It all began on a nice spring day. As usual, the national football team of Valory was on a hard training session, after all, the continent's next biggest competition was about to start in only one year. The most skilled footballers were carefully selected across the country. Most of them were already in the team from a long time ago, with the exception of one of them, who was the replacement for one of the best retired footballers. His name was Victor Crawford, a lean and muscular, dark-skinned guy, selected for his outstanding skills on the field.

“Okay lads, enough for today, go cool off.” Said the coach, Barley, who was really proud. “By the way, amazing job, Jack, you were on fire this week.” Barley genuinely had a lot of hope for the team.

“Thanks, Barley.” Jack was grateful for the recognition.

Jack Lawrence was a tall, burly dude, with blonde, fairly long hair. He was clearly built like a big rock that no one could ever move. He was a simple person, when someone told him to describe himself, he didn't say too much. He liked football, sports, loved his family and friends, liked parrots, sushi and lasagna.

Crawford and Lawrence knew about the existence of each other, as they'd been playing as a team for a while, but they never spoke a lot, in fact, they didn't speak at all. Most of the team already befriended Crawford, except Jack Lawrence and a few people. However, he did really admire Lawrence, he was probably his favorite footballer in the national football team, but he never dared to speak to him, even if he really wanted to.

Despite that, today was different. Crawford prepared to start a conversation with Jack, who was sitting on the bench after losing track of time due to the long training session. 

He wanted to tell him something like ‘Hey, Lawrence. You are an inspiration to me’, however, the mixture of nerves and stammering made him blurt out an awkward phrase that Jack could not understand. Nevertheless the blonde guy simply nodded as he pretended that he knew what Crawford said.

Crawford felt a terrible sense of shame, trying to convince himself that Lawrence would probably forget about the situation either way.

On the other hand, Jack just glanced at him for a moment.

“Is this dude from the team?” He thought, a little bit confused. Jack Lawrence was not very good at remembering faces, on the contrary, he couldn't concentrate on anything other than football, he tended to get distracted easily. Leo Burton, another footballer from the team, sat down next to Lawrence, who immediately asked him for the awkward guy.

“Hey Leo, who is that dark-skinned dude who came up to me earlier?”

“I think you are talking about Crawford”

Lawrence snapped his fingers. “Ah yeah, Crawford.”

“He is relatively new to the team, since Johnson retired.”

“Oh, right… I kinda miss that guy. He was a charming lad.” Lawrence felt a little bit upset.

“Yep, but he was a bit out of practice, he needed to rest. And Crawford seems to be good at this football thing.”

“I guess, I've never paid so much attention to him.”

“Jack, you never pay attention to anyone.” said Leo, chuckling.

Jack packed his stuff and left the field faster than he usually did.

“Crawford…” He whispered, as he was walking towards his car.

Before driving, he decided to look for him on Instagram. saw his profile picture, and immediately followed him. Lawrence usually closed people's profiles after following them. But this time, he had a strong urge to scroll down from recent to his old posts. After that, he went home, unable to get Crawford's incomprehensible words out of his mind.

Crawford had recently moved from his parents house in his natal city to the capital of Valory, and bought an apartment on his own, after all, professional footballers have a high salary, despite this, it was still something impressive for a twenty one years old guy. His new home was a bit empty, but it had a couch in which he threw himself onto after. No sooner had he switched on his phone than he noticed the notification from Jack Lawrence following him back, leaving him stunned as he looked at the bright screen.

Crawford decided to take a look at Jack Lawrence's profile, taking care not to accidentally ‘like’ one of his posts. Then, he closed Instagram and let out a deep sigh, contemplating his actions today, and wondering whether it would be worth continuing talking to his idol.