ᶠÚᵗᵇᵒˡ Oɴᴇsʜᴏᴛs ⎳⎳

What if? (Cristessi)

A short boy in a windbreaker and shorts seemed to be packing up after school football training, alone in the locker room. Seemingly expressionless, he grabbed his duffel bag and in approach of leaving, he felt a strong impact of being pushed against the locker as the lockers produced a bang which echoed through the room. Thank God no one else was there.

- "Kid, give up."

- "No,"

- "It's not an option."

- "Okay." Cristiano let go, leaving the room before shooting a glare at the latter, which barely seemed to affect him judging by his expression.

---

Lionel Andres Messi, a 18 year old from a small town of Spain. Being an orphan meant he never knew the feeling of the affection from his biological parents, but a couple were grateful enough to adopt him when he was 2. Confident their son will be fine alone, they sent him to Madrid to pursue football, something he loved and dedicated himself too.

But after joining a football academy there 2 years back, he fell. Fell harder for a Portugese man than he did the first time he had touched the football. His heart sped every time he looked at the Portugese's dark, nearly black eyes, which seemed seemed to have no endpoint.

But, a year back, something prevented him from expressing his emotions towards the Portuguese or anyone else after an interlude he had been striving to avoid, because teen years are a bitch, they brought in horrible things for Lionel to deal with.

Lionel came to know Cristiano hated him, considered him a brat, someone who lacks of personality and any other insult that he was able to come up with which barely related to Lionel, and wasn't true. But being blinded by the pain of hearing that from his crush, he fell back.

He collapsed. He couldn't take it. So, he stopped. Stopped falling for anyone else til his foster parents set him up with someone when it's time. This was the 2nd time he got his heart broken, and that was already enough for him to go blunt.

That day onwards, he evolved to a pessimistic being than of a giddy, smiling Lionel everyone was familiar with. Everyone pitied the sudden change, concluding something surely went wrong since the day before he was fine, and the next day onwards he turned dull.

Each passing day was peer pressure for him, as he had to face his crush during training. Not only that, after training, sometimes, he became the victim to being threatened constantly by Cristiano.

His heart took it like it was nothing everyday, but that didn't stop him from weeping by an alley under the streetlight with no one around to acknowledge his feeling; how precious he is.

And just like that, he had to move on. With moving on came more heartbreaks and with that he built a new layer of insecurity and lack of self-confidence. But mostly imoortantly, lack of love. Lack of the love he deserved.

But, he had to take it. Like any other day, the next day came. It was like a loop for him, an infinite loop to be exact. He hated the fact that he had to live in that loop because it consisted of facing Cristiano twice a day, which broke him because he knew he was prevented from feeling things for the elder boy.

- "Leo, you good? You haven't been in there for a while.."

Neymar Jr, best friend of Lionel. He's a very optimistic person in general who tries his best to cheer Lionel up, knowing that it won't work, until or unless Cristiano would stop acting blind about seeing Lionel's feelings as nothing but that of a lovesick brat.

- "Heh..you know how it is." Leo smiled, but it had a sadness to it. And Neymar knew, and it ached him to see his friend in pain. As a friend, he could attribute to Cristiano making up with Lionel but first, Lionel needed to get the idea how Cristiano just wasn't handling the situation maturedly, not wanting to accept the fact he has a liking for Lionel.