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featguler · 8 months ago

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PROLOGUE : I WON'T BE ALONE ( FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE )

jude and a couple of his academy mates decide to try the korean chicken place down his dorm's block, famous for its cheese tteokbokki and infamous for its grumpy chef. he meets a girl and shoots the first shot he does not miss that day.

prologue of ' call my bluff '

⌗ pairing : jude bellingham x female original character ⌗ wordcount : 5,743 ⌗ notes : the prologue of this brand new series!! i am so excited. also i said this in the masterlist of this series, but please don't take anything said in this fic is facts... i don't know if jude ever lived in a dorm, and i don't care enough to find out. i've also never been to birmi so... ignore all geographical matters pls. no one in this chapter is real except for jude if you would like to be added to the taglist, please do let me know! surprise surprise, this chapter was actually proofread by my friends, shin (@ludiceousml) and arya (@amigara-vault). love u guys ♡ masterlist.

mini playlist ! 𐙚 forever noah kahan : i'm glad i get forever to see where you end 𐙚 speak too soon wild rivers : i saw you when my sight was sore 𐙚 buzz niki : phone toss when it's risky and you hit send 𐙚 first day of my life bright eyes : i think i was blind before i met you 𐙚 decimal novo amor : i could be alright if you could rewrite my life

The second month of life at Birmingham City is strange. Strange, as in, it feels like floating in space. Strange, as in, it feels like something in between, like limbo. Strange, as in, Jude has not felt yet like he is where he belongs. Strange, as in, he misses Jobe the way he misses his parents the way he misses that old stain on his family sofa from when Jobe spilled boiled corn after tripping on his untied laces.

The academy is an academy, and he’ll be damned if he had not expected the dorm to be just like a dorm. But he thinks that he has widely miscalculated how concerned the people are over football here. Jude did not start out with a burning passion for football fresh out of the womb, after all, he always preferred picking flowers to bundle for his mother.

“I think I’m homesick,” he told Denise just earlier that week in a quiet call on the dorm’s emergency fire exit. “I miss Jobe so much.”

Who's to say that best friends cannot wrestle until the other bumps their leg hard enough on the edge of a coffee table to bruise? While Jude would occasionally have Jobe’s foot on his face to distract him from scoring the penalty in FIFA, they are definitely best friends. And he missed his best friend.

Denise only laughed when she heard the confession, and he felt the ghost of her fingers rubbing the back of his neck. “Homesick, or Jobesick?”

And that made Jude laugh too, because he never really considered homesick as a word containing two separate words. Never home, never sick. Just homesick. So when his mother replaced the vocal point of longing with the name of his brother, he almost faltered. A sentiment so widespread was suddenly customised to fit him.

“Yeah. Guess I’m Jobesick.”

Zakariya was sprawled across the floor of his dorm room when he suddenly began moaning about how sick he was of protein shakes and eggs for breakfast, craving the cheesebokki from that restaurant down the street. Jude wasn’t aware that he had the brain capacity to talk about anything other than Ronaldinho or his hot, older girlfriend, but there he was, practically drooling like a dog at the thought of a Korean cheat meal amongst the vegetables that they shove down your throat in the academy.

Jude’s encyclopaedia of Korean food ends with hot chicken wings, so he propped his head over a pillow, shifting to the edge of his bed to catch Zakariya’s attention.

“Cheesebokki?” He repeated, the word tasted foreign in his mouth. “Sounds good,” it didn’t sound like anything, “let’s go this sunday. After the practice match.”

“It’s spicy,” Zakariya warned, and Jude shrugged. He can handle spicy. Not any less than Zakariya, that is for sure. “Sure, man. If you think you can handle it. I’ll ask Ethan and Teddy if they wanna come along. Jamal, you should come too.”

Jude considered immediately backing off when he heard the names Zakariya brought up. He likes Zakariya. But he can’t say the same about Ethan, and Teddy, he is amicable with. Jamal, the only one he could already call a friend, couldn’t go. After matches, Sundays are reserved for church and his mother; they are about the same thing to Jamal anyway.

Jude called his mum to ask for her opinion—he’s similar to Jamal in this way—and she encouraged him to go.

“Maybe you’ll find that you and Ethan have much more in common than you initially thought.”

He doubted it. Denise was only saying that because she likes Alicia Ewart, Ethan’s mother. Ethan thinks he is too good for the academy, and Jude thinks he’s full of shit.

