The Hottest Man in the Village
Hanbin rose from his seat and picked up the phone he'd left on the nightstand.
People were supposedly doing "digital detoxes" these days, deliberately shutting out the internet and their smartphones. Hanbin, meanwhile, had just been forced into one for over ten years against his will.
How long has it been since I last looked at the internet?
The moment he powered the phone on, the messages that had piled up while he slept came flooding in.
The match must have aired late because of the time difference between Korea and France, so the calls were only arriving now. Missed calls, text messages, and even messenger notifications.
His parents first, then his Suwon teammates, Manager Kim Seongcheol, the director of Taeseong General Hospital, and even Foreman Choi from the construction crew he'd worked with back in the day.
Messages had come in from a remarkably wide range of people.
The Olympics really are the Olympics, huh. Looks like the whole nation was watching.
Cha Kangmin had told him that a strong Olympic showing meant stardom was guaranteed, and judging by the reaction, the attention was on a completely different level from anything his matches had drawn before.
After returning calls and sending texts to everyone who'd reached out, Hanbin opened the internet. Sure enough, it was in an uproar. The list of trending posts was wall-to-wall coverage of yesterday's match against France.
While Hanbin was still glued to his phone, Cha Kangmin emerged from the shower and came over.
"You little punk, I'm telling you, this is straight-up digital addiction. Always glued to the phone, huh? Hey, why don't you nourish your mind like your hyung here and read a book sometime. A book."
Cha Kangmin pulled a volume out of his bag and waved it around ostentatiously. The cover read French for Absolute Beginners!
It was the very book Hanbin had pored over at least two hundred times during the stopped time.
Hanbin glanced at it and asked, "Hyung, but have you actually ever read it? We've been sharing a room for days and I don't think I've seen you open it once."
At that, Cha Kangmin smiled awkwardly and slid the book smoothly back into his bag.
"Yeah, whatever. Let's just go eat."
"Hmm... I suppose so."
Hanbin snorted at Cha Kangmin's fluid, water-like pivot and got to his feet.
A real meal, his first in ten years. In the stopped-time space, neither hunger nor appetite had ever made itself felt — but surely people lived to eat, didn't they? He was genuinely looking forward to it.
The two of them walked toward the athletes' village cafeteria. In the stopped-time space, the entrance would have stopped them with its invisible wall, but now the doors simply swung open.
Perhaps because this was France, a country that prided itself on its cuisine, the quality of the athletes' village cafeteria exceeded all expectations. Dishes from every corner of the world had been laid out buffet-style for the international athletes.
He'd eaten here a handful of times before he'd been trapped inside, but after a decade, the food tasted more special than ever.
Hanbin demolished one plate in the blink of an eye, then rose to load up another. From across the table, Cha Kangmin clicked his tongue.
"Hey, another whole plate? Don't overdo it. We've got recovery training this afternoon, remember?"
"Just this one more plate."
And so, at long last, came a deeply satisfying meal.
After a brief rest at their quarters, they set out for the training ground. The recovery session would consist of light jogging and stretching in place of their usual workload, so there was no need to go far — just to the familiar pitch inside the village.
On the way from the lodgings to the training ground, the village was alive with delegations and staff of every nationality now that the Games had officially opened. But something felt off.
Everyone who passed by kept sneaking glances at Hanbin, whispering among themselves.
...? What's with them? Is something on my face?
Perplexed, Hanbin checked his clothes, but it was an ordinary Korean national team training kit. Nothing unusual about it at all.
He arrived at the training ground still puzzled, and the teammates already there spotted him and rushed over in a chorus of cheers.
"Whoa! The Olympic star has arrived! Football genius Kim Hanbin!"
"The man who avenged the French invasion of 1866 — Kim Hanbin!"
As Hanbin stared blankly at his teammates' fervent welcome, Cha Kangmin jabbed him in the ribs.
"You punk, quit playing dumb, you love it. Hm? You dropped two goals against France — the host nation — in the Olympic opener yesterday. You're the hottest thing in this whole village right now."
"Ah..."
Only then did it dawn on him.
Right. He had scored two goals against France in the opening match of the Paris Olympics, before the eyes of the entire world.
For Hanbin, that match was the moment just before ten years of captivity began — so he hadn't been able to grasp why people were reacting the way they were. But for everyone else, that match was a staggering event that had happened just yesterday.
Only now could he understand all the stares that had been raining down on him from the cafeteria all the way to the training ground.
The frenzy online and in the press hadn't quite sunk in, but experiencing those gazes firsthand inside the village made him finally realize just how enormous yesterday had been.
Bathed in his teammates' cheers, the squad threw itself into recovery training.
Time passed, and the group session gave way to optional individual training. As Hanbin strolled lightly along the track, chatting with the others about yesterday's match, Cha Kangmin, walking beside him, began rummaging in his pocket.
"Hyung, what's that?"
Cha Kangmin produced a small action cam.
"Our YouTube PD called this morning. He says the Korean YouTube algorithm pumps any video with Kim Hanbin in it like crazy right now — told me to film something, anything, and send it over immediately."
He powered the camera on and started filming Hanbin.
