The Debut, the Pineapple, and the Medusa
Meanwhile, in Manchester, England.
Son Woongcheol sat on the bench with a graver face than he had worn on any day before it. His first disciple, Ahn Jeongwan, was going on. It was only the squad's internal scrimmage, reds against whites, twice a week, and Son knew that. He also knew this was the debut of a boy who had flown to the far side of the world for nothing but soccer. How badly must that child be shaking? The thought got that far, and his palms went slick with sweat.
Even so, he watched the pitch with a level eye, as if none of it reached him. Only when his gaze crossed Jeongwan's, the boy still loosening up, did he let anything out.
"Don't get nervous!"
The bark came down hard enough to scour the air. He blew out a breath. Youth soccer or not, the standard here was no joke, and the side was full of boys two years older than Jeongwan besides. Looked at coldly, it was true the boy would struggle to shine. Son lifted his voice all the same, as if the struggle were beside the point.
"Focus!"
The whistle cut the afternoon, and the match was on. Whenever the other side won the ball, they fed it first to the No. 10. He took it as if it weighed nothing, shed the press with a few tidy touches, and slipped a through ball without seeming to spend an ounce of effort. The boy's name, if Son had it right, was Stones. He makes the game look easy. He had one flaw, a small frame and no gift for a shoulder-to-shoulder fight, and even that hardly mattered. His reading was so sharp that he simply arrived ahead of time wherever no duel would be asked of him, and then punched in another pass of outrageous quality.
"Ha!"
Two years older than Jeongwan, and that was all. If the game had a sage, it was this one, and no other. Jeongwan's side, though, was not merely enduring it. When the No. 7 in particular got on the ball—the boy with a prince's face—the air around him changed. He struck it as if he had been waiting to, and the ball bent like a snake, whipping in under Jeongwan's feet. A pass worth full marks.
And then, of all things, Jeongwan pushed his first touch too far. He ran to repair it and was late. The opposing defender was there first.
"Haa!"
Ahn Jeongwan clutched his head. Son Woongcheol was already on him, a rebuke like fire.
"Where do you have time to be disappointed? Press!"
"You came all this way with your eyes on nothing but soccer, didn't you? Run! You'll have to try every last thing you want to try!"
Plain as day, Ahn Jeongwan was thinking too much. He barely had the attention to spare for the ball itself, and because he worried first about the next move, the mistakes came out absurd.
"With confidence!"
A striker moves on instinct. The moment he smells a goal, the body has to answer before the head.
"You trained like you meant to die out there!"
Trust what you prepared and run like you believe it, and you're halfway home already, you brat. The one mercy was that the No. 7 seemed to know exactly how much Ahn Jeongwan had trained. Mistake or no mistake, the moment he won the ball he looked for Jeongwan first, and he kept feeding him.
Was that the trouble? Unable to watch any longer, the youth coach roared.
"Decom! Use the width! Why are you funneling everything down one side!"
The No. 7 nodded as if he had heard. Then he took the ball, and his eyes went to Jeongwan without fail. A heartbeat later he sprayed the pass with real intent, and Jeongwan stormed the goal with it. Defenders came thundering in. For a second it looked as if they would mob him before he ever had the ball. They did not get the chance. He received it with his body open, and on the first touch he was already halfway through the turn. Yes. That. That's it. This was why an East Asian striker could run in among older boys: Jeongwan's own fantastic technique. One touch, and three defenders were gone. Then came the chip.
For an instant the pitch held its breath. The ball cleared the keeper as if the man were hardly there. The net shivered. Jeongwan saw it, and he ran—first of all, toward Son Woongcheol.
"Waaaaah!"
Young as he was, Ahn Jeongwan knew what his teacher's severity was worth. Son swallowed the joy and shouted back with a face gone rigid.
Jeongwan blinked.
"No. 7 kept trusting you. He kept putting those passes on you. You thank your teammate first. That's the order!"
At that, Jeongwan ducked his head. Then he ran to the No. 7 and offered a high-five with both hands, and the other boy grinned and answered, a hand coming down on Jeongwan's shoulder. There. Only then did Son Woongcheol turn his back and let out, long, the breath he had been holding.
The next day, in Naples.
Devon loaded the dough with cheese and ham, and then with a great heap of pineapple, the long-awaited star of the piece.
"Bring out the ingredient's own flavor. That was it, wasn't it?"
He laughed, low and wicked. Right. The flavor of the thing. I'll draw it out so clean they'll have to admit it. And so the food truck opened. While the pizza browned in the oven, Devon bellowed across the square.
"Pizza! Free! Eat all you want!"
His voice was simply that large. A murmur rose, and people came crowding in.
"Is it really free?"
"It is."
"Why are you giving it away?"
"So you can taste it."
Perhaps taste it had landed like a line from a villain. The questioner took a step back. Devon paid that no mind. The oven chimed, bright and done.
"God, that smell."
"Whoa!"
The heat of the reaction lasted a moment. Then they saw what the pizza actually looked like, and the faces went baffled, almost offended.
"Why is there pineapple on this..."
"Are you—are you playing some kind of joke with food?"
If not for those forearms, the curses would already have been in the air. One by one they were about to drift off from the truck when Devon singled a man out.
