“I’m fine!”
“Jian!”
“I’m fine! I said I’m fine!”
“Wooo!”
To me, sitting on the ground with a hollow emptiness.
My teammates, rushing over in a sprint, ruffled my hair and shouted at the top of their lungs.
See, stoppage time was almost over.
I’d met a perfect one-on-one chance with the goalkeeper, only to fall backward when an opponent grabbed my jersey.
The referee immediately declared a penalty kick and ordered the player who’d brought me down to leave the pitch.
There could be no situation more perfect than this.
You could say the match was already over.
Because if we just put away the penalty, it was finished.
The opposition wouldn’t even be given time to mount a comeback.
“···”
But a bitter regret stung my mouth, leaving it numb.
Was it because, even before I could take the shot, I’d felt that this one was going in?
If I’d just struck it, I feel like it would have gone in.
It felt cruel, having to hand it over for one turn to a probability game called a penalty kick.
Well, I suppose it’s just personal greed.
And now isn’t the time to be acting on such things.
I stand up, dusting off my backside.
If an opportunity to end the match has come to us, that’s enough.
“So, who’s taking it?”
While the pitch remains chaotic thanks to the opponents still protesting the referee.
Regardless, my teammates begin their huddle.
Who will take this penalty kick, now the most important PK in the world?
Normally, Haaland would take it, but with Haaland absent, the next kicker has to step up.
“Someone to take it?”
Rodri, the ball tucked under his arm, asks the gathered group.
It’s a chance to become the protagonist. A hero.
The goal that completes the treble.
To whom would fall the opportunity to put the final period on the entire journey?
I scratch my nose and wait in silence, but what was unexpected was this:
No one stepped forward saying they would take it.
“No one feeling it?”
When no one steps up, Rodri asks again, but once more there is no answer.
Even De Bruyne, Silva, and Foden are merely reading each other’s cues, not volunteering.
Perhaps it’s only natural.
If you wish to become a hero, you must also possess the courage to become a villain.
Score, and you’re a hero; fail, and you become the target of every arrow.
In short, you need the courage to be hated.
The courage to duly bear the risk of failure.
Penalty kicks are especially like that.
A penalty is a battle overwhelmingly favorable to the kicker.
Because in a penalty kick, scoring is expected, and missing is the anomaly.
In a way, a penalty kick is like a bomb.
And the kicker is the bomb disposal squad.
Courage is required.
Dispose of it cleanly, and you’re the hero who defused the bomb; let it explode, and no one blames the bomb—they blame the one who failed to defuse it.
Moreover.
This bomb is so massive that, should it go wrong, everything will be blown away.
Just standing before it is enough to send a chill down your spine and make every hair stand on end.
So it makes perfect sense that no one steps forward willingly.
“Hmm···”
Even Rodri seems reluctant at this moment.
With no volunteers, he looks toward the bench.
If no one steps up, the bench will have to decide.
“···”
Suddenly.
I feel the sensation from earlier twitching in my right foot.
The sensation right before I got caught by the opponent’s hand and fell.
The goal looks unusually large, and electricity seems to flow from my foot through my calf and thigh.
That electricity climbs to my heart and begins to prick and prod.
The stimulus is intense.
Thump-thump. My heartbeat quickens.
Perhaps because of that, blood rushes to my head, and I even feel myself slipping into an inexplicable state of arousal.
As if I’ve taken some kind of drug.
Without realizing it, I step forward.
“I’ll take it.”
What words just jumped out of my mouth?
Everyone looks at me.
Rodri, who had been looking toward the bench, turns his head to me.
For a moment, I wonder if someone will say, “How can we trust you with something this important?”
But the teammates who had crowded around begin to disperse, one by one.
And Rodri nods.
“Thanks.”
Rodri places the ball into my chest.
Then he exchanges words with the bench, nods, pats my back, and steps away.
···What.
Is it really okay to hand it over this easily?
Was it something you could just take by saying you wanted to?
Because permission came so easily, my heart instead plummets with a thud.
I also think I’m in serious trouble, to the point that I can’t understand what confidence possessed me just seconds ago.
But the water has already been spilled.
Everyone has given their permission, and the referee is already waiting beside the penalty mark.
“···”
With the ball tucked under my arm, I walk toward the penalty mark.
That path feels incredibly short.
Like the commute from home to the training ground when I was in Torino.
I want it to take longer, so why am I arriving so quickly?
Barely a few steps, and I find myself already standing before the penalty mark.
“Right footed, so left?”
“Back. Step back to your line.”
The opposing goalkeeper comes over and says something, but the referee stops him and orders him back.
He seems to be trying to get on my nerves, but sorry—I don’t have the luxury to care about that.
With trembling hands, I carefully place the ball down.
I place it down as meticulously as possible, and press the grass where my plant foot will land as firmly as I can.
This isn’t a fight against anyone.
It’s a fight against myself.
In a penalty kick, if you strike it accurately, the goalkeeper can never save it.
So success or failure rests entirely on my foot.
The decision is mine to make.
Thud. Thud.
I slowly step back.
That’s why I hate penalty kicks.
I have to bear everything, entirely alone.
The spotlight of success, the criticism of failure.
Neither were things I ever wanted.
Because I was a coward, with neither the greed to be a hero nor the courage to be hated.
“Hoo—”
A few paces back from the ball, hands on my hips, I exhale deeply.
