Healthy Infinite Competition (2)
Pi Anta and Jiyun finished their showers and headed back to the dorm.
They'd scrubbed clean and soaked the fatigue out of their bodies in the bath, so sleep should have come the moment they hit the mattress—but it didn't.
Switch to right field, Jiyun.
Pi Anta's words kept circling through her head, and even as she tried to drift off, Jiyun looked thoroughly troubled.
"Anta... hey."
"Yeah?"
"Do you think I can do it?"
The dorm was tiny and there was only one bed, so of course another round of listening to her worries kicked off.
"Changing positions isn't easy at all."
"Yeah."
"And there's already a senior playing right field..."
As Jiyun hesitantly spilled her concerns, Pi Anta cleared her throat with a pointed ahem and launched into a story.
"So, Jiyun. This is about when I switched from catcher to shortstop. Back then there was a senior already playing shortstop, and he really liked me too. There's this unforgettable story about something that happened with him—"
"Anta."
"Back in the old days during training—huh?"
"Sorry, but could you cut that down to three sentences?"
You little... you're pretty sharp, aren't you?
That decisive preemptive strike against any chance of a monologue left Pi Anta feeling something she hadn't experienced in quite a while: speechless.
She huffed, thoroughly deflated, and Jiyun stuck out her tongue with an embarrassed little smile.
"Sorry. We have to get up early tomorrow."
"As if you weren't going to sleep in anyway."
"No! Starting tomorrow, I'm getting up early too."
"Why?"
Jiyun answered with a face full of resolve as Pi Anta tilted her head.
"Because I want to be good at baseball... like you."
At that bold declaration, Pi Anta—still nursing a bit of residual spite—was about to drop a brutal truth bomb:
The gap between you and me is one that effort alone can't—
But that felt too cruel, so she swallowed the words and nodded instead.
"Yeah. Putting in the effort is a good thing."
And she'd asked for it in three sentences, hadn't she?
Pi Anta diligently organized her thoughts.
Talking only really feels good when you can warm up your mouth and throw in some filler. This is going to be a real pain going forward.
"So... ah, don't count that as a sentence."
"Got it."
But the way Pi Anta was so diligently trying to follow Jiyun's arbitrary rules was pretty funny too.
"First. Do you have the confidence to compete with me for shortstop and win?"
"Ah—no."
The first question required no thought at all. If she'd thought she had a shot in the first place, she never would have considered switching positions.
"Then second. Do you have the confidence to push out the senior currently playing right field?"
This time Jiyun hesitated. She felt a little bad for that senior, but—
"Um... yeah."
She was a Challenger, after all.
Pi Anta made a thoughtful hum, nodded, and continued.
"Last one. If you do push them out, will that senior resent you?"
With each successive question, the time she spent thinking grew longer. In the end, Jiyun tied and untied her hair, mumbling weakly.
"I don't know..."
At that, Pi Anta nodded as if she'd expected as much and crossed her arms.
"Not knowing doesn't really matter anyway."
Jiyun looked up at her with a face that practically had a question mark floating above it.
"This might sound a bit cold," Pi Anta prefaced, then continued.
"First off, I get that taking a starting senior's position might feel a little guilty. I understand that."
"Yeah, exactly. That senior must have given everything to get to that position..."
Jiyun already looked pitying, her face drooping as she slumped her shoulders with a soft hngh.
"Anyone watching would think you'd already taken the spot. Is that senior that easy?"
"Ah, no! It's not like that at all. Misunderstanding! Total misunderstanding!"
"Let's see. Who was the right fielder again...?"
"Oh my god—hey! Don't!"
When Pi Anta made a show of looking for her phone to search, Jiyun panicked and waved her hands frantically, desperately trying to stop her.
"If you're worried about me searching, keep your voice down. These rooms are all tiny—the soundproofing is probably terrible."
"F-for real?!"
At that, Jiyun clapped a hand over her mouth with a gasp and hiked her shoulders up to her ears.
Every time she saw it, it reminded her of a Welsh Corgi—and as bad as it was to say, she had reactions that were just perfect for teasing.
Is this just how a twenty-year-old girl's reactions are supposed to be? As a "military-exemption pretty girl" who'd once been a sweaty mid-twenties guy, Pi Anta found it hard to relate.
"Anyway."
