You have a childhood friend who lives next door and was born on the exact same day as you. Of course, it wasn't entirely a coincidence. Your mother hit it off with someone at the hospital and, after an enthusiastic chat, chose the address they suggested when she moved.
To make life easier, your parents often looked after the kids together. From the time you were little, you and your neighbor were practically in sync: you went to the same kindergarten and elementary school, took the same extracurricular activities, and eventually joined the same youth academy.
Even after your families moved away, you still remembered the happy times of your childhood, and the little friend who would give you a shy smile.
You thought that closeness, the feeling that you wanted to share everything with him, had long since faded. But in truth, it had only been buried by time. When you met again at Chelsea, you looked at your familiar yet unfamiliar childhood friend, just back from a loan spell and walking toward you with Madrid's brilliant sunshine in his wake. The joy you felt from the bottom of your heart made you break into a huge smile, too.
"This is great, Thibaut! We can be together again!"
You said excitedly. Your childhood friend froze for a moment, then smiled warmly again. "Yeah. It's great."
You missed the falling-out between him and the youth academy, and never realized he had never been the shy, gentle person you imagined.
By the time you discovered that he was, at heart, sharp-tongued, cold, and selfish, and that he took more pleasure in your pain than your happiness, it was already too late.
*
Your childhood friend has made you cry many times.
At first, it was because he stole the candy you loved.
Later, it was because you couldn't bear to part when you moved away.
As you grew older, you stopped crying as easily as you had as a child. Tears only welled up in your eyes when your emotions ran especially high: the night you won the championship, the night he left, and...
"Do you have to ruin every good thing?"
When you were little, he would only gaze at you in silence. As a teenager, he would wipe away your tears with his hand. In the end, he pressed a kiss to your trembling lashes. It wasn't to comfort you. He simply enjoyed and admired the sight.
And at last, you understood: Belgium doesn't believe in tears.
The opening paragraphs reflect the protagonist's one-sided rose-tinted view, and don't fully match reality. Thibaut himself is still a gloomy, crawling Beagle.
A story about being deceived as a child by a Beagle-like childhood friend, watching your rose-tinted glasses shatter again and again, and eventually joining the Beagle Victims' Alliance anyway.
I got excited and started writing. I'm currently building up a stock of chapters. I might tweak the blurb later, but the core won't change.
The pairing is set: Courtois.
The male lead is an unconventional Belgian. He'll suffer one setback after another surrounded by all sorts of Belgians, but he doesn't hold grudges. His motto is to be content, enjoy life, live in the moment, and make peace with the whole world.
He plays forward. In various ways, he'll try to save De Bruyne...
Warning: The male lead has a moral compass, but some people around him, including but not limited to his Belgian national team teammates and club teammates, don't. Some of their behavior gets pretty morally chaotic. If you have a strong aversion to morally questionable characters, this isn't for you.
The male lead's first love is Belgian. There may be other characters who fall for him, but he only likes Belgian.
Theme: The journey of chasing your dreams
