The Day We Learn to Drink
TJ.
Founder of NexC Soft, the man who made Blood Alliance, the last word in Korean RPGs.
After the smartphone age arrived, he introduced a monetization model so predatory it bordered on toxic, driving both revenue and public outrage to their absolute limits. A thoroughly three-dimensional character.
"Do you go to the same school as my hyung?"
"No. I live out in Gangseo."
A question mark practically rose over my face, and Yugeon-hyung supplied the rest.
"There's a meetup for people who want to be developers."
Ah. Some kind of club, then. I took my time looking over the others. Seven of them in all, and I had the feeling I recognized more than one face. That shaggy head and those enormous glasses, especially. He hadn't been in the press nearly as often as TJ, so I couldn't be sure. If my guess was right, though, he would one day build a search site and become one of the ten richest men in Korea.
Maybe I'd been staring too openly.
"Ah, this is Gong Hyeongjun. His school is... Modern High, right?"
Gong Hyeongjun. Right. HJ. Among the people who had ridden the IT boom into the chaebol ranks, an unusual number had names ending in J.
Anyway. TJ and HJ...
I had no memory of Yugeon-hyung being close to the IT tycoons. Aside from him being a Seoul National man, there probably hadn't been any point of contact at all. And yet here they were, moving in a pack.
Maybe history's changed.
Still, I didn't see this coming.
If I handled it well later, something rather interesting might come of it. Yeah. After I won in F1, going into business with them would be fun—
Wait!
If I won in F1, I was supposed to retire. Why was the after already showing up?
Cough.
I shook my head at once and offered the hyungs a bow.
"I'm a little busy. I'll see you again next time."
It was true that I wanted to fulfill Grandfather's dream through F1.
It was.
I just didn't want to shelve my own dream for his sake.
Manchester United!
Hadn't I locked down the acquisition after a tremendous amount of suffering(?).
Ferrari matters. But my old dream matters just as much!
Right. Look after myself first. I had to be happy before I could even earn the money to buy Ferrari.
Heh heh heh.
I headed straight for the Hyeon-gang FC youth team, meaning to meet the heroes of the 2002 World Cup ahead of time. When I arrived, a staffer briefed me.
"These are the three prospects we're sending to Manchester."
The one who looked oldest was a boy in the upper grades of elementary school, with features so clean they called Tennessee to mind. If an alien landed and asked what handsome meant, this child's face would have been answer enough.
"A striker. His technique is outstanding."
"Yes. I know."
"Pardon? You... know?"
"I—I looked over the files ahead of time."
It wasn't a lie. I'd seen him with my own eyes, in a distant future. Ahem.
The second was a small boy with a face full of acne. Shy, by the look of him; he kept ducking his head. The moment the ball was at his feet, though, that little face turned endlessly grave.
"Diligent, and selfless. Attack or defense, he goes at all of it. His football brain is especially good."
"His stamina's good too, right?"
"Yes. Stamina isn't optional."
Of course it wasn't. This was the man they would say had been born with two hearts.
The last looked the youngest — a child, in the literal sense.
"First in the will to win. Even against the older boys, losing is absolutely not allowed. He's bold. He doesn't shrink."
"He looks unusually fast."
"Yes. His speed is in a class of its own."
I grinned. On talent alone, these three would go on to Italy, England, and Spain. Given the infrastructure of the time, that was practically a miracle.
Of course that's impressive, but...
If someone made up their mind, from childhood, to push gifts this rare, how far could they actually grow? What mattered now was finding a person who could raise these children with a sense of responsibility that had no ceiling. Fortunately, I knew the right man. Probably the football coach in all of Korea with the finest results to his name.
I smiled as I told the staffer.
"Put a call through to Cheonma FC."
Son Woongcheol judged himself a failed player. The sort of ordinary squad man every team had three or four of. So he trained as if he meant to die. If he lacked outstanding talent, he figured he at least had to run twice as much, three times as much. When his breath climbed all the way to his chin and he thought he might collapse, he hammered the ball anyway — thock, crack — shooting as if he meant to kill something. Three thousand with the left foot and three thousand with the right, every single day. Until the quota was filled, he never left the ground. Tap. Tap. Crack.
But the trial came for him too.
"Aaaagh!"
A ruptured Achilles. An injury bad enough that he could not go on as a player. He poured a full half year into rehabilitation, and still, regrettably, nothing improved. And today, at last, he heard that he was being released.
"I'm sorry to have to tell you this on your birthday, of all days."
Birthday?
Son Woongcheol went blank for a moment. He couldn't even remember the last time anyone had marked his birthday. Making a living from football had been enough for him. In the old cliché, every day had felt like a birthday, so there was no need to commemorate anything. And yet — was that happy life as a player ending forever, as of today? Really... this emptily? He had never once imagined a life without football.
