Episode 9 — The Broken Condolences of a Variety PD
***
Last night.
I went to bed at ten o'clock and opened my eyes at exactly seven in the morning.
On any ordinary day I would have been up at six sharp, but the long-haul flight had apparently left a fair amount of fatigue in its wake.
The moment I woke, I rose from my spot and began stretching slowly, working through the routine with practiced ease.
It was a habit born back in the early days of my regressions, when I'd started living with a girlfriend studying sports rehabilitation in England.
Two young people in love sharing a bed was only natural, even for a regressor.
My first meeting with her had been a coincidence, but before long it had bloomed into love.
Personally, I think it was the sight of her so absorbed in her field of study that won me over.
In those days, I was utterly smitten with her.
Smitten enough that in the next life, I came looking for her without ever having forgotten her face.
But the woman I found again was not the woman I had loved.
'...So much had changed.'
It might have been a matter of when I'd come looking, or perhaps my own behavior had been the cause.
A single life can be upended by the smallest of things, so there was no way to pin down the exact reason.
Maybe that's why I cling so stubbornly to my parents in every life. Parents, no matter what, always look at me as their child.
Anyway.
'My condition's not great...'
My body had been off since the moment I got out of bed.
By lunchtime, instead of improving, it had only gotten worse.
If I were fully grown, and this were an important match, I could have gritted my teeth and played through it.
But I was still growing, and right now proper care mattered far more than pushing through a match.
It was all in the past, granted, but there had been more than a few lifetimes where I'd overexerted myself in a match as a kid and paid for it for the rest of that cycle.
I went straight to Coach Lee Jae-jin and told him about my current state.
"Coach, I'm not feeling well. I don't think I can play today."
And in that instant, the Main PD put on the face of a man whose country had just fallen.
'Why is he reacting like that?'
I couldn't make sense of the Main PD's unusual response.
***
The moment word reached the production crew that Joo Jae-rim was in poor condition, an emergency meeting was called.
Jae-rim's absence meant, without exaggeration, that Fly World Class 11's entire fighting strength had just evaporated.
Without him, the match against the Valencia CF youth team could barely even function as a contest.
The festive air that had swept the set at the news of Cristiano Ronaldo's visit sank in an instant.
"PD-nim, what do we do? Do we just play the match anyway?"
"...But we can't suddenly no-show after setting everything up."
Hwang Hyun-woo, the Main PD, clutched his head.
"Jae-rim no-showing right in front of Ronaldo, of all people..."
Worries of every shape and size began to take root in Hwang Hyun-woo's mind.
'What if Ronaldo thinks it's revenge for the no-show incident at the Seoul World Cup Stadium?'
He muttered to himself as he watched Joo Sang-hyun and Joo Jae-rim chatting amiably on the bench.
"...We can't force him to play, right?"
"PD-nim... could you actually live with that?"
At the main writer's words, weighted with several layers of meaning, Hwang Hyun-woo shook his head.
"Absolutely not."
Forcing a sick Joo Jae-rim onto the pitch for the sake of a broadcast?
Maybe that would have flown in the old days, but not anymore.
Besides, there was no guarantee Jae-rim would even follow his orders in the first place.
And even if he did—
If a rundown Joo Jae-rim took the field and picked up an injury, it would be the worst possible outcome.
Not only would the rest of Fly World Class 11's shooting schedule be thrown into chaos, but once the news reached Korea, even the broadcast station itself would be powerless against a nation of furious citizens.
'I'd never be able to set foot in Korea again.'
Hwang Hyun-woo's reaction was no exaggeration.
That's how white-hot Jae-rim's popularity burned in Korea.
He hadn't even debuted on the senior stage yet.
But the talent he'd shown on broadcast so far had been on an entirely different dimension.
Ever since Hwang Hyun-woo aired that unedited match footage, the ranks of those convinced Joo Jae-rim would usher in a new golden age of Korean football had grown at a staggering pace.
Korean football had been mired in crisis for years, and so the whole nation's yearning for Joo Jae-rim burned all the more desperately.
As the saying goes, knowing the taste only makes the craving crueler.
This was a country that had once produced sporting icons like Park Ji-sang and Son Heung-bin, so the arrival of a genius football prodigy after such a long drought had the entire population running hot.
The national hope riding on Joo Jae-rim burned, if anything, hotter than the frenzy that had once surrounded Barcelona's famed La Masia trio.
Footballers active across every corner of the sport had been mentioning Jae-rim by name, openly voicing their expectations.
In this climate, pressuring Joo Jae-rim to play was a hard line to cross—
even for a Main PD who would sell his soul for a ratings point.
'Still, it'd be a shame to throw away the Ronaldo card like this.'
And so Hwang Hyun-woo resolved to try a different approach.
He would mention Cristiano Ronaldo in front of Jae-rim and try to draw a reaction out of him.
Any rising young player would have at least some hunger to prove himself in front of a once-in-a-generation world star.
'He even said in an interview that his favorite player is Ronaldo.'
Carrying that hope, Hwang Hyun-woo delivered the news of Cristiano Ronaldo's visit to Joo Jae-rim.
"So?"
Unfortunately, he failed to extract the reaction he was hoping for.
