PUCKD Ch 16

Doomin, who wouldn’t have even glanced at the side dishes in Korea, devoured them in the blink of an eye and scraped the empty plate with his chopsticks, glancing to the side.

“But our team owner’s English pronunciation is so good. Should I have done phone English instead of Goomon after all? Hojae-Hojae, how did you learn English?”

“Well.”

“You’re no fun…”

“Guys, forget phone English or whatever, look at the color of this meat.”

“Ugh, it’s seriously insane.”

A server was just carrying a tray of pink raw meat. Yook Doomin shouted frivolously that it was a color with a completely different soul from the barbecue sold near the training facility.

The three of them, as if they were on a time limit, densely packed the meat onto the grill, which wasn’t even heated up yet. Then, unable to wait for it to cook, they began a fierce debate over whether it was okay to eat the still vividly pink meat.

“Soju?”

An awkwardly pronounced Korean word cut into their conversation just as they were finishing a bowl of rice without any side dishes. When they turned, Coach Peter was shaking a green bottle.

It was Korean liquor, which they hadn’t even dared to order after seeing the price on the menu. Minchul and Doomin’s eyes immediately lit up. Shin Hojae, who never drank during training or the season, refused.

By the time they had finished two bottles of soju with samgyeopsal and hangjeongsal as anju, Yook Doomin’s tongue was completely loosened.

“Peterrr. I have a serious question for you~”

“Uhm-hmm.”

“Did you bite the Stanley Cup?”

“What?”

“Ang. Did you bite it? Bite, bite. Like this.”

Yook Doomin explained enthusiastically, pretending to bite a silver spoon. Peter burst out laughing, whether it was a problem with his pronunciation, he didn’t understand the question, or he just found Doomin’s actions funny.

『Haha! Whew, what is Doomin asking?』

Junghyun saw him and briefly explained the Korean culture of biting gold. Peter laughed good-naturedly and replied.

『Unfortunately, I didn’t think to bite the Stanley Cup. Let’s make sure to do it if we win the Asia League championship cup.』

And that story was relayed to the three of them through Junghyun’s interpretation.

There was no way a team’s coach wouldn’t want to win, but hearing him say ‘Let’s win the Asia League championship cup’ with his own voice felt different. Doomin and Minchul seemed to have felt something similar, as the look in their eyes changed slightly.

It was a new side to Peter, who always created an uncomfortable atmosphere with his expressionless face. It took less than three minutes for the two of them to stick to either side of Peter, passing drinks back and forth.

“I’m very disappointed. Why you me in unit not put! I’m a very strong forward! You must trust me!”

“Haha.”

“Don’t haha! And, what else. That. Basic training. We are very very upset. It’s boring!”

“It’s boring, but it’s the most reliable training to gain stamina. There’s not much we can do about physique, but we can increase stamina. It’s not because I don’t trust you. I had to check what my players’ weaknesses were.”

“What? It was too fast, I couldn’t understand. What did Peter say?”

Hojae answered Doomin’s question with a short summary.

“He’s looking for our weaknesses.”

“Hey Peter. We don’t have weaknesses.”

『No, Doomin. Your biggest weakness is that you don’t blend together. All the players on the team are scattered. You only think about yourselves and play however is comfortable, so the opposing team reads you easily. There’s no development that way. I think our players can play in more diverse ways.』

Peter’s speech also quickened, perhaps because he was drunk.

“Hehe. I couldn’t understand a single thing this time either.”

“Ah, whatever. Drink!”

“Yeah! Peter, I’ll show you the Korean traditional poktanju!”

Seeing the noisy table, the rookie players cautiously approached with their glasses. It was Park Hyung-hoon and his friends, who were close with Yook Doomin. Starting with that, other players began to flock to the table one by one.

The reason the players usually found Coach Peter difficult wasn’t just the one-dimensional reason that he was a foreigner they couldn’t communicate with.

The fact that he was an NHL player who had lifted the Stanley Cup three times would have naturally created a sense of awe.

So it was nice to see him mingling with the players now. They all used short English and translation apps to complain to Peter about their difficulties, and Peter also tried to give long answers each time using a translator.

