#popstar

The Footballer and The Popstar

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Finally got the first time in what felt like forever Y/N woke up without a new leak waiting for her. The silence should have felt like relief but it felt strange. She lay awake in the darkness of her bedroom staring at the ceiling while the events of the previous day replayed themselves over and over again. She had spent months imagining the person responsible as someone cold and calculating, someone who had taken pieces of her work because they wanted money or attention. She had never imagined that the truth would be more complicated than that and she had never imagined that the person responsible would be someone who genuinely believed they were doing the right thing.

That was what made it so difficult to process because there had been no easy villain or stranger to hate. Just someone she had trusted who had made a decision about something that had never belonged to them.

Y/N reached for her phone and saw she had dozens of notifications waiting for her but she ignored all of them. Her label had sent email and lawyers had sent updates. Adrian had sent her a message asking if she wanted to speak later. Maya had sent her several messages all of them checking whether she was okay. Y/N didn’t know how to answer any of them and there was only one person she wanted to talk to.

She opened Hugo’s conversation. She had already told him about the leak and had told him about the investigation and that they had finally discovered who was responsible but she hadn’t told him everything. She hadn’t told him what it felt like to look at Elias and realise that someone she had trusted had been the person who started it all or hadn’t told him about the conversation. She hadn’t told him that she had cried afterwards and hadn’t told him that she had fired him. With Hugo she didn’t have to make the story sound neat or make herself sound calm because she felt like he was the only person trustworthy enough to tell him the truth.

Y/N: Are you awake?

Hugo: Unfortunately 😔

Y/N: I need to tell you something.

Hugo: Call me

Y/N pressed the call button and he answered before the second ring.

“Hi.” His voice was rough with sleep.

She closed her eyes. “Hi.”

“You okay?”

Y/N let out a quiet breath. “No.”

Hugo didn’t try to make her say yes and didn’t tell her that everything would be okay. He said, “Okay.” Which made it easier.

So she told him everything. She told him about Adrian asking her to come upstairs. She told him about the room, the faces waiting for her and the moment she realised that Elias was involved. She told him how she had refused to believe it and told him about the first leak and how Elias had admitted sending the song to someone because he believed the album deserved to be heard.

Hugo barely interrupted. Every now and then he asked a quiet question.

“What did you say?”

“How did he react?”

“Are you okay?”

But mostly he listened.

“I fired him,” she said.

Hugo paused. “Good.”

Y/N laughed weakly. “You didn’t even hesitate.”

“No.”

“You’re supposed to ask if I think I made the right decision.”

“I know you did.”

She stared at the wall. “I don’t know if I did.”

“Why not?”

“Because what if he was right?”

Hugo was quiet for a moment. “About what?”

“What if the album should have been released?”

“Maybe it should be.”

Y/N frowned slightly. “What?”

“I’m not saying he was right to leak it.”

“I know.”

“But maybe the album is ready.” Hugo continued. “Those aren’t the same thing.”Y/N didn’t say anything. “He can be wrong for taking something that belonged to you and still accidentally makes you realise that you’re ready to share it.”

She sat very still and was the thing about Hugo. He never told her what she wanted to hear but told her what he actually thought and that was what she needed.

“I hate when you’re sensible,” she muttered.

He laughed quietly. “I know.”

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The decision did not happen immediately because long meetings had to be taken place. Meetings that lasted for hours and left Y/N feeling as though she had spent the entire day defending herself. Y/N sat at the end of a conference table while people discussed her album as though it were a business problem that needed to be solved. They talked about the leaks, the attention they had generated, the public interest and the possibility of turning the situation into a promotional opportunity.

Then she looked up. “I want to release it.”

Adrian looked at her. “Are you sure?”

Y/N nodded. “Yes.”

“All of it?”

“All of it.”

The album had been stolen from her. Pieces of it had been taken and given to the world before she was ready but she refused to let that be the only story people knew. She didn’t want the album to be remembered as the album that leaked she wanted it to be hers again.

“I don’t want to keep hiding it,” she said. “I don’t want to keep changing songs because someone heard them before I decided they were ready. I don’t want to spend the rest of my career reacting to what other people have done.” She looked around the room. “If I’m going to release this album, I want to do it because I chose to.”

Then Adrian smiled, a proud one. “Then we’ll do it your way.”

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Hugo was the first person she told. Not Adrian or Maya or her label, it was Hugo. She had barely left the meeting before she reached for her phone.

Y/N: I decided

Hugo: Decided what?

Y/N: I’m releasing the album

Hugo: You are?

Y/N: I am

Hugo: How are you feeling?

Y/N: Terrified

Hugo: Good

Y/N: Good?

Hugo: Means you care

Y/N: You are being very annoying today

Hugo: I’m supporting you 😊

Y/N: You’re annoying me in a supportive way 🥲

Hugo: Exactly

She laughed. This convo was a small thing but after everything that had happened it felt important.

