You Won't Regret It
The baseball fan boards threw themselves into a passionate keyboard war over the hot potato named Do Kang-hyun.
There was the batting-center footage from Yang Joo-il's personal broadcast. There was the live hitting on Steel Baseball — four-for-four with three home runs, back-to-back bombs included, off Hong Jun-oh, 185 career wins.
There was even the defensive test from the Titans' tryout. To ordinary people he was the sort of player who dragged a who is that, and how is he this good at baseball? out of you whether you wanted it or not, and for each club's fans there was even less that needed saying.
Of course, plenty of people still had the gearshift slammed into neutral on Do Kang-hyun's ability and insisted they needed to wait and see.
Age, experience, results — those were the stumbling blocks people set in the way of any warm interest in Do Kang-hyun. And yet, against that current, a considerable number of fans were raising their voices with real heat, insisting he had to be signed. Their argument came down to exactly one thing.
Under KBO rules, a rookie's minimum salary was 30 million won, and if he was placed on the first-team roster it could be adjusted upward to as much as 50 million.
Even then, set beside the FA players swollen with enormous bubbles, it was pocket change. Signing those FAs — several billion won at the low end, more than ten billion at the high — was a matter of honoring what they had already done, and of the expectation that they would go on doing as much.
"One in ten? To be frank, the reason FA price tags have shot through the roof isn't so much a judgment that the player is truly worth that much. It's that the clubs bleed each other dry in a bidding war."
"Isn't that a rather uncomfortable assessment, from a player's point of view?"
"It can sound that way. But in the end it means he proved he was worth sparking that kind of competition, so there's no reason to take it badly. In any case, the same goes for Do Kang-hyun. Under KBO rules, the set minimum salary is an amount any of the ten clubs can throw away without a second thought. Next to those inflated FA deals, isn't it money you can poke at to your heart's content?"
"Isn't the Early FA Acquisition Clause more of a stumbling block than the salary? If I were a general manager, I don't think I could agree to it easily......"
Bzzzzzt! Bzzzzzt!
As if on cue, Jang Woo-seok's phone began to vibrate, loud and insistent.
"You're right. It isn't a condition that's easy to swallow. But look at this. Wherever they actually want to sign Do Kang-hyun, the call always comes. The Titans will be even more anxious — afraid the fish they already caught is about to slip back into the water."
Jang Woo-seok said it, and took the call.
"Yes, speaking. This is Jang Woo-seok, agent for Do Kang-hyun. Ah, GM Hwang."
Listening to that voice, ease dripping from every syllable, Do Kang-hyun shook his head. He knew perfectly well he could never have handled it like that.
"......Hm. You won't regret it?"
"I mean to do everything I can so that I don't."
At Do Kang-hyun's answer, the department head fidgeted with the envelope that held the resignation he had handed in.
"The Assistant Manager Do I've watched all this time was a man with a strong sense of responsibility. Even when things were somewhat unfair, you quietly and diligently did the work you were given. You may have resented me. You may have been disappointed in me. But that's society, and that's an organization. What can you do."
"I learned a great deal from you, sir. And I never resented you, or felt disappointed."
"I'm grateful to hear that. Anyway, what I want to say is this. If it's Assistant Manager Do, whatever you take on, you'll carry it out with that same sense of responsibility, and you'll do it sincerely."
The department head rose from his seat and held out his hand. Do Kang-hyun looked at the hand offered for a last handshake, and took it. He couldn't tell whether it was praise or encouragement, but he chose to believe it was goodwill — the man sending him off with both at once.
"I'd like to see you on TV often. Later, when you've made it and reached the Korean Series, I'll be asking you for a ticket or two. I'll be cheering for Assistant Manager Do — no. For the player named Do Kang-hyun — until that day comes."
"Thank you, sir."
And so Do Kang-hyun turned in his resignation.
His agent, Jang Woo-seok, had told him to write it without worrying, because whether at home or abroad, he would be playing baseball somewhere, without fail. Yang Joo-il had said the same: if it came to that, they could do personal broadcasts together, and he would find a way to get him onto Steel Baseball too, so there was nothing to fear. Even without the two of them, Do Kang-hyun himself thought it foolish to let the special abilities he had been given rot, and he had been glad to write the letter.
The problem was his parents, who would worry over the future of a son who had up and quit a perfectly good job. But they were people who, as they always had, would not say a single word to him. Their faith in their child was firmer than anyone's in the world, and so Kang-hyun swore all the more that he must not disappoint them, and vowed to give it everything he had.
"No way — Assistant Manager Do, you're really quitting?"
"Assistant Manager Do, you have to make it! You've got this!"
"I watched Steel Baseball, and I watched the videos! If I were you, I'd have started baseball again too! You're definitely going to succeed!"
"Let's go! Let's go! You've got this! Assistant Manager Do! Starting today I'm your number-one fan, so I'll be cheering my heart out! Which means you can't go deleting my number or anything, got it?"
Before he left the company, Do Kang-hyun said his last goodbyes to the people he had worked beside. Most of them cheered for his success, and — as if glimpsing a distant future in which he just might make it — hoped the connection would not be cut.
Of course, there was exactly one person who was different.
