The Man Hits a Home Run (2)
Min Do-hee, who had been the runner on second, scrambled home a beat late.
She rounded the bases looking even more stunned than I was after hitting the home run.
Baek Ha-rin, the one who had thrown the pitch, didn't move at all. She simply stood there with a vacant expression, staring at the left-field wall where my ball had disappeared.
“…….”
Coach Yoon Ga-eul stood with her arms crossed in front of the dugout, quietly watching me.
Her face gave nothing away about what she was thinking. Still, I had taken Baek Ha-rin's pitch and turned it into a home run—surely that had to earn me a little notice.
Carrying that small flicker of hope, I stepped on home plate.
The score was 5–5.
A strange silence hung over the field at Baek Ha-rin's completely unexpected game-tying mistake.
“…Did that actually go over?”
That question served as the signal. The dugout erupted in delayed chaos.
“That was a meatball just now, right?”
“…Ah, come on. Ha-rin was going easy on him.”
“The inside brushback did look like it got away from her a little, but…”
“Still—no way he actually clears the fence with that.”
Through the noisy atmosphere I walked back to the blue team's dugout with my helmet in hand.
When I returned, the hitters' gazes had shifted in a peculiar way.
It wasn't admiration. Most of the women were looking at me with eyes closer to suspicion than recognition.
“Oppa, you really hit Ha-rin unnie's pitch over the fence just now, right?”
“Hey—Min Do-hee! Read the room!”
Still a freshman who couldn't sense the mood, Min Do-hee's innocent question sent another brief stir through the dugout.
A game-tying two-run shot off Baek Ha-rin's mistake.
Even if she had let her guard down, the mere fact that I—a man—had hit a home run off Baek Ha-rin's pitch was a story that didn't make sense in this world.
Baek Ha-rin was probably rattled too. Maybe, just maybe, we could push past a tie and take the lead.
“Strike!”
“Strike!”
“Strike! Out!”
Of course that hope vanished almost immediately. Watching Baek Ha-rin punch out the leadoff batter on three pitches right after, I thought:
Yeah. Baek Ha-rin is still Baek Ha-rin.
Even in a situation where it wouldn't have been strange for her to unravel, she mixed four-seamers, sliders, and forkballs into a clean three-pitch strikeout. Around the dugout, people finally let out the breaths they had been holding.
“Damn, Ha-rin really is Ha-rin.”
“Guess that last one was just a total mistake.”
“Right? How's a guy supposed to hit Ha-rin's stuff anyway?”
…Well, that was the normal reaction.
As long as I was a man, people would always look for reasons why Baek Ha-rin had to give up that hit rather than accept the result that I had actually squared her up.
When the bottom of the seventh ended, Coach Yoon Ga-eul clapped her hands and gathered the players.
“Alright, that's it. Clean up and head to the locker room for the meeting.”
“““Yes, Coach∼.”””
“And Tae-oh, you…”
At the words that were about to follow, a tiny spark of expectation rose in my chest.
By this world's standards I had just driven a monster pitcher's ball over the fence.
“…help the managers put the equipment away and then come in.”
“…Yes, ma'am.”
…Yeah. That was the natural order of things.
I had briefly daydreamed that one home run might catch Yoon Ga-eul's eye and somehow lead to a KLB debut, but of course that was ridiculous.
Put another way, it was the same as a female manager in my original world hitting a male pitcher's pitch. And a clear mistake pitch at that.
They probably figured that even a man could hit a home run if he got lucky and caught a bad pitch square on the barrel. It was only a practice game anyway.
A little disappointing, though.
Still, the moment I stepped on home plate, something deep in my chest had burned hot for the first time in a long while.
I didn't care if no one recognized it.
For that one at-bat at least, I had been a baseball player again.
I bent down to pick up a bat rolling on the ground so I could start cleaning up when Cha Seo-rin came up beside me.
“Hey, Tae-oh.”
“Yes.”
“That pitch just now—you actually saw it and hit it?”
“…I just got lucky.”
Even if I claimed I had tracked it and squared it up, she wouldn't believe me, so I brushed it off.
“You know it was a mistake pitch, right? Ha-rin got careless because you're a guy and just lobbed it in. If she'd thrown it properly you never even would have touched it, dumbass.”
“I know. That's why I said I got lucky.”
“…Tch. Fine.”
Normally she would have needled me more, but she seemed oddly subdued. Maybe I was imagining it.
I finished putting most of the gear away and turned my eyes toward the mound to grab the spike cleaner and rosin bag.
