I want you
The Frequency of Silence
The transition from hearing Jamal’s every fleeting impulse to the blissful, terrifying quiet of her own mind had been like stepping out of a thunderstorm into a soundproof room. For Nini, the "click" had happened the moment they made their relationship official to the world. It was as if the universe, satisfied that the message had been delivered, finally cut the transmission.
She could still feel him, of course—a phantom warmth in the back of her mind, a sense of his general wellbeing—but the literal broadcast of his internal monologue had vanished. She no longer knew what he wanted for breakfast before he asked, and she certainly didn't have to endure the adrenaline spikes of a Champions League match from her sofa.
Nini loved it. It made her feel like a normal girl dating a normal guy, even if that guy happened to be the face of German football.
Jamal, however, was having a much harder time believing in the silence.
"Nini, pass me the salt," Jamal said, his eyes narrowed as they sat in his sleek, modern kitchen on a Tuesday morning.
Nini didn't look up from her book. She reached out, her fingers brushing the ceramic shaker, and slid it toward him without breaking her concentration on the page.
Jamal’s eyes darted to her face, searching for a twitch, a smirk, a sign of knowing. *I bet she heard me thinking about how much I want to kiss her against the counter right now,* he thought, projecting the image with deliberate, vivid intensity. *I bet she can hear me picturing her in that blue dress I like. Nini, if you can hear me, drop your spoon.*
Nini calmly took a sip of her tea, her expression serene. The spoon remained firmly in her hand.
"You're doing it again," she said softly, finally looking up. Her brown curls were a chaotic halo around her face, and her eyes were bright with amusement.
"Doing what?" Jamal asked, trying to look innocent while mentally screaming, *DO YOU HEAR ME?* at the top of his lungs.
"Testing me. You have that look on your face. The one where you’re trying to move objects with your mind." She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. "I told you, Jamal. It’s gone. The static stopped. I’m just me now."
Jamal sighed, his shoulders dropping. "It’s just hard to believe. For months, you were essentially a passenger in my brain. How does it just... stop? Maybe you’re just getting better at hiding it. A secret weapon."
"I promise, I am completely clueless about what’s going on in there," she laughed, gesturing to his head. "And honestly? It’s a relief. You think a lot, Jamal. It was exhausting."
Jamal grinned, but the mischievous glint didn't leave his eyes. If she was telling the truth, he was safe. But if she was lying, he wanted to catch her. He wanted to see how much she could handle.
Over the next few weeks, the "tests" became a private game for Jamal, one that Nini was entirely unaware she was playing. It started small. During a team dinner, Jamal sat next to her, his hand resting casually on her thigh under the table. While he discussed tactics with Serge Gnabry, he focused every ounce of his mental energy on a singular, scandalous thought.
*Nini, I’m not wearing any underwear under these joggers. If we leave now, I’m going to drive ninety miles an hour just to get you home.*
He watched her out of the corner of his eye. Nini was busy nodding along to a story Leroy Sané was telling, her face perfectly calm. She didn't blush. She didn't choke on her water. She didn't even squeeze his hand.
*Okay,* Jamal thought, a bit frustrated. *Maybe she’s just a world-class poker player.*
The stakes escalated. Jamal began to craft the most "nasty" thoughts he could conjure—not out of malice, but out of a desperate, playful need to provoke a reaction. He thought about things he wanted to do to her in the locker room, about the way her skin felt under the moonlight, and occasionally, just to be difficult, he would mentally scream insults at his own teammates to see if she would laugh.
One Saturday afternoon, they were browsing a quiet bookstore in the Lehel district. Nini was standing on her tiptoes, reaching for a volume on Renaissance art, her sweater riding up just enough to show a sliver of her waist.
Jamal stood behind her, pretending to look at a biography of Napoleon. Internally, he was a riot of provocation.
*I wonder if the librarian would mind if I bent you over this mahogany table right now. You look so delicious when you’re trying to be intellectual. I bet you’d make so much noise the books would fall off the shelves.*
Nini finally hooked the book with her fingertips and turned around, beaming. "Found it! I’ve been looking for this edition for ages."
She looked at him, her face full of pure, innocent joy. There wasn't a trace of the scandalized blush he had been expecting. She didn't look at the table. She didn't look at his mouth. She just tucked the book under her arm and kissed his cheek.
"You look bored, Bambi," she teased. "We can go get those fries you like if you want."
Jamal felt a strange mix of relief and a tiny, bruised ego. *She really can't hear me. I just spent ten minutes thinking the most graphic things imaginable, and she wants to buy me potatoes.*
"Fries sound great," he muttered, feeling a heat in his own cheeks that had nothing to do with her.
However, the "worst possible time" for Nini to be clueless arrived during a high-profile charity gala for the Bayern Munich Foundation. The room was a sea of black ties, silk gowns, and flashing cameras. Nini, usually shy in these environments, looked breathtaking in a floor-length emerald gown that made her brown curls pop.
She was standing in a circle of "player wives" and club executives, holding a glass of sparkling water and doing her best to navigate the small talk. Jamal was a few feet away, trapped in a conversation with a major sponsor and the club’s sporting director.
He was bored. He was restless. And he was incredibly distracted by how the emerald silk clung to Nini’s curves.
