You typed the last words before you paused and let the cursor sit there blinking at you for a few moments before you placed the final full stop and pulled your fingers away from the keyboard.

You looked at the screen once again as you hand crept to the tail of you back, now aching from sitting at a desk too long – that was something you would have to get used to. A moment later, you pushed send.

It was done.

The interview that everyone from sports journalists to gossip columnists wanted and you, a virtually nameless hobby photographer who worked in the IT department at a magazine where people genuinely passed you in the halls and asked you if you were new (you been there three years) - you got it.

Not that you minded being somewhat invisible, honestly you'd spent a great deal of your youth wanting to be just that. A child prodigy and a certified genius didn't exactly mesh well with High School and so you, two years younger than your peers, developed this ability to blend.

You had friends, great ones, and you 'liked' your job in the IT department of Verdant magazine, at least until you squired away enough money to start up your own company and then you would poach your fellow Connie Springer and you two would set about taking the world by storm.

At least that had been the plan up until about six months ago.

Now, you weren't entirely sure.

| Eight Months Ago |

It was early July and the afternoon sun was high in the cloudless sky as you sat cross-legged on cherry-wood bench in a bustling park half a block from your concrete 9-5 confinement, just watching the people in suits natter away on their cell phones while Connie prattled off about his annoyance at a comic he was reading.

You took another bite of you sandwich and chomped silently as your eyes moved across the road from the park to a bistro playing a World Cup match to a crowd of rowdy sports fans toting mugs of beer.

You decided that someone must have scored a goal because the cheering was almost deafening as it echoed through the crisp, summery day.

"They're probably all cheering for Tokyo's prodigal son, hoping he'll return," Connie muttered as he looked over the edge of his graphic novel, "Honestly, why would he?"
You looked down at your friend with a quizzical expression on your face, because you really had no idea what he was talking about.

"You have no idea what I'm talking about do you?" he laughed as he sat up and playfully slapped the rolled up comic against your knee.
"He's talking about Eren Yeager," Sasha interrupted as the beauty slid alongside you and plucked an uneaten apple from her lunch cooler – not that you minded, after all the pretty reporter with perfect skin and a million dollar smile was one of the few people you actually counted as a friend.

"Oh the recluse footballer that plays for Brazil?" you flippantly asked, hoping you had heard enough of the talk around the water cooler to be somewhat accurate.

"Did you hear the latest?" Sasha jabbered to a crowd of two that really weren't keeping up with the sport of the hour.

You shook your head as you finished your mouthful, "nope," you answered with a pop of your lips.

"After they won their semi-final, he came out yesterday and said that if they win the Cup he'll grant one reporter an interview."

You snorted out a laugh both at the seriousness with which Sasha espoused that information and the way her eyes grew wide with excitement.

"You don't cover sports," you quipped before you took a decidedly long drink from your thermos of iced coffee; saving for a business didn't allow splurges like that and you had become rather adept at making your own half decent one.

Sasha rolled her eyes before she teasingly tugged on your hair, "I know that but Eren Yeager hasn't given any interviews," she proclaimed obtusely.

You licked coffee remnants from your lips and asked, somewhat idly, "In how many years?"

"No, ever," Connie piped in.

You looked at him with threads of betrayal. Your future business partner knew about sports?

"The point is," she continued, "whoever lands this interview will go down in history."

"They have to win first," you remarked nonchalantly.

Sasha looked almost insulted at the inference that they might not, "On home soil?" she flicked her strands over her shoulder, "Oh they'll win."

"Unless you just jinxed them," you casually quipped as you shook your half eaten sandwich at your pouting friend.

"Y/N I don't think you understand the gravity of what landing this interview would mean for me."

You sighed with apologetic eyes, even if you couldn't understand it yourself, Sasha being excited about it was enough for you to enthuse with your friend.

"You're right, sorry," you smiled softly and genuinely, "I hope Matthew gives it to you."

