Pre-Season

Kornmayer smiled, inhaling the rich scent of the Turkish coffee they’d picked up on their cross-country journey to Thailand. He poured himself a cup and feasted his eyes on the clear skies outside, enjoying the time by himself.

He was actually surprised that Klopp wasn’t up yet. The other German was usually awake before Kornmayer even was, he and Jennings always being the first ones up in the morning. So where was he now?

“Hey, Pete,” said Kornmayer as Krawietz walked into the room, taking a cup of coffee. “Say, have you seen Jurgen?”

“No, not since yesterday,” the Pole answered. “Maybe we’re up too early!”

“No, I’m sure I set my alarm right.” Kornmayer frowned as Ludger the barn owl swooped onto the table. “Maybe Jurgen overslept.”

“Are you serious?!” Krawietz shouted. “He never oversleeps. If anything, he undersleeps.”

“Whooo?”

“None of your business, Ludger,” Kornmayer snapped, swatting the owl away. “We didn’t ask for you, we never wanted you, now scram.”

“Whooo?”

“Shut up!”

“Andreas, please don’t speak to Ludger like that.”

“Jurgen!” Krawietz announced. “What took you so long? And where’s Pepijn?”

“Whooo?” Ludger tilted his owl head, hopping along the table. He decided to hop onto Kornmayer’s head, much to his screams.

“Ludger, stop that,” Klopp insisted, grabbing the owl out of Kornmayer’s hair. And to answer your questions, Pete, I had a very good reason for being late.”

Kornmayer crossed his arms, glad that Ludger was out of his hair. “So? Tell us the reason, don’t be slow!”

“It’s Pep,” Klopp explained, not even paying attention to the coffee on the table. “He’s sick--and he promised Florrie that they’d hang out today.”

“What took you so long?” Lijnders groaned as Klopp came back with the coffee. He took notice of the owl on the German’s shoulder and shook his head. “Did Ludger hold you up again?”

“No, it was Andreas and Pete,” Klopp corrected him. “And if I’m correct, it’s only a small fever. You should be up in no time.”

“A small fever?!” Lijnders shouted despite himself. “Jurgen, I know you’re an optimist, but this is more than just a small fever. This is going to keep me in bed for the rest of the week.”

Before Klopp could ask him how he was so sure, tiny footsteps echoed through the hall. It was Florrie.

“Lindy!”

“Oh no. Oh no, no, no.” Klopp dumped a bag of sand onto the floor and drew a line in it. “This is my line in the sand! And it’s my plane, so I get to decide whenether I want to turn this place into Copacabana Beach or not!”

“It’s my room!” Lijnders protested. He took a ruler from his bedside and dragged it through the sand. “This is my line in the sand!”

“Sandcastles!” Florrie shrieked in delight as she ran into the room. “Let’s go, Lindy, let’s go!!”

At the sight of Florrie, a sleeping Ludger popped open an eye, hooting sharply at Florrie.

“BIRDIE!” Florrie announced as if it was breaking news. “Can I play with him, boss?”

“Florrie…okay, how do I explain this to you?” Klopp could see this was not going to be smooth sailing. “Lijnders is…he’s sick.”

“Sick?” Florrie asked, tilting her head in confusion. “What’s that mean?”

“Sick is…how do I say it?” Even after half a year of having Florrie at Liverwool, Klopp still struggled to break things down into three-year-old digestible material. “Let’s just say Lijnders doesn’t feel good enough to play with you.”

“But Lindy’s great!” Florrie insisted, not getting the point. She tried to go to Lijnders’ bed, but Klopp stopped her.

“No, Florrie. He doesn’t feel okay, physically. He can’t play with you today.”

“But we were gonna play!” Florrie stomped her foot on the ground, shaping her face into an adorable pout. “I wanna play!”

“Sorry, Flo, but maybe next time,” Lijnders croaked from bed. “Maybe…tomorrow?”

“I WANNA PLAY!!!”

“I get myself into the weirdest situations ever,” Klopp ranted to nobody in particular later that day. “I handle all the crap in the world and what does the world do? Throw even more at me!”

“Whooo?” Ludger hooted, hopping along Klopp’s desk. “Whooo?”

“It’s summer, so the boys aren’t here. Sadio will be leaving soon. Pep’s sick, Florrie’s upset now…”

“Whooo.”

“Oh, what do you know?!” Klopp snapped, glancing at Ludger. “You’re just an owl!”

“Whoooo.”

Before Klopp could make another smart comment back at Ludger, the door opened. It was Jennings that dragged herself through the door this time, holding a whimpering Kairo.

“Mona! Come in!” Klopp tried to sound too cheerful as he quickly swept broken mug pieces into a bag. “What’s wrong with Kairo?”

“I think he’s caught something,” Jennings explained, bouncing the toddler in her arms. “And since Kairo’s always with Florrie--shh, you’ll be okay, Schätzchen--I’m worried she may have it too. Have you seen her?”

“She’s in Pep’s room,” Klopp informed her, motioning out the hall. “Pep seems to have the same thing, so little Flo is definitely going to catch it.”

A sneeze echoed from the hall as Vera came in, wiping her hands on a cloth. She seemed tired as well, and was wearing a medical mask along with her usual lab coat.

“We’re going under quarantine,” Vera explained, snapping on a pair of blue latex gloves and taking Kairo, now squalling his tiny lungs out, from Jennings’ arms. “It’s just a cold, but my fear is that it could spread too much. We can’t all be down with colds, it won’t work.”

“What’s the plan?” Klopp queried Vera, becoming all business-like again. “Are the affected going to quarantine, or the healthy?”

“Since the affected-to-unaffected ratio is 1:4,” Vera explained, “Kerry, Robert, Chelsea, Jim and I decided the affected will be quarantined in their own rooms. The O’Haras will be quarantined by themselves, because I don’t want them to catch anything and transfer it. So it’s Pep, Florrie, Kairo and Mona in quarantine.”

“But Mona’s not sick.”

“A-choo!”

“Okay, I take that back. She’s sick.”

“Whooo.”

“YOU IDIOT!”

It was going to be a long week.

Chapter 2: A Long Week: Part 2

Summary:

Klopp, Kornmayer, Taffarel, Krawietz and Achterberg are the last ones standing after a virus sweeps around the staff and kids. Vera, the only healthy medic, sends the managers to buy supplies.

Notes:

Ludger is Klopp's super-chaotic, super-grumpy pet owl.

Chapter Text

“Jurgen!” Vera called, bursting open the office door. “Where are you? You’re a six footer, you can’t be that hard to find!”

“Maybe you need glasses,” Klopp joked, coming from the other side of the room, a pile of old, heavy-looking scrapbooks in hand. “Because I’m right here!”

“It’s been two days and we’re almost out of supplies,” Vera explained. She thrust what seemed to be a scroll into Klopp’s hands, causing him to drop the scrapbooks. “I need you, Pete, Andreas, Claudio and John to go to the supermarket and finish this shopping list.”

“Careful! Those are all my scrapbooks from Mainz.” Klopp opened the scroll, which rolled to the other side of the door. “What?! We can’t need all those things!”

“Well, it definitely took longer than I thought to write the shopping list in Malagasy,” Vera remarked, rolling her eyes. She pointed to the top of the list, which read “mosara”. “See, it says ‘tissues’.”

“Vera Miura Torres.” Klopp rolled up the list, pocketing it. “Since when did I tell you I knew Malagasy?! I’m a GERMAN, for Johan Cruyff’s sake!”

“Put up with it. Maybe someone else knows Malagasy here.”

Klopp didn’t even bother to keep his cool. “You’re telling me a Pole, a Brazilian, and three Germans are going to know Malagasy?!”

“Come on, Jurgen. I put English translations at the bottom of the list,” Vera went on. “I don’t think it’ll be too hard to find all this. It’s standard shopping fare.”

“Are you serious, Vera?” Klopp shook his head in disbelief. “We’re in Johan Cruyff-ing Turkmenistan! I never shopped in Turkmenistan before! For Cruyff’s sake, I don’t even know what the capital is!”

“The capital of Turkmenistan is Ashgabat. Population, 1.032 million--”

“Can it, Alexa!” Klopp slammed the open laptop shut. “Fine, we’ll go, Vera. Make sure to take care of yourself too, okay? You know Kerry or Jim can always help you. And if you need us, make sure to call.”

“Okay, Dad.” Vera smirked, then her eyes widened as if remembering something. “By the way Jurgen, Florrie was asking for you in her sleep.”

“She--what?”

“Yeah, she kept saying ‘boss, boss’ in her sleep. Mona said that Florrie talks in her sleep all the time. She mainly looks for Mona, then Hendo and Milly, and you sometimes.”

“Oh my goodness…But she’s not my kid!” Klopp added at the last minute, glaring at a chuckling Vera.

“Yeah, right,” the Malagasy woman chuckled as Klopp almost tripped over his own shoelaces as he ran out the door. “Not your kid.”

“I can’t believe Vera wrote us a shopping list in Cruyff-ing Malagasy,” Kornmayer groaned as the bus rattled down the road. He glared at Klopp. “And you had to take Ludger with you?!”

“It’s either Pep or Ludger, and we all know Option Pep is sick now.” Klopp grabbed the shopping list. “Okay, this will take us a couple of hours. I have no idea where you’d find etona fanosotra tratra in Turkmenistan.”

“That translates to chest vapor rub,” Krawietz explained. He hurriedly closed Google Translate before anybody could see that. “Hey John, do us a favor and use your kopf for something other than being the DJ!”

“What am I supposed to do?!” Achterberg protested. “I’m struggling to find something new on Milly’s playlist! It’s all pre-2000s!”

“I don’t mind listening to Smooth Criminal again,” Kornmayer shrugged. “It’ll drown out the Ludger Criminal.”

“Whooo!”

“ANDREAS, NO!”

“Fine!”

“Alright!” Taffarel gestured to the left. “Turn right and we’ll be at the supermarket. Does anybody have any manats?”

“What?” Klopp asked, confused.

“Turkmenistani money, you idiot!” Taffarel shook his head. “Don’t you know?”

“Well, I’m a German, so I ain’t have any Turkmenistani money in my pockets! What about you?!”

“I’m a Brasiliero!”

“And you asked me?! I thought you’d have gone there during your World Cups!”

“Turkmenistan has a team?!”

“Okay, then.” Kornmayer sighed as he gripped the steering wheel. “Alexa, show us the way to the nearest ATM machine.”

After a bank trip which included Klopp almost losing it because the bank teller was more interested in his coffee than actual business, the five--six if you counted Ludger--finally pulled up in front of Kamil Market, one of the larger markets in the city.

“At least you found us an indoor market,” Klopp remarked to Kornmayer as they made their way inside the market. “Unlike the time you brought us to a nightclub when we were supposed to be going to Pep’s house!”

“Hey, that was a good thing!” Kornmayer protested, pulling a shopping trolley out. “We caught Kostas being the DJ there at 11 P.M.”

“It would explain his eyebags.” Taffarel rolled his eyes, grabbing the list. “Okay, so we need tissues, cough drops, flour, salt, rice, beans, seasoning, laundry detergent…”

“Where do you even find those things in here?” Klopp wondered, pulling a salt container off a shelf and dropping it into the basket. “Is there anything specific?”

“We need four salt containers, you idiota.” The Brazilian rolled his eyes again as he examined a bottle of some unknown spice. “Is this paprika or cinnamon? I can’t tell.”

“Let’s split up so we can get this done faster,” Klopp decided. He passed around individual lists. “Okay, so Andreas gets the meat, frozen foods and dairy. Pete, you’re on the produce, Claudio, household items, and John, you’re on non-perishables.”

“What about you?” Krawietz frowned. “You’re not going to relax while we’re all running around, are you?”

“No, I have to run to the pharmacy section. Vera wrote down a few pharmaceutical products and goods here and I have to pick them up. Ludger, you’re coming with me, okay?”

“Whoo.”

“How much ice cream do twelve people need?” Kornmayer grumbled to himself, glancing at the seven tubs of ice cream in the cart. “And why is almost all of it chocolate or strawberry? What happened to plain old vanilla? And my fingers are freezing!”

He loaded the last package of frozen food into the cart before something whacked his arm. It stung, so whatever the thing was had to be hard. Then another, then another.

“Hey, stop that!” he yelled to nobody in particular. That’s when he spotted it.

A shopping cart with a young girl tossing things out. Apparently, some frozen peas had hit him in the process.

“Stop that before your mom sees you,” Kornmayer silently mouthed, pointing to the girl’s mother. The problem was, he had forgotten he was in Turkmenistan. So the girl interpreted his gestures completely wrong--and tossed the tin of sardines at her mother.

“Sona!” The girl’s mother grabbed her wrists, almost dropping the mayonnaise in her hands. “Dur!”

Kornmayer had no idea what the girl’s mother had just said. Apparently it was a scolding, because the toddler decided to unleash the pity eyes.

“Ay Ýok,” said her mother, picking up the groceries one by one. “Maňa gynanýan gözleri berme. Bu seniň günäň.”

Kornmayer scooped the frozen little peas off the floor and handed them to the woman. “Uh…shalom?”

The woman stared at him with a confused expression, before bursting into laughter. “Ah, salam.”

“Yeah, salam. Whatever that is.”

“You really aren’t from here, are you?” said the woman, this time in English.

This just left poor Kornmayer even more baffled. “You speak English?”

“Well, sure,” she shrugged, dropping the jar of mayonnaise into the cart. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to learn. I went to college in England.”

It took all of Kornmayer’s reserve not to blush as he nodded. “Yeah. I’m Andreas.”

“Annagül. Say, you look like someone I’ve seen on TV before--one of the sports channels. I used to watch you on Sky Sports, I think.”

“Maybe it’s a coincidence,” Kornmayer stuttered. His hand accidentally brushed with Annagül’s, and both quickly drew their hands back.

Taffarel, meanwhile, really wasn’t having much luck in the household items. He had been looking for paper towels and accidentally stumbled into an infant clothing display. He then bumped against a clothing rack, causing a whole pile of onesies to fall into his cart--all while about ten couples with babies stared at him in surprise.

“It’s--it was an accident!” he tried to explain. “I didn’t mean to come here, I’m sorry!”

With that, he hurried out of the aisle and turned down the next one. With a clatter and a clang, five baby bottles fell into the cart.

“I’m not doing this on purpose!” he called out to the baby boy under a blue blanket, staring at him from his stroller. “Tell your mom that!”

The baby responded by giving Taffarel the baby eyes.

“Ay, caramba,” Taffarel sighed. “At this rate, I’m never going to complete the shopping.”