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The album release became the centre of her life. There were interviews and promotional appearances, rehearsals and meetings. There were conversations about which songs she wanted to perform and which ones she wasn’t ready to talk about yet. There were people asking about the leaks people asking about Elias and people asking whether the controversy had changed the album.

Y/N answered what she wanted to answer and Ignored what she didn’t and whenever the pressure became too much, she spoke to Hugo. Sometimes she called him or she sent him long messages. She would text him about interviews or songs or album artwork or anything she was afraid of. She’s text him if she was excited or nervous or when she had a good day or a terrible one. Hugo told her about football about his training and pressure before matches and the moments when he felt confident and the moments when he didn’t. They had started by talking about the things nobody else seemed to understand and eventually they stopped needing to explain why those things mattered.

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The album was finally announced on a Thursday morning. Y/N had known the announcement was coming for weeks but when the post finally went live her heart still began beating too quickly. The cover appeared first and then the title then the release date.

The internet exploded and her phone immediately became unusable. Notifications flooded the screen as fans reacted to the announcement and journalist posted about the album. People discussed the leaked songs and the entire story returned to the beginning but this time Y/N was the one deciding what the public got to see.

She sat on the floor of her living room staring at the announcement. Maya was beside her and Adrian was on the phone and everyone as talking. Y/N barely heard any of it when she decided to open her messages.

Y/N: It’s out

Hugo: I saw

Y/N: I’m going to be sick

Hugo: Don’t be

Y/N: Very helpful

Hugo: I’m serious, you made something you were proud of now people get to hear it

Y/N: You’re going to listen to the whole thing right?

Hugo: Obviously 🙄

Y/N: Even the sad ones?

Hugo: Especially the sad ones

Y/N: You don’t have to understand all of it

Hugo: I know

Hugo: But I want to

There were moments when she wondered whether Hugo understood how much he had become a part of her life. She wasn’t sure he did and she wasn’t sure she did either.

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A few weeks later Y/N stood in the stands of Anfield. She had been to the stadium before as she had performed there, she had walked across the pitch with Hugo after the concert when the stadium had been completely empty, but this was different. This time she was there to watch him. The stadium was full and the noise was overwhelming.

Y/N had experienced crowds from the stage before. She knew what it felt like to stand beneath lights while thousands of people waited for her to sing and she knew the energy of a crowd the anticipation that seemed to exist in the air before something happened but watching Hugo walk onto the pitch was different because she was watching someone she cared about step into the middle of all that pressure.

The match was one of the biggest of his season, Galatassary vs Liverpool on the second leg of Round of 16. Liverpool had unfortunately lost the first leg in a 1-0 defeat, so they hope they could come back in this leg.

The atmosphere was electric from the beginning and Y/N found herself standing almost every time Hugo touched the ball. She shouted when he made a good pass. She groaned when he missed an opportunity and she laughed when the people around her reacted to the match as emotionally as she did and she sure as hell screamed when he scored the second goal of the game making it 2-1 to Liverpool on aggregate.

For ninety minutes she forgot about the album and the leaks and her career itself because tonight was just her being at Anfield watching Hugo play. When the final whistle blew Liverpool had won the match 4-0 tonight but 4-1 on aggregate leading them to go into the quarter finals of the Champions League.

Y/N didn’t realise she was smiling until someone beside her congratulated her. She laughed. “I don’t play.”

“You’re here aren’t you?”

She looked down at the pitch and Hugo was surrounded by his teammates. The crowd was still celebrating and then he could somehow feel her watching him he looked towards the stands and their eyes met. He smiled and just like that the entire stadium seemed to disappear around them.

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They saw each other afterwards in one of the quieter corridors beneath the stadium. Hugo was still wearing his kit his hair damp from the match and his expression brighter than she had seen it in weeks.

“You came,” he said.

Y/N raised an eyebrow. “I said I was coming.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you acting surprised?”

“Because you have a busy life.”

“So do you.”

Then Y/N held up her phone. “The album announcement went well.”

Hugo’s face immediately lit up. “Really?”

She nodded. “Really.”

“I’m proud of you.”

“Thank you.”

He looked at her. “How many people have you told?”

She thought about it. “Nobody.”

Hugo’s eyebrows lifted. “Nobody?”

“Well I told my team but you were the first person I texted.”

He smiled. “Good.”

Somewhere along the way they had become the first person the other wanted to tell whether it was good or bad news or if they were feeling fear or excitement they told each other everything.

Y/N had spent months having pieces of her life taken from her without permission and Hugo had spent months feeling as though every performance was being judged by people who knew nothing about what it meant to be him but now somewhere between the leaked songs and the difficult matches and the late night calls and the messages sent across different time zones they had found something that belonged only to them. A place where neither of them had to perform and neither of them felt alone.

