The sunlight spilled through the curtains, illuminating the entire room in a vibrant hue. The phone was buzzing insistently when Hiro found himself awake.
He reached for it, squinting at the screen. There were 47 unread messages and 128 notifications, and for a moment he wondered whether the phone was broken.
He opened the first message, from Lee Kang-In.
"You're everywhere. Turn on the TV."
Hiro frowned, found the remote beneath the edge of the blanket, and switched on the television. The sports channel was already in the middle of a broadcast.
"—and in what can only be described as a statement of intent, Hiro Takahashi returned to competitive football last night after three months out, scoring within ten minutes of coming on. But it wasn't only the goal that caught the world's attention. It was the manner of it."
The screen cut to footage of his goal: the pass to the left-back, the quiet drift to the edge of the box, the precise, curling finish.
