The Failed Final Shot, The Successful Final Pass
The staff watching the game had, before they knew it, become completely absorbed in the match.
At first only a handful of them had paid attention, drawn by the rare chance to see actors they didn't usually get to watch up close. The rest had treated it as just another day on set — one more item on the shooting schedule — and hadn't cared about the game itself.
It was, after all, amateurs versus amateurs. No one had expected a particularly high level of play. And from what they'd heard beforehand, the gap between the two teams was supposed to be considerable, so everyone had assumed it would be a one-sided affair.
Instead, the game had unfolded in a way none of the staff had predicted.
"What is this tension? There's not even a minute left and it's still completely dead even?"
The score, which had once been wide open, had begun to close little by little. A lead that had never once changed hands since tip-off was overturned for the first time with mere tens of seconds remaining. Now it was impossible to say which way the scales would tip.
The actors jogging back onto the court, high-fiving each other as they went, already looked so much like a drama scene that the camera director, capturing the moment, couldn't help but marvel.
"Damn, that freshness is lethal. Looks like someone slapped a sky-blue filter on this camera alone. This drama's gonna hit."
"We haven't even started shooting yet. Senior Jun-seong's taking this one, and I think he said they go in next month?"
"Yeah, but you can tell just by looking whether something's going to take off. How many years have I been eating network rice?"
After more than a decade living behind a camera, he could feel the visual chemistry between actors on pure instinct. These days he could tell at a glance whether a frame would sell.
While the staff were already handicapping the drama's success, Yeon-woo and his teammates hurried back into defensive formation.
The opposing players were already bringing the ball up.
Swish—
The net rippled.
Unfortunately, it wasn't theirs. It was their own.
20 to 21.
Barely seconds after taking the lead, they had been overtaken again. They launched a fast break immediately, but a turnover handed possession right back to the other side.
If they score one more, it's a three-point gap. If Yu-han's three-pointer goes in we can force a tie, but that's too much of a gamble. And time's almost gone.
To take this game, they would have to stake everything on the single play that could still win it — and execute with total focus.
Crossing half-court back into their own end, Yeon-woo closed in on Jeong Cheol-min and whispered.
"Teacher. If I give the signal, sprint straight for their basket."
"Their basket? What about the forward I'm marking?"
"Don't mark him. Just run."
Yeon-woo's judgment had never been wrong once during the game, so Jeong Cheol-min tilted his head but answered that he understood.
Yeon-woo glanced sidelong at the green digits of the electronic clock above the rim.
Thirty seconds left. Somehow stop their shot, then counter.
No matter how much the other team tried to milk the clock, they couldn't hold the ball longer than twenty-four seconds. Inside that window they would have to attempt at least one shot that at least touched the rim.
They'll try to burn the whole shot clock. That leaves us six seconds at most.
Yeon-woo looked under their own basket. Son Jin-uk was already in a low stance, arms spread, sealing off the paint.
We've got the rebound advantage.
From the other side, Jae-yun of N-Boys crossed half-court, bouncing the ball as he came in slowly. Dong-ha, assigned to him, stepped up at once to cut him off — but a team up by one had no reason to rush.
Jae-yun leisurely killed time, glancing left and right once each, then fed the open space. The player receiving the pass was Yang Yun-jae — the man Yeon-woo was marking.
The scoreboard above the rim flashed a red 3.
The green digits on the game clock tracked elapsed time; the red digits tracked the shot clock. Of the twenty-four seconds allotted, the other team had burned twenty-one stalling. Three remained.
Yang Yun-jae feinted as if he would drive, then stopped, rose backward into a jump shot, and released.
At the same instant Yeon-woo drove forward, leapt, and stretched out his hand.
Tick—
The ball leaving Yang Yun-jae's fingers grazed the tip of Yeon-woo's hand.
Got it!
Yeon-woo snapped his head to the right.
"Cheol-min, Teacher!"
Jeong Cheol-min took the signal, abandoned the man he had been marking, and broke into a full sprint. Exactly as Yeon-woo had ordered when they came back across half-court.
Thud—
Deflected just enough by Yeon-woo's fingertips, the ball caromed off the backboard and dropped. Son Jin-uk, waiting under the rim, leapt, snatched it, and clamped it in both hands.
He landed, looked upcourt — and there was Jeong Cheol-min already past half-court and flying.
Four seconds left.
The final fast-break counter.
"Hup!"
Son Jin-uk fired the ball toward Jeong Cheol-min at once. The running Jeong Cheol-min barely managed to haul in the high-arcing pass.
Time!
He glanced at the board above the rim. Three seconds. Behind him, opposing defenders were pouring everything into the chase.
His heart hammered. This wasn't a tournament. Nothing was riding on the outcome. And still, knowing the last turn of the game sat in his hands made him tense.
Jeong Cheol-min set his feet and let the shot fly.
Whoosh—
The final shot left his hands and cut through the heat of the gym. But he had rushed it. The ball sliced empty air. On that trajectory it would never even reach the rim.
