Half Line

Kim Moo-gyum, ace of EPL club Greenford, star of Asian football, standout of the South Korean national team—and notorious troublemaker—makes headlines wherever he goes. Determined to repay the middle school teacher who first set him on the path to soccer, Moo-gyum takes a risk few would: he accepts a loan to K-League’s City Seoul for just a year, giving up his hefty salary and braving public criticism in the process. There, he crosses paths with Lee Ha-joon, the team’s new physical coach—someone his own age. Oddly enough, despite sharing past World Cup experiences and multiple national team call-ups, Moo-gyum can’t seem to remember much about him. Ha-joon leaves almost no impression. “How dare you, a rookie coach, look down on me, Kim Moo-gyum?” he scoffs. But it doesn’t take long for Moo-gyum to notice something strange about Ha-joon—how he keeps his distance, deliberately avoiding him. “No wonder,” Moo-gyum muses, “I always thought he was too quiet for a defender.”