Rest (1)
The moment Namu's header found the back of the net, Iraq completely fell apart.
Just as the manager had predicted, once Ibrahim Shulaka — the midfielder responsible for their distribution — was overloaded, the ball never reached the wingers who were supposed to be their greatest strength. Desperate to claw back the deficit, Iraq could only scramble under Korea's relentless press, unable to mount a single proper counterattack before the match sank beneath them entirely.
"Damn… look at this. Look at this. The articles are nothing but me. That means I put in a hell of a performance, right? Of course it does."
"Are you still sitting there snickering at articles? I get that you did well, but can you cut it out already? You're driving me insane."
The morning after the match, I was eating breakfast early in the dining hall when Yoon Seung-hwan's giggling drifted over from the next table. One hand clutching his phone, the other holding a spoon heaped with Greek yogurt, he finally looked up at me with a murderous squint.
"I just made my national team debut and it went well. Am I not allowed to be happy about that, you bastard? What, you're not happy?"
"Of course I am. Just not enough to stay up all night snickering at the same articles over and over the way you are."
"Baek Yi-an. You don't get it. You have no idea what it's like to play every match wondering if you'll actually deliver — that hunger, that desperation. A guy who just recycles the ball from deep midfield couldn't understand it even if he died and came back. Ugh. The pressure of having to perform next match already killed my appetite. Which is a problem, because this is exactly when I need to eat well."
With that, Seung-hwan lifted his spoon and started shoveling Greek yogurt into his mouth.
Is this guy insane?
Looking at him again only confirmed it. He had already polished off more than two full servings of rice, then sweet-talked the nutritionist into giving him Greek yogurt as a "debut goal celebration" — and he was still claiming he had no appetite.
And what was that about not understanding pressure?
This is exactly why you can never have a proper conversation with strikers.
All they had to do was beat a defender, make a run, hold their position, and shove the ball into the net when it arrived. What the hell was so hard about that that they had to whine like this? Meanwhile I was running myself ragged at the back, shutting down the opposition and managing the tempo for the entire ninety minutes.
If anything, the weight of responsibility I felt every match ran deeper than his. It certainly wasn't lighter.
"Forget it. Just forget it."
Any more of this conversation and I was going to lose my mind, so I dropped it and focused on finishing my food. All I had to do that morning was review the Iraq match with the manager and rest under the care of the team doctors.
Today should be nice and easy.
I polished off the rest of my meal in a hurry, stood up, and headed out of the dining hall with that thought in mind.
"Hmm? Yi-an, you done eating? Nothing particular on your schedule, right?"
"Namu-hyung? Yeah, I'm finished. Why?"
"Nothing major. Just thought if you were free, we could go somewhere together. There'll be a lot of the seniors there, so it wouldn't hurt to stop by. What do you think? Got time?"
Namu-hyung asked carefully. Until that moment, my head had been full of nothing but the desire to go lie down — but then again…
Might as well go, right? Getting properly introduced to the seniors can only help later on.
I made the call quickly, nodded, and followed him out.
When Namu-hyung first said he had somewhere to take me, I figured we were heading somewhere quiet enough for a proper conversation. After all, he had admitted that heading was a weakness of his, and that training with me had helped him overcome it to some degree.
That wasn't just my own assumption — he said so himself.
After the match, Namu-hyung had answered a question about his header in the mixed zone like this:
Q: After suffering airway obstruction symptoms during an aerial duel back in your Ulsan days, you were known to avoid headers. Today you scored a brilliant headed goal that sealed the team's victory. Can we take that to mean you've overcome the fear?
"Honestly, yes — I did still carry some fear about that. I held back because I kept thinking, what if I go for a header and the same injury happens again? But working through combinations with Yi-an, I feel like I've gotten past a fair amount of that fear. I'll keep showing better performances going forward."
Q: If the connection with Baek Yi-an helped you overcome it, in what way did he help specifically?
