Opening Game (4)
Manager Choi Seongwon of the Busan Mariners was doing everything he could to hide the anxiety clawing at him as the fateful bottom of the ninth approached.
The reason was simple.
A Perfect Game.
He could try not to think about it, but it was impossible. Three outs left. If not a single baserunner reached base in that span, he would go down in history as the manager who had been on the receiving end of the first Perfect Game in Korean professional baseball.
It ain't over till it's over.
He repeated the line in his head again and again, but it only fed the unease.
Choi Seongwon thought back to the instruction he had given his team in the bottom of the seventh.
"Han Doyoon completely changed his pitching pattern. Forget the high fastball — hunt the slider."
At the time, it had felt like a rational call.
A high fastball knifing in on the hands wasn't something you could hit just because you knew it was coming. If Doyoon had still been throwing low fastballs away the way he used to, a late swing might at least have produced a soft line drive the other way.
But spraying high fastballs inside changed everything.
The textbook way to attack a high inside fastball was to stay tall and rip through it with everything you had. Han Doyoon's pitches, though, refused to allow that textbook approach. Catching a four-seam fastball in the mid-to-upper 150s — peaking at 161 km/h — on the sweet spot with perfect timing was beyond even Han Ijun, the fastest bat on the roster.
So Choi Seongwon and the Busan Mariners had settled on the option that still offered a sliver of hope: sit on the slider.
And yet—
That crazy bastard…!
Somehow, as if he had read their minds, Han Doyoon had cut the slider usage to almost nothing. Then he jacked up the fastball percentage and started toying with hitters, painting the edges of the strike zone with that monstrous pitch at will.
It was hopeless.
But that didn't mean he could just sit there and do nothing.
Choi Seongwon drew a deep breath and looked toward the end of the bench.
"Jiwon."
"Yes, sir."
"Get ready. You're pinch-hitting."
The bench stirred at once.
"S-sir? Pinch-hitting?"
Choi Seongwon pulled the flustered Han Jiwon close and whispered something in his ear. Then:
"Go out there and do something. I believe in you."
He clapped Han Jiwon on the shoulder and sat back down.
People will curse me for this. But that only lasts a moment. A Perfect Game lasts forever.
And so the Busan Mariners' final card slipped quietly from the deck.
"Han Doyoon."
Before I took the mound for the bottom of the ninth, Manager Jang Hojin called me over. He wore the same gentle smile he always did.
"I'm not going to tell you not to think about the record."
He paused, looking me straight in the eye.
"Today, you're the main character. Go out there and throw however you want."
That one sentence was enough.
I gave a short nod. Strangely, I felt neither tension nor pressure. If anything, my heart felt lighter. He hadn't taken the responsibility off my shoulders, and he hadn't given me an excuse to duck the weight of the moment. He had simply handed this entire scene over to me, fully and completely.
"Yes, sir."
After that brief answer, I turned toward the mound.
Out of nowhere, the last game I'd pitched for the Seoul Wales — before coming to the Wonju Flyers — rose up in my mind.
Main character… the main character, huh.
Back then, I had been nothing more than a supporting player — the pitcher who served up the walk-off home run to Kwak Daehwi, the hero of a moving story, and then faded into the final frame of someone else's drama.
All the cheers had belonged to the other side. The spotlight had never once found me. I had remained a nameless "Pitcher A," cast only to complete someone else's happy ending.
But this time was different.
Waaaaaaaaah—!
Han! Do! Yoon! Han! Do! Yoon!
Boooooooo—!
The moment I stepped onto the mound, cheers aimed at me and boos from the Busan Mariners fans poured down from the stands. They weren't background noise for someone else's scene. They were aimed at the moment I was standing in.
I gripped the ball and settled my breathing.
Today, this story wasn't anyone else's drama. It was my turn to write it.
I was confident. And I had a new script ready — one prepared specifically for the ninth.
Leading off the bottom of the ninth was the number-seven hitter, Han Seonghun.
My pitch count was still only at ninety.
Activate Full Power Pitching.
Full Power Pitching
Maximum velocity forced. Stamina consumption doubled.
I was ready to pour every bit of the stamina I still had into the three outs that remained.
The moment Full Power Pitching engaged, every sensation in my body sharpened another notch. The range of motion in my shoulder, the snap in my wrist, every single seam catching against my fingertips — I felt all of it.
I worked the PitchCom and put down a sign.
Cutter.
Kim Gyeongmo set his mitt low and away. I held nothing back. I loaded my scapula to the limit, drove through, and cracked my arm like a whip.
The instant the ball left my hand, I knew.
The cutter's signature micro side-spin rode the seams all the way to the plate. It came in like a straight line, then slipped just off the hitter's sight line at the last moment.
Tick.
The ball caught the end of the bat and rolled weakly foul.
"Foul."
I nodded and took the ball back.
Slider.
Kim Gyeongmo dropped his mitt a touch lower. Same general location, but a little farther outside this time.
Shiiiiik!
The ball slid away as if skating on ice. Han Seonghun started to lunge after it, then barely managed to check his swing.
"Ball."
Han Seonghun let out a short breath. I pressed the PitchCom again.
Cutter.
Outside once more. Same spot as the first pitch — but it came off my fingers a little harder, and the movement was bigger than I'd intended.
