#119

Over Time

Title: Why is Shin Ho-jae missing from the World Championship selection roster?

(Photo of the national ice hockey team departing today.jpg)

Anyone know why?

Maybe it’s because of what happened with Yoo Gu-hwan recently, but I can’t see anything the association does in a positive light ㅡㅡ

Comments

└ Looking at the photo again, there are hardly any Blue Wolves players? Are they kidding me…

└└ It’s probably because a lot of the BW players are injured. I heard they’re all in surgery or rehab.

└└└ Oh, really? Shin Ho-jae too?

└└└└ Yeah, I heard he’s having shoulder surgery.

└└└└└ Oh, really? ㅠ I got so hyped after the finals that I was planning to actually follow the World Championships for the first time…

Title: Thanks to the Blue Wolves, my daughter came out of her room for the first time in 3 years

I’m an older fan who decided to become a Blue Wolves fan after watching the last final ^^…

It’s exactly as the title says.

My daughter was hurt at school during high school and hadn’t come out of her room for a long time. My wife and I tried everything we could to lead her back outside, but nothing worked…

Then one day, she started watching ice hockey games without fail. After hearing that from my wife, I used my old experience of watching the NHL to strike up a conversation here and there.

She used to talk to my wife occasionally, but she had never had a proper conversation with me… but my daughter’s eyes sparkled as she asked me about the rules of the game. Then she started chatting away so cutely about how there’s a player named Shin Ho-jae~ how he’s been friends with so-and-so since elementary school~ and how the players pooled their money to bring in the coach together~

And finally… she even told me herself that she wanted to go to the finals. I was so happy that I boasted I’d get tickets no matter what it took… and then I went into the bedroom and cried a lot with my wife.

Getting tickets was much harder than I thought, and I almost gave up..^^; but money really can do anything… (Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a ticket for my wife, so only the two of us watched ㅠ)

Thanks to the five-hour drive to Gangneung where the finals were held, it had been so long since the three of us ate butter potatoes and walnut cakes at a rest stop. I was so happy…

I guess I talked too long ^^;

I don’t know if anyone from the Blue Wolves organization will see this, but I really want to say thank you…

Comments

└ What is this, why am I getting emotional ㅠ

└ Leaving a recommendation, mister… I hope you and your daughter stay happy for a long, long time.

└ Crying ㅠㅠ

Title: Thinking back, the finals were seriously insane

I thought the Tigers would win by a landslide, but they pushed it all the way to Game 5 and won in the second overtime… ㅠㅠ

And it was a shorthanded situation, you all know… Seriously, I don’t think anyone in the stands thought BW would win ㅠㅠ…

Honestly, I thought, ‘Ah, I guess they can’t win’… but Shin Ho-jae was insane… ㅠㅠㅠㅠ

It was so thrilling that I think I rewatched the game footage ten times on my way home ㅠㅠ I love it so much. I want to join the BW supporters. Shin Ho-jae will be there next season too, right?? ㅠ

Comments

└ Seriously, what would have happened if BW had disbanded last year ㅠㅠㅠ

└ The fact that they were on the verge of disbanding is a total drama in itself.

└ Why watch NetPlus… when you have BW…

└ Come to think of it, wasn’t BW on a one-year contract? There’s no news about a contract extension.

└└ Unless the higher-ups at Myeong-jeong are idiots, they wouldn’t terminate the contract of the season’s winning team.

Title: By the way, what happened to the owner who paid the settlement?

Why haven’t I seen any follow-up articles?

Comments

└ They said he settled with the victim, and then he suddenly vanished from the media lol

└└ ㅋㅋㅋ It’s obvious Myeong-jeong pulled some strings.

＊＊＊

“……So, you’re saying you and CEO Jung-hyun were in that kind of relationship?”

As Yuk Du-min muttered in shock, Ji Min-chul, sitting next to him, nudged his side with an elbow.

“I’m telling you, that’s not what’s important right now. Look at Ho Jae-shin’s face.”

