5
Chapter 5. 160,000 Won
I ran home.
I had spent my entire life too busy just trying to take care of myself to have anything resembling a romantic life, and most of the people I had met were guys from sports teams.
So talking to girls felt awkward.
It wasn't until I had come to my senses that I realized I had run away. It wasn't that I disliked women.
And Kang Joo-won's memories had also played a part in why I had fled.
“Hey, you've got a fiancée, so why are you sitting with another girl?”
“Hah! You think I'm doing this because I like you? It's because you're hurting my reputation too.”
They weren't exactly good memories, but... anyway, Kang Joo-won had a fiancée.
That's why, for a moment, I had felt like I needed to be careful.
But I was practically in exile anyway, and I was planning to cut ties with my family as soon as I successfully made my professional debut. So what meaning did an engagement even have? It wasn't like I'd ever have to see her again.
That was the conclusion I reached. There was no reason to be overly cautious.
I quickly shook my head as if trying to shake off my thoughts.
“Ugh, this is complicated.”
Life had been so much easier when all I had to think about was soccer. How had I ended up with so many things to worry about?
The biggest cause was probably Kang Joo-won's family situation, especially Choi Seohyun.
Still, when I was first told that my spending would be monitored, I had felt a little uncomfortable, but soon my thoughts changed to, Who cares?
Whether I ordered all three meals a day or cooked for myself, there was no limit.
I wouldn't have to go hungry! How could life get any better?
I didn't know how Kang Joo-won had felt about it, but I didn't think this credit card, which Choi Seohyun had put on me like a shackle, was so bad.
They had built a high fence and whipped the young lion, telling it to jump over.
The young lion couldn't clear the tall fence. It kept falling over and over again, learning the taste of defeat, until eventually it grew into an adult lion that couldn't even bring itself to attempt jumping over the fence.
But I wasn't an animal they had tamed.
A lion that had run wild across the Serengeti... Well, maybe that's not quite right.
More like a hyena?
Anyway, to a wild hyena that had obtained a lion's body, that fence wasn't high at all.
I was confident I could jump over it and escape into the world whenever I wanted.
That hard plastic card meant nothing more to me than that.
For now, I'd make full use of it.
I had no intention of becoming complacent with the comfort inside the fence.
I wouldn't forget that none of this belonged to me.
All I had was this body and the ability to kick a ball a little better than most.
...
Two days later, I visited the training ground again.
“This is one of this year's freshmen! Won, do you want to introduce yourself?”
Perhaps because he was conscious of the fact that he couldn't pronounce my name properly, Coach Bradley left the introduction to me.
“Hi, I'm Joo-won. You can call me Joo-won or Won, whichever is easier.”
Clap, clap, clap, clap.
This was the A Team, not the B Team.
As expected, destroying them in the practice match had been the best solution.
After the previous test, I had immediately been promoted to the A Team.
The training was similar to what I had experienced in high school.
We paired up and practiced everything from long passes to short passes. We also did 30-meter sprints and dribbling around cones, moving in perfect coordination to the coach's whistle.
“Take a short break!”
Huff.
Groans escaped from all around me.
I suppose that meant everyone was taking it seriously.
“Hey, you said your name was Joo-won, right? Aren't you tired?”
Normally, I would have been gasping for breath too, but apparently this body had been trained so extensively that I could still handle it.
“I've always had pretty good stamina.”
“Huff. Impressive. Nice to meet you. I'm Joaquin Paul. My friends call me Pong.”
“Nice to meet you. Can I call you Pong too?”
“Of course!”
Pong, my long-pass training partner, was an international student from the Philippines.
“Joo-won, what department are you in?”
“Uh... Accounting.”
“Seriously? Oh! So you're going to be an accountant in the future. You must be pretty good at studying.”
No, Kang Joo-won was the one who studied.
“I'm not going to become an accountant. I'm going to make my professional debut.”
Pong laughed, sitting down and tapping the grass.
“Hahaha, bro! That's awesome. It's good to have big dreams.”
He doesn't believe me.
“Aren't all of you dreaming of becoming soccer players? You said this was the serious team.”
His reaction was completely different from what I had expected, which made me curious.
“Ah! It's a little different here. Do you know what departments most of the guys here belong to?”
“What departments?”
“Sports Science, Sports Physics, Sports Physiology, and so on.”
There really were a lot of departments with the word sports in their names.
“We all genuinely love soccer. And at the same time, it's also something we can put on our resumes. The guys who are actually going to become professional soccer players are already affiliated with professional football clubs or something like that. This place is pretty far removed from the professional level.”
“I see...”
In Korea, it wasn't unusual for someone to perform well on a university team and make their professional debut. Even the legendary Park Jisang, who had played in Manchester, had played for a university team.
University soccer in England was different.
“Haha, am I talking too much? I guess I just felt a little happy to meet you. I'm not in one of those sports-related departments either. I'm a business student.”
“Business? Then why are you on the A Team? You could go to the C Team and enjoy yourself without all this pressure.”
“My older brother runs a sports agency. I'm planning to join him later, but before that, I'm working hard so I can understand the mindset of a soccer player.”
My eyes widened at the mention of his brother being the head of a company, but when I remembered my own situation, I quickly regained my composure.
I'm the son of a chaebol family too, after all.
Even if I'm the hidden son.
Honestly, there probably aren't many situations more dramatic than mine.
“Then you can manage me once I turn pro.”
“Hahaha, of course. Just say the word.”
He was saying it casually now, but I hoped he would become a valuable connection in the future, so I smiled and accepted.