“…….”
“…….”
Even though everyone else had already gone into the locker room, Baek Ha-rin was still standing there, staring straight at me. Our eyes met.
“Hmm, the water bottles are all empty too…”
Sensing trouble, I quietly averted my gaze and deliberately finished organizing other equipment first.
By the time I looked up again, Baek Ha-rin—who had been watching me from the mound—had already vanished into the locker room.
One by one, the other players gathered around Baek Ha-rin, who sat alone in a corner of the locker room.
“Ha-rin, don't let it get to you.”
“Yeah. That was just a mistake pitch anyway.”
“You could tell she took something off it so the guy wouldn't get hurt.”
“If you'd thrown it for real, that Kang Tae-oh kid never would have gotten the bat on it.”
Consoling voices kept pouring into her ears.
But to Baek Ha-rin, none of them sounded like comfort.
Yes, it had been a mistake pitch. Yes, she hadn't thrown it with full intent either.
…But the fact remained that she had pulled an inside brushback pitch flying at her body and turned it into a home run.
Crack!
The sound of Kang Tae-oh's bat meeting the ball echoed again inside her head.
Not a mis-hit. Not a lucky blooper. A perfect square-up.
“Ha-rin.”
Cha Seo-rin sat down beside her.
“You okay?”
“I'm fine.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
She forced her usual expression, but the atmosphere was clearly different from normal. Cha Seo-rin studied her face carefully and tried to soothe her.
“Don't overthink it. Some guy just got lucky once.”
“I know.”
“And you were taking it easy. You just wanted to stick one inside and get the strikeout…”
“I said I know.”
Baek Ha-rin's voice sharpened a fraction. The air in the locker room tightened.
“Sorry.”
“It's fine.”
Cha Seo-rin shrugged.
“The video's gonna be a pain in the ass, though. I heard they were streaming it live on the university website for promo.”
“…Ah.”
At those words Baek Ha-rin's eyes flickered.
Why today of all days.
Under normal circumstances she had planned to declare for the professional early draft this year as a sophomore.
Scouts from multiple teams were already watching her. A left-handed fireballer who had completely recovered from Tommy John surgery and rehab.
A first-round pick as a ready-made starter had been considered a given; the only real question had been how big the signing bonus would be.
But of all times, she had just given up a home run to a male trainee who was essentially nothing more than a team helper. That was not good.
No matter how much it had been a mistake pitch, the fact that a man had hit a home run off her did not change.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
Baek Ha-rin picked up her smartphone.
Notifications were flooding in nonstop through her Star DMs.
Even without looking she was certain they were filled with mockery and sarcasm.
How far had the video already spread? With that thought she opened the university baseball community, and the first post that jumped out at her was this:
(Video of Kang Tae-oh crushing Baek Ha-rin's first pitch at the plate)
(Video of the ball sailing over the left fielder's head and dropping into the stands)
Gave up a game-tying two-run shot to the male manager lmao
Two short clips and a single line of mockery.
But already dozens of anonymous comments were flooding in underneath.
Baek Ha-rin's eyes stopped on one particular comment.
She could ignore the others. But the suggestion that she had failed rehab after surgery—that she absolutely could not let slide.
Don't make me laugh.
Her body was in perfect condition.
Her velocity had touched 153 km/h. There was no pain.
She had even retired the side in order for two straight innings right up until Min Do-hee's surprise bunt.
She had simply lost her grip on that one pitch—just a little.
The inside brushback she meant to throw had leaked over the plate by the smallest margin.
And of all moments, that pitch had come against Kang Tae-oh.
…And of all people, he had been the one to square it up.
Tap, click.
Baek Ha-rin opened the reply box.
She knew there was nothing more ridiculous than getting worked up over some internet comment.
But she could not simply walk past a comment from someone who knew nothing claiming she had failed rehab.
“…….”
Was that too detailed?
She spent a few seconds debating whether to delete the comment when new replies appeared.
“…….”
Click.
Continuing to look would only raise her stress, so Baek Ha-rin simply powered the phone off completely.
The voices of the other players outside the locker room gradually faded away.
Fact remains the ball still went over the fence off a guy.
…It was true.
Whether it had been a mistake pitch, whether she had let her guard down, whether it had only been a practice game and not an official match—
The ball a man had hit off her had cleared the fence. That was an undeniable fact.
“…….”
She had to prove it.
That it had been nothing more than a single mistake.
That she was not the kind of pitcher who gave up home runs to the likes of a man.