The blanket shifted, and another pair of eyes opened. A baby girl--his twin. She laughed, pointing a chubby finger at the Brazilian.

“Oh, no…”

To put it bluntly, Pete Krawietz had no idea how to shop for produce. He was simply hopeless at it--and what worked for--say, apples--didn’t work for oranges. And that’s why the aisle manager had to point out to Krawietz that his apples were bruised and his grapefruits were moldy.

“Honestly, samsyk,” the aisle manager said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Nobody ever taught you how to shop for produce?

“Well, I wanted to shop for household items. But Claudio got the job instead.” Upon a curious look from the aisle manager, Krawietz decided to elaborate. “Me and my friends are doing some shopping. They’ve all got colds. I’m new in Ashgabat.”

The store manager said nothing, but commenced to pick up what looked like a very thick cactus leaf. He tossed it to Krawietz, who barely caught it.

“That’s a sabra,” he explained, dusting more shelves. “It’s like a dragon fruit. They’re high in vitamin C and magnesium, and low in calories. The latter of which you may need,” he smirked and pointed to Krawietz’s torso, “because of your gigantic gut.”

“Do you have any shame?!”

“Okay.” The aisle manager took up an apple, fingering the fruit. “So first you want to check for bruises…”

Achterberg, on the other hand, was having an easy time searching for non-perishables. He knew what to buy and how to buy it, and it was so easy that he’d begun singing in the aisle--with a twist.

“Whether you’re a brother or whether you’re a mother, you’re stayin’ alive! Stayin’ alive! Feel Man. City breakin’ and everybody shakin’ and we’re stayin’ alive! Stayin’ alive!”

Achterberg dropped a can, chuckling as he picked it up. His momentary peace was stopped by a very familiar shout.

“LUDGER! Get down from there, you heini! I’m giving you three seconds to get down from there before I climb up there myself!”

Achterberg picked up the pace as soon as he heard the last part. He really didn’t want the world to have to see Klopp climbing up a flimsy supermarket billboard.

“Eins…”

He hurried into the dairy department, grabbing a confused Kornmayer as he hurriedly explained the situation. Achteberg didn’t even pay attention to the woman and child following them.

“Zwei…”

They picked up Krawietz from the produce aisle and a bumbling Taffarel from the other before screeching to a stop in the pharmacy. Achterberg had to stop himself from laughing aloud at the scene in front of him. Ludger was perched on a sign hanging from the roof, while Klopp was yelling something Achterberg was glad he didn’t understand.

“Drei! Okay, Ludger, time’s up!” Klopp then realized his whole staff was behind him. “Um, you know what? I’ll give you ten extra seconds, how about that?”

“Face it, Jurgen,” Kornmayer pointed out. “If we didn’t get here, you would have climbed up there yourself.”

“Alright, I have a plan!” Klopp grabbed a leather raptor glove from the middle of nowhere and pulled it on. “Andreas, I need a strip of raw meat!”

“You’re going to grill right now?”

“No, you DUMMKOPF! For Ludger!”

“Well…we didn’t go to the cash register yet,” Taffarel revealed, offering a nervous grin. “So nothing here is actually ours?”

“Ugh, you IDIOTS!” Klopp honestly couldn’t believe how dumb the staff were sometimes. “There are free samples! RIGHT THERE! Andreas, go get some!”

“Why me?”

“Let’s see, you’re being completely pathetic right now!”

“You know,” Krawietz offered, leaning against a shelf, “we could just leave Ludger there. He’ll follow you out the store, won’t he?”

“Ludger had a mind of his own.” Upon seeing that Kornmayer still hadn’t moved, Klopp grabbed a free sample and pinned it onto the raptor glove. “Come on, Ludger! Can’t you see it’s meat?”

“Whoooo,” Ludger hooted, tightening his perch on the sign. The flimsy piece of cardboard swayed under the owl’s weight. “Whooo?”

The German finally had enough. He climbed onto a ladder leaning against the shelves, and held up his gloved hand even closer. “MEAT! That’s what! Now get down here you moron, or we’re leaving right now!”

“Jurgen!” Taffarel groaned. “Get down from there! Everybody’s going to see you!”

“I said DOWN, you lunatic!”

“Whooo.” And Ludger flew off the sign--onto a higher one.

“Now that’s what I call ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire’,” Kornmayer whispered to Annagül, who chuckled and replied, “How right you are.”

“Do I need to say it in GERMAN? Beweg deinen Hintern hier runter! See, I said it, and it wasn’t even hard!”

“I have a butterfly net!” Krawietz yelled out of nowhere, thrusting it into Klopp’s hands. “You think we can get Ludger down with this?”

“We can’t even reach him with that fifteen-foot ladder!” Taffarel roared. “How would we get him down with a butterfly net?”

“What an idiotic owl!”

“QUIET!!!”

In a split second, all the commotion stopped. Everybody stared at Klopp, who had wedged the butterfly net between Taffarel and Krawietz to prevent the two from getting physical.

“Let’s get mature, shall we?” Klopp surveyed the shopping carts. “Look, we have what we need. Let’s go cash out and get this to Vera first. Then if Ludger hasn’t come down, fine.”

“You mean--” Kornmayer pointed to the barn owl, currently sitting as if there weren’t a care in the world. “We’re going to leave him here?”

“Why not? He’s semi-feral, remember that, Andreas. He won’t die without us. Now you heard me, guys! Let’s get moving!”

They cashed out without a hiccup or a bump in the road, although the cashier did ask for an autograph upon recongizing who they were. They swore him to silence, though, and soon they had the bus loaded and ready to go.

“Are you sure we can leave Ludger here?” Kornmayer questioned as he got Google Maps ready. “He could cause some destruction, it could be dangerous. And what if somebody decides to kill him for sport?”

“Are you serious? Ludger’s a tough old bird, he’ll be fine.” Klopp didn’t seem to mean it, because he opened the windows as he started the gas. “He’ll be fine.”

They drove along the highway in some silence. Except for the music, nobody had spoken yet.

“It’s relatively quiet here,” Achterberg pointed out. “Is it because Pep’s not here to get on Jurgen’s nerves?”

He received a slap as an answer from Taffarel.

That’s when they heard it. A very familiar sound.

“WHOOOOOOO!!!” As if to say “Don’t leave me behind!”

“I knew you’d come back, you devil.” Klopp took Ludger from the raptor glove and shut him back into a cage. “I’m never letting you come shopping again when you’re out of your cage.”

“Ludger!” Kornmayer carefully hung the cage on a hook at the top of the bus. “Don’t do that again! You scared me!”

“I thought you didn’t like him,” Krawietz smirked, crossing his arms.

“Whatever.” Kornmayer grabbed the wheel, glaring at Krawietz in the rearview mirror. “Let’s go home.”

Chapter 3: The One With the United Plane-Pool

Summary:

The long-awaited story about the shared Man.U/Liverpool plane-pool! Enjoy!

Chapter Text

“Another year, another preseason!” Henderson announced, lugging his suitcase up the stairs. “And another game to kick it off.”

“Shut up,” Milner snapped, tossing his own bags into the cargo hold. “It’s an awful start!”

“Come on, Milly,” Diaz cajoled him. The Colombian had thoroughly enjoyed his vacation, even getting a new haircut in the process, and his joy was infectious. “Think of it as a vacation!”

“Big deal!”

“I know you hate Man. U more than anyone on this team,” Henderson sympathized. “But maybe you can at least try to have fun?”

Milner snorted in disgust, motioning to his left. “You try having fun when you’re stuck sitting next to Slabhead Maguire!”

He marched past Maguire and into the airplane. As soon as he got in, he was greeted by David De Gea.

“Hi, James! Er…” The goalie tried to find something nice to say to the grumpy captain. “Nice…shirt you got there! Is that the new Liverpool merchandise?”

“No, it’s Everton merchandise, Trentski’s favorite. Of course it’s Liverpool merchandise!” Milner glared at De Gea as if he’d just stolen his golf clubs. “And I won’t say that you’ve got a nice hotel bed yourself. Come to Liverpool! At least we’ve got clean sheets!”

With that, Milner spun on his heel and strode away from the Spaniard. He then bumped into a smiling Marcus Rashford.

“Milly!” He beamed, waving at the Yorkshireman. “I’ve not seen you since…”

“April,” Milner reminded him. “When we assassinated your butts 4-0!”

Bruno Fernandes walked up just in time to see this. He scowled, brushing past Rashford and going head-to-head with Milner.

“Hey, leave Rashy alone, got it?” Fernandes insisted. “He’s a good lad.”

“Oh, hi Bruno! Glad to see that people aren’t talking about you? Why don’t you just go into exile for ten years or something? Oh, I forgot! Your team is already in exile–from the CHAMPION’S LEAGUE!”

“Why don’t you sit down, James?” Fernandes offered, steering Milner to his seat. “Your coach is flying, it should be a good ride.”

“A good ride with Satan’s demons! BAH!”

“I’ve never seen Milly this crabby, mate,” a certain Scot piped up from his seat. “Even when we’re playing Everton!”

“He hates us,” Mctominay, his travel buddy, retorted. “He’s spent his entire life avoiding us.”

“I wish I could cheer him up somehow,” Robertson sighed. “If it was Che I could use Irn-Bru, but Milly is not Che.”

“That’s seriously your only solution?” Fabinho rolled his eyes. “Try hacking Ali’s Spotify playlist. It works for me.”

“Ali’s Spotify playlist is another word for sentimental mush central!” Fonseca retorted. “I’d know; I tried.”

“But really Robin, at least try!” Fabinho motioned to Milner, who hadn’t moved from his seat. “If he keeps going like this, preseason will be untenable!”

“Alright, mate,” the Scot agreed, removing his seatbelt and making his way towards Milner.

“Milly, have some fun, mate!” He grinned at his still-pouting teammate. “We can play chess.”

“You can sit still long enough to play chess?” The stocky man feigned shock, scowling at thin air. “Talk about IMPOSSIBLE!”

“Alright…Truth or Dare?” Robertson felt a glimmer of hope; Milner loved this game.

Milner just scowled. “Hell no.”

“Spin the Bottle?”

“Hell no.”

“Connect 4?”

“Hell no.”

“Candy Crush?”

“Hell no.”

“How Many Times Can Milly Swear In A Day?”

“Robin, SHUT UP!”

“Well, that went well,” Robertson remarked, turning to Fabinho. “Go ahead Brazilian, cheer him up!”

“I’m sorry, but I have better things to do,” Fabinho retorted. “Get Kostas or something.”

“Kostas!!!”

“Not literally, you idiota!”

“Did somebody call the Scouser Greek?” Tsimikas called over. “Me and Diogo Dalot can cheer him up.”

“Oh, Kostas,” Milner snorted. “Good to see you and your mass of EYEBAGS!”

“If nobody noticed, he’s been in a bad mood recently,” Tsimikas pointed out to half of the plane.

Robertson facepalmed. With Milner like this, any notion of fun was going out the window. “Is there anything that would cheer you up?”

They tried everything, and nothing worked.

First Alisson volunteered to play guitar. He and Adrian burst into a chorus of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”, and soon everyone, even the United players, was singing.

All except Milner.

Thiago brought out some cookies, sharing them around the plane. Everybody enjoyed them.

All except Milner.

Jota brought out his mobile FIFA console, and produced multiple joysticks. Everybody had fun.

All except Milner.

Gred even turned on the big screen, and put on a movie. Everybody had fun.

All except Milner.

And now the whole Liverpool was stumped.

“What does it take to make this guy crack a smile?!” Jota groaned in exasperation, throwing his hands in the air. “A pair of dumbbells?”

“Got them.” Van Dijk held up Matip and Tsimikas. “A pair of dumbbells, just like you said.”

Elliott facepalmed, while Diaz just laughed.

After that, they all gave up, letting Milner sulk. It wasn’t like they didn’t like him. They liked Milner, they really did! But right now…

“Milly is being impossible!” Henderson yelled to nobody in particular. “Is he really hating this so much?”

“I may begin to agree with him,” Alexander-Arnold faltered.

“Why?”

The Scouser pointed to the top of the aisle. There stood–

Cristiano Ronaldo.

“Oh, cr–”

“SHENDO!” Matip pointed to Alexander-Arnold. “MINORS!”

“I’m going to be 24 in October!”

The Portuguese strode down the aisle. He wore skinny white jeans, a designer shirt that called attention to his abs, and sunglasses–indoors. He glided past everybody, not caring a damn about even his own teammates, until he stopped.

At. Milner’s. Seat.

“Oh, cranberries,” everybody muttered. Needless to say, Milner hated Ronaldo.

“Hello, six-packed lobster,” Milner snorted. “Coming to get cooked in the Scouse stew?”

“Six pack lobster? Ha!” Ronaldo scoffed. “Let’s see you get a suntan in your rainy ol’ Yorkshire!”

A communal gasp rippled through the crowd.

“No, he didn’t!” Robertson whispered before Van Dijk clobbered him.

“Oh, really?” Milner shot back. “You aren’t even the most famous Ronaldo.”

“Well, if you wanna talk about fame, let’s talk about a certain English “GOAT” who couldn’t win CRAP with his national team!”

“What’s that? I can’t hear you behind my humility.”

“I said that if you like algebra, you should count all my gold medals!”

Henderson shook his head in amusement.

Everything picked up after that. Now Milner and Ronaldo were busy in a roast battle–in the center of the plane.

“Yo team,” Ronaldo began, hands on his hips, “is so insignificant, you consider a parade a successful end to the season!”

“Yo team,” Milner shot back, “is so out of ideas, you thought some Dutch hombre from the middle of nowhere was your best idea for a coach!”

“Well, yo team is so disorganized, you make Arsenal look successful!”

“Seriously? Yo team won 0 trophies in 6 years, while we one 6 in the past 4!”

“Well, yo team is made up of so many misfits, there’s not even a Ballon D’Or winner on there!”

“Oh, come on! At least we have a proper skipper, unlike yo team, which has to put up with Slabhead Maguire!”

“So far it’s even between the two roasters,” Tsimikas announced from his cardboard commentary box. “Will any of them slip up long enough for his opponent to capitalize?”

“At least we don’t sell our top strikers for 30 million pounds,” Ronaldo pointed out with a cocky smirk on his face. “Unlike yo team!”

But Milner wasn’t going to go down that fast. “And you let Pogba go for free?”

“OOH!” the Liverpudlians chorused.

“Yo team’s coach,” Ronaldo went on, “is so weird, he wasn’t even known before coming here!”

