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“You’re never getting off the bench if you keep playing like that,” a voice above him says.
Kuso looks up. Most of the team has left the dressing room by now, but it seems like Agi’s stayed behind. He knows guys like him—the kind of wannabe-captain types who always feel the need to do more than they’re supposed to. They’re easy to handle.
“Thanks,” he answers. “You’re very supportive.”
Apparently, Agi can’t take a hint, because he sits down next to him, making himself comfortable in a spot that Kuso’s pretty sure has Swift’s name written above it. Kuso doesn’t bother to look. Their training facilities aren’t as bad as the stadium itself—even after a couple of months of getting used to it, he hasn’t found much to like about the Manshine City dressing room; it still feels too bright and inorganic, like a spotlight examining them, trapping the players in a little circular prison. At least the training center feels a little less clinical in comparison. But it’s hard to ever really feel comfortable either way.
“Are you missing home?” Agi asks. “I did too, when I first moved here.”
Is that really the angle he wants to go with? “Where are you from again?” Kuso asks, just to humour him.
Agi shifts, tapping his fingers on his knee—so he does see the silliness of it, a bit. “London,” he says. “My parents are Nigerian, though.”
“I believe the difference is something like three hundred kilometers versus five thousand,” Kuso tells him. “But I appreciate that you tried.” He fixes his laces before picking up his bag, slipping his phone into his pocket. “Thank you, doctor, but I don’t remember asking for a therapy session.”
“I’m sorry,” Agi tries, “I didn’t mean to suggest that—”
“It doesn’t really matter,” Kuso says, standing up. “I am not offended. Just not in the mood for conversation. Goodbye.”
“Wait,” Agi interrupts, just as Kuso’s made up his mind to walk out the door, no matter what else he wants to tell him. He has better things to do than to be Agi’s newest project. He’d rather leave that to one of the other unsuspecting new players. He stays standing, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re a good player,” Agi continues, “but no one is ever going to create plays with you if you refuse to speak to them.”
“So?”
“So?” Agi asks. “Your contract will end, and you’ll probably be transferred to one shit club after another and go out quietly. Is that what you want?” He pauses, considering. “Are you doing it to go home, or something?” he asks.
“Don’t have anything in Lagos,” Kuso says.
“Your old team,” Agi suggests. Kuso’s pulse jumps up for a moment—“Okorodu United, right?”—then settles. Some doctor Agi is. His diagnosis is all wrong.
“Lagos or Manchester, it doesn’t really make a difference to me,” Kuso says. “Playing for Okorodu was fine, but the club was not the part I cared about.”
“Ah, your teammates?” Agi asks. “And your striker, of course—Onazi?” It’s a dangerous turn of phrase—Kuso shifts his weight from one foot to the other. Agi smiles, like he’s finally figured something out. “I watched all the U20 matches in 2019—now that was an interesting year for football—and I remember you’d…”
“Before you make any comments,” Kuso cuts in, his voice level, “you should remember that I have heard a lot worse than whatever you are about to say. I’m not from somewhere as—open as London, yes?”
Agi seems taken aback. He straightens—for someone as tall as him, it means he’s already partway to Kuso’s height, even while sitting down. “I wasn’t going to say anything like that,” he says. “If you were, I wouldn’t—you know.”
“No,” Kuso repeats, staring him down, “you wouldn’t.”
“All I meant to say is that you’ve got a great bond,” he says. “With your other teammates, too.”
“Yes,” Kuso agrees, “we’ve been friends since we were kids.” He can hear the light lie in Agi’s voice, but he’s not the kind who likes to cause trouble. He won’t push any further unless Kuso hands it to him, and he would never hand this one over. He knows as well as anyone that there was a difference between their dynamic as a team, and between him and Onazi, at least back then.
But he’s not a child feeling his first hint of hope after months of bleak, dreamless nothingness anymore. He’s not a teenager, either; no longer eighteen in a hotel room in Niamey, the night before they headed into the final, confessing you’re the best friend I’ve ever had only to receive a response of you all are my best friends, too. “But Onazi and Bello are in Italy now,” he says, “and Obo’s in Belgium.”
“Well, you’ll see them next time you all get called up to the national team, yeah?” Agi returns. “Until then, you might as well give it your all while you play with us.” He shrugs. “You might just find a new place to call home.”
Kuso bites back the instinct to fight with him—he’s too old to still act that way, he reminds himself. He thinks of a much younger Onazi, crouched in a corner until he’d provoked him; lonely and angry at being called out for it, desperate to prove he could stand on his own. When had Kuso turned into that angry child in the corner, needing to be drawn out by someone willing to reach a hand out?
“Maybe,” he says. He’s willing to accept defeat, but admitting defeat is a different matter; here, it feels like it would involve confessing to something else entirely. “We will see.”
Agi stands. If Kuso had found him tall just after having straightened up in his seat, he’s unnaturally giant now, practically a head taller than him. “You don’t have to decide just now,” he says, “but you should probably figure it out soon, so you can start getting time on the field.”
Kuso rolls his eyes. “Thank you for the treatment advice,” he says. “I will be sure to keep it in mind.”
Agi laughs. “I may not be medically certified, but I promise my advice usually works.” He touches Kuso’s shoulder lightly, his hand lingering for a second. “I won’t pretend to understand everything, but if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here.”
I’m here—Kuso has heard the phrase a million times, but it had always been no need to worry, I’m here. This is something else: only if you choose to. Only if you want it.
“We will see,” Kuso says again, adjusting his bag, but when he steps over the threshold to leave the dressing room, he feels lighter than he has in weeks. He turns the words over in his mind: if you ever need, Agi had said, and I’m here. It feels like a different sort of hope.