The Stadio Arechi, the small home ground of Salernitana packed with some 30,000 spectators, began to stir around the 10th minute of the second half.
"He's warming up."
"Ah, shit, why?"
"That bald bastard of a manager is vicious, seriously. Does he really have to beat us that badly?"
"Boooo—!!"
It was because a substitute player had sprung up from the Fiorentina bench and begun warming up, moving back and forth near the touchline.
Most fans had thought the match against Fiorentina wouldn't be easy.
It was only natural. Objectively speaking, they were far outmatched.
Fiorentina were riding a crazy surge and sitting in 3rd place in the league, while Salernitana were in 17th, a team merely hoping to avoid relegation.
That was why many fans had cheered when they checked today's starting lineup.
It was because I Jian, the core of Fiorentina's insane rise, was not in the starting lineup.
Of course, Fiorentina without I Jian wasn't an opponent to be taken lightly either, but it was also true that against a Fiorentina without I Jian, they could harbor a faint "what if" hope.
In fact, the match was unfolding reasonably well.
They had conceded the opening goal in the first half, but aside from that, they had defended quite well—hadn't they just scored an equalizer?
Thanks to that, the fans had been riding high, stoking their hopes for a comeback.
After recording a miserable record of one draw and four losses in their last five matches, they had finally been tasting a bit of hope.
But the moment they equalized, I Jian began preparing to enter the pitch—nothing could have been crueler.
T-that wicked bald bastard.
We're not even a top-table team, let alone a mid-table one; we're a relegation-zone team.
And you're sending out your young ace just to win against us?
"Sheesh, what greed!"
"An old octopus devouring a child!"
"Are 3 points really that important!"
"Yeah! Trade them! Trade 3 points for the prospect's knee cartilage!"
All manner of curses and oaths flew toward Manager Vincenzo.
The fact that such an intense reaction erupted over a mere substitution meant that everyone knew exactly how destructive I Jian was.
The ability to decide a game on his own.
And the ability to raise the team's quality by a notch with his presence alone.
Those two abilities were possessed by that 16-year-old boy, and by now there wasn't a Serie A fan who didn't know it.
That boy stepped onto the pitch in the 25th minute of the second half.
"Focus! Focus!"
"Drop back! Coordinated defense!"
The Salernitana players shouted at one another, extremely tense.
They had been focused until now, but after I Jian came on, the Salernitana players entered an even more heightened state of tension.
"Emil! Back!"
"Hold the line, Federico!"
Soccer is a team sport played by eleven, so communication among teammates is important; thus, it is a sport where players call each other's names frequently during a match.
However, right now it felt a little different from the usual called plays.
How should I put it.
It felt like a manifestation of the will to survive—calling out each other's names to confirm their existence, searching for something to rely on when an unbearable disaster had struck.
For instance, it was like hikers unexpectedly encountering a bear on a mountain trail, huddling together to survive.
But damn it, that bear was absolutely starving.
Thwack—!
Thwack—!
The moment he was subbed on, Fiorentina's ball began to revolve around I Jian.
At the center, I Jian simply played lightly, relaxing his body and moving while exchanging quick taps with his teammates.
It was nothing special.
Moving in a low position far from the danger zone, merely exchanging easy passes with nearby teammates.
He almost looked like he was doing a warm-up or passing drill with his teammates.
But even that was enough for the Salernitana players to sense a change in atmosphere.
A feeling of something smoothly loosening.
Up until then, Fiorentina had felt somewhat rigid, with broad strokes so to speak.
Defending against them hadn't been complicated. If they came strong, you met them with greater strength; if they came fast, you stuck to them even faster.
Of course, that wasn't easy either, but at least the method itself was simple.
However, with I Jian's arrival, Fiorentina's ball movement began to flow organically.
Like flowing water.
Thwack—!
No matter how tightly you clench water, you cannot trap it in your hand.
Salernitana's midfielders pressed hard from all sides, but I Jian merely tapped the ball away and slipped out.
Thwack—!
And before they knew it, he had the ball again.
Slightly to the side of where he had been.
"Get him!"
If he were moving at an invisible speed or positioned at a distance impossible to catch, that would be one thing—"Catch him!"
I Jian was in a position that seemed within arm's reach. He wasn't even moving very fast, simply standing in place and receiving and releasing the ball.
The Salernitana players latched onto him with fire in their eyes, desperate to catch him.
Thwack—!
But I Jian was seemingly within reach yet impossible to catch.
When they stretched their hands with all their might, he simply retreated one step and evaded them.
He didn't flee far away.
He had fled to a position that seemed like he would be caught with just one more step, so the Salernitana players, as if bewitched, took that one step closer.
But I Jian would not be caught.
"What are you doing!"
The spectators cried out in frustration.
It might be hard to understand from afar.
Naturally—three or four sturdy players couldn't pin down that lanky boy.
Moreover, the boy was moving slowly, not even dazzling the defenders with extraordinary individual skills.
He merely received the ball, passed it, and moved.
Received it again, passed again, and moved again.
He was just playing around so lightly that hardly any description was needed.
Yet even so, there was no sign of the parallel lines between I Jian and the defenders narrowing anytime soon.
The reason it was possible even though the Salernitana players were clearly moving faster was that I Jian's two feet had moved first.
As if he alone could see the situation five seconds ahead.