Sasha's lips tightened into a smile-less scowl, "That sexist son of a bitch denied my request to go down there. He said, and I quote," she started, puffing up her chest and deepening her voice, "'He sent his best guys because Eren Yeager isn't going to want to talk to a pair of heels'."

You cringed at your boss' antiquated ideas. It was like he was a left over from another era before women could even vote and was the epitome of a man seeping in privilege.

"I'm sorry," you said quietly, one day when you handed in your notice it would come with a middle finger to the dick-in-a-suit.

"Well, fuck him," Sasha gibed.

Connie raised his soda can and added his own resounding "Fuck him."

"Fuck him," you rounded off with your own drink raised.

The three of you took a silent moment to appreciate that beneath the joviality of the statement there was a fundamental truth – your boss was an asshole.

"Do you have a passport?" Sasha asked of you as you turned towards your friend.

"Ah yeah" you shrugged, "I think it's still valid."

You probably should have cottoned on to what your friend was going to ask you next, but you didn't, rather you kept chomping away on your sandwich and enjoying the warm, but temperate, sun on your face.

At least until Sasha spoke again, "Good, I need you to come to Brazil."

You choked on the mouthful of food before you managed to swallow the delicious lunchmeat down with a splutter, "Wait what? Didn't Matthew say no?"

Sasha cocked her head to one side and arched her brow towards her hairline, "He did," she commented, before her shoulders lifted into a shrug, "But I said I was going anyway."

Your mouth gaped, but it was Connie who managed to speak, "Sasha, did you...?"

"I quit," the beauty announced with excited eyes, "I'm freelancing it."

Finally, you found your voice, "I mean... that's...um...," but not the ability to string a sentence together.

"I know it's stupid and foolish and might very well have set my career back a few years," Sasha lamented, after all she had already considered all of that on the walk over, "but I have a really good feeling about this," and more than that, she had her gut instinct which for a reporter was like a tuning fork, "It's his first interview, ever, a guy like that doesn't want to bro around with some old commentator about scores and seasons bests. He wants to tell his story and I want to listen."

Eren Yeager was by all accounts a recluse, albeit a famous one; Sasha was almost certain his decision to come out from behind that curtain was because he now finally wanted to. That wasn't just about sports and she was prepared to risk her career and her savings on that hunch.

"So why does Y/N need a passport?" Connie inquired, a question that had escaped your mind until that moment.

"Because..." Sasha drew up her lips into a smile and widened her eyes as beseechingly as she could, "I need a photographer."

"I work in IT, I'm not a photographer," you countered.

"I've seen the pictures you take Y/N and they're really good."

That wasn't just flattery, Sasha genuinely meant it and when Connie nodded, you felt a wave of embarrassment. You had dabbled in the art form and taken a few night classes to learn the basics, but it was simply a hobby to do something that was tangible, solitary and relaxing. You had never entertained taking it beyond that.

"They're of flowers and buildings and clouds," you responded as a warm blush pinked your cheeks, "Things that don't move or if they do then it's really, really slowly."

Sasha blew out a despondent sigh, "I don't have any money to hire someone Y/N, please?"

Her deep eyes searched your ones, hoping that 'friend to friend' she might just say yet.

You, for your part, knew you really only had one answer to give.

"Okay," you nodded along with your answer, symbolically convincing yourself it was the right one, "I have some holiday leave owing. When do we fly out?"

"Saturday," Sasha quipped.

Three days away.

You rolled your eyes jestingly but you'd find some way to make it work.

There was however a weird sensation of trepidation in your gut and you weren't sure what to make of it before you swallowed it down. After all, even if the best scenario happened and Sasha did by some million to one odds land this interview, they would only be gone a couple of days, a week a most.

That was the plan.

_________________________

As the plane began its decent into Rio de Janeiro, you could almost feel the buzz radiating from the City below. In fact, after Brazil made it into the final, the entire world was watching and waiting, like Charlie trying to find his golden ticket, as to whether or not the reclusive billionaire would talk.

You, on the other hand, had used the 15 hour flight time between the two Cities to give yourself a crash course in Portuguese and pour over whatever information she could find on the illusive Eren Yeager.

