233_Realized -2
“Haaaah, I’m beat…”
Late afternoon, the sunlight at a low angle.
Having woken up from a long sleep, Gim Jiu, eyes red, shakes her wet hair and sits down in front of her desk.
Ever since returning from Korea, she had spent the past few days staying up until dawn and sleeping past morning, completely flipping her days and nights.
It wasn’t just jet lag—there was an event that had been keeping her up at night.
“Shall I take my usual round today…”
Rubbing her sleepy eyes, she opens her laptop.
She usually wasn’t the type to turn on the internet immediately after waking up, but these days, checking the internet the moment she opened her eyes had become routine.
Like an elder taking a stroll around the neighborhood after getting up.
There was something that needed a quick once-over.
Click.
-Whoosh.
When she presses the bookmark tab in her browser, the sites she had saved come pouring out in droves.
She had bookmarked so many that the bookmark pages alone numbered more than a dozen.
Among them, the recent ones.
Let’s see.
Ah, starting from here.─‘I’m not a wildcard.’ Yi Jian starts, hat-trick in 55 minutes against Thailand… The dignity of a Manchester City starter.
The culprit that had stolen her sleep these past few nights was none other than the Asian Games.
It was the tournament that had become a hot topic because Jian had played in it, and she had saved almost every article about Jian.
Perhaps because Jian had just played that well.
The reactions were delicious.
└Just a different class lollllll
└Even his movement is different
└M-Messi at the Asian Games...
└Isn’t this fucking cheating though? A Man City starting striker at the Asiad lollll
└First time I felt sorry for the opponents
└The Thai players must’ve been bewildered lol
└He plays as a second striker at City, but they stuck him at top so his scoring went insane
└How is he not a wildcard lollllll
└It’s not even that he’s not a wildcard, he’s the youngest there too, totally fucking broken OP
Gim Jiu smiles in satisfaction as she reads the comments.
She had seen them so many times she practically had them memorized, yet they always felt fresh and rewarding.
All the comments already showed that she had upvoted them.
It was a shame you could only upvote once per person.
Finished with one round, she moves to the next bookmark.─[Korea vs Thailand] Yi Jian’s first goal, additional goal, hat-trick goal compilation.mp4
└Wow he scored all three with pure individual skill, different dimension lol
└Is he really 18? A chip shot in a 1v1 situation wtf his composure is otherworldly for real
└Military service broker for this tournament confirmed lollll
└Just king...
└The captions popping up after the goals are so badass
└Yi Jian (18, Manchester City FC)
└I must… worship him?
└Convinced after seeing today. He’ll probably score a hat-trick every match
└Came for the pilgrimage
└Please let everything I do this year go well
The articles were plenty tasty themselves, but the reactions on community sites had a stimulating flavor.
Like junk food, in a way.
Filled with raw, direct praise—anyone seeing it might mistake it for a new religious cult.
But it was understandable.
She had lost count of how many times she had watched, yet even replaying the video, Jian’s goal scenes never got old.
So today too, she watches the video several times over.
And reads every comment thoroughly.
Having enjoyed a satisfying second meal, Gim Jiu turns the page contentedly.
What follows is also filled with nothing but praise.
Against Kyrgyzstan, back-to-back hat-trick in Match 2. Quarterfinals, three consecutive hat-tricks—teaching China a lesson. Semifinals, against the most annoying thug football team Uzbekistan, four consecutive hat-tricks.
Delicious.
Truly delicious.
The more she chewed, the sweeter it tasted, like rice. The more she boiled it, the richer the broth, like bone soup.
So she chewed thoroughly and boiled it deep.
But the surprising thing was that up to here was just the appetizer.
The main course was separate.
The main dish was, of course, the final match against Japan.─Final Korea-Japan match confirmed… Korea led by Yi Jian aims for third consecutive Asian Games title after defeating Japan
Expectations were enormous even before the match.
The atmosphere was as if they were awaiting a World Cup final.
And the opponent was Japan, whom they couldn’t lose to even at rock-paper-scissors, let alone a final—so it couldn’t be helped.
Expectations also overflowed as to whether Jian could achieve the unprecedented record of five consecutive hat-tricks.
Moreover, if they won here and took the gold medal, the benefit of military service exemption was on the line.
Many people cheered for Korea and Jian.
