"How's that?" Ashton said as soon as the fresh air filled his lungs, a satisfactory smile on his lips. "A whole week early."

"What's he on about?" A rather groggy Michael stepping into the damp english atmosphere right after Calum. The boy had luckily fallen asleep for most of the flight with his face smushed against Calum's shoulder. The four jet lagged boys made their way to the luggage deposit with a collective sigh, Luke seemed the most awake out of the lot. He was bouncing around with curious blue eyes taking the british airport in.

And suddenly Calum came to the realization that he hadn't mentioned, not even once, when he'd be returning to Liverpool to Michael. He'd told Luke when practice started up again, some of the common drills they did. Ashton knew obviously, being part of Manchester United, even if his club hadn't qualified for FIFA. Everyone in the football world knew the schedule.

"Practice starts on next Thursday." Calum's shoulders sagged slightly even though he'd been the one to say it, it still seemed absurd coming from his lips. He didn't bother to look behind him, knowing full well that even though Michael despised his shitty football pick up lines and favourited Ashton's club, he'd be sad to see Calum go.

Calum didn't look back because he was able to wipe the pity off his face, it was one of the things he hated about travelling. You'd be headed home and your new friends are always terribly sad when you go. The thought of having to tell Michael that he couldn't stay forever was already difficult enough but now that the sentence had fallen out of his mouth at one of the worst times sucked.

"What?" It was a little less than a whisper to Calum's ears but still audible to the three other boys. Michael should know that the boy he'd been measuring for quite some time would need to return to his life as a professional football player, it's the reason why he met Michael in the first place. The boy should have a schedule that details his deadline for character design, he should have known this was going to happen.

"England plays Slovakia on the sixth." Ashton filled in for Calum. "Since Liverpool knocked Manchester United out of the running, they're England's representatives in the FIFA World Cup. Their first game is the sixth so they have to start training around this time to prepare."

Michael nodded along to what Ashton was saying groggily, still half asleep from what Calum could see.

"'Kay, can we go to the hotel now?"

♩

Calum had secretly dragged the sleepy Michael and the rest of the boys to his home instead, after all they were in Liverpool. Even though it was obvious that they weren't staying in a hotel, Michael didn't clue in until they were well into the house.

"Wait, is this you?" The boy mumbled, pointing at a very small photo on the fridge that happened to be no bigger than his palm.

"Yeah," Calum replied, not even looking at whatever Michael could be pointing at, there were four photos at most on the fridge. Mali had tacked them on there with simple black magnets, Calum wasn't one to decorate. Only one of the four actually contained his sister though, she'd mentioned briefly that it happened to be her favourite.

The photo in question was from a photo booth. The top edge was ripped so it kind of gave it away, in the photo Calum was making a ridiculously stupid face and Mali had her head thrown back while she was laughing, the quality of the photo left both of them fuzzy in the picture but Calum still found himself smiling fondly whenever he closed the fridge.

Calum's house was cluttered, not from the amount of stuff he had but because the entire house seemed to have been built to fill up a gap between houses that neighboured him. He didn't mind, practically living alone and not being home as often as most people left him feeling comforted by home like feel that he got whenever he was able to sit around. His teammates all had super nice houses with geometric designs and minimalist colours, none gave off the feeling that the space was actually lived in.

Luke and Ashton both looked surprised by Calum's chosen château, Luke obviously assuming that the space was very downscaled compared to the image he'd thought up in his head. Ashton, on the other hand, had never been to Calum's house because he'd never been given the opportunity, not that very many people had stepped into Calum's home. He was probably comparing it to his own house in Old Trafford.

Calum opted to check his phone right around when Luke wondered his way into the living room that was connected to the small entrance. The dark haired boy looked for any missed calls or texts that he'd forgotten to reply to when he came across a missed call from the hospital, the real reason why he was home so early.

"Hey, um," the volume of his voice decreased as he started his sentence, he paused to bite his lip a little unsurely. "I'm going to check down at the hospital, just sleep wherever. There's beds upstairs, I'll be back later with some kind of food."

As soon as the words started flowing out of his mouth, Calum found himself racing to be ready to leave before his sentence finished. With a dark blue knit scarf wrapped around his naturally tanned neck the boy left before anyone could utter a protest.

He pressed his ear to the phone as he headed for the car, keys in hand as the phone rang, once, twice.

"Hello?"

"Hi, I would like to check on the condition of Mali-Koa Hood?" Calum attempted to be as formal as he could but his mannerism was a tad rusty, he needed a bit of reassurance that he wouldn't be in tears when he met the doctor in charge of his sister at the hospital.

"Hood, you said? She's doing fine, woke up a few hours ago and according to the records she's responding just fine. She has a very minor concussion and a broken leg but either than that she'll be fine now that she's awake."

"T-Thanks, I'll be arriving at the hospital in a few minutes to visit her. See you later, thanks again." A sigh left his mouth when the line went dead, his sister was absolutely okay and there was nothing to be worried about.

With the key in the ignition, Calum sat in his car staring out the windshield. He couldn't be bothered to turn on the car just yet, everything was seemingly fine in the small bubble his car created. Daft thoughts crossed his mind as he just took in the lane he lived on, everything was fine at the moment, here in the car. He was ignoring the thought of anything being less than fine as he sat in the car, there would be a bit of a bumpy road until Michael and him were fully on good terms considering Calum basically dropped the bomb that he wouldn't be returning to America with the boy.

A raindrop thumping against his windshield brought him out of his thoughts, made him aware that a light rain had begun to fall. With thoughts of London weather dwelling in the back of his mind, Calum started the car and headed for the hospital.