The bold provocation made Jiheon laugh despite himself. By the time he shouted, Jaekyung had already overtaken Noah. The announcer was taking his time mentioning it. The swimmers were underwater, which made it hard to tell—and the gap was very small. But Jiheon was certain that Jaekyung had a clear lead now. At this pace, the gap was bound to widen. The remaining fifty meters were freestyle, and freestyle was Jaekyung’s forte.
Jiheon turned out to be right. When Jaekyung and Noah surfaced simultaneously, Jaekyung was already more than a meter ahead. A ripple of surprised murmurs spread through the bar.
“Gwon Jaekyung! He’s back in first place, with Kenny behind him!”
The confused spectators relaxed at the update and burst into cheer again.
“Gwon is well in the lead now with the freestyle stroke, which is his strong suit! What an incredible final dash!”
“He gained significant distance underwater!”
“And the gap keeps growing now that they’ve surfaced.”
“Now past the 185-meter mark—”
“Gwon Jaekyung is making great speed! He’s rewriting South Korea’s history as we speak!” the announcer shouted, hardly stopping to breathe. The next moment, Jaekyung reached the touchpad, and the announcer and the commentator screamed over each other.
“There’s the gold medal!”
The bar was inundated with cheering. The cheering could even be heard from outside the building.
“That’s a gold medal! Gwon Jaekyung is the first South Korean athlete to win gold at the Olympics for the 200-meter individual medley!”
“One minute and 54.17 seconds! That’s his personal best, and a new Olympic record.”
“He set a new Asian record in the preliminaries, and now he’s broken the Olympic record as well!”
“That’s more than 0.5 seconds faster than the previous record. Gwon Jaekyung has done something amazing!”
While the announcer and the commentator spoke, the start of the event replayed in slow motion. They were doing a review of the footage before finalizing the results. Occasional false starts in swimming are sometimes detected only after the race ends—and can lead to disqualification. So no one could relax until everything was confirmed.
Soon, the results appeared on the electronic display board. Nothing had changed much after the review. The gold medal went to South Korea’s Gwon Jaekyung, the silver medal to Noah Kenny, and the bronze medal to Phil Abramson.
Once Jaekyung’s victory was confirmed, the bar erupted in cheers again. Bells buzzed as people placed new orders. They looked ready to drink all night, celebrating the young genius who had made history.
Of course, Jiheon’s coworkers—namely, the Promotion Team at ProEdge, a sports agency—were no different.
“That was nuts.”
“Yeah. Imagine that!”
“Four Olympic medals at eighteen. Is that even possible?”
The employees who’d turned their chairs to watch turned back toward their tables. Excited, they emptied their glasses, only to order more immediately. When more beer was served, they filled each other’s glasses and continued to speak in eager tones.
“I wonder who’ll take Jaekyung? Whoever takes him will have a golden goose on their hands.”
“Kavva, probably.”
“Sons of b*tches have a hand in every pie.”
“They’ve got money. Their signing bonus is a league of its own. I mean, I would probably choose them if I were an athlete.”
Nam Seungmyung, who'd been listening quietly as the more experienced employees spoke, kept his eyes on the menu as he finally spoke up.
“But I thought Gwon Jaekyung wasn’t interested in a contract with an agency. People have been making a fuss about him ever since he won the gold medal at the Asian Games, but he didn’t choose any agency at all.”
“Oh, but things have changed,” everyone said at once, waving him off dismissively.
“He’s now an Olympic gold medalist. That’s completely different.”
“Exactly. He’ll appear in at least twenty ads, mark my words.”
“He’s worth more than most celebrities. Whatever agency nabs him will be able to cover their operation costs with the ad commissions alone. They’ll do anything to get him on board.”
While the employees gushed on, someone screamed to one side of the bar again. People turned back toward the TV, assuming there was something more to watch.
Jaekyung was filling the entire screen. He had just climbed out of the pool, with a camera trailing behind him. Journalists were on him in an instant, and Jaekyung removed his swimming cap and pushed his wet hair back, listening.
He leaned toward the microphone to speak, and the water that trickled down from his hair slid down his handsome forehead. Most of it ran down past his ears to his chin, but some trailed along his sharp nose and dripped from the tip. Droplets clung to his long lashes. This seemed to bother him, since he blinked once as he answered the questions of the journalists with a neutral face. The water remained in his eyelashes, and in the end, he took a finger and rubbed it off.
That reminds me of him when he was a kid, Jiheon thought. His face remained expressionless, yet he looked strangely younger for his age. Jiheon didn’t seem to be the only person who noticed this. The girls in the bar were screaming and lamenting at the defenseless, childlike look.
“Oh my god, my Jaekyung!”
Some college student shouted, and everyone laughed. It wasn’t just the girls who were gushing over the handsome face.
“Man. He’s a looker,” muttered Yun Kyuwon from the Promotion Team.
“He’d have been a hit if he had become an idol, don’t you think?”
Someone from General Affairs, who had been able to come to tonight’s get-together thanks to Yun, quickly chimed in.
“I’d say he looks more like an actor. With a face like that, he should take up acting.”
“He could quit swimming now and start acting if he wanted. He’s only seventeen. He’s got plenty of time.”
“I would have done it if I were him. Swimming isn’t even that popular, and the prize money’s not that great either,” Yun said.
Ko Hyunseok, a managing director seated opposite him, tossed a piece of rice puff at Yun with a scowl.
“Why, you little... You work at a sports agency, if you’ll recall. You don’t want to talk like that!”
“Oh! Sorry. My mistake. Forget I ever said that,” Yun said, quickly picking up the rice puff, popping it into his mouth, and smiling ingratiatingly.
He smiled despite Ko’s insult—not because he agreed, but because he couldn’t be bothered to argue with the man.