Milner scoffed at the poorly-made roast. “Yo team’s coach is so bald, he makes Guardiola look hairy!”

“The roasters have just slipped in quality!” Tsimikas announced, gripping his microphone. “Will they find form again?”

“Yo team’s coach is so dumb, he doesn’t even know how to hold a real rivalry!”

“He called Kloppo DUMB?!” Elliott growled, seizing a newspaper. “That’s it, I’m whipping his butt.”

But Henderson got Elliott before he could do anything. “Hold it, lad! I think Milly has a comeback!”

And comeback he did have, because the next thing he said was, “Zip it, Cristiano! At least he doesn’t lose the dressing room, unlike the eight post-Fergie coaches yo team hired!”

“And they call him ‘Boring Milner’,” Matip whispered. “This is the most fun I’ve ever had!”

“Yo team’s boss is so deranged, he has a semi-feral owl!”

“Yo team is so dumb, you don’t even know that’s it’s called KEEPING A PET!”

“Yo team is so stripped of talent, you actually have to play Tyler Morton!”

“Yo team is so untrusting that you won’t even play your academy!”

“And just like that, James Milner has risen from the ashes!” Tsimikas updated the chalk scoreboard, biting his nails in anticipation. “How much hotter can this roast get?”

“Yo team is so lame, you missed out on the Champions League thanks to that ‘academy prodigy’ of yours!” Ronaldo glared at the Liverpool side of the crowd. “Trent JOHN Alexander-Arnold, I’m talking to you!”

As it turned out, insulting TAA was Ronaldo’s biggest mistake. Because Milner hit back with, “Yo self is so petty, you’re actually willing to hate on a kid!”

The Liverpudlians cheered at that dig. Ronaldo ran a hand through his over-gelled hair, seemingly out of ideas.

“Yo self,” he said after some time, “is so fat, when you step on the scale it says ‘to be continued’!”

“Well, then.” Milner wasn’t going to let that one go unscathed. “Yo self is so insecure, you Botoxed yourself and got ‘hip flexor injury’ holidays, just to hide the fact that you’re about to drop dead for want of retirement!”

Silence.

“CR7?” Milner smirked–he knew he’d got him. “Or should I say, ‘CR37’?”

Howls of laughter from the audience, but silence still from Ronaldo.

“I swear I will die of laughter from this!” Fonseca gasped, holding onto Fabinho for dear life.

“Well, then! Had enough whining, ‘GOAT’ who couldn’t win a World Cup?”

“One more unanswered roast, and James Milner will be the champion!” Tsimikas gripped his microphone in anticipation. “Come on Cristiano, get laryngitis!”

“Yo team is so…” Even Milner was all roasted out…almost! “Yo team is so stripped of talent, they had to play you as the central striker!”

This time everybody was dumbfounded. They had always known Milner was lethal when it came to sarcasm, but not that lethal. Ronaldo had been efficiently shut down with less effort than it took to beat Norwich City–and that really didn’t take much effort if Alisson saved their lives.

“Ronaldo had been shut down by James Milner, just like Sterling was shut down by Virgil van Dijk,” Tsimikas commented. “If Ronaldo accepts defeat, then James Milner, MBE, will get the prize!”

“WHAT?!” Ronaldo scowled, balling up his fists. He stormed towards Milner, who seemed surprised that the Portuguese had finally spoken.

“You are an insolent young man!” Ronaldo raised his fist, threatening to punch. “Now prepare to pay, Jose!”

“Jose?” Milner rolled his eyes at the striker, slowly approaching him. “I don’t think so, Cristiano. I’m not Jose. The name is Milner. James Milner.” And Milner hip-checked Ronaldo into a storage closet.

The Liverpudlians erupted into cheers, while the United players scowled, leaving for the back of the plane. Ronaldo’s protests could be heard from the closet, but for once, nobody paid attention.

“See, Milly?” Tsimikas elbowed him, still grinning. “We told you it’s not that bad!”

“Yeah.” Milner smirked, locking the closet and pocketing the key. “It isn’t–if Ronaldo’s in a locked closet.”

Chapter 4: Happy Anniversary

Summary:

The Liverpudlians celebrate the 130th birthday of Liverpool FC.

Notes:

Happy birthday, LFC. Thank you for all the memories, tears and joy! We need them all!

Chapter Text

It was off-season, and the training camp was due to start very soon. So Klopp and Lijnders had decided to gather the rest of the staff and kids and head out on a plane--to Thailand. The journey would take more than a month, and they would be making stops along the way. And right now, they were flying over Budapest.

“I can’t believe this is the same plane I gave birth to Ellie on two and a half weeks ago,” Chelsea O’Hara commented as she and Vera Torres walked into the living room. “And now we’re on course to Thailand. Have you ever been there?”

“Nope.” Vera set down the box she was holding and held up a megaphone. “Florrie! Kairo! I have the balloons!”

Florrie and Kairo ran into the room, giggling with delight. Florrie was wearing a light green shirt and pink shorts, with Kairo wearing the inverse.

“Look, Auntie Vera!” Kairo grabbed a red balloon and blew into it. But his small lungs could only fill the balloon a tiny bit. “I blew a balloon!”

“Why are all the balloons red?” Florrie asked. “Why do we have them? Whose birthday is it?”

“More like what’s birthday,” Klopp explained, bringing another box of decorations, this time red lanterns, into the room. “It’s Liverpool’s 130th anniversary. It’s kind of a birthday, but different.”

Florrie and Kairo’s eyes lit up. “Liverpool has a birthday?!”

“Actually, two birthdays,” Nemmer elaborated, hanging up a banner. “It was founded on March 15th, 1892, but we played our first game on June 3rd of the same year. And this is the day we, as a football club, began our action time.”

“Couldn’t have put it better!” Lijnders interrupted. “Usually, we celebrate the first birthday with a small private ceremony, an offering of thanks. But for the summer one…that’s when we go festive!”

“Will we have a Christmas tree?” Florrie bounced excitedly, flapping her hands as she followed Klopp around the room. “Will we have presents? We’re going to need a big cake for 130 candles!”

“I don’t think we’ll need 130 candles.” Nemmer ruffled Florrie’s hair. “But I am definitely starting up on that cake. Red velvet--what do you think?”

Kairo’s eyes lit up at the mention of cake, but he pouted when he heard what type. “I want chocolate!” he protested, running after Nemmer and his twin.

“Chocolate?” Lijnders shook his head, following the three. “No way, Jose Mourinho. The best flavor is clearly maple cinnamon bun!”

“Nuh-uh!” Kornmayer popped his head around the door. “It has to be lemon chiffon!”

“Raspberry!” Florrie insisted.

“Chocolate!”

“Red velvet!”

“Maple cinnamon!”

“Lemon chiffon!”

Klopp simply rolled his eyes. “At this rate, we’ll never have our party.”

By evening, the whole party room was decorated and ready for the party. Red decorations were everywhere, the other Liverpudlians were on the big screen, and six whole trays of cupcakes in assorted flavors were on the table, among other hors d'oeuvres. But no big event in Liverpool was complete before the announcements…by Jurgen Klopp.

“Six score and tenfold years ago, a group of enterprising young people had the tiniest spark of an idea. That tiny spark grew into the burning wildfire of passion and desire that is our club.” He paused for effect, checking if the audience was getting bored. They were, with Florrie playing with her hair and Kornmayer twirling his own. It was time for the classic audience attention-grabber--a dad joke.

“And no score and six years ago,” everybody groaned at the bad Gettysburg address joke, “some German weirdo with old-fashioned glasses, a weird name, and no Germany caps to his name came here, with no idea what he was doing. That weirdo? Me. But somehow, six years later, here we all are, part of the 130 year-history of this wonderful, beautiful club.”

With that, Lijnders blew the horn and the celebrations began.

Klopp watched while Krawietz, the self-appointed DJ, mixed the music. He was no good at dancing, so he decided to stay by the side while everybody else danced to “Witch Doctor”.

“It’s amazing, huh?” Nemmer remarked. She was more of a “mom-dancer” herself, so she opted out, too. “130 years ago, those guys were playing their first-ever match, huh? And now all off us are here, on a month-long trip to Thaliand for training camp.”

Klopp nodded. “And there’s more. A year ago, there were no kids here. Now we have three--five when Grace and Henrietta come to visit.”

“Indeed.” Nemmer beamed at Florrie and Kairo, learning a few dance steps from Lijnders. “And can you imagine when the others are all grown-up?”

“The others?”

“You know what I’m talking about. Your boys.”

“They’re not my kids!”

“You call them that, you don’t scold them after any loss, you literally hug them on the pitch. Do we need any more evidence?”

“Yes.”

“Jurgen! For such a good tacititian, you can be really dumb sometimes. Whenever somebody touches one of the boys, you look like you’re going to murder them.”

“Well, isn’t that normal?”

“It’s not normal.”

“Says who?”

“Says somebody who’s seen normal coaches before.”

“Excuse me?! I’m the Normal One.”

“Suit yourself, Normal One,” Nemmer chuckled. “But we make a good team, don’t we?”

“What?”

“You, me and the rest of the staff. People don’t see it, but the boys would be nothing without all of us.”

“That’s right.”

A sudden swoosh, like the flapping of wings, interrupted the party. Much to the shock of Kornmayer, a gigantic barn owl swooped into the room and landed on Klopp’s shoulder, letting out an audible “whoo” once touching down.

“Ludger?!”

Chapter 5: The Theory of Evolution

Summary:

Darwin arrives at the club and tries to settle in--emphasis on "tries".

Chapter Text

If you asked any Liverpool fan if they wanted changes at the club, very few would say yes. Liverpool was just perfect, most said. The only thing they needed was for City to be worse.

Apparently, Klopp was part of the minority. Liverpool still needed some fine-tuning here and there, and a big change when it came to the massive amount of disrespect they faced from almost everywhere in England.

So it was quite appropriate that Liverpool’s latest evolution went by the name of Darwin.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we got him!” Klopp announced in the middle of a staff meeting.

“Who, Guardiola?” Milner snarked, rolling his eyes. Even though he obviously wasn’t a staff member, Klopp still had him listen in on the meetings to prepare for his future coaching role.

“No, you boys have a new teammate!” Klopp took up a dry-erase marker. “His name is Darwin--”

“DARWIN!” Lijnders cheered, punching the air. “I always loved this guy! His theory of evolution is so fascinating.”

“Pep! His name is Darwin Núñez!” Klopp pointed to a complex equation on the top of the board. “And according to my calculations, we will be getting plenty of evolution jokes from him. Get it? Because his name is Darwin?”

“Jurgen!” Kornmayer groaned, facepalming. “Stop the dad jokes and get on with the point!”

“Right. So the important thing is, he’s coming today. We’re picking him up in Pakistan this afternoon and I want to make a good impression on him. So no crazy things today, alright Ludger?”

“Whooo?” The owl hopped around in his cage until Klopp draped the heavy canvas over it.

“And boys.” He addressed the twenty-something players sitting in on the staff meeting. “That means no super weird things. Like stealing his knickers or something. No pranks yet--but be yourselves, okay?”

“Well…” Alisson hesitated, running a hand through his hair. “Maybe not totally ourselves. We should definitely be a bit ourselves. We could also pretend we're sort of better than we actually are. So, I suppose, what I'm saying is, we could sort of present a version of ourselves that's less....”

“Crap?” Thiago suggested.

Alisson nodded in agreement. “Precisely.”

“Language, please!” Nememr reminded the two, balancing Florrie on her knee. “These two are at the age where they’ll repeat almost anything they hear.”

“Look who’s talking,” Chelsea shot back. “Mona, you have a sailor mouth almost as bad as the boss does!”

“Damn!” Florrie yelled, as if to prove the point. “Down, Mami, down!”

“Crap!” Kairo promptly squealed, lifting his hands in the air. “Up, Mami, up!”

Nememr sighed, shifting the positions so that Kairo was now on her knee. “We don’t say that word, okay kids?”

“Yes, Mami!” Florrie giggled, running towards the whiteboard.

“Attention!” a voice yelled from the cockpit. It was Krawietz, who was on pilot duty that day. “We will be landing in Pakistan in ten minutes! Get ready for landing!”

“Well, then.” Klopp readjusted his hat and picked up Florrie. “Let’s get moving, boys!”

A rather lanky, gaunt youngster with a slick, almost lacquered man-bun approached the plane. It was giant compared to him, and for a moment, he wondered if he should leave.

Is this the place I need to be?

The tiny-seeming door at the top of the looong flight of stairs finally opened. The gray-clad figure on top seemed tiny--but the youngster knew he wasn’t tiny whatsoever.

“Darwin!”

Núñez wasn’t so sure that he actually liked Liverpool. But one thing he did like was the fact that Klopp was there.

“Well, you’re older than I remember you,” Núñez joked when Klopp finally made it down the stairs. “I just counted a hundred gray hairs on you, boss!”

“I think you aged faster,” Klopp retorted, finally letting go of him. “As for me getting older, that’s happening tomorrow. Anyways, you probably know the rest of the boys!”

“I do not,” Núñez corrected his new boss. “I know none of them except the stupid fuzzy-haired Brazilian who kept preventing me from scoring.”

“That’s Alisson,” Klopp corrected him, pointing to the goalkeeper at the top step. “You can just call him Ali. And the reason that he kept blocking you--”

“Is because he’s the goalkeeper,” Lijnders finished. “And I’m Lijnders, also known as ‘The One Who Gets On Jurgen’s Nerves’. Welcome to the club!”

But Núñez shook his head, taking a couple steps back. “You know what? I just may as well say adios to the club and skedaddle. It’s weird.”

“Very honest, huh?” Lijnders whispered, only to be elbowed by Taffarel. “Hey, ow!”

“Maybe you’ll like it here better than you think,” Klopp told Núñez with a wink. “Come on in.”

A couple of hours later, a confused and exhausted Núñez flopped onto a sofa. The whole squad being so boisterous and weird and altogether cuddly had drained the Uruguayan.

“How do human beings manage to have so much energy?!” Núñez groaned to himself. “They have two three year olds and they still manage to be everywhere?! What kind of crap is that? And what’s with all the hugs?! That Alisson guy, is he trying to kill me? What’s with Virgil’s hair gel, is he some sort of supermodel? Is Kostas an insomniac or does he run a secret nightclub on Merseyside? Are we sure Milner isn’t an immortal deity disguised as a well-toned footballer? Where did we get Joel from, Schalke 04 or P.T. Barnum’s three-ring circus? And on that subject, where on Earth did we get Robbo from? Did he fall from the plane when we got him, or did he hitchhike here disguised as a skinny clown?”