I Jian was the player who moved the "earliest" among the 22 players on the field.
And I Jian was also the first to notice that Salernitana's defensive line had collapsed.
Thwaaack—!
A pass sprang out from the tight space.
Salernitana had been so focused on I Jian right in front of them that they had neglected to maintain their overall shape.
Consequently, their players were drawn toward him, which meant a huge hole had opened somewhere.
Swoooosh—
—The pass heading precisely for that hole evoked awe, as if I Jian were looking down on the pitch from the heavens.
"Drop back!"
"Here! Here!"
Salernitana's defense couldn't move uniformly and swayed unsteadily.
Again, several players rushed urgently to plug the wide-open gap.
In the process, maintaining intervals between each other and aligning the defensive line properly was impossible.
In trying to fill one hole, they ended up creating another hole elsewhere.
And the person who already knew on which side that new hole would open was I Jian.
Thwack—!
The ball that had been heading toward the right half-space crossed over to the left half-space via a horizontal pass.
Tuk—!
I Jian softly received that ball.
Then, entering the final third, I Jian finally met the eye level of those watching.
He put on a dribble breakthrough convincing enough that even the spectators watching from afar could easily understand why the defense couldn't stop him.
That... was unstoppable.
Tat-tat-tat—!
Having sufficiently mixed in shifts of his center of gravity, I Jian's step-over sent the defender's hips dropping to the ground, and as the angle opened up, a shot immediately followed.
From beginning to end.
Without a single hitch, every play flowed as smoothly as water.
Thwack—!!
When Salernitana's net rippled, the scoreboard clock pointed to the 73rd minute.
It meant three minutes had passed since I Jian was subbed on.
"...Hah."
"He's insane."
"Unbelievable."
The Salernitana home fans burst into hollow laughter.
It was certainly angering to have conceded so easily right after finally equalizing.
But rather than expressing anger, everyone just clicked their tongues.
Well, you need a certain degree of capacity just to get angry.
It felt like he was on another dimension, so hollow laughter bubbled up instead of rage.
Thanks to that, everyone gazed at I Jian with eyes filled with awe, as if he were a being from another dimension.
But I Jian himself simply walked off somewhere with the shy face of a 16-year-old boy.
Where I Jian headed was the camera filming him beside the goalpost; standing before it, he wiggled his fingers... then merely turned away with his reddened face bowed deeply.
*—A goal just 3 minutes after being subbed on by I! The flow that began at I's feet finishes at I's feet!—He's showing a different class. This player moves on a different dimension all by himself.
From a large television, images of I Jian and a voice worshipping him flowed out.
"Ugh...!"
And Gim Jiu watched that scene with her hands covering her mouth.
Normally, she would have jumped for joy when I Jian scored, but today she was trying her utmost to restrain herself and keep her eyes on the screen.
Because Jian had promised.
That after scoring, he would do a celebration just for her.
"..."
Gim Jiu looked at the screen with an expectant face, even holding her breath.
Then, I Jian's figure filled the screen.
"What's with his expression?"
I Wonhun, who was beside her, tilted his head at the sight.
It was because the face of someone who had just scored looked somehow very awkward.
I Jian approached the camera with that odd face, wiggled his fingers, then quickly turned and walked away.
"What did he do?"
I Wonhun was still tilting his head.
It seemed he had made some kind of shape with his fingers, but it was impossible to tell what it was.
"..."
But Gim Jiu's mouth, hidden behind her hands, stretched wide open toward the sky the moment she recognized it.
Because Gim Jiu could recognize it.
The fact that even I Wonhun was tilting his head in confusion made Gim Jiu even more satisfied.
Because she felt she was the only one who could grasp the meaning of that celebration.
'He really is...'
An unstoppable smile seeped out over the hand covering her mouth.
Truly, amazingly, a memory from several years ago that she had completely forgotten immediately resurfaced.
...
"Hey. I found something amazing."
"...?"
"I said I found something amazing."
"What is it..."
The moment class ended, as I Jian tried to flop onto his desk, Gim Jiu grabbed his shoulder and pulled him close.
When I Jian looked at her slightly fearfully, Gim Jiu sighed and spoke.
"Your name and my name have the same letters."
"...Name letters?"
"Yeah. Look. Jiu. Jian. Both are jieut and ieung."
"...So?"
"Isn't that amazing? I said, isn't it amazing!"
"I-it's amazing. Wow—"
At I Jian's lukewarm reaction, Gim Jiu thrust a scary face at him, and I Jian nodded his head vigorously in alarm.
I Jian had long since realized that in times like these, it was best to agree unconditionally.
Only then did Gim Jiu nod in satisfaction and begin wiggling her fingers.
The class that had just ended was moral education, and they had just learned something called sign language.
They had only learned to express Hangul vowels and consonants with their fingers, but Gim Jiu wiggled her fingers exactly as she had learned, forming jieut and ieung.
Then she showed I Jian and said,
"This can be you, and it can be me. Amazing, right?"
"...I-it's amazing."
He wanted to answer, "So what..." but I Jian simply nodded.
There was nothing he could do; Gim Jiu wore an expression as if she had made some tremendous discovery.
"Remember it well. Okay? We are jieut, ieung."
"...Yeah."
It had seemed completely useless, but because it was Gim Jiu's words, I Jian memorized it for now.
That jieut and ieung were letters that could become Jiu, and could become Jian.