The Gift
I hadn't thought of it at all.
After the final game, I'd been drunk on the joy of winning the championship. From the next day on, my head had been completely occupied by the pressure of going to pay my respects to Han Song-yi's parents.
So I'd completely forgotten about it — the victory gift the Hooded Woman had promised me.
Song-yi left for work first, and I stepped out of her place to head home myself.
I called a taxi and stood waiting. My phone buzzed hard in my pocket. An unknown number.
"Hello?"
"We should meet, don't you think?"
For a second I had no idea what was going on. She calls out of nowhere and just says we should meet?
"What do you mean by— wait."
The voice was strangely familiar. I'd heard it somewhere before. It was almost identical to the woman I met once a month.
"Don't tell me…"
"That's right. Can you come now?"
"Huh? Ah… yeah."
"Good. I'll text you the location. See you there."
The call ended, and a message arrived almost immediately. The address was a coffee shop near my place.
The taxi pulled up. I gave the driver the address, then sat fiddling with my phone — and suddenly something felt off.
"…She called me?"
In all this time, she had never once made a phone call. The great Hooded Woman hadn't even told me her name. There was no way she would have given me her number.
"What the hell is this…"
She had always appeared out of nowhere as if she already knew exactly where I was, handed me whatever she came to give, and vanished. The idea that she would suddenly pick up a phone and dial me was almost impossible to believe.
"What on earth is going on here…?"
Thinking about it wouldn't give me answers. The only option was to go and find out myself.
The taxi arrived, and I stood in front of the coffee shop. I had never once imagined meeting the Hooded Woman in a place like this…
I was a little nervous for no good reason.
Ding-a-ling~
A clear little bell chimed as I opened the door. Inside, a handful of customers sat scattered around the room.
But somehow… the hood I was looking for was nowhere in sight.
"What?"
Had I gotten here too early?
I stood by the entrance glancing around, and people's eyes kept drifting toward me. I pulled my cap lower, ordered a coffee, and decided to head for a quiet corner in the back.
Keeping my head down so I wouldn't draw attention, I carefully made my way down the aisle when—
"Huh?"
Someone suddenly grabbed my hand as I tried to pass.
For a split second I thought, Ah… I've been spotted, and turned toward whoever had hold of me.
There sat a Black man who looked about two meters tall with an absurd amount of muscle, and a woman in a two-piece suit. The one holding my hand was the woman.
"Um… is there something I can help you with…?"
Her grip was soft, but I was so flustered I pulled my hand free right away and asked.
Then she looked at me and gave a little smirk.
I was about to say something else when—
"Wait. Wait wait wait. D-don't tell me?"
Why was the Hooded Woman sitting there looking like that?
This was the woman who wore nothing but a hood even on days hot enough to kill you — and now she was in a two-piece suit? And looking at her face, she even seemed to be wearing a little makeup!
This made no sense.
Honestly, there had been times I'd seriously wondered whether the Hooded Woman was even human. The impossible effects of those pills, the way she always appeared out of thin air and evaporated just as fast — it was all far too strange to call normal.
But seeing her like this today… the thought that she might actually be a person crossed my mind. Just a little. A very little.
"Sit down."
"Huh? Y-yes."
Somehow I ended up sitting next to the enormous Black man I'd never seen before in my life. He grinned at me, and those white teeth of his were genuinely charming.
But who was this guy? A football player?
"You remember, right? I said I'd give you a gift for winning the championship."
"Of course…"
"I came to give it to you today."
"Yeah. I figured as much. But I thought you'd hand it over on our usual meeting day…"
"Things just worked out this way. All right then — time for your gift…"
My heart was hammering. I was ridiculously excited. What could it be? What kind of gift required her to dress up and put on makeup just to deliver it?
That was when it happened.
"Hello there~"
"……????"
The Black man sitting next to me suddenly greeted me in perfectly fluent Korean.
"Ah — hello."
"Pleasure to meet you. I'm Traven Jack. Traven, Jack — whichever you prefer is fine."
"Huh? Ah… I'm Kang Hajin…"
"I know. Haha."
What on earth was—
"He's my gift."
"…What is?"
"Jack! Jack is the gift I'm giving you."
"……????"
What the hell was this supposed to—
Then Jack held something white out in front of me.
A business card.
Agent Traven Jack
No company name, nothing fancy — just a name, a phone number, and an email.
"!!!!!!"
An agent…? A guy built like he could fold a football player in half, and he was an agent…
"From now on, Jack will be your agent and handle everything for you. Outside of baseball, you won't have to worry about a single thing."
"……"
"Jack works exclusively for you. So you can think of him as a personal agent."
"Uh… okay."
"All right! Any questions?"
"About… the cost…"
"Don't worry about that. I'll take care of it."