Ah…
Regret flooded Jeong Cheol-min's face — and in that same instant a figure came streaking in from the side at lightning speed and left the floor.
The red digit on the clock read 2.
Thud-thud-thud—
Thok—
It was Yeon-woo. After giving Jeong Cheol-min the signal to run, he had never once looked back to check whether Yang Yun-jae's shot had gone in or whether Son Jin-uk had secured the rebound. He had simply put his head down and sprinted with everything he had.
If Yang Yun-jae's shot had fallen, or if Son Jin-uk had failed to get the board, their win probability was zero. He had run for the single remaining possibility of victory.
And the moment the red digit flipped to 1, Yeon-woo left the floor, caught the falling ball in midair, and shoved it forward with his right hand in one continuous motion.
Alley-oop.
A midair catch-and-release by a jumping player, the ball never touching the ground.
Swish—
Beeeep—!
The ball passed through the net at the exact same instant the final whistle split the air.
"Wooooaaah—!"
The alley-oop buzzer-beater at the absolute last second sent the variety crew — and even Coach Jeong Dong-seok, who had been watching from a corner of the gym — throwing both arms in the air and shouting. And the person most electrified in that moment was neither Yeon-woo, who had hit the buzzer-beater, nor the teammates charging toward him with their arms raised.
"In-insane. This is guaranteed ten million YouTube views…"
The PD of the as-yet-unnamed follow-up variety show was already painting a rose-colored future so vivid it felt like a flower garden had bloomed inside his skull. His whole body was trembling.
…This is certain. Even if, by some remote chance, the drama underperforms — the follow-up variety show is going to blow up.
He was already dying to know how the audience would react.
Meanwhile the celebrity basketball team Fast stood staring at the board that marked the end of the game, each of them wearing the hollow expression of someone whose private plan to use this friendly match as a personal showcase had just gone up in smoke.
22 to 21.
The final score pointed not to a stage for themselves, but to a stage that now belonged entirely to someone else.
After the game, the variety PD suggested a quick celebration dinner, and the actors accepted. The PD, face still flushed, grabbed Yeon-woo's hand and shook it hard, looking thoroughly over the moon.
"Khaah! That hits the spot."
Jeong Cheol-min drained the draft beer in his hand in long gulps, set the glass down, and let out a thoroughly satisfied shout. Son Jin-uk beside him grinned and asked,
"The beer? Or today's game?"
"The game, obviously. Winning that clean feels like my chest just opened up."
"But Senior Jeong — how did you even see Yeon-woo coming and throw that absurdly perfect pass?"
"Uh… huh?"
A shot that never touches backboard or rim is called an air ball. Basketball players have roughly two moments of pure humiliation: one is when an opposing center leaps up and swats your shot out of the air like a fly with a swatter. The other is the air ball. Between the two, the air ball is arguably the more humiliating.
Of course, Jeong Cheol-min wasn't exactly a basketball player…
"Ahem. That was a shot."
"……"
From across the table Yeon-woo smiled and raised his glass.
"It was a shot — but it came to exactly the spot where I could catch it clean. Halfway between a shot and a pass, so let's call it a shot-pass. Shall we toast?"
At Yeon-woo's words Jin Yu-han immediately lifted his glass, and everyone else reached for theirs.
"Hey, hey — us too! Everybody fill up!"
The PD at the other table saw them and called out, and the rest of the staff poured as well.
"How about a word from the man who scored the game-winner — Actor Ryu Yeon-woo."
At the PD's invitation Yeon-woo looked around. After the game the actors had showered in the gym and changed into the training gear they'd brought. The camera crew, who usually wore stretchy work clothes for hauling heavy equipment, completed the picture — the whole restaurant looked like an actual basketball team had taken over the place.
"Gladly. To conquering the nation!"
Conquering the nation? This wasn't a boys' sports manga. The staff burst out laughing at Yeon-woo's ridiculous toast.
The celebration had started in broad daylight right after the game, so by evening it was already wrapping up. Jeong Cheol-min and Son Jin-uk seemed to be heading off for another round, but Yeon-woo rode home in Kim Min-su's car.
During the dinner a message from Han Hae-un had arrived. Yeon-woo looked at it now.
The homeless man meant Lee Hyeong-rak — the real name attached to the slush fund set up by Hwang-geum of Baeksol, the agent presumed already eliminated. He had almost certainly been used for pocket change, but someday Baeksol might try to recover whatever funds remained after overseas transfers under Lee Hyeong-rak's identity. He had to be watched.
While Yeon-woo sorted through those thoughts, Kim Min-su's car pulled up at the house. Yeon-woo took the elevator up, walked straight into his workroom the moment he stepped inside, and put on the headset.
"You've located Lee Hyeong-rak?"
"Good work. Have you made contact?"
Yeon-woo linked the video feed to Channel 2. Through the camera mounted on Kim Su-hyeok's clothing, he watched the man climb out of a car and walk toward the cluster of homeless people.