loved ur new fic!! would love a second chance romance/angst with mbappe. maybe the reader being an american student in paris at one point but now moving to madrid for your career and somehow run into each other and he chases/yearns
We left Paris - Kylian Mbappé
summary:Â Five years after quietly drifting apart, an unexpected move to Madrid throws you back into Kylian's orbit. Some people are easy to leave behind. Unfortunately for the both of you... he was never one of them.
warnings:Â second chance romance, mutual pining, "right person, wrong time", career in football/UEFA, paris & madrid, happy ending.
wc:Â 5k
a/n: unfortunately i will have to do one of the things i most hate and make this a 2 part story cause your girl here got way too carried away and wrote more than tumblr allows to post at once, great request btw, keep them coming!!
pt2 | main masterlist | football masterlist
Paris smelled different in September.
You noticed it before you noticed anything else.
It wasn't something guidebooks ever talked about, nor something postcards could capture. It lived somewhere between the buttery scent escaping the corner boulangerie before sunrise, the faint aroma of roasted coffee drifting from cafés that seemed to occupy every other street, and the crisp chill that settled over the city just before autumn properly arrived.
It smelled like possibility.
Like a place that belonged to everyone and no one all at once.
You stood outside your tiny apartment building in the eleventh arrondissement with two suitcases, an overstuffed backpack hanging awkwardly from one shoulder and your phone clutched tightly in your hand, staring up at a building that looked considerably more charming online than it did in real life.
"This is home," you murmured to yourself.
The words sounded strange in your own voice.
Your parents' kitchen was home.
Snow-covered sidewalks in December were home.
A study-abroad programme through your university, specialising in Communications and Public Relations with an international focus, paired with an internship that your professors had described as "an opportunity students would be foolish to decline."
You'd accepted before you had time to overthink it.
Three months later, you'd found yourself standing in Paris wondering whether you'd made the biggest mistake of your life.
The apartment was smaller than expected.
The lift barely fit one suitcase.
The shower was laughably tiny.
Your French, despite years of classes, somehow abandoned you the second your landlord asked whether you needed an extra set of keys.
Pretended you understood.
Only realising twenty minutes later that you'd accidentally agreed to take responsibility for watering the plants in the communal courtyard every Tuesday.
It wasn't exactly the glamorous European adventure you'd imagined.
The internship began the following Monday.
You'd spent the entire weekend ironing the same navy blazer three separate times, convinced each attempt somehow looked more professional than the last.
By Monday morning, you were awake before your alarm.
Not because you'd slept well.
Your stomach had twisted itself into impossible knots somewhere around four in the morning.
First days had always made you nervous.
First days in another country... That was an entirely different level.
The offices occupied two floors of a modern glass building overlooking the Seine, a sharp contrast to the historic streets surrounding it. Employees moved through reception with the effortless confidence of people who already belonged there, balancing coffees, laptops and conversations in three different languages without appearing remotely rushed.
You, meanwhile, nearly walked into the revolving door.
"You're the intern from Boston?"
You turned towards the voice.
A woman in her early thirties approached with an easy smile, extending her hand.
Something about the way she said it immediately settled your nerves.
Camille wasn't your supervisor.
The person responsible for making sure you survived the next twelve months without accidentally offending UEFA, a multinational sponsor or a football club worth hundreds of millions of euros.
The first few weeks passed in a blur of colour-coded schedules, accreditation passes, venue maps and enough acronyms to make your head spin.
You weren't organising press conferences.
You weren't negotiating sponsorship deals.
You definitely weren't making important decisions.
Running forgotten folders across exhibition halls five minutes before presentations began.
Even when your feet ached.
You were exactly where you wanted to be.
By October, Camille trusted you enough to bring you to larger events.
"They're not expecting you to lead anything," she reminded you as the car pulled into the underground loading area of a UEFA hospitality venue.
"They're expecting you to observe."
"So stop looking like you're about to throw up."
"I promise nobody's paying attention to the intern."
That, ironically, turned out to be completely wrong.
The venue buzzed with organised chaos.
Production staff rushed between lighting rigs.
Communications teams rehearsed speeches beneath their breath.
Photographers adjusted equipment while volunteers hurried stacks of programmes from one room to another.
Everyone seemed to know exactly where they were supposed to be.
You apologised after almost colliding with someone carrying a tower of branded gift boxes.
Another voice called your name from across the corridor.
