Entrance Test (3)
Disaster.
From the fifteen-minute mark of the second half onward, the Blue Team facing Baek Yujin and Han Seonwoo had been living through pure catastrophe.
Fuck! Was the Baeksan duo really that good?!
Baek Yujin and Han Seonwoo of Baeksan Middle School. The Blue Team players had never actually met them in a tournament, but they knew the names well enough. The pair supposedly had absurd chemistry—no matter how the pass came, somehow it always ended in a goal. Most of them had figured, well, they were still just seventeen. That trapping of a shot earlier had been pure luck. Even if the two came on as substitutes for the other side, a comeback was impossible. Or so they thought—until the goals started going in.
A Blue Team defender made the best decision he could, yet Baek Yujin beat him with a single outside touch. He had taken a ball flying in hard and controlled it however he pleased, toying with it. Without the rumors they had heard, without that first flash of individual skill, they would have called it a fluke. As the tide turned, even players who were not defenders began marking the two as tightly as possible. It made no difference.
Thump—!
Han Seonwoo kept feeding Baek Yujin the same way he always did, and Yujin settled it cleanly before burying a mid-range strike. Then, the moment the defensive line crumbled, he pounced on a perfectly weighted ball that floated just over a defender’s head and scored again. A hat-trick in under ten minutes. As if annoyed at having been left out of the scoring, Han Seonwoo curled one in himself.
Score: 4–6.
Still, this was a test where the process mattered more than the result, so the Blue Team refused to quit. They burned with determination to show something good in the remaining five minutes. Another pass arced toward Baek Yujin. Remembering how he had been burned by that outside touch the first time, the defender held his ground instead of closing in. Every possible path was sealed off, yet Baek Yujin was smiling.
“Looks like I have no choice but to give it there.”
His eyes were locked on Han Seonwoo, who was ghosting into the half-space, exploiting the defender’s blind spot. The defender had been watching only Yujin and completely lost Seonwoo.
Tap!
The instant the ball kissed the ground and bounced up, Baek Yujin laid it off with the inside of his foot. The defender never even reacted. Han Seonwoo, already turned and running, finished it first-time with his left foot.
“Again…?”
The tempo no one could match, the killer pass almost no one could deliver—the defender’s will crumbled. Watching from the sideline, Coach Ryu Ilhae and the rest of the staff stood slack-jawed.
…Hah.
The chemistry was beyond anything he had imagined. The opposing defense had been a little disorganized, true, but on the evidence of this match alone he could have believed he was watching professionals. The two had grown far beyond their fifteen-year-old selves. Passes that seemed to know exactly where the other would be, finishing, decision-making, vision, goal-scoring instinct—nothing was missing. That did not mean either of them needed the other to shine. The synergy was simply off the charts; their individual talent was already exceptional. In fact, only players of that caliber could produce a performance like this.
“…”
Ryu Ilhae quietly lifted his pen and placed check marks on the entrance applications of both Baek Yujin and Han Seonwoo. They had passed the test.
I had only been on the pitch for about ten minutes, yet I felt like I was floating somewhere above the clouds.
Form’s not bad.
Everything I tried was working. My skills clearly had not completely rusted away.
But were the kids in middle school actually that good?
Back then I had been stopped more times than I could count. Now nothing was stopping me, and the ease of it left me wondering. Han Seonwoo, who had just scored, was probably thinking something similar.
“Were the middle-school kids actually that good?”
“They were solid, yeah. Our chemistry clicked from the start, too.”
“True.”
Looking back, a few of the Baeksan Middle kids had been ridiculous. Four out of eleven would go on to play for the national team. Two of them had retired early because of injuries, but still.
Different world.
I had spent so many years watching only the EPL and La Liga that I had forgotten what high-school level actually looked like. If I was going to join a school team, I needed to recalibrate soon. Baeksan Middle and Seongil High were not the same. Back then four geniuses had somehow ended up in one place; here there was only one—Han Seonwoo.
Hmm. Not bad, though.
Unlike the middle-school days when nothing ever failed, this actually looked fun. In my previous life Seongil High had never been a high-scoring side, but they had not been bad either. I could enjoy myself here.
The mock match ended when the other side managed one more goal. Final score: 7–5. The Red Team’s reverse victory. No cheers of triumph, no sighs of despair. From the beginning this had never been about the result—only the process.
Everyone stood as one. After a brief discussion with the coaches and a few of the current players, Ryu Ilhae stepped in front of us.
“The test results are all in.”
He met every pair of eyes that had played in the mock match, then finally settled on mine as he continued.
“Not everyone can be selected, but I want to thank every single one of you for never giving up out there.”
The atmosphere tightened the way it always does right before an announcement. Around me I heard the dry sound of people swallowing hard. Not Han Seonwoo—most of the ordinary students. At best maybe ten would make it, at worst five. No wonder they were tense.
“The successful applicants are…”
Whether he noticed their nerves or not, Ryu Ilhae immediately called out seven names. Those who heard their names either whooped or stayed calmly composed; the faces of those who did not gradually hardened. Of course Seonwoo and I belonged to the calm side—it had felt inevitable.
“Successful applicants, be ready to join training starting tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, sir!”
Coach, staff, and the current football club members filed off. One by one the students began gathering their bags and leaving as well. Seonwoo and I sat on the bench for a moment packing up. We had brought almost nothing and had only played fifteen minutes, so all that was left was banter.
“Seonwoo, you need to step it up. Only a brace? Really?”
“I’m a midfielder.”
