Some fans were shedding tears.
Anyone watching would think it strange.
It was just another weekly league match, and the opponent was only Atalanta, a team lingering in mid-table.
It wasn’t even a dramatic last-minute goal, but an early opener that was, in some ways, an ordinary first goal.
To burst into tears at that sight.
One might think they were all too immersed.
But boys are naturally sentimental.
The boy working at a company, the boy whose hair has turned white, the boy with a hulking frame.
Boys wearing the masks of adults could not contain their surging emotions and wept.
A single boy on the field had sent them back to their boyhood.
“Ri! Ri! Ri! Ri! Ri! Ri!”
“Riiiiii...!!”
“Forza!! Viola!!!”
The boy who had moved from Juventus and grown up in Fiorentina’s youth academy.
The boy who appeared like a comet when the team was suffocating, scratching their itch.
The boy who had protected their anxious, hollow hearts when the player representing Florence had left.
The boy who consoled everyone else’s wounds while hiding his own.
That boy scored a wonderful goal and tapped the Fiorentina emblem.
How could they not cheer; how could tears not fall?
Age creeps up, the body gradually begins to break down, the face grows old.
Their shells slowly become those of adults, but in truth, they too are merely pretending to be adults.
Inside, everyone is still a boy.
Especially when they come to the stadium and support the team with a pure heart.
“Ri! Ri! Ri! Ri!”
The fans shouting the boy’s name showed no sign of dying down.
*
“Phew...”
After scoring, I shared the joy with the crowd and my teammates.
Returning to our half to wait for play to resume, I let out a heated sigh.
It was a joyful moment in many ways.
It pleased me that the crowd calling my name had started singing Fiorentina’s chants, and it was good that I’d scored early to show my body was in fine condition.
But I decided to set aside enjoying that joy for now.
Right now, I had to recall everything that had happened between the moment the defender stalking me spouted something stupid and the moment I put the ball in the opponent’s net.
It had been a strange experience.
I had already been on edge, but the moment that stalker dismissed my seniors with his words—
something inside me went snap.
After that, my head began spinning sharply, and at some point, the entire pitch started to look as if it rested in the palm of my hand.
Literally.
Like I was playing a soccer video game, I looked down on everything from above.
It was true that I’d felt something like that occasionally in the past.
On days when my condition was great, I sometimes felt as though I had eyes on the sides of my head.
There were times when I could roughly guess who was where without even turning my head.
But an experience like that one was a first.
Not eyes on my sides... but eyes floating in the sky.
I could see everything, I could feel everything. And that feeling of standing in the sky and looking down on the pitch...
was a thrill I’d never felt before.
Honestly, it was far more thrilling than the moment I scored the goal.
It was as if I had become a god controlling everything.
Anyway... it was a sensation that had struck out of nowhere.
And that sensation still remained in my body.
But I was anxious. Because I thought it might disappear at any moment.
So I pushed my joy aside and focused on holding onto that sensation so it wouldn’t fade.
“Beep—!”
The match resumed, and I jogged slowly while looking around.
Having conceded, perhaps after getting an earful from the coach, the stalker fortunately had his mouth firmly shut.
Thanks to that, I could quietly focus on reviving that earlier sensation.
“...”
Standing at the center of the pitch, I looked broadly around me.
I took in all the information on the field.
The information captured by my vision flowed through my eyes into my head, converting into virtual data and projecting onto the pitch inside my mind.
Thank goodness.
That sensation from before was still alive.
My vision opened wide.
Everything was in the palm of my hand.
It felt incredible.
*
‘What am I to do with this?’
Coach Vincenzo, watching the match, stroked his chin and thought.
He fell deep into worry over what on earth to do about this.
However, if forced to choose, it was the happy kind of worry.
Because the performance of I Jian, who had returned after resting for a week, was tremendously astonishing.
The kid was still young.
Younger even than what ‘young’ typically meant on the first team.
So young that his physical growth hadn’t finished yet.
Therefore, it was too much for him to play every single match, and he had to be rested last week.
Had he played that match, there might have been a risk of injury.
Today, after resting that week.
I Jian was putting the game together by himself.
Meaning he had Atalanta—a tricky opponent every time they met—on his palm and was kneading it at will.
He was a player who absolutely required proper rest and management, yet whenever sent out like this, he produced performances that were a joy to watch...
It was only natural that Vincenzo’s internal conflict between reason and greed deepened.
“Something... feels like he’s broken through...”
A coach sitting beside him muttered with his mouth hanging wide open.
Coach Vincenzo nodded as well, sending silent agreement.
Of course, Coach Vincenzo knew I Jian’s talent better than anyone.
Originally, I Jian had already been a player who could decide a game on his own.
But now, it felt like he had risen to another dimension.
What had changed?
“Here!”
I Jian moved and demanded the ball.
As the pass came, he laid it off with a one-touch pass to the side and moved again.
“Again!”
And demanded the ball once more.
Tap, tap.
With light movements and a few passes, he seized control of the midfield battle perfectly.
‘...He’s aggressive.’
Coach Vincenzo barely managed to catch the difference between the I Jian of previous matches and the I Jian of now.
He had become far more proactive.
He was playing in a more dominant manner.
