Return
The rain would not stop.
It poured as if some vast hole had torn open in the sky.
This was Bangkok. The rainy season was in full swing, thick enough to drag even the sweltering tropical air down into something damp and heavy.
I sat by the hotel window, staring at my phone in restless agitation.
I had no idea when the call would come.
Then, at last, the phone buzzed.
I answered almost on reflex.
"How did it go?"
A brief silence followed.
And the agent's voice, when it came, only made me more uneasy.
"Ah… well…"
That short hesitation alone was enough. I already knew the answer.
"Unfortunately, Port FC says they don't want to renew with you."
Damn it.
"Ah… okay. Is there… anyone else you could look into?"
The agent sounded awkward.
"Well… maybe the Japanese fourth division?"
"..."
"There's the Korean third division too."
"..."
"Or how about the Thai second division?"
I dragged a hand down my face.
Japanese fourth. Korean third. Thai second.
A few years ago, those names wouldn't even have crossed my mind.
Because I had been a prospect at Torino FC — Serie A, the top flight of Italian football.
"Still… anywhere is fine. Just find me a team I can play for."
And now here I was, begging to play anywhere at all.
God damn it. How far was I going to fall?
"Uh… yeah. Okay."
The agent answered, but his voice wasn't bright.
"But it might not be easy."
He hesitated, then spoke carefully.
"..."
"You've got people wondering if you've got some kind of… injury thing going on. You're fine, right?"
I shook my head at once.
"Ah! No, nothing like that."
A lie.
I knew it too. Something was wrong with my body.
One-trick utility pole. What a fucking joke.
He missed that? Why is that guy even on the national team?
Overseas player, my ass lmao. He's worse than the domestic guys.
Don't call up some washed-up idiot everyone's already written off.
Fragments of the past flickered through my mind.
…
"Ah… I'm really fine."
"Right…"
The agent still sounded unconvinced.
"Then I'll leave it to you."
Click.
The call-ended screen lit up.
I hung up first, clinging to whatever scrap of pride I had left.
And once again, only the rain filled the room.
Rainwater streamed endlessly down the glass.
The sky looked like it was speaking for me.
I stared out at the downpour for a long time, and the past came drifting back.
My days in Italy.
The brightest I had ever been.
Korean prospect Teo skips a grade into the U15s.
U15 striker Teo! Records a hat trick against rival Juventus U15!
The local Torino papers ran stories about me often enough.
I put up good numbers — but there was a secret behind those numbers. Not much of a secret, really.
I was a rough player.
I'd started later than everyone else.
And I was terrible at finding my position on the pitch.
Same reason — late start, not enough experience.
But I found a weapon that papered over the shaky fundamentals and the poor positioning.
I hit a growth spurt like a storm.
Five to ten centimeters taller than my peers, I locked into one position fast.
I became a striker, and after that I scored with my head in almost every match like it was nothing.
The coaches worried at first.
I had one glaring strength, sure — but the weaknesses hadn't gone anywhere.
Before long, though, they got drunk on the goals I brought them and simply kept me as the kid from the East who put the ball in the net.
Not one of them remembered what a coach was supposed to be. No one carefully worked on my flaws.
Teo called up to Torino FC's first team!
Teo! Debut goal against Como!
Still, I climbed all the way to the first team at Torino FC, the very top.
And of course, every one of those weaknesses came back around like a boomerang.
The next day arrived.
I'd slept deeply, but I didn't feel rested.
I was exhausted, yet sleep wouldn't take me again.
My eyes forced themselves open, and eventually I pushed myself up off the bed.
Outside the window, the rain was still falling.
It was still dark out there — not because of the weather, but because I'd gone to bed far too early the night before.
"This rain really doesn't quit."
Out of habit, I picked up the phone from the nightstand.
I hadn't expected any messages, but one messenger notification caught my eye.
The messages were short, but I stared at the screen for a while.
"Ah… already."
I muttered it under my breath, and a sigh slipped out after.
It still didn't feel real that so much time had passed.
Dad worked for one of the big companies back home.
I never paid much attention, but it was something that made planes, or cars — one of those.
Just a factory worker? No. I didn't think it was that kind of job.
Anyway, after I was born, around the time I was starting elementary school, Dad got posted to Italy.
The whole family went with him, and from then on we lived in Italy the whole way through.
And now retirement was already closing in.
Suddenly the years felt terrifying.
I checked the time.
Four in the morning.
Dad was in Italy.
Factoring in the time difference between Thailand and Italy, it was around eleven at night over there.
He might not be asleep yet.
Maybe this was actually a good time to call.
