Discipline
The day after the disciplinary results came down, Ho-min and I headed back to the hospital where Ko Mandeok was laid up.
On the surface he grumbled about what the hell we were doing there, but his face lit up brighter than his words, probably from sheer boredom.
This hyung wasn’t from Seoul either, so it seemed like nobody ever came to visit. He was only going to be stuck in a hospital bed for two or three days—no way he could drag his parents up from the countryside for that. The only people he was close to were his teammates, and right now they were all down in Daegu.
We showed up loaded with the tteokbokki and fried snacks he’d said he was craving the day before. We ate together and watched the final game of the three-game series against the Dragons.
“Man, our lineup is on fire.”
“No kidding. Anyone watching would think we’re in first place.”
“Gotta have days like this too. Heh.”
“Without you around, hyung, they’re hitting even better. You might lose your job at this rate.”
“…No way. That can’t happen.”
The fact that he didn’t snap back right away told me the jab had landed. It made sense—over the last two days, Kim Do-kyung had been wearing the catcher’s mask in Ko Mandeok’s place and putting on a pretty sharp display at the plate.
Kim Do-kyung, who’d been barely clinging to a .200 average all year, had racked up four hits in two days and jacked his average up quite a bit. Ko Mandeok was a catcher whose real strength was defense, not the bat, so watching his colleague and rival go off like that had to sting a little.
“With the one-two-three hitters all gone at once, the Dragons are completely cooked.”
“Even with them, were they ever much?”
“They weren’t, and now they’re even less. That’s the point.”
Ho-min was right. The Dragons’ offense was painful to watch. The only guys who could pass for real hitters—the top three—had all been taken out by my hand, and their foreign slugger was just hacking for the fences whenever he made contact. The problem was he almost never made contact.
Yi Gi-ho managed to poke a hit here and there, but unless it left the yard, one guy getting on base with a single didn’t put any runs on the board.
In the end, our team steamrolled them 9–0 in the series finale too.
I heard the Dragons fans were cursing my name six ways from Sunday… but I don’t make a hobby of hunting down people talking shit about me, so I wouldn’t know.
The day after we visited Ko Mandeok, I rode in Ho-min’s car back to my parents’ place for the first time in a long while.
Their house was less than an hour from Daegu—the Dragons’ home park where I used to pitch—but somehow it had been ages since I’d last been there. If you asked why I never went even though they lived so close, there were plenty of excuses…
The biggest one was my own inferiority complex.
Of course both my parents would have welcomed me with open arms whether I was a mop-up guy or stuck in the second team. Mom especially kept saying she missed me. But I felt too ashamed, too embarrassed to show my face, so I just… didn’t go.
They always told me their own lives mattered more than my baseball career and that I shouldn’t worry about them. That only made me feel worse. If I’d been a real ace, would they have said that? Or was it because I was a first-team pitcher whose name nobody even recognized that they talked that way so I wouldn’t get hurt?
“Wouldn’t they say it was better back then?”
Ho-min answered with an uncharacteristically serious face.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I just… maybe it would’ve been better if I was still a nobody baseball player people didn’t know.”
“Why? Your son’s finally starting to make a name for himself… Ah! So maybe they’re finding it a pain?”
“What kind of bullshit is that? It’s not that—it’s that the son they raised is out there beating people up—”
“You little—”
Right. That was the real problem. To put it bluntly, I’d punched a guy, gotten suspended, and now that I suddenly had free time I was dropping by to see my parents. I was probably about to get an earful.
“Think they’ll ream me out pretty hard?”
“You’ll take at least one good smack on the back.”
“…Maybe I should’ve just stayed in Seoul. Season’s almost over.”
“Dad~ Mom~ Your son’s home~!”
Ho-min beat me through the door by a full step, bellowing at the top of his lungs. The guy had zero shame—apparently he still dropped by for free meals even when I wasn’t around—and he looked more at home than I did.
“You’re here?”
“The boys are here?”
Dad and Mom came out together to greet us. The moment we stepped inside, the whole house smelled like good food; they’d clearly been cooking.
“Hungry? Sit down and eat first. Everything’s ready.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m starving. Heh.”
Ho-min trotted after Mom like a puppy. Dad and I followed at a more leisurely pace.
“Any injuries?”
“No, sir. Nothing.”
“Well… you didn’t get hit, right?”
“Pretty much.”
“…Good.”
“Huh? Ah… yes.”
“Still, apologize to your mother. She was really shaken.”
“Ah… I will.”
Mom was, how do I put it, a soft person. She cried easily. Watching her son on television bean people with baseballs and then knock them out with his fists must have scared the hell out of her. I should have called ahead… but that never even crossed my mind.
Dad had changed a little. He used to joke around a lot, always cheerful… these days he was more… putting on airs? Mom said it was because he was getting older and felt he needed to look dignified. I still had no idea why he bothered.
We demolished the dinner that filled the entire table until our stomachs were ready to burst. Maybe because it was real home cooking after so long, no matter how much I ate the hunger just wouldn’t quit.
Once the plates were more or less cleared, Mom brought out fruit—and beer. Our team’s game had just started, so we watched while we drank. They looked like a completely different club from yesterday and were getting torched from the first inning. My parents lost interest fast.
“So what’s going on with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why are you suddenly pitching like that?”
“W-well… hard work?”
“….”
“….”
What?
