Second Half Chapter 18

“Winning the Champions League.” The assertive tone was remarkably crisp. It was the goal set every season, but this time, the reaction from the teammates was hotter than ever. It was likely because everyone was still brooding over the bitter taste of finishing as runners-up last season.

“It’s been seven years since the last Big Ear, so the time has come to lift it again.”

He spoke as if he were reclaiming something he had merely left in someone else’s care. At that confident declaration, the teammates all let out cheers. Jerim also steeled his heart. Since Sefton coincidentally hadn’t won the Champions League since the very season he transferred in, his resolve was exceptional.

It wasn’t because Jerim performed poorly. He had flaunted his presence since playing for Newum, a mid-to-high tier EPL club, before transferring to the big club Sefton. For a long time, he had established himself as the core of the team by possessing all the talents a modern midfielder should have—intelligence to provide creative passes, kicking ability, and work rate. Sefton fans joked that without Jerim, the ball would just play by itself in the midfield.

And it wasn’t just Sefton that had drifted away from the Big Ear roughly seven or eight years ago. Ever since Aaron began to exert his full influence on his team and completed Tabarona’s era of dominance, every club competing in the Champions League had moved one step further away from the trophy.

‘Obnoxious bastard…. No, wait, he’s on our team now.’

Mind control, mind control. Jerim constantly tried to remind his brain that the guy who was so annoyingly good was now on his side, attempting to maintain a merciful heart. When he thought about how rare a “hexagon” striker was, and the odds of getting such a striker for free, the spirit of Buddha naturally descended upon him.

…The problem, if there was one, was that the spirit of Buddha inhabiting Jerim would take flight the moment Aaron wagged his tongue once.

Maybe I should just apply superglue to his mouth. If he just kept his mouth shut, I feel like I could look at him quite dearly and cutely, even if it’s not as much as the old days. While having such thoughts, he saw a menacing forearm resting bluntly on the table and deleted the word “cutely.”

While he glanced with disapproving eyes at the tattoos engraved from Aaron’s arm probably all the way to his back, Manager Verdi’s speech had already ended. With a benevolent smile, the manager made his exit along with the coaching staff, leaving the players to enjoy themselves. The moment the manager left, the banquet hall transformed back into a party zone.

“Did you achieve the Treble?”

It was a question that suddenly occurred to him. Leaving behind his boisterous teammates, Jerim asked Aaron, who was sitting beside him diligently picking at mashed potatoes seasoned only with pepper. The way he took small bites of the pale beige food with his fork didn’t suit his large frame. Aaron only answered after chewing and swallowing everything in his mouth.

“No. Excluding the Super Cup, Tabarona didn’t have much luck with the Copa del Rey13) either. It was a team jinx.”

“Tch….”

Jerim clicked his tongue reflexively. It was because the underlying premise—that winning the Super Cup was a given—was obnoxious again.

“What’s with that reaction? You didn’t even achieve a ‘Triple Runner-up’ last season.”

Aaron placed his fork down neatly and countered. He was still the same in how his background as a young master from a wealthy family showed in these small details.

“Shut up. My nicknames increased by a ton because of that anyway.”

Jerim clenched his fists, recalling how the list of his nicknames on the wiki site had grown by more than a paragraph. Even a nickname for the devious expression he made during yesterday’s open training had already been created. The video of him squirting water at Aaron, filmed by a spectator’s fancam, had already spread far and wide.

On the internet, a combination of the sharp expression he made while brushing off Aaron’s hand at the Champions League final and the devious expression from the open training was being consumed as a sort of meme. Titled: The Dignified Appearance of Sefton’s Captain….

Regardless, being a nation of humor and satire, their talent for making nicknames and teasing others was truly superior. Seeing Jerim’s resentful expression, Aaron shook his head as if he understood.

“Another nickname related to a rat? The people of your country are too much. Why a rat? You’re a rabbit.”

“Is this guy crazy…?”