But he ended up going. He knows that a mother’s blessing eases the path. His mother’s especially.

No one in this world calls Olivia by her Korean name.

Haewon, to her, is simply not an interesting enough word.

She is not saying that she is anything more than ordinary, or even just an inch off of being riveting, but there are two people in just her family with her exact name: her great-aunt and a distant cousin. And despite most of Birmingham not having a clue on who those other Haewon’s are, they are, no less, two extra Haewon’s in her life.

And as a matter of fact, she was named after her great-aunt deliberately, like she is not allowed her own identity. To add icing on the cake, her Haewon translates roughly to sailor or seaman, or something like that; a name that grants nothing but strenuous expectations for her. Her great-aunt’s Haewon, however, translates to beautiful ocean.

Beautiful-Ocean-Haewon was Olivia’s grandmother’s younger sister.

Her grandmother died three months before her father turned four years old, and her grandfather before her father was even born. Yujae Jang was taken in by his aunt effective immediately. He thinks that she was so great (Olivia wouldn’t have a way of knowing as she died before she was even born). He thinks that she was what a mother is supposed to epitomise: unconditional love in a condition where condition is consequential.

But for someone who looks up to mother figures so much, Yujae sure finds it difficult to spare his own wife, the mother of his children, a cordial glance. And a man who does not respect his wife naturally despises his daughter.

He doesn’t have to say it. Olivia knows. It’s her chief theory in navigating her path; the lighthouse guiding her worn down seaboat. From the moment he named her sailor, she knew.

And she doesn’t like to admit it, but though her fragility stands on its toes, balancing on a tipping vase, what she feels, what she thinks, do not matter as much as she would like to believe. Being delicate is something she has long outgrown. It does not interest her anymore. Being frail brings nothing but heartache, and while her heart is not desensitised to stabwounds, she relishes in the fact that a straight face will save herself some embarrassment.

So, she embraces the ocean and sets sail as a seaman.

Names are meant to be prayers after all; some kind of prophecies that name-holders are cursed to fulfil. Her theory states that her father’s disappointment peaked the day she was born, and the little optimism he had gifted him a son three years later.

And this is a lot of thinking for a secondary school student, sure, but thinking crooked is something that Olivia does most days her father decides to scream at her for something trivial. She has gone from wishing him harm in her mind to taking part in the devout practice of self-pity. No one is going to calm her cries and rub her back. Not her mother, not her brother, and definitely not her father. She has got to do it herself.

Now, Philip, twelve years old, is wiping tabletops. And Olivia, fifteen years old, is trembling as she scribbles on some scratch papers, finishing her mathematics homework so that she can spend the rest of the night sobbing against her pillow.

“Welcome to Jang’s Chicken, how are you lot?”

The little bell above the heavy mahogany door just a few feet away from the cashier counter jingles; her nose is still tainted red and her cheeks are still surrendering to the tears streaming from her eyes.

The restaurant had been so quiet just a few moments ago, and the only sound you could hear was the choir of angry utensils cling-clang-ing against one another as Yujae washes the plate. Her mother is coating raw chicken with egg yolk and flour on one corner table, quiet as she has always been. Philip is cleaning the tables, then spraying some cleaning chemical only to wipe the same spot over and over. A piece of thread could cut through the silence.

But instead of a thread, it is broken by a horde of rowdy boys. Their windbreaker is familiar: a football academy from a couple of blocks away from the restaurant. They are bustling and filled with haste, looking at everything but her, scrutinising the humble decoration of Korean calligraphy all over the creaking walls of the family restaurant.

Olivia can see the spot where her shoes were laid just as she got home from tutoring that day, where she took them off in a hurry to rush to the loo, only for her father to yell at her when she forgot to place them in the cabinet next to the entrance. Then here comes these boys—customers—with their stupid cleats still attached to each of their feet, dirtying up the freshly swept floor, not having a clue what monstrosity their action would lead to if they were Olivia.

She huffs, wiping a dripping snot with the base of her palm.

Fathers can be so evil, she thinks, but her father especially.

The Birmingham F.C. Academy students have been regulars in Jang’s Chicken since as long as Olivia could remember. A group of students from a different year, just a few days ago, had visited the restaurant. Since she started working as a cashier three years ago, they have been coming in. Since before she was even born, they have been coming in. Olivia is not fazed with football; she is not fazed with boys who play football.