“Wow. That’s a lot of questions.”

“Oh…Lijnders…” Núñez quickly righted himself and smoothed his hair. “How’d you get here?”

“You’re not a fan of this club so far, are you?” Lijnders took a seat, and Núñez could see this was going to be a long talk.

“No! I mean…it’s great to be playing with the likes of Luis and Mo and Diogo,” Núñez stumbled over his words, being careful not to say the wrong thing. “It’s just that…is everybody here so strange?”

“We may look strange,” Lijnders chuckled. “But there’s explanations for everything. There’s around thirty of us, not counting staff. So there are plenty of hands to look after Florrie and Kairo--who are generally well-behaved children. Florrie’s a little clingy though, but thankfully Ali likes cuddles as much as she does.”

“Yeah, on the subject of Fuzzhead. Why does he hug everybody so damn much? And on that subject, why does the boss hug everybody so damn much?”

“So damn much!” Florrie squealed from under the table. She had been looking for Lijnders, and had found him just in time to hear Núñez’s latest complaint. “Lendy!”

“Darwin!” Lijnders held up Florrie in front of him. “BABY!”

“Florrie not a baby!” Florrie complained, pouting. “Ellie’s the baby!” Then she spotted Núñez and clung to Lijnders even tighter, slightly shaking.

“It’s okay, Florrie. Look, this is Darwin.” Lijnders shifted his attention back to Núñez, shrugging apologetically at the Uruguayan. “It’s not you. Florrie came from an adoption center where they were mistreating the kids there. She still has anxiety when it comes to meeting new people, and she doesn’t like being alone, either.”

Núñez couldn’t help but smile, grasping Florrie’s chubby little hand. “Oh, look at you! You’re so cute.”

“Wait until you meet the other kids,” Lijnders smiled. Florrie, seeing that Lijnders wasn’t hurt at all, crawled over to Núñez and snuggled against him. “They are just so cute. Mind your language around them, though--they’ll repeat anything said to them.”

But Núñez was too distracted by Florrie. “Look at your little cheeks!” he squealed, pinching them. “How old are you?”

Florrie held up three fingers, accompanied by an insistent “three!”

“What about the other guys?” Núñez motioned for Lijnders to go on as Florrie toyed with his man bun.

“Yeah. Virg does hair gel all the time, I don’t know why. As for Kostas…you’ll find out later. Milner’s really fit, and you’ve got to remember that thirty-six is still young in human years. I’ll be the first to admit--okay, maybe after Milly--that Joel is rather goofy sometimes, and Robbo can be an annoying little thorn in the backside. But they keep our lives interesting.”

“You still didn’t answer me about the hugs,” Núñez reminded Lijnders.

“Well…” Lijnders couldn’t help but grin at that. “The hugs…are like the club. What they mean can depend on what’s trying to be conveyed. For some people, Liverpool’s a religion. For others, they’re an annoying Red Wall just waiting to happen. And for others, it’s the thing that brings them together. But they’re all based on love.”

Núñez smiled again. He could already feel the tension melting off his shoulders. “Alright…but tell me one thing. When will I get my first Klopp hug? Like, on the pitch?”

“Soon, Darwin. Very soon.”

Chapter 6: I'll Protect You

Summary:

After a harrowing nightmare, Alisson tries to protect his clumsy boss at all costs. It goes about as well as you think...

Chapter Text

Dear Diary:

It’s me, Pep Lijnders, with another entry in this diary. Boy, was today strange. I mean, everybody knows Jurgen and Ali are really close. But I never thought they could have been this close…

Alisson slowly made his way into the room. He had no idea why his vision was so blurry...no, it couldn't be. Slowly, his eyes settled on the figure.

He didn't know why he'd chosen to come last of all--if Fabi or Bobby were here, maybe they would have prevented him from collapsing into the chair.

"Ali..." A hand on his shoulder, the last time he would feel it. Ever. "Don't lose hope. You have to go on with your life."

"N-not without you! I can't!"

"It's not your fault. You know I've never been that careful about myself."

"Please, come on..." He couldn't take it anymore. "Don't leave me."

"I love you, Ali. You're like the son I never had."

"I’m not even remotely related to you."

"Haha, true." A sigh. "Ali, no matter what happens...I love you to death, remember that? Make sure... you keep smiling. That everybody keeps smiling. Keep hugging them...joking."

"Why'd you have to accidentally crash into a lake because you were busy helping me over the phone?!"

A sigh, then a shaking of the head. "Take care of them, Ali." Then a slammed door, combined with the sounds of muffled sobs.

Alisson jolted out of his sleep, panting heavily. He ran his hands through his hair in a futile effort to calm himself down, and examined the room. Firmino was snoozing in the bed next to him, and the digital clock glowed, reading: 6:24 AM.

"Relax, Ali," Alisson whispered in the dark. "It was just a nightmare, you're in the same room with Bobby. The boss is just down the hall, with Lijnders. Everything is alright."

But while his mouth spoke the words, his mind sim

ply couldn't believe them. He sprinted out the door, not even remembering his slippers.

"Uma, duas, três, quatro, cinco, seis portas. Please be okay, boss, please be okay," Alisson pleaded as he opened the door ever so slightly, tiptoeing to the closest bed. But he accidentally knocked over an orange vase, and he dived behind a dresser before Klopp woke up.

"Just a vase," he chuckled, placing the vase back on its stand. "You gave me quite the scare there, buddy."

Alisson flopped onto the floor, breathing a sigh of relief. One of his worst nightmares still hadn't come true.

But I need to be more careful, he thought as he slunk out of the room, creeping down the hall. He winced, only now did he notice the cold tile. I can't let anything happen to him.

After a sleepless night like the one before, Alisson would be exhausted, falling asleep at breakfast. But for some reason--he didn’t know if it was the adrenaline or the coffee--he was all jittery.

“Ali, quit bouncing your leg,” Fabinho groaned for the fifth time that day. “You’re going to knock over my coffee!”

Alisson didn’t even pay attention. He continued stirring his coffee, not even sure if he was hungry anymore.

“Ali?” Firmino raised an eyebrow, leaning on the table. “Did something happen? Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Okay?!” Internally, the keeper facepalmed. His effort to sound cheerful was just awful. “Of course I’m okay! Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“You’re bouncing your leg, and you only do that when you’re nervous,” Firmino pointed out. “Plus, that coffee is going to give up on you and hire a carousel if you keep on stirring it.”

“I’m fine, Bobby, don’t worry.” Alisson shrugged, pushing his plate away. “I’m just not that hungry.”

“But you’re always hungry,” Fabinho protested. “You know you can talk to us if anythings wrong, right Bobby?”

Before Firmino could respond, the door to the cafeteria creaked open. It was Klopp, carrying a cup of hot coffee.

“Sorry I’m late, boys!” he announced. “I’ve been getting so used to Kirkby, that I completely forgot where the cafeteria here was!”

“OUR GAFFER IS OLD! OUR GAFFER IS OLD!” Robertson chanted. “Hit it, Calvin!”

The two Scots bounced in their seats, and soon Alexander-Arnold joined in, too. Klopp didn’t mind--he even began dad-dancing to the impromptu karaoke as well. But it was all interrupted when Alisson grabbed his coffee.

“Ali?” Klopp was surprised by Alisson’ erratic behavior, to say the least. The goalkeeper was usually…not erratic. “Are you trying to steal my Bundes-coffee? You know I need that thing to stay sane throughout the day.”

“It’s…it’s fine! I was just thinking…what if you dropped it? Can’t have anything happen to you, now can we?” Alisson laughed nervously, carrying the coffee to a table. “Here, sit, sit! Very quickly, please! We can’t risk you standing up!”

“Is this some type of April Fool’s Day joke?” Klopp raised an eyebrow in suspicion. “Because it’s very late--it’s almost July.”

Robertson shrugged, tray in hand. “I wouldn’t worry, gaffer. Maybe Alisson accidentally stole your tin-foil hat and so is having crazy predictions like Joel!”

The whole cafeteria erupted into laughter. But Klopp didn’t. He could sense that something was up--or was Robertson right? Maybe he was just being too paranoid.

“Thanks again, Fernando,” said Klopp a couple of hours later, taking the sack of mail from the elderly mailman. Somehow, he ran into Fernando in Thailand. “Are you sure you shouldn’t retire?”

“What do you mean?” Fernando yelped. Although he was eighty-nine now, Fernando wasn’t looking forward to retirment at all. If anything, he was trying to avoid it. “Have I aged that badly?”

“Oh, no no no!” Klopp fumbled to find an excuse. “It’s just that…you’re old enough to be my dad and…”

“Well, then.” Fernando scoffed, hauling his mail sack into the van. “At least my mind is still sharp enough to not confuse ‘brainfog’ with brain--”

“Alright, that’s quite enough!” The German shrugged, waving Fernando off. “Um…good seeing you as always, see ya later, Fernando!”

“But Jurgen…”

Before Fernando could say anything, Klopp ran up the driveway, slamming the door behind him and sighing in relief. He certainly didn’t want to touch upon that subject again.“That was a close one,” he muttered to himself, carrying the heavy mail bag onto the pitch. “A very close one by the way--OOF!”

In two seconds flat, Klopp found himself on the floor, mail scattered all over the hall. Unfazed, Klopp dusted himself off and got set trying to find the culprit. Apparently, he had tripped over Florrie’s toy lion. He shrugged, stuffing the softie into the mail bag as well.

“The German has brought the mail!” Klopp announced, striding into the hotel assembly hall. “And there’s something for Baby Florrie here, too.”

“You mean your grandkid Florrie!”

“Okay, seriously Robbo?” Alexander-Arnold playfully rolled his eyes, bouncing Florrie on his hip. “Are you deranged or what? Or is your wee, pale body getting to you again?”

“No, come on, mate!” Robertson opened the tiny navy blue blue notebook he carried around everywhere, and Alexander-Arnold couldn’t hide his smile. Ever since Scotland had failed to qualify for the World Cup, Robertson had been uncharacteristically (but understandably) sullen about it, to the point where he’d tried to avoid anything blue, even the sky itseld. Oatmeal cookies, Irn Bru, “Fernando” by ABBA--Alexander-Arnold had tried everything to cheer his best friend up, but no dice had come out of it. So seeing Robertson joke around and begin to heal on his own was a good sign for him.

“According to Chapter 39, titled ‘Wee Bairn Florrie’, Florrie is Milly’s kid primarily, Ali comes in second and Hendo comes in third. So therefore, if Florrie is Ali’s kid and Ali is the gaffer’s kid, then Florrie is the gaffer’s grandkid and--”

“Oh my god, Robbo!” Tsimikas groaned, handing Adrian a pair of earplugs. “Will you just shut up?!”

“Oi, you wanted me talking,” Robertson argued, snapping the book shut. “So here you go!”

Klopp groaned, thinking here we go AGAIN.

“Trent wanted you talking!”

“You helped him!”

“I was dragged into it!”

“You were also dragged into playing for your joke of a national team! Win a World Cup first, mate!”

“Oh, really? Why don’t you and your Tartan Nursery qualify for a World Cup, ‘working-class hero’?”

“Lads, stop it!” Henderson, taking things into his own hands as always, tried to steer Tsimikas away from Robertson, but failed. “Just apologize to each other!”

“Is it ever that easy around here?” Milner snarked, passing Matip the popcorn. “No tempeh in this popcorn, Joel.”

“It’s a Tartan Army,” Robertson mumbled. Undoubtedly, the wound from the World Cup qualifiers was still raw, and Tsimikas’ comment had hit him hard. “And…”

“You went and drank a whole beer before the game!” Tsimikas went on. “You heard of the 48-hour rule before? Or are we sure that was beer and not Scottish whisky? You know, from the country of drunkards?”

“Yo eyebags are so big, I wouldn’t be surprised if you worked for Liverpool Night Club instead for Liverpool Football Club!”

“Yo team is so insignificant, it only ranks 45 in the FIFA national rankings!”

“Yo team is so ancient, they’re only in…” Robertson grabbed his phone. “Let’s see, Greece fifa ranking…wait, the rankings don’t exist. They’re only showing me Greek yogurt.”

“Well, yo team is so drunk, when I google Scotland, they only show cans of rubbing alcohol!”

“That’s enough out of you two!” Klopp commanded. “Kostantinos, to my office.”

“Yes, sir,” Tsimikas mumbled, slinking out of the room. He froze halfway towards the door, though. “Wait, where is your office?”

“Ugh, right, we’re not in Kirkby now. Alright, Kostas, go to your room!”

“And you say we’re not your kids,” Tsimikas muttered, slamming the door behind him. “You’re literally grounding me.”

“And Robbo.” He addressed the Scot, who clung onto Alexander-Arnold like the world was going to end. “I will definitely address your nightclub joke by saying…it’s true.”

Robertson whipped out his blue book to scribble the information in, while Florrie spotted something familiar in the bag.

“Sage!” she squealed, grabbing at the bag. “Sage!”

“Try to be more careful with him, okay Florrie?” Klopp handed her the stuffed animal. “I tripped over it in the hallway.”

“Are you okay?” Florrie tilted her head, trying to scan Klopp over. “Are you okay, boss?”

“I will be okay--”

“You tripped in the hall?!” Alisson burst in with a first-aid kit, frantically grabbing Klopp’s shoulder and examining it. “Okay, so you haven’t dislocated your shoulder from celebrations. Any bruises? Third-degree burns? Boss, be careful, please!”

“Ali, I’m fine!” Klopp tried to assure him, stepping away. “I just tripped over Sage. I’m fine.”

“But what if you broke your ankle?!” Alisson protested, taking out the gauze. “Maybe we should wrap your ankle before it gets cut and--”

“It takes more than tripping over a stuffed lion to get me injured!” Klopp pointed out, handing the mail bag to Henderson. “I played in third-division football, they don’t have all these fancy medical stuff, you know! Back in my day, there was no such thing as the ‘magic spray’. It was just us, water and--”

“Alright then, enough with the ancient history lesson, boss!” Henderson began distributing the mail. “You better go talk with Kostas.”

Klopp nodded, walking out the room. He frowned when he found out baby gates had been placed in front of the elevator--then read the note attached to them.

I can’t have anything happen to you. Alisson.

“What is going on, Ali?” Klopp wondered aloud, stepping over them and entering the elevator. “What is it that you’re not telling me?”

“And he’s just really jittery now, and he won’t even tell me what’s wrong,” Klopp vented as he and Lijnders archived the previous year’s plans. “He even put baby gates in front of the elevator.”

