The door clicked shut behind him, muffling the city's nighttime hum to a dull whisper.Demien shrugged off his jacket without ceremony, tossing it across the back of the nearest chair. The knot of his tie loosened with a sharp tug, though he left it hanging limp around his neck, forgotten. A breath left him slow and thin, the kind drawn from someone running on the last fumes of adrenaline.
The room felt heavy, quiet in a way the streets outside refused to be. Dim light from a single standing lamp threw long shadows across the bed, the desk, the half-unpacked suitcase still drooping open near the wall. Curtains swayed faintly, teasing in the cool coastal air.
Demien dropped onto the edge of the bed without thinking, hand groping for the remote buried among a scatter of match notes and empty water bottles.
The television blinked to life, volume muted, screen casting a pale glow that made the silence somehow thicker rather than lighter.
Local channel.Monaco sports coverage.Old footage from last season, looping endlessly like an afterthought.
He leaned back on his palms, half-watching without really seeing.Highlights rolled by: Morientes caught mid-laugh, signing autographs for a crowd of children near Stade Louis II's north stand.Cut to Giuly, stiff in front of a cluster of microphones, voice clipped, defensive even as the subtitles summarized banal answers.A drone-shot sweep over the stadium, workers welding the last bits of scaffolding as the renovations neared completion months ago.
Background noise.Nothing more.
Demien's muscles slackened, his mind floating somewhere between tactical revisions and pure blankness.For once, no mental overlay of formations ran behind his eyes.No player rotations clicked into place.No media countermeasures drafted themselves instinctively.
Just stillness.
Until a different voice cut across the static.
Sharper.Quicker.Alive.
The screen shifted to a small set staged against a neutral backdrop, two chairs angled for cameras, a potted plant shoved half-heartedly in one corner.
In one chair, Arsène Wenger — calm, composed, smoothing down the cuffs of a charcoal jacket.
In the other—
Demien's body leaned forward before his brain registered the motion.
Slim frame in a dark blazer, posture easy but alert.Eyes sharp, lips poised, microphone held with a natural grace that didn't beg for attention but demanded it anyway.
The title tag at the bottom of the screen read:
Clara Aubert — Rising Star Journalist.
She didn't defer.Didn't fumble with her notes or glance nervously off-camera.
When Wenger dodged a question about youth development structures, she cut in with a slight lift of an eyebrow, voice steady but edged:
"Respectfully, but if Monaco's system isn't failing, why are we losing local talent to rivals every season?"
Wenger blinked — not caught off guard, but forced to answer properly now.
Demien's mouth twitched, almost a smile, almost a smirk.
Not because of the question.Because of the way she sat, shoulders squared, focus pinned.As if the cameras didn't matter.As if Wenger's legend didn't matter.
The interview flowed on, quick but never hurried.
She listened when answers came, not waiting for her turn to speak, but ready to pivot when the response demanded it.Her laughter, when Wenger dropped a dry, self-deprecating comment about scouts preferring croissants to training sessions, flickered genuine — a quick flash of teeth, then gone, professionalism reasserting itself.
Demien caught that flicker.
Not the laugh itself — the control of it.The choice of it.
His thumb found the volume button on the remote, raising the sound barely two notches.
A shift in lighting from the TV threw new shadows across the carpet, coloring the walls in soft blues and grays.
The room, once muted and forgettable, sharpened in edges and corners.
His heartbeat didn't quicken. His breathing stayed level.But something small inside tilted toward the screen, the same way instinct leans toward an opening in a defensive line — not because it's planned, but because it matters.
Demien sat forward, forearms braced loosely against his thighs, eyes narrowed slightly, studying without realizing he was studying.
Clara pushed Wenger once more before the end — polite but unflinching — asking whether he believed clubs had a duty to develop players beyond profits.
The camera caught her smile again, polite on the surface, blades just beneath.
Demien didn't notice the footage ending until the next clip rolled by — another press scrum, another day — faceless noise once again.
He leaned back slowly, the mattress sighing under his weight.The remote slipped from his fingers onto the bedspread without protest.
Faint laughter spilled from the bar downstairs, barely audible through thick hotel walls.
Monaco's nightlife pulsed faintly beyond the window.Inside, the air remained thick, slow, filled only with the last echo of a conversation replayed from months ago.
Demien exhaled through his nose, not quite amusement, not quite dismissal.
"Interesting," he murmured, voice barely brushing the air.
The television flickered on, shifting colors across his face as he leaned further back, arms draped loosely over the chair's worn arms.
He watched the ceiling for a moment longer, mind uncharacteristically blank.
The next second stretched wide, the weight of something unspoken pressing lightly against the center of his chest — not urgent, not distracting.Just... there.
The soft click of the TV changing clips again filled the silence, but Demien didn't move.
Not yet.