"Could you take these accreditation folders to the west entrance?"
You accepted them immediately.
"Don't use the main hallway."
"They're moving players through there."
The venue was practically a maze beneath the polished public spaces upstairs.
Directional arrows taped to doors.
Long corridors humming with fluorescent lights.
You checked the map once.
Still managed to take a wrong turn.
You sighed quietly, turning another corner.
Then stopped so abruptly the folders almost slipped from your hands.
Someone else had rounded the corner at the exact same moment.
You both instinctively stepped sideways.
And immediately recognised him.
Not because of the expensive watch on his wrist.
You recognised him because almost everyone in Europe would have.
One of the biggest footballers in the world.
Standing less than two metres away.
Neither of you said anything.
Then one of the security guards muttered under his breath.
You glanced towards the corridor they'd been heading for.
Three heads turned towards you.
You immediately regretted opening your mouth.
"I'm sorry," you added quickly.
You pointed vaguely behind them.
"There are probably fifty people waiting outside that door."
The footballer looked at you with amused curiosity.
Heat rushed to your cheeks.
The kind that seemed to surprise him just as much as it surprised you.
You looked towards the intersecting corridor.
"If you're trying to get to the underground car park..."
One of the security guards frowned.
"I got lost down there about ten minutes ago."
"It definitely leads to the garage."
The guard exchanged a glance with another member of staff, who quickly spoke into his radio.
A few seconds later, he nodded.
The footballer looked back at you.
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"...and accidentally became useful."
You couldn't help smiling back.
"I'd like to think those things aren't mutually exclusive."
This time a little louder.
For a moment, neither of you moved.
Then someone called his name from further down the corridor.
He looked over his shoulder before turning back to you.
He followed security towards the garage entrance.
You continued towards the west wing with your folders.
Neither of you looked back.
You didn't expect to see him again.
If anything, the interaction settled into that strange category of moments that felt oddly memorable despite lasting less than five minutes.
The kind of story you imagined telling your parents over FaceTime.
"I accidentally got lost today and ended up giving directions to one of the biggest footballers in Europe."
Your mother would've laughed.
Your father would've asked whether you got a picture.
You would've rolled your eyes and said no.
Then life would've carried on.
That was how it was supposed to happen.
Instead, Paris seemed strangely determined to keep placing him in your path.
Two weeks later, you arrived at another UEFA hospitality event just after seven in the morning, balancing two takeaway coffees in one hand while your accreditation badge bounced awkwardly against your blazer with every hurried step.
The venue hadn't even opened to guests yet, but inside, it already buzzed with the familiar rhythm you'd quickly grown to love.
People speaking into headsets.
Production assistants running extension cables across polished floors.
Someone testing microphones on the main stage.
Someone else arguing over seating plans.
Camille spotted you the moment you walked through the doors.
She relieved you of one of the coffees.
"I need you in Ballroom C."
"A sponsor changed their presentation."
"They've changed it three times since yesterday."
"So... another normal day?"
She was already walking away before finishing the sentence.
"And don't lose anyone important!"
"I've only almost done that once!"
You couldn't help smiling to yourself.
Three months ago, every mistake had felt catastrophic.
They simply became stories everyone laughed about during lunch.
You had started belonging here.
By late afternoon, the event had finally settled into something resembling calm.
Guests drifted between networking spaces, conversations blending into a soft murmur beneath classical music floating through hidden speakers.
You'd been sent in search of a communications manager who had apparently vanished.
After checking three different rooms, you admitted defeat.
"...He's definitely hiding."
"You talking to yourself?"
The familiar voice made you stop walking.
Just dark tailored trousers, a cream knit jumper beneath a charcoal overcoat he'd clearly shrugged on moments before arriving.
He looked even more ordinary dressed like that.
Which was probably why it took your brain a second longer than usual to recognise him.
The word escaped before you could think of something more intelligent.
His smile widened almost immediately.
"I thought you were disappointed to see me."
He tilted his head slightly.
"I don't remember saying that."
"You called me concerning."
"I said running into you everywhere was concerning."
"I haven't ruled it out."
"I'd like to point out that you're the one attending football events."
He pretended to consider it.
Silence settled between you.
"You haven't got lost again, have you?" he asked eventually.
"I've learned to pretend I know where I'm going."
"So... confidence over competence?"
A laugh escaped both of you.
You were still smiling when someone called his name from across the room.
