Chapter 50
The final ownership of the men's 100-metre freestyle gold medal was pretty much as expected. Even the predictive analysis of the local Japanese media indicated that Jungkook had higher chances of winning the gold — after all, his strength was obvious. For Yuda Matsushima to win the gold instead, he would have to hope for Jungkook to commit another false start, which was practically impossible.
In the post-race interview, Jungkook himself expressed that this was just business as usual. However, unlike his previous two interviews, he had a pair of goggles in his hand today. It was the pair he had been using during the race.
One reporter had rather keen eyes and asked Jungkook, "I noticed that you've changed your goggles today? It's the pair you're holding now, right?"
"Yes." Jungkook nodded and his eyes shifted slightly, his gaze drifting casually to sweep a glance at Lisa.
Lisa just so happened to be looking at him as well. When their eyes met, she did not know whether it was out of embarrassment or what else, but she quickly ducked her head and pretended not to look at him.
His lips quirked upwards.
The reporter was stunned for a moment by his smile — it was too much for someone to be this handsome! Luckily this big sister is very professional, only being blindsided for a moment... she gathered her thoughts and asked, "Why did you change goggles?"
"Because this pair can bring me good luck," he answered.
The interview by Sports Weekly was still being handled by GD, because Lisa stubbornly would not move forwards. At this moment, her heart was pounding wildly; she was completely unsure how she should face Jungkook, so she might as well hide at the back and play dead.
As Jungkook spoke, his gaze kept drifting towards where Lisa was at. Noticing this, Bambam moved to stand right in front of Lisa, completely blocking off the possibility of Jungkook and Lisa making eye contact.
Jungkook frowned and swept a dark glance at Bambam.
Consequently, Jungkook did not find any chance to say something like "see you at the old spot" again up till the very end.
When Jungkook had gone, Lisa held a hand to her chest and said to Bambam, "What should I do? I think he might have a crush on me!"
Bambam replied expressionlessly, "Even if he likes you, you two cannot be together."
Lisa pouted. "It almost feels like we've become a pair of star-crossed lovers..."
Bambam said, "If you two can still like each other this much after the Olympics, then you can be together."
She was morose. People change... would they still be waiting for each other right where they were in two years' time? Even people who were already in love might break up in that time, what more them who only had this budding unexpressed liking in their hearts for each other? How fragile was this?
Even just asking herself, after two years, would she still continue to like him?
She really could not say. She did not dare say 'yes' but also did not dare to say 'no'. The future was rife with unpredictability — all predictions about it were vague, any decisive answer to the question would merely be a misinterpretation of the future or sheer irresponsibility.
That night, Lisa tossed and turned in her bed, consumed with thoughts on her liking for him which could not be expressed, as well as her pent-up emotions for him. In the end, she gave a long sigh. Perhaps, compared with love, dreams were indeed more precious. She liked him, so she also liked his dreams and ambition. She did not dare to speak of the future, but at least right now, she was willing to watch over him silently and wait for him.
As for how long she will be able to wait for, well, she would leave that for the future to decide.
As Lisa was being wistful, Jungkook was also feeling rather glum. LI, SA, actually, did, not, come, to, the, old, spot, tonight!
Even though he had not had a chance to tell her to do so, not even having the opportunity to communicate with her through eye contact, shouldn't this be an obvious implicit understanding? But she didn't come.
It must be because she's shy.
Recalling her blushing face, Jungkook laughed deeply as he leaned against the border wall. After laughing for a while, he realised that he was acting like a mad man. He peered across the wall for a while longer but never caught any sight of her. He sighed and could only turn to leave.
He was still holding a gold medal.
Today, after becoming champion, Jungkook had been planning to use this gold medal as a birthday gift. However, now that he stopped to think about it, that might have been a little impulsive. What if this frightened her?
So... maybe he should stick to giving her something more normal?
The 5th of October was the final competition day for the swim events of the Asian Games. There would be 6 gold medals up for grabs today. Among these, the men's events were the 50-metre breaststroke, the 1500-metre freestyle, and the 4x100 metre medley relay. For the 50-metre breaststroke, China's most promising junior swimmer Soobin had decided to forfeit this individual event to focus on the medley event. As for the 1500-metre freestyle, it had always been Jaehyun's domain. Barring any accidents, the gold was his for sure.
The final battle would be the 4x100 medley relay. This event, like its name implies, would see four swimmers swim the backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, and freestyle in a relay in this order. In Asia, the champions of this event were most often the Japanese, because although the Japanese were not the best in freestyle, their first three swimmers in the relay were all very outstanding. Even on the world stage, Japan's performance was noteworthy, often able to squeeze into the top three. Of course, due to their weakness in the freestyle, they were always unable to obtain the gold.
