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

Ch. 3: when Cuti went through a break-up

"Romero!," Conte, their head coach, yelled as soon as they entered the locker room during half-time, the Italian accent only making his anger more evident, "I'm not sure what's up with you but you're on the bench until you sort your shit out, no buts"

Bench. His English had decently improved in the last couple of months, but no matter how much new vocabulary he learned, that was still the one word he hated the most. Bench.

The worst part was that he knew he deserved it and couldn't complain at all. He was not giving his best on the field, he'd been distracted the whole first half of the match and said distraction had been the cause of probably two out of the three goals their opponent had already scored. It was only logical that Antonio decided to send him to the bench, and he was lucky Lloris, their goalie and captain, hadn't taken it out on him yet. But as much as he knew it, it didn't make him hate the situation any less.

He simply nodded and went through the motions during the rest of Conte's and Lloris' motivational speeches, not really in the proper mindset to listen to them implicitly put the blame for their –most likely– impending loss on him.

"You alright?" Sonny asked the second Cristian joined him on the bench and handed him a bottle of water, eyes glued to the resuming game in front of them.

"Not really," he whispered, suddenly feeling depleted, and took a sip.

"Can I crash at your place tonight? We can order some take-out and hang out, get your mind off things"

Cristian didn't really feel like hanging out that night, the idea of another sleepless night spent alone in his dark apartment looking very tempting in his mind; but he could recognize Heungmin's attempt at taking care of and being there for him, so he simply nodded. He knew the man wouldn't be able to rest unless he knew his juniors were okay.

"Soooo, what's wrong?"

They were sitting on the floor of Cristian's small apartment, takeout containers spread all over the coffee table, and their backs to the sofa.

"My girlfriend break? broke? up with me," Cristian said, mindlessly staring at the TV simply to avoid making eye contact. He didn't like feeling vulnerable, but most of all, he didn't like looking at people's eyes and finding pity for him in them.

"Oh shit, I'm sorry, it's okay if you don't wanna talk about it,"

He shook his head and took a deep breath. It couldn't hurt to let everything out at least once, and in the short time he'd been in England, he'd come to trust Sonny the most out of the whole team. If there was someone Cristian would confide in, it would be him.

With that thought in mind, he proceeded to tell Sonny all about the break-up.

"Honestly, I kinda knew it was coming, I just pretended not to," he said

He wasn't lying. It hadn't been a complete surprise, things had felt different for a while, uncomfortable, as if there were a slowly-growing elephant in the room that took more and more space each day until they had no way to escape it. He knew that being away from her family wasn't Karen's ideal life, (it wasn't his, either, but an inevitable hindrance that came with the job) and she was sacrificing a lot of things to be there supporting him – but they had both chosen to fool themselves into believing they could deal with anything as long as they were together.

That had worked for a while, but it wasn't foolproof. He'd started noticing things once they'd left Italy and moved to England – but he had convinced himself that it was mostly a culture clash and that they'd be over it soon enough, they just needed time.

When they'd found out they were expecting, they'd allowed themselves to dive headfirst into that happiness and swipe any negative thought under the rug. That bliss had lasted for months, but once Valentino was born, the fact that they were alone on the other side of the world with no true support system to help them in their newest journey became too real and too hard to ignore.

It had all come to a head the previous week when Karen had sat him down and told him she couldn't do it anymore, that things were not the same, and that the dark cloud hanging over them didn't seem too keen on moving on.

Heungmin simply listened. He paid close attention and nodded and hummed at the right times, holding onto every word as if Cristian were speaking about some groundbreaking science development that'd been in the works for centuries, and not mere "relationship trouble". Cristian was thankful he had made such a great friend at Spurs.

"She just... I came home after our training last week and she had all her and Valen's things already packed? As if working things out wasn't even an option. She was ready to leave"

"That's... that's actually a pretty shitty move, if I'm being honest, to take your child away from you just like that". Sonny, who had stayed calmed during the whole thing, now was starting to sound angry on his behalf. Cristian could see him clenching and unclenching his left fist repeatedly, as if forcing himself to calm down.

"I know, I swear deep down I know it, but I just can't find it in myself to blame her," he shrugged, defeated, "I know I probably sound like the worst dad ever, because she did kinda take my baby away from me and I'm not exactly fighting it but..."

"You don't need to justify yourself," Sonny cut him off, "I never doubted that you always had Tino's best interest in mind, and it's not like you could easily fight for 50/50 custody while being on opposite ends of the world, especially now that he's still a baby."

Cristian nodded, he knew Heungmin was right. As much as it hurt him to be away from his son, he knew that Valentino needed his mother more than anything, and Cristian would never take that away from him. He would find a way to be in his baby's life, that wasn't even a question, but Valentino's needs and wellbeing would always come first.

"And even once he's older, you don't know what the future will bring or where in the world you'll be playing next. Best case scenario you'll go back to Argentina and things will resolve themselves easily, but what if it doesn't go that way? What if you end up staying in Europe? Are you going to have him uproot his whole life every couple of months and move an ocean away to live half a year with each parent? and have him do that for the next what? Fifteen years? that wouldn't be fair on him either"

He nodded again and took the tub of chocolate ice cream Sonny was offering him. Cristian hadn't even noticed he'd gone to the kitchen to get it, completely lost in his own restless thoughts.

He looked around at the now half-empty apartment; one could easily tell where Tino's bassinet used to be, or which picture frames used to hold Karen's pictures. He had spent the last week coming home to a broken place, a constant reminder of everything that had gone wrong and everything he'd lost – of course he was allowed to take his time to process what had happened and grieve, but maybe his surroundings weren't helping him at all. Maybe he needed another change, a positive one this time.

"Hey, Sonny?", the other man simply hummed, eyes glued to the unknown sitcom airing on the tv, "thank you for tonight"

"You don't need to thank me, isn't this what friends are for?"

"Yeah, but still, thank you"

"You're welcome, Cuti," he ruffled Cristian's hair affectionately and laughed at the younger man's annoyance.

"Wanna help me look for a new apartment?" he asked, eyebrow raised and a mischievous smile adorning his face.

Sonny laughed, surprised at the sudden change of topic yet relieved at seeing a glimpse of Cuti's usual self starting to come back, and rushed to tidy up the coffee table so that they could set up Cristian's laptop on it. That's how they spent the next few hours, browsing the internet in search of the perfect apartment, and scheduling several house tours for the next day. Cristian's life might have felt like it was falling to pieces right there and then, but maybe he was on the right path to slowly put it all back together.