In This Life I Became a Coach-Chapter 2: The Man in the Mirror

Silence. Not the wet, heavy silence of a roadside crash—this was lighter. Strange. Still.

Then breath.

A gasp tore through the room like it didn't belong. Sharp. Sudden. Too alive.

Demien's body lurched upright. Sheets tangled around his legs, drenched in sweat. His lungs fought for air like they'd never tasted it. His chest expanded against fabric that felt too soft, too smooth—silk? He blinked against the dim light, pupils slow to adjust. Shadows clung to the corners of the room.

The ceiling was unfamiliar. White, carved, elegant. Crown molding, polished beams. Not a hospital. Not a car.

This isn't the crash.

Hands trembled as they pushed off the mattress—too steady, too toned. The weight was wrong. Limbs longer. Skin tight across muscle that shouldn't be there. His legs swung off the bed and met a cold marble floor.

No carpet. No clutter. No sign of the half-dead footballer who'd fallen asleep to the sound of wipers.

A low hum filled the air—an HVAC unit purring like a satisfied cat. It smelled faintly of bergamot and clean linen. Hotel room. Upscale. French Riviera expensive.

He rose too quickly. The floor tilted, and his shin struck the corner of a gold-trimmed dresser.

"Shit—" The voice that left his throat stopped him cold.

Deeper. Polished. With a faint, unmistakable lilt—French.

His hand went to his throat as if he could dig the truth out with his fingers. Nothing made sense. Panic rose like a wave, sharp and cold and fast. He stumbled across the room, past an open suitcase—suit neatly folded, cologne bottle untouched—and reached the full-length mirror opposite the bed.

He froze.

The man in the mirror wasn't Demien Walter.

Dark, combed-back hair. Angular jawline. A face untouched by age or regret. Taller, leaner. There was a sharpness to the eyes, the cheekbones, the cut of his posture—someone used to being watched. Respected. Feared.

Not him.

His reflection raised a hand.

So did he.

The man in the mirror blinked.

So did he.

"No," he muttered, backing up a step, breath shallow.

He reached for the light switch and flicked it up. The room exploded into gold and cream. Marble gleamed under his bare feet. Curtains, half-parted, spilled warm sunlight over an enormous king-sized bed. The city glittered outside the tall windows—Monte Carlo, unmistakable. The coastline curled in the distance, caught between sea and sky.

His heartbeat thudded against his ribs. The man in the mirror stared back.

This wasn't a hospital. There were no IVs, no nurses. No scars. No blood. No wreckage.

Just him.

And a name.

His eyes flicked to the table beside the bed. A leather-bound portfolio sat open, a press tag tucked into the corner.

Yves Laurent

Head Coach, AS Monaco FC

The floor swayed again. He grabbed the edge of the desk, knuckles white.

AS Monaco?

His brain struggled to arrange the pieces, but they refused to fit. Yves Laurent. The name tickled something at the back of his mind—an old headline, a pre-season article from years ago.

Then it hit him.

2003. The season Monaco stormed to the Champions League final. Evra. Giuly. Rothen. Fernando Morientes on loan from Real Madrid.

Demien's lips parted. "This can't be..."

Knuckles rapped on the door.

A voice, muffled but firm: "Coach Laurent? Press briefing in thirty minutes."

He stood paralyzed.

Another knock. Softer this time. Then silence.

He didn't respond.

Somewhere down the hall, footsteps faded.

He turned slowly back toward the mirror.

The man in front of him was breathing heavy. Pale.

This wasn't a dream. Or a near-death hallucination.

The glass didn't lie.

"Who the hell is this?" he whispered.

The reflection had no answer.

It stared back—poised, unreadable, almost indifferent. A stranger carved from confidence. Not a flicker of recognition. Not a hint of who Demien Walter used to be.

He stepped back from the mirror and let the silence settle. No heart monitor. No nurse. Just the faint murmur of the city bleeding through the window seams—honking scooters, clinking glass, a distant seagull wailing over Monte Carlo's midday hum.

His feet moved on their own, bare against the marble floor. Each step felt off-balance, not clumsy but... different. Like the rhythm had changed. Like the center of gravity wasn't where it used to be. He flexed his fingers and watched how they curled. Long, slim. Too smooth to be his. There should've been scars—knuckle nicks, turf burns, that old fracture from the away match at Huddersfield. Gone.

