Chapter 142: Volume 2, - 142: Fish, Chips and Mushy Peas

Chapter 142: Volume 2, Chapter 142: Fish, Chips and Mushy Peas

The private dining room on the ground floor of the Sporting hotel smelled intensely of malt vinegar, deep-fryer oil, and clean linen.

Outside, the late evening light over Liverpool had faded into a uniform, bruised slate, but inside, long trestle tables had been arranged under warm amber pendant lamps by the club’s logistics staff. To accommodate the team’s nutritional requirements ahead of Saturday’s fixture at Goodison Park, the hotel kitchen had prepared a controlled, modified version of a local staple: thick-cut oven-baked chips, grilled white fish, and large ceramic bowls of bright-green mushy peas.

Viktor Gyoker was the first to inspect the serving platter nearest the end of the table, using a serving spoon to lift a dollop of the paste onto his plate beside a piece of lemon-rubbed cod.

"What is this green stuff?" Viktor asked in English, raising an eyebrow as he leaned down to smell it. "Looks like moss from a forest floor."

"It’s mushy peas, mate," Ricardo Esgaia said, sliding into the seat opposite him with a heavy sigh. "Tradition. If you don’t eat it, the locals think you’re disrespecting the North."

Viktor scooped a small forkful into his mouth, chewed twice, and nodded slowly. "Actually, it’s not bad. Sweet. Like mashed potatoes with grass in them."

"You have no soul, Viktor," Afonso Morel groaned from two seats down, staring at his plate as if it had personally offended him. "That is not food. That’s chemical waste. Why are we eating this when the chef could just make rice?"

"Because we’re in England, Afonso," Eduardo Quaresmo laughed, dropping heavily into his chair and immediately reaching for the vinegar bottle. "When in Rome, or whatever city this is. Pass the salt."

Rayan took a cautious seat between Quaresmo and Hidemasa Morino, pulling a single portion of the white fish and a modest spoonful of the peas onto his porcelain plate. He picked up his fork, poked a grey-green mound of the peas, and brought it to his mouth. The texture was thick, starchy, and heavily buttered, carrying a sharp, earthy sweetness that surprised him.

"Well?" Quaresmo asked, watching him with an amused smirk. "Does it pass the test, El Mansouri, or do you get better food back home?"

"It’s heavier than I expected," Rayan admitted, swallowing before taking a bite of the fish. "It’s good, but it’s completely different from anything we eat. When I’m at Dad’s on weekends, we get proper Moroccan tagine. Preserved lemons, olives, bread, everything."

"Tagine?" Morel perked up, leaning across the table. "Your dad cooks Moroccan food? Real Moroccan food?"

"Not Dad. Youssef makes it," Rayan clarified with a faint smile. "Dad mostly talks while everyone else cooks."

"And can you make it?" Morino asked mildly, cutting his fish with precise, clean movements.

Rayan paused, his fork hovering halfway to his plate. "I can... watch. And help chop things."

"Translation: he doesn’t know how to boil water without burning it," Quaresmo roared with laughter, slapping the table lightly. "Look at him. Your mum probably still lays out your socks for training."

"She does not," Rayan protested, feeling a hot flush rise up his neck, though the corners of his own mouth were twitching. "I can cook eggs. And toast."

"Oh, marvellous. A master chef," Morel mocked, shaking his head. "Next time we’re on an away trip, El Mansouri is in charge of the breakfast omelettes. If we get food poisoning, we know who to blame."

Despite the teasing, the table settled into a warm, easy rhythm. Around them, other senior players were debating the worst away meals they had ever encountered during European group stages. Tales of rubbery chicken in freezing Eastern European stadiums and unidentifiable soup in Greece traded across the plates. Esgaia chimed in with a grim tale of an institutional canteen in Bucharest, while Morel insisted that a hotel on one of his youth tournament trips had once served pasta that felt like industrial rubber hose, prompting general agreement and groans from the surrounding chairs.

As Rayan ate, his phone buzzed softly against the white tablecloth. He glanced down. A notification flashed across the screen: a message from Joca containing a screenshot of a tiny online mention.

Rayan unlocked the device under the edge of the table, replied with a short dismissal, and switched over to Instagram. His follower count had ticked up another few hundred overnight, driven by a fresh batch of clips recirculating from the Villarreal match. A couple of direct messages sat in his requests folder:

@AcademiaLeo07: What hotel are you staying in?

@VerdeSempre_12: Good luck against Everton, Rayan.

He ignored the first, smiled faintly at the second, and slid the phone face-down beside his glass, enjoying the quiet hum of digital curiosity without letting it distract from the room.

"Phone down at ten, kid," Quaresmo reminded him without looking up from his plate. "Vasco has his clipboard out in the hallway. If he sees you glowing through the screen at midnight, he’ll run your legs off tomorrow."

"I know," Rayan muttered, though he felt entirely too wired to sleep just yet anyway.

Halfway through dessert. A modest bowl of sliced fruit and yoghurt provided by the club nutritionist, Vasco appeared at the head of the dining room, tapping a small spoon against a water glass to command the room’s attention.

"Alright, gentlemen, listen up," Vasco called out, his voice cutting through the chatter. "Evening treatment schedules are posted on the board outside the physio room. The next treatment group starts at twenty-one hundred. Tomorrow morning is full tactical shape work and second-ball transition drills, no light recovery anymore, so make sure your hydration bottles are empty and refilled before you go to sleep. Get your rest."

A low groan rippled across the table at the mention of second-ball transition drills, though it was half-hearted.

"Full shape work in this wind?" Morel muttered, pushing his fruit bowl away. "My lungs are going to freeze before we even reach the halfway line."

"Good for the character, Afonso," Quaresmo grinned, wiping his mouth with a linen napkin. "Builds stamina for Goodison."

The room murmured general agreement as chairs scraped back against the wooden floor. Players began pushing away from the tables at different speeds, some heading directly toward the lifts for early treatment slots, others lingering to finish their coffee or tea while discussing the afternoon’s walk.

Rayan pushed his plate back, feeling comfortably full. His eyes drifted across the table toward Quaresmo’s plate, where a single, perfectly golden, extra-crisp chip lay completely ignored beside a smear of tartar sauce.

Without a word, Rayan reached across the gap, pinched the chip between his thumb and index finger, and yanked it toward himself.

Quaresmo’s hand shot out instantly, rapping the back of Rayan’s knuckles with a sharp thwack.

"Hey! I thought you were finished!" Quaresmo protested, grinning as he snatched the remaining chip away. "Get your own plate, parasite."

"You weren’t going to eat it," Rayan muttered, rubbing his hand with a faux-pained expression while backing away from the table.

"That chip was consecrated," Morel laughed, standing up and tossing his napkin onto his chair. "Come on, mascot. Time for your ice bath before Vasco locks the doors."