Sharpening the Resolve
Late evening, Sunday, April 19, 2020. Eurostars Hotel Torre Sevilla.
Directly in front of the hotel, a three-story shopping building split the approach into two forks, and beneath the enormous cylindrical brick-red tower, a yellow bus rumbled up over the curb and eased into the plaza.
A low murmur rippled through the crowd.
People whose faces were painted in yellow and blue, dressed in cheap Canary Island costumes, shifted their gaze to follow the vehicle's slow advance. The walkway where tourists had lounged only hours before was now packed shoulder to shoulder with the tide of fans flowing back from the Copa del Rey final—no room left even to plant a foot.
Before long, the bus threaded its way between the palm trees and the benches and came to a complete halt in front of the hotel's glass doors.
The doors hissed open, and applause began pouring from the Las Palmas supporters into every crack of the dense plaza. Pepe and Llorens, technical coach Momo, fitness coach Juan Naranjo—one after another, club staff filed out of the bus. Then an elderly grandmother wearing a yellow muffin scarf let out the first proper cry of welcome, and the dam broke.
The voices tangled together in real time, too jumbled to make out a single word, but that blend of gratitude and grief, laughter and tears, soon melted into the club's anthem, forging a thick, unbreakable sense of unity.
Canaria, have patience!
For everyone — for all of us~
We shall taste the moments of joy!!
The squad spilled off the bus one by one, offering the singing fans brief words of thanks as they passed. And then, a short while later, a small boy with black hair came stomping down the bus steps into view.
Exhaustion was written across every finely chiseled line of his face.
"EYAAAA-!!"
The boundary line suddenly surged inward toward the hotel, and the Sevilla police scrambled into action, barking orders through megaphones for the crowd to hold back. But a surging, chaotic wave like that was not so easily tamed. The commander running the operation simply shrugged, made his decision on the spot, and relayed it.
"Dile que entre rápido." — "Tell him to get inside, fast."
By the time the buffer zone had been shoved back by half, fitness coach Juan Naranjo was the last to pass through the glass doors.
Barely a moment after he'd registered the menace of the uncontrolled crowd, the eyes of Nicolás—who had been crouched among his teammates—drifted toward one corner of the hotel lobby.
There, to his mild bewilderment, their lofty ace was sharing a brief hug with some middle-aged man he'd never seen before—a face of an entirely different cast from anyone he knew.
"Good work out there."
"Thank you."
"Hmm. That player over there keeps staring at us."
"……"
"Could he be hoping to sign with me? Go over and ask him, casually."
A chuckle that only deepened Nicolás's confusion—until Castro, sidling up beside him, offered the answer. An agent, apparently. That he'd seemed like a good man when they'd talked at the Christmas party needed no saying.
For the first time since the boy had joined the team, Nicolás saw him smile.
It was faint, yes—but it was a handsome enough smile to make a person wonder why he didn't wear one more often.
"Dad's in the restroom. The timing's terrible."
"That's all right. I can wait."
"Kyunghun, I wasn't talking about you—I meant Dad. The boss's about to burst. Like I said, the timing is bad."
While Nicolás hesitated, wondering whether he should saunter over and strike up a conversation with the boy whose face had flushed with color, the players with no families waiting for them headed up to their rooms.
In the middle of it all, Castro and Aythami were in a sitting room off the lobby, trying to buck up a deflated analyst.
"…Castro."
"It was my loss, not yours, so don't make that funeral face."
"Castro's right. Get angry instead. The tactical prep was flawless—this magnificent body's the one who went and swallowed five goals. Haha."
Even Aythami's generosity couldn't smooth the crease between Flores's brows.
The fact that he hadn't gotten a satisfying return on the extra hours he'd put in—that didn't particularly bother him. What gnawed at him was something else entirely: that Castro still couldn't add a championship to his résumé.
"…Shame, that's all."
"What can you do? I just have to hold on one more year."
"……"
"Think you can manage it? Next year you'll be thirty-nine—ow!"
"Hurts, doesn't it? This kind of strength comes straight from experience."
Despite the two veterans' horseplay, the gaunt man only sank deeper into gloom. Once Segunda División wrapped up and the 2020–21 season began, would Castro still be the club's choice? He had his doubts. This season he'd been kept around as, at best, a second or third option—but with promotion to Primera División, new strikers would be flooding in, and the level of competition would be on another plane entirely. It was as plain as day.
"Are you still going with the player-coach arrangement?"
"Oh, absolutely. Pepe's all for it. We've known each other a year or two, haven't we? He's respected me ever since the Real Betis days."
"I see."
"Enough of the funeral talk. Where are Betsy and Stella?"
"Right here—"
"…?"
"…They were right here a second ago."
About five minutes later, the Las Palmas analyst learned, quite naturally, of his daughter's whereabouts.
"She's doing an interview? Now?"
"Yeah. It's the broadcaster that… you know, helped us out before—"
"Ahh."
Castro's frown dissolved into instant understanding, and he gave a small nod. At that vague noise, only the eyebrows of Aythami and Flores, standing beside him, twitched with curiosity.
"What? What is it?"
"There were places that helped us out in all sorts of ways, back when we had trouble."
"I know that much. I'm asking what kind of trouble. You've racked up more than one incident, haven't you?"
Why are you interrogating me about it?—he swallowed that retort and let it slide with a good-natured laugh. All of it was an effort to soothe Stella Parker, who stood beside the sofa in the sitting room, listlessly rubbing the stem of a plant in its marble planter.
"Still, it was a bitter result, no getting around it. But you were phenomenal today. The experts who said you'd be put to the test against Barcelona—you flattened every one of their noses."
