I Only Dreamed a Sweet Dream (6)
"Hard to write, isn't it?"
"……"
For the past twenty minutes, I'd been typing and deleting on my phone in an endless loop. At first I'd dismissed the whole thing as an absurd demand, but when he said that silence tends to become the ignition point of conflict, I'd reluctantly gone along with it.
"Take your time. I'm getting paid extra for this, so it works out fine for me."
"…It's taking long because I keep rewriting it."
"Ah, I see. That was encouragement, then. You're doing great."
He was very, extremely, unbearably smug. The message was being written in Korean, so I couldn't get direct help with the wording — that was the only reason it was taking so long.
"You remember what I said earlier?"
"Yeah."
I ran through the key points in my head. Be polite but firm. Leave no room for negotiation. Don't attach personal justifications (Benjamín had scolded me for drafting a wall of text). And so on.
It wasn't easy, but having a framework to work within meant the end was finally coming into view.
"I think I'm done."
"Then hit send."
"…You're not going to ask what it says?"
"You agonized over it enough. I trust you handled it wisely."
With Benjamín's vote of confidence behind me, I pressed down on the send button. …My feelings were strange. The problem wasn't fully resolved, and yet a sense of release washed over me, as if a shackle had come loose. It felt utterly unfamiliar.
The whole thing — from the matter of my mother to tying it all off — had taken barely forty minutes. Had I been held captive all this time, or had I been the one doing the holding?
"Good. You took your first step."
"Yeah. Thank you."
When I mumbled a few words of gratitude, Benjamín gave a small smile.
"One more question. Should I… refuse like this to Mom, too?"
"That depends on what standard you set for yourself."
"……"
"I had you text your grandmother because, whatever direction you ultimately chose, this was a matter where refusal was the right call. Unfortunately, most situations don't hand you such clean, simple options."
"What does everyone else do?"
"It's hard to hold up any one person's judgment as an example. But as a counselor, I do sometimes recommend a few methodologies — prioritizing, things like that."
He added a kindly explanation. Strip away the most trivial items first; set a deadline and decide without linking the choice to other conditions.
"If a loss is unavoidable, choose the direction that costs you less. Reaching a conclusion quickly is the wiser judgment — otherwise, every moment that passes means accepting additional damage to your heart."
"Yeah."
"If you're comfortable with it, I'd like to keep talking about this in future sessions."
At some point during the conversation, Benjamín had shown me a trust that felt almost too heavy to carry.
"Kim, you can do this. You've already taken your first step."
"We'll see."
"Just wait and see. That's my counselor's intuition talking."
Yeah, right.
It was the usual moment — the instant I tried to hide behind my curtain of suspicion — when a petty streak of rebellion, offering no resistance at all, got shoved into a corner of my mind.
Gratitude rose up inside me, clear and vivid.
I hereby discard my previous assessment of Benjamín Saúl. He was a man who had earned the right to be called a professional — someone whose maturity made any comparison with myself almost embarrassing.
"Kim, our time's up."
Even his closing was flawless.
After the session ended, Benjamín walked me down to the first floor.
"Your agent asked me to call you a taxi, but I thought of something better and called a friend instead."
"Who?"
"A friend who sells sculptures at the market. Baro — I mentioned him briefly earlier, remember?"
"…How much do I owe him?"
"Haha, he'll drive you for free. He's been a Las Palmas fan for thirty years. One autograph will do."
As he finished speaking, he fished a cigarette out of his trouser pocket. The house hadn't smelled of anything at all, so smoking was the last thing I'd imagined of him.
"You smoke?"
"Ah — I'll light it after you leave."
"…No. Go ahead."
Soon a flame leapt onto the white paper stick, Benjamín's cheeks hollowed, and before long smoke curled up in lazy plumes from his nose and mouth.
Did that actually taste good?
I'd only ever seen tourists puffing away on the street; this was the first time someone in my own circle had lit up in front of me.
"Sorry. I have this habit of having one after every session ends."
"It's fine. You smoke often?"
"Not usually. Honestly… it depends on what came up in the session."
"……"
"Don't take it the wrong way. I'm human too — when I listen to dark, heavy things, sometimes I can't help seeing them reflected in my own life."
For a moment, the color of his eyes seemed to deepen.
"Plenty of people have it worse than me."
"That's true. You… really aren't like most people your age."
"Is that a compliment?"
"Objectively? Yes."
I was still turning over what the subjective version might mean when a car pulled up from the block beside the alley. It was a gray Alhambra, the kind you could spot on any street corner — a two-thousands model from SEAT, the Spanish carmaker.
A moment later, a white-haired grandfather kicked the car door open and came bounding out.
"You here?"
"Good heavens, good heavens, good heavens, good heavens. Oh — good heavens!"
"Haha, why are you rubbing your palms together?"
"Shut your trap. You're paying me back for dragging me out here with a statue. Don't stand in the way of my joy."
For someone he'd called a friend, the grooves of his wrinkles looked deep and heavy.
"Hello there? I'm Baro Maximo."
"…Hello."
I hoped he wouldn't blame me for the slow reply. The hand he'd extended for a handshake was trembling — visibly shaking — and I'd been busy worrying whether something was wrong with his health.
The grandfather — no, Baro — grabbed my hand with both of his and stroked it over and over.
"…Mm."
