You're Fired!!
Cristiano Ronaldo, who had been throwing a tantrum for a good long while threatening to fire me—
"Chris, NO! If you cut Jaerim, we're all finished!!"
—was only barely calmed down after three or four Valencia staff members tackled him into 'restraint.'
"Oh, my! So the club owner just threatened a young player for refusing to do as he says? Honestly, with Jaerim's future in mind, I'd recommend looking into clubs other than Valencia."
My agent, refusing to let a golden opportunity slip by, poked the bear yet again.
And Ronaldo fired my agent(?) as well.
"I'm sorry, but I'm not a Valencia employee. You can't fire me."
But even Angry-naldo's fury couldn't touch my agent—
because the one paying my agent's fees was me, not Ronaldo.
The moment Cristiano Ronaldo realized his words carried no weight with my agent, he turned and stared at me.
"What are you looking at?"
"You should respect me!"
"No, I'd have to actually learn something from you first for you to be my teacher."
"Grrrrrr…"
At the sight of Ronaldo growling like some wild beast, the Valencia staff members lunged at him once more to calm him down.
"Chris, you were~ born to be respected!"
Wasn't that mockery?
But…
It worked like a charm!
Angry-naldo began to calm down!
The staffer who had so easily soothed Ronaldo sidled over to me and whispered.
"Jaerim, don't provoke Chris!"
I gave the man a look of pure disbelief.
What exactly did I do?
After that, my negotiations with Cristiano Ronaldo kept spinning in circles like a hamster wheel.
I'd concede on most things, but this wasn't a matter worth conceding.
"…"
"…"
"…"
Just as my agent, the sporting director, and I were all wearing down under the weight of this idiotic negotiation—
"…Why don't we just settle it as a celebration contract?"
One of the Valencia staff members offered up a compromise—
And that day.
I ended up signing a gentleman's agreement with Cristiano Ronaldo.
In place of the absurd disciple contract, I agreed to the 'Ronaldo Celebration' contract he had proposed last time.
Of course, a few modifications had been made compared to the previous version.
In the earlier contract, the celebration had been mandatory.
My agent insisted that a club could not force a player's behavior.
As a result, the 'compulsory' nature of the Hoo Celebration was struck out.
There was probably a reason Ronaldo signed that clause without a fight—the effect of the last Hoo ceremony.
"Once anyone falls for the charm of the Hoo, there's no escaping it."
Either way, the contract now functioned like a goal bonus or any other incentive clause.
In other words: if I scored a goal and performed the celebration, they'd pay me.
…Then can't I just not do the celebration?
And then a new question suddenly occurred to me.
If they don't pay me when I score but skip the celebration—
…Conversely, do they pay me if I do the celebration without scoring?
Matchday 38 of La Liga.
Valencia's final match of the season took place at Granada's home ground.
My name wasn't on the starting eleven—I was on the bench list.
With both Granada's and Valencia's league positions already sealed, the match carried relatively little weight.
Manager Julián fielded a wave of promising youngsters in place of the regular starters, giving them a chance to prepare for next season.
Except me, apparently.
Well, age-wise I was a prospect too, I supposed.
But I had already thoroughly proven, against first-division opposition, that I got the job done.
And not just any first-division teams—Atlético Madrid and Barcelona, no less.
After those two matches, my stock had risen vertically.
Even the people who'd dismissed my hat-trick against Barcelona as a fluke went quiet once I bagged another hat-trick against Atlético Madrid right afterward.
A textbook case of Show and Prove.
After those two games, my standing at Valencia was practically that of a core starter.
Under Spanish employment law, players under sixteen can't sign professional contracts, so mine was still a youth deal—but once I converted to a professional contract, the highest weekly wage in the squad was a lock.
Anyway.
With so little at stake for either side, the match unfolded as a dull, listless affair.
"¡Ay! Granada, tu eres mi alegría! (Ah! Granada, you are my joy!)"
If anyone had an edge in motivation, it was Granada.
It was, after all, their final home match of the season.
Granada pressed forward aggressively through the first half.
Then came the second half.
"Booooooo—!"
"Go sit back down, kid, you shouldn't even be off the bench!!"
As I warmed up ahead of my substitution, Granada's home fans showered me with jeers—a warning shot, plain and simple.
So it begins, huh…?
You could call this the official start of the anti-ace campaign.
Football fans instinctively know exactly who the most dangerous man on the opposing team is.
"Jaerim!"
And in the 77th minute, I finally stood at the touchline, ready to come on.
Roughly fifteen minutes left, stoppage time included.