It read like the opening to a superhero origin's comic, though you decided that could have been Connie's influence rubbing off on you. The firstborn and only son of Grisha and Carla Yeager, Eren was born in March 1995. By all accounts, despite being born into privilege and wealth, he lived a somewhat normal childhood. November 2005, Grisha and Carla Yeager were killed when they had a car accident. The strange thing was that no bodies were recovered but seven years later, after an exhaustive search, they were pronounced dead.

At the tender age of 10, Eren became an orphan. He was put under the guardianship of the family's housekeeper and nanny. During this time you had discovered a litany of photographs of Eren, a tall, willowy youth with a mop of brown hair and a broken smile.

Between the accident in 2005 and 2007, You had encountered more photographs of the family than you'd come across all the years prior and since. The media was transfixed with the tale and it seemed to get more intrusive with each passing month. There were aerial shots of the funeral that showed a brown haired boy dressed in black as he stood in front of two, empty, coffins. Photos of him on his way to school, in his yard, there were documentaries and news casts and even a made-for TV movie that, from the synopsis, seemed to suggest foul play and a child delinquent – though that theory was ruled out long ago.

After 2007, Eren Yeager virtually vanished. The articles dried up and there were no photos that you could find, until almost a decade later, when the world rediscovered Eren Yeager, now sporting a man with long hair, ofter in a Man Bun and bursting into the Football scene an overnight success at the age of 25.

But there was nothing else, no endorsements, no interviews, nothing.

As for the company that still bore his last name, Yeager Consolidated, it was run by an acting CFO and a dedicated Board who hadn't spoken publicly about the headline-making majority shareholder.

"He's fascinating right?" Sasha said while she read your research over your shoulder as the plane touched down on the tarmac with a rumble.

"What do you suppose he did from the age of 15 to 25?" You wondered as you thumbed the pages of your folder.

You might have only been there to photograph the guy, but if Iris got the chance, there was no way you were going to blow it by putting your foot in your mouth and getting something wrong.

That was you circa-two years ago.

Sasha shrugged as she tilted her head of the small porthole window, "Learned how to play soccer I suppose."

You cast your eye over the latest photos, they were all of him on the field, either during open practices or matches. Beyond the slight, sun-kissed face and piercing eyes, you saw a certain kind of sadness in his eyes, and, even though it was over a decade after the photo was taken of him at his parents' funeral, he still had that same broken smile.

_______________________

It was a few exhaustive hours later, which involved clearing customs and navigating the bustling streets to your hotel, before you two found yourselves in the plush lobby of a fancy hotel staring at a black roped off door and one decidedly angry looking doorman standing in front of a black-box-lettered sign that read "PRESS ONLY".

"So, where are our passes?" You asked as you watched the doorman carefully study his electronic list against a badge of a reporter before letting him through the heavy door.

Sasha stepped to the side to let another news team float passed them, "I don't have any," she grimaced.

You replied in a whispered growl, "Then how are we getting in?"

"I have friends."

You looked around the lobby looking for one of these friends, but you saw nothing.

"Okay where are they? What's the plan?"

Sasha plastered a smile across her lips, "Okay maybe a friend," she corrected as she pointed at you, "Tada."

You blinked furiously as words stumbled from your mouth, "Wait, you, want, me..."

"I know you can."

"What exactly can I do?" You gaped, turning your back towards the doorman in the very rare case he could read her guilty expression from a great distance.

"I know you can hack that guest list and put me on it," Sasha suggested with a broad smile.

"But he still needs to check the passes, and we don't have them," you argued.

Sasha puffed her hair, wet her lips and shuffled her skirt a little higher up her waist, "Leave that to me."

"That's really why I'm here isn't it?" You surmised when getting your tablet from your messenger bag found your fingers grazing the lens cap of your camera.

"Both," Sasha admitted with an apologetic smile.

"I really hate you."

But your eyes, were still smiling.

"I'll return the favour."