"Wait, seriously? You're just filming... whatever?"
Hanbin asked, incredulous.
"Exactly that. I should've filmed you eating breakfast this morning, but I forgot the cam and missed it. Tsk... mukbang is king when it comes to views, you know."
Cha Kangmin said it with genuine regret.
Apparently, Hanbin possessed no right of refusal.
For several minutes, Cha Kangmin filmed nothing but Hanbin's face. Finally Hanbin asked, "Hyung, is filming my face really going to give you enough usable footage?"
"No idea. You just shoot first and sort it out later. Something always turns out to be a keeper. Unless you've got a better idea?"
Hanbin went quiet for a moment, thinking — then snapped his fingers.
"Then how about we run that 1-v-1 training from yesterday a few more times? That'll give you plenty of footage."
"Oh?! Really? Love it! I'll grab a ball!"
While Cha Kangmin scampered off excitedly, Hanbin's mind was already somewhere else entirely.
True, he'd suggested the 1-v-1 partly to pad out Cha Kangmin's video. But what he wanted to know most was Cha Kangmin's current level.
Had Cha Kangmin grown alongside him through those ten years of training together — or was he exactly as he'd always been?
He couldn't wait to find out.
Cha Kangmin fetched a ball from the corner and passed it over.
"Alright, let's go! Yesterday you nutmegged me, but today you're not getting past me for anything!"
And with that, he dropped into a low defensive stance.
Hanbin took the pass, flicked it forward twice with his right foot, and began his advance.
Meanwhile, at that very moment in South Korea, the front office of Suwon Blue Sky had ground to a standstill under the relentless ringing of telephones.
Advertising agencies wanting Hanbin as a commercial model, agents and talent agencies fishing for contact details, and reporters from media outlets trying to dig up his personal phone number.
From midmorning onward, the phones had rung off the hook, leaving the office staff utterly worn to a pulp.
Riiing-riiing-riiing!
The phone rang yet again. Assistant Manager Park, the junior man at the front desk, picked up the receiver.
"Hello, thank you for calling. This is Suwon Blue Sky."
"Yes, hello. This is Kim Yuri, Team Leader of Variety Division 1 at KMC Media. I'm calling regarding a casting inquiry for Kim Hanbin — would it be possible to get the contact information for his agency?"
Oh great. Another one of these calls.
Assistant Manager Park swallowed a sigh and recited, mechanically, the answer he had all but memorized by now.
"Ah, Kim Hanbin doesn't have an agency yet."
"Oh? Ah... I see. Hmm... then might we possibly obtain the player's personal phone number?"
"I'm afraid that as personal information, I can't share his phone number. However, for program casting inquiries we have the club's official email address — if you send the details there, we'll pass them along to the player. Would that work for you?"
"Ah, yes, understood. Thank you very much."
On the question of a personal agent, it wasn't really the club's place to interfere, which was why they passed along Hanbin's email — but program casting involved the club's image too, so the front office was screening those requests at the first pass.
"Whew..."
Having hung up, Assistant Manager Park let out a short sigh.
Just then, Section Chief Kim, reviewing documents at the neighboring desk, chuckled and asked, "Another casting call for Kim Hanbin?"
"Yes, Chief... The Olympics really are something else. No matter how spectacular a performance anyone put on in the K League, we almost never got calls like this."
"Hey, you think the Olympics is child's play? Do you have any idea how much money rides on a single commercial? It's the world's festival, once every four years. Word is even with the national team match starting at midnight last night, the ratings cracked ten percent."
"Ten percent?! Wow... a soccer broadcast on regular TV these days, airing at midnight, pulling numbers like that?"
Assistant Manager Park clicked his tongue.
"Well, the match itself was a thriller, wasn't it? Two goals in the first half, Mbappé comes on after the break. Yeah, they conceded a heartbreaker in stoppage time, but the whole thing was tight as a drum. And SBK was the one that snagged exclusive broadcast rights for Olympic soccer this time, right? Heh... those guys ought to be setting up a shrine to Hanbin every single morning."
"No kidding... honestly, looking at that French lineup, who would've predicted a draw in the first place?"
Assistant Manager Park nodded along in agreement.
Brrring-
The phone rang again. Park picked up the receiver, routine by now — and froze.
The voice on the other end wasn't Korean.
"#$%@ agent $@! Mr. Hanbin Kim %$#"
The machine-gun-fast English brought Assistant Manager Park's brain to a screeching halt. He understood not a single word.
He'd scored plenty respectable TOEIC marks back when he was job-hunting — was it the crackly line quality, or was speaking with a native speaker just that hard?
Apart from "agent" and "Hanbin Kim," nothing got through at all.
"Wha... What? Uh... agent?... Uh... Wait! Wait a minute!"
Park turned desperately toward the desk beside him.
"Chief! Do we have that interpreter who works with Enzo in the building right now?!"
"What, a foreigner this time?"
Section Chief Kim asked, knitting his brow.
"Yes! They're talking a mile a minute and I can't make out a single word!"
"Oh, for crying out— fine! I'll go track them down! Keep them on the line, don't let them hang up!"