She gathers her hair, tying them in a low ponytail before pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

“We’re good, how are you?”

The one that looks oldest—or tallest, at least—greets before stepping forward. He grabs one of the oily, limp laminated menus from the tabletop, holding them in a way that is visible to the rest of the crowd. Olivia smiles weakly and decides to not answer the small talk.

“We should get the party box.”

Olivia rubs her nose as she hides a sniffle. “That's 16 pieces of chicken,” she uses her finger to point at a menu on the table. “You can choose up to three flavours for the party box.”

She doesn’t know if she’s gotten good at hiding the nasal in her voice, or if they were nice enough to not point out how red her eyes are. By the way the leader of the bunch glances down at her as quick as he looks away, she guesses that it’s the latter.

From the corner of her eyes, she sees Lip taking a seat next to their mother. She shoots him a look and he sends her a shrug in return.

A boy peeks over the first boy’s shoulder. “What's soju?”

“That's booze,” another one slaps the back of his head lightly as Olivia focuses her attention back to them.

“We don't sell alcohol to underage customers,” she hurries in as well, and the boys nod.

“Obviously.” Murmurs of agreement rustles.

”I want the cheesebokki” — a cute way their restaurant had shortened ‘cheese tteokbokki’ — “and a can o’ Coke.”

A scoff escapes their leader. “Last time you got that, you shitted yourself for a week, didntcha, mate?”

Collective groans emit from the group and Olivia scrunches her nose.

”Not in front of the lady, E,” the cheesebokki enjoyer turns red. “Besides! It’s good,” his hand smacks the chest of a boy closest to him, “and Judey here says he’ll share with me.”

Olivia only smiles, just to be polite, and to hold back a sigh.

Jude has been watching the cashier girl from the back of the group.

The whole walk to Jang’s Chicken, he has been out of it. Nobody has mentioned it, so he thinks that maybe nobody noticed the way he shuffles quietly behind the other three, hands nuzzled deep in his outer. He pretends his huffs were for the cold and kicks invisible rocks to distract his own mind.

He made four chances at scoring just earlier, but none of them made it past the goalpost. And Jude is young enough to want to blame it on anyone else but him, but he is also mature enough to understand that it was nobody else’s fault but his own. The goalkeeper was always distracted, and there were no defenders trying to tackle the ball out of his feet. It was his muddled mind, he thinks, that the ball kept flying over the post.

He has been out of it, and the one to pull him out of being out of it is that cashier girl.

Nasally voice, weakly greeting them. It's her glasses that he notices first. They are big—definitely too big for her tiny face—with red frames taped up in the middle and on the sides. His eyes then travel to the bridge of her nose, and wouldn't you know it, the tip of her nose is tainted the same shade of scarlet.

He wonders why he finds it endearing: the way she holds back sniffles, the way she points out to the menu in exhalation. The more he examines her face, the more he sees her damp cheeks, her lips parting to make way for her breath, and the more is he drawn in. Strands of her hair keep falling even after she tugs them behind her ears, monotonically responding to his friend’s inquiries.

The back of Zakariya’s hand meets Jude chest, and he is taken out of his reverie, humming in agreement at whatever he had said.

“Guess we’ll do the party box, then?”

“Sure,” Jude’s murmurs blend in with the rest. He’s got no energy to go against Ethan. He’s there for the cheesebokki, anyway, and a chance of creating bountiful friendship with boys who are neither Jobe nor Jamal. Not chicken wings.

“‘lright then, the party box, one cheesebokki, and four can ‘o coke.”

She nods and pushes some buttons on the cashier, a loud and ancient machine that looks like someone’s prized possession that they would proudly reveal is older than him. For a moment, his gaze wanders to the fading football stickers—Ronaldo, Spurs, Real Madrid, Benzema, Marcelo—placed arbitrarily all over its body before going back to her.

“Which sauces would you like to go with?”

Honey mustard dip, sweet and sour sauce, and fire buffalo sauce.

Olivia cannot think of a combination more basic.

Teddy whips out his mother’s credit card in an instance, briefly telling the group to ping him their share of the money, and Zakariya complains about how he only has cash. Jude barely registers their banter.

They sit just far enough away from the lady and the boy dipping raw chicken to flour so that they wouldn’t hear their conversations, but close enough for the aroma of freshly fried chicken to wander out of the kitchen window and spike up his nose. He slides a chair out, a barrel of some sort with a wooden back nailed on to it.