He paced the room. Slow circles. Breathing through his nose, trying to ground himself, trying to remember how it felt to be normal. His shoulders sat higher. His back straighter. Even the way he turned corners felt... professional.

A flicker of black caught his eye. On the desk near the bed, something sat neatly atop a closed leather folio.

He approached cautiously, as if it might disappear.

A press tag.

The badge was clipped to a smooth rectangle of dark leather. Gold trim. Thick stitching. Quality stuff. Monaco didn't mess around, clearly. He picked it up—slow, measured—like it might weigh more than it should.

Yves Laurent

Head Coach, AS Monaco FC

His thumb grazed the surface. Laminate. Clean. Untouched.

The man in the photo was the one from the mirror. No smile. Just cool, surgical confidence. A crisp white collar under a black blazer, expression carved out of strategy. Tactical. Reserved. There was power in that stare, the kind that didn't beg to be liked.

Demien's breath caught. It wasn't a joke.

This wasn't a dream he'd forgotten how to wake from.

Yves Laurent. That name... it meant something.

He turned back to the desk and flipped open the leather folio.

A stack of papers sat inside. Clean margins. Organized in the kind of way that made Demien self-conscious of his old messy notebooks. First, a daily itinerary: breakfast slot, press briefing at 10:30, training setup by noon, tactical review by 15:00. Everything structured to the minute.

Below it, a set of printed pages with player names and positions. Notes scribbled in the margins—"Morientes link-up?" and "Giuly drifting too wide—tighten inside channel."

A scrawl at the bottom of one: Y. Laurent.

His eyes traced the formations next. Red ink circled variations of a 4-3-3 diamond and a 4-2-2-2. Lines connecting names to positions. Giuly. Evra. Plasil. Rothen.

Each one lit a flare in his memory—not his own, not entirely. Like facts half-learned in another life. He remembered seeing those names years ago. Giuly's pace on the right. Evra bombing down the left. Monaco in red and white, hitting with speed and control.

No. No, this didn't make sense.

He backed away from the desk as if distance might make it clearer.

This wasn't limbo. It wasn't coma dreaming. Not some tragic flicker before brain death. No. It was too crisp. Too real. He could smell the citrus from the minibar fridge, could feel the faint ache in his hamstrings like this body had run drills yesterday.

A hotel TV sat across from the bed. Off. Silent.

He didn't turn it on.

Didn't need to.

The name kept echoing in his skull.

Yves Laurent.

He said it aloud—quietly, like testing the shape of it in his mouth.

"Yves Laurent."

It rolled off his tongue with a weight he hadn't expected.

And then—pain.

A sudden, blinding jolt, like someone had split his brain in two with a crowbar. His hands shot up to his temples. A groan escaped his throat, low and guttural.

Flashes exploded behind his eyelids.

A boardroom. A face twisted in anger across a polished table.

"This isn't Lyon. You won't bully Monaco."

A tunnel lined in red banners. Cameras flashing.

"Coach Laurent—can we ask about the rumors?"

Whistle. Stadium roar. Floodlights blazing down on the Stade Louis II.

"Run harder! Cut inside! Drop deep, damn it!"

Memories not his.

Or not entirely his.

It was like watching someone else's dream through his own skull—no context, no warning, just feeling. Rage. Pressure. Cold satisfaction when a goal hit the net. Pride swelling in a voice that was his and wasn't.

He dropped to one knee.

The pain peaked—then disappeared, as fast as it had come.

Sweat dampened his shirt collar. His hands shook.

But something inside had changed.

He could feel it—muscle memory that wasn't his. Thought patterns aligning like puzzle pieces. Tension he didn't recognize until now. He knew things. Knew names. Knew where the staff locker was. Knew that the youth academy director hated Rothen's attitude. Knew Evra needed shorter warm-ups because of an old ligament issue.

And he hadn't learned those things.

They were simply... there.

He staggered to his feet and looked at the badge still lying open on the desk.

Yves Laurent.

It wasn't just a name anymore.

It was his name now.

Somehow, impossibly, he had died as Demien Walter and awakened as Yves Laurent—head coach of AS Monaco, 2003. Before Messi. Before smartphones. Before everything he knew about how football would evolve over the next two decades.

He took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. The press briefing waited. Players waited. A season—perhaps an entire career—waited.

And the mirror still showed a stranger's face with his eyes looking back.