However, there was one exception in the battle between China and Japan in this event, and that was during the last Asian Games. In that Asian Games, China had the Chinese breaststroke king, MIngyu, Jungkook for the butterfly, and the backstroke swimmer Eunwoo was also at his peak then. So, after the first three swimmers, China had not been too far behind, leaving the anchor Jaehyun an opportunity to overtake Japan. That time was a narrow victory.
Now, MIngyu had already retired, Jungkook had changed specialisation, and Eunwoo was no longer as powerful with the addition of the years. Fortunately, as the anchor, Jungkook was faster than Jaehyun had been back then. Therefore, the China team wasn't completely without hope for the event today.
Before the race, Lisa perused the times of the team members on both sides, adding and subtracting for a good long while, and finally concluded: Under the premise that all three teammates before him performed well, Jungkook would need to outswim Yuda Matsushima by 0.75 seconds to ensure that China could compete for the gold.
This seemed like a tall order, but it wasn't completely impossible. At least, he had accomplished it yesterday — in yesterday's 100-metre free, his time had been faster than Yuda Matsushima by 0.8 seconds.
However, this was only a small hope, because an athlete's condition was a shifting, ephemeral thing. Oftentimes, after achieving a high point, it was difficult to sustain. He had just set a new personal best time for this year yesterday — whether this record could be broken again today was a huge unknown.
In any case, there was hope, but there was also potential complications. All kinds of possibilities existed on the field — no one could know for sure who would win the highest honour until the final moment.
This was probably the charm of sports.
Just as Lisa was still struggling over the probabilities of the China team obtaining the gold medal, she received some bad news after the morning's preliminaries: China's backstroke swimmer Eunwoo would be withdrawing from the finals due to an injury incurred during the relay preliminaries.
This was a terrible blow. Although Eunwoo's condition had deteriorated from before, he was still the fastest backstroke swimmer within China at present. Now that he could not compete, who would be the first relay swimmer?
The media were very concerned about this, and the swimming team was also in knots. Eunwoo was the most suitable choice — they were already uncertain of the outcome when he was the swimmer, what more if they switched to a slower swimmer now? The team leader called a meeting with the coaches and the other members of the relay. They discussed and discussed and just could not come to a decision. Among the remaining few backstroke swimmers, none had been able to make the finals of the Asian Games, and Japan's first swimmer was the famous Hideya Takatani, the champion of the backstroke in the last Olympic Games. If they pitted an egg against a rock and fell too far behind in the first leg of the relay, the remaining three swimmers could just give up and not swim.
And then, Jungkook said, "Shall we let Taehyun try?"
Taehyun was a medley swimmer. Previously, he had snatched a silver medal from Japan's Yuuki Tanaka. He had performed very well in that race.
The medley includes all four strokes, so Taehyun natural could swim the backstroke as well. The team leader considered Taehyun's backstroke time and felt that there was at least still a little bit of hope. However, Taehyun may be the same age as Soobin, but this was his first time participating in a major event so his condition may not be stable. It was just uncertain how he would perform this time.
In the afternoon, the four members met and had a discussion. Taehyun said to Jungkook, "Thank you, big brother Jungkook." He knew Jungkook was the one who had suggested for him to be the first swimmer.
Jungkook smiled, "No thanks necessary. Just swim your best." He looked in turn at Taehyun, Soobin, and Yoongi, and could not help but feel sad on their behalf. These three unlucky children were all still young, but they were now about to face world-class opponents... he really did not know what to say anymore. In contrast, his opponent Yuda Matsushima was really nothing much.
Of course, the accumulated gap from the first three swimmers would definitely create substantial pressure for him.
Overall, for all four of them, they were all under great pressure going into the race. Jungkook did a rough estimation — if the first three swimmers could keep the gap between them and Japan to within 0.8 seconds, he still would have some confidence to overtake Japan. He did not tell his teammates this, however, afraid that it would make them too nervous.
At 7:30 pm, the other 37 events of the competition had already been settled. The closing race of this Asian Games was about to begin. From the moment the athletes began entering, the entire venue was filled with applause and screams. This was the final showdown between China and Japan, and it was also the most exciting battle. The Japanese media dubbed this race as a 'revenge match', as they would avenge their loss of the gold in the last Asian Games. Meanwhile, some of the Chinese swimming fans dubbed the battle as the 'Untenable Counterattack' — after all, the chances of China actually gaining the gold medal was not high. Furthermore, according to the overall medal tally, China's men's swimming team currently had 6 gold medals, slightly behind Japan's 7 medals. As such, Japan was holding home team advantage going into this final race — if the China team could not become champions in this event, the men's swimming team's goal of drawing even with Japan would fall though again, and the gap would be widened further to two gold medals. Compared with the last Asian Games, no progress would have been made.
That result would be such a slap in the face.
So, would the final result be China smacking Japan in the face, or would Japan be the one to smack China in the face? Everyone had their own answer.
This... would be a battle of life and death.