A Mean Old Bird
2020. 03. 04. Wednesday. Calle Don Pedro Infinito, Benjamin Saúl's consultation office.
In the corner of the study, my eyes drift to the arrival of a new sculpture. Perched atop a long decorative rod is a life-sized recreation of a man's head.
The upper part of a middle-aged man's neck, crowned by a face with round spectacles.
Thick eyebrows and a blunt nose. Full lips, embedded vividly along the smile lines framing his cheeks.
"Pretty good likeness, right? Baro made it for me."
So he actually got it out of him.
I lift the mug of warm tea and study the look of quiet pride on Benjamin's face.
Honestly, it felt a bit like theft. One single favor — arranging a single meeting — and the man walks away with somebody's actual head. If the decorative stand had been part of the deal too, that would be a hard one to walk away from with just a suspended sentence.
"Who is this supposed to be?"
"Juan Negrín, 1892 to 1956. Former Prime Minister of Spain. Born here in Las Palmas."
"His hairline's receded quite a bit."
All at once, a wry smile spread through the study. As Benjamin reached up to stroke his own bare crown, I hastened to apologize.
…Not that it was on purpose.
"Sorry."
"Hm? Haha, no, don't be. That's part of the sculpture's charm, come to think of it."
Benjamin set his mug down on the glass desk and crossed his long legs.
"You should stop by the shop sometime, if you get the chance."
"Me?"
"Yeah. Your face is on display there too."
"……."
"He rushed it out a few weeks ago, apparently."
It was obviously a petty act of revenge for my blunder a moment ago — but the strike landed with such force that there was nothing worth disputing. I genuinely couldn't tell whether he was joking.
Because, wait. My head is sitting on a display shelf right now?
Having weathered that brief crisis, we soon moved on to the deeper conversation. Ever since we'd talked about my family two weeks ago, something like a latch on my heart had begun to come loose.
Whatever I couldn't say to Uncle Varela, I sent Benjamin Saúl's way.
Somehow… it had ended up that way.
"Have you heard from your grandmother since?"
"Nothing since that day. Not yet."
"That's good."
He added a word of caution alongside the compliment.
Worrying in itself wasn't a bad thing, he said — but there were situations worth avoiding. Sleep patterns flipping day for night. Brooding alone inside your room. Ruminating on questions that had no answer. Hunting for causes in the past.
Good advice. I just wished I could pass it along to someone back in Korea rather than keep it for myself.
As for me, I'd have to say… only two of those applied.
Damn it.
"How's school going?"
"School?"
"Even the small stuff. Could you tell me in detail how you've been getting on?"
"…Why?"
"You're juggling a job and your studies at once. Your only friend is in the hospital. I'm asking because I want to know whether you're adjusting well to how things have changed."
Hm. Was I supposed to take this as part of the therapy too?
Truthfully, looking back on the past two weeks, there was a whole pile of things I could've rambled on about.
Like how, with the freckled one out of school, girls I'd never even laid eyes on had been showering me with stacks of presents and letters. How my locker had somehow been breached too — lock and all — and its interior invaded. And how I'd come to the startling realization that Stella Parker might have been acting as my shield all along — that ours was, in its own way, a symbiotic relationship.
Stuff so trivial I wouldn't dream of breathing a word of it to Uncle Flores or my dad.
After a moment's deliberation, I walked back through the intervening days with easy compliance.
At least I knew the counselor in front of me wouldn't laugh. No matter how small my worries or how odd my phrasing, he had always maintained a serious manner.
And compared to the family business in the first place, none of this even registered as a secret.
"Anyone you like… I see. No one, then."
"Right."
"So you turned them all down?"
"From my end, yes."
"You didn't accept any of the gifts?"
"Well…"
"So you did accept some?"
"……."
"…You accepted all of them?"
"I'll send thank-you notes."
I knew I'd catch flak for it, but there was nothing to be done. They all wore the expression of hamsters sprayed square in the crown of the head with a jet of water — and it wasn't once or twice. How was I supposed to refuse them every single time?
Benjamin fired up his rebuke with a dignified exhale through his nose — something about how a person's reward-seeking instincts weren't nearly that simple, and hadn't we agreed he'd practice the art of saying no.
I nodded along again and again as the counselor built his argument point by point. His reasoning was sound, each critique anchored in logic, and I could accept it without resistance.
Deep down, though… I was doing nothing but praying for the freckles' return.
2020. 03. 05. Thursday. Gran Canaria Arena. Copa del Rey semifinal, second leg — pre-match press conference.
I hate interviews.
Part of it is guarding against my prickly way with people and my talent for verbal blunders, but the biggest reason is simpler: once one is over, I'm mentally spent. It's no accident that more players hate them than enjoy them.
And pre-match press conferences were, among interviews, the kind I wanted to avoid especially (with emphasis, and emphasis again).
The string of one-on-one interviews that had followed my announcement that I was staying had all been arranged in advance, through outlets friendly to UD Las Palmas.
A pre-match conference, on the other hand, was a full gathering of the animal kingdom.
Anywhere from five to twenty minutes at a stretch, I had to deflect the questions of predators circling for a meal — and sometimes make a run for it. No doubt about it, I'd be sick to my stomach by the end.
"You look pretty tense. You okay?"
"Yeah."
My nerves must have been on edge, because my facial muscles had locked up. I kneaded my cheeks with both palms at the media officer's remark.
Meanwhile, he ran through his briefing on the outlets in attendance — Sport and AS, El Mundo and Mundo Deportivo, Público and EFPN and so on.