“Yeah, I'll be counting on you, Pong.”
Tweet! Tweet!
“Alright! Break's over!”
The coach's whistle echoed across the field.
...
The day ended with dribbling drills around cones, followed by a five-a-side futsal match.
“You might actually be able to become a professional...”
Just before everyone left after futsal, Pong came over and gave me a thumbs-up.
We kept switching teams during the mini-games, and every team I was on won.
After playing together repeatedly, apparently I wasn't the only one who had noticed the difference in our levels.
“Good work! You're really good. Why didn't you join a club?”
“Take it easy, man. I'm dying here.”
“Thank goodness we're on the same team...”
Even the teammates who had seemed indifferent when I first showed up couldn't deny the gap in our abilities.
Still, I wasn't all that happy.
No matter how I looked at it, they were around the level of first-year high school students... or perhaps a professional youth team from middle school.
I couldn't shake the feeling that this was a downgrade from where I had originally played.
I wanted to stop with all this and get out there in an actual competitive match.
If I kept showing good performances, maybe I could just barely make it into the fourth division. I felt like I could manage at least that much.
“Ah, right, Won!”
“Yes?”
Coach Bradley stopped me as I was about to head home.
“You were really good today! You said your dream was to become a professional, so I don't understand why you never tried out for a professional club.”
“Ahaha... I had some circumstances.”
Have you ever heard of being possessed?
“Right, right. Anyway, I forgot to tell you something. You have to pay a fee to join the team. It's 100 pounds a year.”
100 pounds... At roughly 1,600 won per pound, that's about 160,000 won. It would have been enough to make my hands tremble in the past, but not anymore.
“Understood. Can I come tomorrow and pay? I don't have my card with me right now.”
“Of course. You don't even have to come tomorrow. You can pay on your next training day.”
When was the last time I had been able to play soccer this comfortably without worrying about money?
I was happy.
...
It was ten minutes of happiness.
“So, you're saying I can't spend money without limits?”
“That's right. That's why they monitor all your transactions.”
“Ugh. My head...”
The credit card I had received from Choi Seohyun.
The card I had thought was invincible had conditions.
First of all, I had to base my spending on what was considered reasonable.
The problem was that Choi Seohyun was the one who decided what “reasonable” meant.
I was reading the “Kang Joo-won Management Guide” my older brother had shown me.
“First, spending habits appropriate for a student... Three million won a month?”
That was generous.
Was it because of chaebol standards? Three million won was more than enough.
“It's a little less compared to the other siblings, right? Still, I tried to increase it as much as possible by using your studying abroad as an excuse.”
This was considered low?
I couldn't believe it, but judging by my brother's serious expression, it seemed to be true.
“Uh... anyway, next. Spending on hobbies unrelated to studying is restricted depending on the type.”
“Yeah, that's the strict part.”
“Hobbies related to instruments and art are allowed, but soccer is absolutely prohibited...?”
To roughly summarize the guide, it basically said I wasn't allowed to do anything else so that I could focus properly on school.
I could feel the intense malice of Choi Seohyun telling me to live quietly and keep my head down.
I didn't like the name “management guide” to begin with.
“Soccer is a sport you can play anywhere as long as you have a ball. How are they even going to stop me?”
“They're trying to prevent you from getting professional lessons and things like that. They're worried you'll turn this into a soccer study-abroad trip.”
“Ha...”
Choi Seohyun was extremely wary of Kang Joo-won making his professional debut and attracting the attention of the chairman, who was a soccer fanatic.
The fact that Kang Joo-won was in England in the first place was Choi Seohyun's doing.
“Joo-won is a high school student now. How long is he going to keep doing nothing but soccer? Let's have him prepare for studying abroad for the sake of his future.”
She had pretended to be concerned about Kang Joo-won, but hidden beneath her words was the intention of taking away as much of his training time as possible.
In the end, Kang Joo-won had failed just as that woman wanted, and now she was trying to take soccer away from me too.
“So you can't pay 160,000 won? Just withdraw some cash.”
“If I use cash, I have to take pictures of where I spent it and get receipts to prove it. If I buy something expensive, they even check periodically to make sure I'm not selling it and that I'm actually using it. There's a lot of stuff like that. She's pretty thorough. And, for the record, you're not allowed to get a part-time job either.”
“Hyung!”
“You really thought I came here as a tourist?”
I had considered us fairly close, but hearing my older brother say it so calmly made a sense of betrayal slowly rise inside me.
“How could you...”
Would Coach Bradley believe me if I told him that someone who paid 40 million won a year in tuition had to leave the soccer team because he couldn't pay 160,000 won?
There had to be another way.
Think of one.
As I sank into despair, my brother clicked his tongue.
“Tsk, tsk. Joo-won, this meticulous guide has one major weakness. Don't you know what it is?”
“Uh...?”
“They don't know that you and I are close.”
“Hyung, don't tell me...”
“I can just lend you the money. It's not even that much.”
I fiercely hugged my savior.
“Ooooooh! I knew I could count on you!”
“Argh! You crazy bastard! You're going to break something! Ow, damn it, you're ridiculously strong...”
My brother was clearly in a different position from me.
As someone hired by Choi Seohyun, he had absolutely no reason to treat me well, yet he had always treated me like a human being.
“Hyung, I'm grateful, but wouldn't it have been nice if you'd just told me that from the beginning?”
“But it's fun. Hehe.”
“Damn it...”
It annoyed me, but I'd let it slide today.