A Foot We Took Anyway
Up in the stands, camera in hand, Lukashi was pouting hard enough to trip over his own lip.
I'm fine, so please write the piece around my teammates.
Park Jihoon had stressed it more than once: that was what would help the company. A beautiful decision, Lukashi would grant him. Even so—
Take the boss out, and there's nothing left to write.
Cambridge was a powerhouse even among universities, a side no pack of freshmen had any business matching. As if to prove it, the match had been utterly one-sided. The defense was hardly weak, either. The moment Royal School got their hands on the ball, Cambridge drew a scrum with a neatly timed foul.
They said the man who owned the rebounds owned a basketball game.
In rugby, the scrum is exactly that, isn't it?
Even when they finally won the ball, they only handed possession straight back in the scrum. What were they supposed to do with that? And in the middle of it all—
"Get lower!"
There was their boss, veins standing in his neck, driving them on. If he wasn't allowed to write about the boss, what article was he meant to write?
He clicked his tongue. And that wasn't the only order he couldn't make sense of. The magazine was doing so well these days that he'd thought he might as well row while the tide was in, and he'd already laid several proposals on the table. What had the boss said to that?
I have no intention of making money off the magazine.
He would admit it had looked cool.
No sensational pieces. Focus on the history of rugby, the kit, the culture, the rules. A reader should be able to understand what the sport is just from the magazine.
Thanks to that, the covers were being filled with nameless rugby players instead of famous models.
Hmm.
The boss's clock was surely set to the Ultimate × Guccio collaboration. So rather than chase the profit in front of him, he was putting the focus on building a rugby boom. Fine. Lukashi saw the big picture, and he agreed with every bit of it. Even so—
Today, if it isn't about the boss, there really is nothing to write.
He couldn't spend the whole match grumbling.
"Go, Royal Schooooool!"
Lukashi simply threw his voice into the air and cheered for the first-years.
"Park Jihoon!"
The ball came off Leo's hands and into mine. This might be our last attack of the day. Pro level or not, I hadn't thought we would fail to score even once. Damn it. We couldn't end it like this. I shot toward their half without a moment's hesitation.
The first gate, without question, was Bob. Those enormous traps rolled as he came at me, and the instant I cut toward the touchline he stuck to me on those long strides of his. I could see it. His eyes were locked on my feet. He was choosing his moment to throw the tackle.
Whatever else I lacked, I knew how to ride a tackle. Sure enough, the moment he came in at my legs I dropped my weight back, bore down on his shoulder, and braced. I was just looking for somewhere to pass when Bob, having missed, was on his feet again in a flash.
A second collision. He'd learned a tackle wouldn't come easy, and this time he led with the shoulder. The impact cracked through me. For crying out loud. Was he swinging a hammer? One more hit like that and I'd go down—
And then my vision lurched, and I lost my center. A smirk pulled at his mouth, the corner hooked high, already sure of the win. I dropped the ball. That wasn't the end of it. I snapped a foot out at the little bounce, and the ball caught the inside of my right foot and, in an instant, threaded straight between Bob's legs. It ran on into the gap between Jack and the defense. Jack burst out as if he'd been waiting for exactly that.
The whistle split the air.
"Offside!"
Ha! A kick sprayed through a man's legs. I'd been copying Steve's pass, and just when I thought it had actually worked, it turned out I'd copied the offside as well.
"Scrum! Both teams!"
Damn it all. Another scrum, and another, and another. We'd been smashed in every one we'd packed today. Still, what could we do? Refuse to quit, and keep driving forward to the end. I was just bending at the waist when a voice came from behind me.
"Move. I'll do it."
Tennessee. He came striding over to my side in Gary's place.
"You're... doing it?"
"Why? Am I not allowed?"
He'd refused the scrum all along, insisting a nobleman didn't roll around on the ground. Why now? Right then, he asked me something else.
"You all right?"
"With what?"
"The back of your neck."
"What about my neck?"
"Forget it, then."
He laid an arm across my back and bent. His grip cinched tight. It was the first time I'd ever packed a scrum with Tennessee. Jack on the left, Tennessee on the right. Maybe it was because the after-school training group had come together, but it felt solid.
"Set!"
Another tense standoff played out, like fighters wrestling for a belt. Then the whistle went. Tennessee joining us hadn't brought any dramatic change. We threw ourselves in until our faces were masks of sweat, and still the gap in size was not an easy thing to overcome. Damn it. This contest had nothing to do with the result anyway. Quit here, and not a soul would have a word to say about it. So why were we straining like madmen?
A feeling I had never once known in my previous life. An energy I couldn't hold, and we put the name of youth on it, and we drove forward regardless. Even if our strength failed us midway and we ended on our knees, until then we would plant every step we had.
"Get lower!"