That's plenty of time to score…
The match stood at 0–0, but Manager Julián wasn't about to ask me to force a goal.
"Jaerim, there's no need to push for a goal. Just make absolutely sure you don't get injured."
"Sí."
True to form, the manager drilled the injury warning into me over and over.
I answered him, swapped in for some anonymous striker, and stepped onto the pitch.
And just like that, it was the last match of the season.
Someone's shot struck the goalkeeper's hand and went out over the goal line, and a Valencia corner was awarded.
Rafael Silva trotted over to the corner flag and readied himself to take it.
I took up my position just outside the penalty box.
I was a striker, yes, but with my still-developing body, wrestling for position against fully grown, rough-and-tumble adult defenders was a losing proposition.
And my greatest weapon had always been my touch.
With countless lifetimes of experience behind me, it wasn't that I couldn't head a ball—I simply preferred not to.
The one thing that's truly world-class is the technique I've drilled since childhood.
Rafael Silva flashed the agreed set-piece signal with his fingers, then floated the ball toward the penalty box.
But his delivery came in shorter than expected, and a Granada defender got to it first, clearing with a header.
"Jaerim—!!"
The defender's clearance was looping straight toward me.
"Blo—BLOCK IT!!"
At the same instant, I heard the Granada goalkeeper's scream.
Calmly, with the defender charging at me, I trapped the ball off my chest and immediately lashed out a shot.
Thwaaang—
The ball rocketed toward the top right corner—
Shuuuud—
—and ripped clean through the net.
The match between Valencia and Granada ended exactly as it stood, and my opening goal became the winning goal, untouched.
"Jaerim, get out of here and go to another league!!"
I received glowing praise from a young Granada fan, and in return, handed over my jersey.
"Thanks!"
The little Granada supporter beamed from ear to ear as he accepted my jersey, having apparently forgotten all about flipping me off earlier.
With the Granada match, the 2040/2041 La Liga season came to an end.
Valencia finished seventh in the table, securing qualification for the Europa League.
A team that had reached the Champions League a mere two years ago might consider it a disappointing result—but for me personally, it had been an extremely satisfying season.
I hadn't been ground down by an excessive number of appearances at such a young age.
And against mega clubs like Barcelona and Atlético Madrid, no less, I had made an enormous impact.
Still, I'm not quite where I was at my peak.
I decided to use the pre-season to prepare properly.
No footballer in this world exists without a weakness.
And the current me was, frankly, a player with a very clearly defined weakness.
My physicality is still lacking…
Truthfully, that was a problem only time could solve.
Beyond that, there was hardly anything worth calling a weakness.
…If I really had to pick one, my personality, maybe?
Then again, the mere fact that I was self-aware enough to recognize my own character flaws probably put me in the top ten percent of footballers.
"Mail for you!"
The world was full of eccentric people—people who, unlike me, hadn't lived hundreds of years across multiple lifetimes.
…There was nothing worth sending this time. Why bother?
Oh. I forgot the celebration.
With the season over, I quietly entered Korea.
There was the commercial shoot, plus a string of other schedules I had to get through while I was here.
For the record, I had no intention of visiting a psychiatric hospital on this trip.
If an article came out about me going to one, my parents would worry themselves sick—that much was certain.
And if I looked, Spain surely had decent psychiatric hospitals of its own.
Korea is just too far away. If I'm going, somewhere closer is better.
Given how unstable my mental state had been lately, it looked like I'd need to make regular visits.
"You sure you don't want to appear on the show, Jaerim?"
"Yeah. The appearance fees are way too low."
"Fair enough. Good thinking. Variety shows eat your image alive."
The broadcasters sent a truly endless stream of offers my way, but I had no plans to appear on television.
The appearance fees are insulting.
Korean broadcasters simply couldn't match my market value.
With Fly World Class 11, they'd been comparatively generous only because back then I was a kid who hadn't shown the world anything yet.
Well… I do sometimes make brief appearances on variety-style programs when an invited company demands it…
Unfortunately, the team invited to Korea for this pre-season wasn't my Valencia.
Anyway.
The moment I cleared immigration and stepped outside, what greeted me was an absolutely staggering sea of people.
"WAAAAAH! It's Joo Jaerim—!"
I had distinctly left Spain in secret, and yet the airport was already carpeted with fans and reporters.
…Was it Ronaldo?
I was able to identify the culprit immediately.
Identifying him didn't even take a full second.
Whenever some inexplicable phenomenon occurred that I hadn't anticipated, blaming Ronaldo was right about eight times out of ten.