You set about your task before you mumbled, "Somehow I doubt that."

_______________________

It hasn't been that hard at all, quite easy actually, and the hack in conjunction with Sasha' way with words and an old press ID to prove her identity found the two of you filing into the packed banquet room a few minutes into the press conference.

You found a gap in the sea of people between the shoulders of two men in front of you and when you lifted onto your toes you were afforded a view of the expat who spoke with a warm and smoky accent that had been years in the making.

He paused after each question was asked, reflectively considering it before he answered. Every answer was concise but not short. His photos had not done him justice and without the glisten of sweat on his brow or ruddy cheeks from running laps of the field, he was startlingly handsome, broad shoulders at the tops of cascading arm muscles burgeoning from behind the tightly woven yellow team shirt.

Occasionally his hand drifted up to his groomed scruff when a question about the sport was asked. And a smile flirted with his lips when someone asked him what Brazil's chances were before he laughed a "very good I hope."

But when the questions soon skewed to what everyone wanted to know, 'The Interview', you saw flashes of that boy with the broken smile, wrestling with his emotions.

"What will this interview entail?"

You watched as he took a breath inward through his nose, held it, and breathed it out slowly through his mouth, he never answered on impulse.

He leaned in a little closer to the desk mic and answered with a delightfully husky tone, "I'll open my home to this person and answer any questions they have."

A question from the crowd. "How long?"

His lips rolled under the weight of his tongue before he spoke. "That will be for us to decide I suppose," he answered, his tone lifting a little to a silvery warmth.

"Do you have any idea who that will be yet?"

You lifted your camera silently up towards your eyes and lined the shot up only briefly before you looked over the top of it, watching with your eyes the moment he looked up from his clasped hands and you took the shot, not truly knowing just how stunning it would be.

Eren studied the way his fingers intertwined with each other as he counted slowly to five in his head. One he took a slow intake of air through his nose to try and still the stampeded beneath his chest. Two he could feel the heat of the lenses on him, each one tracking and capturing his every expression. Three he tried to picture a field of grass swaying and a chilly wind brushing his cheeks as he walked slowly through the tall grass, dancing his fingers over the tips. Four he saw the grass disappear and a haze black and white hurtling towards him, he could feel the stretch of his arm and his feet lift off the ground as he stood in its way; and Five he looked up.

Your eyes were the eyes he saw, you held a camera against your lips but you were looking at him.

"I don't," he breathed, unable and unwilling to blink away from your eyes.

He didn't hear the next question, enraptured in the way you blinked, until it was asked a second time.

"Why are you doing it this way?"

You looked away, caught by something the woman next to you had said, and Eren found himself thrown in the midst of flashes and faces starring right through him. He was on display again. He needed to leave.

He leaned over to his manager, Reiner, on his right, "I need to get out," he whispered, his voice panicked and thin.

Reiner lay a grounding hand on Eren's shoulder and his eyes warmly nodded.

"That's all the time we have folks, thanks for coming out, Vai Brasil," he chanted as he flashed a debonair smile and skilfully took everyone's attention away from Eren.

Well, almost everyone's.

You watched as Eren moved rigidly towards the door, his manager was busy making the excitable crowd even more so, passing out replicas of Eren's jersey with his name and number 1 emblazoned on the back while he made quips about the other team in the final, but you saw only him – his palm pressed to his forehead and his lips pursed tightly – and then he was through the door and gone.

______________________

The score was 2-2 and they had already played out the 30 minute extra time. The atmosphere in the bar that you and Sasha had secluded yourselves in the corner of, was electric and you could only imagine how palpable the tension must have felt in the stadium.

Supporters for both teams crowded every inch of the quaint tavern with mismatched tables and a deep smell of tequila permeating the wood.

"What happens now?" Sasha asked directly into your ear even though the bar had become eerily still to the point that you could have whispered it and still been heard.

You scrolled through Wikipedia, skimming each line until she found what you were looking for, "A penalty shootout," you read aloud, "each team will alternate five penalty kicks."