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The Footballer and The Popstar

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The truth did not arrive dramatically and there was no anonymous message sent in the middle of the night or no mysterious confession waiting in her inbox and no moment where Y/N suddenly put all the pieces together herself. Instead it arrived on an ordinary Friday morning buried beneath a schedule that had already been too full before the phone call came.

She had been in the studio when Adrian asked her to come upstairs, that was all he said. He didn’t say anutging like ‘we need to talk’ or ‘something has happened.’ Just her name followed by a request that she come upstairs as soon as she could.

Y/N knew immediately that something was wrong because for the past several weeks every unexpected meeting had begun to feel like a warning. A change in someone’s expression or a phone call that came too early in the morning it request to sit down before anyone explained why. She had become so used to bad news that she no longer needed anyone to tell her when it was coming.

Maya was waiting outside Adrian’s office when Y/N arrived. The moment Y/N saw her face the small amount of calm she had managed to build that morning disappeared.“What happened?” she asked.

Maya didn’t answer immediately and Adrian’s office door was open. Inside the office Adrian was sitting behind his desk with his laptop closed in front of him. Elias was there too standing near the window with his arms folded across his chest. Leo sat in one of the chairs along the wall looking as though he had been there for some time.

Y/N stopped in the doorway and her eyes moved from one person to the next. “Why are you all here?”

Nobody answered straight away and that’s was when she knew something bad had happened.

Adrian stood up slowly. “Close the door sweetheart.”

Y/N didn’t move. “Adrian.”

He looked at her. “We know who did it.”

The words seemed to take a moment to reach her as she let out a small laugh of disbelief. “No you don’t.”

Adrian’s expression didn’t change. “We do.”

Y/N looked towards Maya hoping that she would contradict him. Hoping that someone would tell her there had been a mistake that they had found an explanation for the files or that the person responsible was some stranger who had hacked into a system from somewhere she had never heard of.

Maya’s eyes were already beginning to fill with tears and Y/N’s stomach dropped.“Who?”

Adrian glanced towards the laptop.“We traced the access history of the last demo.”

Y/N folded her arms across herself.“And?”

“It wasn’t a hack.” She had always known that, some part of her had known from the beginning but hearing it confirmed made something inside her go cold. Adrian continued carefully. “The files were accessed through an authorised account.”

Y/N looked towards Elias, he had barely spoken since she entered. Then Elias looked away. But Y/N saw it and her eyes narrowed.

“No.”She looked at him again. “No.”

Elias finally turned towards her. “Y/N-“

“No.” Her voice was sharp and she stared at him.

There were so many people who could have done it. So many names that had appeared on the list over the past few months. Her manager, her label, people from the production team, people who had worked on individual songs, people who had access to files without necessarily knowing what they contained, but her producer Elias? Had never been someone she had truly considered.

He had been there from the beginning, he had sat beside her through the long nights and had heard every unfinished version of the album. He had helped her turn half formed ideas into actual songs and had watched her cry over lyrics she couldn’t finish and laugh when something finally worked and had been there when she had wanted to delete the entire album and had been there when she had finished it. He was one of the people she had trusted with the parts of herself she had never known how to explain.

Y/N shook her head. “Tell me they’re wrong.” Elias didn’t answer. Her breathing became uneven. “Elias.” He looked at her. “Tell me they’re wrong.”

“I’m sorry.” The words destroyed the last part of her denial.

Y/N stared at him, she could not understand what she was looking at, or hearing, this was Elias. Elias who had spent months sitting beside her in the studio. Elias who knew which songs she hated and which ones she secretly loved. Elias who had told her that the album was the best thing she had ever made.

Elias who had been there when she had said she didn’t know if she wanted to release it at all.

Her face changed. “You.”

Elias swallowed. “Y/N-”

“You did it?”

He looked down and that was enough, it was more than words could ever explain and Y/N took a step backwards.

“How?” Her voice became louder. “How did you do it?”

Elias finally looked up. “I didn’t think it would become this.”

Y/N stared at him. “What does that mean?”

“I only sent one.”

Her expression hardened. “One?”

“The first demo.”

Then Y/N let out a quiet laugh which was not a happy sound. “So the first one was you.”

Elias didn’t answer.

“All this time,” she continued. “All these months everyone has been trying to figure out who was doing this and it was you.”

“It wasn’t supposed to-”

“Don’t.”

He stopped speaking and Y/N turned towards Adrian. “How did you find out?”

Adrian answered quietly. “We found the original access trail, Elias had transferred the file to an external account, we also found messages between him and the person who uploaded it.”

Y/N looked back at Elias. “You sent them my song.”

“I sent one song.”

“And then another one appeared.”

“I didn’t send the others.”

Y/N looked at him. “Then who did?”