***
I couldn't understand what the Main PD was saying.
'If Ronaldo's coming, then he's coming. What's that got to do with me?'
To me, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo were obstacles to surpass—not figures to look up to.
Besides, if someone becomes an object of admiration, so be it, but I had long since passed any point in my life where I was supposed to be admiring anyone.
While the production crew prepared the shoot and the kids playing in the match began warming up,
I sat quietly on the bench, staring blankly at the sky.
'Spain really does beat England as a place to live.'
Just as the warm sunlight was coaxing my eyes shut—
"Whoa. Holy crap, it's actually Ronaldo."
"You think I can get an autograph later?"
"If I score today, I'm doing a celebration right in front of Ronaldo."
"What celebration?"
"Bom-bom-bom-bom— SIUUU!!"
I could feel the murmur rippling around me.
When I opened my eyes, there stood a immaculately groomed Cristiano Ronaldo.
Even after retirement, the man clearly hadn't let himself go—his bronze skin and rock-solid frame were striking.
Recalling Ronaldo's recent social media posts, I looked up at him with eyes full of pity.
'Getting edged out by Messi in that greatest-player-of-all-time survey must have hit him hard.'
Cristiano Ronaldo, just like me, was a victim of Lionel Messi.
***
Cristiano Ronaldo could not hide his bewilderment.
'Why is that kid looking at me like that?'
Some Asian boy was staring at him with an expression of pure sympathy.
Ronaldo was already in a foul mood, still smarting from being edged out by Lionel Messi in that recent greatest-player-of-all-time poll.
'How irritating.'
And so, before the shoot had even properly begun, the famously temperamental Ronaldo found himself in a bad mood.
Entirely because he couldn't stand the pitying gaze of the brat watching him.
That said, he couldn't act on his feelings the way he had in his youth.
He'd agreed to appear on some obscure Asian program in the first place as a kind of investment—funding for the documentary he was filming about himself.
The day he'd lost to Lionel Messi in that poll, Cristiano Ronaldo had resolved to promote himself to the younger generation through a documentary telling his own story.
"Oh, you can tell at a glance this kid is something special, right? This is Jae-rim. He's being hailed as the future of Korean football."
Oblivious to Ronaldo's inner turmoil, the production staff member said with a smile.
'...This is supposed to be a football program? The standard is abysmal.'
Just as Cristiano Ronaldo was cursing under his breath—
"And they say that among all footballers, his favorite player is you, Chris."
The translator's words, relaying Hwang Hyun-woo's remarks, reached Ronaldo's ears.
"Jae-rim, was it? Well, he certainly has the face of someone who'd be good at football."
And with that, Cristiano Ronaldo began lavishing praise on Joo Jae-rim with sincerity welling up from the very depths of his heart.
'The brat has good taste in people.'
The fact that the boy had named him, and not Messi, put Ronaldo in a good mood at once.
So good that his negative first impression of Joo Jae-rim vanished in a heartbeat.
***
'What is happening...'
Once the shoot got underway in earnest, Hwang Hyun-woo was left flustered.
Cristiano Ronaldo was cooperating with the filming far more enthusiastically than expected.
'At this rate, I bet he'd even do the water-header challenge if I asked.'
Of course, he didn't actually request it.
He was worried Ronaldo might sulk and storm off home.
"By the way, all the other kids are warming up. Why is Jae-rim just sitting there? Is something wrong with him?"
"Ah... he just arrived from Korea yesterday, and, well... he says his condition isn't great."
Hwang Hyun-woo tried to make excuses, but the moment Ronaldo said Jae-rim's name so casually, his brain short-circuited and he blurted out the unvarnished truth.
'Oh no. I've stepped in it now.'
But contrary to his fears, Ronaldo showed no particular reaction to the news that Jae-rim wouldn't be playing.
"He's a very sensible young man. A player's body is his own responsibility. Jae-rim has every qualification to become a great player."
If anything, Cristiano Ronaldo came to Jae-rim's defense.
'So it's true what they say—every cloud has a silver lining.'
Hwang Hyun-woo, who had assumed the shoot was doomed the moment Jae-rim's condition made his participation uncertain.
He was, in his heart, shedding tears of gratitude.
Ronaldo's wholehearted cooperation was pouring out enough footage to fill an entire episode.
The one-sided match against the Valencia youth team was still a problem.
'Eh, we can massage that in editing. Sprinkle in some tension here and there.'
But then, mid-match, disaster struck.
'...Damn it. So much for silver linings!'
One of Valencia's promising youngsters flashed a racist gesture at Kim Hyun-sung.
The atmosphere on set turned ice-cold in an instant.
Since Ronaldo had granted them his cooperation, they would have to cut anything that might damage Valencia's club image.
But excising the scene would make the footage feel jarringly disjointed.
And even if they cut it from broadcast, word would inevitably get out.
In the end, viewers would be watching the match in a state of simmering resentment—
and if the team lost that match, it would be an utter catastrophe.
'...Should we just call off the shoot?'
The moment Hwang Hyun-woo was wracked with indecision,
the bell of salvation rang in his ears.
"Coach, I'll play."
It was Joo Jae-rim's sudden declaration.