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Tsimikas strode through the halls of Kirkby, a new case of records from the music store in his arms. He planned to create a special " traveling to Singapore" mix for the team, consisting of Asian electronic dance music and British pop hits, and reveal it at the team's annual karaoke contest. But before a single note could be played, it all had to be mixed in Tsimikas' favorite room in all of Kirkby: the music room.
The music room door swung open without a single sound, having been freshly oiled by Nat Phillips. Milner had trained him as the players' head of maintenance before he'd left the team, and Phillips had taken the job to heart. He had spent two hours ensuring the instruments were in pristine condition, and the door was his latest accomplishment.
Tsimikas, like the rest of his teammates, missed Milner. They'd all thought Milner would retire at the club, but Milner had decided to play for one more club before his retirement.
Tsimikas found it strange to not walk onto the training pitch and find Milner standing by the door, pointing to his watch and timing his teammates' arrival. Tsimikas would do something stupid and wait for Milner to slap him on the cheek, but Milner, of course, wasn't there.
His case was nowhere near as bad as Robertson's, though. Robertson had been best friends with Milner since joining the team--even though the two were polar opposites--and was heartbroken when Milner left the team after eight years. The Scotsman wandered around the training ground like a lost child, a shadow of his jovial, bubbly self. He would laugh or smile once in a while, but it never lasted long before the sadness crept back in.
It wasn't all terrible, though. Tsimikas had grown closer to Alexander-Arnold, who'd just transitioned to midfield. The Scouser had been out of sorts following Henderson's messy, abrupt departure. With Alexander-Arnold facing the imminent pressure of captaincy, Tsimikas was more than happy to joke with Alexander-Arnold and make him laugh. The large amount of time they spent together was concerning, but it was nice to see him so relaxed.
Tsimikas set his records down on the table, dusting off his headphones. Before mixing any music, he always liked to take a few moments for himself with his favorite CDs. Picking up a Ylvis CD, he turned towards the couch only to find Robertson sprawled out on it. He hugged a plum-purple pillow to his chest, staring into space.
"Whoa, dude! What happened?" Later, Tsimikas would slap himself for the question. But that was all his confused brain could come up with. He'd rarely seen Robertson remain awake and still for more than four seconds.
Robertson sighed. "I don't wanna talk about it."
Tsimikas frowned, mentally replaying Robertson's words in his head. Robertson's accent was thick normally, but it was even thicker when he was upset. To Tsimikas, who'd been at Liverpool for nearly three years, it sounded like a foreign language.
Tsimikas could count on one hand the times he'd seen Robertson this disconsolate. Dramatically faking it, yes, but not for real.
"Okay, so listen. I don't know what to do when it comes to this stuff." He was telling the truth. Besides Tacito and Bacetic, Tsimikas was absolutely hopeless at pep talks. Either he put his foot in his mouth and offended the person even more, or he ended up saying something so bland and uninspiring that it was worse than saying nothing at all. He was clearly out of his depth.
"But...I'll find someone who's really good at it!" Tsimikas rushed over his words when he saw tear tracks running down Robertson's visible cheek.
Tsimikas disappeared almost before he finished speaking. Robertson sighed and stuffed his face back into the pillow. He was only disturbed from his stupor by the door opening.
"I've got just who you need!" Tsimikas announced. He reached through the door, dragging Lijnders into the room by the wrist. "Robbo, your pep talk. Pep, talk!"
Robertson didn't even have the good spirits to laugh. He flipped so that he faced the back of the sofa, curling in on himself with the pillow in the middle. He looked even smaller that way, like a small dark blue burrito.
Lijnders, meanwhile, didn't seem to have understood Tsimikas attempt at a joke. He was about to call Tsimikas out on how lame his pun was, when he saw Robertson sprawled out on the sofa. His expression morphed into one of concern, and he crossed the room to where Robertson was, leaning on the sofa's arm.
"Robbo, are you okay?”
Robertson sniffed, not bothering to look up at Lijnders. "No. I'll never be okay again.”
"Come on, don't say that! You just might..." Lijnders hesitated, glancing wildly around the room as if trying to find inspiration. “Not be okay for a long while.”
Tsimikas gave Lijnders a "what the hell, man?" look. Lijnders' eyes widened as he realized what he had just said. Robertson said nothing.
"What's going on— Fluche ." Klopp came into the room, carrying a blue and white box. He took one look at the situation, and sat next to Robertson, pulling him into a hug.
"Thanks Kosti, I think we've got it from here." Klopp turned to Lijnders, holding up a piece of notebook paper he'd got from one of his endless coat pockets. "Pep, could you please tell the chairman that I'll be half an hour late for the meeting?”
Lijnders stood up and left the room. Tsimikas worriedly glanced at Robertson, then hesitantly followed suit. That left Klopp and Robertson alone in the room.
"Let me guess." Klopp brushed Robertson's ginger hair away from his forehead, revealing an especially sad pair of eyes. "You fought with Trentski."
Robertson stared at the floor, his eyes red and watery. He nodded silently, his throat too tight to speak. Klopp sighed and put an arm around his shoulder, pulling Robertson into a tight hug.
"Trentski's been hanging out with Kostas this whole time," Robertson muttered, allowing himself to sink into the puffy gray coat. "He told me that...it's because I barely laugh anymore. But it's Milly, gaffa. I can't spend an hour without thinking about Milly and then I'm just so...empty.”
