Episode 209: A New Nest -2
─[Official] Manchester City Complete Signing of 18-Year-Old Korean Lee Jian... Transfer Fee Approximately 204 Billion Won+α, Contract Until 2029
......In the end, the final winner of this transfer saga was Manchester City. At 10 a.m. today, Manchester City officially announced the signing of Lee Jian (18, Fiorentina), and the transfer fee was revealed to be around 200 billion won. This is a record surpassing the previous highest transfer fee, that of Jack Grealish (28) at 160 billion won, and the first time the Premier League has exceeded 200 billion won.
While some pointed out concerns, citing that he is a Korean with no Premier League experience and unresolved military issues, most do not deny that Manchester City was the winner of this transfer window……
─Lee Jian Opens the Era of 200 Billion Won Premier League Transfer Fees… Who Are the All-Time Top 10?
......Fiorentina's Lee Jian transferred, leaving his parent club with a transfer fee of approximately 200 billion won. This is the largest amount in Manchester City history and ranks first in the Premier League overall. So where does this transfer fee rank all-time? The TOP 10 is as follows.
1st: Neymar Jr.
(Barcelona → PSG, approximately 315 billion won)
2nd: Kylian Mbappé
(AS Monaco → PSG, approximately 255 billion won)
3rd: Lee Jian
(ACF Fiorentina → Man City, approximately 204 billion won)
4th: Moisés Caicedo
(Brighton → Chelsea, approximately 194.4 billion won)
5th: Ousmane Dembélé
(Dortmund → Barcelona, approximately 191.4 billion won)
6th: Philippe Coutinho
(Liverpool → Barcelona, approximately 191 billion won)
7th: Jude Bellingham
(Dortmund → Real Madrid, approximately 189 billion won)
8th: João Félix
(SL Benfica → Atletico Madrid, approximately 180 billion won)
9th: Declan Rice
(West Ham → Arsenal, approximately 174 billion won)
10th: Enzo Fernández
(SL Benfica → Chelsea, approximately 171.5 billion won)
─Diversified European Stints for Korean National Team Players... Bayern Munich, PSG, Tottenham, and Now Man City
─[Photo] Lee Jian holding up a number 7 jersey, facing the camera.
ㆍㆍㆍ
“Wow... No way... How can there be a movie theater inside a house?”
At Jiu’s reaction of astonishment, I quietly nod my head too.
How can there be a movie theater inside a house.
It feels like the worldview of my 18 years of life is crumbling.
But it doesn’t end there.
“It’s still too early to be surprised. This is just the first floor; let’s go up to the second floor now.”
The man who was showing us the house surprises us once more with his words.
We’d already seen enough to make our jaws drop just from the tour so far, yet this wasn’t everything.
The first floor alone looked big enough for ten people to live together, and there’s a second floor too.
Shaking our heads, we all head toward the second floor.
“...Hey. It’d be hard to clean this place.”
“...Yeah.”
I nod at Jiu’s whispered words as we climb the stairs.
Indeed, wouldn’t you need to set aside a whole day just to clean this place?
That’s how unnecessarily spacious it is.
This morning, after finishing our schedule with the club, we had been going around the city looking at houses.
Since we’d be living in the city of Manchester from now on, we needed a new house to move into.
Thankfully, the club had helped with this too, saying they’d guide us to neighborhoods and houses where their players mainly lived, and they led us around.
We’d come to see this house now by following a club official.
“Now, if you come up the stairs like this, here is the first living room on the second floor.”
“...The first living room. So there isn’t just one living room.”
From earlier, both Jiu and I have been experiencing a whole new world in many ways.
From the spacious garden inside the house to a separate garage.
The living room was big enough to play futsal in, and it wasn’t the only one.
There were so many rooms I couldn’t remember them all, and there was even a room with a big screen called a movie theater.
But that was only on the first floor, and coming up to the second floor...
“If you open the door and come out this way, there is a swimming pool like this.”
