The Woman Who Stole My Flower
Chapter 7
Chapter 7
7.
As it happened, there was a study abroad program supported by the Football Association. When he mentioned wanting to apply and join a European club, the coach flew into a violent rage. If Jooheon went to Europe, the coach would lose out on commissions ranging from tens of millions to well over a hundred million won.
And so, at eighteen, Jooheon became thoroughly despised by the coach and was ostracized by the soccer team. Because his skills were so outstanding, they couldn’t leave him out of matches against other teams, but he was completely excluded from inter-squad practice matches. Even during snack breaks in the middle of training, Jooheon was the only one left out.
It was right around then that he met that girl.
That day, one of the parents had brought a huge spread of pizza and fried chicken. While the other players ran over in excitement, Jooheon took a ball and retreated to the opposite corner of the field, just as he always did. The delicious aroma tortured his empty stomach, but he muttered to himself that he had no right to feel wronged or pitiful. After all, he was someone who couldn’t even pay his monthly soccer team dues.
“Excuse me, here.”
When someone called out to him, he turned around to see a girl in a school uniform blushing faintly, holding something out toward him. She was a girl he had never seen before.
All-boys middle school, all-boys high school, and soccer team all the way through. He had never in his life even exchanged words with a girl. Even in elementary school, he hadn’t had a single female friend. There were only girls who teased him for being a beggar, or girls who cried because they were assigned to sit next to him.
Thus, Jooheon couldn’t fathom why an unfamiliar girl would be handing him something.
“What’s this?”
“For you… to work hard at soccer.”
When he stood there frozen in shock, not even thinking to take it, the girl practically thrust the item against his chest, shoved it into his arms, and darted away like a startled rabbit.
The ends of her long hair fluttered as if dancing.
What just happened? In a daze, Jooheon sat down in the corner of the field and opened the small shopping bag he had just received. Inside a white Styrofoam container, glossy rolls of sliced gimbap were neatly lined up.
Even out of politeness, it was hard to call them pretty. Cut with clumsy hands, the pieces were all different thicknesses, and the seaweed on a few had even begun to unravel slightly. Yet to Jooheon, that gimbap was truly the most delicious food he had ever tasted in his entire life.
Even as he ate every last grain of rice, he couldn’t understand. Why on earth did she give this to me?
The next day, the girl showed up at the soccer team’s practice again. Once more, she handed Jooheon the exact same gimbap lunchbox, then sat at the edge of the field and cheered toward him.
“Fighting!”
Only then did Jooheon realize. He had gotten a fan.
Even before the coach openly ostracized him, Jooheon had always been an outsider on the team. A beggar bastard who couldn’t even pay for training fees because he had no money. An obnoxious bastard who was nevertheless so skilled that he always started in matches.
Though he had always been hated and envied, this was the very first time he had become an object of jealousy. That was just how blindingly pretty the girl was. Every single player on the soccer team ran while conscious of her gaze. Desperate to somehow steal away the gaze she directed at Jooheon, desperate to receive even a single glance from her, everyone struggled frantically on the pitch.
Even so, the girl only ever cheered for Jooheon. She shouted “Fighting!” only when he touched the ball, and only when he scored a goal did she jump up and down with joy, clapping her hands.
“Waaaah!”
How dazzling her face was when she beamed with delight. Wanting so desperately to see that face, Jooheon gritted his teeth and ran. Even after scoring a goal, and another, he wanted to score again and again.
“Ah, fuck that bastard, seriously. He plays like a real asshole.”
The furious mutter of a soccer team senior, who had been trying with all his might to catch her eye, felt more thrilling than any compliment Jooheon had ever heard in his life.
For the first time, he understood what it felt like to run for someone who was watching him.
I want to do well. I want to win. I want to go to Europe.
It was a more powerful driving force than any goal he had ever harbored before. I want to make that girl happy.
Yet in reality, he never managed to speak a single word to her. A boy who had done nothing but play soccer his whole life was just that shy.
‘Thank you for cheering for me.’
‘The gimbap was delicious.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘What school do you go to? What grade are you in?’
There were endless things he wanted to say, but not a single word ever made it past his lips.