A small, cute animal and Ban Jerim. There was truly not a single commonality. As he muttered hollowly, feeling a genuine chill, the corners of Aaron’s eyes stretched long. His amber pupils sparkled. Like a cunning wolf cub often found in fairy tales, always plotting how to mess with others.

Jerim’s unease was spot on.

“I’m serious. You’re all white and look just like a rabbit. Don’t you think so, everyone?”

Fuck! Before he could even shout at him to stop, Aaron called out loudly. The teammates who overheard Aaron’s question all clutched their stomachs and keeled over.

“Jeri a rabbit? There’s no commonality except being pale! That’s gross!”

“What? Puhaha, who’s a rabbit? He’s lost his mind.”

“Jeri, should we call you Bunny from now on?”

As expected, responses riddled with horror and mockery flew in from all sides. Even Lehmann dropped his spoon while laughing. Jerim’s face ripened even redder than a well-cooked tomato. He really, truly wanted to kill Aaron Reyes.

Back when he had just joined the Tabarona youth team, he was often called “Bunny”—a play on his surname “Ban”—instead of his current nickname Jeri, and Jerim hated that name with a passion, both then and now. To call such a sturdy son of Korea a rabbit… a rabbit!

Furthermore, considering the guys who called him that always mimicked rabbit ears with their hands while snickering, it was a nickname with a clear intention to tease. It even carried a slight nuance of racial stereotyping. Though he didn’t see that specific intention in the teammates currently teasing him.

Still, it was mockery enough to remind him of a shitty past, and just as Jerim was about to lower his voice and growl, Aaron suddenly stepped in with a face stripped of laughter, throwing cold water on the excited atmosphere.

“You can’t call him Bunny.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Jerim hated it when other people called him that. The only one who can call him Bunny is me….”

“Uh-huh, you want more potatoes? Here, eat mine too.”

Jerim beat him to the punch before any weirder words could come out. He scooped up a large spoonful of the tasteless mashed potatoes and shoved it into Aaron’s maw. Aaron, who had his mouth open to speak, accepted the potatoes like a baby without much resistance.

Perhaps because a handful of dry potatoes had entered his throat and blocked it, the guy clutched his Adam’s apple and let out dry coughs. Jerim kindly fed him one more spoonful, then poured carbonated water into a transparent glass—Glug, glug, glug.

“Choking? Here, some delicious carbonated water.”

Even while choking and gasping, he apparently didn’t want to drink the carbonated water he had described as having a terrible taste. Facing those narrowed, slender eyes with thick eyelashes, Jerim twisted the corners of his mouth. Perhaps because that sight looked exceedingly friendly, the other teammates whispered among themselves while surrounding Jerim and Aaron.

“He’s really tending to him like a newborn.”

“Of course. He’s our precious, high-class newcomer.”

If you say one more useless thing, you’re dead. Jerim pointed back and forth between the mashed potatoes still left in abundance and his own mouth. It meant he would feed him a spoonful of potatoes for every word he spoke. Whether the warning worked properly or not, Aaron didn’t open his mouth further. It was a relief for Jerim as well.

And for good reason—if the fact that he had allowed only Aaron to use the pet name Bunny were exposed, both of them would go down together in a mutual destruction.

In his youth days, he would give a flick to the forehead of every guy who called him Bunny to make sure they’d never tease him like that again, but the only one who escaped that baptism of flicks was Aaron. Because Aaron, both before and after they became close, always pronounced the two syllables of his name, Jerim, correctly.

Maybe that was why. At the point where no one else called him Bunny, after he started dating Aaron, he had specifically allowed only him to use the pet name. At that time, that childish act created the illusion that they had become the most special couple in the world.

‘Crazy bastard.’

The more he thought about his romance with Aaron, the more it was colored entirely by “dark history.” This was why adults told kids to study instead of fooling around. To not build up useless dark history…. Jerim shuddered to bury those memories he wanted to forget deep in the back of his mind once more. It was then.