[cutison] If I had to guess, I think it's you ~

Ch. 1: when Cuti first joined Tottenham

"Everyone!"

Cristian looked around as the head coach, Antonio Conte, spoke to the players wandering about. He recognized some of the faces and mentally tried to match them to their respective names, completely ignoring what Conte was saying. He wasn't nervous, not exactly, but starting over somewhere new was always a bit anxiety-inducing. And, this time, he had a language barrier against him, which didn't help matters.
He was brought back to the conversation when he heard his name, and he turned to the head coach at the same time the man gestured towards him.

"As you probably already know, this is Cristian Romero, our newest addition"
"Hello, it's an honour to be here" he said softly, his strong Córdoba accent fully on display, and waved his left hand as he looked around at all his now teammates.

The first one to approach him, a friendly smile never leaving his face, was Emerson Royal who, in a mix of English, Spanish and Portuguese, took it upon himself to introduce the rest of their teammates one by one as they approached Cristian and shook his hand to welcome him.

"Aaaand this is Sonny," Emerson said as the last player joined them, "la superestrella de Corea"

Cristian had heard of him – how could he not, the man was already a legend in their team with everything he had achieved.

"Bienvenido," Sonny said with a tiny smile as they shook hands, surprising both Cristian and Emerson with his Spanish, "if you need help with anything just let me know"
"Que si necesitas ayuda con lo que sea que le digas," Emerson had taken his job as an improvised interpreter very seriously and made sure Cristian didn't miss a thing. "Y es el preferido de Harry así que mejor tenerlo de amigo"
"Thank you, Sonny," he returned the smile, feeling very touched by the other man's disposition.

Right at that moment, the coach called Emerson over, and Cristian was left alone with the Korean man.

"Have you seen the facilities yet?"
"Only... the medical part," he hadn't had time to do much – his flight had been delayed so the minute he'd got off the plane, he had been dragged to the training centre to start with the mandatory medical assessment before he could join the team's practice, and now here he was.
"Want a tour? We still have about an hour left before training starts"
"Are you sure? I-I don't.." he struggled to put his thoughts into proper English words and soon gave up trying, hoping the other man would understand him anyways, "No quiero molestarte"
"Don't worry, you're not"

Cristian was once again surprised (yet relieved) by Sonny's understanding of Spanish, and not being one to beat around the bush, he took up the other's offer with a nod of his head.

That's how they spent the next hour wandering around the training grounds, with Sonny guiding him through every building and trying to explain to him where everything was despite all their potential linguistic mishaps. They even took the chance to learn a bit about the other; Sonny was shocked to learn Cristian was six years his junior ("I'm not saying you look old but I honestly thought you were like 28 or something, and you even have a kid already!"), and Cristian was surprised when the other man admitted to only knowing "uno poquito" of Spanish and mostly winging it based on things he'd picked up from the rest of their Latin American teammates.

All in all, Cristian would say the other man did a great job; he was confident he'd somehow understood most of what Sonny had said in his improvised tour.

The training session went smoothly. Cristian was thankful that, despite the cultural differences, football was pretty much the same everywhere. He knew his way around a field and he was already more than familiar with the exercises and drills; if he struggled with the language, he just needed to watch his new teammates for a second in order to match a name to its corresponding moves, and he was all set. Besides that, both Sonny and Emerson had made it their mission to make sure he didn't lag behind at any point during those two hours.

"Cuti," the nickname slid off the Korean man's tongue smoothly. Admittedly, he had a better time calling him that rather than his first or last name ("strong Rs are annoying, okay?!"), "what are you doing after this?"
"I have wannaone training"
"Huh?," he turned his head in the younger man's direction, confused. They were spread on the field like starfish, trying to regain some energy after their training.
Cristian groaned, so much for understanding each other despite the language barrier, and repeated himself more slowly.
"One... on... one... training? Like... me with Harry?"
"Oh! Damn, they're really working you to the ground on your first day, huh"
Cristian simply nodded, he didn't really have it in him to complain.
"I was going to ask if you wanted to hang out with a couple of the guys tonight but you'll be exhausted"
"Yeah, maybe on the weekend or something?"
"Deal "

Just as they bumped their fists together as a way of sealing said deal, their vice captain appeared and called Cristian over.

"Romero! You ready?"
Cristian stood up and nodded, dusting off his uniform. He waved Sonny off and followed Harry to where he had set up all his equipment.

Heungmin looked at them hesitantly. While it was true that Cristian had managed surprisingly well (his emphasis, not Sonny's) to understand and follow the conversations despite the language barrier, it was also undeniable that, in great British fashion, their beloved Harry Kane's English wasn't the easiest to understand.
He stared from afar until he couldn't take Cristian's frowny, confused face anymore and decided to run up to them.

"Need an interpreter?" He asked, lightly, to neither man in particular, not wanting to overstep.
Cristian nodded softly, shy yet visibly relieved, as if not wanting to disrespect the other man, and Harry simply shrugged.

The next hour saw them exploit their newly found teamwork until Harry had some mercy on Cristian and set him free for the day.

–

"Hey, Sonny," Cristian said as they were heading out, hair still wet, and bags on their shoulders, "thank you for everything you did today, you didn't have to"
"Don't worry about it, it was nothing. I'm just happy to help"

They shared another smile and went their separate ways, with promises to actually hang out on the weekend.
Sonny was simply glad he had been able to help Cristian; he remembered his first few days on the team, trying to communicate in a mix of broken English and German, and how lonely it all had felt. He didn't want anyone else to feel that way if he could do even the tiniest thing about it.
Cristian, on the other hand, couldn't help but feel hopeful for what was to come in his time at Tottenham. With teammates like Sonny, who had done a lot more than he needed so that he would feel comfortable on his first day, he was sure they would manage to achieve great things, and that he'd feel at home in no time. This was only the beginning.