My Ultimate Gacha System-Chapter 328 - 2: Summer Begins II

Bergamo Streets 12:47 PM

The walk back from Zingonia to his apartment took twenty minutes along the route he’d used throughout the season, and the day was warm without being heavy and the streets were at their midday pace — unhurried, a few people outside café tables, delivery vans making their rounds.

He pulled out his phone while walking and the notifications had been accumulating since he’d silenced it at the start of the recovery session.

Eighty-nine waiting.

He opened the messages first.

His mother’s text was from earlier that morning: Come to Milan this week if you can. I’m making dinner Thursday. I’m so proud of you, Demien. Come and let me feed you properly.

He replied while walking — Thursday works, I’ll come Wednesday evening — and kept moving.

Luca’s message had come in at just after eleven: Braga’s done. I’m back in Milan, staying at Dad’s place. You free this week? Haven’t seen you since before the final. Let’s do something properly, not just text. Then a second message ten minutes later: Also I saw the Romano tweet. We need to talk about that separately. Call me.

Demien pocketed the phone without replying to Luca yet because the Romano tweet meant he’d have to look at the timeline eventually and he wasn’t ready to do that in the middle of the street, and the walk continued while Bergamo passed around him in the specific way it did when there was nowhere to be and no particular time to arrive.

A woman walking a dog in the opposite direction did the double-take that had become familiar over the past months — recognition arriving a second after initial eye contact — and she said something in Italian that was warm and congratulatory, and he thanked her and kept walking.

Two teenagers outside a gelateria had their phones out before he was past them, and one of them called out his name while the other already had the camera raised, and he slowed for the photograph and kept going.

Bergamo in May.

The streets knew him now.

Demien’s Apartment, Bergamo 1:18 PM

He made coffee and sat on the couch with his phone in both hands and the apartment quiet around him, and the window was open enough that the sounds from the street came in at a low level — voices, a scooter engine, the ambient texture of a city on a Monday afternoon.

The Serie A official account had posted its end-of-season award nominations at eleven AM.

He read through it twice.

@SerieA_EN: 🏆 2022-23 Serie A Award Nominees — Young Player of the Year: Demien Walter (Atalanta), Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (Napoli), Nicolò Cambiaghi (Empoli). Award presented at the Gran Galà del Calcio, December 2023. 🔵⚫️🔵🟡

The engagement showed 41.2K likes and 9.8K retweets and the comments were split predictably along supporter lines, with the Napoli accounts making a reasonable case for Kvaratskhelia and the Atalanta accounts not particularly interested in engaging with them.

The second nomination followed two posts below it.

@SerieA_EN: 🥇 Capocannoniere Nominees — Joint Top Scorers 2022-23 Serie A: Victor Osimhen (Napoli) 21 goals, Demien Walter (Atalanta) 21 goals. Winner determined by goals-to-minutes ratio. Full season stats published at the link.

He sat with that for a moment. Twenty-one goals. A midfielder who had missed three months of the season through injury and started the year as a trial player without a professional history. The number looked strange written down, like a detail that belonged to someone else’s career, and he read it twice before moving on.

Romano had posted at ten fifty-three AM.

@FabrizioRomano: Demien Walter is the STRONG favourite for Serie A Young Player of the Year 2022-23. At 19 years old, he becomes the first teenager nominated for both the Young Player award AND Capocannoniere since Francesco Totti in 1994. Historic season. 🔵⚫️ Here we go... (awards December)

The engagement was 54.7K likes. The comments were the kind that arrived when a name had reached the level where people who didn’t follow Serie A had heard of it.

He scrolled down.

The transfer thread had started at nine AM and it hadn’t stopped.

@FabrizioRomano: Manchester United are preparing a €55M bid for Demien Walter. Ten Hag has personally identified him as his priority midfield target — wants Walter as Bruno Fernandes’ midfield partner next season. Negotiations expected to begin in June. 🔴 #MUFC

The engagement: 87.4K likes. 31.2K retweets.

He kept scrolling.

@David_Ornstein: Liverpool have made Demien Walter their top priority this summer transfer window. Sources indicate a £50M bid is being structured. Klopp was present at the Coppa Italia final and was specifically impressed by Walter’s performance. Liverpool see him as central to their midfield rebuild. (@TheAthletic)

He read that one twice and set the phone face-down on his knee for a moment, then picked it back up.

@FabrizioRomano: Barcelona are monitoring Demien Walter’s situation closely — the €45M release clause in his current Atalanta contract attracts serious interest. Internal discussions ongoing at Camp Nou. Decision expected after June 1st. 🔵🔴

@FabrizioRomano: EXCLUSIVE: Bayern Munich under Thomas Tuchel are also preparing a €50M offer for Atalanta’s Demien Walter. Fully aware of Liverpool and United interest. German approach being structured. 🔴⚪

@David_Ornstein: Arsenal also in the picture for Demien Walter — monitoring closely, though currently behind Liverpool and United in terms of concrete approach. Window opens June 9th. Atalanta aware of multiple club interests. (@TheAthletic)

He lowered the phone to his lap and looked at the ceiling.

The flat was exactly as it had been an hour ago — same walls, same furniture, same light through the same window — and outside the same city moved through the same afternoon, and none of the numbers on his phone screen had changed anything that was physically present in this room.

Five clubs. Three countries. Fees between forty-five and fifty-five million euros. His name trending in six languages according to the football aggregator at the bottom of his timeline, which he scrolled to briefly and then scrolled past.

Fan accounts had flooded the replies to every transfer post.

Generational talent, we NEED him at Old Trafford.

Exactly the profile Klopp has been searching for. Liverpool twitter rise.

Please Atalanta don’t sell him. Not yet.

Bayern will win this one. Always do.

He’s not leaving Serie A this young. Wait for Juventus.

He read through a dozen of them with the same neutral expression he’d worn reading the fees, and then he locked the phone and set it on the coffee table and stared at the ceiling while the apartment stayed quiet and the city outside stayed exactly as it was.

Four weeks off.

Marco would call.

That conversation was coming and he’d have it properly when it did, and until then the ceiling was the same colour it had always been and the coffee he’d made was still half-full and going cold on the table beside his phone.

He reached for the coffee.