"How old are you, trying to go pro. Tsk, tsk! Not twenty-two. Thirty-two, and you want to be a professional? Assistant Manager Do — no. I suppose I ought to call you Do Kang-hyun now? Still, as a workplace senior you worked with, and as a senior in life, I'm worried, so I'll ask. Do you really think it's possible?"
"......"
At Manager Kang, snide to the very last, not only Do Kang-hyun but the other employees who had been cheering his future all frowned. Even at that, Manager Kang went on without a blush, as if he hadn't said anything out of line.
"Let's all be honest. Is there anyone here who sincerely thinks Do Kang-hyun is going to succeed as a pro? You think telling him he'll make it, oh, he'll make it, is actually being on his side? You're all reasonably smart people. Why are you like this? You ought to say something that actually helps. Just because it's the last time, you think the polite thing is to feed nothing but nice words to someone leaving the company? If you're going to talk, say something useful. Am I wrong?"
"Still, you never really know with people, do you?"
"That's right! If you watched Assistant Manager Do's videos, Manager, you'd see he's completely different from ordinary people like us!"
"O Yeong-jun! What do you take my words for! If he'd been different from the start, Do Kang-hyun would've already been in the pros. Why would he have been working here? No matter what I say, you just don't get it!"
At Manager Kang's outburst, the employees each stole a glance at Do Kang-hyun and then clamped their mouths shut, lest the sparks land on them. The noisy send-off soured, because of it, into an awkward, unpleasant silence. Watching that, Do Kang-hyun couldn't hold it in any longer, and said what he had been wanting to say to Manager Kang.
"Yes. You're right, Manager. If I'd been good from the beginning, I would have become a pro. Even so, it's a lifelong dream, and I can't put it off any longer. I'm going to try, treating it as the last challenge of my life. The odds of failure are higher than the odds of success, but that doesn't mean I can get scared in advance and give up, does it? It's all thanks to you. You were always pointing it out — why was I whining that something wouldn't work when I hadn't even tried? Thanks to that, I got a lot of things done, I gained confidence, and now I can find the courage to do this. Thank you again."
"......Did I say that?"
"Yes. You did. You told me that if we were going to land the Yeongseong Trading contract, I had to look good to Director Yang, the man in charge, and you ordered me to shut my eyes for just one month and act like a servant, didn't you? You said there was no line between public and private...... Thanks to that, I even looked after Director Yang's mistress. I saw every kind of ugliness there is, and I learned, properly, that this is what society really is."
The Yeongseong Trading contract was one of Manager Kang's signature achievements, but in truth the person who had played the biggest role in closing it was Do Kang-hyun. He had handled every sordid bit of cleanup for Director Yang, built a rapport, and thanks to that picked up, one piece and then another, information that helped the deal.
Even with that decisive part, Manager Kang had dressed it up as if he himself had found it all out and arranged it all, reported it up the chain, and pocketed the performance bonus down to the last won.
"Wh-what are you talking about? What did you even do on the Yeongseong Trading contract!"
"I still hear from Director Yang now and then. Shall we sit down, the three of us, face to face?"
"......"
Manager Kang remembered Director Yang praising Do Kang-hyun without ever letting his mouth go dry, even at the contract signing. He had no choice but to clamp his own mouth shut. He glared at Kang-hyun — who had casually exposed facts that would be disastrous if they came to light — with a look that could kill. Whether he did or not, Do Kang-hyun went on.
"The Osong warehouse supply contract was the same. That time, too, you gave me courage. You said if not now, when would I ever get to try a big contract."
"What? Assistant Manager Do handled the Osong warehouse supply contract? Didn't Manager Kang take the bonus that time too?"
"So it wasn't Manager Kang. The Yeongseong Trading deal, and the Osong warehouse contract on top of it — that was all Assistant Manager Do's work......"
"The bear does the tricks, and the ringmaster pockets the money."
Revelation after revelation turned Manager Kang's face red, but Do Kang-hyun's exposures kept coming, as if, having started, he meant to see the thing all the way to its end. The major projects. The contracts with one company after another.
As the revelations ran on without a pause, Manager Kang's face went white entirely. With all his heart he wanted to shout what kind of bullshit is this, shut your mouth — but for the first time, his spirit was crushed under Do Kang-hyun's cold gaze.
Shut my mouth if you want. The records are still there. If I feel like it, I can get statements from the people at the other companies, too.
That was what the eyes were saying, and all Manager Kang felt was regret that he had needlessly provoked a man who had been about to leave in silence.
Damn it! I should've just left him alone!
No matter what unfair order came down, no matter how much of the work was dumped on him, Do Kang-hyun had done it without a word, with the patience of a former athlete.
To Manager Kang he had been nothing more, and nothing less, than a sucker. That sucker had gotten famous, written his resignation with his head high and said he was going to be a pro, and was walking out of the company. Kang had found it both sickening and enviable, and he had thrown ash over the moment — never imagining it would come back on him like this.
Somewhere in the middle of it, seeing the department head listening in silence to Do Kang-hyun's revelations, Manager Kang realized the situation had gotten more serious than he had thought.
Fuck! I'm screwed......