Elias shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Adrian spoke carefully. “The investigation found that the original leak created a chain reaction. Once the first file was circulating, someone else obtained access to the other demos but Elias was responsible for the first breach.”

Y/N felt sick. The first leak, beginning and moment that had started everything all this time It had been him. She had spent months looking at everyone around her wondering who she could trust. She had questioned people she had known for years. She had become suspicious of people who had never done anything wrong and the person who had started it had been sitting in the room with her the entire time. “You started this.”

Elias flinched. “I know.”

“No I don’t think you do.” Her voice had become quieter now which somehow made the words worse. “You don’t get to say that you know.”

Elias looked at her. “I didn’t do it to hurt you.”

Y/N stared at him. “Then why?”

He hesitated and that hesitation made her angrier than anything else.

“Why?” She repeated.

“Because the album was incredible.”

She blinked. “What?”

“I heard the songs, I heard the album before anyone else did and I knew what it was, I knew how special it was.”

Y/N shook her head. “That doesn’t explain anything.”

“I thought you were going to hide it.”

The words made her expression change.

Elias continued quickly. “You kept saying you didn’t know if you wanted to release it. You kept saying it was too personal and that maybe you should scrap it. You had something incredible and you were going to lock it away because you were scared.”

Y/N’s eyes filled with tears.

“So you stole it?”

“I didn’t think of it like that.”

“How else am I supposed to think of it?”

“I sent one song to someone I knew. They had connections in the industry. I thought if people heard it, you would realise what you had made. I thought it would force you to see that people loved it.”

Y/N stared at him in disbelief.

“You thought leaking my unfinished song would make me want to release my album?”

“I thought—”

“You thought you knew better than me.”

Elias went quiet.

Y/N felt the words before she said them.

“You thought you knew what was best for my career.”

“That wasn’t—”

“That’s exactly what it was.”

Her voice cracked.

“You didn’t care that I wasn’t ready. You didn’t care that I hadn’t decided whether I wanted anyone to hear it. You heard something that belonged to me and decided that your opinion mattered more than mine.”

Elias looked devastated.

But Y/N couldn’t bring herself to care.

That was the part that hurt the most.

She had spent months wondering whether the person responsible had done it for money. She had imagined a stranger looking at her work and seeing nothing except an opportunity. She had imagined someone selling pieces of her life to the highest bidder.

She had never imagined that someone could betray her because they thought they were helping because they believed they knew her better than she knew herself.

“Do you know what you did to me?” she asked. Elias didn’t answer. “I stopped trusting everyone.” Her voice was shaking now. “I looked at every person in my team and wondered if they were the one doing it. I changed passwords, I stopped sending people things, I questioned people who had been with me for years, I couldn’t even play my own music without wondering who else had it.”

She wiped at her cheek angrily. “And you were there.” Elias looked down. “You were sitting in the room while I was asking everyone who could have done this.”

“I know.”

“Stop saying that!” Y/N looked at him for a long moment. “You should have told me.”

“I was scared.”

“Of what?!”

“Of losing you.”

The answer made her laugh again but this time there were tears running down her face.“You should have thought about that before you betrayed me!”

“I know.”

She turned away from him.

Adrian watched her carefully. “Y/N.”

She shook her head. “Don’t.”

“We can deal with the legal side of this.”

“I don’t care about the legal side right now.”

“You have every right to be angry.”

She laughed bitterly. “Do I?”

Adrian frowned. “Of course you do.”

“Maybe I should have released it.”Y/N looked down at her hands. “Maybe I should have just released the album, maybe he was righ, maybe I was being stupid-“

“Y/N,” Maya said gently.

“No maybe I was.” She looked towards Elias.

“Maybe you were right. Maybe I was scared and maybe I was hiding behind the fact that it was personal because I didn’t want to take the risk of letting people hear it.”

Elias shook his head. “That’s not what I meant.”

“But that’s what you decided.” Her voice broke. “You decided for me.”

Elias had no answer and that was the moment Y/N realised there was nothing left to say.

She had spent months waiting for the truth and had imagined that when she finally found out she would feel relieved but now she felt empty and mystery was over, the person responsible had been found and knowing was worse than not knowing.

She turned towards the door. “Y/N.” She stopped and Elias’s voice was quiet. “I’m sorry.”

She stood with her hand on the door and she almost turned around, almost. Then she looked over her shoulder. “I know you are.”

Elias looked at her. “But that doesn’t make it okay.” She opened the door. “Oh and by the way…you’re fired.”

Elias stared at her and Y/N held his gaze.

She had spent months feeling as though everyone else had control over her music.

She could not control what had already happened and she could not make the leaks disappear or undo the betrayal but she could decide what happened next.

Elias opened his mouth but Y/N didn’t wait to hear what he was going to say. She walked out of the room and closed the door behind her and after months of speculation there was no mystery left only the truth and even the truth hurt more.

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