After a few meters along the rain-slick asphalt, the motorcycle's dull roar slowed down. Cristian pulled the brake, made the vehicle perform a hairpin turn and came back at walking speed, stopping right in front of the two boys who were about to take the road toward home.
He turned off the engine with a metallic puff and took off his helmet. His blue eyes locked onto those of the boy beside his brother.
"Hi Giacomo," Cristian said, his voice straight, firm, free of the hostility from before.
Giacomo did not take a single step back. His hands were planted in the pockets of his training jacket and he wore a carefree smile that illuminated his face. He had never been afraid of Cristian, not even when everyone else in the neighborhood would cross to the other sidewalk to avoid running into him.
"Hi Cristian," Giacomo replied, giving a half theatrical bow.
A moment of dense silence followed, broken only by the warm breath of all three of them turning into vapor in the cold evening air. Then Giacomo slipped his fingers into the side pocket of his soccer bag, pulled out an untouched cigarette and held it out to him with a solemn expression.
"I believe this is for you, Mr. Cristian. Tonight's lesson costs a cigarette," Giacomo said, laughing.
Cristian looked at it in surprise, then let out a short, incredulous laugh, shaking his head. "How did you get it?"
"I found it on the ground near the locker-room wall!" Giacomo exclaimed, bursting out laughing.
Cristian's laughter died for a moment, replaced by a mock-angry grimace. He suddenly turned toward his brother. "But Cri, these are the people you hang out with?!"
Cristiano took a step back, lowering his gaze with an obviously embarrassed expression, while a bright red blush climbed up his neck to his cheeks. But it was not an ordinary embarrassment: every time Giacomo approached him or made him laugh, a completely different light appeared in Cri's eyes. It was not just respect, it was not merely friendship between teammates. Cri looked at Giacomo the way one looks at the only clean and precious thing in a destroyed world, with a sweet, total devotion, a young and profound love that did not even need to be explained with words.
"I adore Giacomo..." Cri murmured under his breath, unable to take his eyes off his friend.
Giacomo spread his arms, turning toward Cristian with a triumphant expression: "You heard him, Mr. Cristian! The verdict is final!"
Cristian stared at them for a second, then could not hold back another spontaneous laugh. "Choose your friends carefully, little brother. This one is a public menace."
He cleared his throat, running a hand through his blond hair and looking at the deserted pitch behind them. His tone changed, becoming almost casual, to hide the fragility of the moment. "Do you want to play soccer with me for a while?"
Giacomo jumped on the spot, his eyes wide with excitement. "OBVIOUSLY!"
Cristiano remained silent for a moment. His face tried to remain impassive, cold on the surface, but a composed happiness shone in his eyes: he would do anything to prolong that half hour together with Giacomo and his brother.
"Like he said," Cri said softly, hinting at a small smile.
For the next thirty minutes, the field filled with shots, running and shouts. Cristian resumed training them with a strict but attentive manner, shouting tactical instructions, correcting Giacomo's shots and watching with deep respect the surgical precision of Cri's passes. For the first time in months, Cri's laughter rang freely through the darkness, intertwining with Giacomo's chaotic one.
When it truly became night, Giacomo waved goodbye, running away toward his street. "Bye Cri! Bye Mr. Cristian, don't break too many laws on the motorcycle tonight!"
"Go home, idiot!" Cristian shouted after him, chuckling.
Left alone beneath the orange light of the streetlamp, Cristiano approached the motorcycle and looked his older brother in the eyes.
"Thank you, Big Brother," Cri said with a sweetness stripped of every defense.
At those words, Cristian's tough-guy facade collapsed all at once. He felt a violent warmth rise to his face and turned completely red, unable to handle such pure emotional contact.
"Don't get used to it, buddy," Cristian muttered to hide his embarrassment, reaching out a hand to vigorously ruffle his blond hair.
Cristiano fixed the strands on his forehead, then looked up at him, with an innocent question that came straight from his heart: "Can I be like you when I grow up?"
Cristian froze with his hand halfway through the air. His laughter died instantly, replaced by a gaze of almost painful intensity. He bent down onto his knees, bringing himself exactly to his height, planting his blue eyes into those identical to his little brother's.
His fingers gently tightened around Cri's slender shoulders. When he spoke, his voice was no longer that of a street kid, nor that of a partner in mischief: it was the voice of a father, the only father figure Cristiano had ever truly had.
"Listen to me carefully, Cri," Cristian said, emphasizing every single word with a solemnity that made the cold air between them tremble. "You absolutely must not be like me. Do you understand? You have to be much, much better."
Cri stared at him in silence, holding his breath.
"Our parents never taught us how to live," Cristian continued, his voice cracked by a bitter but necessary truth. "They just threw us into this world and washed their hands of it. I pretended to be an adult before my time. I filled my head with anger, fists, bullshit and the wrong kind of stuff just because I was terrified and had no one to explain to me how to grow up. I pretended to be tough because I was afraid the world would break me."
He paused briefly, brushing his thumb against Cri's cheek.
"But you're different, Cri. You have a light inside you that I've never had. When you play soccer, when you look at the people you care about... you put your whole heart into it. I hid my heart behind cigarettes and bruises so no one could touch it. You must never do that. Always have the courage to feel everything. To love, to suffer, to laugh, without allowing this shit to turn you into a cynic. You'll be a fantastic man, Cri. A real man. Much more than me. Promise me."
Cristiano stared at him with watery eyes, filled with deep emotion. Then he leaned forward and pulled him into a desperate, tight hug, burying his face against his brother's motorcycle jacket that smelled of gasoline and rain.
Cristian remained rigid for a second, caught off guard by that burst of affection. Then, slowly, he released the tension from his shoulders and slipped his arms around his little brother's small body, hugging him back as if he wanted to protect him from all the darkness in the universe. He smiled to himself, looking at the distant city lights.
"It's so strange..." Cristian murmured in an extremely low voice.
"I love you, Big Brother," Cri said, his cheek still pressed against his chest.
Cristian closed his eyes, breathing deeply the clean air of the night.
"Me too, Cri. Me too."
When Cristiano crossed the entrance of the house and climbed the stairs to go to sleep, Cristian remained alone in the courtyard.
He did not get on the motorcycle immediately. He leaned against the metal fuel tank and looked at his hands. The knuckles of his right hand were still scraped and red from the punches he had given Fred a few hours earlier in the courtyard.
Maia's words resurfaced in his mind like a distant but merciless echo: You're fragile... if you keep destroying everything around you so you don't have to admit you've failed, you'll end up completely alone.
Then Cri's eyes came back to him. That sincere hug. That "thank you, Big Brother" said without a second motive.
Cristian clenched his fists, but this time not out of anger.
For the first time in his life, he felt a visceral impulse that did not come from the desire to run away or numb himself with drugs. He felt a desperate need to clean himself up. To stop with the cheap thugs, the dealing, the lies he told himself to justify his own filth.
If he truly wanted to be his brother's shield, if he truly wanted to give him a future and teach him how to live, he could not continue being a rotten wreck. He had to become the man he had promised Cri he would be.
He looked at the packet of drugs in his pocket, slowly pulling it out. He stared at it for a second, then threw it with all the strength he had into the storm drain at the corner of the street, hearing it drown in the dark water.
He started the motorcycle's engine. The roar in the night no longer sounded like a threat, but like the first step toward a dawn that no longer seemed so frightening.