Teddy takes the seat beside him. “You’ve been distracted, Judey.”

“I have,” as he sits, Jude looks back at the cashier. The girl is now at the counter, furiously holding back her bangs as she grips her pencil harder. “Think I should ask for her number?”

Teddy shrugs after a small laugh. Jude turns to him with an eyebrow raised. “Well, do whatever you want, but her dad’s a bit…”

“Evil,” Ethan interjects.

Zakariya scoffs. “‘Evil’s a bit of a big word ain’t it, E?”

Ethan grabs a pair of chopsticks Jude knows damn well he is not going to use, and fiddles with it, contending it against each other. “Well, he’s grumpy, that’s for sure.”

“My dad can be grumpy,” Jude insists, like he needs any of their permission. “Reckon her dad won't mind a nice young man like me asking for ‘er number.”

“Nice young man,” Ethan repeats, a little too mockingly to Jude’s liking.

“Well, I am a nice young man.”

“You’re a young man, that’s what you are,” Zakariya laughs, piling on Ethan’s mockery and they bump shoulders in mischief cackles. Jude shoots them a glare.

“You know what? I say do it,” Teddy grazes his knee against Jude’s. Jude looks at him funny. “Just do it, bruv, take the shot. Ethan’s just bitter ‘cuz he tried talking to her too.”

“Yeah?” At the short smirk on Teddy’s lips, curiosity creeps up Jude’s nerves, eyeing Ethan across from him. Teddy had just officially graduated from being on his amicable list to his like list. “So you got her number?”

“Ha,” a cynical snicker leaves Ethan’s lips. “Obviously not. Her dad got between us.”

“Evil,” Jude repeats, and the rest of the boys nod.

“Evil.”

Mr. Paisley, Olivia’s homeroom, insists that there is no absolute truth in the world except the truths that are backed with numbers. He’s a mathematics teacher, so it makes sense. And to Olivia, one plus one is, definitely, equal to two. But the absolute truth does not interest her, now, does it? Truths, not-truths. None of these really matters in the long run. What matters is how she is going to mend relationships she would not want to mend; whether she will grow up to be more her mother or more her father.

The scrap papers she is scribbling maths equations on was picked up from the large trash bin behind the church her parents go to. She doesn’t go, she is not interested, but her mother would occasionally come home to gift her and Philip excess church brochures that they can use to count, or write, on.

It’s the little ways that they save money. The anxiety that comes with having none was brought down to the children, even when they were born after the years where money had been a problem. That’s just how her family is: rigid, stiff, stationary. It’s the same way she is gripping on her pencil, with the tip of her fingers beginning to hurt, her nail beds turning red against her skin, pale for not having eaten anything aside from three slices of canned peach since breakfast.

“Hey.”

But just like that, her endless stream of self-loathing, maths-loathing, church-brochures-loathing, and Mr. Paisley-loathing thoughts are over.

Olivia slants her eyes as she tries to gain a better look at the boy calling out to her behind her foggy glasses. He is a part of the academy group—the logo, she knows, and that there are no other customers in the restaurant aside from them.

“I’ll have another side,” he offers her a short grin, taking one hand from the pocket of his windbreaker to pick up the menu, “the nuggets.”

She clears her throat against her fist, nodding her head as she stands. “A moment please,” Olivia steps sideways to the cashier, already forgetting what he looks like. She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose again. “Nuggets, you can get the sweet and sour sauce with it, or the barbeque for an extra Pound and a half.”

“A pound and a half?”

“Yeah.”

He lets out a chuckle. “I’ll just do the sweet and sour sauce. It’s better anyway, yeah?”

“I like it better,” Olivia entertains the banter with a light laugh, rubbing the tip of her nose. There is a deep silence between them just for a second. “That’ll be seven and a half, please.”

“You’re crying.”

Olivia’s head snaps up.

She sees him in great clarity this time. He didn’t speak much if at all when his crowd were ordering, and she had not cared enough to examine the boy who had paid for their food, moreover some shorter lad on the back of the group. But there he stands before her, voice light yet thick—though no thicker than her brother’s brummie as she notes.

“Pardon me?”

The situation is so jarring that Olivia cannot help but be offended, even when she knows that she has been crying—is crying, even. She sniffles and feels another tear roll down her cheek.