"I wouldn't really call it help, exactly… It's just that practicing with Yi-an, even when the ball hits me hard or there's a physical challenge, it doesn't hurt much anymore…"
He clearly said in the interview that I played a big part in him overcoming his fear of headers… so I figured he was taking me somewhere to say thanks.
Except what greeted me when I followed Namu-hyung was nothing like what I had expected.
"Lord, please watch over our players so that no one is injured in the next match and that they can give their absolute best, and help our team become one…"
Damn it. I should have just gone back to my room and slept.
I kept the prayer posture carefully and squeezed my eyes shut. I had expected a quiet place to talk and a simple thank-you. Instead, he had lured me straight into the national team's long-standing Christian fellowship meeting?
Ha. If I'd known, I would have just locked myself in my room and stayed in bed…
I was so annoyed at being played that part of me wanted to stand up right then and walk out — but unfortunately, that was not an option.
"We ask for victory, but more than that, grant us the hearts to play fairly, to win with humility, and to learn even from defeat…"
The atmosphere was so hushed that even shifting my position felt conspicuous. And the people in the room only made it worse.
Kang-jin-hyung — currently Korea's best player, a key man at Manchester City after stints at Valencia, Mallorca, and Paris. Jun-hong-hyung at Chelsea. Min-hyung-hyung, formerly of Tottenham and now at AC Milan… Even if this weren't a Christian gathering, basically every top senior on the national team is here…
Me, the youngest guy in the room, making a scene? Unthinkable. Unless I somehow inherited Kang Yun-ho's full career from my previous life, the only option was to shut up and sit still. That was the caliber of lineup I was dealing with.
So there was nothing I could do.
"With every match we play, let us bring glory to You. In Jesus's name we pray. Amen."
"Amen…"
I simply pretended to pray and waited for the meeting to end. I had never attended a Christian fellowship before, but I knew well enough that "Amen" marked the close of a prayer. So we were done now, right?
"Alright. We've finished praying for the matches ahead. Next, shall we pray for a safe journey to the away fixture in Syria?"
Oh, for fuck's sake — again?
Contrary to every hope I still had left, the national team's Christian fellowship dove straight back into prayer. Five minutes passed. Then ten. The praying went on and on.
Even in my previous life I had never been good at sitting still, and the original owner of this body, Baek Yi-an, seemed to be the same — staying quiet through the entire prayer was no easy task. I fidgeted, trying to find a more comfortable position without making noise…
"Ah— damn!"
"Hmm? What is it? Something wrong?"
"N-no. Just a sudden cramp…"
"Is that so? Then we'll continue. God…"
Even that attempt collapsed thanks to a conveniently timed muscle cramp. The seniors glanced my way once, then went right back to praying. Deciding I absolutely could not cause any more disturbance, I threw myself into the most earnest prayer-acting of my life.
"Right? That kid is no ordinary problem. Good thing we reeled him in early."
"No kidding. I was worried he wouldn't even come, but Namu really came through."
"Aw, I didn't do anything that special…"
The ones supposedly deep in prayer quietly glanced at Baek Yi-an — who was still dutifully pretending to pray — and began whispering among themselves.
The national team Christian fellowship. In the past, it had been a simple gathering: Christian players who didn't have time to visit a church while preparing for matches would meet after breakfast under the senior believers' lead for a short prayer. These days, the meaning had shifted a little.
Not that it had turned into some private clique or anything. It was just that what used to be a pure prayer meeting had become a first-line intervention unit for reining in juniors who looked like they were about to go off the rails.
"Kang-jin-hyung. We really do need to keep a firm grip on him, don't we? No matter how you look at it, that guy's going to cause an incident down the line. He looks exactly like you did when you were younger."
"What? You looking for a fight right now?"
"N-no, that's not what I— I mean, how do I put this…"
"Forget it. It was a long time ago, and it got sorted out fine. More importantly, kids like Yi-an need seniors like us to manage them properly. You all remember the interviews the older seniors gave, right?"
