May Your Dream Come True

Pork belly crackled on the grill, oil snapping and spitting as the meat seared. It was the kind of sight that should have set every mouth in the room watering—and yet no one spared it a glance. Everyone who had taken a seat in the restaurant had given the whole of their attention to the television on the wall.

Three runners packed the bases. Two outs. The bottom of the ninth. At the moment that would decide Game 2 of the Korean Series, Jeong Hae-woon—the cleanup hitter who carried the Thunders—stepped in to hit.

A hard swallow clicked through the room.

"Hae-woon, please. Just one swing."

"God! Buddha! Lend our Hae-woon the strength to turn on one and crush it!"

"That guy gets it done. He's the KBO's home-run hitter. Let's trust him."

A few of the customers watching the screen muttered it with their fists clenched tight. He was a hitter worth believing in. If Jeong Hae-woon's stroke and power hadn't exploded over the second half of the season, the Gwangju Thunders would never have finished the regular season in first place and taken a direct ticket to the Korean Series.

On the mound inside the television, Seoul Duonex pitcher Kim Chang-woon wiped the running sweat away with the back of his hand and worked the rosin bag between his fingers. Even Kim Chang-woon—Duonex's guardian, forty-two saves on the season and the saves title in his pocket—could not hide how tight this moment had him.

"First pitch looked like he was backing off, and then he comes right after the inside! Kim Chang-woon is Kim Chang-woon!"

The voice, loosened a little by alcohol, drifted through the restaurant in open admiration. The other customers nodded as if they felt the same, freely granting how gorgeous that second pitch had been.

One strike, one ball. Kim Chang-woon let out a long breath and threw his third pitch.

......That's a ball. A shame, that one.

It was ruled a ball by the slimmest of margins. Had there been no Automatic Ball-Strike System—had the call rested entirely on an umpire's tendencies—Kim Chang-woon's third pitch was close enough that it might well have been a strike.

One strike, two balls. For the fourth pitch he reached for his signature splitter. A pitch that vanished like a mirage just in front of the hitter's point of contact, Kim Chang-woon's splitter was the best in the country, and one of the greatest the game had ever seen.

Two strikes, two balls. It was a count that piled the pressure on the hitter, and left the pitcher room to play it a little loose. Kim Chang-woon tapped the rosin bag, shook out his hand with a soft huff, and exchanged signs with the catcher. He shook his head twice, as if he didn't like what he was seeing, and only then settled into his set.

Challenge him—or throw something off the plate?

If it were me......

On the television, Kim Chang-woon let the ball go.

And then—

"Man, when it comes to closing a game, it's Kim Chang-woon."

"You're right, Chief! Who would've thought he'd throw a slow curve right down the middle there?"

"Jeong Hae-woon froze solid and stared at the catcher's mitt like he couldn't believe it. Wasn't that the highlight of the night?"

"Exactly! The home-run king got turned into a complete idiot!"

They snickered and laughed and knocked their glasses together, and in the middle of all that noise a man clung to the group like a shadow. He drank without offering a word or a scrap of conversation, until the section chief leaned in and spoke, light as an aside.

"Come to think of it, Supervisor Do—you said you played baseball, didn't you?"

For a moment every eye landed on him. Do Kang-hyun's brow tightened, and then he smiled as if it had never happened.

"Yes. I played through high school, but I wasn't good enough, so I quit when I graduated."

"Yeah? You stuck with it a while! Which high school?"

He grumbled inwardly—why ask something you won't even remember tomorrow?—and answered dutifully all the same.

"I went to Goryeo High School."

"Goryeo? Isn't that where Kim Chang-woon and Jeong Hae-woon went?"

"That's right! It's a baseball powerhouse, isn't it?"

Eyes swung back to him again, and Do Kang-hyun offered a bitter smile. Among the many elite baseball high ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠schools in the country, Goryeo's name carried real weight. Pro players went without saying. Four legends had left enormous footprints on Korean baseball, and there were alumni who had played in the major leagues in the past—and others who still did.

"You know Kim Chang-woon and Jeong Hae-woon?"

"Now that I think about it, isn't Supervisor Do about the same age?"

"Wait—you played ball with those guys?"

"They were famous even in high school, right?"

"Who was the senior, and who was the junior?"

"You still keep in touch?"

People who ordinarily showed him no interest at the office were suddenly tossing questions at him, one after another.

"Haha, well......"

