The Baseball Team Has a Team Dinner (3)
“T-Tae-oh...?”
A slightly flustered face — nothing like her usual self. Cha Seo-rin's eyes met mine, and she shot a quick, wary glance around before asking.
“H-How long have you been standing there?”
“Just now.”
“Just now, when exactly?”
“Around when you said you were glad it worked out.”
Honestly, I hadn't come looking for her specifically. I'd picked up a hangover-relief drink at the convenience store to sober up and was wandering around sipping it when I spotted her sitting alone in a nearby park, mumbling to herself — that was all there was to it.
It felt wrong to just walk past, so I'd meant to sneak up and give her a little scare from behind, and instead I'd ended up overhearing what she was muttering. And since I had a fairly good idea who that 'glad it worked out' had been meant for, my heart had lifted a little, too.
“Well — here, have one of these, at least.”
“...What is this?”
“A hangover-relief drink. It was buy one, get one, so I had a spare. It's yours if you want it.”
“...”
She stared blankly at my hand for a moment, then reached out to take it.
-Click.
Watching her crack the can open and gulp the whole thing down, I quietly took a seat on the bench beside her.
“So.”
“...”
“Glad it worked out for who, exactly?”
“...Just, y'know. Talking to myself.”
“Even talking to yourself has a subject. Who's doing so well that you're that glad about it?”
“...You're asking because you already know, aren't you?”
Even as she shot me an incredulous look at how shamelessly I was pressing for an answer, Cha Seo-rin went on anyway.
“Just that I'm glad things are working out for you, you punk.”
“...”
“You were hitting well out there today. First official game of your life and you didn't flinch once. You reached base in every at-bat, didn't you?”
“I did.”
“Holy shit. A guy reaching base in every plate appearance of his college-league debut. I kept wondering whether you were only hitting so well because you're used to Ha-rin's pitching — and it turns out Ha-rin was what was holding you back. Unbelievable.”
“...”
“Anyway, whatever. That's why I said I'm glad. Now that you've shown them what you've got, at the very least Yul-dong won't have any reason to pull you from the starting lineup again.”
“I wouldn't count on it. If I get shelled in the remaining games, she might change her mind.”
“Aw, bullshit. You've shown your ceiling — even if you get shelled, unless it's a total collapse they'll keep running you out there. And your defense is a given, too. That Ye-rim girl can't hit for shit anyway, and they can't exactly throw defense out the window and stick Do Yeon-seo in at third.”
“...”
“...Well, whatever. From here on out, man or whatever else, there's nothing left to stop you from playing baseball. That's all. That's why I'm glad.”
Cha Seo-rin answered while awkwardly dodging my gaze, as if the words embarrassed her. Then, after sizing up my reaction, she cautiously offered up an apology.
“I'm sorry.”
“For what?”
“...Just. Everything.”
“...”
“Ever since you first walked into the baseball club, I was all over your case — what's a guy doing playing baseball, you won't last long anyway, why don't you go do basketball or volleyball instead. I rode your ass hard, didn't I.”
“...Well, you did, yeah.”
“From where you stood, it must've been fucking hilarious. There I was — a catcher who couldn't even get drafted, stuck playing college ball — handing out criticism that didn't even hold up.”
“I never once found it funny.”
“Bullshit. If I'd been you, I'd have thrown the first punch and asked what crazy bitch was spouting that garbage. ...You put up with it because you're too nice, Tae-oh.”
Cha Seo-rin continued carefully, her face tight with the effort of forcing down emotions she'd kept bottled up for a long time.
“I mentioned it before, right? My brother runs a men's baseball team.”
“You did.”
“He threw a fit when he was little, too, insisting he'd play baseball. Just like you. Said he'd become a ballplayer in a world of women.”
“...Sounds like it didn't go so well for him.”
“Well, you know better than anyone what this world is like for men, Tae-oh.”
...Yeah. I do know.
Only about four years had passed since I'd come into this world, but from high school all the way to now, it had taken four entire years just to be granted a single chance at one at-bat.
Even that had been a miracle of an opportunity, one that only came about because Manager Yoon Gaeul valued her principles and honored injury replacements — and only because I turned that at-bat into a home run was the me of today able to exist. It wasn't hard to imagine what kind of hell Cha Seo-rin's brother must have endured, trying to make it as a male baseball player.
“Look, I'm not going out of my way to defend my brother. But apparently, all the way through middle school, he trained alongside the girls and hit the ball pretty decently, too.”
“I see.”
“But from high school on, the chances just didn't exist. There was no boys' team, everyone was buried in drafts and entrance exams, and God help anyone who tried to give my brother so much as one at-bat — all hell broke loose. And that bastard of a coach, apparently, sexually harassed him for being a man on top of it all.”
“...”
“He says even running a men's team now isn't exactly easy. But watching you, Tae-oh, I couldn't help thinking of him. For some reason.”
“...Is that so.”
“Yeah. That's why I wanted you to give up early. I didn't want to watch you end up in some pathetic state like that bastard Cha Joo-won — I was hoping you'd switch over to something with better prospects, like men's basketball or men's volleyball.”
With that, Cha Seo-rin let out a long, slow sigh and stared off into the empty air.
“But I was wrong.”
“...”