He glanced over his shoulder.
He pointed vaguely towards the group waiting for him.
"I was going to say 'go back to work.'"
"That sounds less impressive."
"I just realised I don't actually know your name."
Neither of you had noticed.
Despite laughing together.
Despite remembering each other.
He repeated it quietly, almost absentmindedly, as though making sure he'd pronounce it properly next time.
He rubbed the back of his neck.
"You seem fairly popular."
"You've got a bright future ahead of you."
"I appreciate the vote of confidence."
You shook your head, smiling despite yourself.
Then someone called for you this time.
Camille appeared beside you looking mildly out of breath.
"I've been looking everywhere."
She turned towards him with the effortless professionalism she'd mastered years ago.
Camille was already steering you towards another room.
Halfway down the corridor, curiosity got the better of you.
He was doing exactly the same thing.
Then both of you looked away almost immediately.
It became a pattern after that.
One week it was another UEFA function.
The next, a charity gala.
A month later, a sponsor launch.
Every few weeks, your paths crossed for one reason or another.
Enough time to exchange a few jokes.
Somewhere between those brief conversations...
Something quietly shifted.
One rainy Thursday evening, you spotted him before he spotted you.
He'd just arrived outside a hotel hosting another football foundation dinner, standing beneath the awning while waiting for security to finish speaking with organisers.
You could easily walk inside without saying hello.
It would've been simpler.
He looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps.
The second he recognised you...
His entire face softened.
Not in the way films exaggerated.
Like smiling at you had become instinct.
"I was beginning to think Paris had finally run out of football events."
"I've got another internship placement next month."
"We'll definitely meet again."
The certainty in his voice made your heart beat just a little faster.
Paris had a funny way of making coincidence feel intentional.
At first, your encounters stayed confined to the polished halls of conference centres and luxury hotels, always surrounded by people who seemed permanently attached to earpieces and schedules. There were always cameras somewhere in the room, executives exchanging handshakes, communications teams rushing between meetings, and volunteers trying desperately to keep everything running on time. Your conversations never lasted longer than ten minutes before someone inevitably needed one of you. Yet somehow, those ten minutes became your favourite part of every event.
It became almost laughable.
Every time Camille handed you your accreditation for a new assignment, she'd raise an eyebrow before you'd even read the venue.
"I suppose your friend will be there."
You'd immediately look up.
Camille smiled into her coffee.
"So you're telling me the world's most famous footballer just happens to find the intern at every event?"
Because, if you were honest...
You'd started wondering the same thing.
It happened so gradually that neither of you noticed the shift.
One evening, after another sponsor dinner had finally wrapped up, guests filtered towards waiting cars while staff began quietly dismantling hours of careful preparation. You were helping stack lanyards into plastic containers when a familiar voice drifted across the now half-empty ballroom.
You glanced over your shoulder.
"I thought you'd have left ages ago."
He shrugged, slipping both hands into the pockets of his coat.
"I could say the same to you."
"So..." You gestured towards the piles of equipment surrounding you. "Interns don't usually disappear before everything's packed away."
He looked around the room before letting out a quiet laugh.
"I never realised events looked like this afterwards."
He stood there for another second, watching volunteers wheel crates across the polished floor.
The question caught you completely off guard.
He nodded towards the catering tables, now almost completely empty.
"Every time I see you at these things, you're carrying coffee instead of food."
Most event days consisted of coffee at seven in the morning, another coffee around eleven, and whatever vending machine snack you managed to grab before heading home.
"There's a café still open around the corner."
"I was thinking of getting something."
He looked at you for a moment before adding,
If anything, it sounded as though he'd decided to ask halfway through the sentence.
You had university lectures the next morning.
Your apartment was in the opposite direction.
Barely eight tables squeezed between old brick walls covered with photographs of Paris from decades earlier. Rain tapped softly against the windows while jazz played somewhere in the background, quiet enough that conversations never had to compete with it.
It felt nothing like the glittering events where you'd always seen each other.
No security standing a few metres away.
No one waiting to interrupt.
Just two cups of coffee that quickly turned into bowls of onion soup and fresh bread because neither of you had realised how hungry you actually were.
The conversation flowed so naturally it was almost unsettling.
You told him about freezing winters, Red Sox games with your dad and how your mother still insisted on texting every morning to make sure you'd remembered breakfast.
You asked about his childhood.
