The Hooded Woman
The game was over, and I was on my way home, debating with myself whether to set my personal pitch limit at thirty or twenty-five.
It was a genuinely serious dilemma, at least by my standards. Thirty pitches sat in this awkward gray zone.
They keep trying to squeeze a third inning out of me…
"Why do you pitch like that?"
I had just turned into the alley leading to my place when a woman's voice suddenly came from beside me. I turned my head.
Standing there was a rather cute-looking woman with a black hood pulled up over her head.
"Huh? Are you… talking to me?"
"Of course. Is there anyone else here?"
"I must've misheard you. What did you say?"
"I asked why you pitch like that."
"…What about me…"
"You're deliberately pretending you can't throw."
I was startled, but I forced my expression to stay neutral.
"No, I'm not. I have no idea what you're talking about. Are you a fan of our team, by any chance? If my pitching bothers you, I'm sorry. Well then, I'll be going."
"How long are you going to keep being a loss-processing machine? You're supposed to become an Ace and go to the majors!"
"Excuse me?"
"An Ace! The majors! Don't you know what those are?"
"Ha… pff! Heh. Ahahahaha."
I couldn't help it—I burst out laughing at her words.
I laughed for quite a while before finally managing to rein it in at the sight of her visibly sulking face.
"Look. What major league team is going to pick up a right-hander with an average velocity of a hundred forty-one kilometers an hour? Even the minors wouldn't take me."
"What if your velocity went up?"
"Then of course…"
A thought crossed my mind just then. Still not really… The majors mean insane travel distances between cities. Why bother?
"I can't even speak English."
"You can learn that."
"Aigoo. Forget it. And even if my velocity went up at this point, how much could it possibly increase? Don't tell me you're about to give me the same speech as our manager—that the more you throw, the better you get?"
"That's not it!"
"I threw two days in a row, so I need to rest. Thanks for the kind words today~ Well then, goodbye."
I turned away from her and headed home again.
I was walking along, trying to suppress the snickers that kept bubbling up at her talk about the majors, when her voice called out from behind me once more.
"Wait!"
Why should I?
"Oh, come on! I said wait!"
This woman was not taking no for an answer.
"What?"
I turned around, ready to give her a piece of my mind, only for her to come dashing up—thud-thud-thud-thud—and throw a punch straight at my face.
I jerked back a step in shock.
"Whoa, what the hell? Have you lost your mind?"
Apparently she hadn't actually meant to clock me—her fist stopped a short distance from my face.
"Open your mouth."
"Huh?"
What is this now? I'd played along because she looked cute, but I was starting to think she might be completely unhinged.
"Haa… Just go."
"Open your mouth!"
"Why would I open my mou—"
At some point, the fist she'd been holding up in front of my face had disappeared behind her back.
This pose… don't tell me.
Come to think of it, she kept leaning her face in closer and closer toward mine…
For real?
This suddenly? Is this even okay?
"Sh-should I close my eyes too?"
"……Yes."
It's real. This is actually happening.
Twenty-three years old, and I was finally about to get a girlfrien—
"This is kind of sudden, but…"
I closed my eyes. And gently parted my lips.
I was waiting, bracing myself for the soft sensation about to arrive, when something suddenly pushed into my mouth.
This bold already? The thought barely had time to form. What had entered my mouth was something round and bitter.
"Uh?"
I was so shocked I tried to spit it out immediately, but whatever that round thing was dissolved and vanished in an instant.
As if it had never been there at all.
Only the bitter taste lingering on my tongue proved that something had been real.
"Ptoo, ptoo. Ptui. Wh-what is this? What kind of drug is this? Damn it! Is this something dangerous? Are you insane?"
"Don't worry. It's nothing like that. And go throw a ball tomorrow."
"What?"
"Throw tomorrow, and then we'll talk. Same time, same place tomorrow. Okay?"
"What kind of bullshit is— Hey. Excuse me. Hey!"
She said only what she wanted to say, then turned and walked off.
I stared blankly after her in disbelief, and only after she disappeared at the mouth of the alley did I snap out of it and hurry after her, but…
"What the— Where'd she go?"
The road stretched straight ahead with nowhere to hide, and yet there was no sign of her.
"This is bad. Did I actually get dosed with something? Haa… Screw this… I'm going crazy."
I gave up on the woman who was nowhere to be found no matter how hard I looked, and trudged home.
"Oh~ Look who it is, the home-run pitcher."
The moment I got home, Seo Homin—the owner of the house I was freeloading in, and my longtime friend—started ribbing me like always.
"Just shut up for once."
"Huh? You're extra prickly today. Why? Did the old man give you hell for giving up a homer?"
"It's not that."
"Then what is it?"
"Haa… I think I'm screwed. I'm seriously going to lose it…"
I said it while raking my hands through my hair, and Homin wiped the grin off his face, sensing something was actually wrong.
"What happened?"
"Well… Ah… Never mind."
"Come on, what is it?"
It was strange.
Homin and I were the kind of friends who basically had no secrets between us. So of course I'd been about to tell him everything that had just happened.