“Okay, no

w that’s a stretch.” Lijnders opened another new suitcase, removing five briefcases from it. “I hope he’s okay.”

“Pep.” Klopp set aside his stack of papers, removing his hat. “Do you think I’m unapprochable?”

“Of course not!!” Lijnders shouted, dropping his own papers. “You’re the most approachable manager I’ve worked with!”

“Then why won’t Ali tell me what’s going on?” the German questioned out loud.

“Maybe it’s personal,” Lijnders suggested, although he knew he was probably wrong. “Maybe he doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“Pepijn, I know my boys,” Klopp pointed out, flopping back onto the bed. “Ali doesn’t hide things from us. If something’s bothering him, he always talks about it--and if he doesn’t, then I’m worried. What if somebody hurt him?”

“Milly would have kicked their butt to Washington D.C. already.” Lijnders chuckled at his own joke, stopping when he realized it had fallen flat. “Sorry, Jurgen, I have no idea what could be wrong with him.”

They remained like that for a good while, before Klopp sat up with a start. “Are there any shamans around here?”

“What?!” Lijnders’ hair almost popped off in surprise. “What do shamans have to do with them?”

“I heard Mo say something about a shaman the other day,” Klopp explained. “They’re similar to magicians, I think. Wait a minute--do you have Philippe’s phone number? He’s the magician we need!”

“He’s a magician, not a mind reader!” Lijnders groaned in disgust. “And a little magician won’t work for this!”

“That’s right!” Klopp whipped out his cell phone, punching numbers in. “We need to bring out the biggest sorcerer there is--Ronaldo ‘El Phenomeno’ Nazario da Lima!!!”

“Are you INSANE?!”

“Okay, maybe I should bring Milner’s old City teammate, David--”

“Jurgen. Norbert. Klopp.” Lijnders grabbed Klopp before he could call the former Matinees player. “Magic is not the answer to our problems. Asking Ali if he’s okay is the answer.”

“But I’ve tried that already.”

A loud knock interrupted their little conversation. Lijnders opened the door to see an exhausted-looking Fabinho.

“Fabi?” Klopp was up in an instant, striding towards the door. “What happened? Is everything okay?”

“No.” Fabinho shook his head, leaning against the doorframe to catch his breath. “Nothing’s okay!”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Ali,” the Brazilian revealed. “He fainted.”

When Alisson came to, he instantly realized that he hadn’t just fallen asleep. He was in another bed that was not his, and an orange vase stood on the dresser.

Wait a minute…

“Ali! Are you okay?”

“Boss!” Alisson jumped when he saw Klopp hovering over him. “What happened to you?”

“I was just going to ask you that. You fainted in the cafeteria and I had to carry you here.”

So that was what had happened.

“You shouldn’t have carried me!” Alisson exclaimed, grabbing onto Klopp’s hand. “What if you broke your back, or slipped a disk? What if I thrashed out and I broke your rib--”

“Alisson! What is going on with you?!”

“Desculpe?”

“You’ve been fussing over me all day!” Klopp reminded him. “And you haven’t even told me what’s wrong! Do you not even trust me? I mean, I’m just your manager, but since you’ve literally been waiting on my hand and foot--”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Alisson began. But then something snapped in his brain. “I didn’t realize that you think you’re invincible!”

“Ali, I’m fine--”

“You don’t even stop for two minutes to relax! On holiday, you’re busy with paperwork. On Christmas, paperwork. And when you’re not doing paperwork, you’re hanging out with us or the staff or something! You never take time for yourself!”

“I do it for us!”

“You make your whole life about us! To the point where you could get hurt and you wouldn’t even care!” Okay, maybe that was a stretch, but Alisson had to make a point. “If you won’t worry about yourself, I might as well worry about you for you! And to think that you could crash into a lake heping me?! I can’t let that happen, boss!”

Klopp froze. “What?!”

“Y-you were driving and you accidentally pressed the gas pedal! And then you…you almost drowned in the lake. I-I can’t have anything happen to you!”

“Ali…if you’d just told me--”

“Then you’d try to find help for me!” Alisson exclaimed, tightening his grip on Klopp. “You’d go in the car and then you’d call me, and then my worst nightmare would come true!”

“Your worst nightmare?”

Alisson nodded, swallowing the enormous lump in his throat. “I can’t lose you.”

“Ali…wow.” Klopp shook his head, running a hand through his hair. “I…I don’t know what to say. I thought something happened and you were afraid of telling me, but that nightmare? It’s way worse.”

“I didn’t want to tell you because if I talked about it, it would just feel more…” The keeper struggled to find the right words. “Real, y’know? And I know it was only a nightmare, but it really…”

“Scared you, didn’t it?”

He nodded, speechless.

Klopp was truly speechless. Not knowing what else to say, he tried to take Alisson’ hand, but the Brazilian shook his head, balling them instead.

“Ali,” the German began, taking a seat. “I…I don’t know what to say. You being…so terrified, it kills me--”

At those words, Alisson leapt off the bed, running to the door. He shoved a dresser across the wall-to-wall carpeting until it blocked the door and collapsed against it, clearly winded.

“Ali?” It was all Klopp could bring himself to say after watching the strange display of fear from Alisson. “Why’d you do that?”

“I don’t want you to get hurt!” Alisson exclaimed, shutting the window blinds. “I…I can’t have you get hurt. You mean too much to me.”

“GAFFER! THE KITCHEN’S ON FIRE!!!”

“COMING, Robbo!” Klopp sent an apologetic glance to Alisson. “Ali, I’m going to be careful, I promise. But I need to put out the kitchen fire, or we’ll be fined. Is it okay if we talk later?”

“Boss! You can’t put out a fire!”

“I’ve put out Rangnick’s kitchen fires enough times to know what I’m doing.”

“But you can get burnt!”

“I’ll try to be careful,” Klopp promised as he slipped through a crack in the door. Alisson followed suit, chasing after his manager like his life depended on it. He settled on clinging to Klopp’s ankles and being dragged about on the floor…for about twelve feet.

“Ali, you don’t understand!” Klopp groaned, starting to lose his patience. “The fire can spread, and then we’re all in danger! The kitchen’s on the floor with half of our rooms, I have to help them!”

But Alisson couldn’t take it anymore. He sat on the floor, clutching Klopp’s ankle with a vise-like grip.

“Ever thought about the fact that you aren’t any good to us if you don’t take care of yourself?!” he screeched, refusing to let go. “You trip over your own feet all the time!”

“I’ve been clumsy since I can remember Ali, now I have to handle the fire--”

“Can’t somebody else do it?!” Alisson yelled over the increasing hubbub coming from downstairs. “Anybody?!”

“Jurgen, me and Ludger have the fire under control!” Konigsburg called from the first floor. Ludger flapped above him, a bucket of water in his talons. “Stay where you are! And don’t try to jump out the window! You’re not that young anymore!”

“See, someone else can do it!” Alisson insisted. Now that Klopp wasn’t rushing to the kitchen anymore, he finally got up, now taking Klopp’s hands. “Boss. I’m scared of nightmares coming true. I did take a risk with the nightmare that Muriel became bald, but I can’t take any chances with you.”

“Ali, you’re getting pale…”

“SHUT THE CRAP UP!”

Klopp took a double take, stepping away from Alisson like he was venom. Despite the uncanny similarities between the two, Alisson never swore. So this had to be serious.

“You never swear.” Great, that was excellent.

“Boss, stop dancing around the issue,” Alisson pleaded. “I’m begging you. You may have been clumsy all your life, but you’re not that young and spry anymore. You’re 55. You can’t take those risks--one fall can become a compound fracture, easily.”

With that, Alisson turned away, walking down the hall. He disappeared behind his room door, locking it.

“I messed up.”

“We know, Jurgen,” Kornmayer groaned, motioning to the tally-marked whiteboard behind him. “You’ve said it fourteen times already, and breakfast isn’t even over yet.”

“It’s just that--I made Alisson swear.” Klopp pushed away his coffee, which Lijnders drank in seconds. “And he almost never swears! But I sort of get it. Can you imagine a nightmare like that where your manager--”

“Enough!” Lijnders, high on caffeine, slammed the conference table in annoyance. “Jurgen, it was

just a misunderstanding. Both of you have points. Ali was getting overprotective, but you have to start remembering how old you are.”

“I’m not Ronaldo, I don’t live in an illusion that I’m young!” Klopp protested. “I just need to stop tripping over thin air, that’s all.”

“Who trips over thin air?!”

“Let’s see. Raheem Sterling, Neymar, Jack Grealish, Kostas when he’s at his nightclub--”

“Chefe!”

From the middle of nowhere, Alisson burst into the room. It only took two seconds for him to locate Klopp and take a seat next to him.

“Ali!” Klopp sighed in relief. “I was worried about you. I just wanted to say--”

“I was wrong,” they said at the same time, prompting the others to chuckle.

“You first,” Alisson sighed, leaning on the conference table.

“I was doing some thinking last night. It turns out…you were right, Ali. I’m not exactly an acrobat and I don’t think I try enough to keep myself out of trouble.”

“You think?!” Alisson couldn’t help but laugh at that. “You have an entire plane, file set and ritual dedicated to kicking butt.”

“I do it to protect you boys!” Klopp protested. “Don’t I, Pep?”

But Lijnders just grinned. “I wouldn’t say so. You planned a joint celebrity invasion of the British Parliament because they were getting on your nerves.”

“Hey, Tory Boris Johnson resigned a couple of days later, so I call it a success!”

“Whatever.” Alisson threw his hands into the air, exasperated. “What I’m saying is, you’re just so clumsy.”

“And you worry too much,” Klopp retorted, crossing his arms. “So let’s call a truce?”

“What truce?”

“Simple: I don't stick my nose where it isn’t needed, and you don’t try to take away my coffee.”

Alisson thought this over for a while. “Can I come sleep over with you and Lijnders if I have a nightmare?”

Taffarel almost choked on his own coffee, while Kornmayer and Lijnders burst into laughter. Even Ludger hooted from his cage, as if the owl was laughing as well.

“Fine,” Klopp accepted, shaking his head in amusement. “Can this team get any stranger?”

“What if I told you,” Alisson smirked, “that Hendo knew a bit of engineering?”

“WHAT?!”

Chapter 7: Jurgen Klopp and The Impositor

Summary:

The one where Klopp has..a secret twin?!

Chapter Text

Dear Diary,

It’s me, Pep Lijnders. Oftentimes Jurgen gets on my nerves. But not in a bad way! It’s just that he keeps tripping over his own feet, and making horrible dad jokes, and ~~is secretly horrified, scared, terrified and has a whole defense plan against octopi~~ hates Burnley (don’t tell him I told you). When those times come, I take a deep breath in the mirror and tell myself that it isn’t that bad. Imagine if there were TWO of him!

Well, it turns out that I may secretly be a prophet…

It was a hot, sticky day in Singapore. An alarm clock rang in a tiny hotel room–and instantly got hurled to the floor.

“Ugh, stupid alarm clock!” a very familar voice groaned, tossing the quilt further up the bed. “Do I have to get up, Ludger?”

“Whoo,” the barn owl hooted from his cage. “Whoo, whoo!”

“Fine, I’m up.” Klopp scowled, not even bothering with his hat. He unlocked the birdcage and Ludger flew onto his shoulder. “Come on, Ludger. Let’s go see what crap the day has in store for us.”

“Whoo.”

The German bumped into Lijnders literally two seconds after stepping out of his room. The Dutch had obviously already had his coffee, and he was grinning like he’d just visited Heaven.

“Morning, you two!” Lijnders grinned. “The others are already up, Jurgen. You sure slept in today, huh?”

“Crap for you–er, I meant good morning!”

Lijnders raised an eyebrow–Klopp was never this crabby. “Is the timezone catching up to you?”

“I’ve been to Australia and back, I’m fine.” Klopp spotted Alisson down the hall. He was holding baby Grace, who he had a giant soft spot for, but didn’t seem all that cheerful.

“Stop looking at me like that, Gracie!” the goalkeeper begged, taking a seat and bouncing the fussy one-year-old on his lap. “I told you, you can’t handle baby carrots yet…alright, that is a very sad face.”

“Is Grace trying to convince you again?” Klopp tried to sound like there was no other place he’d rather be than in a humid city-state in the middle of Asian nowhere. “Because it seems to be working.”

“Look at her!” Alisson rotated Grace so that she was facing Klopp. “She looks so lonely!”

Upon seeing Ludger, Grace squealed, reaching her chubby hands out. She had always been fascinated with birds of all forms, and Klopp was considering putting up a bird feeder outside the nursery window in Kirkby–if Robertson wouldn’t knock it down searching for Staffa.

“Birdie!” Grace squealed. “Birdie!”

“Whoo!” Ludger flapped his wings in warning. The owl had never really liked children. “Whoo!!”

“That’s quite enough, Ludger.” Klopp turned to Alisson, smiling now that Grace was no longer giving him the baby eyes. “We’re going down to the cafeteria for breakfast, Ali. Want to come?” No matter how much Klopp had to put up with, he would always find a smile for Alisson or one of the kiddos.

Before Alisson could answer, a shout echoed from down the hall. It was Firmino, running as if he were haunted by a madman.

“Boss!” he moaned, throwing himself onto Klopp. “You have to stop her!”

“Stop who?” Klopp asked the Brazilian, surprised. “Bobby, you have to remember that more than half the world’s population is female and–”

“It’s Chan!” Firmino whined, refusing to let go of Klopp. “She’s married to Vera now!”

Klopp groaned–he knew where this was going. In Thailand, Firmino had met a Thai dancer, Kanchana Nguyen, who he had developed a huge crush on. But she had rejected him, and soon Firmino found out why–Kanchana, also known as Chan, had been dating one of their own medics, Vera Torres, for seven years. The two had just gotten married in Thailand and were currently enjoying their honeymoon in Bali–but that wasn’t sitting easily with the Brazilian.

“Chan and Vera were dating for seven years, Bobby,” Klopp explained for what must have been the ninety-second time. “And they’re happy together. That’s enough for me. Chan’s a good girl and so is Vera. They deserve to be with the ones they love.”

Firmino sighed, going back into his room and plucking a daisy.

“Where’s your hat?” Lijnders asked Klopp, noticing the iconic baseball cap was gone. “You don’t usually go without it.”

“Oh, that!” Klopp had woken up more now, and then realized that it was missing. “It’s still in my room. I’ll just go pick it up.” He didn’t say he would come downstairs–first he had to actually find the motivation to be pleasant.