Whoooosh.
Han Seonghun's bat never touched it. A clean swing and a miss.
The count was suddenly 1-2.
Kim Gyeongmo gave a small nod. I kept hammering the outer half.
I mixed four-seams, cutters, and sliders, dragging the right-handed Han Seonghun's eyes and timing farther and farther outside, until finally—
Whooooosh!
Han Seonghun couldn't hold back. His bat was pulled into the empty air and cut through nothing.
"Strike three! Out!"
Waaaaaaaaah!
A roar exploded from the stands. The cheers rolled through the stadium like a wave and crashed all the way up onto the mound.
I had broken free of the formula I'd used all game — high four-seam up and in, slider down and away. Instead, I had gone back to the relentless outer-half attack I'd relied on in the days when I'd lost velocity and could no longer overpower hitters, surviving as a pure finesse pitcher.
This was the final inning. Stamina no longer needed to be rationed. Even if it was a little inefficient, the plan was to tap every stone before crossing the bridge — one careful step at a time — and put each hitter away for certain.
That was the final script I had prepared.
Next up: the number-eight hitter, Kim Giyeong.
The answer was the same. Outside.
Kim Giyeong finally forced his bat at a slider,
Tok.
and a soft grounder trickled out toward the mound.
I stepped forward and picked it up. No rush.
Calmly, I fielded the ball and flipped an easy throw to first.
"Out!"
One out remaining.
The final scene was almost here.
Okay. Just get the next guy, and—!
And then—
Now batting, pinch hitter Han Jiwon.
A variable that had never appeared in the script I'd written.
"A pinch hitter here? Han Jiwon?"
The voice from the broadcast booth came out a half-beat late.
"That's a pretty radical choice. Han Jiwon mostly came in late last season as a pinch runner or defensive replacement."
A brief silence followed.
"Hmm… this doesn't feel like they're expecting him to hit. Feels like there's some other intention at work."
The color commentator tilted his head and continued.
"Yeah, I agree. When you think of Han Jiwon, you think of his legs before his bat. And there's nobody on base right now. This looks like more than a simple substitution."
The camera followed Han Jiwon as he walked toward the plate.
"Either way, it's a completely different card from how he's normally used. Makes you very curious what picture Manager Choi Seongwon is painting in this final moment."
There was more question than certainty in the booth's tone.
And Choi Seongwon's intention revealed itself on the first pitch.
Han Jiwon settled into an ordinary batting stance. The bat was upright. His eyes stayed locked on the pitcher the entire time.
Then it happened.
The instant the ball left Han Doyoon's hand, Han Jiwon dropped into a crouch like lightning.
And then—
Tak.
He laid the bat on the ball with a soft tok, killing its pace. The ball rolled slowly toward the first-base side, and at the same moment Han Jiwon exploded down the line at full speed.
"Bunt! A surprise bunt!"
"You have got to be kidding me…!"
A surprise bunt.
I'd wondered why they'd put Han Jiwon in as a pinch hitter. I never imagined they'd prepared a play like this. The most blatant — and the most realistic — card they could play to break up a Perfect Game.
The ball was rolling slowly toward the first-base side. Too far for the catcher to handle cleanly, too awkward for the first baseman to charge in and field — right in that dead zone in between.
…I have to take it.
There wasn't even time to think.
I exploded off the mound on pure reflex. Full sprint. I dropped my glove as low as it would go and threw my body at the ball. Han Jiwon had already covered more than half the distance. He was fast. Hesitate for a second and it was over. The ball dropped into the bottom of my vision. The moment I scooped it into my glove, my foot caught in the dirt.
Damn it…!
I lost my balance and went sliding. My knee scraped the ground; my body twisted sideways. But the ball was still in the glove. Even as I fell, I twisted myself around. My feet never found solid purchase. My form was a disaster.
There was no other choice.
Please…!
Still sliding, I whipped my arm through. With no power and no chance at a clean throw, the ball floated up and drifted toward first.
Han Jiwon dove for the bag. Almost at the same instant, the first baseman's mitt stretched forward.
And then—
"Out!"
The moment the umpire's call reached me, I lay where I was and let out a long breath.
It was over.
The stands erupted. The roar was so loud it left my ears ringing.
I slowly pushed myself up and looked toward first. Han Jiwon flat on the bag, the first baseman frozen with his mitt still raised — that image hung in my vision for a moment, and then my head tilted naturally upward.
A Perfect Game.
But the emotion that came was surprisingly calm. It wasn't ecstasy. It wasn't a swelling rush of triumph. What arrived first was something closer to the clean, cool relief of stepping out of a long tunnel.
The first baseman tossed me the ball as I got to my feet. That same ball I had thrown countless times felt a little different today.
And slowly, I raised my hand high.
In that instant, my teammates poured out of the dugout. Someone came sprinting and shouting; someone else ran at me with both arms wide open.
This scene — this was the ending I had always known.
The crowd's roar. My teammates' cheers. The final shot with every spotlight locked on one place.
In the past, I had stood on the other side of that scene. "Pitcher A," left on the mound to complete someone else's moving story.
But today was different.
In this game, I wasn't the supporting role that finished someone else's drama. From the first pitch to the last out, the one who had written the entire story — the main character — was me.