The Angels
They must have figured the first two games could be written off as a fluke.
But once I shut out the opposition completely across my first three starts after stepping onto the big stage of Major League Baseball, the entire atmosphere shifted.
I'd heard the local newspaper headlines around here tended to go overboard, but this was something else entirely.
Calling me the savior who would lead the team to a championship, a hero... The season had only been underway for two weeks, and they were already talking about winning it all.
Just seeing those articles left me thoroughly uneasy. If I got knocked around even a little in one game, how much hell would they raise?
After wrapping up the road trip, I finally made it home for the first time in a while.
Han Song-yi latched onto me the moment I stepped through the door, as if she couldn't care less whether Ho-min was there or not, and poured out everything she'd been holding back that night.
Thanks to that, I recharged my buffs to overflowing.
I woke up with a much lighter body and headed to the stadium.
Today was the first day of our four-game home series against the LA Angels.
Not long after I arrived at the park, the Angels players came into view, and I quickly scanned the area until I spotted the person I was looking for.
"Hello, sunbaenim."
"Oh~ yeah. You've been doing well."
"Ah... thank you."
When I approached and bowed politely, he held out his hand to accept the greeting. This was none other than Lee Gijun. I quickly took his hand and shook it.
This was the man who had played a decisive role in shortening the posting period. The moment he arrived in America, he thrived as if he needed no adjustment period at all.
In his very first year he became the Angels' permanent number-three hitter and smashed more than thirty home runs.
Experts even projected that if Lee Gijun abandoned his batting average well over .300 and focused more on home runs, he could hit fifty or more in a single season.
He really was an incredible player.
"Not in the game today?"
"No. I pitched yesterday, so I'm completely resting today."
"Alright. Let's make some time and grab a meal."
"Yes, got it."
The greeting ended simply.
We weren't particularly close to begin with, and with a game ahead it wasn't the atmosphere for a long chat.
All that remained was the utterly clichéd promise to grab a meal sometime.
A little later the game began.
As usual I parked myself in a corner seat out of the way and stared blankly out at the field.
"Yaaawn..."
Did I go too hard last night?
I was struggling to lift my heavy eyelids when—
CRAAAAACK!!!
Something like a gunshot... a shotgun blast echoed through the stadium.
"Wh-what?"
I figured out where everyone's gazes were locked and, seeing Lee Gijun slowly circling the bases, realized what had happened.
That explosive sound must have been the crack of the bat.
With a sound like that, it would have been weirder if it didn't go out...
"Ah... should I switch back to that form?"
My old batting form had been almost identical to Lee Gijun's.
In truth, my current form was far better for my personal stats.
It was easier to make contact, you could say?
I'd moved away from the full swings of the past to a more compact swing now, yet my home run numbers hadn't dropped much, so I was quite satisfied.
But seeing Lee Gijun like that stirred a bit of greed in me.
If I could hit as cleanly as him with my old form, I wouldn't have needed to change it.
CRACK!
Greg's game-tying home run.
CRACK!
The Angels' go-ahead RBI hit.
CRACK!
Eun-hyung's tying sacrifice fly.
Whenever the Angels scored first, our team immediately answered, and the back-and-forth continued.
Neither the Angels pulling away nor our team taking the lead—the stalemate dragged on into the top of the eighth.
CRAAAAACK!!!
"Ha... he's really insane."
Lee Gijun crushed his second home run of the day, a three-run shot, and stepped on home plate.
Then he glanced our way once before heading back to the dugout.
"What was that? A provocation?"
Come to think of it, they'd had a proper scrap last year, hadn't they?
A bench-clearing brawl mid-game that got pretty ugly, with a ton of ejections, from what I'd heard.
And they'd been growling at each other every time they met since.
"No wonder they were chasing so desperately."
Their focus had seemed especially sharp today.
Even at the plate, instead of hunting full swings like usual, they seemed to be working hard just to get on base and advance runners.
I'd just thought they were playing well today. Now I knew why.
"$#^%@$#^%$#^@#$%@$"
Gordon Perry ripped off his mask and launched into a freestyle rap.
The target was probably Lee Gijun, who was walking away with his back turned...
He must have seen that little glance our way.
Lee Gijun cleanly declined Gordon Perry's invitation to a rap battle and headed straight into the dugout.
