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Coutinho grasped the bundle of flowers behind his back, ringing the doorbell once. If the team bus hadn't driven by it while heading to Anfield, he wouldn't have known that this was where the AXA was. It was more like the front of a house than a training ground.
He knew he had a very slim shot of finding Firmino here, especially since most of the Liverpudlians were with their national teams or on vacation. He had to try, though. He took a deep breath, and waited for someone to open the door.
It had been six years since he'd left Liverpool. Six years since his insatiable thirst for winning grew monstrously stronger than his loyalty to his club and teammates. As soon as Barcelona came calling with a lucrative salary and promises of glory, he'd left Liverpool without a second thought. He hadn't even said goodbye to his teammates, packing up and leaving in the middle of the night.
He'd purposely stayed out of touch with his former teammates, but running into Firmino was inevitable during Brazil call-ups. Thanks to the ever-circling chatter around the training ground, Coutinho heard more news than he'd have liked to about Firmino. Apparently, he'd been heartbroken when Coutinho left, and had been lonely ever since. At least, until two more Brazilians arrived in summer. They'd bonded quickly, as Coutinho clearly saw when the three walked into the team hotel hand in hand while laughing about something he didn't understand.
For the first time since leaving, Coutinho felt a pang of guilt. He hadn't thought about the impact his departure would have on his teammates. He'd been so focused on his own greed and ambitions that he hadn't taken the time to think about how his actions would affect those around him.
He'd wanted to apologize to Firmino many times before, but he never had the courage. Either it was a bad time, or he was too scared to do it. It had been six years, and Firmino had changed from the straight-haired twenty-six year old Coutinho had left behind. Coutinho had no idea what Firmino would say to him randomly appearing on his doorstep after all this time, but he knew he had to try. He took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
A familiar face answered the door. It wasn't Firmino, though. It was Henderson, captain of Liverpool ever since Philippe could remember. Of course Gerrard had been there, but then again that had been a long time ago.
"What the heck?"
It wasn't exactly a warm hug and an enthusiastic welcome. But Vitniho didn't blame Henderson for his reaction. They'd last seen each other just after the World Cup, on Boxing Day, and even then it was no more than a fleeting glance at each other.
Coutinho cleared his throat, deciding that it would be best to get straight to the point. "I want to apologize to Roberto."
"After all these years?" Henderson eyed Coutinho suspiciously, blocking any views from the entrance as his gaze swept over the shorter man. "What says that you're not just trying to take advantage of him?"
"Please, Jordan." Coutinho swallowed a lump in his throat as he stepped closer. "You know me better than that. I've thought about this for six years, I can't take the hostility any more. You guys have every right to hate me, Roberto has every right to hate me, but...I want to be part of us again. I want to be part of our family again, please ."
Henderson's eyes softened, and he pulled Coutinho closer to his body and hugged him.
"I've made mistakes too, you know. But my teammates are giving me the chance to be a better skipper, and I would be a hypocrite if I didn't extend the same courtesy to you.”
Coutinho pulled away from Henderson, careful not to crush the flowers he still held behind his back. "I'm sorry. For leaving, and everything that came with it."
"Apology accepted. But I don't think I'm the one you came to see, right?" Henderson stepped aside, allowing Coutinho to see inside the Kirkby ground. "Go on now. I wouldn't dream of stopping a friend on the mission to apologize."
Gratefully, Coutinho sprinted inside, crashing into almost every wall in the lobby in his frenzy. Eventually he found the stairs, taking them two by two until he ran straight into the two people he didn't want to encounter.
" Que --" Fabinho couldn't even get the phrase out as he stumbled back, nearly falling over. "Philippe Coutinho Correia?"
Coutinho couldn't help the mischievous smirk that crossed his face. "Somebody's into remembering my full name."
Alisson, on the other hand, was not amused. He glared at Coutinho, his hands balled into fists. Anger often wasn't a word one could use to describe Alisson, but the look in his green eyes couldn't have been mistaken for anything else.
"Don't push it, Philippe. I can stand seeing you on the national team and on Villa, but here, where Bobby is? Absolutely not. I can't have the same things happen twice."
Coutinho immediately realized what Alisson thought he was going to do. "I'm not going to hurt him, I swear! I just want to apologize for what happened between us. I know he hasn't forgiven me yet and I understand that. I just want to tell him I'm sorry, I can't let this bother me anymore."
Fabinho hummed in thought, holding onto the wall for balance. "He might be telling the truth, Ali. I can see it in his eyes."
Alisson' expression softened as he stepped forward, taking Coutinho's hand in his. "I'm sorry, Philippe. I just can't have him hurt again. Okay, so I might have practically adopted him, but come on! If two teammates bump into each other and they happen to share the same birthday, that's a clear sign that this was meant to be. He's my brother now and I'll do anything to protect him."
"Same here, even though Bobby's actually older than me." Coutinho held up the flowers from behind his back, wrapped in canary yellow floral paper. "Could you tell me where Bobby is? I've got to get these to him before they start to wilt."