*If I have to talk about revenue streams for one more minute, I’m going to lose it,* Jamal thought, his eyes locked on Nini across the room. *Nini. Look at me. If you can hear me, touch your left ear.*
Nini continued chatting, her hands steady on her glass.
Jamal decided to go for the nuclear option. He wanted to know, once and for all, if the wall between their minds was permanent.
*Nini, darling,* he thought, his mental voice dropping to a low, predatory purr. *I know you’ve been pretending. You’re too smart not to. So, let's play. Right now, in front of all these people, I’m imagining exactly what you look like without that dress. I’m imagining the way you’d breathe if I whispered the things I want to do to you into your ear while we’re standing on this stage. I want to ruin you, Nini. I want to make you forget your own name in the back of the car.*
He went into detail. He was vivid. He was, by his own admission, being "nasty." He described sensations and desires that would have made a seasoned romance novelist blush. He poured every ounce of his longing and his playful arrogance into the thought, directed like a laser at the girl in the green dress.
Nini didn't flinch.
In fact, she did something worse. She turned toward him, caught his eye, and gave him a sweet, encouraging little wave, as if to say, *You're doing great, honey!*
Jamal felt a physical jolt. He nearly choked on his own breath, stumbling mid-sentence as he was explaining his recent form to the sponsor.
"Is everything alright, Jamal?" the sporting director asked, frowning.
"Yes, sorry," Jamal coughed, his face turning a bright, unmistakable red. "Just... a bit of a dry throat."
He looked back at Nini. She was laughing at something a teammate's girlfriend had said, her eyes sparkling with genuine, untainted mirth. She was utterly, completely oblivious to the fact that her boyfriend had just spent three minutes mentally ravishing her in the middle of a ballroom.
The realization finally hit him like a thunderbolt. The bond was truly, 100% dead. He was alone in his head again.
A wave of profound embarrassment washed over him. He had been standing there, projecting the most scandalous thoughts possible at a woman who was currently thinking about, presumably, the appetizers or the weather. He felt like a teenager who had been caught talking to himself.
As soon as they were able to slip away from the crowd, Jamal grabbed Nini’s hand and led her toward a balcony overlooking the city lights.
"You okay?" Nini asked, shivering slightly in the cool night air. "You looked a bit flustered back there. Was the sponsor being difficult?"
Jamal leaned his back against the stone railing, looking at her with a mixture of awe and sheepishness. "Nini, I have a confession."
"Oh?" She stepped closer, stepping into the space between his legs and resting her hands on his chest. "Did you break something in the apartment and hide it?"
"No," he laughed, his hands settling on her waist. "I... I’ve been testing you. For weeks. I didn't believe the bond was gone."
Nini tilted her head, a smile playing on her lips. "I know you were testing me, Jamal. I told you that at breakfast."
"No, you don't understand," he said, his voice dropping. "I wasn't just thinking about salt or fries. I was thinking... things. Nasty things. Especially tonight. Just to see if I could break you."
Nini’s eyes widened slightly. "What kind of things?"
Jamal leaned down, his forehead resting against hers. "Things that would have made you slap me if you’d heard them. Things about this dress. About us. I was practically shouting them at you across the room."
Nini stayed silent for a moment, her heart beating steadily against his palms. Then, a slow, mischievous grin spread across her face.
"And?" she whispered. "What did you see?"
"I saw you waving at me like a little kid," Jamal groaned, burying his face in her neck. "It was the most humbling moment of my life. I’m standing there being a total degenerate in my head, and you’re just being... cute."
Nini laughed, the sound bright and clear in the night air. She pulled back to look at him, her expression softening into something deeply tender.
"Jamal, I told you the truth. The noise stopped. But," she paused, her fingers tracing the line of his jaw. "Just because I can't hear your thoughts doesn't mean I don't know you. I saw the way you were looking at me. I saw the tension in your shoulders. I didn't need a psychic bond to know you were thinking about me."
Jamal looked at her, truly looked at her. "You didn't?"
"No," she said, reaching up to kiss the tip of his nose. "But if you really want me to know those 'nasty' thoughts... you're just going to have to tell them to me. Out loud. In private."
Jamal’s breath hitched. The silence in his head was suddenly filled with a different kind of music—the sound of his own heart, and the certainty that he didn't need magic to be connected to her.
"I think I can manage that," he murmured, his voice thick with promise.
He leaned in, his lips hovering just inches from hers. *I love you,* he thought, out of habit.
"I love you too," Nini said aloud.
Jamal froze. He pulled back, his eyes searching hers, his heart stopping for a beat. "Wait. Did you... did you just..."
Nini’s eyes twinkled with a hint of the old mystery. "Just a lucky guess, Bambi. Or maybe I just know you that well."
She turned and headed back toward the gala, her emerald dress shimmering like a secret. Jamal stood on the balcony for a long moment, staring after her, a wide, stunned grin plastered on his face.
He didn't know if the bond was truly gone or if Nini was just the best player he had ever faced, but as he followed her back into the light, he realized he didn't care. The silence wasn't a void; it was a space they were building together, word by word, touch by touch.
And for the first time in his life, Jamal Musiala didn't want to be anywhere else but right there, in the quiet, with her.