“Nevermind,” he shakes his head. She watches the way his nose scrunches when he notices the offence in her tone, and he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a phone with a battered case. “Can I have your number?”

“What?”

The busy-bee movements from the rest of the restaurant halt. From the corner of her room, she can see the group of boys holding their breaths, her brother doing the same thing too, and her mother staring daggers at her.

“Your phone number.”

“Like,” —

She hesitates, this time fully glancing to the kitchen window only to see her dad slanting his eyes, shooting glares at either her or at the Birmingham Academy boy, she cannot tell.

— “to order food from us?”

He shakes his head. “Like, to text you. If you wanna.”

“But… do you still want the nuggets?”

He laughs and places his phone on the counter, fishing for a wallet from a patch in his windbreaker. He places ten quid next to his phone. “Sure. Let’s get that number sorted out first, though.”

She grabs his phone, and a victorious smile appears on Jude’s face. His stupid plan—”plan”, loosely translating to: just going for the shot—works, and now he has a pretty girl typing her number into his phone.

His eyes dart to the multiple worksheets and eraser dust scattered next to the rugged down cashier, trying to ignore the growing commotion from the lads. “What are you working on?”

The girl huffs a bitter chuckle, her swollen eyes glancing up at him under her bangs for a moment. “Mathematics. Are you any good at it?”

He shakes his head. “The only thing I’m good at is football, Miss.”

She raises an eyebrow, a curious zest sparkling her eyes. “You're a football player?”

“Not yet, not officially,” Jude shrugs. He points to his academy logo on the chest of his windbreaker. “Birmingham F.C.”

“Birmingham academy?”

“Yup,” he nods. “One and only.”

She chuckles again, though he recognizes the lack of bitterness this time. “Y’must be pretty good then, huh?”

“I try my best.”

The muscles in her cheeks are begging for her to smile, but she knows that her father is watching, and she cannot show humiliating emotions before him, not after a bad fight. The tears were bad enough already. She is not going to let the giddy feeling when a boy flirts with her show on her face.

Bitterness bites even harder when she feels, hears, and notices Yujae shuffling closer to her. Olivia hopes she didn’t mess up her number, and returns the phone to the counter without even filling in her name, afraid that her father would grab it and toss it across the room. Or something dramatic like that.

“Haewon.”

She sighs. No one on this Earth calls Olivia by her Korean name. No one but her father. What is it with him and ruining every single thing she has going on in her life?

“Don’t chat with the customers?” He says—in Korean, Olivia guesses to intimidate the boy—though the tone of his voice makes it seem like he is more confused than anything else, and she wants to laugh; she can’t help but share the confusion. It really is not like her to talk to a boy, it’s not like her to talk to a boy who is a stranger, and it definitely is not like her to give out her number to a boy who is a stranger.

“I wasn’t chatting,” she knows that trying to defend herself will not result in the most ideal outcome in the taut stalemate, but the pettiness that runs in Yujae’s blood also lives in hers, so she does it anyway. “He was ordering some side dishes.”

“Is that it?”

She tries not paying attention to the boy as much this time, and punches the button on the cashiering system. She takes the tenner from the counter and places it in the cash drawer.

“What?” Her father hovers next to her when she doesn’t answer. “He asked for your number, didn’t he?”

“He did,” Olivia says, keeping her tone flat.

“And you gave it to him?”

“I did,” she frowns this time, glancing up at her father. “Why?”

“Why did you give him your number?”

“Why not?”

Yujae peers deep into her, like trying to gauge her weak spot, anything that would offer him some kind of reclamation over the disrespect she sends his way. He ends the eye contact with a scoff.

“You won’t get far in life with that mouth and that attitude.”

Olivia rolls her eyes and focuses back on the cashier, letting it print out the receipts after slamming close the cash drawer.

“I’m not trying to get anywhere far in life,” she mumbles, just as he walks away. Finally, she looks back at the boy, going back to English. “Here’s your change and receipt. Thanks.”

“Thanks,” Jude grabs his change and looks at the direction of the grumpy chef—Ethan is right. He does seem evil. He looks back at the girl, “I’ll text you tonight.”

She scoffs, and it looks like she is going to cry more now, but is trying hard to act nonchalant. “I’ll talk to you, then.”

He smiles, and is somewhat not bothered that she doesn’t return it. “I’ll talk to you later.”

Unknown Number: Hello?

Olivia’s face scrunches as she lay on her bed, before breaking into a smile.

