When It's Time to Run (1)
Thud. Thud.
The moment his foot hit first base, Hajun's hand shot out on pure instinct, and he kept tearing around the diamond.
It really went over...
He couldn't have squared it up any better. The launch angle was perfect.
Most hitters would have flung the bat skyward the instant contact was made, riding the explosion of adrenaline for everyone to see. But the man standing in the box had been a zero-home-run guy on the first-team stage. When that first career long ball turned into a walk-off, Hajun was still half-dazed by the time he rounded second.
Was that a mistake pitch?
He had seen Park Haein's final offering and swung without mercy. Handling the diving splitter cleanly had already been hard enough; sitting on the heavy fastball on top of it was another level entirely. For someone still short on experience, Haein was a genuinely tough matchup.
In the end, though, pure luck had smiled on him. If that ball had dropped the way it was supposed to, the bat would have cut nothing but air. He would have been standing in the dugout with a heavy sigh, listening to the other side celebrate and the home fans groan while teammates tried to console him.
"Lee Hajun!" "Lee Hajun!" "Lee Hajun!"
The roar of the crowd looked ready to tear the stadium down. Looking at those faces, he didn't want to imagine any other ending.
He stepped on third and saw his teammates waiting. If he didn't touch home, it wasn't a home run.
"Uwaaah!"
The welcome was anything but gentle.
"What the hell are you, you bastard?!"
"Park Haein's stuff that easy for you?"
"Hahahaha, you cocky little shit."
Hardened baseball hands—callused from years of the game—smacked every part of Hajun's body they could reach. Even the seniors he had thought of as refined were swearing freely. Every single one of them was grinning so wide their faces looked ready to split. The team might be sitting in ninth, but handing the Gwangju Kings a loss like this carried a special kind of weight.
"We're joined now by Lee Hajun, who just hit the walk-off home run that ended today's game."
Hajun had been busy all day. A baseball player doesn't simply play and go home. They live off the attention of the public, after all.
"You recorded your first career first-team home run today—and in a situation this important. How does it feel?"
"Uh..."
Still soaked from the water his seniors had dumped on him in the summer heat, Hajun sat through the broadcast interview. The caster spoke to him with the calm of a father talking to his son. The color commentator, a former legend, asked sharp questions. The female announcer in her thirties handled the players with easy professionalism. These were faces he had always seen on pro baseball broadcasts, yet until today they had never had anything to do with him. Now their eyes were all on him.
"I honestly can't think of anything. It just feels amazing."
He answered calmly and honestly. In truth his heart was still hammering from the walk-off high.
"We'll be looking forward to many more big moments from you. That was Lee Hajun, today's walk-off hero."
The interview, conducted while he was still half out of his mind, finally ended. The thick makeup and perfume of the announcer, the crowd exploding every time he opened his mouth—it was hard to stay grounded.
Because of the first-half-ending festivities, plenty of home fans were still in the stands, so the on-field interview with the stadium announcer was unavoidable too.
"Hoo..."
Is it over now?
From his first start all the way to a walk-off home run—Hajun's packed day was finally winding down.
"Hajun, get ready right away."
"Huh?"
Ji Gyeongjun, who had put up just as strong a performance today, called over to him.
"We're going for team dinner."
"..."
The day wasn't finished yet.
Hack! Hack!
The second he got back to the dorm, Hajun started coughing.
"Ate a little too much."
He could still feel the greasy weight of the beef sitting in his stomach. The alcohol, though, barely registered. Team dinners always involved drinking, but Hajun had never been much of a drinker.
He washed up quickly and dropped onto the bed.
"..."
He hesitated for a moment. When his mom had called earlier he had told her he had to go to the team dinner. Her voice telling him to have a good time still lingered in his ears, but it was already an awkward hour to call back.
He chose sleep instead.
He clenched his fists.
Lying there, Hajun replayed the most important moment of the day.
A small grin tugged at his mouth.
This is fun.
Looking back, the whole situation had been pretty absurd. Park Haein at peak condition, fastball or splitter—a pure binary choice. Right up until the bat started moving it had been nearly impossible to tell them apart. Bottom of the ninth, two outs, and the thought that struck him was pure instinct: If I strike out, so be it.
He had been ready to take the bait and walk back to the dugout if the pitch dropped. Who would have guessed that the great Park Haein would leave a flat mistake pitch hanging like that?
"..."
Thud.
Hajun sat up, grabbed a wooden bat, and took a swing.
Whoooosh!
It's different from before.
Confidence in his own ability had taken root. Confidence created composure and sharper judgment. It gave him the courage to make a choice and own the consequences.
If he had struck out, silence would have fallen over the home stands and his teammates would have tasted that familiar defeat against the Kings all over again. But in a sport where succeeding three times out of ten earns praise, you can't move forward without the courage to fail.
I never had that ability before.
For a player who had been scrambling just to survive, those were the kinds of lines that only sounded good in collections of Major League quotes. He hadn't had the skill or the opportunities to live them.
Whoooosh!
But it's different now.
Before sleep, Hajun practiced. Even one extra point in the world he would meet in his dreams was worth it. That mysterious new world granted only to him would carry him into a completely different life from the one he had known.
Chomp. Chomp.
"Hajun, want more rice?"
"I'm good."
Back home for the All-Star break, Hajun was watching the game with his family. These days the Korean pro baseball All-Star Game leaned hard into entertainment. Some people complained it had lost its seriousness, but after years of drawing huge numbers of teens and twenties—especially young women—the league had deliberately kept the All-Star concept light and fun.
Hong Jongyeon—national team bullpen arm and absolute darling of the Seoul Grizzlies fans—unleashed a blistering fastball that made the bat of Kim Jongbeom, current face of the league, cut nothing but air.
"Man, even if he told you it was coming you still couldn't hit that heater."
"..."
Is that true?
Hajun tilted his head inwardly at his dad's comment. He didn't exactly have room to talk. Back in his Seoul Lakers days, whenever a game against the Grizzlies in Jamsil had gotten out of hand and Hong Jongyeon came in with a three-run lead, Hajun had occasionally gotten an at-bat. The result had always been the same: strikeout after strikeout. Their matchup history could still be summed up with a simple "yeah, that tracks."
"..."
Still, Hajun was certain the next time would be different.
I can't stand it.
It was the All-Star break, but the itch was already driving him crazy.
"Hajun, look at this."
"Huh?"
His mom held out her phone—a YouTube video talking about him, and the comment section underneath. Most of the comments were obviously from Hawks fans, and just as obviously from women. The tone was pure idol-fan speak, the kind of language usually reserved for boy-group talk on social media. Hajun had to fight down a full-body cringe.
"..."
Of course, whether he let that show in front of the mother who was deliberately showing him this stuff was a completely different question.
"Baseball fans these days talk so nicely, don't they?"
"Well..."
Only for a little while.
When you were hot they called you "Player this" and "Player that" with full respect. The second you cooled off you became the neighborhood dog. That was just the fate of a baseball player.
Even so.
It didn't feel bad. Having your performance recognized as a player. Having someone write something respectful about you as a face people actually knew. If the day when a bad stretch meant getting cursed out for twenty-four hours straight was inevitable, then moments like this existed too.
"Hajun, when did the team say to come back?"
"..."
His dad's question made him hesitate for a second. Pure human instinct.
"Tomorrow."
"That soon?"
"Yeah."
Even a light lie still felt wrong. In reality they had told him to come back a day later, but Hajun wanted to get there even a little sooner and train. He hadn't told the team yet either.
While everyone else was worn down from the first half, he still had energy left to run.