Cristian was leaning against the wall surrounding the training field, the thin smoke of a cigarette rising across his face. He looked beyond the metal fence, his blue eyes narrowed into two tired slits.
On the pitch, the ball moved fluidly between the boys' feet. Cri ran with his head lowered: his short blond hair fell over his forehead, almost completely covering his eyes, but without preventing that unique peripheral vision from calculating every millimeter of the field. With a light touch, almost careless but surgical, Cri painted a perfect pass for Giacomo.
Giacomo controlled it on the fly and buried the ball into the net. Goal.
Cristian saw his brother stop and stare at Giacomo with a clear smile. "I'm so happy," Cri murmured to himself, breathing in the fresh air of the field.
Giacomo was a steady point. Even when exhaustion bent him down or his mental strength began to fail, he always found a way to support Cri, to act as his shield and anchor amid the chaos.
A second later, a boy with almost curly hair and large green eyes appeared out of nowhere, jumping onto Cri with a clumsy hug.
Giulio is weird, Cristian thought as he watched him from afar. On the field he played a role diametrically opposite to Cri's: chaotic, unpredictable, always ready to dribble past the man rather than move the ball around, as if standing still for even a second weighed on his chest like a boulder.
Then another teammate arrived, taller, with slightly darker skin and short-cropped black hair. He gave Cri a friendly punch on the shoulder before celebrating. Ema only thought about scoring goals, the goal was his sole obsession, but his generosity still led him to play incredibly well for the team.
When Giulio and Ema turned around to return toward the center circle, Cri and Giacomo stayed behind for a moment. They looked at each other. Giacomo let out a clean laugh, giving him a sincere compliment for the assist; then Cri extended his hand, shaking Giacomo's as they returned together to take their positions on the line.
On the other side of the fence, Cristian clenched his teeth, his jaw tense with pressure.
How can he? he thought, feeling a suffocation he could not control. An idiot, whiny and fragile like him... how can he have so many friends? How can he be loved like this? And besides...
His gaze froze on the sight of Cri continuing to stare at Giacomo. There was more than friendship in his brother's eyes; there was complete adoration, a soft and devoted light that pierced through the darkness of any day.
Cristian felt a knot in his throat. Cri only looks at him. It's been so long since he looked at me that way... I wonder where I'm going wrong.
"Cristiano and you look a lot alike, you know?"
A sudden, sweet and crystalline female voice pulled him away from his thoughts.
Cristian turned sharply. In front of him was a beautiful girl with deep blue-dyed hair falling softly over her shoulders and two flower-shaped earrings that glimmered beneath the light of the sunset. She had an open smile, devoid of malice, and an extremely penetrating gaze.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Maia," she said, tilting her head slightly.
Cristian let the rigidity of his face melt into a strained little smile, activating that cocky charm he had always used as a shield. "The pleasure is always mine when meeting women this beautiful."
Maia giggled softly, a melodic and reassuring laugh. "Such a womanizer for your age."
Cristian pulled the lighter from his pocket to light another cigarette, bringing the flame very close to his lips. "I'm a man of mi—"
He did not have time to finish the sentence. Maia leaned forward and, with an incredibly fluid, soft, almost affectionate gesture, took the cigarette from his mouth before the flame could touch it. With extreme grace, she broke it in half and dropped it to the ground.
Cristian froze on the spot. Any other boy would have reacted badly, but the way Maia looked at him — with a warm, maternal care, almost suffocating in its kindness — stopped his voice in his throat.
"You're too young to treat yourself this badly, Cristian," Maia said. Her voice was disarmingly gentle, like a caress against the face, but her words cut into the flesh with the precision of a scalpel. "Smoking at your age doesn't make you look older or stronger. It only destroys your lungs before you can even do something good with your life. It's a shame to see someone throwing themselves away like this, little bite by little bite."
Cristian remained motionless, petrified. He couldn't get angry. There was something in her gaze that prevented him from acting tough.