Not the version everyone knew from interviews.
The streets he used to play football on.
The neighbour who always complained whenever a ball landed in her garden.
The teacher who told him he'd never stop talking long enough to concentrate.
He laughed harder at that story than anything else that evening.
Hours disappeared without either of you noticing.
For someone the world constantly demanded pieces of, he listened remarkably well.
He remembered little details.
When you mentioned struggling with French bureaucracy, he laughed because he'd once spent almost three hours trying to renew paperwork that should've taken fifteen minutes.
When you admitted you'd started talking to yourself because you lived alone, he confessed he did exactly the same thing after difficult matches.
The less he resembled the person newspapers insisted he was.
He wasn't sponsorship deals or magazine covers.
He was simply a man who teased you for drinking too much coffee, stole pieces of bread from your plate when he thought you weren't looking, and laughed with his entire chest whenever something genuinely amused him.
When you finally stepped back onto the streets, the rain had stopped.
The city glistened beneath rows of golden streetlamps, every puddle reflecting the warm glow spilling from cafés that hadn't yet closed.
Neither of you seemed particularly eager to say goodbye.
"I suppose I'll see you at another event."
He smiled, but there was something thoughtful behind it now.
He hesitated just long enough to make you curious.
"...we stopped waiting for work to bring us into the same room?"
Your heartbeat quickened.
He continued before you could answer.
"What if the next coffee wasn't because UEFA happened to organise another dinner?"
The question hung gently between you.
You couldn't stop yourself from smiling.
His smile mirrored yours almost instantly.
"I was hoping you'd say that."
After that night, Paris quietly became yours.
Not the Paris printed on postcards.
Saturday mornings wandering through little bookshops where neither of you bought anything but somehow always left carrying a novel.
Afternoons spent sitting on the steps beside the Seine with takeaway sandwiches because you both agreed they somehow tasted better outside.
Tiny cinemas showing old films neither of you had seen.
Street musicians whose names you'd never learn but whose songs you'd remember for years.
Long walks that started with no destination and somehow lasted until the city lights reflected across the river.
The remarkable thing wasn't that he was famous.
It was how quickly you forgot he was.
With you, he wasn't constantly checking over his shoulder.
He wasn't being interviewed.
He wasn't expected to perform.
And you realised, somewhere between shared coffees and aimless walks through streets you'd never have found alone, that the moments you looked forward to most weren't the glamorous events anymore.
They were the ordinary ones.
The text asking if you were free after class.
The phone call that lasted an hour because neither of you wanted to hang up.
The familiar sight of him already waiting outside your favourite café, hands tucked into his coat pockets, smiling the second he spotted you crossing the street.
It was frightening, really.
How quietly someone could become part of your routine.
How easily they could begin to feel like home in a city that had never been yours.
And neither of you ever stopped to ask the question everyone else already assumed had been answered.
It didn't seem to matter.
At some point, the question simply stopped mattering.
It wasn't because neither of you cared.
It was because somewhere between hurried coffees before your lectures and evenings that somehow always ended with the two of you walking aimlessly beside the Seine, the answer had become obvious to everyone except the two people living it.
His teammates stopped asking who he was texting.
Camille stopped pretending she didn't know exactly why you always left work with that impossible smile tugging at the corners of your lips.
Even your friends back in Boston had started referring to him as "your Paris boy."
You never corrected them.
The months that followed became a blur of little moments that, at the time, felt too ordinary to remember.
Saturday mornings spent wandering through flea markets where he'd insist on buying ridiculous little trinkets simply because they made you laugh.
Rainy afternoons tucked away inside tiny bookshops, reading the blurbs on books neither of you intended to buy before somehow leaving with two shopping bags anyway.
Late-night walks after dinner when Paris seemed to belong only to the two of you, the streets quieter now, your fingers instinctively finding his whenever you crossed a road.
Movie nights that usually ended with one of you falling asleep halfway through.
Arguments over whether pineapple belonged on pizza.
You stealing the hoodies he'd leave draped over the back of your chair until they somehow started living permanently in your apartment.
There wasn't a single grand gesture.
No dramatic declarations beneath the Eiffel Tower.
No perfect cinematic kiss while music swelled in the background.
There were kisses all over your face, tangled sheets and lipstick marks all over him.
The way he'd text you the second training finished.
The way you automatically looked for him in every room before doing anything else.
