CHAPTER 60: CHAPTER 60 – UNDER THE SURFACE

Monday’s dawn broke in silence. No street chatter, no early whistles from the dorm guard. Just the slow yawn of São Paulo waking up—and Thiago sitting by the window, legs drawn in, watching clouds drag shadows across the buildings like slow-moving giants. The city stretched before him, endless and humming, its streets still damp from overnight rain that left the air thick with petrichor and exhaust.

He hadn’t slept much.

The decision he’d made—about Europe, about Marina, about the road ahead—settled in his chest like a quiet pressure. Not painful. Not heavy. Just there, constant as his heartbeat. The sheets beside him were rumpled from restless turning, the pillow still holding the indent of his head.

The idea had stopped being a possibility whispered in dark rooms.

It was now a plan. Ink waiting for paper.

Training resumed with an edge of urgency sharp enough to cut skin. The match against Botafogo-SP was over, its memory already fading beneath the weight of what came next. Palmeiras had done enough to finish top of the table. Next came the semifinals.

Santos.

Neymar.

The name hung in every hallway whisper, every coach’s clipboard, every analyst’s nervous note scribbled in margins. Thiago didn’t need the System to tell him this was going to be the biggest match of his life so far. The air in the locker room was different today—charged, like the moment before lightning strikes.

But instead of tension coiling in his gut, he felt clarity. The kind that came when the path forward was no longer a maze but a straight line.

Everything now had shape. Weight. Consequences.

On the pitch that morning, Eneas broke the squad into units under a sky still heavy with unshed rain. Thiago was rotated across both sides during the high-intensity drills, occasionally placed centrally in transition segments where his vision could slice through defensive lines. The coach barely spoke to him directly—but every instruction given to the group, every sideline adjustment shouted over the scrape of cleats on turf, still landed on him like targeted arrows.

Thiago thrived in the patterns. His movements were sharper, each cut precise as a scalpel. His releases quicker, the ball leaving his foot a fraction sooner than defenders anticipated. His passes crisper, spinning just enough to stick to a teammate’s foot. The game was slowing down for him in ways he couldn’t explain—like watching a film at half-speed while everyone else played at full tilt.

Midway through a pressing sequence, Nando intercepted a pass with a sudden lunge, turned sharply, and slipped Thiago through the left channel. Thiago beat his man down the line with a burst of acceleration that left lungs burning, then squared it low across the face of goal—only for the trailing runner to sky the shot into the stands.

Still, Eneas called out. "Again! Good. That’s the tempo."

No name. But everyone knew who had set it.

After lunch, Thiago lingered in the players’ lounge, picking at a plate of fruit while his mind wandered thousands of kilometers away. He thought of the flights to Europe he’d only seen in movies—the way clouds looked from above, endless and cotton-thick. Of being alone in a city where no one pronounced his name correctly on the first try. Of language barriers like walls he’d have to scale, weather that would bite instead of embrace, cold rains that fell differently than tropical storms, new leagues with their own unwritten rules.

And of Camila.

He hadn’t told her yet.

Part of him wanted to wait until it was real—a contract in hand, a club’s colors stitched onto a jersey with his name, something tangible to show for the leap he was taking. But the other part, the part that had held her hand through the markets of São Paulo and laughed at her ridiculous texts after training, told him the silence was already starting to echo between them.

She would know something was changing. She always did.

And when he did tell her, it might hurt more than he could predict.

Later that evening, after the regen session and tactical video review that left his eyes strained, Thiago stepped out of the training center with Marina. They’d agreed to meet quietly, no fanfare, no witnesses to speculate. She leaned against her car, her blazer swapped for a windbreaker that rustled in the breeze, arms crossed, gaze sharp as ever under the parking lot lights.

"You’re certain?" she asked after he finished speaking, her breath visible in the cooling air.

He nodded once. "I’ve thought about it. A lot." The words came out steadier than he felt.

"Even with what you’re building here?" She gestured toward the training grounds, where his footprints were literally embedded in the turf.

"That’s why," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I don’t want to stall when I’m finally moving."

Marina tilted her head, studying him like a puzzle she was piecing together. "And your friends and family?"

