The Celebration Allowance
“Joo Jae-rim takes the ball! It's Joo Jae-rim! Jae-rim, Jae-rim, and he shoots—!! Goal, goal, goal, it's a GOAL!!! GOOOOOOAL─! It's in! Joo Jae-rim's magical wonder goal, threading the needle straight into the top right corner!”
“A spectacular debut for Joo Jae-rim! A debut goal! On top of the youngest-ever appearance record, he's now torn up Lamine Yamal's record for the youngest debut goal as well!!”
The commentary team, thoroughly worked up over Jae-rim's opening goal, caught sight of him on the broadcast feed—
“My, my! This kid is remarkably consistent. It's his own debut, his own first goal—how on earth can he look so completely indifferent?”
—and couldn't help but laugh awkwardly at the deadpan expression Joo Jae-rim wore even after scoring his debut goal.
No matter how you looked at it, he didn't resemble a rookie who had just broken into the professional stage.
“Haha, well, that's part of Joo Jae-rim's charm, isn't it?”
That said, they couldn't quite picture Jae-rim doing a celebration, either.
That part is weird, honestly.
Play resumed with Getafe's kickoff after conceding the opener, and the commentator glanced aside to check the time remaining until full time.
About twenty minutes, stoppage time included.
And twenty minutes was more than enough time.
For Joo Jae-rim to make his mark.
After his stunning long-range strike broke the deadlock, it wasn't just Rafael Silva—even the rest of the Valencia players started feeding me passes willingly.
I was no longer adapting to the team; my teammates were beginning to shape their game around mine.
I didn't bother dropping back into defense. I just strolled around up front, taking my time.
Sorry, other Valencia players.
I have to think about my footballing career in the long term.
I still had at least twenty more years of football ahead of me.
It wasn't a Champions League final or a World Cup final—there was no reason to push myself to the limit in a mere league match against Getafe.
Well, if I had been some ordinary prospect, maybe I would've gone all out this match to catch the manager's eye.
It would have been the golden opportunity for a youngster to cement his place in the first team, after all.
But I happened to take considerable pride in my ability.
I'm Joo Jae-rim, aren't I?
For the manager to agonize over whether to field me at all was nothing short of deception and posturing.
Any sane manager's first order of business would be to write my name at the top of the starting lineup.
So I walked around at the tip of the attack for a long while, analyzing the flow of the match.
And then, not long after.
After a long wait, the chance finally came.
“Jae-rimi!”
A Valencia player passed me the ball.
What was that guy's name again?
Sorry, but I still don't know it.
Apparently he'd shown contributions minor enough that I'd never needed to learn his name.
And in truth, the quality of that nameless midfielder's pass left something to be desired.
A defender's riding my back, and he gives me a pass like that?
There was the safe option of laying the ball back off to the midfielder, but that would only give Getafe's defensive line time to regroup.
So I flicked the underside of the rolling ball with my toe, popping it up and over the defender's head, then pivoted sharply to burst past him.
There was only one road from beating Getafe's defender to putting the ball in the net.
Gotcha—
But the defender's foul put an end to the plan.
Cute. Real classy way to stop me.
I could have shaken off the grabbing hand and kept running, but I went down onto the grass without the slightest resistance.
With my peak-era body, I'd have shrugged it off and powered through.
Unfortunately, my current body was far too fragile to be handled roughly.
I'll have to take it easy until I finish growing.
Besides, the spot where I'd been fouled was perfect for taking the free kick directly.
Tweet!
The moment the referee saw me go down, he blew his whistle without hesitation and signaled the foul.
Whew.
The good thing about being young is that whenever the opponent fouls you, the whistle goes just about every time.
Even referees famous for swallowing their whistles would, more often than not, blow for a foul without thinking when a young prospect went down.
The referee was human too; it was a perfectly natural reaction.
“Come on, I barely tugged him at all! That was a hundred percent Hollywood acting!”
