#103

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Jung-hyun stared at his phone screen, chewing on an unlit cigarette. An article about the Blue Wolves advancing to the playoffs was displayed on the screen.

Knock, knock. A soft knocking sound was heard. He turned off the screen and looked up to see a face waiting outside the passenger seat. Jung-hyun gave a short nod of greeting and unlocked the car.

“…I didn’t expect you to want to see me again.”

The person sitting in the passenger seat, pulling the collar of her coat tight, was Lee Hong-eun, the nurse who had administered the pheromone injection to him. Throwing away the cigarette he had only been holding in his mouth, Jung-hyun briefly stated his business.

“I have a favor to ask.”

“…Of me?”

“You said you’re currently working at an oriental medicine clinic, right?”

Lee Hong-eun nodded, looking at Jung-hyun warily. Jung-hyun handed her a shopping bag he had left in the backseat. Lee Hong-eun looked inside and asked, puzzled.

“…This is herbal medicine?”

“I want you to find out the ingredients of that medicine.”

“The ingredients…?”

“For example, whether it contains ingredients that induce an abortion of a fetus in the womb.”

Jung-hyun spoke in a flat voice. Lee Hong-eun looked at the medicine with a somewhat shocked expression.

“…I’ll look into it.”

As she quietly packed the shopping bag, Lee Hong-eun hesitated for a moment before looking at Jung-hyun’s face.

“By any chance, is this medicine that you are taking, Mr. Jung-hyun?”

“…….”

“But if you don’t know the effects, that means you didn’t have the medicine prescribed for yourself, right?”

“Let’s not talk about things that could make things difficult for both of us.”

Just as he was about to tell her to leave since the business was concluded, Lee Hong-eun spoke first.

“I bought a lot of delicious things for Somang with the money you gave me last time. I also paid my overdue rent.”

Jung-hyun raised an eyebrow slightly and stared at her.

“…I’m saying thank you. For not reporting me, or suing me…. I’m saying this now, but it was an unforgivable act. Yet, you even gave me money.”

“…….”

“I know it’s pity, but money doesn’t lie.”

Jung-hyun let out a short, airy laugh. He looked ahead for a moment and then asked in a low voice.

“Why did you name her Somang?”

At the question, Lee Hong-eun shifted her gaze to look at Jung-hyun. Jung-hyun met her eyes.

He had been curious, but he hadn’t intended to ask directly; however, he had changed his mind.

“You said the child was conceived through rape. Usually, people end up hating the child as well.”

“Of course I hated her. I even thought about getting rid of her.”

Lee Hong-eun began honestly.

“And then?”

“I don’t know. At some point, the thing in my belly just started to feel like my own child.”

“…….”

“It wasn’t some holy thought about the preciousness of life or something…. You probably aren’t interested, but my home wasn’t exactly harmonious. I think I wanted to create that kind of family as a sort of compensation.”

Jung-hyun stared at her silently.

“Then, from one day on, I found myself constantly imagining a life with a baby.”

“…….”

“That’s why I gave her that name. Putting my ‘somang’—my hope—into it. Well, once I actually gave birth to Somang, I learned the hard way that raising a child alone can’t be done with just those sentimental feelings. Still, I don’t regret it. It’s hard because of Somang, but I’m happy because of Somang.”

Jung-hyun turned his gaze away from her and stared out the car window. As it had been when he first saw it, he saw a dark and dirty neighborhood.

It must have been very difficult for a woman to raise a child alone in a place like this. Just as his mother had.

Did his mother think like that too? That it was hard but she was happy? He couldn’t quite imagine it for himself.

Jung-hyun shook his head slightly as if to drive the thoughts away and asked.

“How long will it take to find out?”

“Two or three days at the fastest… I’ll try to do it within a week at the latest.”

“That’s too late. Contact me by tomorrow.”

“…I’ll try.”

“Go.”

Lee Hong-eun nodded and opened the car door with an awkward gesture. As she stepped one foot outside to leave, she suddenly whipped around to look at him.

“Try eating some tasteless biscuits. When I had morning sickness, I couldn’t eat anything else, but those went down okay.”

“…….”

“You’ve lost a lot of weight since I first saw you. The father has to be healthy for the baby in the womb to be healthy too.”

With those words, Lee Hong-eun stepped out and slammed the passenger door shut. Then, she quickly disappeared around the corner of the alley.

Instead of starting the car, Jung-hyun slowly caressed the cigarette pack in his pocket. Soon, the scenery outside the window was gradually filled with the light of the sunset. Perhaps because of that orange glow, the old and dirty alley looked quite cozy and warm.

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Title: (Article Clip) I’m telling you, Blue Wolves really need a good coach…

“If you give me money, I can get you on the national team.” Allegations of bribery in national ice hockey team selection; Acting Coach Yoo Gu-hwan of the Blue Wolves and 10 others indicted without detention.

This case came to light through a class-action lawsuit by a group of parents claiming damages. It was revealed that former national team coach Yoo Gu-hwan and 10 other ice hockey officials had accepted bribes as a long-standing practice to appoint specific players to the national team and help them join semi-professional teams. (…omitted…) The MJ Sports Team announced that they would play out the remainder of the season without recruiting an additional coach.