Thiago’s mouth tightened. "That part... I haven’t figured out yet." The admission tasted bitter.

She didn’t pry. Just let the night air fill the space between them.

"Alright," she said finally. "Then we start planning. I’ll reach out to contacts I trust—not the loudest, the ones who actually deliver. Second-tier clubs with scouting eyes and real development plans. Germany, Portugal, Spain, Italy. Maybe England if the right project emerges. No wild promises. Just solid ground to build on."

"That’s all I want," he said, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly.

"Good. And when it comes time to sign anything official... we’ll do it right. I won’t let you get swallowed up in clauses you don’t understand or promises that vanish after the ink dries."

He nodded again, the motion firmer this time. "I trust you."

A beat passed between them—unspoken, but real. A new Chapter had begun, sealed in silence under flickering stadium lights.

Back in his room, he stared at the ceiling, boots by the door caked with drying mud, Camila’s pastry box half-full on his desk, the treats inside probably stale by now. He hadn’t messaged her back yet.

He didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t feel like a lie or a goodbye.

So instead, he summoned the System, its blue interface a familiar comfort in the dark.

SYSTEM STATUS

Level: 15

EXP: 132 / 600

Skill Points: 10

Attributes:

Pace – 70

Dribbling – 71

Shooting – 67

Passing – 69

Physicality – 66

Mentality – 64

Sub-Attributes:

Ball Control – 71

Trick Execution – 63

Stamina – 64

Active Quest: Chain Reaction

Contribute to 6 more goals before the end of the Campeonato Paulista

Progress: 3 / 6

Thiago stared at the numbers. None of it felt distant now, like some impossible dream. These were marks of the journey already taken—each point earned through sweat and sacrifice. And the road still stretched ahead, longer than he could see.

He dismissed the System with a blink, the afterimage lingering like a phantom.

Tuesday came with a sharper edge, the semifinal now just four sleeps away. Scouts were already registering to attend, their names popping up on the security logs. Journalists hounded the gates, microphones thrust forward like weapons. Word spread quickly through the grapevine: Neymar was starting, no rest, no rotation. The prodigy would face them at full strength.

Thiago felt it—not fear, not envy. Something keener. A pull, like a string drawn tight inside his ribs, connecting him to some inevitable collision.

He spent the morning in the video room with Rafael, watching Santos’ last three matches on double speed, then rewinding key sequences until the plays were etched behind his eyelids. Patterns emerged: Neymar drifting wide left like a shark circling, then cutting in on his right with that signature elastic gait. The midfield’s overload mechanics that left pockets of space elsewhere. The aggressive fullbacks who were both strength and weakness.

"They open gaps behind when they push," Rafael murmured, pausing the footage to point at the screen. "See how their center backs get isolated? If we switch quick, we can sting them."

Thiago nodded, tracing the potential passing lanes with his finger in the air. "If we can get the ball off them first."

"That’s on you and me," Rafael said, knocking their shoulders together. "Pressure triggers. You see it before most."

That evening, as the dorm dimmed and the city buzzed far beyond the walls, Thiago finally opened his messages, the glow of his phone the only light in the room.

Camila had sent a photo—Clara asleep on the couch, hugging a worn Palmeiras scarf like a teddy bear, her cheeks still round with childhood.

Under it, just two words: Home team.

He stared at the image for a long time, zooming in on Clara’s peaceful expression, the way her fingers clutched the fabric.

Then typed out: "Can I call tomorrow?"

Three dots appeared.

Then disappeared.

Then came the reply: "Sure."

It wasn’t a cold response. But it wasn’t warm either—no emoji, no follow-up. Just that single word hanging between them.

And he felt the distance—not just in the words, but in what wasn’t said. The inside jokes absent. The questions unasked. The space where her usual "miss you" would have been.

He didn’t know yet how to hold both things—his ambition and the people he loved—without one slipping through his fingers. But maybe, in chasing one, he’d lose the other.

And maybe that was the cost of the path he’d chosen.

He went to sleep with that thought heavy in his chest.

And the city, as always, kept spinning beneath his window, indifferent to the choices that would soon reshape a young man’s world.