"Ah…"
"Oh — and one more important thing. From now on, the pills will be delivered through Jack."
"What? Th-that means this is the last time we see each other?"
Too much was happening at once. Getting an agent sprung on me out of nowhere was already absurd enough — and now she wasn't even going to hand over the pills herself?
"I wouldn't say that. We'll still have plenty of reason to meet. But we won't be seeing each other once a month the way we have been."
"But why…"
"I'm a little busy?"
"Ah…"
"It probably won't happen, but if you absolutely need to see me, just leave a message."
"Huh?"
"I gave you my number, didn't I?"
"Ah… right. Okay."
"But you probably won't need to. Hehe."
Yeah. If she wasn't the one delivering the pills, there really wasn't much reason for the Hooded Woman and me to meet.
"Well then~ I'll be going. You two keep talking."
She suddenly announced she was leaving, stood up in one motion, and walked straight out of the coffee shop without so much as a glance back.
What was that? If she was just going to leave like that, why dress up and put on makeup?
With the Hooded Woman gone, our table was left in the strange arrangement of me sitting side by side with this Jack guy. I quickly got up and moved to the seat across from him — the one she'd been using.
"Uh, Jack?"
"Yes."
"So… what exactly do you do for me?"
"The same things any agent does. Salary negotiations, the small stuff — everything. For example… you'll be starting individual training soon, right?"
"Uh… yeah."
"Tell me, and I can arrange a facility for you."
"Oh!"
"And when you move up to the big leagues after next season ends, I'll handle the negotiations."
"R-right, of course."
As I talked with Jack, the dazed, flustered feeling from earlier faded. No matter what I asked, he answered without hesitation — and always with more than I'd expected.
Judging by everything so far, he seemed pretty damn competent.
After about thirty minutes of conversation, we stood up.
"Whoa…"
Jack had already looked about two meters tall sitting down. Standing, he looked even bigger. At a hundred eighty-eight centimeters myself, I felt like he had a whole extra head on me.
"So, Jack — what did you do before this?"
"I worked at an agency."
"And before that?"
"Studied?"
"……? What about sports?"
"I've done a few things as hobbies, but I've never played professionally."
Seriously? With that physique? Why?
"How did you end up knowing her?"
"I'm sorry. That's the one thing I can't discuss."
"Ah…"
Clearly not an ordinary relationship. Same as mine, then.
"But she… is human, right?"
"…Who knows."
Huh?
I parted ways with Jack and started walking home.
"But why did I just accept Jack becoming my agent like it was the most natural thing in the world?"
Thinking about it, I hadn't even considered refusing. I'd been hit with a sudden This is your agent, deal with it announcement… and I'd just taken it as a given.
"I did need an agent eventually…"
Just not right this second. I'd been planning to start looking around the end of next season.
"Come to think of it — Jack knows the Hooded Woman gives me those pills."
When she said the pills would come through him from now on, I'd been so shocked at the idea of never seeing her again that it hadn't registered.
Delivering them through Jack meant Jack knew about them too…
"He's not going to blackmail me with that or something, is he?"
A little unease crept in.
"But she said she'd handle the cost? Meaning the agent fees are free?"
Hmm… that part might actually be good.
"Ah! Is that why I didn't even think of refusing? Because it doesn't cost anything?"
Yeah… that was probably it…
A few more days passed, and the weekend arrived.
I pulled on a suit I almost never had reason to wear, and in one hand I carried a small shopping bag with a fruit basket and a bottle of liquor.
We were at a country house on the outskirts of Gyeonggi Province — the place where Han Song-yi's parents lived.
"Haa… what do I do? Do I look okay? Is anything weird?"
"Pfft. I already told you you're fine. You look amazing, babe~ My dad already likes you, so stop worrying."
"E-even so…"
The one real stroke of luck was that Song-yi's father was a fan of our team. Apparently he was a huge fan of our captain in particular… and these days he liked me too.
Small mercies, right?
If he'd been a Dragons fan — what would he have thought of me? Ugh. Just imagining it was horrifying.
"Hoo… okay. I'm good."
"Calmed down? Should I ring the doorbell?"
"Hoo… yeah!"
Bzzzt-bzzzt-bzzzt-bzzzt~
"Hmm…"
"Dad~ We're here~"
The door opened.
We stepped through into a fairly spacious yard — and two white dogs came barreling across it straight at us.
My eyes got pulled to the dogs for a second. When I looked back toward the front door, two people who hadn't been standing there a moment ago were waiting for us.
"Ah — hello, sir! I-I'm Kang Hajin!"
My words stumbled, my voice went stiff as a fresh army private's, and the two white dogs latched onto my pant legs and started tugging…
Was this going to be okay?