The Getafe player protested loudly that it hadn't been a foul, but fell silent at the referee's reply.
“You want to say that again, right in front of your kids?”
“...”
Footballers tend to marry young.
Living day in and day out in the crucible of cutthroat competition, they develop a longing for someone who'll be on their side for life and for a stable home to come back to.
Which is to say, a defender of that opponent's age would have a kid about as old as me.
Swoosh—
The guy gave up his protest to the referee, walked over to me, and offered his hand.
His own idea of an apology, apparently.
“You're pretty good at football.”
“I know.”
I took his hand and got to my feet.
Then I stood over the ball at the spot where he'd committed the foul.
I was the one who'd won it, so the signal was clear: I was taking the free kick.
“What are you doing? Give me the ball.”
At that, the nameless guy came up and demanded the ball from me.
“You take free kicks worse than I do.”
“...”
He snatched the ball out of my hands with a scowl.
I let out a sigh at the sight.
That guy's face says he's bound for the lower leagues sooner or later. Wait—is this bastard a Ho-dongsaeng too?
Ah, absolutely not a slander I resorted to merely because he'd stolen my free kick.
And in fact, the guy's free kick sailed hopelessly into the sky.
The instant Joo Jae-rim got on the ball, an unnameable tension rippled through Valencia's attackers.
Because it was nearly impossible to guess when, from where, and in what form his next pass would come.
And that applied equally to Marc Iglesias, who was infiltrating the penalty box.
Th-this is insane.
He froze, startled, as he spotted the ball rolling toward him through the maze of defenders.
How did he even see that lane?
Marc Iglesias was flustered by the unexpected pass, but he forced himself to focus on the situation at hand.
How Joo Jae-rim had pulled off the pass didn't matter right now.
What mattered was that the ball was sitting right in front of him.
Tap—
Marc Iglesias took a calm, composed touch and slotted his shot straight between the goalkeeper's legs.
Rustle─
The ball that left his boot rippled Getafe's net for the second time.
Wow. That pass was unreal.
In Marc Iglesias's field of vision, he could see Joo Jae-rim walking back toward the halfway line with that same impassive expression, utterly indifferent to the stares on him—and he sprinted straight toward the boy.
“Jae-rimi, that pass was phenomenal.”
“Yeah, sure. You finished it calmly, too. Good hit.”
“Forget about Endrick throwing his little tantrum earlier. Things just haven't been going his way in matches lately, that's all.”
“Who's that again?”
“...Huh?”
Marc Iglesias couldn't help but be thrown by the unexpected response.
He's not doing this on purpose, right?
But studying Joo Jae-rim's expression closely, the boy seemed genuinely not to know.
“...You do know my name, right?”
He asked carefully, and the reply came back without a beat of hesitation.
“Yeah. Marc Iglesias.”
At Joo Jae-rim's answer, Marc Iglesias let out a breath of relief and broke into a bright smile.
One way of looking at it, hearing someone say your name was nothing special—but from this genius boy, it felt like a seal of approval.
The match between Valencia and Getafe ended 2–0.
Up in the VIP lounge, Cristiano Ronaldo's mood had reached its absolute peak.
Yes, he was delighted by the club's victory—
but the slightly bigger share of his joy came from the fact that, exactly as he had foreseen, Joo Jae-rim had taken the pitch, and his successor(?) had delivered a monster of a performance.
Still, he's missing something before he can truly become my successor.
Cristiano Ronaldo, the world-class superstar who had once defined an entire era, sized it up in an instant.
In Ronaldo's eyes, what Joo Jae-rim currently lacked was a celebration—one capable of captivating every spectator in the stadium.
Perfect. He can inherit my celebration.
Ronaldo readily resolved to pass his celebration down to his rightful heir(?).
“Joo Jae-rim. I hereby grant you the qualification to use my celebration—Ronaldo's celebration.”
He marched straight into the Valencia locker room and made the offer to Jae-rim—
“No thanks? Why would I?”
