Fireflies Before the Sun
***
The match between Valencia CF Juvenil A and Atlético Madrid Juvenil A was held at Estadio Cerro del Espino, the stadium located at Ciudad Deportiva Atlético de Madrid.
Once again, Joo Jae-rim's name appeared not in the starting eleven, but on the substitutes' bench.
The reason was the playing-time restriction the club had unilaterally imposed on him.
"Can't I just start, play twenty minutes, and come off?"
Jae-rim had asked Sebastián, the Juvenil A head coach, to let him start, but the manager and the club had refused, trotting out a whole list of reasons.
Their excuses sounded plausible enough, but to Jae-rim, their refusal had nothing to do with any of them.
Why does the club keep treating my refusal to be subbed off as a constant?
In that moment, a certain figure surfaced in his mind.
Hm... could it be because of Cristiano Ronaldo?
That day, Jae-rim somehow got the feeling he'd guessed the right answer.
***
The moment word spread that a Korea–Japan showdown would unfold at the Juvenil A level, Korean and Japanese football YouTubers descended on Atlético Madrid's training ground and stadium. YouTubers who happened to be living in or traveling through Spain made their way to the ground as well.
The YouTube market these days had moved beyond a red ocean. It was a blood ocean.
Only those who could churn out content angles at breakneck speed managed to scrape by and survive.
And yet people kept throwing their hats into the ring, dreaming of becoming the next big YouTuber.
The barrier to entry was low, sure — but the fruits of success were every bit as sweet.
This is a heaven-sent opportunity!
And that applied just as much to Kim Jeong-ho, a rookie YouTuber who had decided to live out the second act of his life on camera.
Kim Jeong-ho had been agonizing over his channel's stagnant subscriber count. When news broke that a youth match between Korea and Japan was being held, he headed straight for the stadium.
On pure impulse.
"Wow... all these people came to watch a youth match?"
Having managed to buy a ticket, he settled in among the away supporters.
The 3,800-seat stands were packed to capacity.
"...Folks, turns out Europe charges money even for youth match tickets. Three euros — so about five thousand won. Anyway, there's a huge crowd here even though it's just a youth game."
As he muttered to the camera alone, eyes naturally began to gather around him—
"Korean?"
A middle-aged man in sunglasses nearby called out to him.
"Yes, yes!"
Kim Jeong-ho nodded right away.
"¡Vamos Valencia!"
The man beamed at his answer and shouted toward the camera.
And before Kim Jeong-ho could even request an interview, the middle-aged man launched into one, practiced and smooth.
"Jae-rim? I think that boy will become our team's hero someday! No other player can hold a candle to him."
Just as Kim Jeong-ho was smiling at the torrent of YouTube-ready footage—
A defensive blunder handed Atlético the opening goal, and...
...the mood in the Valencia away section sank in an instant.
***
The second half kicked off with Valencia trailing courtesy of that defensive blunder.
The match followed much the same pattern as the first half.
Atlético Madrid held the upper hand and hammered away at Valencia.
As things stood, a Valencia defeat was all but scheduled. Even though the right call in this situation was for Valencia to make the first change, the manager made no move to alter anything.
Unlike senior-team managers, whose jobs hang on the result of every single match, youth coaches prioritize developing their players, and so they don't particularly fixate on wins and losses.
Valencia's youth manager kept checking his watch, over and over.
"Jae-rim! Go warm up!"
Then, around the eighteenth minute of the second half, he sent me off to warm up—
and the moment the clock struck exactly the twenty-fifth minute, he called me back.
"Jae-rim!"
As I readied myself to come on, the manager began issuing tactical instructions. Quite earnestly, too.
I let his instructions flow in one ear and out the other.
After all, a summary of the manager's directives was basically "wing it" dressed up in fancy language.
'Free Role' just means: shoot when the shooting lane opens, dribble when the space appears. Riveting stuff.
In any case.
"Whew..."
I high-fived the player coming off and stepped onto the pitch.
I don't know if this is self-importance or plain narcissism, but—
the moment I came on as a substitute and set foot on the grass,
it felt as though the eyes of everyone in the stadium swung toward me.
***
Shinichi Yagami — Atlético Madrid player, and the man they called the hope of Japanese football — watched Joo Jae-rim come on as a substitute with an expression of pure fascination.
He'd never told anyone, but Shinichi Yagami was a fan of Joo Jae-rim.
The first time he'd seen Jae-rim was back when he himself was struggling to adjust at Atlético Madrid.
To be precise, it was after watching the broadcast of a program called Fly World Class 11.
Wow... a player like that came out of Asia?
Jae-rim's sudden arrival had sent shockwaves through the football world at the time.
The show itself became a major hit in Europe as well.
The Atlético Madrid youngsters who used to quietly freeze Shinichi out, grumbling about his poor Spanish accent, even started approaching him to talk — that's how popular it was.
"Shinichi, you're from the same country as that kid?"
"No, Korea's the country next to Japan."
In the process, Shinichi found himself settling into the Atlético Madrid youth team almost naturally.
He grew close with his teammates, started receiving passes from them, and at last began making a real impact for the club.
Which was exactly why Shinichi Yagami carried a sense of gratitude toward Joo Jae-rim.
"It's nice to meet you. Let's have a good match, okay? Okay?"
Before the match, Shinichi greeted him in the Korean he'd prepared in advance.
And Jae-rim answered him in Spanish.
At that, Shinichi became a fan all over again.
