Chapter Text
December 20 - Berghütte above Oberstdorf, Allgäu Alps, Germany
“Welcome to The DG News Radio, here your host Dante Wolfheart, and I can tell you that the following days until Christmas will be white because there's a blizzard coming to our town so grab your shovels and thick jackets to have a... White Christmas!” And with that the famous song started to play as a young man with red sweatpants and a black thick jacket walked out of the petrol station with alcohol and meatloaf sandwiches and some snacks.
As he was driving the snow started with fat, lazy flakes when Michael Kaiser left the A7 at Sonthofen, but a short time later he found himself wrestling his Audi up the last unploughed forest track as it had turned into a white, screaming wall. The wipers couldn’t keep up.
“Fucking snow... stop keeping me away from my loneliness...” he said with a deep and annoying voice.
As he drove his car fishtailed twice and those were so hard he thought he’d end up wrapped around a pine tree and he imagined a Bild’s, a German newspaper, headline saying on the front page Jilted Bayern target dies alone on Christmas, how tragic, that idea caused him to laugh dryly “they would love to give that news.” he thought.
His plan? disappear. He wanted to be unfoundable for Christmas and it was like no one would miss him. He already got a free week thanks to his vacation plans with his ex fiance, the model Milan Hardman.
“Bild and Fabrizio Romano leaked the possible deal for Michael Kaiser, the German striker and Real Madrid star, to be back at Bastard München for €35 m...”
“Damn it...” Michael said, turning off the tv. Outside of his apartment were journalists and photographers ready to get more details.
Milan, his fiance, walked straight to him and threw the ring back at him “I'm sorry Michael but I can't handle this... Bye” and she left him.
He was speechless, she was a top model and should know how it works but now she was acting like she can't handle some journalists... Kaiser was pissed and after cancelling the trip to the Caribbean, the hotel there and everything, he rented a hut in a mountain, covered in snow and ready for him to disappear.
So for the next five days, no training, no interviews, no fake-smile Christmas posts. Just a rucksack, two crates of Augustiner from the petrol station, some junk food and the ring box he still hadn’t managed to throw away. He kept it in the glovebox like a loaded gun.
After a long hour's drive the hut appeared out of the chaos. It was 5:43 in the afternoon when he arrived at a dark wooden box clinging to the mountainside, half-buried already. He killed the engine, sat for a full minute listening to the wind howling and trying to rip the roof off the car, then he shouldered the door open against the storm.
He grabbed his bags and the six pack of beers and walked in the hut.
Inside it smelled of old smoke and damp wool. He dumped the six pack on the table, kicked the door shut behind him, and only then noticed the single pair of immaculately aligned Nike running shoes by the stairs. Size 39. Someone was already here.
Upstairs, Yoichi Isagi heard the crash of the front door and the creative string of Bavarian curses that followed. He’d been in the hut since the 17th, the club's orders were altitude, isolation, zero Japanese media, learn German like your career depends on it, because it does.
He's been four days of silence, morning runs until he vomited, afternoon language apps until his eyes bled. He was calm, disciplined, and very, very ready for the quiet to continue but apparently there was someone who planned on destroying his well planned routine.
He came down the narrow stairs barefoot, wearing light blue training pants and a black hoodie, earbuds still in. Stopped halfway when he saw the intruder: light blue eyes, tall, blond long hair with light blue tips, snow in his hair, cheeks red from cold and something else, could be anger or grief?
The stranger was wrestling with an armful of frozen logs that clearly weren’t going to fit in the tiny stove the way he wanted.
Michael felt the presence behind him and turned too fast, nearly dropping the wood.
“Scheiße!... Err sorry,” he blurted, switching to German automatically. “I booked the whole place, at least I thought so...”
“You didn’t,” Yoichi said, in careful, Italian-accented German, thanks to his ten years in Italy playing in Milan, Turin and Naples. Then, he changed to softer English: “But it’s fine. The storm's bad. We can share.”
Michael stared. The young man had Japanese features, calm dark blue eyes, and a posture like he was already on the pitch waiting for a through-ball. He seemed athletic, maybe a professional athlete but he couldn't tell if he played football or maybe another sport, he couldn't tell.
Something about the quiet confidence made Michael feel even more like a drunken hurricane that had just blown in off the street.
He dropped the logs with a clatter. One rolled across the floor and stopped against Yoichi’s foot.
Silence stretched, filled only by the wind battering the windows.
Michael rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly aware he might look like absolute shit. “I... hmmm I brought beer,” he offered, "the way another man might offer a peace treaty “and... Hmm... some sandwiches” he felt like an idiot but he didn't want to sound like some alcoholic prick.
Yoichi considered this, rubbing his chin like considering this, then gave the smallest twitch of a smile. “I have miso soup and instant rice. We won’t starve.”
Michael barked a laugh that surprised both of them. “Deal.”
They moved around each other like wary animals the first hour. Michael was hauling in the rest of his stuff, while Yoichi quietly reorganised the kitchen cupboard to make space for the Augustiner crates. Michael found the hut’s ancient stereo, blew dust off a stack of vinyls, and put on the first thing he grabbed, which turned out to be the Chainsmokers.
Yoichi raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
By 9pm the power was flickering, the valley had vanished completely behind white, and the temperature inside was dropping fast. Michael cracked the first two beers, handed one over without asking. Yoichi took it, and clinked bottlenecks.
“To surviving Christmas,” Michael muttered.
Yoichi tilted his head. “And to strangers who bring good beer.”
They drank. The wind screamed. The lights flickered again and held, for now.
Neither of them knew yet that the storm had just locked the door on the rest of the world for the next five days, or that by the time it let go, they would already belong to each other in ways no contract clause could ever cover.
They only knew the fire was finally catching, the beer was cold, and for the first time in days Michael wasn’t thinking about the ring in the glovebox downstairs.
That would have to be enough for day one.