Meanwhile, at some point, the girl stopped coming to practice, and Jooheon soon passed the overseas study program and left for England.
It had by no means been a long relationship, but he could never forget it.
[Excuse me, here.]
That pale face, blushing shyly.
[Fighting!]
The sunlight breaking like a dazzling rainbow over her black hair.
[For you… to work hard at soccer.]
Even that single phrase, which had become like a spell shaping the rest of his life.
Only after time had passed did he realize.
……That she was his first fan, and his first love.
*
Ten years passed since then, and many things changed.
His height, which had stalled at barely 172 centimeters before going to England, began to shoot up rapidly once he received proper nutrition there, growing an astonishing 15 centimeters in just two years.
The boy who was once ostracized by his soccer team had become a world-class player, now even mentioned as a strong candidate for the Ballon d’Or (*an award given to the most outstanding football player of the season).
After working tirelessly for the national team as well, his status in South Korea reached that of a top superstar whom even celebrities couldn’t hold a candle to.
While everything changed, only one thing remained the same: his heart.
Over the course of ten years, Jooheon had met all kinds of beauties from both the East and the West. Yet none of them were as pretty or as lovely as his girl. No matter how gorgeous a woman he met, his heart didn’t stir in the slightest.
For ten years, how desperately had he searched for a woman about whom he knew nothing other than her face? Now that he had become this famous, she might have visited the stadium at least once, yet she never showed so much as a strand of hair.
Could it be that she never existed in this world to begin with?
Was she just an illusion I created because things were so hard back then?
Just when he grew exhausted of waiting and began to think such thoughts, he miraculously met her again in Seoul. The pretty girl had grown into a blindingly gorgeous woman.
[What’s your name?]
She could never have dreamed how deeply he had regretted not asking that one question back then, every single day for the past ten years.
[I’m Jung Yeon-seo.]
The moment he learned the name of the woman he loved after a whole ten years, a shiver ran through his entire body.
The woman was not a dream. Nor was she an illusion. She was a real, living person with a name and a presence.
Jung Yeon-seo, Jung Yeon-seo, Jung Yeon-seo.
As he repeated the name he would call until the day he died under his breath, the woman suddenly asked:
[By the way, why do you ask my name?]
If he were to answer truthfully, it was because I love you. Because I’m going to marry you, because I’m going to be your man. So I ought to at least know your name.
But if he said that the moment they met after ten years, she would think he was a lunatic. So he uttered the lightest of the possible answers.
[Because you’re pretty.]
She blinked in bewilderment, then blurted out:
[Then… would you hold me?]
When he heard those words, he wondered if it was a dream. The premarital celibacy he had publicly proclaimed before the entire nation lost all meaning before this woman. For whose sake had he kept that purity all this time, anyway?
It was the most agonizing, yet the happiest night of his life. He thought that once morning came, all that was left was to love her to his heart’s content.
When he woke up in the morning to find her gone, Jooheon simply thought it was because he had done something wrong. He believed he just needed to ask what he did wrong and fix it.
Yet as it turned out, the actual reason lay somewhere completely unexpected.
Yeon-seo wasn’t angry, nor were her feelings hurt. She simply didn’t like him.
Astonishingly, she didn’t even remember him. She had no interest in the player named Kang Joo-heon in the first place. She had never even watched one of his matches!
[I don’t really know much about Kang Joo-heon-nim, and I’ve never watched any of your games.]
Jooheon felt as if he had been struck on the back of the head with a massive hammer.
She wasn’t his fan.
[I haven’t! Really, I haven’t! I swear to heaven, that day was the first time in my life I ever saw you!]
She didn’t even remember him at all.
Not only that. She had no intention of being entangled with him whatsoever.
[I would appreciate it if we could just treat it as a one-night mistake and forget about each other.]
It felt as though his entire life were being denied.
While the events of the past ten years flashed before his eyes like a panorama, everything felt entirely futile at the same time.
I believed you were watching me from somewhere.
I gritted my teeth and made it all the way here, thinking that if I became a famous player, you would come look for me at least once.
……What on earth have I been running for all this time?
Rejected by his first love, the man buried his face in his hands, overcome with anguish.