"You. Yellow hat."
The man froze where he stood.
"...Me?"
"You've been waiting in that line. You ought to taste it."
"I have, only all of a sudden I don't think it's sitting right. My stomach's gurgling..."
"I put in plenty of pineapple. Pineapple digests beautifully. Taste it."
"That's—I mean—"
"I said taste it. Quickly."
Perhaps he understood that if he simply left, the truck would come after him. He took a slice under duress.
"Quickly, while it's hot."
The man said nothing. Out of courtesy he managed the smallest possible bite, and then, feeling himself watched, chewed in tiny motions while dodging every piece of pineapple. Right then his face began to come undone.
"Huh?"
"It's... sweet. It's actually good?"
"Of course pizza is good. Did you think it wouldn't be?"
Like a man who had made a grave decision, he bit straight through the pineapple.
"Sweet and salty. This is all right, isn't it?"
"Could I get another slice?"
"Eh? Oh. Yes."
Go anywhere on earth and mouths are built much the same. Set sweet against salt, and almost anything tastes good. And Italy was going to be different? That was why he had made this one: the pizza the homeland of pizza was most likely to hate. If even this won respect for its flavor, he would need no further proof.
"You there, friend. Try this. I told you, it's free."
Meet even a mafioso with no gun in sight, and he drops his eyes first at a look like Devon's. Ordinary people, of course, were in no position to so much as fidget.
"Come on, now! Here."
After that he kept baking, and kept handing the slices out. The verdict ran nine to one, and the side that called it delicious was overwhelmingly ahead.
"Mmm."
If he could convert a crowd even with Hawaiian pizza, then the conquest of Italy might not be a dream after all. Right. Take the investment, and be worth what they paid. As if in proportion to the ambition swelling in him, Devon's forearms puffed up like balloons.
Monza. A hotel. Park Jihoon's room.
I had more or less closed the Ferrari acquisition, and my mind was not clean. I had only just set a first foot down. Fail to win a title inside two years, and there is no acquisition. There is only money thrown away. Better to get onto the next step than to lift any toast. That was why I had not gone straight back to England. And if the only one who has to stay behind is me, that's plenty.
I put Tennessee to work at once.
"Get me a specialist in aerodynamics."
"Me?"
I nodded.
"This isn't another one who won't move for money..."
"No. He likes money."
He would have to. With money, he could build any car he wanted. Besides, as things stood he was practically a newcomer, and if he were asked to take charge of Ferrari's design he would have no choice but to say yes on the spot.
"He's English."
Fond of money, and English besides. From where Tennessee sat, the thing ought to have been nothing at all.
"There is one problem, though."
Tennessee waited.
"He's a bit of an eccentric. A monster who shoves stability to the back and sells nothing but speed, as if he'll die if the car isn't faster."
He would be straightened out later. Around now, though, this was exactly his season.
"You talk him round."
"Talk him round for what? The president says build it."
"I told you. He doesn't listen."
A man with no compromise in him, not where speed was concerned. That much was true. Even so.
"Don't worry. I'll handle all of it."
Perhaps it was that he knew cars down to the grain. Tennessee showed a confidence I had never seen on him. After he left for England, I went straight to Milan.
North of the city center, where the luxury boutiques stand shoulder to shoulder along Porta Garibaldi, one building rose with a Medusa's face cut deep into the facade. So this is it. I went in, and a clerk in the lobby greeted me with a bright face.
"How may I help you?"
"I've come to see Mr. Persace."
"The designer?"
Ordinarily there would have been a wrangle over whether I had an appointment, and without one I would not have been going in. Not this time.
"You wouldn't happen to be President Park Jihoon?"
A fashion house, at least in name. Oddly enough, they had my face at once. That's a first. Before I could answer, the clerk had the receiver up, traded a few words of Italian, and turned back brilliant.
"The designer says he will come down himself."
Splendor was the whole of Persace's signature, so I had assumed the office would follow. It did not.
"Rather plain, isn't it?"
At that, I gave him a small smile.
"I like simple things, more than people expect. When I work, I'm the opposite. Call it a dazzling mask, worn so the ordinary doesn't show."
"You're far too handsome to call ordinary."
A classic Italian beauty. There was no better phrase for him, and the smile came extra, the sort that lifts your mood just by being looked at. The proof was that every time he smiled, I smiled with him. We asked after each other lightly, and then he came to it.
"What brings you all the way to headquarters?"
"You flew as far as Korea, Mr. Persace. I ought to return the courtesy."
The collaboration was already a settled yes. Neither of us had any reason not to be friendly.
"You didn't come about the collaboration, did you?"
"No. Set that aside. I came today with a personal request."
"A personal... request?"
"I'd like you to take on the custom design of an F1 car."
An F1 car is the fastest billboard in the world. The palette of the bodywork, the way the sponsors' marks would sit on it—of course it would take an aesthetic eye. Make it beautiful, and more sponsors will come. For the moment I had poured a trillion won of my own into the thing. I could not do that forever. I was still setting the thought in order when he asked.
"An F1 car. Which team would that be?"
"Ferrari."
"President... don't tell me you've acquired Ferrari as well?"
I had no answer for him. I only scratched the back of my head.