Episode 226: Settling the Debt -1
They say man is an animal of adaptation.
I don't really know who said it, or what meaning it was said with.
It was probably someone famous.
So it became a famous saying.
Anyway, I quite relate to those words.
Man certainly is an animal that adapts.
I mean, you feel it many times in life without even thinking hard about it.
That whatever it is, as time passes you get used to it, and eventually adapt.
For example... Italy, which I couldn't adapt to at all, feeling like home before I knew it.
Or first-team appearances, which had felt like impossibilities, later feeling like nothing special.
Even I have many experiences with adaptation.
Even someone like me, whose adaptability is far lower than others, has lived on adapting like that, so man certainly is an animal of adaptation.
Seen in that light, if there is something important to man, I think it is the surrounding environment.
Because man is an animal of adaptation.
Man is an animal that lives adapting to its surrounding environment, and to adapt means being influenced by the surrounding environment and changing.
The surrounding environment cannot help but be truly important to man, an animal of adaptation.
I saw it in science textbooks too.
How races living in cold regions evolved to adapt, and how races living in hot regions changed.
The same is true when I look at myself.
If I had gone to study abroad in Spain, I would have spoken Spanish, but since I went to Italy, I became able to speak Italian.
I came to like Italian food more than French cuisine, and if I see someone eating pizza with pineapple on it, I get angry.
In the end, man is an animal that changes according to its surrounding environment.
Thinking about it that way, I am quite lucky.
Because my surroundings have always been full of people worth learning from.
Friends I met in Florence, the coaches and manager, seniors who taught me about the world of pros.
Especially seeing as Jiu, who by chance ended up influencing my life the most, is not a bad person, I am truly lucky.
If Jiu had been a bad person, well, I would have received bad influence too, but it was the opposite.
Looking back... I have grown up in a pretty decent environment.
And it is the same now.
*Thwack—!*
*Thwack—!*
While I briefly rinse my mouth with a sports drink and take a break.
With the manager looking at us with sharp eyes as always, and the players in the middle of training, the training ground has an atmosphere as serious as an actual match.
In the opening match against Burnley two days ago, we won 3-0.
It was not an easy match, but in the end we found the answer, and returned to Manchester with quite a satisfying result of a three-goal margin.
However, what left an impression on me was that nobody showed any sign of excitement.
To be honest, I was a bit excited.
Immediately after the match ended.
Perhaps because of the relief felt as tension melted away, and because I had realized and learned something, I was in an unusually good mood.
But the other players did not.
Rather, immediately after the match ended, they discussed in the dressing room what had been lacking.
The same was true at breakfast the next morning.
According to team rules, we all eat breakfast together, and even at that table they talked about the match.
There was absolutely no talk about who played well, or what was good.
Like people who had lost yesterday's match, they gave and received feedback.
So, these were people for whom winning was a given.
People for whom winning was natural, and who found it regrettable that we could not win 4-0, 5-0 even though we won 3-0.
Seeing the person who had called the manager a madman obsessed with victory giving feedback the most enthusiastically... a hollow laugh escaped me.
Anyway, seeing that, my excited mood naturally calmed down quickly.
Rather than the joy of yesterday's victory, I began thinking first of tomorrow and next week.
I could not help but worry about how to achieve an even greater victory.
And then, suddenly, that thought occurred to me.
If I am on a team with such a manager and such teammates, I too will adapt, and if I keep enduring, might I not become that kind of player before I know it?
Of course, I do not know if I could stand shoulder to shoulder with them, but could I not become similar?
After all, man is an animal of adaptation.
*Thwack—!*
*Thwack—!*
"Faster! FA-S-TER!!"
...Hmm.
By the way, later on, will I be able to adapt to that manager's thunderous commands too?
Right now they are just scary, startling me out of nowhere all the time.
"Hoo—"
Since I have rested enough, now I straighten my mind again and head out to the training ground to become a madman befitting this team full of madmen.
...
The day two days before the match against Newcastle United, which is the second round of the league and the home opener.
The unnecessarily large house is even quieter today.
"..."
It is because Dad and Jiu have gone out.
Those two have been busy lately because of the restaurant story Dad and I brought up, but today it is not because of that.
They went out to pick someone up from the airport.
[...Tomorrow's temperature in Manchester is expected to range from a low of 13 degrees to a high of 20 degrees...]
Thanks to that, only the sound of the TV flows emptily through the living room.
I cannot even hear that in my ears right now, because to be honest, I am in a very nervous state.
If you ask if it is because the home opener is two days away, it is not.
It is because the guests Dad and Jiu went to pick up will be arriving soon.
The guests were none other than Jiu's parents.
They had said they were coming to see Jiu for their summer vacation.
So naturally they are coming to our house.
Hm.
But I do not really know why I am nervous.
Jiu's family are people who are no different from family to me, so there is no reason to be nervous.
And yet I have not been able to lie comfortably on the couch since earlier.
...I have a nagging feeling.
A feeling as if I have committed a sin even though I have not.
If I think hard about why, I suppose it is because Jiu is here instead of going back to Korea because of me.
That is basically how it is.
No matter how much we talked about it, if you get down to it, it is because of me that they cannot see their daughter's face.
Even though they are good people, I am worried they might hate me.
From the parents' perspective, I stole their daughter...
"..."
...I think something sounds strange about that, so I shake my head vigorously.
If you really insisted, it might be correct, but still, that sounds a bit strange.