The thinning mattress under her sinks in the middle. It had always been that way, and it’s generally more comfortable for her to lay on the edge of the bed. It’s closer to where her phone charger is too. And yet, though she can name a hundred reasons why the rundown house her family and her previously lived in was better than living on top of the restaurant, this—having her own, albeit very small, bedroom and not having to share with Philip—is definitely one of the good things about moving.

Me: hello?

Olivia used to take the top bunk while Philip, sleep tosser, brought earthquakes to her vocabulary.

Unknown Number: I’m the one who asked for your number earlier on today Unknown Number: Remember me?

She giggles to the back of her hand. Now, she doesn’t have to worry about suppressing laughter. There is no brother under her to judge her.

Me: yeah Me: birmingham academy? Unknown Number: That’s right Unknown Number: My name’s Jude by the way Unknown Number: Sorry for not introducing myself earlier Me: it’s calm Me: my name’s olivia Me: it’s nice to meet you, jude!! Unknown Number: It’s nice to meet you too! Unknown Number: Olivia is a pretty name

Rolling her eyes, she huffs through her smile, turning so that she is laying on her stomach, her chin propped on a pillow.

Me: i’ve been told Me: olivia jang Me: like the restaurant Unknown Number: So your father is Mister Jang? Me: more or less Me: he’s a bit scary Me: sorry for earlier Unknown Number: I’m Jude Bellingham Unknown Number: It’s fine Unknown Number: My dad’s a sergeant so I get it Unknown Number: I didn’t land you in trouble though did I? Me: ohh sergeant Me: your dad’s Sergeant Bellingham then Me: no it’s fine Jude Bellingham: More or less Jude Bellingham: Alright, good then

She breathes, going to type a random, stupid question to keep the small talk up but stops when she notices that he is typing. Only for him to stop as well. Bleh.

Me: sorry what were you typing? Me: i stopped typing cuz i saw you were typing Me: sorry Jude Bellingham: Wait yeah I did the same Jude Bellingham: Just wanted to ask which school you go to Jude Bellingham: Small talk, yknow?

She chuckles.

Me: i go to colebourne Me: stechford Jude Bellingham: Stechford is a bit of a walk from King’s Norton isn’t it? Me: well it isn’t like i walk 10 miles a day Jude Bellingham: Still, no? Me: used to live there, but my mum and dad decided to move to be nearer to the restaurant Me: now we live ON the restaurant Me: hahaha

She wonders if she talks too much.

She doesn’t usually speak to boys this way, no—so fluently, so unabashed. While she is open to befriending anyone and everyone, she just can’t find it within herself to open up to the opposite gender. Even with girls, she feels like she wouldn’t tell the history of her residency to someone she just met.

Jude, though, feels different.

It’s how they met, there is no doubt. Just a few hours ago she was made aware of his existence, and whether she wanted to or not, she was sobbing before him, all sniffly with her runny nose. And on top of that, her father had come to scold her. Jude had seen her struggle with school work, seen her cry, and seen her speak in a language she could not call mother tongue. All on the same day. All in the same five minutes.

Even to her girl friends, she had never conveyed such vulnerability. The peeling of her emotions are reserved for her father’s disowning gaze, her mother and brother’s ignorance, and the heedless minds of the restaurant’s patrons. Jude just became the first one to take a shot at cracking her open.

Jude Bellingham: Oh wow Jude Bellingham: Doesn’t it get tiring? Jude Bellingham: The commuting

She smiles, seeing the text, tossing from one side of her bed to the other.

Me: a bit but Me: just a few years left then i’ll be off to uni Me: then i’ll be commuting to uni instead haha

Jesus. That’s like—what?—the fourth time she’s sent three text bubbles in a row. She bites her lips and tries to justify her own excitement: well, it isn’t like he is economical with his replies either, though his syntax hints at being a bit rigid, he sends her the same amount of bubbles.

Olivia tosses again, to the other side of her body.

Jude Bellingham: Yeah? Jude Bellingham: How old are you? Me: i’m 15!! Me: n you?? Jude Bellingham: 14

A burst of light giggles escaping her lips.

Me: woooooow you’re like a little kid Jude Bellingham: Hahaha shut up

She bites her lips.

Me: btw Me: you got an insta jude? Jude Bellingham: I do!!

Olivia’s body awakens, shifting all its weight to her knees before flopping into a curl in the middle of her bed. Her fingers hover above her keyboards. Shit. she initiated, so she must be the one that asks first.