So if you ask whether I liked myself like that—no.
I hated it.
Even I thought that version of me was pathetic.
So I lied to Jiwoo, pretended in front of her that I wasn’t like that.
I wanted to look cool in front of Jiwoo, because that kind of person wasn’t cool at all.
···I overdid it.
The childish bluff of a boy wanting to look cool in front of the girl he likes.
That’s what pushed me all the way here.
It’s the same reason I’m standing here now.
The momentary blackout that made me say I’d take it was no different.
Because Jiwoo is watching.
I just wanted to show her the sight of me stepping forward bravely, finishing it with style.
Right.
In that moment, I didn’t think.
That this was a goal that could decide the Champions League trophy, the treble.
What would happen if I failed.
Those things were nothing but afterthoughts.
I just wanted to show her.
To Jiwoo, what kind of man I had become.
I wanted to show her, and I had a duty to.
It was all thanks to Jiwoo that this shrinking violet, who couldn’t even talk to his school friends, could stand here before tens of thousands of eyes.
It’s my duty to show her how much her help meant.
Even when I didn’t believe in myself, Jiwoo believed in me.
The very reason I didn’t want to disappoint her was because she had believed in me that much.
So I lied, not wanting to reveal my pathetic inner self.
But now, perhaps I can stand proud.
Beeeeep—!
The referee’s whistle blows.
Without caring where the goalkeeper stands, I look only at the ball and steady my breath.
I decide not to rush.
I decide to kick only when I am completely ready.
I’m truly sorry, but right now even tens of thousands of fans are secondary.
Right now, there is only one person who matters.
Jiwoo.
Watch closely.
How the faith you gave changed a single person.
What an incredible thing you did.
“Hoo—!”
After one deep exhale, I dash toward the ball.
Nothing else is needed.
Champions League victory, the treble, the Ballon d’Or.
They’re all wonderful, but right now there is only one thing I want most.
Jiwoo’s gaze, looking at me as if I’m cool.
That alone is enough.
Tat-a-tat—!
In an instant, the ball is upon me.
*
“···”
“···”
In the moment when everyone holds their breath.
Gim Jiu and I Wonhun sat with their hands clasped, heads bowed deeply.
They absolutely could not watch.
Of all times, why did it have to be at such a crucial moment?
That it was Jian who had stepped forward to bear that responsibility.
Their hearts pounded so hard they felt they might faint at any second; they simply could not look.
“Please··· please···”
They could only pray.
Though non-religious, they desperately called upon every god’s name they knew.
They prayed over and over that Jian would score, that he would smile brightly.
Honestly, whether he scored or not wasn’t important to these two.
It would be incomparably wonderful if he scored, but even if he didn’t, nothing would change.
They wouldn’t be disappointed in Jian even if he missed.
The one who would feel the importance of scoring or missing was not them, but Jian himself.
That was why they prayed so desperately.
Because it was important to Jian.
And because that Jian was someone important to these two.
Jian had to be happy for them to be happy.
Perhaps because Jian was someone who always smiled with half his burdens held back.
Jian was that kind of guy, strangely someone whose openly smiling face, free of all worries, they wanted to see.
Just purely.
They wanted to see him happy and laughing with his heart at ease, other worries set aside.
If everything ended once he scored that, they would surely see that expression.
So they desperately hoped he would score.
In the suffocating silence, when Gim Jiu had moved on from Buddha to calling upon Allah.
“He’s going.”
At someone’s words from the nearby stands, they felt the blood in their entire bodies run cold.
Jian had started his run-up to the ball.
It couldn’t be more than a few steps.
From the moment of departure to the moment of impact.
But that moment felt like an eternity.
Though it felt like dozens of seconds had passed since they heard “He’s going,” no one had yet let out their breath.
Everyone held their breath, eyes fixed on one spot.
They felt they might suffocate and die at this rate.
Would they collapse before seeing the result?
Perhaps their brains were sending signals that the air had grown thin.
Just when the bone-chilling wait stretched to what felt like its absolute limit.
The sound of a heart dropping resonated.
FWAAAAAAASH—!
He kicked it.
Fate had left Jian’s foot.
The die had been cast; now everything had to be left to the heavens.
Please let it be a six.
They knew how much Jian had suffered.
He had suffered so much they’d rarely seen him smile with a light heart.
And because he never showed it, it worried them all the more.
Please, let them see it.
The sight of him rejoicing without restraint.
The sight of him smiling refreshingly, having set down every burden and worry.
They wanted nothing else.
Just as Gim Jiu and I Wonhun squeezed their eyes shut.
“Aaack!”
“Uaaa!”
Death-cry-like screams erupted from the spectators sitting nearby.
Their eyes snapped open, but they still didn’t have the courage to raise their heads.
They couldn’t tell what kind of scream it was.
But soon.
They became certain.
Though they hadn’t watched, they felt they knew the result.
Because those individual death-cries were combining into a massive roar.
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH──!!!
An ear-splitting, body-crushing roar filled the stadium.
Because that roar came from this side of the stands, not the opposite side.
They knew whether it went in without having seen it.
“···Hah.”
“Ueee···”
Strength drained from their bodies as if their souls were escaping.
While everyone around them jumped wildly, Gim Jiu and I Wonhun slumped into their seats.
So desperate and tense had they been that relief came before joy.
Man.
They realized that being the family of a soccer player was something you couldn’t endure without serious mental fortitude.