Korean fans who wanted Jian to soar even higher in Europe did, and fans of his current team, Manchester City, were the same.
The fact that they had sent Jian, a core resource, to the Asian Games where there was no obligation to call him up was largely due to that one thing, so for that moment, Korea and Manchester seemed as one.
But the one who wished most desperately was indisputably Gim Jiu.
Perhaps even more desperate than Jian himself.
When she had briefly gone to Korea and returned to England, and Jian had gone to China.
Though they had only been apart for a few days, everyday life had already felt tedious; she had no confidence she could endure two years apart.
Well, truthfully, you never know what the future holds.
Still, if there was no chance of Jian leaving, her heart would feel lighter.
In any case.
All that anticipation gathered.
Tens of millions of expectations and one person’s desperate hope hung on Jian’s final match.
And Jian spectacularly lived up to those expectations.─[Photo] Japanese players watching Yi Jian with tense eyes
─[Photo] 14th minute first half, Yi Jian opener! Calm finish after a 2-on-1 pass
─[Photo] Yi Jian surrounded by 4 players, yet breaking through
─[Photo] ‘Drums beating and gongs sounding’ Yi Jian, converting the PK he won himself to make it 2-0… 44th minute first half
─[Photo] Japanese players sighing with hollow expressions and the insurmountable existence, Yi Jian. Five consecutive match hat-trick complete!
─‘Too bad’, ‘Ah… easy!’ Mixed joy and sorrow, 90-minute match ends. Korea gold medal! (Live from venue)
─Hangzhou Asian Games football, 3-0 complete victory over Japan to claim gold! Tournament three-peat, Yi Jian five consecutive match hat-trick
─[Video] Tournament top scorer Yi Jian hangs gold medal around his neck… ‘I was discharged from military service at 18.’
“…Hup.”
Gim Jiu sniffles as she looks at the articles she had saved.
Her nose stings no matter how many times she reads them.
She feels so relieved it’s as if all the strength is draining from her body.
She was proud—so proud—of Jian, who had overcome those tremendous expectations and pulled it off spectacularly.
Well, it might be strange to say you’re proud between friends, but there was no word that accurately expressed this feeling.
She was proud and impressed.
Though she had said it so many times it must be tiresome, from the little kid sitting quietly in the corner of the classroom to becoming a great figure like a national hero.
As someone who had watched that process from beside him, she couldn’t help but feel that way.
The moment the match ended and the gold medal was hung around his neck, perhaps she had been happier than Jian himself.
Just like always.
Just as she had felt prouder when Jian did well on his presentations, just as she had felt fuller when Jian ate well.
“Whew…”
Gim Jiu sighs and closes her laptop.
Another round around the internet, nicely done today.
Her stomach feels full, like after a hearty breakfast.
Tap, tap.
Shaking her still damp hair, Gim Jiu picks up her phone.
Checking her messages, there are still no new ones from Jian.
The last message was the one before she slept, saying he was departing from the airport in China, so he must still be on the plane.
“…”
She scrolls up the screen with her finger and rereads the messages they had exchanged a few days ago.
Then Gim Jiu smirks.
Jian had sent her a photo.
It was a picture of the gold medal on the bed in his quarters; he said he took it so she could see when she woke up.
But of course she hadn’t slept and saw it immediately.
Perhaps feeling sheepish, he had scolded her, asking why she wasn’t sleeping and telling her to sleep quickly.
“…Cute.”
The corners of Gim Jiu’s lips, which had already been curling up, now looked ready to reach her ears.
If she had won a gold medal, she would set it as her profile picture for life, yet as always, Jian just had his default picture.
He hadn’t changed it to the gold medal photo.
Because he was a friend who hated showing off.
But the fact that such a guy took a photo just for her was cute.
She could feel that he wanted to brag.
With just that one photo, she could picture Jian placing the medal on the bed and adjusting the camera angle to take the picture, and the smile wouldn’t stop.
Really.
Why is he cute no matter what he does?
“…!”
Suddenly, Gim Jiu flinches while smiling.
She flinched because her mother’s words from the past suddenly came to mind.
What had they been talking about back then.
She thought it was when she asked Mom why she married Dad.
Mom had said this back then.
That everything he did just looked cute.
Honestly, she hadn’t understood.
Dad was the manly type, not the cute type.
But Mom said that was the problem.
Not just being cute.