Pi Anta steered the conversation back on track.
"Anyway, even if that senior ends up holding a grudge about you taking their spot, that's not really your problem, is it?"
"Isn't that... a little too cold...?"
"I told you it might sound cold."
Pi Anta let out a soft sigh and patted Jiyun's shoulder.
"Jiyun. You're not a club member—you're a pro athlete. You're not playing baseball as a hobby. You're getting paid to be good at it, and the same goes for your senior."
"Well, that's true, but..."
"Where do you think that money comes from? The team owner? If this were just our private ball game that fans had zero interest in, would anyone open their wallets?"
Jiyun seemed to have a pretty good idea of where Pi Anta was going with this.
"...So if you can't earn your keep, getting pushed out is only natural."
"Half right, half wrong."
That wasn't the correct answer. It was simply Pi Anta's own professional ethics—forged over seven years as a pro, as someone who prided herself on valuing her fans more than anyone.
"The fact that fans hold a stake in my salary means, in other words, that I have an obligation to show those fans my best play."
"Letting a player who isn't giving their best hold that position is itself a sin against the fans who subsidize my salary."
The person you should feel sorry for isn't your teammate.
You should feel sorry toward the fans who make this unproductive game of ours—this sport I play—worth something.
That's what it means to be a pro.
Jiyun hung her head blankly, as if she'd been struck over the head by those words.
Pi Anta gripped her shoulder firmly and spoke with force.
"I will never let you take the shortstop position from me. And it doesn't matter if it's you or anyone else—if someone stands in my way, I'll clear them out with pure skill."
"If the team wants me at shortstop, or catcher, I'll play there. Whether the person who already holds the position I choose is a first-year or a tenth-year—if they're worse than me, they'd better be ready to get pushed out, because I will push them out. Why?"
"Because I have to be worth every won of my 2.1 billion—and I will be."
Those words shook Jiyun's heart deeply.
Being Challenger tier doesn't make you a pro.
Being a first-team player doesn't make you a pro.
It's grinding yourself raw with the resolve to give the fans value equal to every won of what you've been paid.
That's what a real pro looks like.
The previously lost Jiyun finally seemed to get a sense of what she needed to do.
"Anta, that really helped a lot. Thank you so much."
Having said that, Jiyun looked at Pi Anta with determined eyes.
"If the team wants me to, I'll work with the resolve to push you out at shortstop too. You'd better be ready!"
...Yeah, right.
It was a declaration that wasn't even slightly threatening, but—
"Yeah, that's a good look in your eyes. Now you look a little more like a pro."
Knowing that at least her mindset had risen to the same level as her own, Pi Anta felt strangely satisfied.
The next day.
Jiyun really did get up at six a.m. with Pi Anta.
Even as she rubbed her sleepy eyes and yawned like she was dying, she still managed to follow her out and complete the stretching and jogging—and Pi Anta found the sight nothing short of admirable.
"You're not going to burn out when we play later, are you?"
"I'll just have to try not to."
Jiyun clenched her fist tightly.
Under a system that reflected physical condition directly into the game, excessive weight training or jogging could actually raise fatigue and lower in-game condition. That was why pro teams used starting rotations just like real baseball, even though there was no injury risk inside the game. Likewise, batters needed to avoid overtraining if they wanted to get through a season of over a hundred games—but—
"I'll gradually ramp up the intensity so it doesn't become overtraining!"
After all, the more you use a muscle, the more it develops to produce strong force for longer.
She had no idea how long that willpower would last, but for now, she rather liked it.
Nine a.m. After finishing breakfast and lining up, the manager and coaching staff stepped out in front of the squad.
It was only the second time she'd seen this scene, but it already felt pretty familiar.
"Alright, this week too—let's all hustle hard for that first-team call-up. Got it?"
"Yes!!"
"Please just go up and never come back."
"Yessir!!"
Of course, the Goraniz were a bit special—the players were so close-knit, and with no rookies trying to come in, the few of them got along well calling each other big brother and big sister—but still, in a corner of every heart, there was a little dream of making it to the first team.
"Alright, today's starting lineup..."
Everyone carried a little bit of attention-seeking in their hearts, after all.
"Batting second. Shortstop, Pi Anta."
"Yeah! Wazaaap!!"
...Just not quite this much.