No Matter What Anyone Says (2)
Fren, whose reporter's instincts ran bone-deep, couldn't resist the faint murmur of Lee Han's voice leaking into the cafe.
Pretending to head to the restroom to dig up some intel, he pushed back from his seat and crept toward the private booth where Han was sitting.
Jackpot.
Although some effort had gone into soundproofing the room, a sliding door was bound to leak sound if it wasn't shut completely tight. Grinning inwardly with triumph, he trained his eyes and ears onto the narrow sliver of an opening.
His fatal miscalculation, however, was twofold: Han wasn't speaking English, and he wasn't on the phone.
...What on earth is he doing?
Hearing Korean rather than English was understandable enough. Naturally, anyone chatting with family or friends back home would speak in their mother tongue.
Yet Han was muttering into thin air while scribbling furiously into a notebook—an utterly bizarre sight to behold.
Stranger still, in the span of mere minutes, he would alternate between gulping down grapefruit ade and orange ade, switching pen hands from right to left as he wrote. It looked so unhinged that Fren began to wonder if exhaustion had finally caused him to hallucinate.
Whatever he was writing while whispering under his breath, he certainly didn't look like a man in his right mind.
"Fren."
"Hold on, just leave me be for a second. Just let me—"
Startled by the voice directly behind him, Fren froze, then slowly turned around.
Standing right there was Melissa, the cafe owner and his longtime friend.
"Shut up and hand over the camera."
"Wait, this is an exclusive—"
"Hand it over before I ban you from this cafe for the rest of your life."
"......"
In the end, Fren was stripped of not just the scoop that Lee Han might be mentally unhinged, but his camera and smartphone as well.
"Hey, why take my phone too?!"
"I'll give it back after I check it, so deal with it."
Despite its casual atmosphere, many young Luton Town players frequented the cafe precisely because their privacy was ironclad here. Melissa could never allow an incident like this to slide. Honestly, the only reason Fren was getting off this lightly was that they were old friends; had it been anyone else, she wouldn't have hesitated to make a massive scene.
While Fren stood in the corner of the cafe taking his tongue-lashing for a few minutes, the brass bell above the front door chimed.
...Adelia Myers.
The very architect behind Luton Town FC's resurgence, who had driven the club's aggressive winter transfer window spending, walked inside with her bright blonde hair gleaming in the sunlight.
Fren was not so incompetent a journalist as to dismiss the presence of Luton Town's two key figures under the same off-pitch roof as a coincidence. Especially not when that place was a discreet cafe.
"Welcome, Miss Adelia!"
Where had the demon who had just been tearing him apart vanished to? Melissa was now all bright smiles as she greeted the heiress.
"Um, a mango ade—"
"Mr. Lee Han already ordered one for you."
"Oh."
"No need to order. You can head right on in."
At Melissa's prompting, Adelia hurried into the private booth with brisk steps. To ensure there would be no repeat of the earlier snooping, Melissa made sure the sliding door clicked firmly shut before turning her gaze back toward the stammering reporter.
"An ex-exclusive...! My camera! My phone!"
Naturally, having been completely stripped of modern technology, Fren could only utter empty protests. Even if he had managed to snap a photo of Myers entering, he knew full well they would leave separately and discreetly later on. The scoop was already dead in the water.
Had he just sat tight, he might have salvaged something, but unchecked greed had cost him the entire lead. Though, even if he still held his gear, Melissa had been watching him like a hawk from the moment Adelia set foot in the door.
"Just so we're clear: if you write a single syllable about this, our friendship ends today."
"Come on, as a journalist, this much is just—"
"I said, don't write it."
"...Yes, ma'am."
Inside these walls, no journalist dared defy her.
"Besides, you've been squatting here for quite a while now. Aren't you going to order anything else?"
"Well, I..."
"The strawberry eel tart came out delicious today. Want to share one?"
"......"
The scoop had evaporated, and his wallet grew noticeably lighter.
Life settled into a steady routine. The repetitive grind of training and fixtures was sometimes so mundane it verged on boring, but the story unfolding and the achievements piling up were anything but ordinary.
In the FA Cup semifinals against Wolverhampton, my stoppage-time header had sealed our ticket to the final. And in the league, though we were only at Matchday 42, a single victory in this upcoming fixture would guarantee our direct promotion to the top flight.
The title race would likely go down to the wire, as Middlesbrough trailed by a razor-thin margin of two points. Direct promotion, however, was a different story. Since the top two finishers in the Championship earned automatic promotion without the dread of the playoffs, we had no reason to wait.
It was an extraordinary scenario brought about by rivals cannibalizing each other's points all season long, coupled with our own overwhelming run of form. Circumstances had certainly aligned in our favor, but nobody could dispute the scale of what we were achieving. Capitalizing on opportunities was a talent in its own right.
Then again, that was only if we won today's match.
"I'm going to be a Premier Leaguer... A Premier Leaguer..."
"We can win this... We're definitely going to win... Probably..."
"If we get promoted, I'm demanding a wage hike."
"Me too."
Just another ordinary day in the Luton Town dressing room. Dominic had his forehead pressed flat against the wall, muttering under his breath, while Emir looked completely out of his mind. Giovanni's confidence seemed to drain with every word he uttered, and Mick's leg was bouncing uncontrollably as cold sweat beaded on his brow.
"You lot look like a nervous wreck."