"Tch. You've suffered, putting up with that malicious piece of trash."
Hmph— Benjamín blew air through his nose in displeasure, but Baro flaunted the flamboyant trash-talk of a lifetime's experience.
"You dried-up old egg! Will you refrain from smoking next to a footballer? The most indecent thing I've ever heard of. Let nothing but boogers come out of those nostrils of yours!"
"Kim said it was fine."
"Everyone says it's fine when they're looking at that gloomy mug of yours."
While I burst out laughing despite myself, Benjamín raised his hands in surrender.
"…I'll head back in. Kim, you have my number, right? If that old man tries to kidnap you, call me immediately."
Once Benjamín Saúl had gone, Baro and I held a tiny, cramped autograph session. Displayed in the trunk of his car was an entire museum of club merchandise.
"This isn't this season's kit?"
"Right. It's the one I had made back when you first came up to the B team, early last year."
"Las Palmas sold this?"
"I bought the shirt separately and had it customized. Hmm — this one, I'll ask you to sign the back."
After settling the fare, I opened the passenger door and fastened my seatbelt. Soon Baro, having finished arranging the shirts, climbed into the driver's seat with a drawn-out heeaaave.
In an excited voice, he beamed about how he now had something to boast about for the rest of his life.
"Today is without question the greatest day. Just thinking about how Eduardo will burn with envy already has me tingling."
Who on earth was Eduardo?
"I'll treasure it as a keepsake."
"Feels a bit undervalued for a family treasure, doesn't it?"
"Not at all. This might be the last autograph you ever give."
"……"
"Mm, sorry. I didn't mean it in a bad way. I'm always grateful to you, you know."
"Yeah. Sure."
Without offering much of a reaction, I turned my gaze to the window as the car began to move.
Flash— It was because old Mr. Baro's parting reminder came back to me — the one about asking Benjamín about the transfer question, too.
"…Thinking it over again, I feel like I blurted out something too hasty. I'll apologize properly. Please don't take it to heart."
"It's fine. Don't worry about it."
Well, I'd already absorbed the important lessons, so it would probably be all right. It seemed like a good idea to go home and sort through the less urgent factors one by one.
Roughly speaking, the ones that mattered most were… Dad, and football. What stood opposed to them was probably Barça's prestige and system, give or take.
"Must be because today's the last day of the festival — traffic's terrible."
"Yeah. Take it slow."
I answered with sincerity instead of empty courtesy.
"The first time I ever saw you was at a B-team match, you know…"
Looking back, the conflicts had been tangled together in their own separate knots, making the decision so hard to reach. I'd wanted to clutch prestige in my fist for Dad's sake, and the system so I could play football better.
Stripped down simply, the heart of the problem came back to Dad and football. If I could only choose one, there was no question — I would choose Dad. And Dad… wanted me to choose whatever my heart told me, without weighing himself into it at all.
Hmm. Was it really okay to force it into something this simple?
"…The moment I saw you rifle one into the right top corner of the net, I became a devoted fan on the spot. I hoarded photos and videos of you like there was no tomorrow, and I kept thinking, this boy is going to become a truly great player."
Before long, I brushed the stray thoughts aside and listened to the voice of my heart.
Until now, everything had been so complicated, so difficult. The moment I resolved to leave, reasons to stay piled up to the ceiling. The moment I resolved to stay, it was exactly the same.
That was it.
I hadn't been ready.
I'd painted over Dad and home, school and Stella, Castro and Las Palmas with a coat of hesitation. It had all looked too certain to leave behind without regret.
And I knew someone who had wrestled with the same dilemma.
She had regretted it. She had grieved, and she never managed to overcome the loss.
I probably wouldn't be so very different.
For the first time, the scales of my desire lost their balance.
"Here we are already. Should've taken the long way around, huh? Haha."
When the gray car's wheels rolled to a stop in front of Dad's home, I spoke to Baro in a calm, even voice.
"Hey."
"Mm?"
"…What do you think would happen if I stayed?"
While the man in the driver's seat stared at me wide-eyed, I laid out my confession, level and unhurried.
I couldn't tell whether it was because his white hair made him feel like a real grandfather, or because the fact that we'd likely never meet again was working on me.
"Las Palmas is a beautiful island. There are so many good people here that I sometimes think I'd like to live here for a long, long time."
"Mm."
"What I need right now is a small trigger — something to harden that feeling into conviction."
"……"
"If I stay, giving up prestige and money, I don't want it to look like I settled. And at the same time, I want the stadium to be full of people who respect me — who won't laugh."
The white-haired grandfather, his face creased with wrinkles, held my gaze for a moment before he spoke.
"…There's nothing certain in this world, but there's one thing I can say for certain. If you stay here — if you lead Gran Canaria — I will hold back every pointing finger aimed your way with applause and reverence."
"I…"
I hadn't even told him about my conversation with Miguel, yet he read my heart as if he knew every detail of the whole affair.
"I won't let anyone laugh at you. Only cowards sneer at a challenge. They can't do it themselves, so all they can do is sit there and envy."
"……"
"Ah… if we happen to meet again sometime, do me a favor and give me fair warning first."
"Huh?"
"My heart's already pounding like mad at the thought of your announcement that you're staying."
"……"
My heart understood him, but I wished my face hadn't gone red quite so easily. All those moving words lost their power one after another, unraveling in a line.