The large wall-mounted TV flickered as the cameras zoomed in on the first kick from the penalty line for Brazil. The ball bounced off the top crossbar and disappeared into the crowd behind in an eruption of both cheers and boos.

Moments later the German kicker lined up his shot and took it; Eren caught it dead centre to his chest in a move that winded you just looking at it.

Sasha bounded up off her chair and hysterically clapped along with the other Brazilian supporters in the room, startling you so much that you jolted your knees into the underside of the table. Tending to the scuffed grazes on your knees, you missed the next shot taken by the Brazilian kicker, but when Sasha screamed loudly beside you, you assumed they had scored a point.

The German kicker missed his second shot, ricocheting it off the top left joint and making it fall to the wrong side of the net. The supporters became restless with their grumbled words, which you just assumed were curse ones.

Eren looked worn as he breathed with his mouth open and brushed sweat from his brow with the hem of his shirt. You could only imagine the pressure he must have felt, watched by millions of people, a crowd of tens of thousands chanting and stomping their feet, thunderously in sync, and it only got louder as the Brazilian ball was blocked by the German goal keep, and the German ball was blocked by Eren, keeping the shootout score at 1-0 to Brazil with 2 more balls to play.

The cheering became deafening when Brazil scored their next shot and you put your hands against your ears and focused your eyes onto the TV. You could hear your own heart thumping and you had virtually nothing riding on this, but when the German kicker took his shot you found yourself giving a man you didn't even know every second of your unwavering attention and a mouthed, good luck.

The kick was high and at the opposite side of the goal to where Eren was but with reflexes like you had never seen, nor imagined were possible, he managed to reach it, it was his and it wasn't getting past him.

____________________

Eren felt the moment his glove touched the ball and for a split second there was nothing else on his mind but the black panel brushing his fingers – not the pain echoing down from his hand and not the desperate urge to blink. All he could see was the ball.

It was his.

For a moment everything fell silent and in a haze Eren momentarily wondered if he had been wrong, had the ball escaped him?

But not more than a second later the stadium crowd erupted. The final score would be 4-2 and with one more shot remaining there was no chance German could claw back the game.

The ball was his.

The Cup was theirs.

The vomit came up unexpectedly and Eren bent in half as it fell from his mouth. After that, he saw black. Only black.

_____________________

"OHMYGODISHEALRIGHT?" You cried out when you watched Eren collapse onto the field.

The bar was still rampart with cheering and chanting that no one even bothered to look at the TV let alone watch as Eren was stretchered off the field.

"We have to go," Sasha called as she grabbed you by the hand and sprinted her from the pulsating bar.

You looked back towards the TV as Sasha ran her across the road and through a throng of revellers, but it was nothing more than a blur.

"Will he be okay?" You shouted over the noise of the partying crowd, but Sasha couldn't hear you and the two of you kept running until you reached the same hotel as before, exhausted and breathless, 20 minutes later.

"Do...you....think....the...same...trick..." you puffed out a paraphrased sentence as you both tried to regain some semblance of normal breathing.

What you were asking is whether Sasha could sweet talk into another press conference and honestly, Sasha wasn't so sure, but she wasn't going to tell you that.

Sasha took a few calming breaths as she smoothed down her tresses and straightened the dark dress she was wearing before she turned her attention to you and brushed back a few strands of hair that had fallen over your face. You swatted you away and completed the task yourself before you shifted the shoulders of your dress.

"Okay. Let's go get you that interview," you resolutely nodded.

You two walked with straight shoulders and raised chins towards the same doorman and Sasha immediately launched into her charm offensive.

But unlike last time a second man in a black suit appeared. He wore an unreadable expression on his face but his eyes seemed kind and despite.

"Sasha Braus?," he was reading her name from a pen scribble on his hand.

She nodded reluctantly, "Who's asking?" A playful response.

"Could you both come with me please?"
Sasha raked a hand through her hair, "I'm sorry can this wait until after the press conference?" It wasn't so much a question as it was a demand, but Iris always had a charming way of phrasing her words that you admired.