Which journalists were friendly and which were hostile, which questions to be careful of — a steady stream of detailed intelligence. Even Flores's tactical report for the Copa del Rey hadn't been this complicated.
"Feel free to brush right past any rude questions."
"Got it. So why are there so many of them this time?"
"Kim, they're here to see you, obviously. You've got buzz! The talent, the story, the young age, the entertaining way you talk. You've got every ingredient the specialists are salivating over."
My guess was that "a new species of monkey at the zoo" was his creative way of dressing up the sentiment. He even wagged his index finger back and forth by way of warning, but it fell far short of advice that actually landed.
"Better to get used to it as fast as you can. From what I can see, I don't expect this situation to change anytime soon."
Click—
Right on cue, the waiting-room door swung open and Pepe appeared. As always, he swept past my introduction with a brush of his hand and spoke in a level tone.
"Ready?"
"Yeah."
"Good. Let's go."
We left the waiting room, crossed the corridor, and approached the door through which the noise was bleeding. The instant we stepped inside behind Pepe, camera flashes began popping. I took my seat at the far right end of the long table.
"Quite the turnout. Let's get started."
Before long, Pepe called on the first journalist, and the opening questions came — blunt, docile stuff about tactics and squad rotation for the second leg against Real Sociedad.
"We're checking on Rodríguez's condition. The opposition manager knows as well as we do how important the middle of the pitch is. I can't say for certain what tactics Real Sociedad will employ, but either way — yes. This will be a match decided in midfield."
Pepe's answer was half truth, half bluff.
It was true that Rodríguez was working his way back to full fitness. But just that morning, the coaching staff had instructed us to line up in a classic 4-4-2 with the emphasis on the counterattack.
When winning is what matters, what isn't worth trying?
For roughly the next five minutes, Pepe devoured every question on offer.
"Next question, then… how about you there. Pablo. Pablo, right?"
"That's right — Pablo from Sport. May I direct a question to Kim?"
Hm.
I exchanged a brief look with Pepe, then turned my eyes toward the journalist in the sky-blue dress shirt.
It was about time to rotate the lightning-rod duty.
"Sure."
"You lost 3-2 away from home. Are you feeling pressure ahead of tomorrow's match?"
"I've never thought about pressure. I play the match, and I score goals. The manager expects exactly one role from me, that's all. It's not complicated."
The moment I finished, the room went quiet except for the sound of breathing and fingers hammering at laptop keys.
A little while later, once the typing had died down, a fresh crop of palms shot up around the room.
The media officer had told me to pick the friendliest outlets I could, but the lighting smeared everyone's face into patches of light and shadow, and I couldn't tell who was who. So I just gestured roughly toward wherever fewer hands were raised.
"Thank you. Milo from El Mundo. You mentioned scoring just now. Some argue that when the majority of a team's goals flow through one player, that's dangerous from a broader perspective. I'd like to hear your own view on that."
"I like it."
Instantly the typing stopped, and dozens of heads snapped up.
Was that phrased badly?
I stole a glance at my neighbor, but Pepe only sat there grinning. Still, the mood in the room made clear that an addendum was in order.
I wrung my brain in real time.
"Racking up numbers the way Pedri does — and, come to think of it, he's only got five — or contributing through technical, intricate football… that's not what I'm built for. I'm just doing what I'm currently good at. And if scoring a lot of goals is somehow a problem, I'm sure the coaching staff will let me know."
"……."
"Besides, from what I hear… I'm doing pretty well."
A ripple of broken breath ran through the room, and laughter began to spread across the press area.
I really shouldn't have been the one to say I was playing well.
The rest of the interview unfolded with a smoothness that felt almost eerie. When I spoke carefully, the journalists took me seriously; when I spoke seriously, they chuckled away. Whatever else you could say about them, they weren't a crowd with their wits about them.
"One last question."
As Pepe began signaling that the conference was winding down, a handful of journalists raised their hands. My mental fatigue was at its peak, so — friendly outlet or not — I pointed at whoever was closest.
"Abigail from AS. Thank you for the opportunity."
"Sure."
"I'd like to ask about your relationship with the club owner, Miguel. According to an article published two days ago, he said he 'would be willing to let you go at any time' and 'knows it's hard to hold on to you for long.' Kim, he spoke as though he respects your wishes."
"……."
"Do these remarks mean the matter of your transfer hasn't been fully resolved? With the summer window—"
"That's enough. We'll end it there."
Pepe cut Abigail off on the spot, but I was already turning Miguel's idiotic move over in my mind.
Of all times — right before the Copa del Rey — he had to go spouting off like that?
…No. That wasn't it.
He was a shrewd businessman. I couldn't pin down his exact intent, but by playing the magnanimous lord, he stood to gain something from me. For all I knew, this was groundwork for selling me off in the summer.
Right around the time I'd pieced together the general shape of the scheme, I engraved an old maxim into my heart: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
If Miguel meant to shove a sweet candy stick into my mouth, I'd swallow the whole thing — stick and all.
"Kim, let's go."
"I have to answer that first."
"…Kim."
"People could get the wrong idea. Abigail, was it?"
Some day in the future, I'd make sure to see exactly whose teeth went rattling loose. Just wait and see.
"Miguel and I are on genuinely good terms. I think he said what he did out of fondness for me."
"Really? What I heard was—"
"No. We share the same ambition, and the same goals."
The heads of the journalists friendly to Las Palmas tilted, one by one, in slow confusion.