Klopp was silent, but not surprised. Robertson and Milner had been extremely close for years, but Robertson and Alexander-Arnold were basically twins. They were always seen together, sharing secrets and jokes that only the two of them understood. Klopp had seen Alexander-Arnold and Tsimikas hanging out together quite a few times during training, but he'd not expected it to get this out of hand.
"So then Trentski told me that the reason he's been hanging with Kostas sometimes was because I'm all gloomy now. But I don't want to be this way, I swear! And then I told Trentski that if he's going to hang out with Kostas, we should just break up." Robertson finally finished his run-on sentence of an explanation and gasped for air, burying his face into Klopp's coat again. "Oh God, he probably hates me now.”
"What? No, Robbo, Trent doesn't hate you.”
"Promise?”
"I promise." Klopp reached for the blue and white box and handed it to Robertson. Robertson unwrapped the box to find a selection of dunking biscuits. "I'm going to tell you a story, but first I want you to eat a couple of these. Either the Jammy Dodgers or the Custard Creams.”
Robertson's eyes lit up at the sight of the cookies. "Not that I'm one to refuse to eat a Jammy Dodger, but I don't think cookies will help us now.”
"Might as well try." Klopp held up a gingerbread cookie, eyes widening when he realized it was shaped like a little human. "Okay, that is barbarian.”
Robertson rolled his eyes, selected a Jammy Dodger, and bit into it. The sweet jam and crunchy biscuit were the perfect combination of flavors. As Robertson enjoyed the cookie, Klopp began to tell his story.
"You see, when Zel and I came here, we weren't just the two of us. Pep actually joined the team in 2014, and was vice manager before Brendan demoted him to fourth manager. When Zel and I came, I made him Zel's understudy, in a way. But at the beginning of 2018, Pep moved to the Netherlands to become a coach. He returned in the summer of that same year. But before that, Pep and I were already bonding. We had a shared interest in building card houses, and once we built a card tower as tall as Friedhelm.”
"Wow, really?" Robertson glanced at the crown of the sycamore tree just visible from the music room window. "How'd it not fall?”
"It's amazing what some superglue can do. Anyway, let's just say that Zel wasn't pleased with the amount of time I spent with Pep. Man, he was a force of nature to be reckoned with. He thought I liked Pep better than him, and we argued for days."
Robertson didn't remember that happening before. He guessed that he'd been too busy bonding with his new teammates to notice anything different. "Is that what made Master B leave?”
Klopp shook his head. “No, that wasn’t it. But I do remember that he told me that if I wanted to hang out with Pep, we should just break up. Not wanting to seem weak, I agreed—and then I couldn't stop thinking about it. Eventually Zel got over it and apologized for being jealous. All three of us got along well until Pep moved to the Netherlands."
"Is that what I'm being? Jealous?" Robertson hated the sound of that word.
"Considering the circumstances, I don't think so. But I think you and Trentski need to talk, and clear this all up. If there's one thing I've learned from this club, it's that communication is key." Klopp closed the box, clearing away the crumbs. "Or...you could just let Kostas steal your fullback friend.”
Robertson nearly leaped from the couch. He was at the door faster than you could say "Istanbul". "Oh hell no he won't."
*
Robertson and Alexander-Arnold bumped into each other near the Shankly Gates. It was the same place they'd first bumped into each other six years ago, when Robertson was a gangly youngster just joining the club. Alexander-Arnold even had the same haircut. It was like fate had intended for this moment to happen, down to the rainy English summer.
Both stared at each other, neither saying a single word. Then Alexander-Arnold rushed towards Robertson and hugged him tightly, as if he would escape otherwise.
"I'm sorry."
"I'm sorrier."
"Is that even a word?"
"I don't care. I shouldn't have told us to break up." Robertson let go of Alexander-Arnold, seriously looking him in the face. "I just...hated that Kostas was stealing you.”
Alexander-Arnold's eyes widened. "Excuse me?"
"I said, Kostas was stealing you!"
"He's not stealing me!" Alexander-Arnold stared at Robertson, bewildered. "We were just goofing off during training, that's all. I was thinking about how much Milly leaving changed you, and he came up behind me and started to crack jokes. I didn't think it would bother you so much. I've been friends with Curt and Harv before and you didn't seem offended."
Robertson sighed, looking down at the gravelly road. The parking lot was empty minus the construction vehicles that had been there for two months. "I don't think it was that. It sounds repetitive, but Milly left. There's this giant hole inside me that just won't go away."
"I...sort of get it now." Alexander-Arnold pointed to Henderson's part of the mural on the side of Anfield. In the mural, he still screamed loud and proud in the red kit. "I mean, Milly's departure was a lot smoother than Hendo's was. But I still miss him. He's been there for all my career."
"Milly's played since the start of my career."
"Dammit, he started playing youth football two years before I was born . Let's forget this, okay?" Alexander-Arnold pleaded. He even got down on one knee, much to Robertson's utter confusion. "Look, we both miss the two elders who also happened to be our friends. Let's not ruin this friendship, either."
Robertson gasped--one of those long, wheezy, annoying gasps--before he threw himself onto Alexander-Arnold, knocking him to the ground. "I couldn't agree more, BFFF."
"I thought there were only two Fs."
"Best Fullback Friend Forever, BFFF!" Robertson took out his friendship bracelet from his pocket and pulled it on. It had been a gift from Alexander-Arnold. "Unless you want me to add more Fs to it."
Alexander-Arnold tried to hold back his laughter. "Oh God, Hendo will kill us."
"There's F for focus, because I am always focused! And F for fabulous, because Trentski is always fabulous! And F for what Man. U are..."