Can't Even Smile?
After getting ejected, I ended up alone in the locker room.
"Feels good deep down, but what's gonna happen this time…"
Two guys had gone down because of my pitches.
Well… Kwak Jaemin still seemed to be on the field, so maybe he hadn't been carried off exactly?
Either way, two of them were done for the game.
A fine was definitely coming… the real question was whether I'd get suspended or not.
No—there would be a suspension. The only question was how many games.
"No bench-clearing, and I got hit first, so it shouldn't be too bad, right?"
Honestly, even if a suspension came down, up to five games wouldn't matter much. I was a starter—resting a few games wasn't exactly devastating.
Anything more than that… well, in the KBO, anything more than that rarely happened unless you did something completely insane.
"Still, why the hell did I get hit in the first place?"
I still couldn't figure out the reason.
Revenge for last game's perfect game? That couldn't be it for real…
But if it wasn't that, what had I done to make them decide to plunk me from the first inning, fully prepared to give up runs?
I'd been living pretty decently and diligently lately, too.
The game I watched from the locker room was unfolding in a strangely off way.
Normally, when an ejection happened and players got subbed out for injuries, both teams would light up with fire in their eyes and go all out to win…
Our team was doing exactly that. Every batter who stepped up was fighting to get the bat on the ball somehow.
No one was even thinking about working a walk—if it looked hittable, the bat came flying out.
But that other team. The Jaguars.
The Jaguar players somehow… every single one who came out looked like they were missing a screw?
They just seemed completely unmotivated.
Thinking back, it had been weird from the start. That had been the perfect timing for a bench-clearing, yet not a single player had moved.
If anything, it was our side that had been revving up to charge out.
If they had come out, I was ready to go full throttle and settle it properly.
"What the hell is this?"
The game ended 10–1.
Heo Yun managed a solo home run in the eighth, so the Jaguars scraped together a single run.
After the game, the players trickled back into the locker room one by one. Once most of them were in, Seo Gyeongmin—who came in late—quietly pulled me outside.
"Your body?"
"Huh?"
"The spot you got hit. You okay?"
"Ah! Yeah. It was just a light tap with a curve."
"Good."
He hadn't called me out just to check on my body. So I waited for whatever came next.
"The whole situation felt off, so after the game I went over and asked them a bit."
"Yes."
"According to them… specifically what Kim Jintae said… you were laughing at them."
"…… What? I did what?"
What kind of bullshit is this…
"That's what I heard from their side. In the first inning you were looking at the batters and laughing, Kim Jintae saw it and got pissed. That's why things went down like this—that's their story."
"I laughed at who? I never did that."
"That's what they're saying. No… Kim Jintae and Kwak Jaemin. They saw you laughing and felt like you were looking down on them…"
"This is driving me insane."
I couldn't understand for the life of me when I was supposed to have laughed at anyone.
I hadn't even had the mental space to laugh at someone in the first inning to begin with.
"You didn't, right?"
"Of course not."
"Alright. Then I'll go back and…"
Listening to the captain, the first inning on the mound suddenly flashed through my mind.
"…… No way."
"What? What is it? Something come to mind?"
"Well, I… did smile on the mound in the first. But that was…"
Right before Peterson stepped into the box in the first inning.
I'd been thinking about the Hooded Woman and had smirked without realizing it.
Peterson had been chatting and smiling with Ko Mandeok around then, too…
Now I remembered.
"That was?"
"That wasn't me laughing at their team. If you ask Mandeok hyung you'll know—my condition was a little off today. I was worried, but once I actually threw in the first it felt fine. Hit 164 km/h. So I just smirked…"
"Hmm… and they saw that and misunderstood?"
"What they're claiming is that I was laughing mockingly in the first. So that has to be the only thing it could be."
"Hmm… okay… got it. I'll go talk to them again."
"It was before Peterson's at-bat."
"Okay."
The captain patted my shoulder and disappeared.
"Fuck. This is so goddamn unfair. Can't a guy even smile on the mound?"
Whether what the captain told me was the real truth or just their side trying to brush it off that way, I had no idea.
But either way, the whole situation was seriously pissing me off.
If they genuinely thought I'd been laughing at them, then this whole mess came from their own misunderstanding… and if it was just an excuse, that was even worse…
"Trash."
Since the captain and I had talked right outside the locker room door, the players inside had roughly overheard our conversation.
When I sighed heavily and walked back in, they were the ones exploding with rage—worse than me.