Klopp grabbed his hat off the sidetable. Noticing the unusual layer of dust on it, he shook it vigorously, causing Ludger to fly off his shoulder. That’s when he realized this hat wasn’t gray–it was more blue.

“Blue?!” Klopp showed the hat to Ludger. “I never wear blue. This is not my hat!”

Ludger hooted, hopping onto the bed. That’s when Klopp realized there was still a lump in it. A human-sized, moving lump.

The German yanked the covers off the lump, expecting a bunch of pillows or maybe Florrie and Kairo playing hide and seek again. He got none of the above.

What he did get was what seemed to be an exact copy of him. But this one’s hat was in a more bluish shade of gray.

And then it woke up.

“THE DAMN CRAP!”

“This isn’t happening!”

As soon as his look-alike had screamed the exact same words he had, the real Klopp had instantly tied him under the bedsheets. Now he was pacing around the room, Ludger following him.

“I am not going insane,” Klopp muttered to himself. “I am not going insane. I do not have a twin. I do not have a twin.”

“Bro!” The look-alike popped out from under the bedsheets, still tied up. “Long time no see! But this isn’t Kirkby.”

“BRO?!” Klopp refused to face him, deciding the blank walls were a lot more inviting. “Get out of my room, you impositor! I have no brother, DO YOU HEAR ME, ANDREAS?!”

“Andreas?” The Klopp look-alike shook his head in amusement. “No way! I’m Jonas, remember?”

“No, I do not damn remember. Maybe because this is not funny at all!”

“Now, now, Jurgen.” Look-alike-Klopp swung out of the bed, wriggling out of the ropes. Surprisingly, he didn’t trip over anything. “Is that the way to talk to your elder brother?”

“Shut up!” Klopp threw a coat at the impositor, shocked when it didn’t hit him. “You are not my elder brother! I don’t even have a brother! You idiot! I am not going insane! Get. Out. Of. My. Room.”

The impositor just laughed. “Granted, I am only a few minutes older than you. Man, how it always drove you crazy.”

“Andreas Kornmayer, this is not a joke!” Klopp grabbed his ashwood bat out of a corner, threatening to hit. “Show yourself!”

“Jurgen, I’m not an impositor!” The look-alike finally seemed to realize what was going on, distancing himself to the other side of the room. “The name is Klopp. Jonas Klopp.”

When Rafa Benitez had left Liverpool, he had written a guide on ways to avoid and solve certain situations. While Klopp had often found the manual, which he used for reference, very helpful, it wasn’t complete.

And just like he’d expected, there was nothing in there about a creepy look alike of yourself following you around and claiming he was your twin brother.

So Jurgen Klopp had no choice but to let Jonas Klopp follow him down to breakfast–where, as expected, his players–bar Alisson, who was surprisingly missing–received the biggest surprise of their pre-season.

“What in the name of MANCHESTER UNITED is going on?!” Henderson yelped once everybody was done sitting there in shock. “Boss? You never told us you have a twin!”

“I don’t have a twin!” Klopp glanced at Kornmayer, who was still frozen midway through drinking coffee. “At first I thought it was Andreas playing a very tasteless joke on me, but as we can all see here, he’s stuck midway through lifting a coffee cup.”

Henderson frowned–he could already see the differences between the original Klopp and the suspicious impositor. While the real Klopp tripped over thin air and laughed it off easily, the impositor had managed to run around the entire table–three times–without even coming close to stumbling. And when Milner had finally had enough and slapped him, the impositor had flopped to the floor, screaming.

“What a Neymar,” Firmino muttered.

“Will you shut the CRAP up?!” the real Klopp yelled, annoyed with this “twin” of his. “I know Milly is strong, but a slap from him can’t send you to the ground, you damn DUMMKOPF!!”

“It hurts, Jurgen!”

“Maybe you have bones of damn jelly instead of calcium!”

“You mean osteoblasts, osteocytes, osteoclasts and bone lining cells. According to the National Library of Medicine, ‘osteoblasts, bone lining cells and osteoclasts are present on bone surfaces and are derived from local mesenchymal cells called progenitor cells–’”

“JONAS, SHUT UP!”

“Okay, so Jonas also happens to be a nerd,” Jota noted, taking the information down on a flashcard. “And while the real boss is a bit of a sailormouth–”

“A bit?!” DIaz rolled his eyes. “I’ve heard more swears from Klopp than I’ve heard anywhere else in England.”

“–okay, a lot of a sailormouth, and Jonas doesn’t seem to swear very much.”

“Thank goodness for the children’s sake,” Adrian pointed out, still covering Grace’s tiny ears. “My fingers are getting numb.”

Finally impositor-Klopp decided to sit down, as did the real one. And when it was time for the day’s announcements, the Liverpudlians noticed yet another difference.

“Alright, boys! Our next friendly is on Thursday, so take today to rest and recuperate. Diogo and Ox, you wil be spending one hour with the physios for rehab, and then you’re free for the rest of the day. We will be stopping back in Kirkby before heading to Austria, so prepare to go home.”

“Kirkby!” Florrie cheered, accidentally dropping her fork with excitement. “Oops.”

The real Klopp rolled his eyes in amusement before going on. “We will meet back up here for lunch. Please stay away from any football highlights, football news or football players except ourselves and former players of ours, and especially stay away from Bruno.”

“Whaaa…”

“Just kidding, everybody can talk about Bruno as much as they want! Just don’t start singing it. Us staff will go insane if we hear that song one more time!”

“Then why were you guys singing it this morning while tidying the office?” Henderson couldn’t help but point out.

The real Klopp shrugged. “Well, we were complaining about it…”

“ Please don’t start singing Bruno, no no no !” Lijnders scolded thin air as he swept the office. “ Please don’t start singing Bruno! But! It was her wedding day! ”

“ It was their wedding day !” Klopp chimed in, pointing to a picture of Vera and Kanchana on their wedding day, beaming even though their pistachio green dresses were covered in colorful powder.

“ Bruno started playing and we’re reading the vows to the brides! ” Lijnders went on.

“ Stuck in our heads ‘til we die!”

“The song it plays in our head, not again!”

“Again!”

“It’s become the soundtrack of my life!” Lijnders moaned.

“ You will be cursed by this song…”

“Bruno plays inside your brain–”

“Musical tapeworm!”

“Until you’re going so insane!”

“I’m singing it in the shower!”

“Crap, we’re singing it again!”

“Mind your language please, there are children!” Klopp warned, pointing to a sleepy Florrie approaching.

The two quickly finished their song. “Please don’t start singing Bruno, no no no! Please don’t start singing Brunoooo!!!”

“Complaining?” The impositor Klopp laughed, putting back on his blue hat. “It sounds like some botched Broadway parody! And Andrew?” He pointed to Robertson, who was currently stuffing his face with oatmeal. “You could afford to eat neatly once in a while.”

The Scot frowned, pushing away his bowl, and that was when the real Klopp saw…well, you know what color he saw.

“Jonas, that was totally unnecessary!” he scolded the impositor version of himself, brandishing his ashwood bat. “He was eating perfectly neatly and it was a healthy portion!”

“I was advising him on his manners!”

“Maybe you could afford some!”

“These are the things that make me bang my head on Oscar’s can!”

“These are the things that cause anorexia!”

Both Klopps went on arguing for the rest of breakfast. By the end, they were the only ones at the table.

“The sooner I get Jonas out of here, the better,” Klopp muttered to himself as he paced the office. “He and I look exactly alike except for our different hats, but he’s…so different. He’ll ruin the whole squad!”

“Whoo…” Ludger hooted, as if to say “you should have more trust in your twin, Jurgen”.

“No Ludger, I have to get him out of here. But how?” Klopp stared at the newest squad picture on the wall. There was him, the real Klopp, right there, holding Florrie with Ludger perched on his shoulder. “He does not exist in this world. So he’s from another world, or somebody’s playing a really convincing trick on me.”

“Whoooo!”

“Yeah, Ludger, who? Who could be trying to ruin our sacred Liverpool empire out of sheer jealousy, fear or obsessive United support? Who, I say, who?”

“Um, boss?”

Klopp paused his ranting. Milner was standing in front of him, holding up something. A gray wig.

“I think we found the impositor’s identity.”

“Who did?”

The last part seemed to slow down time to a grinding halt. “Bobby.”

Milner had pulled Klopp out of his office, all the way to the assembly hall. He pulled the door open, to reveal Alisson bound up in a chair.

“WHAT?!” Klopp whipped out his pocket knife, preparing to untie Alisson. “Why is Ali tied up? Why haven’t you done anything, Milly?”

“HIS KID! HIS KID!” Robertson chanted from outside the door, holding up a banner that read, Alisson is the Gaffer’s Kid!

“Hendo and I began getting suspicious after breakfast,” Milner explained. “We knew that you don’t have a twin. You don’t even have a brother. So it had to be a prank.”

“What if it was…magic?” Klopp didn’t like that implication. “I mean, would somebody walk around pretending to be my twin? I hardly see it coming.”

Henderson came in, hiding something behind his back. He nodded at Klopp and took a seat near the wall.

“At first, we thought that it was Guardiola or Neville, one of them trying to mess up the team’s bond,” the skipper continued. “Then Bobby mentioned how he hadn’t seen Alisson since before breakfast.”

“We linked everything up.” Milner held up the wig. “Bobby told us you’d woken up on the wrong side of the bed earlier, and how Ali never misses a meal. And so we wnt into Ali’s room–and found him taking off the same gray wig that ‘Jonas’ was wearing–and with the same blue cap on his bed.”

“And we Nab-y-ed ‘im!” Henderson finished, holding up a rope.

“Wait, hold on!” Klopp signalled a time-out, pointing to Alisson. “So he’s Jonas?!”

“It was just supposed to be a joke, boss!” Alisson protested, still trying to escape the ropes. “I just thought you needed a laugh. I didn’t think you’d get this mad!”

“Well, think about it!” Milner snapped back. “Because he was mad!”

“Mad? No!” Klopp shook his head, beginning to cut the ropes binding Alisson’ feet to the chair. “I just thought it was sabotage! If I knew one of you was just playing a joke, I would go on with it!”

“You want me to go on with it?” Alisson asked, surprised at his boss’s response. “But…you know now! What’s the point of keeping up, anyways? I mean, no offense to you, but,” the keeper chuckled, “pretending to be your super-annoying, thorn-in-your-side twin brother isn’t exactly how I want to spend the rest of my summer.”

“Well, how about this, Ali?” Klopp finished freeing Alisson, pulling him up to a stand. “You, Milly, Hendo, Bobby and I know, but the rest of the team doesn’t. How about we extend ‘July Fools’ Day’ for a while?”

Alisson grinned. “I’d like that very much, bro.”

At training that day, Alisson was still missing. Who was still there was…Jonas Klopp.

“You are SO annoying!” Jurgen Klopp groaned as his “twin” managed to make it through the hurdles without tripping. “How come I got all the clumsy genes?”

“You think that’s bad?” Jonas Klopp shot back, approaching his “brother”. “You got all the social genes!”

“Gene hog!”

“Gene bull!”

“Is that even a term?!”

“Honestly, stop fighting!” Lijnders chastised them, walking past with a clipboard in his hands. “You two fight like Kilkenny cats!”

“Okay,” Jurgen Klopp muttered, before dragging the other away into the office. “We’ll sort it out inside my office.”

They barely managed to get inside the office with straight faces. As soon as Klopp pushed up the door, he and Alisson burst into laughter.

“They’ll never know!” Alisson sighed, finally collapsing into a seat as he took off his wig. “Will they, boss?”

“Our secret is safe with me as long as you like,” Klopp assured the Brazilian. He took a seat as well, still amused from the practical joke. “But what will we say?”

“Say when?”

“When you have to come back to training.”

Chapter 8: A Thai Barbeque

Summary:

The Liverpool players host a farewell barbeque for some of their outgoing players. Things get complicated, though, when Bobby falls for a Thai dancer in the day market.

Notes:

OC list:
*Florrie Nemmer: Mona Nemmer's adopted daughter.
*Kairo Nemmer: Mona Nemmer's adopted son.
*The O'Haras:
--Chelsea O'Hara: medic/Robert's wife
--Robert O'Hara: medic/Chelsea's husband
--Henrietta and Grace O'Hara: Robert and Chelsea's adopted daughters
--Ellie O'Hara: Robert and Chelsea's biological daughter
*Vera Rakotomalala: medic
*Kanchana Khemson: Thai dancer/florist and Vera's girlfriend

Chapter Text

Dear Diary:

It’s me, Pep Lijnders, starting with the first day of this travel diary. We just got to Bangkok, and we’ll be setting up shop here before flying back to Kirkby for the first training session there in a month. Unfortunately, Kirkby is going to feel really empty without Sadio, Divvy and Taki. But at least we got to make their farewell into something positive, thanks to Hendo and the others…

When news came around that Minamino was leaving as well as Origi and Mane, the Liverpudlians decided to throw a barbeque as a farewell party. But when they brought the idea to Klopp, he was rather skeptical about the whole thing.

“A farewell barbeque?” Klopp shook his head, setting down a stack of Lijnders’ diaries. “Now that’s a new idea.”

“We were thinking that we could make this whole thing a party instead of something sad,” Robertson piped up. “This way Sadio and Takumi and Divvy won’t feel too bad about leaving.”

“Yeah, I get why you’re doing that,” Klopp pointed out. “I’m just wondering about the logistics. For example, who’s going to cook? Mona? Because I gave her a summer break from cooking for the whole team.”

“I thought me and the Brazilians could cook,” said Thiago, stepping up. He wore a Hawaaian-print shirt and held a pair of grilling tongs in hand. “And some of us will decorate, and it’ll all be a surprise!”

“But Sadio’s already in Germany,” Lijnders called out from the shelves. “How will we get him here in Thailand?”

“And that’s another problem,” Klopp went on. “How are we supposed to get the grilling stuff in Bangkok?”

“It’s easy!” Henderson pointed out. “Some of us will go shopping, some of us will decorate, and you can take Divvy and Takumi to Germany with you to pick up Sadio!”

“The round trip is 21 hours,” Klopp groaned. “We just got here!”

“Actually,” Lijnders interrupted, “that doesn’t sound so bad. I can fly the plane, and Hendo and Kostas can come too. We can alternate flying the plane and bring Sadio here! And Takumi and Divvy will have no idea!”

Klopp frowned, thinking it over. After a while, he got up from the bed and nodded.

“Let’s do it, boys! Liverpool Farewell Cookout, Thai Style!”