"Anyway," Maia continued, turning for a moment toward the pitch, "your brother is really incredible at passing. He has a frightening vision of the game. He plays with an absurd chemistry with that number 4 right there in the middle. All his crosses are practically assists already written, just waiting to be pushed into the net."
She paused briefly, then turned toward Cristian again. Her smile remained the same — sweet, open, welcoming — but her eyes suddenly became cold.
"You should train him yourself," Maia continued in an extremely warm voice. "You know, you who were..."
"I was?" Cristian interrupted her, and this time his voice betrayed a note of rigid, almost defensive tension.
"I know you, Wonderkid Frisinghelli," Maia said, and every word that left her mouth was wrapped in a trail of caring compassion that made the blow even more painful. "You were one of the best players around. I saw you play a couple of years ago. You had a power, a hunger that is rarely seen in boys your age. But you didn't make it through the decisive test, did you?"
Cristian clenched his teeth, feeling blood pulse in his temples. "You don't know anything about me."
"Actually, I think I do," Maia replied, stepping half a step closer. Her voice was soft as velvet. "You can see it from the way you lean against this little wall. You're full of anger, Cristian. And anger is excellent fuel for ninety minutes on the field, but outside it devours you from within. You've become so cynical because you couldn't stand the fact that the world didn't give you what you thought you deserved. You look at your brother with all this jealousy and resentment... but the truth is that he smiles on the field. You never smile."
Cristian was about to speak, to spit a curse or a threat at her, but his lips trembled. He remained rooted there, frozen by the raw ferocity of those words spoken in the tone of a mother comforting an injured child.
"You didn't become a professional not because you lacked talent," Maia continued, crossing her arms over her chest and looking into his eyes with immense gentleness. "But because you're fragile. And when things get difficult, instead of fighting, you prefer to destroy everything around you so you don't have to admit that you've failed."
The silence between them became unbearable. The cool evening wind moved Maia's blue hair, while Cristian felt his chest burning as if he had swallowed poison.
"Why are you telling me these things?" Cristian murmured with a dry throat, unable to tear his eyes away from hers.
"Because I find you a fascinating boy, Cristian. And because I feel sorry for you," she replied with a genuine smile, devoid of any mockery. "You have potential. But if you keep hiding behind cigarettes, fists, and this tough-guy armor you've built for yourself, you'll end up completely alone. And no one will come to save you."
Cristian remained still for long seconds, unable to move or break that eye contact that stripped him of every defense. He felt a desperate need to leave, but his feet seemed glued to the asphalt.
Finally, with a brusque gesture to break that painful hypnosis, he pulled a crumpled piece of paper and a pen from his jacket pocket. He scribbled his phone number on it with a quick, nervous stroke, then handed it to her.
"If you need a coach for the team, call me," Cristian said, trying to recover a thread of his usual cockiness, even though his voice came out slightly cracked. "But don't you ever dare lecture me again."
Maia took the piece of paper, looking at him with an almost pitying tenderness. "It wasn't a lecture, Cristian. It was just the truth. But thank you for the number."
Cristian did not answer. He finally turned away and walked off with quick, heavy steps, his fists clenched inside his jacket pockets.
No one can analyze me, he repeated in his mind as the poison and humiliation rose to his brain with every step. That bitch doesn't know shit about me. I don't need anyone's help. Nobody can help me. I'm fine on my own. I'm the one who decides.
He reached his motorcycle parked just outside the field gate. He climbed onto it angrily, inserting the key and starting the engine with a dull roar that tore through the twilight.
On the other side of the courtyard, Cri, who had just finished training and was heading toward the locker rooms with his bag over his shoulder, suddenly stopped. He saw the tall figure of his older brother silhouetted against the sunset lights as he accelerated in place.
"Big Brother..." Cri murmured softly, watching him from afar before Cristian's motorcycle took off at full speed, disappearing into the darkness of the road.