I lifted my voice, and Jack and Tennessee seized my shirt in their fists.
"Hold!"
I could feel it. The limit had arrived a while ago. I shouted anyway.
"Now!"
The moment the three of us took that great step together, the side that had seemed impregnable shook for the first time. Yes.
"Drive!"
We roared and shoved. For an instant it seemed we might have taken a foot of ground, and then, goddamn it, every last bit of strength poured out of us. We dropped as one body, no telling who went down first, and under a sky so blue it stung the eyes we let out the breath we'd been choking back.
A moment later the whistle burst as if it had been waiting. He was right beside us, so Devon stuck his face in close.
"Time was up ages ago. Looked like fun, so I let it run."
I didn't have the strength to answer, only blinked at him, and he added an explanation.
"The scrum. You held up better than I thought."
So the match was already over, and he'd let us pack a scrum just because it might be entertaining? If he weren't the teacher! Anyway. We'd lost. Without putting a single point on the board, we'd been beaten hollow. The aftertaste was bitter. I was quietly raking a hand back through my hair when someone spoke.
"You all right?"
Not Devon. I looked up, and Steve was holding out a hand. I took it and got to my feet, and he asked again.
"Back of your neck's red. Just wanted to see if you were all right."
I put a hand to my nape. Scrum after scrum, I'd rubbed it raw. It stung a little, but fortunately there was no blood. Wrestling had been worse than this. That aside, Tennessee had asked the very same thing. You all right? With what? The back of your neck. What about my neck? Forget it, then. So that was why he'd volunteered for a scrum he never stood in. Because I'd fought until my neck went red. Because the struggle looked pitiful. When I turned to confirm it, he was already well away. Of all the things to notice, and then he just walks off.
I was turning that over when Steve's voice pulled me back to the field.
"You were good out there."
"Better than I was at that age, I'd say."
"Sorry?"
"Your rugby, I mean."
I hadn't noticed it during the match. Steve had a low, middle voice, the sort you might call properly manly.
"Where are you aiming for university?"
Mm. Just having been spared a cutthroat science high school was already something to be grateful for. Thinking as far as university was a bit much.
"Oxford, is it?"
"Hard to say."
"As you know, I'm at Cambridge."
From the look of him, the man wanted to reel me in.
"Good players keep slipping away to Oxford these days."
Oxford and Cambridge played each other at rugby every year, he said, and lately no outstanding freshmen were coming through, which was the worry. Won't you have graduated by the time I get to university? The question rose as far as my chin. I didn't let it out. The Korean marines were famously thick as blood, and I figured a British rugby club would be the same.
Was it only me, or had each of us picked up a dedicated marker? Bob, that mountain of a man, was already murmuring with Jack. A breath of a laugh escaped me. Terrifying out on the field, and the moment the match ended they looked like ordinary college students. Thanks to that, I could smile, if only a little.
"I'm sorry, but could we put this conversation off for a moment?"
"I ought to at least greet my teammates."
"Oh, by all means."
I gave a small bow and called toward the far side of the pitch.
"Tennessee!"
He turned, startled.
"Get over here!"
"We've got to close this out before we go!"
The seven who had played, plus three substitutes: ten of us stood in a circle. Maybe it was because Tennessee was staring straight at me, but the moment clearly wanted another word from me. Several cameras, Lukashi's among them, had us ringed, and my classmates waited with slightly tense faces.
"First, let's thank the Cambridge rugby seniors who came all this way."
We formed up in front of the club and bowed with great courtesy.
"Thank you for the match!"
Perhaps they didn't see this often. Steve looked a little surprised, and that must have been why he spoke to Devon.
"Well, this is a first."
"What is?"
"We were here last year, too."
"Were you?"
"Heard there was a real talent, so we came for a look. Hah. Nasty piece of work, that one."
"I know exactly who you mean."
Devon laughed, and my classmates laughed with him. We offered our thanks to the teacher as well. He'd even arranged the opposition, and refereed on top of it. Honestly, where else would you find a teacher like this?
"Thank you!"
"Thank you for everything!"
We'd been thoroughly thrashed, and yet the mood was as warm as a hearth. Maybe that was why Mr. Devon went straight for a team dinner.
"Let's go eat. What do you want? There's a crowd of you—shall we just have whatever I'm in the mood for?"
And so the menu was pizza again. With this many people, I thought, someone ought to treat, or we ought to split the bill. Devon somehow knew, and shut it down before I could say it.
"Do I look like I'm going to eat you lot broke?"
All right, then. Let's go. We were just starting off together in good spirits when I caught a man watching me from a distance, like a puppy that desperately needed to go. Lukashi. He couldn't bring himself to say that unless the piece was about the boss, there was nothing to write, and only fiddled with the blameless camera. What else could I do? One short look—just write it—and he answered me with a smile lit by pure delight.