“So exactly what are we shopping for again?” Firmino wondered aloud the next day. While Klopp, Lijnders, Henderson, Tsimikas, Origi and Minamino had left at six o’clock the previous day to get Mane from Munich, Firmino, Alisson, Fabinho, Thiago, Adrian, Salah, Milner, Diaz and Elliott had taken the team bus to one of Bangkok’s day markets.

“Well, the obvious grilling stuff, duh,” Fabinho answered him. “Meat, vegetables, some desserts…”

“Wait a minute.” Alisson picked up a tomato, inspecting it for bruises. “I thought people didn’t eat beef in Thailand. You know, for religious reasons?”

“That’s in India,” Adrian corrected him. “And that’s because a large population in India is Hindu. Here in Thailand, the major religion is Buddhism. And while it’s true that some Buddhists don’t eat meat, a lot of Thais eat and sell meat and meat products.” He pointed to the tomatoes, asking the seller in Thai, “How much baht?”

“Since when did you speak Thai, Adrian?” Diaz yelped. “I’ve never heard you speak anything but Spanish and English.”

“I’ve been doing my homework,” Adrian smirked as he handed some banknotes to the woman. “When I heard we’d have preseason in Thaliand, I thought, ‘I’ll learn some Thai!’ It’ll be useful.” He turned to Diaz with interest. “Do you know any Thai?”

“Hombre, I barely know English!” Diaz laughed. He prodded Elliott’s shoulder until he caught his attention. “Adrian just asked me if I know Thai!”

Diaz and Elliott roared with laughter.

“Quit teasing Adrian, lads,” Milner commanded, stern as ever. “He’s our only hope of communication here. Unless any of you guys know Thai.” He turned to the others, hands on his hips. “Do you?”

Alisson, Fabinho, Salah and Thiago all shook their heads no. Firmino was about to say no, but the words never came out. Everything became a blur as the Brazilian grew starry eyed.

There, in the center of the market, was a Thai dance troupe. And Firmino had his eyes on the lead dancer.

“Bobby?” Alisson shook his friend’s shoulder, rather panicked at how unresponsive his friend seemed to be. “Are you okay? Come on, we have to go get the meat.”

“Ela é tão bonitaaa…” Firmino dreamily sighed, as if suddenly transported to paradise. “She’s like a summer breeze…”

“SHE?!” Alisson couldn’t help but yell. “Who is she?”

“Her!” Firmino dragged Alisson over to the crowd, pointing at the lead dancer. “She’s the sunrise and sunset all in one!”

Alisson couldn’t argue, the dancer was pretty. Her face was round like a full moon, and her dark eyes shone as bright as a fire. Her hair was piled up inside an elaborate golden headdress in the shape of a temple, and she danced as elegantly and gracefully as the silk costume she wore.

“She is pretty, Bobby,” Alisson admitted. “They all are. But we really have to get going so we can have time to set up.”

But Firmino had been successfully charmed by the dancer, calling out “Eu te amo bebê!” and throwing flowers, and Alisson groaned; they were losing time.

“Come on, Bobby, we really need to get going!” Alisson insisted, trying to pull him away.

“No--Ali, no!” Firmino protested, trying to break loose. “I need to talk to her!”

“No, you don’t!” Alisson finally lost his patience, snapping at Firmino. “You don’t need to talk to her! What you need to do is hurry up and help us prepare for our farewell barbeque!”

“I don’t care about the barbeque!” Firmino yelled, finally ripping his hand away from Alisson. “I care about her! I’ll be back for the barbecue, I promise. But I need to talk to minha madrugada!”

And with that, he sprinted away, leaving Alisson by himself.

“K̄hx neụ̄̂x 18.5 Pxnd̒ khrạb,” Adrian said to the butcher. He turned to the others. “I just told him I’d like 18.5 pounds of beef. Are we using barbeque sauce or not, Thiago?”

“I think I collected all the spices and sauces we need,” Thiago replied, pointing to the canvas tote he carried. “But where’s Ali? I thought we agreed he’d be in charge of the decor.”

As soon as Thiago had said that, a shout pierced the air.

“Esperem, rapazes!” Alisson sprinted up, panting. He had clearly been running for a long time. “Let’s get those decorations.”

“Where’s Bobby?” Salah asked, pointing to the empty space near Alisson. “Wasn’t he with you?”

But instead of the usual smile or brief explanation when his friend was mentioned, Alisson simply scowled, walking on.

“Ali?” Salah grasped the keeper’s shoulder, trying to gain his attention. “I don’t know if you heard me, but I was asking where Bobby--”

“Please.” Alisson blew out his cheeks, pace quickening as he tried to escape. “Do not mention Bobby.”

“Wait, why?” Salah tried to understand, but it was hard when Alisson was being so cryptic. “Why not mention Bobby?”

“Well…” Fabinho had seen a little of what had happened earlier, and felt it was his duty to explain. “If Bobby sees a pretty lady, then boom, bam, shazam! Off he--”

He never got to finish his sentence, though. Because Alisson pushed Salah and Fabinho apart, hands on his hips as he sang.

“Please do not mention Bobby, no no no! Please do not mention Bobby! But! It was a summer’s day--”

“It was a summer’s day--” Fabinho joined in, encouraged that Alisson was beginning to explain what had happened.

Alisson ignored him, continuing to sing. “We were going shopping and there wasn’t a problem around!”

“Nothing to worry about!” Fabinho grinned.

“Bobby walks in with an enamoured grin!”

“Lovestruck!” Fabinho interjected.

Alisson crossed his arms, irritated. “You telling this story or am I?!”

“I’m sorry, Alisson, go on.” Fabinho just smiled, hugging Alisson, which immediately cured his annoyance. The keeper continued singing as Fabinho added his own effects.

“Bobby spots a dancer fair! (Why didn’t he tell us?) Jewels in her raven hair! (It’s time to get the umbrellas!) Face like one dozen full moons!”

Fabinho frowned as he danced. “She makes Roberto swoon, I think you see!”

The two sang together now, dancing around Salah, whisking him away. “Please do not mention Bobby, no, no, no! Please do not mention Bobby!”

In a swoosh of fabric, Salah got separated from Fabinho. Now he was alone with Alisson in a back alley, and the Brazilian was still singing.

“Hey! Grew to live in fear of Bobby stumbling and swooning, it was always just a sign he’d soon be mooning! I associate it with the sound of clapping hands!”

As if Salah had no idea what clapping was, Alisson clapped three times, pulling Salah around the alleyway, darting people.

“I always admit, it’s a heavy duty, seeing pretty ladies with an eye for beauty, grappling with passions that his heart couldn’t understand!” Alisson posed dramatically on top of a food cart, staring Salah down. “Do you understand??”

All of a sudden, Fabinho pulled him into an even darker alley, switching between different Thai face masks as he sang.

“Almost six feet, nine upon his back, when she calls his name, it all fades to black! Yes, he lives on dreams and they feast on his screams!”

“Please do not mention Bobby, no no no! Please do not mention Bobby!” the two sang. Salah finally seized his chance to run out of the alley, but as soon as he got back into the main street, his teammates came up to him, one by one.

“He once loved a Spanish girl, his heart had broke!” Adrian sang, miming a broken heart with his hands.

“No, no!” Elliott and Diaz sang in the background.

“A geisha had stole his heart, the next day he choked!” Milner recounted, facepalming.

“He found a pretty girl in Tennessee, it went up in smoke!” Thiago sang, lighting a match.

They all crowded around a confused Salah, singing. “When he’s in love, his brain turns into a joke!”

Alisson came floating down on a sign, singing. The irony, besides the fact that the cardboard sign was holding up his weight, was that the workmen didn’t even seem to mind Alisson sitting on their sign.

“Bobby’s heart is a wonderful thing, full of passion and dreams and desires! But the wrong people see this too soon, and his well-being is on the wire!”

“Hey, look, Roberto’s on his waaaay…” Elliott warned them, pointing to Firmino shuffling towards them in the distance. Unfortunately, nobody took him seriously.

“Every girl that he has feelings for, turns away from his face, and goes to another!” Fabinho explained in more detail. “It’s like I see him now…”

“Yeah, he’s coming now!” Elliott shouted.

“It’s like I can see him now!” Fabinho sang, ignoring Elliott. “I can see him now!”

“Um, Bobby,” Elliott sang, deciding to join in. “Yeah, about that Bobby! He’s coming towards us at this moment! So run away, keep away from Bobby!”

“Come on people, let’s get this done!” Milner ordered.

“Finish shopping!” they all replied, rushing off. And while they sang and twirled around, tossing decorations and things into the cart, Salah watched on, more than confused at everything.

Hours later, everybody was at the barbeque. The plane still hadn’t arrived yet, but Thiago had fired up the grill, the kids were playing in the sprinklers, and Tsimikas was mixing the sound--with the Scots.

“Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul! I want to get lost in your rock 'n' roll! And drift away…”

Everybody was enjoying the barbecue…except the three Brazilians. Because apparently…

“Alright.” Fabinho inhaled, trying to get the details straight for the fourth time. “So you went up to talk to the dancer--”

“Kanchana,” Firmino sighed, failing to notice that Alisson had placed a plate of brigadeiros next to him. “Her name literally means golden!”

Fabinho rolled his eyes. If it was any other situation he would be more than happy to comfort his friend, but this was getting ridiculous. “And then you said how beautiful she was and how much you’d love to get to know her, and then Kanchana said--”

“That she already had someone she was seeing.” Alisson stuffed a brigadeiro into his mouth, shaking his head. “We’ve heard this four times, Bobby. So what if she’s already dating somebody? There are billions of other people out there. And it’s like I’ve told you since we met on Brazil duty in 2015. There’s a special someone for everyone.”

“You hopeless romantic,” Firmino remarked. He sighed again, picking at his own fudge. “But you don’t understand. She doesn’t even know me for two minutes and she already says that she’s dating somebody else?!”

“Because you asked her if she was dating someone else within the first two minutes!” Alisson shook his head, tossing a look at Fabinho. “He’s hopeless. We better wait until something else comes and distracts him.”

“Yeah,” Fabinho agreed. “Like maybe the boss coming when he was PLANNED TO!”

“Speaking of which,” Milner interrupted them, holding up his phone. “The boss said that he’s coming soon. They had to make a brief detour to pick up somebody,” he finger-spelled D-E-J-A-N, “but they’ll be back by the organized time.”

A nearby squalling interrupted the conversation. Baby Ellie, who’d been moody the whole afternoon, had begun crying again, and her parents were at their wit’s end trying to soothe the infant.

“Shhhh…it’s okay,” Chelsea bounced Ellie up and down, but to no avail. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

“Maybe her ears hurt,” Robert suggested, gently stroking Ellie’s ears. She kept on wailing, flailing her tiny legs.

“Chelsea.” In an instant, Milner was by the medic’s side. “Here, let me try.”

Chelsea obliged, handing the squalling infant to Milner. Apparently, Ellie disagreed with her mom, because she just cried louder as soon as he touched her. Milner shook his head and handed her to Adrian, who happened to be standing by. He bounced Ellie up and down, and seeing that it wasn’t working, began to sing.

“Arroro mi niño, arrorró mi sol, arrorró pedazo, de mi corazón. Este niño lindo, ya quiere dormir; háganle la cuna, de rosa y jazmín.”

Surprisingly, the lullaby worked like magic. Ellie’s squalls slowly faded to sniffles, watching Adrian with wide eyes.

“Wanted a song, didn’t you?” Adrian smiled, tickling Ellie’s round little belly. “Oh, yes you did!”

“Enough!” Chelsea opened up her arms, glancing from Ellie to Adrian and back again. “My daughter, please.”

“Fine.” Adrian handed Chelsea Ellie, who was giggling with her foot in her mouth. The peace only lasted for two minutes, though--because soon a rumbling and roaring filled the air.

“What IS that?!” Chelsea shrieked, as Ellie began squalling again. “It sounds like the world’s erupting.”

“Not that,” Milner yelled over the noise. He pointed to the giant shape in the sky. “The boss is back!”

In about ten minutes, a knock came at the door. Upon seeing who it was, Robertson almost knocked him down.

“Sadio!” Robertson cheered, flattening him in the entrance. “You WERE LYING, MATE!!!”

Mane rolled his eyes. “No Robbo, I’m serious. I’m leaving. But apparently the boss couldn’t stand forty-eight hours without me and--wait, WHY are we having a barbeque?!”

“Surprise!” Klopp yelled before anybody else could. “It was the boys’ idea. And honestly, I think it was a good one.”

Mane shook his head, smirking. “Keep the crap up, everybody.”

“Don’t worry, Sadio,” Klopp confirmed. The two fist-bumped. “We will.”

“You guys, language!” Henderson scolded them, pointing to Ellie. “Do you not see a baby right there?!”

Chapter 9: A Long Week: Part 1

Chapter Text

Dear Diary:

It’s me, Pep Lijnders. Today almost everybody (including me) was sightseeing in Thailand. It’s the final few days before our preseason officially begins, and so Joel and Virg decided to take advantage of it. But if Jurgen’s retelling of it is anything to go by, it wasn’t pretty or safe at ALL…

The countdown to Liverpool’s first day training at Kirkby had started, and that meant vacation time in Bangkok was drawing to a close. And for Matip and Van Dijk, that meant–

“Sightseeing time!” Matip cheered, tossing a camera into a canvas tote. “What’s today’s plans, Virg?”

“I was thinking we could explore Bangkok’s sights in the city,” Van Dijk replied. He frowned, fussing over the microinch of his face that didn’t have sunscreen on it.

“Sights? In the city?” Matip frowned, zipping the tote closed. “Virgil Van Dijk, what are you talking about?!”

“Well, there’s the Grand Palace, Wat Arun, Chatuchak Weekend Market…” Van Dijk explained, holding up two shirts in the mirror. “Joel, which one makes me look less like a tourist? The deep blue, fitted Ralph Lauren polo? Or the red and brown, flannel, plaid Gucci polo?”

“Virgil!” Matip rolled his eyes, hands on his hips. “Why are you constantly dressing like some lean, handsome supermodel–in name brands, for Christ’s sake? For a three-hour hike, all you need is a T-shirt!”

“Yeah–wait, what?”

“Pracha Chuen Forest Park, that’s what!” Matip tossed Van Dijk a brochure. “Palm trees, sun, animals? You got me there. A real adventure for Adventurer Joel!”

“I’m for the city, man.” Van Dijk pointed to their squad picture. “Being on this team is adventure enough! I need to relax!”

“Relax?! Among tuk-tuks and motorcycles on crowded avenues? No way, Jose Mourinho!”

“City!”

“Forest!”

“City!”

“Forest!”

“Manchester City!”