Love had arrived so quietly that neither of you ever noticed the exact moment it happened.
Then spring became summer.
One afternoon, while sorting through paperwork for your internship, your eyes landed on a date circled neatly in blue ink.
You stared at it for longer than you meant to.
Paris had always been temporary.
You'd known that from the moment you stepped off the plane.
Or maybe you'd simply convinced yourself that if you ignored the calendar long enough, time might do the same.
You didn't tell him how often you found yourself counting down the weeks.
You didn't tell him that every time he spoke about next summer or next winter, your stomach tightened because you weren't sure you'd be here to see either.
Held his hand a little tighter.
Memorised the sound of his laugh.
The warmth of his apartment.
The route you always took along the Seine.
Because somewhere deep down...
A part of you had already started saying goodbye.
You'd once read that people only realised they were making memories after they'd already become memories.
Suddenly, everything felt significant.
The café where he'd first asked you to have dinner after an event.
The bridge where the two of you always stopped, no matter how late it was.
The little bakery around the corner from your apartment where the woman behind the counter had eventually stopped asking for your order because she'd memorised it months ago.
Even the metro announcements had become strangely comforting.
You caught yourself wondering if you'd miss hearing them.
You never told him how often you looked at your return ticket.
Not because you wanted to hide it.
Because every time you looked at it...
And neither of you seemed ready for that.
Instead, the two of you carried on exactly as you always had.
You still met after work.
Still wandered through Paris with nowhere particular to be.
Still laughed over stupid things.
Still stole bites from each other's plates.
Still argued over which café made the best coffee.
You both became experts at pretending the calendar wasn't moving.
Reality slipped through the cracks.
One evening, the two of you sat outside your favourite restaurant, sharing a dessert neither of you had been hungry enough to order individually.
He glanced at the notebook resting beside your plate.
"You still writing everything down?"
He leaned forward slightly.
"What counts as important?"
You looked at him for a second before opening the notebook.
Most pages were filled with internship notes.
You turned the notebook around before you could change your mind.
Things I'll miss about Paris.
The list had already begun.
Morning walks before work.
The café on Rue Oberkampf.
Watching the city wake up.
"You've started saying goodbye already."
The words weren't accusing.
He reached across the table, quietly taking your hand.
You wanted to believe him.
Neither of you mentioned that coming back for a holiday wasn't the same as living there.
The night before your flight arrived much sooner than either of you expected.
Your apartment looked like someone had turned it upside down.
Half-packed suitcases lay open across the floor.
Books sat in uneven piles.
You were folding another jumper when someone knocked.
You didn't even need to ask who it was.
Opening the door felt strangely normal.
Like every other evening.
He stood there holding a paper bag.
"But you would've eaten cereal."
The two of you ate sitting on the floor because your chairs had already been stacked against the wall.
The apartment felt emptier than it ever had.
Every shelf you'd slowly filled over the year now stood bare.
Photographs had been taken down.
Plants had already been given away.
It no longer looked like your home.
It looked like somewhere you'd once lived.
Conversation came easily.
You talked about everything except tomorrow.
The terrible film you'd watched the week before.
Camille accidentally sending an email to the wrong client.
His teammate who somehow managed to lose his passport twice in one month.
As long as neither of you had to say the word goodbye.
There was nothing left to pack.
You found yourselves standing by the window overlooking the quiet street below.
Just like they always did.
He broke the silence first.
"People do long distance."
His voice carried that same certainty it always had.
The kind that made impossible things sound manageable.
Trying to memorise everything.
The tiny crease that appeared beside his eyes.
The warmth of his hand around yours.
You wanted to ask him a hundred questions.
What if we don't survive the distance?
What if Paris was the only reason this worked?
The airport was quieter than you'd imagined.
The world continued exactly as it always had.
As though yours wasn't quietly falling apart.
The two of you stood near security with your suitcase between you.
Neither of you seemed capable of saying the words that needed saying.
"They're going to start boarding soon."
Without saying anything...
He wrapped his arms around you.
You held him just as tightly.
Neither of you cared how long it lasted.
When you finally pulled away, neither of you moved very far.
You laughed softly through the lump in your throat.
He reached up, brushing a loose strand of hair behind your ear.
You looked into his eyes.
You picked up your suitcase.
He was still standing exactly where you'd left him.
Then you walked through security.
Neither of you realised...
That was the last time you would ever see each other in Paris.