Kim Chang-woon was his senior, Jeong Hae-woon his classmate. Do Kang-hyun hesitated over whether he ought to say so. A pointless hesitation. This was an age when a quick search told you everything, and more people would look it up themselves than wait around for an answer.

"Supervisor Do is Kim Chang-woon's junior, and Jeong Hae-woon's classmate."

"What? For real?"

"Whoa! So Supervisor Do was friends with superstars?"

"I'm seeing you in a whole new light."

"So? You still talk to them?"

"Any chance we could get a signed ball?"

Do Kang-hyun, who wasn't even sure they would offer him a familiar hello if they passed him on the street, could only smile, awkward and thin.

"Haa—."

The moment he was through the door, Do Kang-hyun dropped onto the bed without even the will to wash. He was drunk enough that the room swam. He couldn't remember a single day of office life that had poured this much alcohol into him.

After he quit baseball he had stopped putting himself forward anywhere, and his words had dried up with the habit. Getting close to people had never come easily to him. He had enlisted the moment he graduated, almost as if he were running away, and after his discharge he had hovered around the edges of the game, wondering if there might still be a way back in. There wasn't. Worse, his family had no money to spare, and he could no longer hold his hand out to his parents. He pulled himself together and found a job.

He failed to last at the first company. The second fell on hard times and cut him loose after two years. At the place he worked now he had made supervisor at last, but that was as far as it went—a thin paycheck nowhere near the easy, glittering lives other people seemed to live, saving money nearly impossible.

Dating, marriage, children: he had given up all three. No. He had never been given the choice. For Do Kang-hyun, reality was a lightless tunnel, and he was walking it with nothing ahead of him.

Ding.

A text had come in. Do Kang-hyun picked up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his phone and breathed out air thick with alcohol. Phew. He forced his eyes to focus and read.

He stared at the message for a while, then slowly pushed himself upright. He passed his hands over his face the way a man does when he washes it without water, breathed out another long phew, and wrote back.

He sent the message, opened his banking app, and transferred three million won to his mother. He didn't have to send it this minute, but he knew the kind of woman she was—she would lie awake worrying about the money—so he sent it ahead of the worry.

What remained came to a little under two million won. Do Kang-hyun stared blankly at the figure, shaped a hollow smile, and lay back down.

The ceiling was pitch-dark, and staring into it felt too much like staring at his own future. All at once the feelings came crowding in—anxiety, irritation, helplessness, loneliness, a regret that had arrived too late, and the blank dread of not knowing how he was meant to go on living.

"I'm not the only one struggling, am I?"

Go into the office and everyone said the same thing. Life is hard. Life's a goddamn mess. Why doesn't any luck ever come my way? Complainers were thick on the ground. And still they laughed, and still they talked, and still they lived. Do Kang-hyun lived wedged in among them, but only by acting as if he were the same. And every time he pretended nothing was wrong—pretended everyone else was in the same boat—he asked himself the same question.

"How good would it have been if I'd made the pros, like Senior Chang-woon or Hae-woon?"

To do the work he loved and still earn a living no one would envy him for, to date, to marry, to buy a house and plan for children—how happy would that have been? Whenever the thought came, Do Kang-hyun let himself sink into the daydream alone. Fans roaring his name. A club that actually recognized him. A beautiful wife, a house other people envied, lovely children, a peaceful home.

The daydream always ended the same way. Every time he came face to face with himself, grinding along inside a shabby, pathetic reality, he spat the same words.

He cursed himself for trying to flee reality yet again, and closed his eyes.

The alcohol won. Do Kang-hyun sank straight into sleep, and he dreamed—a dream so ridiculous that even inside it a thought rose up: Does this even make sense?

A hologram had appeared out of nowhere. Dream or not, Do Kang-hyun let out a short scoff and muttered what kind of idiotic dream this was supposed to be.

It was only a dream. That was the point. His whole body felt strangely weightless, floating with a soft buoyant hush, so he decided to humor the thing and looked through the abilities one by one. Every last one of them pulled a laugh out of him. They read like superhero traits clipped out and lined up in a row; a man would have been called superhuman with even one of them, never mind two.

Told to choose not one of these monstrous powers but two, Do Kang-hyun accepted the generosity with a sincere thank-you and made his selection.

That was the end of it.

The body that had been floating was drawn into a warm light, and the hologram hanging before Do Kang-hyun's eyes vanished without a trace.