“No, I thought he looked miserable because of his shoulder, since he’s the one who won the championship, the scoring title, and the MVP?! My god… the CEO and Ho-jae-hojae…”

On the day before the finals, when Ho-jae attended the meeting in a daze, Min-chul had thankfully asked him nothing.

If he had kept his mouth shut, it might have passed without a word, just like before. However, Shin Ho-jae did not do that. He suddenly felt the urge to tell the two of them everything that had happened between him and Jung-hyun.

He told them in as much detail as possible, from their first meeting to the current situation, though he left out the parts where Jung-hyun seemed strange, like the sponsorship offer. As a result, it sounded as if he had liked Jung-hyun from the very beginning. It felt strange.

“But you’re saying CEO Jung-hyun’s house is empty right now…?”

“Maybe he just moved his things out… because he moved into a newlyweds’ home?”

As Du-min pronounced ‘newlyweds’ home,’ he glanced at Ho-jae’s reaction. Ho-jae gave a bitter smile.

Yes, that could be it. The idea that he had disappeared might just be his own delusion.

“Let’s see…. You said the CEO’s wedding was the day before yesterday, right?”

“What for?”

“Nothing, I’m just curious if our CEO is eating and living well on his own, while our Ho-jae-hojae looks so haggard, like he hasn’t had a scrap of porridge to eat.”

“Stop it.”

“Hold on a second.”

Despite Shin Ho-jae’s weak protest, Du-min huffed loudly and tapped away at his phone. Haggard like he hadn’t eaten porridge? This was simply because he had lost some muscle while resting after shoulder surgery. He had been diagnosed with a rotator cuff tear. Since he had been suffering from his shoulder for quite a while, he decided to take the opportunity to have surgery and had just completed it at a specialist hospital for athletes introduced by his seniors.

Other than that, Shin Ho-jae was doing quite well, as usual. He was eating well and working hard on his rehab. After the finals, he felt as if something inside him had become firmer.

Du-min, who had been tapping on his phone, held up an advertisement photo and told him to look.

“Our Ho-jae-hojae really became a superstar. This keeps popping up in my Insta ads.”

“Should I become Ho Jae-shin’s manager when he retires?”

“Then hire me as the driver.”

It was nonsense, but it was true that after the finals, several advertisements and broadcast program offers had come in for Shin Ho-jae.

The ads were for an exclusive model contract with a sports apparel brand and a sports supplement brand, and the broadcast was an observational reality show.

The story of Shin Ho-jae leading the team to victory amidst overlapping misfortunes and crises had been a hot topic in online communities for quite a while, and representatives from various brands and broadcasts who viewed this positively had contacted him.

He rejected the broadcast as he had no interest in it, but he accepted the advertisements. He thought it would be good to add the fairly large signing bonus to his surgery costs, and since they were brands he actually used, the words ‘exclusive model’ weren’t too burdensome. If he were going to do it half-heartedly, he wouldn’t have accepted in the first place.

It was incredibly awkward to get makeup done under the lights and run ‘stylishly’ on the ice, but thanks to that, he was able to have surgery and rehabilitation at a great hospital he couldn’t have dreamed of before, and he even treated his mother and Yeon-jae to a lavish meal, so he was satisfied.

Because of his shoulder, he inevitably had to be left out of the selection roster for the World Championships, which took place just a week after the Asia League ended. The same went for Du-min and Min-chul, whose knees and wrists were not in good shape, and most of the Blue Wolves players were in a similar situation.

However, rather than being disappointed, everyone seemed proud, viewing it as the result of burning everything they had for the championship. At the same time, seeing how they subtly brought up the Winter Olympics next year, they all seemed full of ambition to run with the national flag.

The problem was the contract extensions for the next season and the appointment of the coach. MJ Sports and the association were clearly displeased that the players had brought back Coach Peter, who had once been dismissed, and had played through the playoffs with him.

Someone who didn’t know better might think that since they achieved the club’s first championship in the end, it’s all for the best, but that’s because clubs and associations are naturally stagnant and corrupt places.

Shin Ho-jae told the club that bringing back Coach Peter was entirely his own arbitrary decision. It was for the same reason he was the only one who could stand up to Yoo Gu-hwan during his time as acting coach. The other players had no choice but to walk on eggshells around the association. They would be afraid of facing retaliatory disciplinary action if they fell out of favor.

