The World Isn't Fair
I used to be a youth national team player. So why the hell am I waking up in a hospital bed?
"Where the... ugh...?!"
My head burned like it was on fire. An unfamiliar hospital room. The sharp, sterile smell of disinfectant that every hospital seemed to share. And then the flood of memories from that day poured in.
In my past life, I had been the starting center fielder and backup catcher for the Korean youth national team. My high school career batting average sat at a clean .500, and I'd smashed twenty home runs. People even said I was the heir apparent to Park Kyung-wan and the current active national team catchers. There were plenty of voices claiming I'd be one of the stars who'd fight for supremacy once Kim Jeong-hoo—son of the legendary baseball player Kim Jong-beom—headed off to the majors.
My teammates, upperclassmen, and underclassmen had all set our sights on the U-20 World Championship. We were so close to winning it all. But then...
I suffered a devastating knee injury during the Phoenix Flag tournament and was ruled out for the rest of the season. "The hope of Korean baseball has vanished." Headlines like that. Death threats and revenge plots poured in toward the pitcher who'd hit me with that beanball. For a while, I was all over the news.
Even so, I don't regret that life. No, I didn't even have time to regret it. Whether my leg was shattered or not, time kept moving forward. I'd devoted everything to baseball. With my only career path suddenly cut off, I had no choice but to scramble and fight just to survive.
[3X3] was a baseball novel built around the motif of the nine zones that make up the strike zone. It was one of the two small joys that kept me going through my brutal part-time jobs. The other was [Strike the Show], a baseball game that used real players' licenses. Back in high school, I'd sometimes daydream about a version of me debuting and appearing in that game.
That chance disappeared with my injury.
'Even if I hadn't gotten hurt, the Falcons were dead last back then anyway.'
They were a perennial cellar-dweller. If I'd gone there, I probably would've quietly faded into retirement without anyone noticing.
Anyway, back to the novel. The protagonist was a typical overpowered munchkin who pitched and hit by himself. As a baseball fan, I loved imagining how amazing it would be if a player like that joined my favorite team. That fantasy was probably why the story ranked so high on the web novel sites. The various heroines also kept the mood from getting too heavy, helping readers push through the occasional slow stretches that came from focusing so much on the games.
The protagonist single-handedly built a brand-new baseball club that was only a year old and carried the entire team to the peak of high school baseball in classic one-man-army fashion. Seeing that made me think of my own high school days, so I'd sometimes insert myself into the protagonist's role and imagine my own version of the story.
But the ending was brutal.
He abandoned the childhood friend who'd cheered for him since their school days and ran off to the major leagues. There, he fell in love with the team manager and got married. It was the kind of insane ending that nobody wanted.
Consumed by rage, I blacked out. When I came to my senses, I'd written a 57,000-character comment on the final chapter filled with every curse word and criticism I could think of.
You absolute piece of trash author. How dare you throw away the childhood friend who's been with the protagonist since elementary school? After everything she sacrificed? After she waited for him through all those years of blood, sweat, and tears? You made her watch him fall in love with some random team manager in the majors and get married? Are you fucking serious right now? This isn't an ending, it's a war crime. The heroines were the only thing keeping this novel from being completely unbearable during the long game sequences, and you just murdered the best one in cold blood. The protagonist suddenly turning into a cold-hearted bastard in the final chapter? The way you rushed the romance like you were in a hurry to catch a bus? The complete lack of payoff for three years of serialization? I hope your hands fall off so you can never type another word again. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die.
(Continuing for another 56,800 characters of pure unfiltered venom)
The author's reply popped up immediately.
Then you do it, you little shit.
The moment I read that, I was pulled here.
A small note had been carefully placed beside my pillow. It read:
Figure it out yourself lol
I stared at it for a long moment, then let out a huge laugh.
"Ahaha... fuck."