Reading the article today, the first thing that came to mind wasn’t that I’m surprised, but that I knew this would happen. The Korean sports industry is truly rotten.

Anyway, what happens to the Blue Wolves players…

It’s a relief that guy got fired, but…

Comments

└ ‘An unprecedented situation of playing the playoffs without a coach’ Lmao ㅠㅠ I’m laughing but I’m not actually laughing.

└ Maybe it’s for the better… I felt like the kids’ performance downgraded since Yoo Gu-hwan took over the Blue Wolves…

└ Can’t we bring Peter back? ㅠ Why was he fired in the first place? For protecting the owner? ㅠ

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The Asia League playoffs are matches where the top four teams from the regular league compete for the Asia League Cup.

The 1st and 4th place teams, and the 2nd and 3rd place teams, each play a best-of-three series, and the winning teams then play a best-of-five final for the championship trophy.

The indictment of Acting Coach Yoo Gu-hwan took place the day before they were to leave for their away game in Hokkaido. Conscious of public opinion, the club prevented Yoo Gu-hwan from participating in the matches, and consequently, the players set out on their away trip without a coach.

No matter how little the acting coach had been trusted by the players, a coach was still a coach. It was not easy for the players and young coaches alone to defeat the Red Falcons, the top team in Japan.

The result of the first game was a 1:3 loss.

With this, the Blue Wolves reached the conclusion that they must win both remaining games against the Red Falcons to advance to the finals.

The Red Falcons were by no means an easy opponent. They were the team with the longest history among the Japanese clubs, and their player depth was correspondingly solid. This year, they possessed enough strength to reclaim 1st place in the regular league, surpassing the HI Tigers, who had won the league for three consecutive years.

Moon Seung-yeol entered the locker room, which was shrouded in silence. The players immediately looked up at him.

“Hyung, did you get through to the General Manager?”

“What did he say? Is he giving us an acting coach?”

As soon as the first game ended, Moon Seung-yeol had stepped forward to call the General Manager in Korea. It was to protest the front office’s decision to have the players play the remaining playoff games among themselves without a coach.

Seung-yeol shook his head, his expression dark.

“He has no intention of listening to us at all.”

Sighs broke out here and there.

“Crazy… Are they really telling us to play the remaining games like this? Without a coach or an acting coach?”

“Ho-jae hyung, could you try contacting the new owner just once?”

“Didn’t you hear about Ho-jae before? They said he couldn’t even help find the equipment.”

“That piece of shit. He’s the Vice President of Korea Air, yet I didn’t like how he cut off the flight support first.”

“The atmosphere at the front office is weird too. I heard half the staff left. What the hell is going on?”

“What else could it be? MJ just abandoned us.”

Lee Sang-gon muttered.

At those words, the locker room sank into a chilling silence. In truth, everyone had probably been feeling it instinctively for some time.

Starting with Peter’s dismissal, the physical coaches and video analysts Peter had brought in, and the mental coach Jung-hyun had additionally recruited, were cut one by one.

And now that Acting Coach Yoo Gu-hwan had ended up like that, and the club remained consistently indifferent, there was no way they couldn’t feel it.

“…It’s just like right before a team is disbanded.”

Someone muttered. Shin Ho-jae was thinking something similar. The current situation reminded him exactly of the time when they were growing exhausted by the association’s indifference.

“…Tell them to stop joking around.”

Moon Seung-yeol muttered, clenching his teeth.

“Don’t you all remember? Even after Coach Peter was fired, after Yong-su hyung was out for the season, even when we absurdly lost our equipment, everyone didn’t give up, grit their teeth, and played while relying on painkillers.”

Seung-yeol looked at everyone.

“Didn’t you all bet your lives on this year? Am I the only one?!”

One by one, they agreed with his shouting.

“…That’s right. If we lose tomorrow’s game, this season is over.”

“MJ will probably jump at the chance to terminate our contracts. Then it’s over. We’ll actually be disbanded.”

Park Hyeong-hun jumped up and shouted.

“Ah, fuck! I hate this! Hyungs! Let’s win tomorrow no matter what we have to do, okay!? I want to at least stomp our way to the finals!”

“Seung-yeol hyung. Try contacting Advisor Park Nam-woong.”

It was then that Shin Ho-jae, who had been quiet, spoke up. Seung-yeol asked back in surprise.

“Huh? Advisor Park?”

“Advisor Park was the coach of the Blue Wolves for eight years previously. He will know more about the Red Falcons than anyone here.”

“Oh…! Right, yeah. He would!”

“Why didn’t I think of that? If it’s Advisor Park, he’ll definitely help us!”

Shin Ho-jae nodded slowly. He had already received a long, worried text from him after the news broke. If they asked for help, he would likely help them with everything he had.

As everyone said, they couldn’t end it here.

“You said the club told the players to handle the remaining games on their own.”

Ho-jae stopped there and looked at Seung-yeol and Sang-gon, Min-chul and Du-min, Hyeong-hun and the rest of the players.

Sang-gon was right. They could no longer expect anything from Kwon Ki-hyuk or the club. Just as MJ had abandoned Jung-hyun, they had abandoned the Blue Wolves.

“Then, does it matter whose help we get?”

104 – Puck Drop