“…Haha.”
I’m a midfielder.
When had he first started using that line?
Middle school, right? Probably.
It had been during a middle-school tournament. We were already leading 4–0 and there was no real need for more goals. Inside the opponent’s box Seonwoo had initiated a one-two with me and found himself one-on-one with the keeper. The shot sailed over the bar. I had jokingly cursed him out while he just stood there grinning, then he answered with a perfectly straight face:
—I’m a midfielder, so it’s fine.
Does he know he’s still saying the same thing fifteen years later?
The fact that a line he picked up online had lasted nearly twenty years was just funny.
Man, I want to watch those middle-school videos again.
I wanted to see exactly how I had played, how my friends had played. Someone had to still have them.
I was walking along smiling at nothing when Seonwoo tapped my arm.
“Yujin.”
“Hm? What?”
“Over there.”
Where he pointed, Jia noona was walking toward us with a handkerchief in her hand. She must have finished all her classes and been waiting for me.
“I’ll head off first.”
“Yeah. See you tomorrow morning.”
“Mm.”
Seonwoo left for home. I did not hug Jia noona—I just lightly took both her hands. I had just come off the pitch, after all; a hug felt a little much.
“You can just hug me, you know.”
She sounded a little disappointed. While she spoke she gently wiped my face with the handkerchief.
“Yeah? Still, let’s wait until I’ve showered.”
“Mm… okay.”
“How long have you been waiting?”
“Since you came on as a sub. Oh—I filmed today too. Want to watch?”
“…Oh.”
Found her. The person who had every single middle-school match video. Jia noona had come to every tournament I played and filmed the whole thing. She always asked afterward if I wanted to see it. I had completely forgotten.
“I’ll watch at home.”
“What’s this? You used to say you were too embarrassed and refuse.”
“I want to see how hard Noona was cheering. Bet you look pretty cute.”
“What? You’re not Baek Yujin. Since when did you get this smooth?”
“Haha. Even a dog that hangs around a schoolhouse for three years learns to recite poetry.”
Jia noona used to tease me at least once a day. Back then I had been shy and thin-skinned, so I always gave her exactly the reaction she wanted. Now I had fifteen years of thicker skin and plenty of practice. The me who used to flush and look away under her deadly gaze no longer existed.
“…Our pure little Yujin is gone.”
“I was never pure to begin with.”
“No. The old you would have turned bright red just now, ducked your head, and followed me.”
“…”
It was annoyingly accurate, so I said nothing.
“Do I just make you want to tease me every time you see me?”
“Yeah. You kind of have a face that begs for it.”
“…Is that a compliment?”
“Of course it is. Do you know how cute you are?”
“Mm.”
One of these days I was going to have to tease her back properly. Humans adapt, and I had not considered that Noona might escalate.
“My place again tonight?”
“Shall we? Want pasta for dinner?”
“Oh! Yes. Let’s go right now.”
And so we arrived at my house. We had been sleeping over at each other’s places since we were little, so coming and going felt completely natural. I ate the pasta Jia noona made, rested a little, then flopped onto the bed.
“Staying over?”
“Mm… no. I’ll head home in a bit.”
“You can stay if you want.”
“You want me to stay?”
“Yeah.”
“…”
She answered so honestly and then got shy. So even this noona had moments like that. We had grown up together so long that lying on the same bed felt ordinary, yet she still seemed a little embarrassed—by my casual words, by every little action.
Well, lines still have to be drawn.
In my previous, hollow life I had never even thought about anything until we were married. The me who had already done everything there was to do was different.
“Noona, can you send me the videos?”
“The football ones? Sure.”
I received the middle-school match footage and lay on my stomach, watching them one by one.
So that’s how he played?
Oh. His defending was actually solid.
He dribbled through that? If not for the injury this kid would have made the EPL for sure.
It went in—wait, blocked? Insane. Absolutely insane.
Eyes that had watched professional leagues on endless loop picked up a lot. One thing was certain: the few geniuses on those tapes had been special from the very first leaf.
Pook.
“Yujin. I’m heading out now?”
Noona, who had been studying for a while, draped an arm around my neck, leaned over, and whispered right against my ear. I had been talking to myself the whole time I watched, but a whisper that close felt completely different.
“…”
She was not heavy at all. Light, actually. The problem was that a nearly fully grown noona was pressed right against me, and that made the whole situation… complicated. I casually closed the video I had been watching.
“I’ll walk you.”
The offer was almost funny. Her place was less than a three-minute walk away, and here I was talking about walking her home. I must have been a little flustered myself.
“Hehe. So there is still a pure side left. It’s fine, though. It’s right in front.”
“…At least to the first floor.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
I threw on a light jacket and went downstairs with her. Moonlight settled over the night. In the dark, the way the light touched Noona’s face was genuinely beautiful.
“I’ll make you happy.”
The words just slipped out before I could stop them.
“What? Is that a proposal?”
“…I’ll do it properly when I’m older.”
“Hehe. I like that.”
The bright little smile, the loving way she looked at me.
“I’m going.”
“Yeah. Noona. See you tomorrow.”
Chup.
Feeling a little reluctant, I kissed her on the cheek. In my previous life I had done it every day; the motion came out almost unconsciously.
“…You went from puppy to fox.”
“Hm? What?”
“Nothing. I’m really going now.”
Chup.
Noona kissed my cheek one last time and walked home. Because it was so close I watched until she disappeared into her apartment building, then went back, watched a little more of the middle-school footage, and fell asleep.