But a powerful feeling hit me—like I'd been brainwashed—that I absolutely must not say it.
A feeling that this secret had to stay mine and mine alone, no matter what.
"It's nothing. I'm just annoyed. More importantly—should I just quit baseball?"
Whenever I wanted to change the subject with Homin, this line always did the trick.
"What the hell is wrong with this crazy bastard now?"
"Dude, be honest. What future do I even have? If all I'm doing is grinding my arm down in a garbage role like this, I'd be better off quitting and freeing up the roster spot."
"Other guys are shitting blood just trying to make the first team, and a talent-blessed punk like you is over here complaining about having it too good."
"Talent-blessed my ass. Is there such a thing as a talent-blessed pitcher who throws a hundred forty-one?"
"Making the first team at all means you're talent-blessed, you idiot."
"……Says the guy who's never even played baseball."
"My theory game is tighter than yours. Heh heh."
Homin had been a baseball maniac since we were kids. We'd first gotten close right after starting middle school, and even back then he'd already mastered not just the KBO but the majors too.
The funny part was that he didn't even root for a particular team or player. He just loved watching baseball and analyzing it.
So I'd always figured he'd end up working in baseball somehow…
"Go wash up. You stink. Some good meat came in, so I brought some home. Just eat that."
Without a second thought, he'd gone straight into the barbecue restaurant his father ran.
Apparently working there let him watch baseball comfortably and do whatever it was he needed to do. What exactly that "whatever" was, I still had no idea…
I finished my shower and stepped out of the bathroom, toweling my hair dry.
Homin happened to be on the phone with someone. On speaker.
"Dad!"
"Yeah~ Homin."
"Dad! Hajin's saying he's quitting baseball again!"
"That crazy bastard… Is he throwing another fit? Tell him to quit then!"
"Then what's he supposed to live on? He doesn't know how to do anything except baseball."
"Tell him to go work construction or something. Ugh…"
This absolute lunatic…
"Dad!"
"You listen here. Stop harassing Homin already. You should be grateful just to be parked on a first-team roster with those numbers, and yet you've got so many complaints you take it out on him for no reason?"
"…Aren't my numbers decent?"
"Getting shelled for home runs every time you come in, and you call that decent?"
"It's not like I get hit every single game…"
"Didn't you get hit today? What about yesterday?"
"……"
I had nothing.
Dad had no idea I'd set my own pitch-count limit. He genuinely believed his son's stuff just fell off a cliff the moment he went past thirty pitches.
At first he'd felt sorry for a son like that… but at some point it had turned into a running joke. Damn it.
"Dad, I'll talk some sense into him. Don't worry, just get some rest."
"Alright. You're a good kid, Homin. If he won't listen, feel free to smack him around a little."
"Hey, what kind of—"
"Will do, Dad~ Go on in~"
The second the call ended, I grabbed Homin's head in my hand and started wringing it.
"Aaaagh! Ah! That hurts! Hey! I said it hurts! Shit! Aaaaaagh!!"
There was no way Homin—barely a hundred seventy centimeters and a little over sixty kilos—was escaping someone nearly a hundred eighty-eight centimeters and closing in on ninety kilos.
After dishing out that justice, I felt considerably better.
"Ugh… I think there's something wrong with my head. You brute. Just eat your damn meat and go to sleep."
He was being a little shit, but I held back for the sake of the meat.
The next morning. Despite Homin's best efforts, I'd barely slept—up all night worrying about whatever that woman had fed me. I managed maybe a couple of hours before dragging my stiff body out of bed.
My whole body felt drained from the lack of real sleep.
But I couldn't be late, so I washed up in a hurry and headed to the ballpark.
Basic weights, then a run with the other players, then a light warm-up…
After throwing two days in a row, I'd honestly planned to wrap it up there and call it a day.
But then.
"What are you doing here?"
The pitching coach walked over and asked me as I sat resting after finishing my stretches.
"Huh?"
"I said, what are you doing here."
"I'm resting…"
"You're not training?"
"……I threw back-to-back. Almost seventy pitches over two days."
"And?"
"……"
"You might get called up today, so go throw a few already."
Has he lost it?
I genuinely wondered if this man had gone insane.
He was putting me in again today after I'd thrown two days straight?
More than that—if I was going in again today, didn't that mean we were going to lose again today? And lose big enough that a loss-processing guy like me would get the ball?
The fact that our pitching coach was already fretting over how to lose the game before it had even started was beyond absurd.
"Looks like they've already given up on today's starter…"
Our starter was a fill-in, and the other team's was their ace, sure, but still…
Taeseong-hyung, the bullpen catcher who'd overheard every word from right beside me, let out a sigh and patted my shoulder.
Time to go together.
"Haa… For real, goddamn… I'm so sick of this."
"What can you do? Hang in there long enough and a good day'll come."
"Hyung. I honestly wish they'd just trade me."
"You think they would? They're getting plenty of use out of you."
"Maybe I should push my ERA up into the tens…"
"Then you'd just get cut."
"Haa… I'm actually going to lose my mind."
I had no choice but to pick up my glove.