"Those crazy bastards threw at a pitcher's head for a reason like that?"
"Fuck, you should've cracked their skulls open too."
Boiling over.
Thanks to my teammates blazing so hot, it turned into the weird situation where I was the one calming them down.
I hadn't even gotten hit in the head.
I soothed the guys who looked ready to explode any second, shoved them into the showers, and finally caught my breath—when the captain came back again.
"As you already know, Coach Seo Jangho didn't order it."
"Figured as much."
"Yeah. Kim Jintae and Kwak Jaemin. Those two seem to have put Lee Chandong up to it. Heo Yun keeps saying he had no idea…"
"Right. But why did Lee Chandong actually do it just because they told him to?"
"Huh?"
"It's weird, isn't it? A pitcher of Lee Chandong's level, even if seniors ordered him…"
Lee Chandong had been the team's third starter.
Young as he was, right after the two foreign pitchers—third starter. Meaning he'd been the first choice among the domestic arms.
These days various problems had him struggling even as a fifth starter…
But he wasn't the kind of pitcher who'd throw a beanball just because a senior told him to.
That was my thinking, at least… apparently it was only mine.
"You know Kwak Jaemin is the Jaguars' captain, right?"
"Huh? Yeah."
I didn't. Why would I care?
"Flip it around. Say I'm furious at some batter. So I tell you to hit him—what do you do?"
"… I hit him."
"You'd do it too, so why wouldn't Lee Chandong when he's ordered?"
"……"
Understood in one shot.
If it was anyone else, maybe. But if our captain was pissed? You hit the guy.
"Anyway, that aside. Coach Seo Jangho was apparently furious about them doing that to you."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Who the hell told you to pull that crap, he blew up… and then after that, he got hit by you."
"Yeah…"
"By the way, shouldn't we settle this somehow?"
"……"
Settling something like this usually meant apologizing and making peace.
Normally in these cases, the younger player went to the seniors and apologized.
But…
"I can't apologize to those guys."
The captain surprisingly nodded, as if he agreed with me.
"Then what about apologizing to Coach Seo Jangho?"
"…… Is that okay?"
"Why not? The fact that you apologized is what matters."
"Understood."
That much I could handle.
Anyway, things seemed to wrap up roughly like that.
We decided I'd go to the stadium tomorrow and apologize to Coach Seo Jangho, then ended the conversation.
"You crazy bastard. Your temper is something else."
Listening to Ho-min's affectionate cursing, I climbed into the car heading home after work when the articles started flooding in.
Articles were pouring out nonstop.
Kim Jintae's injury was confirmed, and Kwak Jaemin was apparently at the hospital too…
"Then who did the captain hear it from?"
I'd thought he'd heard it directly from Kwak Jaemin… must have been secondhand.
"You're gonna get cursed out of your mind."
"Not like it's the first time."
"Well, true."
"……"
"Don't look at the communities."
"… No real need to go looking, right?"
No point hunting down people cursing me out on purpose.
The next day.
"I'm sorry."
Just as I'd discussed with the captain, I went to Coach Seo Jangho and apologized.
Honestly, until that morning I hadn't thought much of it, but the articles that dropped around the time I arrived at the stadium made me a little self-conscious.
Because I'd seen the reports that both players I'd hit would be out for a while.
Kim Jintae had a fracture, so that made sense… but Kwak Jaemin was also in bad enough shape that he was looking at a minimum of four weeks out.
So I awkwardly, carefully offered my apology. Coach Seo Jangho, surprisingly, even showed a slight smile and just told me to keep working hard.
His insides had to be boiling…
And then Heo Yun. On the way back after greeting Coach Seo, I ran into Heo Yun.
Somehow it felt wrong to just walk past, so I apologized… and he, too, gave a faint smile, patted my shoulder once, and walked off.
"What is this? Are there only bodhisattvas on that team?"
I hadn't felt like I'd done anything wrong at all… yet somehow I ended up feeling guilty for no reason.
The day I came back after apologizing, Coach Park told me I'd done everything I needed to and to just go home.
No point hanging around the stadium, apparently?
Since there was zero chance I'd pitch today anyway, I obediently left the ballpark.
"Works for me."
Thanks to that, Ho-min and I watched the game on TV at home, had chicken and even cracked open a can of beer for the first time in a while.
Then I stretched out and slept like a rock.
After that thoroughly comfortable rest, the next day arrived.
"… Why am I getting double?"
"Three games per guy. Two guys makes six. Fair enough."
"……"
Is it?