*
Coutinho wandered onto the training pitch, rehearsing his apology script about a million times in his mind. He tried to remain unseen, but when he caught the sight of Firmino dribbling a ball, the sun shining through his light brown hair, all of his apology script went out the window. It took all his willpower not to run to Firmino and pounce upon him in a tackle-hug, like they did a thousand times before. Instead, Coutinho forced himself to stand there, his heart pounding and his palms sweating.
Unfortunately, his allergies to late springtime pollen rebelled and he sneezed, alerting Firmino to his presence. Coutinho held his breath as he watched Firmino's face transform from a look of confusion to one of surprise--then, delight.
"I must be dreaming..." Firmino said, rubbing at his eyes and blinking hard. "This is exactly how I dreamt you'd come back four years ago. Was it only four years?"
Coutinho didn't speak. Instead, he took out the cheery yellow bouquet and handed it to Firmino.
Firmino's face lit up as he took the bouquet. It was almost broader than his face and consisted of yellow roses, yellow sunflowers and yellow daffodils. As he inspected the bouquet further, he lost count of how many kinds of yellow flowers were included. "You must've bought out all the yellow flowers in the shop."
"I might have lost it when I saw the display of black-eyed Susans. They reminded me of you." Coutinho averted his gaze, staring down at his feet. "Roberto--"
"Bobby.”
“Right, Bobby." Coutinho still had to get used to the fact that his ex-teammate had a new nickname. "I...I don't know how to say this to you. I was greedy and selfish. I got so many trophies and medals in Spain and Germany that I still can't fit them in my trophy cabinet. I even won a Champions’ League. But now none of them really matter anymore. I want to win something that's more important than all of those trophies.”
Firmino was still reeling from Coutinho's unexpected speech. "W-what could that be? The Ballon D'Or? The World Cup? A lifetime supply of brigadeiros ?"
Coutinho shook his head firmly, cupping Firmino's face with both hands. "I'm done with trophies. The only thing I want now is to be your friend again. Por favor, você me perdoa?”
Firmino smiled brightly, and instantly Coutinho felt like he'd seen the sun rise twice that day. He lunged for Firmino, throwing his arms around him in a tight embrace and knocking him to the floor. The bouquet rolled out of Firmino's hands, long forgotten, as the two laughed together over absolutely nothing.
"Phili.”
"Robinho.”
They were finally back together.
*
In their elation at finally being reunited, neither noticed the other people that had entered the pitch. Henderson stood behind the fullbacks, watching the reunion with broad smiles; Alisson and Fabinho watched the other two, hand in hand; and Klopp stood at the very back, grinning like an idiot.
"Well, I'll be damned," Klopp muttered, watching the two chatter at a hundred miles per hour like they'd last done six years ago. "It's like nothing ever happened between them."
Meanwhile, Alisson had almost shaken the last remaining bits of weight off Fabinho. "Do you know what this means?!"
Fabinho gripped Alisson' hands, prying them off his shoulders. "That you're as hyper as the fullbacks now?"
Alisson' eyes sparkled with excitement as he let Fabinho go. “ Nao, idiota! We can't call ourselves the Three Brazilians anymore. There's Marcelo coming back from Macclesfield, and Philippe's back on the good side. That means Bobby may be visiting more often, and we could be five Brazilians!"
Henderson winced at the thought of five Selecao players on the team. "I think I need earplugs. There's only so much samba one man can take."
Robertson laughed at the statement. "We've only been woken up by loud samba music a total of two hundred and seventy-three times in seven years! Nothing to worry about!"
Henderson nearly fainted, massaging his temples as if he could already hear the vibrant music knocking on his eardrums at indignant o'clock in the morning.
Meanwhile, Alexander-Arnold stood next to Klopp. He stood six inches below Klopp, but Alexander-Arnold felt even shorter than that, because Klopp was obviously in deep thought.
"Are you alright?" Alexander-Arnold asked Klopp, tugging on his sleeve to get his attention. "Bobby and Philippe are friends again! Things are going to be okay...won't they?"
The German nodded, but his expression suggested otherwise. He sighed and faced Alexander-Arnold, his blue eyes full of something indistinguishable. "Bobby and Philippe are good kids at heart. I'm not worried about them, they'll stick together. Marcelo, Ali and Flaco will keep an eye on them, too. It's just that...I know it sounds selfish—”
"Say it already!" Alexander-Arnold didn't want to seem insensitive, but he was growing impatient. Klopp had a tendency to stifle his feelings about a situation when he felt it would ruin the mood, even when saying it out loud would help him. Klopp always put the rest of the team before himself, but this time, Alexander-Arnold wanted him to be honest.
Klopp stared into the distance and took a deep breath. "Everytime I see you boys reuniting or making up with old friends, I can't help but think of Zel. It's stupid, I know, but he's ignored me for years. Even though he was the one who wronged me--wronged us--I still miss him. Patrick and Jose and Pep and almost everyone else I know in the goddamn world keeps telling me I should move on, but I can't. I still love him too much."
Alexander-Arnold remained quiet, unsure of what to say. Even though Buvac had left the club when Alexander-Arnold was just a teenager, Klopp had known him for a quarter of a century. “Do you think he'll come around?"
"Ever since the Weird Managers’ Club Dinner, I always thought it was a no. But after this?" Klopp gestured to Coutinho and Firmino with a warm smile. "I don't know for sure. Maybe miracles can happen.”