...Sugoi—! His Spanish is flawless too.
But fandom was fandom, and the match was the match.
I can't lose!
Because right there in the stands were fans who had traveled all the way from Japan to Spain just to cheer him on.
***
I wandered slowly across the grass, taking in the stadium.
Plenty of Asians in the stands today.
Koreans and Japanese people hated admitting it, but their two countries resembled each other in many ways.
Obsessively hyping up a young football prospect from their own homeland was one of them.
And the way dissenting or pushback comments got thoroughly suppressed was remarkably similar too.
The nationalist hype power of the two countries' press was impossible to rank.
If anything, Korea fared slightly better than Japan.
Ah, not because Korea's hype game was lacking or anything like that.
It's simply that, unlike the deep-pocketed Japanese newspapers, Korea's outlets were broke and rarely made it over for overseas coverage.
"WAAAAAH, GANBAREEE—! SHINICHI-KUN! YOU ABSOLUTELY CANNOT LOSE!"
I turned my head toward the stands at the Japanese ringing out from them.
How many of them are there?
Something like two hundred Japanese reporters were passionately cheering on a single youth player.
My gaze drifted naturally sideways, checking whether any Korean reporters had shown up.
Thankfully, I couldn't spot a single one.
Good. Better they stay home.
There were a few people with cameras in the Valencia away section, though.
That looks like the same camera Mom uses when she films.
Judging by the familiar equipment, they were probably YouTubers of some kind.
As long as they're not reporters, I'll live.
And then it happened.
A man whose eyes happened to meet mine suddenly began putting on a resolute expression.
...No way. It can't be.
A faint tingle of foreboding crept up the back of my neck.
Half in disbelief, I watched the man closely.
"The pride of Korea, Joo—!"
Swish—
The instant the nationalist line and my surname burst from the man's mouth, I hastily raised my right hand toward him and motioned for silence.
Then I gave the tight-lipped man a thumbs-up.
***
With Joo Jae-rim on the pitch, the match truly began.
From the moment of his introduction, the entire flow of the game flipped on its head.
The substituted-on Jae-rim made no attempt to blend into the team.
Why should I adapt to you lot? You adapt to me.
They say no player is bigger than the team.
But every so often, a player bigger than the team does appear.
The kind who doesn't bend to the team — the kind who makes the team bend to him.
Jae-rim was that kind of player.
"Jae-rim!"
With a shout from some nameless Valencia midfielder, the ball found its way to Jae-rim.
Taking possession with a feather-soft first touch, he shrugged off the defender lunging at him with almost insulting ease.
A dip of the shoulders, and the defender who'd thrown himself into a sliding tackle brushed harmlessly past Jae-rim's side.
Next, he threaded the ball straight between the legs of the defender blocking his path.
The nutmegged defender spun around in a panic, but—
Too slow.
Jae-rim had long since glided past him with the ball at his feet.
With a mere five touches, Jae-rim laid waste to Atlético Madrid Juvenil A's entire left flank,
then sauntered into the penalty box.
"D-damn it!"
In Jae-rim's field of vision, the goalkeeper, his face tight with nerves, was dropping into a lower stance.
Tap—
Still mid-stride from his dribble, Jae-rim chipped the ball up and over, light as a breath.
The delicately lofted chip sailed just beyond the keeper's fingertips and ripped into the back of the net.
Rustle—
Silence fell over a stadium that, mere moments ago, had been roaring.
***
A dead hush settled over the stands packed with Japanese reporters.
They were football journalists, after all — of course they'd known Jae-rim was a far more gifted talent than Shinichi Yagami.
"A lie... this is impossible."
But they'd never imagined the matchup itself would simply fail to exist, the way it had today.
He's on another level entirely.
Joo Jae-rim and Shinichi Yagami.
The gap between their talents was so vast that comparing them felt almost shameful — they weren't even in the same weight class.
A firefly basking in the sun's glare, is it?
Shinichi Yagami was undoubtedly a prodigy in his own right...
but next to Jae-rim, he fell hopelessly short.
...Well, in that case. Time to change the questions.
The Japanese reporters had no choice but to scrap every single question they'd prepared for that day.
***
And so the match against Atlético Madrid Juvenil A came to an end.
The final score: 4–1.
I finished with two goals and two assists.
Even the Japanese reporters won't be able to compare us after this, right?
Normally I'd have headed straight for the locker room.
Unfortunately, today I had a post-match interview to do.
The Japanese reporters had requested one.
Under normal circumstances, Valencia would have shut the request down, but apparently the reporters begged so desperately that the club relented.
Well...
It was easy "work" — all I had to do was offer a few polite compliments about the Japanese player I'd faced today.
"...What are your thoughts?"
I'd been lost in my own head and missed half the question, but no matter.
It was a sure bet the question was asking me to evaluate the Japanese player from today's match.
"He's still a bit green, but I think he'll become a fine player in the future."
The moment I gave my answer, however, the atmosphere among the Japanese reporters turned strange.
"Um... Yamaguchi retired last year."
I tilted my head at the female reporter's response.
Why are you asking me to evaluate a retired guy?
Apologizing and admitting you misheard the question here — that's amateur hour.
A pro just plows straight ahead like a bulldozer.
"It's a shame. If he'd kept his playing career going a little longer, he'd have become an even better footballer than he was."
"Uh... Yamaguchi is a Major Leaguer."
······?
Why is a baseball batter coming up in a question to a football player, you absolute—