If asked to list player I Jian’s strengths, one could stay up all night and still not finish; he had that many.
But if asked to pick the very first, it was undoubtedly his eye for reading the flow of the game and his sense.
I Jian was a player who knew where he needed to be and what he needed to do.
In short, he was quick-witted, always playing to accommodate his teammates.
But not now.
Now, instead of matching his teammates, he was making his teammates match him.
He gestured directions with his hands and called out to set their positions.
I Jian kept pressing refresh and sort, and the players moved in the right directions accordingly.
I Jian was exerting his influence, and that influence was pulling the team in a better direction.
‘If only it weren’t for that face...’
Coach Vincenzo looked at I Jian once more.
If not for that boyish face, he would surely have thought I Jian was lying about his age.
He wouldn’t have been able to shake the suspicion that his birth registration was a little—no, quite a lot—wrong.
How could anyone look at that and call it a sixteen-year-old’s play?
‘Just what in the world did Tony and I...’
Coach Vincenzo swallowed dryly.
What kind of monster had they awakened?
He got goosebumps trying to fathom how far that monster would grow.
The lily was blooming beautifully.
*
“U-um, I’m sorry...”
“Huh? What for?”
“Earlier, I think I kind of snapped at you...”
“What are you talking about? Ah, don’t tell me. When you told me to run?”
“Yes...”
At my apology, Saponara’s eyes went wide.
Of course, on the pitch everyone is equal and we speak freely... but still, it had bothered me that I spoke to a senior in a commanding tone.
But Saponara burst out laughing.
“There’s nothing to apologize for. If you tell me to run, I run. Thanks to that, I even scored. From now on, if I’m not paying attention, just tell me. You can even curse. ‘Run, you bastard!’ That’s fine too.”
“...”
He said I could curse.
I had no intention of doing so, but thanks to him saying that, my guilt lessened, if only slightly.
“Huu—”
Still, I couldn’t shake off all my guilt.
I sat quietly in my spot and took time to reflect.
What a wicked kid.
How could he think such things about these generous and grateful seniors...
To be honest...
Though only for fleeting moments, I had often felt frustrated. With my seniors.
Whenever the picture unfolding in my head and the actual play didn’t align.
The time I’d shouted “Run!” at Saponara was one such example.
In my eyes, a clear path for a through pass had been visible, but for that to work, Saponara had to make a penetrating run—yet he hadn’t.
So I’d shouted without thinking, and fortunately, he listened.
And it ended with a great finish—a goal.
I had been happier when he scored than when I scored myself.
That made me feel even more sorry.
To feel frustrated with seniors I should be endlessly grateful to.
What an arrogant, ungrateful thought that was.
“...”
During the match, I’d felt so good, as if I were a god, but after finishing the first half, I felt a little scared.
Of course, I am not a god.
So I can’t be right every single time.
What I see isn’t necessarily the only answer.
If Saponara had listened to me and made the run, only for my pass to be cut off and us to face a counterattack, what then?
We might have conceded the equalizer from that counter.
I shouldn’t have been so certain.
Using my sense was fine, but blindly trusting it might be dangerous.
“...”
I had much to think about.
How should I walk this tightrope?
Lost in thought, halftime vanished in the blink of an eye.
“Let’s go, let’s go!”
For now, there was one conclusion I could draw immediately.
To make what I saw the correct answer, I had to hone my sense as sharply as possible.
That seemed like the most accurate path.
At least, that’s what my lacking mind thought.
*
It was the second half after a period of reflection, but that reflection must have been too short.
The moment I stepped back onto the grass, the sensation from the first half awakened once more, and again I became drunk on the match without realizing it.
It was a match where passing felt unusually fun.
The paths were so clearly visible that it was hard to restrain myself.
The moment those paths appeared, I sprayed passes without regard for position.
There were times I sent a direct pass into the box from near the halfway line.
Not all of those passes led to chances or connected.
Sometimes the pass didn’t go as I wanted, and sometimes a teammate missed it or turned it over with a trapping error.
Not everything flowed according to my calculations.
But it was fine.
Because what mattered more was that we were overwhelming the opponent.
“...Ah.”
The moment my number appeared on the board announcing a substitution, I was startled.
Partly because I realized so much time had already passed, and partly because I felt regret.
I was sorry that I couldn’t play more.
I was.
“Good work!”
“Sit down and rest up.”
After exchanging high-fives with the coach, the coaches, and my teammates, I put on a jacket and sat on the bench.
Only after completely relaxing my body did I realize I was quite exhausted.
My body was tired.
But perhaps the reason I hadn’t noticed at all was that my mind hadn’t been tired.
“Ri! Ri! Ri! Ri!”
I could hear the voices of fans calling my name from the nearby stands.
It reminded me of when I’d first come here.
I remembered being scared of how I could play in a place where the stadium and stands were so close.
But now it was fine.
At some point, seeing their faces up close was no longer very frightening.
I couldn’t pinpoint exactly when that had happened.
It had just happened naturally.
Looking at that, perhaps I had been growing little by little.
Even if I hadn’t been aware of it.
“...”
I suddenly missed Jiu.
I wanted to hurry home, strike a pose, and put on airs again.
For some reason, today, I felt I could act full of bravado without that familiar pang in the corner of my heart.