八字万年历

Chapter 172: I am Him

Blinking tiredly, he had been a bit surprised at his environment, but then the memories came rushing in and then he remembered that he was at the hotel where the players lodged for the night.

Quickly turning off his alarm to not wake up his roommate, Jason lay lazily in his bed, still feeling tired from the previous day’s match.

He wanted to go back to sleep, considering it was just 6:00 am, but thinking that he would still have to wake up about an hour from now and then go through all the annoying motions of getting ready at that time,

“Fuck it,” he muttered with a groan and got out of bed and headed into the bathroom, his brain having come up with the idea that would allow for maximum sleeping time.

Quickly cleaning up and having his bath, Jason headed back into the room and dressed up in everything but his shoes, then packed up his stuff and put them by his bedside before jumping back into bed.

Quickly ripping out a piece of paper, he wrote a note that said,

“Wake me up when we’re about to leave.”

He had gone ahead to wash up and pack so that he could go back to sleep until the time they would actually leave for Porto which was more than an hour away from now.

The calculation checked out as he would be sleeping while the others were falling over themselves to get ready, and then while they waiting for everything to be done, he would still be sleeping.

Nothing much to see there, just perfect Carlo Ancelotti tactics for getting the most amount of sleep possible.

Jason fell asleep once again, not caring about the world around him.

When he was finally shaken awake by Fabio Viera, he yawned and stood up, feeling more refreshed than when he had first woken up.

“Are we leaving already?” Jason asked Fabio while he started putting on his shoes.

“Nah, we’re supposed to have breakfast before we leave,” Fabio responded.

“Tch… you shouldn’t have woken me, I wouldn’t have minded skipping breakfast for today,” Jason muttered in a voice that only he could hear.

“Well, let’s go,” Jason said as he stood up after wearing his shoes.

The two of them joined the rest of the team for breakfast before finally getting their bags, heading to the team bus, and heading back to Porto.

Arriving in Porto, they headed for the CTFD Portogaia where the bus stopped.

The players got off and headed for their cars and began leaving for the various homes.

Jason said his goodbyes as well before jumping into his car and driving out of the training ground.

Cruising through the streets of Porto, Jason first stopped by a grocery store and pulled on his nose mask and dark sunglasses before getting out.

Looking at himself in the reflective sleek body of the car, he realized that he was still wearing the New Balance sponsored kit for the Porto players and that would cause people to raise an eyebrow… if they noticed.

Unfortunately, there was nothing Jason could do as he did not carry along any more normal clothing with him at that moment.

All he had were clothes that would give him away if anyone was observant enough to notice him.

‘Maybe I should start keeping some extra clothes in the car from now,’ Jason wondered to himself as he started heading into the store.

Reaching the doors of the store, Jason sanitized his hands with the sanitizer that the grocery shop had so graciously provided at the entrance of their store.

Normally the people allowed in the store would be regulated to avoid overcrowding, but business was a bit slow at the moment so there weren’t many people around anyway so Jason just walked right in and picked up a trolley.

Soon he was scouring around the store and throwing all sorts of fruits, vegetables, spices, and cans into his trolley.

It could not be helped, he had to stock up his refrigerator which he had been meaning to do.

A few days ago he had finally moved into his own house which was the same one he had selected before the lockdown.

Luckily, no one else had decided to buy it, but then it was kinda hard to buy something like a house when one could be arrested just for stepping outside one’s house.

Thus the house had been waiting right where he had left it and Jason had finally put pen to paper and taken the house.

He had moved in a few days ago, but he hadn’t taken anything from the refrigerator back at the apartment he and Mylo shared, thus he had nothing in his new refrigerator.

He had also not had time to bother with the matter for the last few days as he had been fully focused on preparing for the first match after the lockdown so now that he was finally free enough, he had to at least stock up a bit on the basic necessities.

Thus Jason raided the grocery store and only stopped after filling up the trolley he was pushing around.

He would have bought more stuff if it wouldn’t have been a problem to move the stuff he would be buying, and at the moment, all he wanted to do was get back to his sleep as soon as he got back to his place, also, there wasn’t any more space in his car.

Quickly heading to the counter, Jason started pulling out stuff from the trolley and dumping it on the counter, prompting a look of surprise from the guy behind the counter.

“That’s a lot of stuff,” the guy said with surprise as he started scanning the stuff and racking up Jason’s bill.

“Yeah, just moved to a new place, the fridge needs some pampering,” Jason responded with a smile, but it was hidden under the mask.

“Oh, that bit*h probably hasn’t been filled with milk in months,” the guy at the counter said with a smile, his hands not stopping as he continued to scan and pack up the stuff Jason was buying.

Coming to a pause, Jason asked,

“Just to be clear, we’re still talking about my refrigerator, right?” Jason asked with a weird-looking smile, but it was also covered up by the mask, but his intention was present in his tone.

“No comment, No comment,” the guy laughed and continued his work.

“Speaking of which, you look kinda familiar,” the guy at the counter suddenly said, something clicking to place in his head.

“You don’t say?” Jason muttered a reply, still majorly occupied with pulling stuff out of the trolley.

“Man fuck this lockdown stuff, life was so much easier just months ago, now we have to wash our hands almost every minute, racking up the damn water bills and wearing stuffy nose masks that make people so difficult to differentiate,”

“I mean, I can’t tell if you’re Jason Bolu or just some guy that looks like him parading around in our team’s tracksuit,” the guy spoke in a distracted tone as his major focus was still working the counter.

“People do that?” Jason asked in a surprised tone, pausing again in his trolley unloading.

“You’re doing that right now…” The guy at the counter laughed at Jason’s question, but the next second, he was surprised.

“I don’t think I’d have to make any effort to look like me, after all, there’s only one of me going around and that’s me,” Jason replied with a little laugh of his own.

“You are him?” the counter guy asked in surprise and slight disbelief.

“Yes… I am him,” Jason reiterated with a laugh and pulled his glasses to show off his gem-like eyes.

“Crazyyyy,” the counter guy was pleasantly surprised as he immediately recognized Jason’s eyes.

Every Porto fan recognized those eyes and he immediately realized that his earlier speculations were correct.

As for the thought that the person before him was some Jason lookalike who was wearing contact lenses… it never popped up in his head.

With his excitement bubbling over, his work rate doubled and he quickly packed up Jason’s stuff.

“Hey could you give me an autograph or something,” the counter guy asked as Jason took out his card to pay for the stuff he was buying.

“Sure, I don’t mind giving you an autograph. I can’t take a picture with you though, you know, cuz of social distancing,” Jason replied with a smile.

“Of course, we can’t have you being suspended or anything,” the counter guy quickly nodded in agreement and grabbed his bag to pull out his Porto jersey that he always kept in his bag.

“… that’s quite touching, and I agree,” Jason laughed a little as he swiped his card.

After paying, Jason and the counter guy packed the stuff back into the trolley and Jason pushed the trolley out of the store.

The counter guy offered to help, but Jason refused and told the guy to stay back and answer the other customers as he didn’t want to be the reason the counter guy received a complaint that could make his life harder.

After packing the stuff from the trolley into his car, Jason returned the trolley, then got in his car and drove off with his home being his destination.