“You were a guy who could do anything he set his mind to, and I couldn't even see it — just sat there nitpicking like a dumbass.”
“...”
“It's fucking embarrassing. So I felt sorry over nothing. And seeing you do well, Tae-oh... it takes a weight off my chest.”
“So that's what you were muttering — 'glad it worked out.'”
“Yeah, punk. So, uh... I'm sorry.”
“...”
“...For always being such a shithead to you.”
Cha Seo-rin said it like she didn't care, but she was visibly embarrassed, doing her best to keep her eyes off me. I watched her profile in silence for a moment, then spoke up quietly.
“I'm not going to accept your apology, Seo-rin sunbae.”
“...Yeah, thought so. Honestly, even I think that from where you're standing, I must seem like a real piece of—”
“It's that you never did anything wrong to me in the first place. How am I supposed to accept an apology when there's no wrong to forgive?”
“...What kind of nonsense is that.”
“You're the one who helped me find my footing in the club to begin with, Seo-rin sunbae.”
Back when I had first joined the Chaewon University baseball team, back when the way people looked at me stung far worse than it did now —
'God, quit bitching just because one guy joined as a practice player. Leave the kid alone — he'll be gone in a month anyway.'
Whenever the other sunbaes picked fights with me over every little thing, snarling that a man had no business being in the baseball club, it was Cha Seo-rin who stepped in front of me and shut them down.
“You're the one who ordered me to throw your batting practice, for one. And your warm-up catch — you always do it with me and no one else.”
“...Yeah, and I nagged the hell out of you about it every single day.”
“You made it look like I was actually earning my place, so the other sunbaes couldn't get on my case. Nobody picked a fight with me while I was playing catch with you, Seo-rin sunbae.”
“...I did tease the shit out of you all the time, though.”
“If you hadn't done it first, some other sunbae would have anyway. And I heard plenty worse back in high school, for what it's worth.”
If anything, Cha Seo-rin's mockery had hovered at a level too mild to even qualify as real abuse — which meant what the other players dished out never strayed much past that line, either.
One way or another, the reason a man had never been completely cast out of an all-women's baseball club was, in no small part, thanks to Cha Seo-rin.
“I get what's behind the apology, sunbae. But the truth is, what I feel toward you is a lot more gratitude than resentment — so please don't let it weigh on you.”
“...Huh. Is that so.”
“Besides, if you'd genuinely been a pain in my ass all this time, would I be sitting out here talking with you alone like this? I'd have walked straight past you and pretended I never saw you.”
“...Pfft. Can't argue with that.”
Cha Seo-rin let out a short laugh, looking a little lighter at my joke, and nodded.
Then, with the wind whispering through the awkward silence that followed, she cautiously opened her mouth again.
“...Hey. Tae-oh.”
“Yes, sunbae.”
“...This might, um, seem like it's coming completely out of left field for you.”
“...I'm listening.”
“I think... I like you.”
“...”
“I don't know, from the very first time I saw you, whenever I looked at you I kept thinking of my brother. And I don't know if that's what did it, but somewhere along the way, watching you... it turned into this.”
“...”
“N-Not that I like you because you remind me of him or anything like that! It's just — I like watching you work hard. Someone who gives it everything in their own field is, well, my type, so...”
...It was an abrupt confession, and it threw me off balance, no question.
And yet, hearing it out loud, it didn't feel nearly as surprising as it should have. Maybe, in some corner of my mind, I'd already half expected that Cha Seo-rin was nursing feelings like these.
I hesitated for a beat, unsure how to answer — and Cha Seo-rin, reading the pause, hooked the corner of her mouth back up into a smirk and pushed on.
“Jesus, look at your face, man. I'm kidding. Kidding.”
“...”
“I just had a few drinks and felt like screwing with you. Don't go reading anything weird into it...”
Cha Seo-rin forced out a laugh, doing her best to patch over the moment and salvage the mood — but, regrettably, she never got to finish.
-Chu.
“Wha—mmph?!”
I had seized her wrist, pulled her in, and pressed my mouth straight onto hers.
-Chu.
“Mmph...”
-Chup, chup.
“Mmmph, hah...”
Cha Seo-rin's lips were locked against mine.
Her breath, sweet with alcohol, brushed close enough to share, and the tips of our tongues entwined, tentative at first — a kiss. By the time I slowly drew my lips back, I had lost all sense of how long we'd stayed like that. Cha Seo-rin averted her gaze, flustered, and muttered.
“Hey, what the hell was that just—”
...I couldn't exactly deny that the alcohol had swept me up, that I'd ridden the moment on pure impulse.
But just as Cha Seo-rin's feelings for me were genuine, the feelings I held toward her weren't nothing, either.
Kim Na-hyun's face did flash across my mind for an instant — but strictly speaking, Kim Na-hyun and I weren't lovers yet. Unlike her, who kept me dangling without ever giving a straight answer, Cha Seo-rin had laid her heart on the line for me, sudden as it was — and I had no intention of turning away from that.
“Was that a joke just now, sunbae?”
“...”
“Because mine wasn't.”
“A-Are you insane? You actually meant—”
-Chuu.
“Mmph, hnnngh...”
Beneath the pink glow of the moon hanging in the night sky, her lips and mine met once more.