—and got shot down in spectacular fashion.
But Cristiano Ronaldo was a man who knew no surrender.
Giving up over something this small would be a stain upon the very name of Cristiano Ronaldo, the greatest footballer in the world.
Having handily repelled Cristiano Ronaldo's absurd proposal, I headed up to the VIP lounge—and there was my family.
“As expected of the head of our household! A magnificent performance!”
My little sister nodded with her arms crossed, wearing a smug, imperious expression.
“...Eun-bi, sorry to break it to you, but the head of the household is Dad.”
While my sister and father traded their banter, my mother came over and looked me over for injuries.
“Jae-rim, are you hurt anywhere?”
“I'm fine. Didn't get touched.”
“Mom was so worried something would scar that handsome face of my boy.”
At that moment, my little sister—still mid-banter with Dad—cut in.
“Oppa's face isn't exactly handsome, though...”
“Funny, coming from someone who's not exactly pretty herself. Being my sister and all.”
“Gah! N-no, oppa is handsome!”
It wasn't that I particularly disliked my sister.
After all, in place of a version of me whose defects of character were plain to see, she was the one making our parents laugh.
“Huh? Oppa smiled!”
“I didn't.”
“You did, you definitely just smiled...”
Still. Even for me, a lie was a lie.
Valencia Wins 2–0 Behind Joo Jae-rim's Rampage!
Joo Jae-rim unloads his scoring touch the moment he's subbed on, with a breathtaking long-range strike.
'Record Breaker' Joo Jae-rim — youngest appearance, youngest goal, and youngest assist records all rewritten in a single match!
A perfect display of one goal and one assist from Joo Jae-rim — green light in the battle for a starting spot?
Asked by reporters whether he'd consider a move to an even bigger club, Joo Jae-rim replies... "Sorry, but wherever I am is the greatest club in the world."
'Fly World Class 11' star Joo Jae-rim powers Valencia's climb back up the table.
Valencia manager Julián: "If it's for the win, it was a substitution that required no thought at all."
Marc Iglesias: "I have no idea how the ball got to me. I opened my eyes and it was just there, so I took the shot. That's it. What will I do after this interview? Probably rewatch the pass. I still can't wrap my head around how that ball reached me."
The day after the match.
“Jae-rim, how's the body holding up?”
“Same as always.”
I finished a light recovery session and headed to the club house with my agent—the director had urgently called us in to discuss a contract.
Anyway. The moment I stepped into the director's office,
there he was: the club director, carefully watching the owner's mood.
You again?
I sat down, cursing inwardly.
In truth, I'd had a fair idea of what this was about from the moment he called me in.
It's barely been any time since I re-signed. What contract could there possibly be?
Some light small talk was exchanged about yesterday's performance.
Then the director glanced once more in Ronaldo's direction and got to the point.
“Haha, the reason I called you in today is none other than to propose a new contract...”
The director of Valencia CF gingerly slid the contract across the desk, and I couldn't hide my bewilderment.
A celebration allowance?
A clause I had never once seen or heard of in my life had been newly added to the contract.
Too stunned to process it, I read the document over again, slowly.
A celebration... so you're telling me, if I do Ronaldo's 'Siu' celebration, you'll pay me money for it?
And the most astonishing part: this allowance was higher than my goal bonus and appearance fee.
“...The clause I'm looking at right now is the new one being added, correct? And everything else—the weekly wage, the contract length—stays the same as before?”
“Haha, I know it's hard to believe... but yes.”
My agent asked in disbelief as well, and the director answered with a face caught somewhere between laughing and crying.
“...”
“...”
“...”
That day, my agent, the director of Valencia CF, and I sat there with a single sheet of paper on the table between us, unable to say a word for a long while.
...What the hell is this guy, seriously?
It seems that statement of his—Ronaldo being my single greatest benefactor—
...is due for a retraction, effective immediately.