Harvest Day (3)
April 30, 2020. Estadio de Gran Canaria.
The instant the referee's whistle blew, the Mirandés players bowed their heads, faces etched with heartbreak.
Final score: 4–0.
The moment Pepe and assistant head coach Ríos embraced on the bench, the players in yellow training vests came swarming out onto the pitch.
"Good work out there."
"Yeah. You too, Castro."
"Kim!"
At the deep, booming voice, I turned to see the hulking forearms of Juan Naranjo, the physical coach, huffing and puffing his way over from the bench. There was no need to wonder whether I'd done something wrong or was about to catch another lecture — the crowd had already begun flooding onto the field from every direction.
Leaving Castro's cursing behind me, I ducked behind Coach Juan's broad back. Watching the stampede scamper across the grass like startled deer, I couldn't help feeling utterly overwhelmed.
"WOOOO-! WAAAAAH!!"
"WE'RE CHAMPIONS!!"
"PROMOTION TO LA PRIMERA! YOU CANARY BASTARDS, WE'RE GOING UP!!"
There was a middle-aged man flaunting his dense pelt of chest hair with his shirt ripped off, a young woman stomping on her own hem as she somersaulted a good three meters, and even an elderly gentleman who brushed aside Pedri's protests — I'm fine, really, don't worry — to plant a smacking kiss on his cheek. It was an absolutely merciless barrage of gifts.
Chaos, in a word.
"Gahk!"
"A- a handshake, just one!"
"...Keep your distance."
The young man caught in Coach Juan's grip thrust out his hand, his face flushed with excitement. Hmm. The defenses were extraordinarily robust.
I reached out through the gap in the coach's armpit and clasped the offered palm.
"Thank you! It's an honor! You're the best!"
"...Yeah."
"Okay, that's enough. Kim, let's get you out of there now."
Tragically, Coach Juan's decision came far too late. To put it precisely, he had made the mistake of underestimating the Las Palmas faithful and their time-honored tradition of pitch invasions.
By the time the security personnel gave up on crowd control, the field had already reached the point where you'd struggle to find a blade of its original green.
The one small mercy was that a half-circle, a meter deep, had formed around Coach Juan and his bulging muscles.
One pitch invasion per promotion is quite enough.
After spectating two rounds of victory anthems that fate had never intended for me, and once the excitement had cooled enough for the fans to settle for autographs, Coach Juan finally succeeded in gluing my backside to a bench in the locker room. The other players, apparently immune to fear, filed through the door one after another, trading jokes as they came.
Fearless wasn't the word — their excitement simply hadn't worn off yet.
Lingering fallout from the kiss barrage included Pedri, who kept scrubbing at his cheek; Nicolás, wearing his trademark ear-to-ear grin; and Castro, clutching the kissed spot and milking the grievance for all it was worth.
Even the legendary Mantovani was stroking Nicolás's crown, chuckling with that amiable smile of his.
Soon enough, the locker room chairs began receiving their rightful owners. The ruffians, as if deciding that today of all days the kit manager's labors could go hang, hurled their uniforms toward the lockers.
One after another, shin guards and bandages reduced to sad, peeling tape flew through the air, batted from hand to hand.
The giddy, offhand atmosphere indoors reached perfection with the arrival — from who knows where — of champagne. The owner of the bottle who leapt up onto a chair was... Dani Castellano.
Shocking absolutely no one.
"And the champions of this season are?"
"Las Palmas-!"
"What was that?"
"LAS PALMAS-!!"
"LOUDER!!"
"LAAAAS PALMAAAS-!!!"
The instant the cork shot skyward like a rocket with a pop, the players erupted — every conceivable shriek and stomp of feet pouring out their joy.
Having never once experienced anything like this, I found it, frankly... rather exhausting.
"What are you doing!"
"......"
"I said, what are you doing!"
The Chihuahua, wearing an unusually ugly scowl today, bellowed right into my ear. Before I could even think of a reply, two forearms hooked in under my armpits.
"You——"
"NIKOLA!"
"Huh? Oh! All right, let's go!"
This is not all right.
My halfhearted resistance only attracted the attention of Aythami and the rest of the incorrigible mob. I let myself be dragged in among the bouncing posts.
These dung-for-brains idiots.
"Unión deportiva Las Palmas — united in sport, Las Palmas~!"
"¡Las Palmas ya está aquí! Las Palmas has arrived-!"
"¡Somos canarios con mucha paciencia! We are Canarios with great patience-!! Yolloro!"
Aythami's bizarre battle cry, blown through a champagne bottle like a trumpet, was reproduced on an endless loop through the players' mouths.
What on earth yolloro even meant... no, actually, I didn't want to know.
Just then, Pepe and the coaching staff flung the door open and walked in (a true godsend for me), taking in the carnage that filled the room.
"...What's all the racket about?"
"We won the league!"
"...Right."
"......"
"That's exactly it! WE WON THE LEAGUE, you sons of bitches-!!"
"YEE-!!"
Arm in arm with Javi Castellano, the coaching staff began circling around me in a skipping little dance. It was profoundly bewildering to watch.
This is......
"The Canary Islands have a prince from Korea!"