"Captain, you're here?"
"Yeah. The veteran has arrived."
Teddy, who had stood steadfast through the club's turbulent cycles of promotion and relegation, struck an exaggerated pose and swept his gaze over his anxious young teammates. Just as the captain prepared to deliver a rousing speech born of veteran experience to steady their rattled nerves—
"Out of my way, kid."
"Come on, I'm just trying to set some captainly discipline here!"
"You think anyone could've dreamed of this when you first crawled up from the youth academy? The world's changed, haven't you noticed? Lord, how am I supposed to survive around here?"
"......"
With years of seniority that could deliver a two-handed slap across the captain's face—a player so deeply entrenched at Luton he was practically part of the stadium brickwork—playing coach Allen cut right in. Our bear of a captain wilted straight into the corner.
"There aren't many matches left in the season. Let me have moments like this, will you? I don't want to look like a wage thief."
"I'm pretty sure you've used that exact excuse four times in the second half of the season alone..."
Honestly, it was hard to imagine any Luton Town supporter criticizing Allen for not taking the pitch. Any fan brazen enough to do so would probably have been buried under the center circle by now.
"Well, it worked, didn't it?! Did we lose? We won, damn it!"
"...Right, right."
Teddy had shared the dressing room with Allen since the day of his senior debut; against a man who had already declared his retirement at the end of this season, the captain stood no chance. What was more, aside from a single match, Luton had won every game where Allen had delivered his rambling pre-match speeches, leaving Teddy with zero counterarguments. Besides, watching the captain grumble while invariably giving way, one couldn't help but suspect that Teddy was the one who dreaded Allen's retirement most of all.
Having firmly re-established the locker room pecking order, Allen wore an easy, unbothered expression. Whether that poise came from the invincible shield of impending retirement or genuine faith in the squad was hard to tell. One thing was certain: he wasn't feeling an ounce of nerves.
"I'm not worried about you lot. You're going to get promoted. That's a given."
His opening remark was stated with baffling, unapologetic certainty.
"Fifteen years ago, Luton Town missed out on the playoffs in the Championship by a hair's breadth. Things are completely different now."
"Allen really is showing his age..."
"Tell me about it."
"Shut your local broadcast, Dominic."
Allen fought to suppress the vein throbbing on his forehead.
"...My point is you've earned your place in the Premier League, so stop nitpicking the details!"
"Ow! Ow! I've got a bruise there!"
In the end, Dominic bore the brunt of Allen's wrath. Knowing kickoff was just around the corner, Allen held back enough that Dominic survived, though the victim might disagree.
"Ahem. Where was I?"
"That we deserve to go to the Premier League?"
"Ah, right. You lot have the ability to earn louder cheers, better facilities, and bigger paychecks. I might not be anyone special, but I've watched you closer than anyone else, so I'm not taking arguments."
Taking a swig from Dominic's sports drink while the younger player whimpered beside him, Allen continued.
"About ten years ago, we had to pay for these out of our own pockets."
"......"
Those words could only come from Allen—a man who had stood by Luton Town when they bounced between divisions, were abandoned by an owner two regimes back, and teetered on the brink of liquidation multiple times.
Privately, I agreed with Dominic's muttered commentary. Only in my head, of course.
"Focus on the positives. Wanting to win this match is fine, but don't let it consume you. Losing today doesn't blow our title hopes, nor does it kill our promotion."
Despite his calm delivery, a quiet thrill thrummed beneath his voice.
"If this chance slips away, we take the next one. If not the next, then the one after that."
Having weathered nearly two decades of turmoil at Luton Town and remained a stalwart fixture in this very locker room, his philosophy shone through his words.
"So play free. A footballer shouldn't be bogged down by that kind of weight. You don't have to carry the responsibility. It's not your fault if things go sideways. Bearing that burden is what managers and coaches get paid for."
It was a sentiment only someone straddling the line between player and coach could voice with conviction.
"Ah, though if you score an own goal or give the ball away with a brainless pass, that part is definitely your fault. So completely separate from what I just said, keep your heads on straight today."
"......"
"You do know there's over a hundred million pounds on the line today, right?"
"......"
Converted roughly into Korean won, that was two hundred billion. Factor in commercial investments and sponsor agreements, and the figure climbed even higher.
"Why so stiff? A hundred million pounds isn't that much."
"......"
Silence swallowed the room. Even at the twilight of his career, Allen couldn't resist cracking jokes. He would probably pull the exact same stunt on his retirement day. Either way, peace returned once more to the Luton Town dressing room.
Flags bearing the Luton Town crest fluttered on three sides of the ground. Only three sides, because Kenilworth Road was a modest stadium that lacked a stand along one touchline entirely. Still, it had all the essentials, including the VIP boxes erected three years ago.
The roar inside the stadium began to swell.
Playing at home had a distinct magic that away matches could never match. Seeing that sea of raw passion, it was only natural that your legs would run that much harder, that you'd sprint one more time.
Setting aside my musings, the coin toss took place. Captain Teddy chose the ball and took his place in the center circle. Whichever goal we attacked first didn't matter much anyway—both ends were packed to the brim with Luton supporters, and it wasn't a penalty shootout.
With everyone settled into position, Dominic stood over the ball at the center spot. The referee's whistle echoed across the stadium, and Dominic rolled the kickoff pass back to the captain.
For victory.
And.
For promotion.