Healthy Infinite Competition (1)
Thanks to the hard-fought scrimmage ending in a draw, the managers' and coaches' chicken bet wrapped up with neither winners nor losers.
And since things had turned out that way, the money earmarked for the wager went toward treating the players to a team dinner instead — a genuinely warm and beautiful outcome.
"All right, dig in and let's make this week a good one!"
"Thank you!!"
"We love you, Manager!"
"You little punks — we coaches put in more money than he did!"
"We love the coaches even more!!"
The sight of booming male shouts and chattering female banter filling the clubhouse all at once struck Pi Anta as genuinely strange.
Then again, it was thanks to all of that that she got to live this life as a baseball player in the first place.
Looking around with a grateful heart, Anta jabbed Jiyun in the side and quickly got to her feet.
"Eek?! Wh-what was that for!"
"Quit complaining and follow me."
"What is it?!"
Instead of answering, Anta grabbed Jiyun by the arm and dragged her straight over to the coaches, who were busy portioning out the chicken.
"We'll take care of it."
"Ah, no need, really."
"It's fine. This is exactly the kind of thing the rookies should be doing."
Then she shoved a chicken box into Jiyun's hands.
Jiyun took the warm box and asked Anta quietly,
"Am I… supposed to eat this…?"
This crazy, clueless bread-obsessed girl. I knew it from the moment she tried to trade bread with me on first meeting.
Anta swallowed down the urge to swing a bat at her right then and there — pure old-fogey energy — and decided to explain kindly instead.
"See where Senior Kang Dongsik is sitting? Take that over to him. We'll go around with the pickled radish and drinks in order after."
"If we hand all of this out, when do we get to eat?!"
Is she seriously that deranged about food?
A curse rose all the way to the tip of her tongue, but Anta clenched her teeth and remembered a tip she'd once seen on Infinite Challenge back when she was a man, and scolded Jiyun with gritted patience.
"Y-you… good-hearted but thoroughly lacking friend!!"
Becoming roommates with her really had been a stroke of genius, Anta thought.
Meanwhile, unlike the exasperated Anta, the seniors — men and women alike — watched the two of them with warm, fond eyes.
"When did kids start packing their own food these days, and she's still doing this?"
"Leave them be. They said they wanted to."
"It's a good look, honestly."
It wasn't anything grand, but the sight of rookie Pi Anta jumping in so the coaches wouldn't have to touch a tedious chore nobody wanted to do left a strong impression.
Having already lived seven years of pro life, Anta knew exactly how a rookie opened the hearts of seniors.
You stepped up for the dirty work everyone else found annoying.
Of course, people who were going to dislike you would dislike you anyway — but if you didn't even do that much, you only invited more jealousy from more people.
Save the bold, cocky attitude for game time; outside the game, take the lead on thankless chores and stay polite. That kind of story not only built a good image, it also made it far easier for countless fans to work up the courage to approach you later.
In this business, heartwarming stories spread just as easily as bad ones.
And sure enough, at every table where people were tearing into chicken, most of the conversation was about Pi Anta.
"I thought she was just some arrogant kid with no sense of hierarchy, but looking at this, maybe not?"
"Let's be real — in a world of competition, what's seniority even worth? Go all-out when you're facing each other, then come out, drop the attitude, and be humble. That's all it takes."
"I liked that she looked competitive and confident, honestly."
Of course, not everyone saw her favorably.
"Who knows. Could just be putting on a show for the image."
"Look at that fox of a girl. Smiling all soft and sweet…"
Naturally, those reactions didn't go over well either.
"Hey now, already putting colored glasses on a brand-new rookie?"
"Even if it's hypocrisy for image management, if you keep doing it long enough, it becomes your image. Have you ever even put on a hypocritical show of fetching a senior a glass of water?"
"Jeong Chaerin. Shortstop's slipping, looks are slipping — getting a little nervous, are we?"
"Excuse me? What is that supposed to mean, Senior?!"
Opinions varied, and plenty of people said it was only day one and they should wait and see more.
But the preconceptions and subtle wariness toward the "monster rookie" who'd joined under "extraordinary treatment" had clearly softened, at least a little.
*
Except for this one girl, of course.
"…Anta."
After the chicken party and the cleanup that followed, the two of them ended up in the shower room.
As Anta peeled off her clothes one piece at a time and stowed them in her locker, Jiyun spoke up.
"What you said earlier… was that real?"
"What?"