Both of them were staring at me like I’d grown a second head.
“Wh-why?”
“Hard work? Who? You?”
“Pfft. Come on. Your son says he worked hard.”
“….”
“I’ve watched you play baseball since the day I put you in it. I have never once seen you train harder than the other kids. So what the hell—”
“Heh heh. Puhahahaha!”
Ho-min completely lost it beside us.
“Dad, aren’t you hitting him a little too hard with the facts?”
“Then don’t lie to your parents.”
“It’s not a lie! I really did work—”
“Sure, sure. Mom believes her baby~”
It was over. Both of them were pretending to believe me and failing spectacularly. The truth was Dad had it right—it wasn’t hard work, it was the system boost—so I couldn’t keep arguing.
We finished the beer we’d brought and cracked open the makgeolli still sitting in the house. Everyone filled their glasses and was about to drink when Ho-min set his cup down and stared straight at me and my parents.
“What? Got something to say?”
The unusually serious look on his face made all three of us ask at once. Ho-min let out a short breath and dropped the most ridiculous line I’d ever heard.
“I’m… going to be Hajin’s manager.”
“….”
“….”
“….”
Was this guy serious? Suddenly a manager?
“What kind of bullshit—wait, more importantly, why the hell do I need a manager? I don’t need one.”
“Exactly. Why would a baseball player suddenly need a manager?”
“Ho-min, is something wrong?”
He listened to all of us in silence, then started laying out everything he’d been thinking.
“You know I’ve always loved analyzing baseball. Ever since I was a kid I decided that if I ever got a real job, it would be in that field.”
“And?”
“Meeting Hajin changed that a little. Instead of joining a team as an analyst, I wanted to stay with him.”
“Huh…”
“But after he went pro he was so pathetic…”
“Heh heh heh. So you gave up?”
“Honestly… yeah. It looked hopeless. Other guys go pro and their velocity jumps, their repertoire expands—they grow. This guy was the exact same pitcher he was in high school. So I quit on the idea… until—”
“Hmm…”
“Suddenly he started growing. And watching him now, I think he might actually become the player I always thought he could be.”
“He’s only closed a handful of games so far.”
Dad was taking this surprisingly seriously. I almost cut in to shut the nonsense down, but Mom shot me a look that said leave it alone, so I just sat there and listened.
“This is just my read, but I don’t think the Savers are going to leave him in the closer role forever.”
“Huh?”
“This year they don’t have a choice, but… I think they’ll start developing him as a starter.”
“Why?”
“Hajin’s arsenal is pretty deep. Four-seam, slider, changeup, curve, even a splitter. And it’s not just that he can throw them—except for the curve, the rest all have real major-league stuff. His command was always elite, and he’s got ice water in his veins; one or two hits don’t rattle him.”
“I-is that right?”
“The one knock on him has always been stamina. Everyone ‘knows’ his stuff dies after thirty pitches. But that’s not actually true. He was just making it look that way so they wouldn’t overwork him.”
“Yeah. I heard about that.”
“So what happens if the Savers’ manager or pitching coach finds out?”
“…!”
“Stamina that can easily go a hundred pitches, a deep repertoire with real power, razor command, and a closer’s heart of steel.”
“Haha…”
“There’s zero reason not to put him in the rotation.”
“Hmm… all right, let’s say that’s true. Still doesn’t explain why you want to be his manager.”
Fair point. I wiped the stupid grin off my face that had appeared during all the sudden praise.
“Dad, you know this guy. He’s great at throwing a baseball and that’s it. Body management, scouting hitters—he has no idea how to do any of it.”
“Hey! It’s not that bad!”
Ho-min completely ignored me and kept his eyes locked on Dad.
“I’ll handle all of that next to him. As his manager. I’ve been analyzing forever, so I can give him real advice on how to attack hitters. Body management—diet, recovery, all of it—I can take care of that too.”
“…Really?”
“And I’m good at English. Japanese too, a little.”
“Huh?”
“Hajin’s going to have to go overseas someday. Japan or the majors, either way.”
“Oh?”
“Please give us your blessing, Dad.”
I never knew Ho-min could talk like that. Listening to him, even I started getting pulled in…
But something felt off. Why did the whole conversation feel so empty? Then it hit me.
“What about me? Why are you only asking Dad? I’m the one this is about!”
Why the hell was I completely cut out of a conversation about my own life while Dad and Ho-min just kept going?
“If a man works, he should get paid.”
Huh? Dad already sounded like he’d agreed. The talk had jumped straight to money.
“Money doesn’t really matter to me.”
“That won’t fly. Sounds like you’ve been thinking about this a long time—tell me what you had in mind.”
“While he’s in Korea, no matter what the salary is, I’ll take ten percent.”
“…Is that enough? After taxes and everything you’ll be making less than you do now.”
“His salary’s going to climb fast. It doesn’t matter. And when he goes overseas, I’ll take more.”
“Hmm… all right. I’m in. Better to have meticulous Ho-min next to him than leave the kid on his own, whatever happens.”
“Then Mom’s in too~”
“I need to think about this a little—ow!”
I tried to push back against them hiring my manager without asking me, and all I got for it was a solid smack on the back from Mom.
I’d known I was going to get hit. I just hadn’t expected it to come like that.
“From now on you just listen to me. Your life’s about to get real easy, you bastard!”
…I think I’m completely screwed.