Who:Mason Mount x Original Female Character
Words:1629
Disclaimer:I do not know Mason Mount or anyone else mentioned in these writings.
Note:So the first chapter was just mainly an introduction, this chapter is nearly double of the previous chapter and I hope you all like it.

July 31st, 2017. Arnhem, Netherlands

The weather was quite chilly for a day in the middle of the summer. Not that it was a strange occurance in the Netherlands. It was one of the things I disliked the most about living in this country. I am someone who preferred the sun and the warmth. Unfortunately that was not going to happen anytime soon.

Despite the dreary weather, I knew that I would have to enjoy the summer as much as possible before it was over and before I would start on my last year of education. Just one more year and then it was time to find work. Something I just didn’t want to think about just yet. I actually liked my school years until now.

The voice of my friend next to me pulled me out of my thoughts.

“Iris? This is like the third time you blanked on me, what’s going on in that head of yours?” Marie asked and I quickly blinked, a guilty expression on my face. “I’m sorry Mar. What were you saying again?”

The blonde sighed - clearly exaggarating, the smile on her lips giving that away as well as she looked at me  over the edge of her sunglasses, bright blue eyes looking into my own hazel ones. “I was asking if you were up for going out for a drink this afternoon, after I finished work. It shouldn’t be a long day and they say that the weather will only get better by the end of the day. Pretty please?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. It was an ever returning question from Marie whenever the weather was nice in the city. “Fine, we are going out for a drink, but we are going to bring our own drinks and we are going to the park,” I encountered. Marie squinted her eyes for a moment, but then nodded. “Deal. I’ll ask Frances, Yvette and Sanne as well to see if they want to come.”

Even now I could already tell that the park was going to be packed. The park in the middle of the city was one of the most beautiful places in Arnhem, at least in my opinion. Whenever the sun was shining, it was busy. The slight slope in the grass made it a perfect place for sunbathing but also to have some barbecues in the summer. It was as if a big part of the city made its way into the park and my friends and I were definitely no exception.

The morning at our secondary school was one that finished pretty quickly. Marie and I were busy with our second year, with two more years to follow after this. After that university would probably follow if we were to choose for that, but so far I have not been interested in that. It meant more years at school while I knew what I wanted the most; I wanted to do something physical. I wanted to mean something for people, I wanted to travel. I did not want to get back in the school benches once more when I was done with this level of education.

So while Marie left to get to her job, I went back home. A home where a young brother had been bouncing around the house for some time now because our local football team Vitesse had been having a good pre-season so far and new names had been signed. With the Johan Cruijff Shield coming up at the start of the season, the football vibe was big in our house, with my brother bouncing off the walls. I liked football too but I had to admit that I didn’t like our own competition much. That’s what you get when you get hooked on the Premier League. The pace and level of that league was so much higher than our Eredivisie so who can really blame me, right? So where Sam - my younger brother - had a yellow and black obsession, I had a red one. A Liverpool shaped one.

The moment I walked into the house, it was clear that my mum was pissed off. “Sam de Jong, how many times do I have to tell you that you don’t get to kick that ball around inside.” The sight of shattered pieces on the floor that had previously been a longdrink glass came into my view as I walked into the living room.

“I’m sorry mum! I was trying to score the winning goal.” I couldn’t help but laugh at the words of my ten year old brother. As soon as I saw the look on my mother’s face, I bit my lower lip to stop myself from laughing.

“I just came by to let you know I’ll be at the park for the afternoon and also probably for dinner,” I quickly said, before leaving the room again so I could get upstairs, not wanting to witness the disaster that Sam was about to face.

It was only a short visit at home. While I freshened up after school - and listened to my mother yell at Sam while making him clean up the mess that he had made, I quickly looked through some messages on my phone where the other girls already showed that they had bought drinks and food already for the park.

Once I got the message from Marie that she was on her way to the park, I left the house as well. The park was only a short walk from my house but because I was known as the lazy one of my friends (and it was probably true as well), I picked the bike as my form of transport to the sunny greenery in the centre of the city. It didn’t take long for me to find my friends, who had perched themselves on a large blanket in the grass. Many people had thought the same thing as we did. Other little groups had formed on the grass, some guys were kicking a football around while yelling at each other. In English. Which wasn’t that rare here in Arnhem.

As I reached my friends, I just heard the last bit of a sentence Francis had said. “- is pretty cute.” I rolled my eyes at the words, Francis was probably one of the biggest guy crazy people I had met but I loved her for it. I followed her gaze and found the footballing guys on the end of it. Oh, and Francis had a preference for athletes.

“Of course you have found the cutest guy in the entire park already,” Marie said as she waved at me, holding out a glass with some fizzy drink in it. I looked over my shoulder and had to agree with Francis, however. The brown haired young man standing closest to us was not bad on the eyes. They were probably around the same age as us.

It was always good to spend free afternoons in the sun with my friends. For a moment there was not a worry in the world - although my mother would counter that at my age I did not have any worries. Laughing seemed to be the best remedy against long boring school days. I tried my best to zoom back into the story that Marie was telling. “So my brothers were in the backyard, mum kept yelling at them to grey inside for dinner, that they had to stop fooling around. They didn’t listen at all, continued playing rugby and next moment, the ball went through the window. Mum was livid.” I shook my head, a laugh escaping me as I thought back at the scene between my own brother and mother. 

