"Sorry that you had to watch such an embarrassing scene." Till now, as they were leaving the Sports Park, Ming Yue Guang's eyes were still red. He wasn't planning to cry today and yet, he wasn't able to control his emotions.
"There is no need to apologize. It wasn't embarrassing at all." Ming took out a tissue from his bag for his senior, "Here use it."
"Thank you." Ming Yue Guang accepted it and used it to wipe his tears. He asked the other Ming, "Would you like to hear a story on the way back to University?"
"A story about?"
"A story about me," Ming Yue Guang looked forward as he walked together with Ming to the bus stop. "A story about soccer."
"I have told you before that my father was a soldier and he was never really around in my life for the most part. For my birthday, he would normally buy me books from the different countries that he traveled to for his missions. However, that all started when I was 7. At age 6, my present from him was actually a soccer ball. It all started on that fateful day when my father and I had watched a soccer game together on television. I must've been extremely excited that day as my father had gotten me a soccer ball for my birthday."
"And so, when I entered elementary school, I immediately joined the school's soccer team. I was driven and ready to play the game. Sadly, things weren't as easy as they seemed. I wasn't very gifted with my legs and I would always fumble around with the ball. My coach at that time wasn't the nicest of guys and would only favor the better players. I sat on the bench for the most part of my first and second year in elementary school. My passion for the ball slowly died down too."
"It was around this period when my mother found out that I wasn't really enjoying soccer and had informed my father who was back in the country from work. My father taught me many things on how to be a righteous and honest person. The other thing that he taught me a lot was to never give up. I still remember the day when I said I wanted to quit. He said to me, 'Giving up was for the weak-minded and perseverance will lead to success.' That saying stuck with me from that day on."
"That year when he was home, he would bring me downstairs our apartment and we would start practicing drills together. He had purchased cones for me to dribble around and got me training equipment to improve my dexterity. When my legs were sore, he would help massage my legs and apply ointment for me. I didn't want to disappoint my father's expectations of me and so, even after he left again for his job, I continued to persevere. In school, I would train silently and not care about the looks in other people's eyes. At home, I would bring my equipment down and start training until my mother had to drag me upstairs to shower and have dinner." Ming Yue Guang smiled at the thought of his past.
"Eventually… Eventually, in my last year of Elementary school, I was drafted into the soccer team. I got lucky that day because the person I was substituting for was sick that day. I got to go on the field for the first time in six years. Six years! I was ecstatic! Overjoyed! I wanted to tell my father about this, but he wasn't home yet at that point. On the day of the competition, I played and to no surprise, I still wasn't good enough. Haha…"
"You still weren't good enough?" Ming was shocked by Yue Guang's story.
"Yeah. I wasn't good enough and on my debut competition, I even almost let in an own goal, to which the coach wanted to gouge his eyes when watching my performance. At no point in time was I able to defend well enough as the team's defender. My physique when I was young was, to be fair, smaller than average. I was pushed and shoved away by the bigger boys. No matter how good my dribbling skills were, my strength was not enough in the end."
"But! It did turn for the better in middle school. At the age of 13, my body had started to go through a growth spurt and my height had spiked by a whole head. I was taller than most guys in my class and I started to eat more food. With that in mind, I tried for the school's soccer team once again. And to my surprise, I made it into our school's first team without any difficulty. I had practiced the basic skills my entire childhood that when I went into my teenage years, everything was muscle memory. It turned out I was more suited to be a Midfielder as my stamina was great and my spatial awareness, coupled with my height was suitable for aiding both defensive and offensive maneuvers."
"So you became good alongside growing up?" Ming asked.
"Yes. That seemed to be the limiting factor and my father knew about it all along. He had hinted at it when I was young, but obviously, a child doesn't know better. And so, he simply said that I just needed more practice. When I went to high school, I entered the top school for soccer in Country Z and it was there the Old coach that I talked about before scouted me. He asked for me to join the Under-18 national team, to which I agreed. Soccer was genuinely a fun sport for me and being good at it was just a perk."
"And so, as I was finishing up high school, my grades wasn't exactly the best as I spent a lot of time practicing for competitions and mostly, for a lack of a better word, I was lazy to study. There was one university course that I really wanted to get into and that was International Studies. My father would always buy me books from different parts of the world and the literature from the different countries was very enriching. Sadly, my grades weren't good enough to enroll in the course. The old coach had helped me out big time by writing a letter of recommendation into University Z and with that, I was able to enter the course under discretionary admission. From that point on, my soccer dreams slowly wained away and now, I am taking my Masters in International Relations."