"Oye, Karim, wait up!" Isco called after the forward during training.

Karim walked on albeit a bit quicker than before.

Isco ran after him, "Dude, I've been calling you?"

Karim stopped and looked at him, "What's up?"

Isco gave him a look, "What's up? You know what's up? Jese told me you didn't meet Shaheen. What happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it," the Frenchman muttered and made to walk away.

Isco frowned and halted him by the elbow, "Tell me, Karim. What happened? I want to help my ship, I mean, I want to help you."

"She didn't turn up."

The Spaniard stepped back, "You're lying. I know you are. I mean, its Shaheen. She spends all her time making you smile at your phone and she didn't turn up? What the hell did you do to hashtag sharim? Did you sink it? Because I swear, I'm not letting you go if you did anything to my OTP. I sent Jese to help you, man. I should have come myself except I thought you had it covered." He shouted, "What did you do, Karim?"

Cristiano, who was walking by them, frowned at the shout and decided that a rest would have to come later. Why were his friends fighting? "Guys, is everything okay?"

"No!" Isco put his foot down dramatically. "He has done something horrible and he's not coming clean about it!"

Cris looked at Karim for some response and when he didn't get any, he asked, "Um, is this about Shaheen?"

"YES," Isco answered, cutting across Karim, "YES IT IS ABOUT SHAHEEN RAZA a.k.a. one half of THE SHIP OF SHIPS, SHARIM! And this dude who would have been dating her by now if my plans and fantasies had gone according to plan, has done I don't know what!"

By now several of the other players had begun to assemble around them. Jese looked tearfully at his friends, still feeling guilty for having let Raphael escape because of which Karim was still not talking to him. Marcelo was all-smiles, he loved a little drama. Lucas and Morata also, stood by, wondering what had got Isco into such a temper. Nacho watched coolly knowing well enough that Isco was probably having a bad attack of what he called reverse-feels.

Karim sighed, "I messed it up."

Jese cried out, "Its my fault, Isco, please stop shouting at him. He's miserable as it is."

"Wait, wait," Marcelo grinned, "can someone start at the start. I have like no idea what's going except Karim had gone to Dubai where this Shaheen chick was also present? We on the same page? Good. By the way, does Shaheen have any hot sisters? Yeah? No? Okay, I'll shut up now."

By now, Keylor, Sergio and Toni had also appeared. Gareth and James missed the whole thing because they were at the other end of the pitch arguing about each other's birthdays for some reason.

Karim began to sweat as he realized that he was cornered. He would have to tell the truth now and it took everything in him to admit to what he had done.

"...this idiot got locked in instead and there I was standing within metres of her and seriously I was going to go hug her. She looked divine and then I saw that she was wearing Raphael's jersey!" He looked at his teammates for some support, someone who would understand how this had changed everything. Everyone looked at him blankly.

Keylor finally asked, "Was it a dirty jersey? Is that what put you off?"

"No," Karim groaned. "It just made me realize, you know, that I was being a fool. She likes Raphael, not me. She fucking loves him. She does videos dedicated to him. AND SHE WORE HIS JERSEY TO MEET ME and he's right there. It just struck me then that this "hashtag sharim" is never going to happen and it would just hurt me to see them together, to see her fangirl over him while I would be forgotten. So, I went back to the hotel."

"SO YOU DESTROYED MY SHIP BECAUSE YOU WERE JEALOUS?" Isco thundered. "Like how petty can you be? So what if she was wearing Raphael's t-shirt? Did you even check if it was Raphael's t-shirt? Did you read the name? Because I didn't know you could see so many details from afar? And so what if she was wearing his jersey? Like are you freaking nuts? She CAME TO MEET YOU! That's all that should have mattered."

Karim winced, feeling horrible. I messed up big time and now even my teammates hate me.

"Didn't Raphael see her too? Didn't he try to talk some sense into you?"