And the moment the Angels' cleanup hitter stepped into the box—
THUD!
"Oof..."
He took it square in the back.
It had to hurt like hell... but the batter showed no pain as he glared at the pitcher on the mound.
Gordon Perry immediately charged out, blocking the batter's path, and started saying something.
Judging by how his mouth never stopped, it was probably another rap battle challenge.
But had the talk gone well?
I'd been ready to charge out at any moment. Not just me—every player in the dugout was waiting by the entrance.
But the batter calmly took off his gear and trotted to first, and that was how the situation resolved.
There were no more runs allowed.
But there were no more runs scored either, and the game ended like that.
Game two against the Angels.
Was it because we'd chased stubbornly the day before only to lose in the end?
The team's atmosphere felt a little subdued.
But it had nothing to do with performance—we poured it on from the first inning for a 4-0 lead.
I even managed a hit myself, picking up an RBI and a run scored.
Though instead of lingering at third I went straight home, so my meeting with Lee Gijun was a miss for now.
That was how the bottom of the second ended.
Then rain started falling from the sky.
They got a little into the top of the third before the thickening rain forced a delay.
"This doesn't look like rain that'll stop easily."
The ferocious downpour left me a bit worried. It was a shame, with the good momentum we'd had.
Well, the game wouldn't get canceled. This place waited four hours sometimes, so...
But if it dragged on, they'd change the pitcher. What a waste. His stuff had looked good today.
The packed stands emptied out completely. Where had all those people gone?
The dugout was pretty empty too. Everyone must have gone off somewhere to rest.
Me? I was sitting blankly in my usual spot, as always.
Listening to the pitter-patter of the rain, it was like... my mind had checked out?
Eric, who'd been wandering around, was suddenly sitting next to me.
Eric and Ho-min were occasionally tossing words my way as I sat there half-zoned out.
And... Gordon Perry.
Gordon Perry was sitting over there too, staring blankly at the field just like me.
The other players who always hung around him were nowhere to be seen, and him sitting alone like that looked somehow... pitiful?
I almost went over to talk to him.
Thirty minutes passed, and the rain showed no sign of letting up.
In Korea, talk of a rainout would be starting about now.
Of course, since the home team was winning, they'd wait a bit longer.
But if it kept going like this... that would be the end of it.
Here, though, no one was worried.
As I said, this was a place that waited four hours...
"At least my RBI won't get wiped out, so that's nice, but..."
It was a bit... boring.
More time passed, and now an hour had gone by.
While I'd been zoning out, Eun-hyung had appeared sitting in the dugout.
But this guy was alone too.
From far off: Gordon Perry. A little ways away: Eun-hyung. And in the farthest corner: me and Eric.
It was like a snapshot of the current team atmosphere.
We were playing games together and putting up good numbers, but there was no real unity—something awkward about the relationships.
Me and Eun-hyung were better off than with Gordon Perry, but we weren't exactly close either...
Then Rondo walked in.
He first shared a brief smiling conversation with Gordon Perry, then exchanged a few words with Eun-hyung.
And then he came my way and plopped down right in front of me.
Did that mean I'd won?
"It'll stop soon."
"Huh? Really?"
Based on what?
It was still pouring viciously.
"Yeah. Start getting ready."
"······????"
Was this the life wisdom of someone who'd lived longer than me or something?
And just as Rondo said, about ten minutes later the raindrops began thinning out like a lie.
And soon—
The sun that had been hiding behind the clouds appeared as if the rain had never fallen.
"······ How the hell did you know?"
When I asked in surprise, he just shrugged. I'd seen that somewhere before...
Shane used to do that a lot. I'd even learned it and used it for a while.
The massive tarp completely covering the infield was pulled back, and the grounds crew scrambled around, restoring the field in an instant.
The players headed back out, and the empty stands filled up again in no time.
As expected, the pitcher was changed.
A guy who worked as a long reliever and chase unit in the bullpen—who'd even filled in as the fifth starter for a bit last year—came in.
And it began.
Crack!
Crack!
Crack!
"······"
This wasn't the time to be happy that my one RBI hadn't been wiped out.
The moment the game resumed, they couldn't record a single out before giving up a run. Then another.
"Damn it..."
It had turned into a bullpen battle.
I hadn't thought of this.
Our team's bullpen.
Two consecutive losses to the Angels.