“Your brothers aren’t the only ones good at breaking glass. Sam wanted to score the winning goal for the Johan Cruijff Shield and thought it was a good idea to do that inside. I walked in on -”

Before I could finish my sentence, this time I was interrupted by a sudden football hitting in the middle of our picnic cloth and knocking glasses over, the ball ending in my lap. I was too surprised to jump up like some of the other girls were doing. 

“I’m so sorry ladies, my friend over there did a terrible job controlling the ball.” A male voice spoke up in a British accent. It had to be one of the guys who had been kicking the ball around just a few meters away from us. A look up confirmed that it was the cute brown haired one who had come over to collect the ball in my lap. From up close he was even closer. Dark eyes matched his hair and a smile was on his lips, a shy one at that. He was our age, maybe just a bit older but when he smiled he had crinkles next to his eyes. It was Marie who found her voice back as the first one, of course she was. 

“You can definitely say that. He should learn how to play football.” The guy standing with us left out a chuckle, even though I did not understand why it was so funny what Marie had said. 

“I’ll let my friend Mitchell know.” His gaze moved in my direction, since I had the ball. “I really am sorry…” he trailed off, not knowing which name to add to the end of the sentence. A very smooth way to ask for my name although I didn’t even realise it. I scrambled onto my feet finally with the ball in my hands. “It’s Iris. Here’s your ball back.” I held out the ball to him, his fingertips brushing mine for just a second as he took it from me. 

“Thank you Iris. I’m Mason.”

Like The Old Days - Chapter One - Mason Mount

Who:Mason Mount x Original Female Character

Words:819

Disclaimer:I am not connected to Mason Mount or anyone else mentioned in this writing.

May 5th, 2021. London, United Kingdom.

It was crazy to realize how I had gotten here. Crazy was probably the perfect word for it because if you had told me that I would be standing on the side of the pitch in a crazy Stamford Bridge after Chelsea had won their semi-final… I would’ve laughed at you. At that moment I would’ve told you that there’s no way I would study to become a reporter. A sportsreporter to be exact.

After my vocational school, I had decided to continue studying after all while I had been so vocal about not wanting to do so anymore. But I wanted to combine the thing I liked most - writing - with my passion which was sports. Simply because one person had been there to support me in that decision. He had told me to follow my dreams and work hard for it. So the best journalism education was my next destination, but to get there I was going to have to make it through my vocational school first.

I graduated two years later at the age of twenty at the vocational school but it had been pretty tricky, simply because of the fact that in those two years the person who had been the biggest rock in my life had to move away and the long distance relationship thing was not for me at all. I needed to have him close to me and that was definitely not happening.

I continued my higher education in journalism and now near the end of my second year and at the beginning of my internship abroad for a sports channel in London. And that was how I had ended up on the side of the pitch of Stamford Bridge. It had been a strange occurance because I knew very well that there was a chance to bump into familiar faces here. A place where I had never been before, but still a place with a lot of history in my past.

My focus had been terrible throughout the last minutes of the game, knowing very well that due to the goal I was definitely going to be facing my past. He didn’t even know that I had gotten into this internship since we lost contact a few years ago.

“Iris, focus. Where the hell are you with your mind? The whistle went off a few minutes ago.”

My hazel eyes focused on the man standing next to me. Luke was an interesting guy. He was a very direct one, which I appreciated. It was something I needed, probably a Dutch thing since apparently everyone knew I was one due to my own directness. But at the same time… He has this stare where you just didn’t know what he was going to say. A stare that made me uncomfortable and one that I was facing right now.

“I’m sorry, I was just thinking how I never thought I would end up here. Not important.” I quickly added the two words at the sight of Luke’s raised eyebrows.

“Well, think about that later. Tuchel is gonna be here soon. I hope to get interviews with Werner and Mount as well, maybe Zidane as well.”

And there was his name… I simply nodded in agreement, grasping my phone better so I could use it to record Luke doing his interview so I could learn from it later.

“I’m going to be doing the talking but after the interviews I want to hear from you what the differences are between doing an actual interview and doing the practice ones at the office.”

I nodded once more, not saying a word since Thomas Tuchel was indeed walking in our direction for the first interview of the night. My focus was on the two men in front of me, taking in everything that Luke was asking the coach. The way Tuchel sometimes seemed to be annoyed, probably because he was asked the same question over and over again by reporters. If I had learned something by now, it was that asking original questions when you were the third or fourth reporter in a row was terribly hard. You needed the quotes of the answers on your own documentation but at the same time you didn’t want to be asking the same questions.

It was the moment that Luke had gotten the last answer from Tuchel and he was preparing to walk away, that I pressed the stop button of the video I had made. Before I could look at the result of the interview, a voice made me turn into stone it seemed. And it had only taken two sentences to cause it.

“Iris? Is that you?”

Luke turned around at the mention of my name by someone who wasn’t him. No one else here knew my name. The man raised an eyebrow at me and I quickly shook my head before turning to face him.

“Mason.”