Only Shin Hojae, who wasn’t drinking, was sitting slightly apart from them, quietly mulling over what the coach had said.

Blending.

It was an idealistic word, but if it were that easy, they wouldn’t have suffered such a crushing defeat in the first match.

Just as Shin Hojae still felt a distance from the other players despite playing together for over a year.

“Did you like the business class seats, Mr. Shin?”

It was Kwon Junghyun who suddenly spoke to Shin Hojae, who was sitting alone. The players’ gazes, who had been in the middle of a conversation with the team owner, all turned to Hojae at once. Shin Hojae, who had been lost in thought, looked at them with a flustered expression.

“I saw the article where Mr. Shin requested a private jet as something he wanted from the new team owner. Even for me, a private jet is a bit much, so I decided to at least provide business class seats.”

Junghyun said something he had never heard before in his life with a smiling face. The faces of the players, who had been huddled together wanting to look good for the team owner, filled with surprise.

“Wow. So we got to fly business class thanks to Hojae hyung?”

Among them, Park Hyung-hoon chimed in good-naturedly. However, Shin Hojae’s face was just bewildered. An article…? I’ve never said such a thing.

“I think you’ve misunderstood something, I never said—”

“The Canada training camp was also decided based on a hint from Mr. Shin’s words.”

Then this time, Kwon Junghyun cut in, as if interrupting Shin Hojae’s words. The eyes of players like Park Hyung-hoon and others who he usually barely exchanged greetings with began to sparkle slightly.

“It was great to decide to acquire the team with such momentum, but what do I know about ice hockey? Pete was just as busy and out of his mind, so there was no one to ask but Mr. Shin.”

“…”

“It was Mr. Shin who strongly requested that the poor gym facilities in the club be replaced with ice hockey-specific equipment. And I wouldn’t have known that someone like the sharpening technician, who has worked with the players for so long, wasn’t a full-time employee if Mr. Shin hadn’t told me.”

Shin Hojae slowly blinked his eyes.

Kwon Junghyun’s story was greatly exaggerated. First of all, he had never directly requested that Junghyun replace the old facilities.

He had just given a few answers to a question about how the players didn’t seem to use the gym much. And the fact that the sharpening technician wasn’t a full-time employee was something even he had learned just now.

He couldn’t easily understand why Kwon Junghyun was telling such lies.

“The matter with the sharpening technician was something that kept falling through with the previous team… Hojae, I didn’t know you cared about things like that.”

Choi Yongsoo looked at Hojae with a rather touched gaze. The other players didn’t say anything, but their faces showed that they were seeing Shin Hojae in a new light.

“…”

When he looked at Kwon Junghyun, who was sitting across from him with a flustered face, he was just tilting his glass, pretending not to know.

…It must be my imagination, right?

To think that Kwon Junghyun had lied for his sake. It must be a ridiculous delusion. This must also be part of his image-making. That was the only thing that made sense.

『Whew, translate here for a bit.』

Just then, Coach Peter called Junghyun. As he did, he wrapped an arm around Junghyun’s shoulder and stroked his forearm. Peter’s hand lingered on Junghyun’s forearm for quite a long time before falling away with a loud laugh.

Shin Hojae stared intently at the scene. Since Junghyun was at the end of the table, it seemed the other players couldn’t see it.

It was strangely sticky for a normal friendship. Taking himself as an example, he wouldn’t touch Doomin or Minchul in that way.

And he belatedly remembered a fact that was so obvious he had forgotten it. Just as almost all the players here were Alphas, Coach Peter was also an Alpha.

“…”

A look of displeasure slowly crept onto Hojae’s face.

This was a man who had brazenly made a sponsorship offer to him, a stranger. He might not be just ‘friends’ with the Alphas around him either.

Hojae recalled the blatant and vulgar words he had heard from him one by one, as if memorizing them.

Just because he seemed to be genuinely for the team didn’t mean his true nature was faded.

The sound of a chair scraping against the floor was rough. Shin Hojae got up from his seat and headed outside.

Junghyun gazed blankly at Shin Hojae’s retreating back.