The man shook his head, "I'm afraid not."
He stepped to the side and gestured to another door a few feet away.

"Can I ask why?" Sasha tapped her shoes on the deep chestnut carpet while she kept her eyes focus on the man.

He blinked away from Sasha' stare and turned his attention to you, "I assure you everything will be explained."

He looked flustered, and like he was trying his very best to keep matters from garnering attention.

"Are you a cop?" Sasha snipped.

He shook his head and Sasha turned her attention back to the doorman, "Can you let us in now?"

"I'm sorry you won't be going in there."

______________________

You paced the length of the only furniture in the small room, a tinted glass table with eight leather chairs around it. An untouched tray of water and four glasses sat in the middle of that table. Sasha was on the phone in the corner of the room trying to pull in any favours she could.

The man who had finally introduced himself as Jean Kirstein and nothing else had left the room moments after he escorted you two inside.

Sasha muttered a string of curse words down at her phone as she reached yet another dead end.

"They know what we did, we are going to jail," you remarked without blinking as you stopped pacing and stared down at the water sitting completely still in the pitcher.

"No we won't," Sasha huffed, though the thought had crossed her mind a few times.

"I don't know enough Portuguese to go to jail," you lamented with almost no expression or vibrancy in your tone.

Resignation.

Your mind tore through a rapid succession of sudden issues you might face in prison, do they cut your hair? What colours do the wear in Brazilian prison? Connie is going to be pissed.

Sasha shook off your concern with a practiced laugh, "We're not going to jail Y/N."

"Are you sure because from where I'm standing there is a high possibility we could," you snipped, you adored Sasha, but frankly this was entirely her fault.

Sasha didn't get a chance to retort when the door opened and Jean stepped into the room followed by a man with an equally broad stature hidden beneath a hunter green hooded jersey.

"We are Japanese citizens and I demand a lawyer," Sasha declared without taking a breath much to the amusement of the man behind Jean.

"What did you say to them?" the man whose face was still shrouded beneath his hood asked as he turned towards Jean.

The man shrugged helplessly, "Nothing, like you asked," he rebutted.

"You could have told them something." A laugh. Soft, jovial and instantly calming.

And then he pulled off his hood and you saw his smile first, soft, charming but muted, controlled. It was unmistakable. That smile belonged to Eren Yeager.

"I'm sorry for the clandestine meeting. I'm not one for crowds," he offered with apologetic eyes.

That seemed like an oxymoron given he had just come from playing in front of a massive one. But there didn't seem to be any sarcasm or irony in his tone.

He was looking at you and nothing how you looked even softer from only a few feet away.
Your eyes were wide and your irises almost completely swallowed up by your blown pupils. Your lips weren't smiling but he felt a warmth from them all the same.

"I would like to do the interview with you," he said softly, each word a little hesitant until he got them all out and sighed with relief.

You waited for Sasha to holler, cheer...frankly just say anything, but she didn't, because Sasha realised what was slowly beginning to dawn on you, he wasn't talking to Sasha.

"Oooohh," you rolled your head slowly from shoulder to shoulder, "I'm not a... She is," you pointed a wild hand back at Sasha who, for the first time in your entire friendship, was speechless.

"I know," Eren breathed, "I'm sorry I don't know your name you were logged as Ms Braus' guest."

"Y/N, Y/N L/N," you mumbled.

He breathed softly. Your name suited you. Happiness.

His exhaustion was beginning to show again and he figured he must have started swaying when Jean put his hand on his shoulder and spoke into his ear, "You need to rest."

"Miss L/N, I hope you consider this. If you leave your details with Reiner my manager, I'll make sure a car is sent for you in the morning."

You expected some sort of playboy smile and an uncomfortable wink that usually came with the territory of Adonis male athletes, but Eren only offered both you and Sasha a reserved but genuine smile as he walked backwards to the door before he paused and added, "Reiner will be in shortly."

And then he was gone, Jean with him and you with only four words swarming your head; That wasn't the plan.