"You mean the ones from Gu Ja-cheong-sunbaenim and Ki Sung-ryong-sunbaenim?"
Kang Min-woo spoke carefully at Lee Kang-jin's words. Ki Sung-ryong and Gu Ja-cheong — legends you couldn't leave out of any history of Korean football. Even after retirement, they still wielded enormous influence in the football world. The fact that they had personally covered for the antics Baek Yi-an pulled in his interviews was no small thing.
"Right. The seniors were saying that talent is one thing, but he still needs to mature as a person — except Yi-an seems to have taken the whole thing as a compliment."
"Come on, no way…"
"If he got the message, would he tell a midfielder who just went down in the Iraq match, 'From today on, you're my house dog Ppoppi'?"
"…"
"Anyway, that one is seriously not normal. A devil. An actual devil. You saw him earlier, right? Squirming through the whole prayer, couldn't sit still for a second. There's a demon living in that body."
"Sunbaenim… even so, saying a kid that young has a demon in him is a bit…"
"…What?"
"Actually, thinking about it again, yeah. There probably is. Yohan-hyung has a full-on seizure just hearing Baek Yi-an's name."
"Exactly. So we manage him. Keep him from causing incidents and make sure he stays focused on football. Everyone clear?"
"Yes…"
"Good. Let's do this right."
Conversation finished, Lee Kang-jin carefully shifted his gaze back to Baek Yi-an. The seniors at the Christian fellowship were thrashing around looking for ways to handle the problem — but the problem himself…
"…"
"Is he asleep? In that position?"
…was sprawled out, dead to the world, looking perfectly at peace.
Back when I was on the national team in my previous life, I remembered getting plenty of invitations to join the Christian fellowship.
"Yun-ho? We've got Christian fellowship after the meal today. Want to come?"
"I'm sorry, sunbaenim. I'm a devout Hindu, so I don't believe in other gods."
"Huh? Didn't you say you love steak?"
"My mistake. I actually follow Islam…"
"Yun-ho, you're eating spicy pork stir-fry right now…"
Back then I hadn't been particularly interested in religion, and I just liked resting, so I wriggled out of it however I could. Even so, I never thought badly of the Christian fellowship itself. It was a kind of gathering ground — seniors and juniors coming together around a shared interest and spending time as a group.
Even with great players, a national team can fall apart if the chemistry isn't there. If the players themselves create opportunities to get closer, there's nothing wrong with that.
You only had to look at the mid-2000s England side they called the "Golden Generation" to understand how much chemistry mattered. Steven Gerrard was so deep into club rivalry that he barely spoke to the Manchester United players, and even Lampard talked about how there was always a tension hanging over the England camp. History had proven again and again that without chemistry, even a strong team could collapse overnight.
An easy atmosphere where everyone from the oldest senior down to the youngest could speak freely — that mattered more than almost anything. Thinking about it that way, joining the Christian fellowship hadn't been such a bad move after all.
We swept every match in the World Cup third round qualifiers and locked up finals qualification early. Sure, the opponents were relatively weaker sides compared to us — but the quality of our performances also came from how well I was linking up with the seniors.
Yeah. Gotta look at the bright side.
Waiting for the flight home after the match, I even managed to get contact information from national team seniors like Lee Kang-jin, Bae Jun-hong, and Yang Min-hyung — guys putting in strong performances across Europe. At this point, I could fairly call my first steps as a national team player a success.
All that was left was to put in good performances in the league until the next call-up and earn another selection.
The manager said it didn't matter whether I went straight to the clubhouse or stopped by home first and came in tomorrow…
Still, I needed to sharpen my form further, so heading back to the clubhouse was the better call. I was just about to arrange a car when—
A-yoon's message came out of nowhere. A moment ago I had been ready to head straight back with nothing particular to do — but if something had come up, getting back a little late wouldn't be a problem.