"You know. What you said in your first at-bat."
Honestly, it had been a line meant to rattle Jiyun's mental game mid-match, and Anta hadn't given it a second thought — but the one who'd heard it seemed pretty hurt.
Anta twisted her lips, let out a soft sigh, and finished stripping.
Jiyun, without meaning to, stole a glance at Anta's bare body.
If her own soft, yielding body was a fragile woman's, then Anta's eleven-pack abs and smooth, hard thighs called to mind the warrior women from movies.
A body that looked packed with combat power at a glance — ready to fight at any moment.
It was the first time she'd ever looked at another woman's body and forgotten what she was going to say, and Jiyun felt a little flustered. But that was how thoroughly trained Anta's physique was — peak condition.
"Want to talk in the bath after we rinse off?"
That warrior woman radiating combat readiness from every pore never once said "no."
That stung a little.
Then Jiyun wondered whether she even had the right to feel stung, gave her own soft thighs — trained by snacks — a squeeze, and sighed.
"Aahh~ this is the best. Nothing beats a soak after a workout."
"…Anta, you really sound like some old man."
"Goraniz has solid benefits. They don't sell banana milk, do they?"
"They do."
"Of course. Dr. Munch, Ha Jiyun."
"Tch…"
Not a fan of that nickname, Jiyun covered her soft body with both arms, hunched in on herself, and headed for a showerhead.
It wasn't that some strange feeling made her embarrassed to show her body. And as a Challenger-tier player in her own right, she had a far healthier, better-balanced physique than ordinary women.
But standing in front of Anta…
Because every day without fail, Anta managed her diet, stacked high-intensity cardio with strength training, and carved that effort into that powerful frame, line by line.
That was what made Jiyun feel ashamed.
After a quick rinse, Jiyun quietly came over and sat beside Anta, who was soaking the heat into her body in the bath.
"S-so, um, Anta."
"What I said earlier. Even though it was mid-game, all of it was true."
Anta delivered the verdict of despair one more time to the fidgeting Jiyun.
The earlier hurt came flooding back, and Jiyun's face fell.
But Anta's reason for bringing it up this time was different.
"But Jiyun. I'm not looking down on you. What I want to say is that your style doesn't fit shortstop."
"What are you talking about…?"
Sniffling Jiyun looked up at Anta with a dazed expression.
Anta closed her eyes, sank all the way under the water with a long whoosh, then surfaced again, scrubbed her face a few times with a "Pwah~!", and went on.
"First of all, you're not the sharpest when it comes to reading a room. Baseball talent and street smarts are separate things, sure — but nobody could ever call your snap judgment fast."
"I've… heard that I'm clueless a lot, embarrassingly enough."
Anta almost snapped that she'd known that from the moment Jiyun suggested trading bread, but she barely held the words back and shut her mouth.
What mattered right now was setting this girl's path.
"But infielders inevitably get hit with situations that demand fast situational judgment. Balls come in hot, and sudden variables pop up all the time."
"When rundowns drag on, my head gets so scrambled."
"See?"
Anta gave a few pats to the shoulder of Jiyun, who sat beside her looking gloomy with her mouth submerged, bubbling away in the bath.
"Does that mean your defense is a mess? Absolutely not. Your fundamentals are solid, and your speed especially is way better than mine. Sprint muscle is supposed to be something you're born with — basically, you've got better natural talent than I do there."
"…What good is just being fast?"
"There are defensive positions where being fast is exactly what you need. What are you talking about?"
Jiyun still looked like she wasn't quite connecting the dots.
Having already decided to help, Anta resolved to be a little kinder.
"Think about it. A position where even without an infielder's razor-sharp instincts, you can make up for that weakness with fast legs. Not the infield, right?"
"Center field…?"
Anta shook her head.
"No. Think about how much ground a center fielder has to cover. Without the instincts, you can't play center."
"Then left field?"
"Left fielders can get away with slow feet. You almost never give up an extra base because a left fielder misjudged something."
In short: a position where, unlike infielders who mostly saw hard grounders, you mostly dealt with fly balls — so while fielding, you had room to consider a range of possibilities.
But also a position where one mistake could send a runner who should only have reached second all the way to third, and blow the crisis wide open.
Which meant that even with a bit of a shortfall in instincts, solid speed and a decent arm were enough to pull your own weight.
"Convert to right field, Jiyun."
Anta's diagnosis.
This girl was a perfect fit for right field.