Slacking Off
Ho-min being here probably meant he'd rushed up in the early morning hours. He must have arrived after I'd gotten home and fallen asleep.
What on earth could have been urgent enough to send him hunting me down at dawn?
"What's with the sudden visit? Why'd you come?"
"Let's eat first, then talk."
"……What is it that's got you setting the mood like this? You're making me nervous for no reason."
Ho-min gave no real answer and simply headed out to the living room. The clatter of dishes that followed made it clear he was putting breakfast together.
I washed up quickly in the bathroom attached to the bedroom and stepped out into the living room to find a full-on meat feast waiting for me at the crack of dawn.
Tempted by the sight, I polished off two full bowls of rice first thing in the morning, poured myself a cup of coffee, and settled onto the living-room sofa. Ho-min sat down on the floor across from me, ready to talk.
"All right, spit it out. What made you haul yourself up here at the crack of dawn?"
"You tell me. What the hell happened?"
"No, seriously—what are you talking about?"
"That pitch yesterday."
"……?"
"It was a splitter, right?"
"Yeah."
"A splitter out of nowhere. What exactly happened?"
It was a question I hadn't seen coming. He'd charged up here first thing and the first thing out of his mouth was how the hell I'd thrown a splitter…
"I learned it, tried it, it felt decent, so I used it. Why?"
"……You think that makes any sense?"
"Why wouldn't it? Senior Jo roughly taught me the grip and the way to throw it. I tried it once in practice and it felt good. The manager liked it too."
"So… you learned it and immediately used it in a game?"
"Pretty much."
"You've never been able to touch a breaking ball that drops. I've watched you for years—you think I wouldn't know that?"
"Yeah, I know."
"And now all of a sudden it just works?"
"Hmm… I get what you're saying, but what do you want me to do? I threw it and it worked."
"……"
Well, that was the truth. It went in clean when I threw it—what was I supposed to do about that?
It wasn't that I didn't understand Ho-min either. Like he said, he'd been right beside me for years, watching every drill I did and every pitch I tried to learn. Nobody knew better than he did.
What I couldn't understand was…
"Is that really big enough that you had to come all the way up to Seoul at the crack of dawn and wait for me? You could've just called. Is that all?"
"That's…"
"Man. I seriously can't figure out what you're thinking."
"……Hey. Do you think your velocity… might go up even more?"
"How would I know? It'd be nice if it did."
No. It will go up. I don't know how much or when, but as long as I can keep getting that medicine from the hooded woman, I'm sure of it.
Assuming I can get the next dose, of course.
Just thinking about it makes me anxious again. I'll be able to meet her, right?
"What about other pitches?"
"Pitches? What?"
"Are you planning to learn any?"
"Dunno? Never really thought about it. Even the splitter only happened because Senior Jo suddenly offered to teach me…"
"If you pick up a new pitch, do you think you could use it right away like this time?"
"How am I supposed to know that? Seriously, what is this? What are you so curious about?"
"Hah…"
Ho-min didn't answer my question. He just let out a long sigh and sat there wrestling with something in his head.
When that silence stretched longer than expected, I gave up on talking and simply sipped the coffee in front of me, waiting for him to finish thinking.
By the time the mug was nearly empty, Ho-min finally lifted his head and stared straight at my face.
"Looks like things might go even better than I thought… Now I'm getting greedy…"
"What the hell kind of nonsense is that?"
"Hah… All right, I get it. I'm heading out then."
"You're leaving? Didn't you pull an all-nighter? Stay and sleep."
"No. I have to go now. I don't have time to sit around like this anymore."
"What the hell is going on?!"
"I'm gone."
Before I could stop him again, Ho-min walked straight out the door.
"Just dumps everything he wants to say and bolts. Damn bastard."
I still had no idea what he was thinking.
Our team finished the three-game series against the SG Dolphins with a winning series.
We'd handed over the second game in ugly fashion, but we turned around and crushed them in the third.
Thanks to that, I got Wednesday and Thursday off.
"There's actually a cushy job like this in the world…"
Fourteen.
That was the total number of pitches I'd thrown across the entire three-game set against the SG Dolphins.
Only fourteen pitches over three days and I was done. And still I was treated as the team's closer, with no one to answer to.
"This is heaven~ Absolute heaven~"
My affection for the Future Sabers was growing by the day.
The weekend three-game set was a road series against the Dayu Warriors.
The trip down to Changwon left me a little worn out going into the games, and we dropped the first one by a narrow margin.
Saturday, though, turned into an unexpected pitchers' duel, and we scraped out a one-run win. Naturally I had to take the mound and close out the ninth.