Me: wanna follow each other?

Groaning, she shuts her phone and flicks it two feet away from her, dramatically slapping both her palms—damp due to anxiety—against her face. Her phone dings as soon as it lands on the thinning bedcover.

Jude Bellingham: Sure!!!

Olivia plants her face into her pillow, lets out a muffled kind-of-bellow, before telling herself to get her act together.

Me: what's yours? Jude Bellingham: I’ve got a private one Jude Bellingham: It's jujudedebell

“jujudedebell,” she murmurs to herself, biting the inside of her cheeks.

Me: jujudedebell Me: 😂😂😂 Me: that's such a cute username Jude Bellingham: Hahaha Jude Bellingham: I gotta keep it lowkey, you know?

Olivia rolls her eyes and switches over to the Instagram app, typing the username into the search bar and requesting to follow the first account she sees.

Me: i requested to follow you!! Jude Bellingham: Alright!! Jude Bellingham: You're… viajangoli? 😂

Jude Bellingham: That's worse than mine Me: shut up!! Me: you should help me think of a better handle Jude Bellingham: I’ll let you know when something crosses my mind Jude Bellingham: Oh, miss Jang Jude Bellingham: You're popular huh?? Me: nooooo Me: i just meet a lot of people through internships and volunteering Me: i bet you'll be real popular soon too jude

Isn’t that how football careers usually go?

She bet he’s real popular even right now—proper, actual popular. He said that he’s got a private Instagram; she’s not even going to look up his public one.

Jude Bellingham: Yeah? Jude Bellingham: Also Jude Bellingham: Your most recent post Jude Bellingham: That’s in London ain’t it? Me: yes yes yes!! Me: went there last month for a school trip Me: best day of my life Me: been there? Jude Bellingham: Yeah with my family Jude Bellingham: Best day huh? Me: yeah Me: i wanna work there Jude Bellingham: Ohh Jude Bellingham: Going to London for school too? Me: my dad wont let me leave birmi for uni Me: but i want to work there Me: wbu Me: u got any dream job? Jude Bellingham: Well I’m a fan of this one football player Jude Bellingham: Zinedine Zidane Jude Bellingham: He’s my role model Jude Bellingham: He’s working for Real Madrid now Jude Bellingham: So maybe Real Madrid Jude Bellingham: Hahahaha

She raises an eyebrow at the football club.

Me: what’s so funny? Jude Bellingham: I don’t know Jude Bellingham: Real Madrid just seems so big Me: right now Me: we don’t know jude bellingham 10 years from now yeah? Jude Bellingham: You think it’s gonna take me 10 years to get into Real Madrid? Me: well if you believe in yourself Me: maybe five Me: or even three Me: or tomorrow Jude Bellingham: Tomorrow? 😂 Jude Bellingham: Lmao Me: idk Me: i don’t much about football but real madrid’s my brother favourite team Jude Bellingham: They are? Me: he’s crazy about marcelo or i don’t know Me: sorry lol Jude Bellingham: You’re good Jude Bellingham: How old is your brother? Me: he was born in 2005 Me: so like 12 Jude Bellingham: Oh, my brother’s the same age Me: oh you got a brother too? Jude Bellingham: Yeah, his name’s Jobe! Me: oh cute Me: jude and jobe Me: mine’s olivia and lip Me: from philip Jude Bellingham: Liv and Lip? Me: nobody really calls me liv Jude Bellingham: Well Jude Bellingham: I can be the first

Olivia shuts her phone. She spreads her arms wide on the bed, now laying in the middle, her back aching slightly as she stares up at the ceiling. Her mouth parts, letting the air circulate freely in and out her throat. After a while of trying to digest the odd feeling in her chest, letting it run down to her stomach where it hatches into butterflies, she raises her shaky hands to hold her phone over her face.

Me: mhmm Me: yeah sure you can

#CALL MY BLUFF !#໒꒰ྀི´ ˘ ` ꒱ྀིა : 𝑬𝑼𝑷𝑯𝑶𝑹𝑰𝑨 𝑺𝑶𝑳𝑨𝑹𝑰𝑨 #jude bellingham #jude #jude bellingham x reader #jude x reader #bellingham x reader #real madrid #real madrid fic #real madrid x reader #football fic #football x reader #jude bellingham x original character #original character #jude bellingham x oc

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