"Oh yeah, he saw her alright. He had everything ready to just win her over. His perfect smile that she keeps gushing about pasted across his face. I wish he hadn't been there. It was his presence which made it all so much more hopeless." Karim looked away, "I'm just me. I'm simple. I'm not intelligent. I am awkward, I don't know how to flirt. The very thought of meeting Shaheen and then finding her disappointed in me was more than enough without the added competition, okay? I know, I'm useless and I don't deserve her. Don't rub it in."

Cristiano put his arm around his shoulders, "You're not any of that, okay? You're amazing, you're talented and without you, we wouldn't be winning half our matches. Don't be insecure. And seriously, if you don't want to talk, we can do this later?"

"No, I might as well get it all out. I told Raphael that he was mistaken, that not every girl who turned up at malls wearing a Real Madrid jersey was Shaheen. He hasn't even seen any of her videos yet. That is the irony of it. I watch all her videos, on repeat, but she likes the guy who doesn't even know a single thing about her. He's never been interested in her and yet he's by default the perfect guy for her. What's worse is that he's my best friend. It's like I'm continuously being pulled in opposite directions so I ended it."

Isco asked a bit softly, "What did you tell her?"

Karim looked guilty, "I didn't tell her anything. I just bolted with Raphael. My confidence was below zero by then."

"But-but-" Isco spluttered.

"Wait, so you stood her up?" Sergio asked. "Bro, that's not cool."

Lucas nodded, "Didn't she ask you why you didn't turn up?

"She did. She snapchatted, she messaged, she called," Karim ran a hand over his face. "I didn't know what to say and I didn't want to lie to her so I just...didn't say anything. When Raphael asked me why I was checking my phone so often, I told him Shaheen had messaged to tell me she was busy and couldn't make it."

Toni tutted, "I am really sorry to hear this but Keylor and I did warn you guys, these virtual-based relationships just don't materialize."

"Toni, stop being a pessimist, Hashtag Zariano is doing perfect and so will Hashtag Sharim, you just watch," Isco said.

Keylor raised a hand, "Erm but how? It doesn't look very good at the moment. They aren't even talking."

"Who said they aren't even talking? Karim probably went and apologized to her next day. Right, Karim?" Isco asked, hopefully.

"Actually, I...I thought I would just ignore the problem until it went away and now..." he trailed off with a nervous twitch.

"Wait, its been a week," Marcelo wondered aloud.

"Yeah, I went to my friend's wedding straight off. I was pissed and confused, I couldn't bear to be in Dubai any longer."

"So instead of trying to mend things, you ran away?" Morata spoke up.

Isco groaned, "Tell me this is it. This is all the damage that's happened?"

"There's one more thing," Karim began sheepishly.

"What?" a dozen voices asked.

"So, I thought I'd snapchat her something random today just to see how angry she is with me? Well, I found out she's blocked me...from everywhere. I can't even call her any longer."

"That's because it's been a week since you stood her up and then you went and ignored all her attempts to contact you! You're lucky she isn't suing you or something!"

"Suing me for what? You're being hard on me," Karim mumbled.

"For destroying my ship," Isco stomped. "Wait a second, I know why this happened." He looked suspiciously at Karim, "did you take the red roses when you went to meet her?"

Karim went red, "Uh no, I forgot."

"This is what happens when you don't listen to the love-guru. Arbeloa's instructions were so clear. Ugh! I'm going to call him and see how we can fix this."

"Uh, Karim, can we talk for a minute?" someone asked.

Everyone turned with wide eyes.

Raphael stood there looking equal parts angry and disappointed and Karim wished that in that moment, he could have disappeared into thin air. As it was, he didn't and so he had to nod tightly and follow his best friend who had probably heard everything Karim had been retelling.

I'm in so much trouble. HELP ME SOMEONE! JESE? ANYBODY?

[ YES ISCO TALK SOME SENSE INTO KARIM!

Also hopefully the love-guru will know how to fix up this mess ;)

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