The pitching duel carried over into Sunday, so I appeared again.
Thankfully I shut both games down scoreless and picked up the saves.
The second the final game ended we climbed back onto the bus and headed for Daegu.
The next midweek three-game set was there. And the opponent was none other than… my old team, the ST Dragons.
Once we arrived in Daegu I didn't even bother unpacking at the team hotel.
Instead of resting at the hotel, I'd decided to head to the house I used to live in. Manager Park gave his ready approval, so I got to skip the awkward hotel life with the senior players and go home to familiar ground.
"You're here?"
I got to see a familiar face too.
"Is that all you're going to say after running off like that?"
"Just wait a bit. I'm not ready yet."
"Ready for what?"
Ho-min hadn't sent a single message since the day he'd left. I'd been ready to give him hell for it, but he just brushed it off like it was nothing.
"Go to sleep. You must be tired."
So I slept, and the next morning the first thing I did the second I opened my eyes was take the medicine I'd carefully brought with me.
I'd known the string of road games would keep me out of Seoul, so I'd packed it ahead of time.
Thanks to that I didn't miss a single dose.
After a light breakfast I picked up the phone, thinking I might as well meet up with hyung Taeseong while I was in town.
For some reason, though, his phone was off.
It was strange, but I shrugged it off and lazed around for a while until a message finally came through.
"What the hell happened?"
There hadn't been the slightest sign of anything like this while I was still there… and now, suddenly?
Even though Taeseong was only a bullpen catcher, the pitchers respected him a lot.
He didn't just catch balls—he had a knack for spotting the little problems and actually helping the pitchers out.
People might wonder how a bullpen catcher could do that kind of work, but Taeseong had been that kind of presence long before I ever joined the team.
Even that old manager had treated him pretty carefully, as I recalled…
"It couldn't be because of me, right?"
The thought wouldn't leave me alone. Taeseong had been the decisive reason I'd been able to move to my current team…
What if someone else had found out? Especially that old man?
Knowing his personality, he would never have just let it slide.
"Could he come over to our team?"
Manager Park was close enough with him that Taeseong had even recommended players, so the thought crossed my mind.
I killed time with those kinds of thoughts until a little past eight that night, when a call came in from Ho-min, who was still at work.
"Hey! Did you see the article?"
"What article?"
"Look it up right now. The old bastard just trashed you."
"……What?"
"I'm busy, hanging up."
From the noisy background it sounded like business was booming. Even so, he'd carved out a moment to call me.
The second the call ended I opened a portal site, went straight to the sports section, and there it was, sitting right at the top of the front page.
"You've got to be kidding me…"
The article was simple.
While I was with the Dragons I had deliberately half-assed my pitches and slacked off. I was the bastard; he had done nothing wrong.
The massive jump in my velocity compared to when I'd first joined was all thanks to his training methods.
That was the story.
"He's using me for this?"
Lately Manager Ko had been eating every kind of criticism imaginable—bad team results on top of the whole mess with me.
In that situation he was clearly trying to drag me down, paint me as the villain, and slip out clean himself…
This old man had completely misjudged the person he was dealing with.
He seemed to think I would just sit quietly and take it the way I used to…
"Just wait. You damn old man."
"I'd like to do an interview."
The moment I arrived at the ballpark the next day I went looking for Manager Park.
I brought up the interview out of nowhere, but Manager Park seemed to understand exactly what I meant.
He'd seen the old man's article yesterday.
"…Do you really need to go that far?"
"If I just let this slide, I really will become the guy who slacked off."
"Hmm…"
"I don't know if you're aware, but my image right now is worse than garbage."
That was the truth.
Every fan base except the Future Sabers had united as one and was pouring pure hate on me.
They must have thought they'd finally gotten their chance. A perfect opportunity to rattle the closer who'd suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
They probably didn't believe every word of the old man's interview. They just had a pretext now, so they were swinging away with it.
But if I stayed quiet and didn't push back, that interview would become fact.
People would decide I wasn't saying anything because it was true.
Manager Park knew that too—that was why he was hesitating like this.
"Not today."
"……"
"Not this week, actually."
"What? Then…"
"Finish the weekend series first. We'll set the interview for next Monday."
"That's too la—"
"I've got my own thoughts on this, so just do it that way for now."
"……Understood. And Manager."
"Go ahead."
"I'm fine throwing longer outings."
"……I'll keep that in mind."
"Yes. Thank you."
Just like that I secured permission for the interview. It was a little later than I'd hoped, but still.