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He doesn't go back home - and it is still home - after landing in Manchester. His sister promises to pack for him, to put his life in cardboard boxes and send them, sealed and neat, to wherever he chooses to stay next. Juan thinks of his favorite Chelsea hoodie, well worn and comforting and tells her to leave it behind. He supposes that he has to start somewhere.
He heaves a sigh - breathing never seemed as hard as this - not on the bench the past season, not when he told Jose that he needed to leave and not when he'd hung up his Valencia jersey and moved on. Maybe Juan was younger then, aching for a challenge, aching to run with a ball at his feet and laugh while he did it. He can't quite remember that - the exhilaration, the flow of the ball. It feels - Juan feels - as though everything is stuck, as though he's wooden and tired even though nothing has changed at all. Nothing should have changed, anyway. He wonders where he'll put his Chelsea trophies in his new house.
He will, he supposes, find a house in Cheshire. It's nice and quaint and someone has given him a list of other footballers who live there. In time, Juan thinks, when neighbour doesn’t remind him too much of Oriole or Fernando, he’d like some friends around him. Vidic lives in Cheshire, the list tells him - Vidic who was the first to email him a welcome message and who Bane tells him is almost like JT. Vidic who will be his new captain. Who already is, Juan supposes, his new captain. Juan tries to ignore how wrong it feels - almost like betrayal even though he knows JT won't ever see it that way. Juan thinks of group hugs and the sun rising over the training ground on cool London mornings. He doesn't cry, but he wants to.
David lives in Cheshire too - David, who calls him and then proceeds to say nothing at all – just offers Juan a little company and doesn’t pretend to have any advice to give. Maybe he will live next to David - it'll almost be like the old days in Valencia, except that back then everything was much smaller, but their smiles just that much wider. David ignores this when Juan says this over the phone, all ready for a rare bit of sulking. He talks instead of the peace and quiet, of the incomprehensible accents that macunians have and the derbies where they'll line up on opposite sides. “Smile Juanin," David whispers before they hang up, "I'll pick you up after training okay? We'll go for dinner."
So he does. Juan smiles through the introductions at Carrington, lets the other David - de Gea - drag him around and does his very best to be excited. David looks at him, when they pause for lunch, and tells him that they're all glad, that maybe he'll be the one to save their season. Juan thinks that maybe of all the reasons for him to feel excitement in his bones, it is this. It is the idea of football, of pounding his boots against the pitch and the rattling of a ball against a net. It’s triumph, joy and trust. Juan looks down at the training kit they give him – it’s red, black and has the number 21 on it. He takes a picture to tease David with over dinner. In time, he tells himself, it will hurt less without the weight of the Chelsea crest again his chest.
He signs a few autographs after training, arranges a dinner tomorrow with the manager and hops into David's car when he drives over from the Man City training ground. David grins at him in his quiet way, "Don't think about tomorrow," he says over dinner, "think about the day after that."
Juan stews over this when David drops him off at his hotel. The lady at reception beams at him and says, "Welcome to Manchester, sir." Juan smiles back at her and says that he’s glad to be here. And he is – he is because this is Football, and above everything else, this is all he has.
Fernando calls as he's brushing his teeth and chats aimlessly till Juan's finished up. He tells Juan to expect a boxful of well wishes and signed jerseys from the other guys and that Cesar is moping. "You have to tell him, you know," he says, "that goodbyes like these mean nothing." He changes the subject after that, but Juan doesn't forget it, because Fernando of all people would know.
In bed, tucked up with the last bit of a book and some hot chocolate, Juan thinks about goodbyes and about football. He thinks about Brazil, of the roar of thousands behind him, of a red sea instead of blue, of a different crest.
Maybe tomorrow before the car arrives to take him to training, he will stop by the newsagent’s and pick up a guidebook to Manchester. Maybe he will bug David for the best places to get good food - maybe he'll take up cooking. Maybe his new teammates will show him around. Maybe Juan will find space to fall in love with Manchester too.
Juan sleeps, and he dreams of days after.
