VEX

iv.

Arsenal fans are obnoxious. This isn't an opinion. One supposed work in support of Arsenal by the street artist Vex and suddenly graffiti is popping up everywhere, either trashing the Gunners or the Spurs. This might be Guro's bias speaking, seeing as she plays for Chelsea Women. The ladies on their team were nice, but the fans of the men's team were absolute drittsekker, or assholes.

Though fans class Arsenal as Chelsea's rival, the biggest rivalry in London is Arsenal and Tottenham. But in the women's game, the rivalry between Chelsea and Arsenal is so much more important than Tottenham and Arsenal's rivalry. Not saying that the Spurs are a bad team, but they aren't as good as Chelsea or Arsenal.

Guro sighs again, gaining the attention of her fellow Norwegian, Maren Mjelde, and English international Fran Kirby.

"Are you okay?" Maren asks, her attention finally redirected.

"You don't like third wheeling?" Fran says before Guro can say anything.

To her credit, that lifts Guro's mood from her mini spiral into her dislike of Arsenal.

"I don't dislike third wheeling but Arsenal's fans have gotten a lot more unruly after Vex did that piece in North London."

"Was that even Vex? That isn't on the Instagram, and the Spurs thing over it is also signed by Vex and not on the Instagram," Maren mentions around bites of a pastry.

They dive into a discussion about Vex and the possibility of the pieces being commissioned, but it gets waved off by Fran quickly because of how nothing else has been commissioned and they have never mentioned anything about football before.

Fran and Maren go back to whatever they were doing. It's not that Guro doesn't care, but it's that she'd really rather not butt into their conversation. It's most likely about dogs, anyway.

<>

Arsenal Women's Media emails Vex a video of the players walking into the dressing room. Vex neither wanted nor needed it, so it goes directly into the bin. There's a reason they don't get attached to a problem: it's inevitably going to end.

Vex takes the night off and actually sleeps a solid eight hours, the first time since undertaking this task.

The people don't know where Vex has been for the past week and they get a lot of impatient comments on a post asking Vex where they are and why they haven't made any new art. Vex doesn't respond. The people don't know that Vex has a day job or that they are a normal human. And screw them because they aren't entitled to a pseudo-celebrity's schedule.

The next night, Vex decides to create a normal work. As the Black Lives Matters protest continue to rage, Vex creates a mural in the South London in support of the protests. It's a plain black wall with white letters spelling out "this isn't a trend. how long until systemic racism is fixed?" with a graphic of the iconic fist. There's a silhouette of someone kneeling with their fist in the air.

The post goes up on the Instagram page at 02:00 GMT. Likes immediately flood in. Comments ask Vex about the football chant lines, but they go unanswered. No one has to know, and both clubs have agreements to not say a word about their business with the street artist. And neither team needs to know that Vex worked with the other team.

Saturday evening, Vex got a dm from a football player.

Daniëlle van de Donk
Active now

Hi, if you don't mind me asking, why did you paint the dressing room at Meadow Park?

got paid.

That's the whole reason? I thought you didn't take commissions

normally don't. but it was good pay and I got tix to games.
not an arsenal fan though. my friend is a fan and her birthday is coming up.

Well the room looks pretty good. Did you do the piece on the building in North London

not at liberty to say, don't read into anything I tell you.

Can't not read into it.