Journey || Erik Durm

♀

CHARLOTTE:

                  DURING the slipping of time, delicate fragments of flakes plummeted atop the boulevards of Berlin, gracefully pirouetting to blazing chimneys and nearby rooftops of apartment complexes and houses. Whenever the precipitation subsided and the avenues blanketed themselves with snow, Erik and I capered, uncaring of the colds that would accompany the day after.

There were days then the arctic air came with a force that made everybody breathe nimbly into their hands, but it was Erik and I—Erik and I, who indulged shamelessly in the warmth of one another—and when we were together, even the shiver-inducing temperature wasn't too cold anymore.

Days turned into weeks—weeks into months—and my life passed by in a state of untimely bliss; before I knew it, seasons had progressed in a precipitous blur, insinuating the month of May, which yielded scarlet roses and the long gone summer sun. University had officially drawn an end, football season beginning in its place; the days to Russia were only getting closer.

One day as Erik and I were sprawled out on a capacious football field, panting breathlessly due to excess exercise, it dawned on me that I was dating a weltmeister. Like, fucking hell, my boyfriend is a world champion.

"Yo, Erik," I squeaked. "You're like, really famous, aren't you?"

He squatted the football that lay beside him and when it rolled over, he positioned it behind his head, using it as a pillow. "Yo, Lotte, yeah, I am."

"What does that make me?" I pondered aloud, bringing my hands to my chin and intertwining our caressing legs.

"My wifey? I don't know, dude."

I glared at him, muttering a "Don't mock me, mister," before resuming the curious expression that I had. "So the Americans call the president's wife the country's first lady. Does that make me the first lady too, since you're world champion?"

He chuckled.

"Oh my gosh! Am I going to have to do interviews?"

"For being the coach's daughter, maybe," he replied, staring at the vastness above: the skies, the clouds—the infinite empyrean, "but not for being with me."

"But people are crazy about you," I argued, turning my head and staring at him. Erik wasn't infinity; he was greater. "I discovered recently that people from everywhere write fanfiction about you. Fanfiction, Erik. Do you even know what that is?"

"I know what that is."

"There are thousands about you!"

He arched an eyebrow. "Does that excite you?"

"Yes! I actually read this one about you having this bondage relationship with this English girl," I gushed, giggling. "It was basically describing you two fucki-"

"Okay, Lotte!" he exclaimed, silencing me abruptly. "I don't like where that's going."

"It was interesting."

"Something as intimate as that is only interesting with you," he murmured softly, transforming the nonchalance in the nearby atmosphere into particles of intimacy. There developed a ceaselessly amorous aura in Erik's eyes, and he, pooling the outliers of the hair on my face to the side using his fingers, added, "Get that?"

"Dominant, damn," I commented, smirking. "Easy there, Mr. Durm."

"I'm trying to think of something witty to say," he drawled, his grey eyes not leaving mine, "but all I can think is I am so in love you."