"The one who brought victory to Pepe~"
"The prince with the golden crown!"
So this is why nobody ever wants to get relegated, I suppose.
"YOLLORO-!!"
A short while later, amid the hopping figures of zombies in yellow kits, a second pop rang out and the champagne foam whirled through the air in every direction like fireworks.
My whole body was already sticky.
And yet, at the same time, I couldn't exactly refuse to follow the coach as he thundered about between the players, his plump belly on full display. The other idiots might not know any better, but getting on the manager's bad side was off the table. Skipping the jumping, I resolved to tag along in the circle — just a little. Just the tiniest bit.
Well.
...It was more fun than I'd expected.
Outside the stadium, near the tunnel reserved for staff.
Castro and I were following a security officer past one rough, massive gray pillar after another, having come out of the showers early for the post-match interview.
Delayed thanks to the crowd invasion—
"The fact that you didn't even bother washing says a lot about your endurance, I'll give you that."
"...I rinsed off. With water."
"Right. You gave that uniform a thorough rinse. You're a talented hand-washer, I'll say that. Do my laundry next time too."
"...I washed my body too. I'll do it properly when I get home."
Castro flicked his still-damp hair about as he scrutinized my outfit top to bottom. Since when had he taken such a passionate interest in my personal life?
Before long we reached the end of the line of gray pillars, and there beside the yellow team bus I registered the people waiting for autographs and the cameras set up for filming.
Whatever the club official approaching at a brisk clip had said, no one made the usual scramble for signatures.
"Got it."
"Yeah. Let's start right away."
At the official's signal, the middle-aged man hosting the interview began without delay.
"Then let's go meet the two men who shone brightest in today's match. Castro, Kim! Come on over!"
As the fans watching the interview offered up some clumsy cheers and applause, we stepped inside the camera's frame.
The interviewer was the man we saw at every league match — a bearded fellow in a gray suit.
"Hola."
"¡Hola! First things first, congratulations on the Segunda División title. And especially you, Castro — this is your first promotion since returning to your boyhood club. I imagine it's an emotional one."
"Hm, I'd say Kim has more right to emotions than I do. First season, first promotion."
"Haha, is that so? But tonight is the veteran's hour. I'll save that question for a little later. Castro — when you scored your brace today, the Las Palmas fans were chanting your name in yellow shirts. It was like a galaxy unfolding across the stadium late at night. At least to my eyes, it read as respect for your career, and as a tribute to a veteran the club has decided to build its future alongside."
His way with words was... something else entirely.
Even the veteran who'd been teasing me about my laundry wore an expression of genuine awe. Castro's chest was swelling needlessly wide — the outward sign of his inner turmoil.
What must that feel like?
Considering that being born even a day early — even a single hour — changes what you endure over twenty-four hours, I was, next to Castro, a nobody with no card worth playing. Twenty-one years of difference, no less.
"It's hard to find the right words. I've only ever lived for football, so saying things out loud is difficult for me. If I were twenty, I'd have played it cocky, dressed it up in youthful bravado. But now......"
"......"
"...Well, it might be time to be honest with myself. Honestly... it's not pure joy. Haha."
"No?"
"Sí. The closer you get to the end of your career, the more you look back... and your heart gets complicated. Why did I meet this team now? What if I'd found them a little sooner, when I was still in my prime? The human heart is a funny thing. Because I love it too much, it aches."
"...No. That was a very veteran answer."
"Haha, you think so?"
Privately, I agreed with the interviewer's odd reply. Castro hadn't said anything against it, but it was the kind of remark he didn't want to refute — not that kind of remark.
After a beat of silence, the veteran of Las Palmas, having checked the interviewer's grave expression, settled onto his lips a smile I could never imitate.
"Anyway — I'm grateful to the fans, and I'm sorry. Wistful, and satisfied. I want to show them an even better success. Terrible answer, isn't it?"
"...You're good at football, so it's fine."
I didn't like the word terrible being thrown around, so without thinking, I barged straight into the middle of the interview. The moment Castro's eyebrows twisted into something peculiar, the interviewer let out a wheezing laugh.
"...Coming from you, I truly appreciate that."
"Hahaha— kegh, cough cough. Ah, sorry. Castro, you scored two goals today, didn't you? Kim's not exactly wrong."
"What do you mean? I was simply thanking the player who provided two assists for me today."
"......"
"Oh, right, you also scored twice, didn't you? Strange. If that's the case — just how good are you, exactly?"
He capped his remark off with a whistle, completing the tower of snark. Naturally, treating the man who'd taken your side like that was not a wise move.
Especially not on a hothead like me.
"...Then let's just say I'm the good one at football."
"Hey, taking back what you gave is even worse. You don't repay kindness with ingratitude. Do you have any idea how much I taught you?"
"...I'd like to amend something I said earlier. To: 'You're good at football, so I'm fine.'"
Oblivious to the laughter spilling over the barriers, we turned up the heat, laying the flattery on thicker and thicker.
"You ungrateful little brat!"
"Everything I know, I learned from watching you."
"...Why, you—"
"Whatever you say — I learned it all from watching you."
For all I knew, that interview was going to need a great deal of editing.