"Thank you for everything."
He had to bow his head, heavy with it.
Rrrrring.
Of all moments, the phone went off with perfect timing.
"......"
It felt like a great siren wailing at his life. So this was how an unrequited love of football put a period on itself. Just as he forced the rising tears back down—
"Wait a moment, Woongcheol."
He lifted his head halfway, not wanting his reddened eyes to be seen.
The director came out with something he hadn't expected.
"Not for our team. You'd go to England... and teach the little ones, they say."
From what I'd heard, Son Woongcheol was in a desperate position. Even if he couldn't be a player, he would desperately want to remain in football, if only as a coach.
But.
"......"
He couldn't answer at once. As far as I could tell, he was asking himself, over and over, whether he was suited to the work. Children's lives were on the line. Not whether he wanted to, but whether he could. Only after a long while did Son Woongcheol open his mouth, heavily.
"I'm grateful for the offer, but... I wonder if it's right for me to teach children who have such bright roads ahead..."
"What are you saying? You'll be an excellent teacher."
"I'm a third-rate player, and... I couldn't even fill out a few years before retiring. How could I..."
"......?"
Embarrassed, Son Woongcheol scratched the back of his head.
"And they're young children. Not only football — sometimes it would be wonderful if you taught them character as well, the way a father would."
"Ah. Like a father?"
"Yes."
"But... I don't have any children. How would I..."
Well, yes, that was true. In the distant future, the whole country would see just how upright that son of his grew up — world-class, no less. But how was I supposed to say that?
"You won't be doing it alone. There'll be local staff. You don't need to feel too burdened."
Oh, and one more thing.
"When you get to Manchester, there'll be a Brazilian boy."
"Brazilian?"
"Yes. That one in particular — please look after him so he grows up right. So diligence gets into his bones, for example. I'd like you to manage him specially."
Jinu, made diligent under Son Woongcheol's care... I could practically hear the football fans losing their minds from here.
Anyway. This was the moment the Manchester United setup was more or less complete.
Meanwhile, at an American racetrack.
Vroooom!
Olivia mashed the accelerator like a madwoman, well past 120 miles an hour. A moment later, with the corner ahead of her, she set her foot to the brake.
Now?
No. Hold a little longer. Yes. More. Just a little. More. More!
She held until the very last instant, then pressed — brake in, wheel turned. A corner taken at ninety miles an hour.
"Nnngh—!"
It felt as if a giant magnet were dragging the chassis. For an instant—
"......!"
She thought she was spinning. Whip. She cranked the wheel the other way at once and caught the countersteer. When the car, its rear tires sliding out from under it, barely recovered—
Got it!
Olivia stamped the accelerator as if she'd been waiting for it. A speed fierce enough to snap her head back. She focused on nothing but the view ahead and kept turning the wheel, through moments with no room for worry or stray thoughts to wedge themselves in. Only after she had completed a full forty laps did she leave the circuit.
A very narrow chassis. Without detaching the wheel, even climbing out of the kart was hard. Maybe that was why the coach who had been waiting came over and pulled her helmet off first.
"Best time in the women's field."
"Including the men?"
"Even then, you're inside the top three."
He said so. Honestly, it didn't mean much. The men's field always completed at least fifty laps. Olivia's technique was good, but her stamina wasn't. From the fortieth lap her concentration dropped visibly. She wanted to keep going, but the risk of a crash was already high enough that they were signaling her in.
"Even this much is incredible, you know?"
She was sorry for it, but the coach's comfort never reached her ears at all.
"Why? You really want to go all the way to pro?"
Before she entered the Royal School, she would have nodded without a second thought. Now she didn't even know her own heart.
"......"
She only stared down at the wheel.
Already quitting time.
After I finished my greetings with Son Woongcheol, I got in the car. If I had to name the single greatest regret of being this young, it was, without question, that I couldn't drive. I wanted to get behind the wheel of this gorgeous car myself. I clicked my tongue, swallowing the disappointment, and looked at the chauffeur.
"The Hannam-dong house, please."
"Ah, young master."
"......?"
"The Chairman said to bring you to Jungang Market."
"What? Out of nowhere?"
His face said he didn't know the exact reason. But as if there was one thing he did know, the chauffeur opened his mouth carefully.
"I was told there's an old place there that the Chairman loves."
Grandfather liked an old tavern in Jungang Market?
"In the Chairman's memoir, it says that's where he first learned to drink..."
In that instant, certainty struck.
"Is Yugeon-hyung coming too?"
"Yes. The second team will bring him."
That settled it. Today was the day — the day Yugeon-hyung and I learned how to drink. Unseen by anyone, I quietly smacked my lips.