That is not it.
While I was shaking my head for no reason with my lips pouted out.
*Ding-dong—*
"...!"
At the sudden sound of the doorbell, I jump up from the sofa without realizing it.
And I quickly check the intercom, gulp down my saliva, and open the door.
"..."
Not knowing what I should be doing, I simply stood at attention in that spot and waited for the door to open.
*
"My goodness, my goodness. How do you keep getting more handsome, Jian?"
"Ah, no..."
"You seem even taller than back then, dear. You used to worry about being short when you were little. Why did you worry when you were going to grow up this well?"
"Haha..."
Bewildered by the endless stream of absurd compliments, I laugh awkwardly and just scratch my head.
Jiu's parents had arrived.
Since I had seen them when I went to Korea before the last World Cup, it has been almost a year...
"Have you been eating well? Are you still controlling your diet and all that?"
"Ah, yes..."
"Oh my, I feel so sorry for you. You are at the age where you should be eating to your heart's content, but you cannot even eat as you please."
...It was a reaction that made my nervousness born of some inexplicable guilt feel meaningless.
It feels like more than ten minutes have passed since I opened the door until now, but the joyful greetings still show no sign of ending.
So I am relieved that I seem to have worried for nothing, but...
"Goodness, really. You have grown so much, but you still have the face from when you were little. How did you grow up this well? Hmm?"
As expected of Jiu's mother.
It is a bit hard to handle the overflowing energy.
The endless greetings too, and that... patting of my bottom.
It feels nice, like when I used to visit Jiu's house as a child, but I pretend to be an adult outside, so...
"Ah, you. Stop touching him everywhere. That body is worth hundreds of billions, and you don't even know how precious it is."
"Oh my! I am sorry. I am just so happy to see him. Sorry, Jian!"
"Ah, it is fine."
No, you do not have to apologize over that.
I just do not like the expression on Jiu's face as she is giggling behind them.
"Um, I think I was giving you a tour of the house..."
"Oh my, look at me. Aunty got carried away and kept you here again. Yes, let's go."
"Yes. Um, if you go that way, there are the stairs to the second floor."
"Oh my, my goodness."
Anyway.
I had been showing them around the house first.
It took a while, but we roughly looked around the first floor, and went up to the second floor through the stairs.
...By the way.
Since earlier, wherever we look, Jiu's mother scolds Jiu.
"Hey, are you cooking properly? You are not doing it sloppily because it is annoying, are you?"
"Come on, I told you no. When we are home, I make all three meals for him."
"It is not about just making it, you have to make it with sincerity."
"Do you think I came to study abroad for nothing? I research while cooking, I research."
"Still, you should try harder. Look at this house. Is it even plausible to live here for free?"
"Ah, come on. Since when did money matter so much to you?"
"That is a different story, you brat!"
...I do not know why, but Jiu keeps getting scolded. In the living room, kitchen, and every room we look at, she gets scolded louder.
As if living in a house like this is absurd.
Even though it is because of me that Jiu lives here.
"Um, this is the second-floor living room. If you go out this way, there is the terrace..."
"Oh my, oh my! Jiu!"
"Ah, what now!"
"Three meals is not enough! Make it four! And take separate baking lessons!"
...My head is spinning a little.
*
"In our day, hmm? We started by making a room half the size of this living room our newlywed home."
"Ahem, honey."
"Why, it is true. I slightly seduced you and you fell for it completely. From the studio I was living in then..."
"Oh, come on. Stop it."
As Jiu's father's face turns red, her mother laughs with a giggle.
I have felt it before, but Jiu really seems to take after her mother.
"Anyway, Jiu. You should know how blessed you are."
"What is so blessed about me."
"'What is so blessed'! You are living like a princess in this magnificent palace! Mom and Dad started from a studio, you know?"
"Ah, what does that have to do with me."
"Oh my, so frustrating. You say something too. Hmm?"
"...Ahem."
Jiu is still getting scolded.
That sight is a bit gratifying, but to be honest, I do not really know why she is being scolded either.
Thanks to that, Dad and I keep making eye contact and holding back laughter every time Jiu gets scolded.
Eventually, kind-hearted Dad helps Jiu out.
"Um, you said you are staying for a week, right?"
"Yes, yes. We took a long vacation. We do not know when we can come again."
"Is there anything you want to do or anywhere you want to go? I do not know much either, but I can at least drive you around."
At Dad's question, the two shake their heads.
"We just came to see our son-in-law's face, that is all. And while we are at it, see our daughter's face too."
"...Mom."
"Cannot even take a joke, this girl. That is right, we came to see how you are doing. But you are living a blessed life. How many times has Mom told you. In a place like this..."
"Ah, please stop!"
She really is an amazing person.
I thought there was no one who could make Jiu fed up.
I suppose the original cannot be beaten by the copy.
At the mother-daughter bickering starting up again, Dad chuckles and looks at me.
"Then, um, could you perhaps get tickets or something?"
"Tickets?"
"Yes. It might be difficult since time is tight."
If he means tickets, he must mean the day-after-tomorrow's match.
I shrug my shoulders and answer.
"I can get them. If I ask."
"Then could I ask you? Since they came all the way here, I think it would be nice for them to see it in person."
"...I will do that."
Hm, wait a minute.
If Jiu's parents are coming to watch the match in person...
"..."
Why do I suddenly want to play like crazy?
I really do not know about this.