“Ooh...”
...There’s even a swimming pool.
And not just a tub slightly bigger than a bathtub, but a real swimming pool.
The kind you’d see in some hotel.
“This is a house...?”
Jiu is lost for words.
I can relate.
That this is a house.
Even a hotel isn’t this much.
Suddenly, our home in Florence comes to mind.
Our house with one living room and three bedrooms.
That alone had been spacious and good enough to live with Dad... but seeing this, it makes no sense.
“Here, if you come over to the railing side like this, you can see the garden at a glance. The neighborhood is also very quiet and nice, right?”
“Yes... It’s really nice...”
I can say for sure that if I lived in a house like this, I’d get lost several times a day.
If you played hide-and-seek here, you could hide not for an hour but for a week, couldn’t you?
“...”
With the outdoor swimming pool behind me, I stand on the terrace overlooking the first-floor garden and look down.
...The view is certainly good.
It looks less like a view from a house and more like scenery from visiting some fancy garden.
But honestly, I don’t need a house this extravagant.
Even with a movie theater, I clearly wouldn’t use it more than four or five times a year, and I’d only use the swimming pool a few times in summer.
As for rooms, as long as I can fit my bed, that’s enough; the rest would just be a waste, wouldn’t it?
However, the important thing is that this isn’t a house for me to live in alone.
“Wow...”
When I sneak a glance at Jiu’s expression, she’s completely out of it.
I’d secretly heard her muttering to herself earlier that a house this big wouldn’t be lacking even if our whole family lived together, and she seemed to like it.
If we get a house, I’m thinking of living together with Dad and Jiu.
I’d decided on that because I felt a bit uneasy about getting Jiu a separate place to live alone, and it would cost more money too.
Because of that, I ended up watching Jiu’s reaction more than my own.
Honestly, I don’t need a house this spacious and nice.
But Jiu seems to like it, so I somehow feel inclined toward it.
If there’s just one problem...
“Excuse me, but...”
“Yes!”
“How much is a house like this...?”
“Ah, I’ll ask for you!”
When Jiu asks cautiously, the agent relays the question.
It seems Jiu was thinking the same thing as me.
How much could a house like this possibly cost?
When we were looking for a house to live in in Florence, we’d looked around a ton of places.
Because house prices weren’t cheap.
We couldn’t even consider the city center, and I know Dad stretched himself a bit to afford the house we lived in.
So then, a house like this... just how much would it cost?
I can’t even imagine it, and I swallow hard.
“Ahem! Ahem!”
As the man showing the house says this and that, the agent nods and calculates with his fingers.
Then he speaks to me.
“The monthly rent is 100 million won. The purchase price is around 12 billion won.”
“...Excuse me?”
...Hold on. What did you say?
Monthly rent is 100 million won, and to buy it is 12 billion won...?
“Hieeek!”
Jiu makes a weird sound beside me, and if Jiu hadn’t been next to me, I probably would’ve made the same sound.
No, let’s calculate for a moment.
If the monthly rent is 100 million won... and a month has 30 days.
That means it costs over 3 million won to live here for a day.
Is this... right?
“This is too expensive...?”
Jiu speaks to me with wide eyes, having apparently done the math in her head too.
Then Jiu shakes her head.
“This won’t do, not this place. It’s too expensive, hey.”
“...”
“Look, it’s unnecessarily too big. Three rooms would be enough. You won’t even use the movie theater or swimming pool much. It’d be really hard to maintain, right? Like you said earlier, cleaning would be tough too.”
...Hearing Jiu’s muttering, it crosses my mind that there might be fans who react like this when they hear my transfer fee.
That’s not what’s important; what’s important is that I could read from Jiu’s expression that despite shaking her head, she couldn’t hide her regret.
Just moments ago she couldn’t hide how much she liked it, her jaw dropping open.
After hearing the price, she seems to feel very burdened.
Probably because I’m the one paying for the house in the end.