“Nottingham Forest!”

“Boys! What is going on?”

Van Dijk and Matip froze. There, in front of the open door, stood Klopp.

“Virg being a city boy, is what’s going on!” Matip huffed. “The dude can’t even take a cubic inch of dirt in his hands!”

“Are you serious? I literally went camping and fishing with Sadio!”

“Sadio’s the only person that can move your butt off your stupid Wenger Swivel chair!”

“And I’m going to spend my precious vacation time romping about in a stupid forest?”

“We can ride elephants!”

“I don’t even want to be near a bear, much less an elephant!”

“And you’re literally glued to Ali like he’s your Siamese twin? Come on, you Dutch ‘diva’!”

“Stay in your stupid forest with your stupid elephants, you Cameroonian ‘coward’!”

“I actually man-mark people!”

“No you don’t! You’re a little skinny twig who keeps bothering Hendo!”

“Well, do you know how much excess work you give Ali?!”

“If Ali were here, he would have given me a hug by now.”

“Ali ALWAYS gives out hugs! It’s like breathing to him!”

“You’re going to go bash my favorite Brazilian of all time?”

“BOYS, ENOUGH!” Klopp signalled a time-out. “We have plenty of time before flying back to Kirkby! We can do both!”

“There is no ‘we’ in this!” Van Dijk snapped. “You are not involved in this Joel! Never were and never will!”

“Will you shut up?!”

Van Dijk didn’t seem to agree, but promptly shut his mouth.

“If we keep arguing, we’ll never get anywhere.” Matip held up a photo from the year before. “We only have a few days left before we go back to England. Let’s use them wisely.”

“You know what, Joel?” Van Dijk pocketed the photograph, sighing. “You’re right.”

“That went surprisingly well,” Klopp whispered to Matip, who nodded in agreement.

Van Dijk nodded again, as if to himself. “We’ll just go our separate ways today.”

Matip almost choked on his smoothie.

“You’ll explore the forest, and I’ll explore the city,” Van Dijk explained, plonking an explorer hat on Matip’s almost-bald head. “Don’t let me hold you up. Go ahead!” With that, he headed out the door, leaving a dumbfounded Matip and Klopp in his stead.

“I can’t believe it…” Matip was the first one to speak, shaking his head so hard that the bucket hat fell off his head. “Virgil and I always sightsee together! We’ve been doing it ever since the first year we’ve been together!”

Klopp wished he could say something. But there was nothing to say to him–and even if there was, Matip left before anything could be done.

“Joel doesn’t know what he’s missing,” Van Dijk muttered to himself. “This is great!”

Perched upon a plastic tuk-tuk seat, the Bangkok streets whizzed by him. And not the pristine, polished Bangkok Expedia advertised to potential travellers. The real Bangkok.

“It’s so vibrant, Somchai,” Van Dijk told the driver, who thankfully didn’t recognize him. “Soi 3 is really beautiful.”

The driver, Somchai, who spoke English as well as Thai, whipped his head around, astonishment written all over him. “You really think so? These are the…trashier parts of the city.”

Van Dijk peeked out the window again. They had left Soi 3 and now were driving through a run-down slum.

“It’s unique,” Van Dijk said, waving back at some children. “Every place in the world is unique, special, and means something to someone. There’s no slum like this one.”

“Oh, I’ve never heard wiser words about slums! Have you traveled a lot before, Virgil?” Somchai asked, his eyes returning to the road.

“Um…a little.” Van Dijk chose his words, careful not to drop any hints that he wasn’t a random tourist and in fact, a Liverpool player. “I went to Austria last year, and Villareal and Madrid in Spain. Lisbon, Milan, Porto,” he frowned, “Paris…”

“Wow, that’s a lot of travelling!” Thankfully, Somchai didn’t seem to suspect anything. “You travel a lot for work?”

“Uh…yes. My job does require a lot of travelling. Thankfully,” Van Dijk chuckled, “I’ll be able to tell my grandkids all about the traveling their grandpa did!”

Somchai laughed, a gold tooth glinting in the sunlight. “Virgil, my wish is to be as fit as you someday. How do you manage, with all that commuting?”

“Er…”

“Your body is so fit, but lean. You have the physique of a footballer!” the driver exclaimed, grinning again. “A tall, slim defender’s body.”

“You watch football, Somchai?”

“My father is an Arsenal fan!” Somchai pointed to Van Dijk. “And you, my friend, are Virgil Van Dijk of Liverpool F.C.!”

“Please don’t tell,” Van Dijk begged. He wasn’t ready for his breezy sightseeing day to turn into a major fan event.

“Don’t worry,” Somchai assured him. “I will never tell a soul. Okay, maybe my father, but no other soul.”

Van Dijk relaxed, settling back into his chair. “You’re a decent man, Somchai.”

“Come on, man! I thought you were going to say nice!” Somchai grinned, his gold tooth sparkling again. Before Van Dijk could say anything back, though, a pop broke the good atmosphere.

“Um…Somchai?” Van Dijk hesitated to address the elephant in the room. “What’s going on?”

Somchai hopped out of the tuk-tuk, crawling around the truck. Finally, his weather-beaten head popped back up in Van Dijk’s window. But instead of his gold smile, his mouth was twisted into a frown.

“We’re out of gas, the fuel pipe’s busted, and two of our tires are flat.”

Van Dijk opened his mouth to ask if they could fix it, but shut it when he realized where they were. Trees, mud and insects.

The DAMN FOREST.

“WHAT.”

“THE.”

“CRAP!” The two finished swearing together.

Meanwhile, in the Pracha Chuen Forest Park, Matip had just grabbed his brochure from the visitor center and was on his way, hiking on the longest, most dangerous trail he could find on the map.

“Hey Thailand, do you know how I roll? Ooh, baby, it’s Adventurer Joel! Runs up to the opponent’s goal! Ooh, baby, it’s Adventurer Joel! Bonking Hendo like a lump of coal–ooh, a great hornbill!”

Matip chased after the bird, not minding that he’d strayed off the trail. He ran after it for a long while, darting between trees and bushes.

“Come on!” he groaned as the bird flew into the crowns of a particularly tall banyan tree. “What’s the point of you landing when I can’t see you, you idiot? You moron!”

A low grumble from the distance quickly snapped him out of his thoughts. He parted the bushes to reveal something he thought he’d never get to see in his life.

In a giant mud wallow, there stood a whole herd of Asian elephant moms and their babies.

“Whoa…” Matip was without words as a particularly curious calf galloped over to him, trumpeting in glee. Some mud splashed onto his explorer outfit, but he didn’t mind.

“Hey, there!” he whispered, wiping the mud off his face. “You’re definitely a curious baby elephant, huh? I mean, I’m a human and you’re a–oh, whatever. You already know who you are.”

The elephant calf raised its trunk and wrapped it around Matip’s arm. Matip himself initially flinched in surprise, but soon decided that the calf’s trunk wasn’t too bad, wrapped around him like that.

“You’re friendly, aren’t you?” Matip then got an idea. He scooped some mud from the edge of the mud wallow, made it into a ball, and hurled it at the calf. It seemed surprised, but then lowered its eyebrows–could an elephant lower its eyebrows?– and shot about three mud balls back.

“Oh, so you want to play hardball, eh?” Matip smirked, packing another mudball. “Well, then. Two can play that game!”

They played mud-ball for quite a while. It turned out that the calf was surprisingly agile (for an elephant, anyways), darting back and forth and spraying mud everywhere. Matip was beginning to think that preseason had started, with elephantine success, when a single word echoed through the forest. Three words, actually.

“WHAT. THE. CRAP!”

From there on, time seemed to blur. Matip, knowing that Van Dijk had flat-out refused to go to the jungle and almost never swore, instantly knew something was wrong. He’d taken off from the mud wallow as fast as he could, only to realize that the same baby elephant from before was still following him, shooting mudballs.

“You just won’t quit, will you?” Matip screeched, vine-swinging across a stream. “Look, my homefry Virg’s in deep trouble. Mind helping me a little?”

Surprisingly, the calf seemed to listen. It stopped shooting mudballs, lowered its trunk, and waded across the stream.

“Good boy!” Matip praised it, tying a vine around its neck. “Let’s go!”

They found a tuk-tuk in the middle of mud and bushes, with two tires missing and the window shattered. Staring out the window was–his homefry.

“Virg!!” Matip swung over to him on a vine, grinning like an idiot. “You came to the jungle! I told you nature has its appeal–”

“Shut up.” Van Dijk scowled, pointing to the mud. “There’s so much mud and dirt and grass everywhere. My Ralph Lauren is ruined!”

“No, you shut up, city boy!” Matip exclaimed. “You’re a damn footballer! You play in mud and dirt and grass. All. The. Time! So get out of that tuk-tuk and help–”

“Somchai.” Van Dijk pointed to the Thai, who was wrapping leaves around the fuel pump. “He’s a good guy.”

“We’re busted,” Somchai reported. “We’re parked. Tomorrow’s a holiday, so we’re staying here…for about two days.”

“TWO DAYS?!” Even Matip disagreed with this as he approached the tuk-tuk driver. “Come on, Somchai. Is there any other way we can travel back home?”

“Well…we can try to walk.” Somchai stroked his chin and frowned. “But that will take too long.”

“What about an elephant?” Van Dijk suggested, much to Matip’s surprise. The Dutchman was never a big fan of animals besides red pandas. “Can’t we ride one?”

“Yes, I’m a former mahout. But I can’t ride a baby elephant like that one.” Somchai patted the elephant calf’s trunk. “We need a full-sized elephant.”

A low rumble filled the air. The bushes parted, only for a gray, slim trunk to push aside the tree. A grown elephant followed, caressing the calf with its trunk.

“It’s the calf’s mom!” Matip announced as if it was novel news.

“Can we ride an elephant cow?” Van Dijk asked Somchai. The man pursed his lips, carefully approaching the mother elephant. After stroking her trunk and feeling her underside, he nodded.

“If I can mount her carefully without balking, I think we’ll be fine.” Somchai motioned to a random tree. “Hand me those mango leaves, will you Joel? We need to lure her down to the ground, then I have to carefully convince her I’m not an enemy…”

“Where are Virgil and Joel?! It’s taking them ages!” Klopp paced the area of the conference room for the thirteenth time. “It never takes them this long–it’s nine thirty!”

“There you go again in ‘overprotective dad mode’,” Kornmayer chided him, feeding Ludger a wiener. “I’m sure they’re fine. Probably decided to enjoy a night market.”

“But we’re in a capital city!” Klopp objected. “Anything can happen. What if they got robbed, or assaulted! Or what if they found a bar and…”

“Jurgen, they’re grown men!” Taffarel laughed. “They’ll turn up eventually.”

As if to prove him right, the doorbell rang at that instant. Klopp pushed it open to see not one, not two, but three filthy, mud-covered men at the door. Two of which he recognized as his very own.

“Virgil! Joel! What happened?!”

“He’s in Overprotective Dad Mode again,” Kornmayer apologized. Klopp karate-kicked him out of the door frame before pulling Matip and Van Dijk in. Somchai sheepishly followed.

“Where in the world were you two?!” Klopp went on. “Why are you so muddy? Virgil, is that a bruise? And who IS that?” He pointed to Somchai, who quickly bowed in greeting.

“Sorry, boss.” As the smooth Dutch centerback, Van Dijk found it his duty to take matters into his own hands. “Me and Somchai were driving and our tuk-tuk broke down in the middle of the jungle. Then we ran into Joel and an elephant mom and baby.”

“Okay, now for the elephant in the room. Not those ones,” Klopp quickly elaborated. The German had slightly paled upon seeing a giant mother elephant in the hotel lobby with her baby. “What the CRAP were you doing in the jungle, Virgil? I thought you said you hated that thing!”

“Well…” Somchai spoke up for the first time since entering, shaking the mud off his hat. “Me and Virg were talking, and we accidentally took a…little detour.”

“We were stranded,” Van Dijk interrupted. He wiped some mud off his shirt, long forgotten. “But Joel and his elephants saved the day.”

“HIS ELEPHANTS?!”

“Come on, boss!” Matip grabbed a mango off the reception desk and lured the mother closer. “Boss, this is Pranee and her baby, Kamon. Mother and baby, this is Klopp, my boss. He has a little in common with you two.”

“A little in common?!” Van Dijk chuckled.

“Well, they’re both gray, wrinkled, fat–”

“Alright, and that’s quite enough!” Klopp quickly jumped in, stepping back when the baby tried to “hug” him with its trunk. “You two stay out of trouble, okay? And Joel, before you ask, we are not bringing these two to Kirkby! We already have enough elephants in the room over there!”

“Wait, you keep live elephants over there?” Somchai frowned, confused. “I thought you played football…”

“Well…it was nice meeting you, Somchai! And no offense, but…I have some paperwork to do that can’t wait!”

And with that, he sprinted towards the elevator, faster than Matip or Van Dijk had ever seen him.

“Well, that went well,” Matip concluded, stroking Pranee’s trunk. “The boss didn’t ground us.”

“Only because of the elephants,” Van Dijk reminded him, feeding Kamon a passionfruit. “Did you see how he ran? I’ve never seen the boss go that fast. Do you think…”

“No way.” Matip shook his head so furiously that it almost flew off. “Never! The boss laughs in the face of Guardiola, how can elephants scare him?”

“Well, they’re bigger than him.”

“So am I, should he be scared of me?”

“I’m already scared of your brain, Joel.”

“Me too.” Matip grinned, dusting off his hands. “Let’s do this again next year!”

“And get grounded by Klopp?”

Matip shrugged. “Yeah!”

Van Dijk smirked, high-fiving Matip. “Let’s do it.”

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Part 1 of Life in Kirkby: 2022/23 Next Work →

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RoaringRaptor on Chapter 9 Tue 16 Jan 2024 02:55AM UTC

I did not expect to see an Encanto reference in here.
LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOO THERE IS ONE.
GLORY GLORY MAN UNITED
(Also imagine not beating Chelsea, Luton Town, and Man United. We're just better.)

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Pre-Season

LFCAndalusia23

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Chapter 1: A Long Week: Part 1

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Chapter 2: A Long Week: Part 2

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Chapter 3: The One With the United Plane-Pool

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Chapter 4: Happy Anniversary

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Chapter 5: The Theory of Evolution

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Chapter 6: I'll Protect You

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Chapter 7: Jurgen Klopp and The Impositor

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Chapter 8: A Thai Barbeque

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Chapter 9: A Long Week: Part 1

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RoaringRaptor on Chapter 9 Tue 16 Jan 2024 02:55AM UTC

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