Whether it was his actions or whatever, there were times when the person themselves looked cute, and once you got to that point, there was already no hole to escape from.
Mom had said that meant she was already completely smitten, and that resolve to marry him had formed.
“…”
Then according to Mom’s words… what is this.
It seems like that’s what’s happening now.
Before she even came to her senses, had she already fallen into a trap with no exit?
…Well, actually, even though she said it like that, she felt like she had known since long ago that she was gradually sinking deeper.
“…Whew.”
Gim Jiu lets out a sigh.
Her shoulders droop too.
She recalls what Mom had said when she visited not long ago.
If you like him, say you like him; why are you frustratingly just waiting.
She couldn’t argue.
That she liked him, and that it was frustrating.
Because even she found herself frustrating.
But mustering courage wasn’t easy.
There wasn’t much she feared in life, yet this was something she couldn’t easily be brave about.
It felt like the timing was off.
Perhaps because they had been friends for too long.
Not just that—she had known him since he was a sniveling brat.
They had been friends since the time when kids teased him for wearing skirts.
So even now that they had grown into a proper man and woman, it didn’t feel much different.
A relationship of true friends who would die before saying cringey things, greeting each other with bickering, where teasing one another was the most fun in the world.
Approaching with a different attitude in such a relationship couldn’t be easy.
She thought it would feel weird.
Moreover, Jian had grown into such a huge existence unlike before.
In comparison, she was insignificant.
Somehow she couldn’t muster the courage to approach him first.
In the worst case, she even thought she might not be able to see him as a friend anymore.
“…Stupid idiot.”
The frustrating thing was that Jian wasn’t the type to express himself first either.
Either it works out or it doesn’t.
Since she couldn’t read his inner thoughts at all, she was frustratingly close to going crazy.
Sigh.
With her usual personality, she would just say it outright.
She had thought she was someone who said everything on her mind, but apparently not.
She was a personality closer to a guy than a girl, so she often didn’t understand her female friends, but it was funny that she was doing the exact same thing.
So she was just a woman after all.
Perhaps she wanted to be seen as a woman by someone, at least.
“…”
Gim Jiu, having sighed, straightens her shoulders and sits up again.
In any case, she can’t just keep worrying like this.
Mom is right.
If she can’t muster the courage to go first, she should at least draw him out.
And she had been taught several methods too.
She had pretended not to listen, asking why go so far, but she remembered them all.
Gim Jiu looks in the mirror and nods.
…
Rumble rumble rumble.
Inside the airplane cabin filled with engine noise.
Reclined in a seat wide enough to lie down in, he looks at his phone.
“…”
The world has gotten better.
Or maybe money is just good.
These days, you can use the internet even on a plane.
Thanks to that, even flights over 10 hours are a little less tedious.
But this flight was beyond less tedious—he felt like time was passing so fast it was strange.
…Less than an hour remained until arrival.
“…Ahem.”
He coughs pointlessly and checks his surroundings.
The seats were all blocked by dividers anyway, and the noise was so loud that sound wouldn’t leak out.
Yet he worried for no reason that someone might hear.
Because he was planning to do something quite embarrassing.
Hoo.
He lets out a big sigh.
Then after checking his phone and the lines again.
He clears his throat and tries reciting the lines the internet taught him.
“When it rains… don’t use an umbrella. Water the flowers……”
But he can’t bring himself to read to the end.
Because he feels sick to his stomach and his brow furrows.
…Is this right?
Are people really saying things like this in real life?
How thick must one’s face be to say something like this?
Thinking it’s not quite right, he scrolls down the screen to look for something else.
“…”
But they’re all similar.
None of them look usable.
Was it a mistake to search in Italian because Italian men are supposedly so romantic?
Reading them aloud in Korean, his hand cramps from cringing and won’t straighten out.
Sigh.
He shakes his head and buries himself deep into the seat again, having turned off his phone.
And lets out a long sigh.
…This is the first time he’s felt like this.
The desire to muster courage first on his own.
Somehow if he doesn’t do it now, he feels like he’ll regret it later.
So he had searched for things that didn’t suit him, practiced them, and was flying to England.
But the courage that had been full when he departed was hitting bottom as the arrival drew closer.
Can he do it.
He’d rather play another final match than do this; it didn’t seem easy.
…Who knows.
Despite his complicated heart, the merciless plane was flying toward Manchester at a terrifying speed.