...But somehow, seeing Jiu like that, it seems my long-dormant instinct for bravado kicks in.
When Jiu says it’s expensive, it somehow feels cheap instead.
“...It’s not that expensive.”
I look around the garden again for no reason and say to the agent.
At that, Jiu looks at me as if asking what I’m talking about, but the agent nods and replies.
“That’s right! Since the monthly rent here is 100 million won, it’s an amount you earn in a day, sir.”
“...Wait.”
Does it work out like that?
Ah, right.
That’s how I signed the contract.
I still can’t really feel it, so I haven’t even gotten used to how much my weekly wage is.
A monthly rent of 100 million won feels enormous, and it truly is enormous... but when you think about it, it’s about one-sixth of my weekly wage.
Is this right...?
Am I really at that level?
It feels like my common sense and sense of reality have been turned upside down.
“Miss Jiu. It’s expensive for people like us, but not for you, sir!”
“...Is that so?”
“On the contrary, it’s modest! Ordinary people invest several times their annual salary to buy a house! For you, sir, this house isn’t even half of your yearly salary! Goodness, how frugal!”
I feel Jiu looking at me from the side as the agent puts on an exaggerated act.
Aware of that gaze, I mutter without turning my head, as if talking to myself.
“Monthly rent of 100 million won, and 12 billion to buy...”
Hmm.
“It certainly is cheap.”
...I can’t help but be bewildered that this isn’t entirely wrong.
*
“I think the first house was the best...?”
In the middle of getting ready for bed after returning to the hotel post-dinner.
Jiu, sitting on the sofa eating snacks, mutters as if to herself.
Seems the house tour we took in the afternoon was quite impressive.
Seeing as she’s been talking about nothing but that since then.
“Me too, well...”
“Really? Right? The first one was the best, wasn’t it?”
Honestly, they were all similar, so I don’t really remember which was best, but if Jiu liked the first one the most, then that’s probably the best one.
Well, Dad is coming too to decide together, so there’s plenty of time to think; it’s not something we need to decide right away.
I figure it’ll probably end up being the place Jiu likes.
Still... I’m grateful.
Just for coming with me.
If it hadn’t been for Jiu, I might have hesitated longer about the transfer, or perhaps even given up.
Though I’ve changed from before... I still had a fear of readapting to a new place.
But if I wasn’t alone, if I was with Jiu, there wasn’t much to be afraid of.
If we’re together, whether it’s England, France, or Spain.
It wouldn’t be any different from Italy.
Maybe that’s why.
This place, the city of Manchester, doesn’t feel like an incredibly unfamiliar city right now.
Come to think of it, when I came here for an away match last time, I remember leaving with only a gloomy impression.
It’s just strange that I haven’t felt that way these past few days.
“Hey, but they really must have a lot of money.”
“...What?”
“The team called Man City. Where do they even get that kind of money?”
Who knows.
I shrug at Jiu’s words.
I’m curious about that too.
I heard the owner of Man City is Middle Eastern royalty.
Why didn’t Fiorentina have an owner like that?
“Wow, then it must be hard for you to spend money now too.”
“...”
“How do you spend all that money? You could eat lobster every day and still have money left over.”
Jiu’s imagination really is so like her.
“Well, do you have any plans?”
I shrug at Jiu’s question.
Plans for money... aren’t important right now.
Soccer is the only thing that matters.
I only have a plan to work harder and do better.
However, there is one thing I plan to invest quite a large sum in.
It’s not about a house.
It’s about a hospital in Florence.
“I’m going to make a donation.”
“A donation? Oh, nice!”
I’ve been too busy lately to visit Matteo for a while.
I have some things left to wrap up, so I’m going back to Florence the day after tomorrow, and I’m thinking of visiting him then.
But going empty-handed feels a bit off, so I was just thinking I should bring at least a simple gift.
“...”
There is one good thing about having a lot of money.
That I can easily repay the help I’ve received.
That was the best part.