The camp was already announced two weeks ago," Demien said.

"Right, but now you’ve actually had the season you’ve had," De Roon said, and his tone was matter-of-fact without being a speech, "so now it’s not a question anymore, is it. Before, they were watching. Now they have no choice." He pushed off the doorframe. "Southgate’s going to build the midfield around you eventually. That’s where it’s going."

"That’s a lot of steps ahead," Demien said.

"Obviously," De Roon said. "I’m just telling you what direction it’s going." He moved toward the water station. "You’re nineteen and you just won a cup and finished joint top scorer in Serie A. There are no more question marks."

The room had gone slightly quieter during that exchange in the way rooms did when something was said that everyone already thought but hadn’t put out loud, and then Hateboer said something about Southgate’s substitution patterns that redirected the energy back into banter, and the noise level returned to where it had been.

Dining Hall 11:03 AM

Gasperini was already standing at the front of the dining hall when the squad filtered in, and the room was the one space in the complex that felt domestic rather than functional — round tables, chairs, the smell of coffee from the machine near the wall, natural light from the wide windows that looked out onto the secondary pitches where the groundskeeping crew were working.

Players settled into chairs without arrangement, and the room filled without being full, and when the movement stopped Gasperini looked around once before speaking.

"Season’s done," he said, and the words were exactly that simple. "Seventy-three points. Fourth place. Champions League football secured." He paused. "Coppa Italia champions." He let that one sit for half a second because it earned it. "That’s what this group did this year. You should know that properly."

He didn’t gesture and he didn’t smile and he didn’t tell them it had been a journey, because it had been a job and he talked about it like a job.

"Four weeks off from today," he said. "International players — call-ups are coming this week. Be ready to travel. Represent this club correctly." He looked at the group once more. "Everyone else back here June twenty-sixth. Pre-season starts at eight. Not eight-fifteen. Eight." He paused. "Don’t come back overweight. Any questions?"

Nobody had questions.

"Good," Gasperini said, and he walked out of the dining hall through the side door that led directly to the coaches’ corridor, and that was the end of the season.

Players collected belongings from lockers for the next forty minutes, and the process had the loose, intermittent quality of an ending — drawers pulled open, personal items found at the backs of shelves, spare boots wrapped in carrier bags. The music was on now at a reasonable volume and conversations crossed between locker spaces without direction.

Scamacca was the first to leave properly, wheeling a large holdall toward the exit with his phone to his ear while his voice carried back through the corridor in Italian too fast to follow, and Mæhle followed close behind after a round of handshakes that moved down the row of players still present.

Lookman stood at his locker for longer than the task required, folding his training kit with more care than it needed, and when he finished he picked up his bag and stopped beside Demien.

"You’re actually staying in Bergamo," he said.

"For a bit," Demien said.

"That’s the most you thing I’ve ever heard," Lookman said, and he sounded more fond than critical. "Go somewhere, man. At minimum go to Milan and see Sophia for a week. Don’t just sit in your apartment watching Genoa footage."

"I’m not going to watch Genoa footage," Demien said.

"You absolutely are," Lookman said. "I know you." He picked up his bag. "Call me when you figure out what you’re doing." He clapped Demien’s shoulder once and walked toward the exit.

Koopmeiners was the last midfielder to leave, and he stopped on his way out and stuck his hand out and Demien shook it.

"Good season," Koopmeiners said.

"Good season," Demien replied.

That was enough.

The facility emptied gradually, cars pulling out of the car park in ones and twos while the sounds of the complex shifted back toward the quiet it held during off-weeks, and by twelve-thirty the main corridor was empty except for the permanent staff moving through their end-of-season routines.