I hesitated a moment, then dialed home.
The ringtone sounded a few times.
And then a familiar voice came through.
"Pronto?"
Italian — but a voice I knew by heart.
"Dad."
"Ah! It's my boy."
"I heard you're retiring soon."
I took a breath, then said it.
"Congratulations. You've… worked hard all this time."
A small laugh came through the phone.
"Thanks, son. You doing all right over there?"
"..."
"They called about renewing, right?"
I bit my lip. A bitter smile came on its own.
But today of all days, I didn't want to tell the truth.
I didn't want to talk about my failure on the day we were celebrating his retirement.
"No, it's just…"
The lie came out smoothly.
"I've been getting calls from places in Korea, Japan, that kind of thing. I've been trying to figure out where to go."
"Really? That's great."
"So I was thinking — once you retire, are you going to live in Korea? Then I could play in a lower league over there and we'd get to see each other more. That's why I've been stuck on it, you know? It's a good problem to have, right? Means someone's actually calling."
Hearing him say that, something twisted in my chest.
"I'd like to go to Korea, but I've lived in Italy so long now that this place feels like home. I'll probably stay here."
"Got it. I'll play better and come back that way myself."
"I'd like that. Get to see my son more often."
The call didn't last long. A few more words of small talk, and then we hung up.
When the call-ended screen appeared, I just stared blankly down at the phone.
"Haa…"
When we first landed in Italy out of nowhere, our family needed time to adjust.
These days a Korean gets decent treatment, but back then it wasn't like that.
We took plenty of racism for it.
I couldn't speak the language, so I didn't even know that's what it was.
I was just grateful someone was talking to me at all.
But once enough time passed and I understood every word, I fell apart.
I shut myself in the house. I was afraid to go to school.
At home I did nothing.
And doing nothing except eat, I started putting on weight. The number on the scale just kept climbing.
Once I got fat, the ones who'd been racist stopped using racial slurs. They just called me a pig instead.
Was I supposed to be grateful they weren't doing the ching-chong routine anymore?
Anyway, when Mom saw what I'd become, she worried herself sick and decided I needed some kind of exercise.
That was how I ended up with soccer.
Taking up soccer was the best thing that ever happened to me.
It felt completely foreign at first — but I figured it out soon enough.
On the pitch, I didn't need good Italian. All I had to do was put the ball in the net.
I thought soccer could get me everything.
My parents were genuinely thrilled, after all.
But the story after that isn't a good one.
Nothing but a long slide downhill.
To be precise, the moment I left Torino FC was the brightest I ever shone. Everything after that was decline.
God. Where did it all start going wrong?
I already knew, really.
With fundamentals that garbage, there was only so far I could go.
I should have learned those things slowly, from the ground up — but I got blinded by success and never laid the foundation.
That damn boomerang came back and cut me open.
Inside the penalty box, I was Triangle Foot.
Every shot I took drifted just wide of the frame, and the criticism piled up.
It got so heavy that just being near the box made my heart hammer, and the mistakes started coming.
What I had left was heading off my height, or receiving a long ball with my back to goal and holding it up for the link-up play.
I scraped by on pure size for a while, but by about halfway through any given season, everyone had me figured out as a complete idiot.
Damn it. Should I go back to the past and rebuild from the basics?
Not that I was about to pray to God to send me back.
Those disgusting bastards who spent years tearing into me probably believed in that same God.
Better to pray to the devil.
So please, you miserable bastard of a devil — send me back to the past and let me make it.
…
Ah, forget it. I should just sleep.
Recognizing how stupid that line of thought was, I lay back down on the bed and closed my eyes.
The fact that every kind of nonsense kept floating through my head only confirmed how dumb I was being.
Sleeping would be better than thinking useless thoughts.
Outside, the rain was still falling, and I used it as white noise as I tried to drift off.
Slowly, deep sleep began to take me.
"You need to get up. Aren't you going to training?"
…?
What was that supposed to mean?
Someone was calling me.
"Teo!"
What?
Was housekeeping in Thailand doing this kind of thing now?
But that voice was way too familiar.
"Teo! Get up already! Mom's going to get mad!"
At that, I pushed myself upright.
Wait. Mom?
As I sat up, I felt a soft mattress beneath me.
Huh?
And the rain I'd grown so used to hearing was gone.
The weather had changed.
My skin could feel it.
This wasn't the humid climate of Southeast Asia. This was the familiar Mediterranean air.
Dazed, I looked around.
A room I knew by heart.
The place I'd lived as a kid.
Our house in Torino, Italy.
You have returned.