"……"
"By halftime, people were saying there had to be two Lionel Messis on the pitch. And you know who said that?"
"No."
"Bartomeu."
"……"
"The president of Barcelona said it with his own mouth."
Barry Berry, the Canadian-born agent, had been watching the interview with his heart in his throat. The rumor that an article practically leapt off the page whenever the boy's eyebrows twitched had long since made the rounds among the press corps.
Fortunately, so far there was no sign of anything outlandish spilling out.
"I don't think any differently. Everyone's probably imagined the same thing. Whether you're a Las Palmas fan, a Barcelona fan, or a neutral—there's that question, isn't there? What if Kim had played to the very end?"
"A pointless hypothetical."
"Why?"
"Because Barcelona outplayed Las Palmas. If you're going to single out a player, the right thing to do is talk about Messi or Griezmann."
The blonde journalist, Viviana, decided she would have to change tack with this interview that refused to go her way. It was being recorded, after all—even if she bruised his feelings a little, she could always smooth things over when negotiating what went to print.
"Hmm. Do you dislike talking about yourself?"
In that instant, Barry Berry's heart plunged—while Viviana's brain cells broke into cheering. She hadn't even said anything provocative, and the boy's brows were already lowering.
"It's not about that."
"Then what is it?"
"…Las Palmas lost, and Barcelona won. Whatever story you pile on top of that, it's all just an excuse. I played well and the opposing club's president heaped praise on me? What difference does that make?"
"Kim, but—"
"……"
"Don't make me call myself an idiot. Don't make me keep replaying the fact that we lost because of me. Even without you adding anything… I'm blaming myself plenty already."
"…That wasn't what I meant. I'm truly sorry."
A clenched jaw, eyes sharp with venom—and yet even those couldn't quite hide the trembling behind his lashes. But the little kid from Korea had a real talent for pulling himself together.
After a draining match, as the euphoria of adrenaline drained away, reacting emotionally was only natural—that much he accepted about his own fragility. In the end, it all stemmed from his own failings. His alone.
"Forget the apology. Don't worry about it. For the interview… let's talk about Barcelona. Messi, Griezmann, Jordi Alba. Or the goalkeeper—after the saves he made, he'd make a good subject too."
"…Kim, I apologize again, sincerely. I had no intention of hurting you."
"I told you, it's fine."
* * *
Barry Berry handed his player back to Grande Kim, who had returned from the restroom, and headed straight back to the sitting room. Father and son differed in nothing but age—neither had any talent for exchanging warm consolations—so once again, he had to risk a trespass.
"Castro."
"Barry."
As an awkward handshake sealed itself, the veteran agent exchanged nods with the Parker family as well.
"…I have one more favor to ask. You must be exhausted—I'm sorry."
"Not at all. If you want to land the Las Palmas coaching job, this much comes with the territory. Haha."
Rubén Castro's gentle smile wrapped around Barry Berry, but since this was hardly the first favor, his guilt didn't shrink an inch. It had only been the day before yesterday that he'd handed over the room key from the coaching staff and asked the man to look after his player.
"Understood."
Having heard Barry Berry's explanation—neither too little nor too much—Castro signaled his acceptance without a moment's hesitation.
"So this is the kid's father. First time meeting him."
"He's not that different."
"Haha… ha."
After hesitating a moment, the Las Palmas old-timer turned and called out to Flores Parker's daughter, who had drifted back into a corner of the sitting room. At once, an energized ball of orange hair went scampering—trip-trip-trip—toward the elevator.
A short while later, behind the hotel.
Across the asphalt road, the cigarette smoke of a blonde woman who had just finished her interview drifted on the night air. The moment Barry Berry drew up beside her, she greeted him with a blunt edge.
"You said you'd keep it short."
"…Sorry."
Viviana Frepo of Spain's public broadcaster didn't bother stacking up petty excuses. She hadn't asked anything especially provocative—she'd simply been too busy turning the boy's answers over in her head.
"Today's interview—"
"I'll email you the original recording. Cut out whatever's inconvenient and use the rest."
Such unjournalist-like concession drew a puzzled look from the middle-aged agent. By then Viviana had burned through her first cigarette and was already lighting a second.
"I wanted to plant a flag, that's all."
"…What flag?"
"It's human nature to want to look good to someone who's already rising. And if you can't manage that—well, you get behind the one who's about to."
While the cheers of Las Palmas fans rose now and again from the front of the hotel, Viviana exhaled another mouthful of smoke and spat out something utterly out of nowhere.
"I used to be a politics reporter. Covered the Socialist Party from 2014, and after watching them get crushed in the '15 general election and the '16 re-run, I changed my mind. Even with the economic crisis at its worst, they couldn't bring down the Popular Party—and watching that, I started to lose faith in politics altogether."
"……"
"Then, about two weeks before I transferred to the sports desk, I got the chance to meet the Socialist leader. He said exactly the same thing as today. That he'd been wrong, that he'd made mistakes. That it shouldn't have happened, that he'd been too clumsy."
"…Who?"
"Pedro Sánchez. The man who ousted a sitting prime minister in 2018."
"Hm."
"And who holds the Spanish premiership today."
Barry Berry's snort was swallowed by the growl of a gray car passing on the road. By the time the second ember crept dangerously close to his index finger, Viviana pushed back the laugh lines that the years had carved on either side of her mouth.
It was an honest smile.
"I don't want to miss twice. You know it as well as I do."
"……"
"That boy is going to be huge."
Something about the way she shrugged her shoulders got under his skin, and Barry Berry forced out a curt reply.
"Don't jump the gun."
But the words carried an entirely different meaning from the ones that had nearly climbed all the way up his throat.
Of course he will.