CHAPTER 612: CHAPTER 612 DANCEHALL

Please vote to show me your support for the story. The higher we climb in the rankings, the more motivated I will feel. Mass releases will be rewarded for each 10 rankings we manage to climb.

Join Discord to connect with me and share your thoughts on the story so far. https://discord.gg/hTQJtj2K9U

#More than 10 Chapters ahead on my Patreon: patreon.com/TrikoRex

{!!!Please leave a review; it helps me a lot and lets me know how many people are invested in the future of this novel!!!}

~~~

[04/07/2020 | Time: 01:00 AM | DFB-Pokal Final – Post Match | Location: Hotel, Berlin]

The celebrations had spilt from the stadium locker rooms to the team hotel, where the party atmosphere reached fever pitch. The dining room, which was meant for their celebratory dinner, which the team had prepared, had been transformed into an impromptu dance floor. The players, dressed in their winners’ T-shirts that the team had prepared for each final they had ever reached, finally got a use.

Despite the players having quick showers in the locker rooms, they were still soaked, either from sweat or various liquids. The trophy sat proudly on desk one, which had to be passed by on their way to the buffet table, surrounded by champagne bottles and gold confetti that seemed to stick to everything. Hotel staff, initially concerned about noise complaints, quickly realised they barely had any customers.

The building was largely empty due to COVID restrictions anyway, housing only the essential football personnel and a handful of stranded travellers who had been forced to extend their stays. Rather than complaints, these unexpected guests found themselves drawn into the celebration, with several accepting invitations to join the impromptu party.

[1:30]

By half past one in the morning, music thundered through the hotel corridors as the Leverkusen squad commandeered the entire ground floor. What had started as a quiet celebratory dinner had evolved into something resembling a music festival. The dining room tables had been pushed against the walls, creating a makeshift dance floor where Wendell continued his Brazilian carnival display, now joined by half the squad as they attempted to match his rhythm.

Diaby had connected his phone to the hotel’s sound system, cycling through French rap, German hip-hop, and Afrobeats. Each genre change brought out different players - when a Nigerian song came on, the entire squad watched in amazement as one of the staff members, who happened to be from Lagos, took centre stage with moves that had them questioning why he wasn’t a professional dancer.

The hotel manager, a middle-aged German woman named Greta, found herself wearing a Leverkusen winners’ shirt and attempting to learn dance moves from Bailey. The Jamaican had somehow convinced the poor woman that she could do the Dancehall. "This is madness!" she laughed, throwing her hands in the air as the bass dropped on another track.

[2:15]

By two in the morning, someone had discovered that the hotel’s small conference room had a karaoke machine. What followed was a parade of slightly inebriated footballers murdering various songs in multiple languages. Tapsoba, still shirtless and with his gold medal around his neck, was attempting what appeared to be a Burkinabé folk song, while his teammates provided backing vocals despite not knowing a single word.

Havertz and Wirtz had tackled a German pop song with enthusiasm that far exceeded their vocal abilities. The younger Wirtz was particularly animated, practically screaming into the microphone and sliding across the polished floor on his knees. The few stranded hotel guests had now fully integrated into the celebration.

An elderly couple from Stuttgart, initially disturbed by the noise, were now sitting at a table with Lars Bender, sharing stories and raising glasses of champagne. A man who had been travelling on business from France regaled some players with his own escapades in bagging ladies. The man fancied himself quite the lover boy, and players who had a hard time in the romance department, despite being footballers, listened intently to his words.

[03:00 AM]

The party reached its peak when Palinho produced a suitcase filled with coloured powder, the type used in Holi celebrations. Within seconds, the dining room resembled a rainbow explosion. Players and guests hurled handfuls of powder at each other, transforming white winners’ shirts into Jackson Pollock paintings.

Rakim found himself dragged into the middle of a powder fight between Diaby and Bailey, both of whom seemed determined to turn him into a living artwork. Despite dodging most of the initial assault, he ended up covered in streaks of blue, yellow, and red powder that stuck to his champagne-dampened shirt.

~~~

[04/07/2020 | Time: 10:30 AM | Hotel Room, Berlin]

Rakim’s eyes cracked open to the assault of morning sunlight streaming through inadequately closed curtains. His head felt like it had been used as a football for the entire match, and every muscle in his body ached from hours of dancing, celebrating, and general mayhem. The taste in his mouth was an unfortunate cocktail of champagne residue and whatever that yellow powder had been made of.

It took him a moment to regain consciousness as his body struggled between dreamland and the real world. Rolling over in his bed, he surveyed the carnage of their hotel room. His body was a canvas of colored powder, streaks of blue across his chest, yellow handprints on his shoulders, and what appeared to be someone’s signature in red powder across his back. The smell of champagne clung to everything, despite his lazy attempts to shower before collapsing into bed.

Looking around the room, he found Wirtz Lay sprawled on the floor between the two beds, still wearing his winners’ shirt but now sporting what looked like a full-face mask of purple powder. His mouth was slightly open, and he was snoring softly, one hand still clutching his gold medal. Diaby was curled up in the fetal position, on the ground at the feet of the bed, his usually perfect hair looking like he’d been electrocuted.

Struggling to get up, he navigated past the chaos of the room, stepping over the figure of a passed-out Tapsoba. He somehow made it toward the bathroom doors only to find a passed-out Bailey who somehow ended up sleeping in the bathtub, his long legs stretched over the top. He heard the Jamaican mumble something incomprehensible and shift slightly, causing a headache to appear in his mind, and he was unwilling to deal with the situation.

Still, he needed a shower, so he walked over to the bathtub and turned on the shower, causing the showerhead above his head to churn. A moment later, streams of cold water rained down on the Jamaican’s naked upper body, causing the latter to squeal like a schoolgirl caught peeping at her crush.

Bailey shot upright in the tub, flailing his arms like he had been electrocuted, water cascading off his dreadlocks as he yelped. "Bruh! What the hell, fam?!" he barked, his Jamaican accent thick and unfiltered from grogginess. Rakim just leaned against the sink, smirking through his own exhaustion, shaking his head.

"Why, you’re sleeping in my bathroom when you have your own room?" Rakim muttered, his voice raspy, throat still raw from shouting all night. "I needed the shower. Simple."

Bailey blinked, wiping water from his eyes, before bursting into laughter that echoed through the tiled bathroom. "Nah, nah... you’re mad disrespectful, bro," he said between cackles.

"Fam, have you seen me play? The only person more disrespectful than me is Neymar, and that is only because he’s played longer." Rakim retorted, feeling a headache from all the noise. "Plus, we’d better get cleaned up before the gaffer remembers he’s supposed to be the boss."

"Still..." Bailey tried to retort but was promptly pulled out of the tub by Rakim. "Yeah, yeah, I’m a bad, bad man, just ask your girl. Just go complain to the other homeless guys in my room. I’ll buy you breakfast later."

Before the Jamaican could protest further, he was pushed out of the bathroom, and the door was locked in his face. Soon, the sound of running water resounded amid the ruckus caused by Bailey outside quickly woke the others. "Keep it down, my head’s exploding," the Wirtz mumbled, pulling a pillow over his face, in annoyance.

.

.

.

.

To be Continued...