But Shin Ho-jae was Shin Ho-jae. In a world where skill was everything, he was undeniably the best ice hockey player in South Korea, so he calculated that if he claimed it was his own arbitrary action, the association wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. As expected, both the club and the association quieted down for a while. Not that the atmosphere was one of actively discussing contract extensions, though.

The interesting thing was that as soon as rumors spread that MJ was being lukewarm about the league MVP, transfer offers came in from the HI Tigers and Hokkaido’s Red Falcons. And Ho-jae was not responding to any of them.

As Min-chul was getting heated with various stories, Ho-jae suddenly rummaged through his bag and held something out. Receiving the small glass bottle that fit in the palm of his hand, Ji Min-chul tilted his head and asked.

“Perfume? All of a sudden?”

“Smell it.”

“Oh. Pheromone perfumes come out like this these days?”

Interested in the mention of perfume, Du-min, who had only been touching his phone, made a sniffing sound and brought the nozzle to his nose.

“Isn’t it a bit of a scam to sell this as a pheromone perfume? I mean, it’s not like there’s absolutely no feeling to it, but…”

“What does it smell like?”

At Ho-jae’s question, Du-min sniffed and answered.

“Lime, orange, bergamot? …And a hint of musk and coconut?”

“Our Du-min has a dog’s nose.”

He didn’t know much about perfume ingredients, but seeing him mention lime and orange, he knew one thing.

“So it doesn’t smell like leaves or grass?”

“Yeah. This is completely citrus-based. Why the sudden perfume? It looks like something used, but it wouldn’t be something you used…”

“Do scents change if they get old?”

“This is a perfume from a very famous place. How could a perfume from a place like that change its scent?”

“…Right, so it’s not that I smelled it wrong.”

Ho-jae muttered.

Shin Ho-jae, who had visited Jung-hyun’s house, had looked at the empty first floor for a long time before going up to the second floor.

As the worker had said that they hadn’t started cleaning yet, everything in the second-floor bedroom, including the bed and nightstand, remained as it was. Looking at the bed with a heavy heart, Ho-jae inadvertently looked at the table in front of the bathroom.

The perfume bottle was there. Exactly as it was when he first discovered it after spending the night with Jung-hyun.

As memories rushed back like a wave, Ho-jae carefully touched the small bottle and smelled it. But the scent was not the smell he remembered.

He had frozen in confusion, and then, hearing the worker enter the second floor, he had unconsciously put the perfume in his pocket and brought it with him.

Shin Ho-jae let out a deep sigh and pressed his hand to his forehead.

If the scent he had thought was Jung-hyun’s pheromone all this time wasn’t the scent of this perfume…

‘I have a feeling that he might have applied Alpha pheromones because he was worried I might manifest as an Omega.’

Did he really manifest as an Omega?

His scent had been too faint and dim to be called a typical pheromone. That’s why he had naturally thought he was lying. Throb. His head began to ache, and Ho-jae covered his face with both hands.

Just then, Du-min, who had been immersed in his phone again, looked up.

“Ho-jae-hojae. Was the CEO’s wedding really the day before yesterday?”

“Du-min-ssi. Ho-jae’s heart is hurting. How many times are you going to ask?”

“No, look at this. Artist Kyung Seung-hee’s Insta. She says she went to Morocco for work starting last week.”

“Isn’t that a honeymoon?”

“Look at the date here! I’m telling you, she’s been in Morocco since last week?!”

He checked Kyung Seung-hee’s SNS feed on Du-min’s phone. Kyung Seung-hee seemed to be the type to be active on SNS, as several posts were uploaded every day.

And as Du-min said, Kyung Seung-hee was in Morocco. She seemed preoccupied with meetings and work with artists there. The date she left for Morocco was two days before the wedding.

“…….”

What happened?

Jung-hyun had clearly spoken as if the wedding was imminent.

As if he had the same question, Ji Min-chul muttered.

“What is it? Was the wedding canceled…?”

120 – PUCK DROP