A New Beginning (3)
Monday morning.
In Class 1-3 at Yuseong High School, the talk was all about Han Seo-jin.
"She coming in today?"
"That's what I heard. Someone said she was in the teachers' office a little while ago."
Kim Na-kyung answered as she set her bag down.
Han Seo-jin. Somehow the word had gotten around, and she'd been famous even before she enrolled. At first everyone had been fascinated by the rumor that she was the Nation's Little Sister. Search her name online and a profile and a string of articles came up just like any other celebrity's, which only fed it.
But once the semester actually started, it was hard to find anyone who had gotten close to her. It wasn't that no one had worked up the nerve. What came back was only a reply short enough to leave you embarrassed. During breaks she kept her head down, staring at her phone or lying facedown on her desk, and when she sat alone by the window, even walking over felt like you were intruding. Before long, she stopped coming to school at all.
"Was she really that sick?"
"No idea. The teacher told us not to ask about that, remember?"
The front door rattled open.
Na-kyung stopped mid-sentence at the sight of who was coming in. Speak of the devil. It was Han Seo-jin.
Set against that small, pale face, her arms and legs ran long and clean, and simply stepping over the threshold was enough to catch every eye. Without meaning to, Na-kyung glanced down at her own skirt. It didn't even look like the same uniform.
"Hey. It's been a while."
The kids nearby returned the greeting a beat late.
"Oh. Hey."
"Been a while."
"Yeah, no kidding."
Seo-jin smiled and slowly looked around the room. Watching her, Na-kyung felt all over again how much the impression she gave off had changed. The straight nose, the small mouth, the eyes that tipped up just slightly at the corners—back at the start of the semester, when her face was blank, she had looked endlessly cold. Smiling like this, the whole look of her opened at once.
"Where was my seat again?"
"Huh? Over there. By the window."
"Thanks."
Seo-jin threaded between the desks and went to the window. She set her bag down, pulled out the chair, and, as if her long hair were in the way, swept it back with one hand.
Whoa...
Na-kyung stared straight ahead for no good reason. She'd known, and still she was startled all over again. She's seriously pretty. She could feel the boys' gazes gathering this way as if spellbound.
"You okay now?" the kid in the seat ahead asked, careful about it.
Seo-jin looked up.
"Yeah. I'm a lot better."
"That's a relief."
"What'd you do while you were out? Were you home the whole time?"
Na-kyung thought that was too many questions and nudged her friend's arm. Contrary to what she'd expected, though, Seo-jin didn't look uncomfortable in the slightest.
"I worked out a little."
"What kind?"
"Baseball."
"...Baseball?"
The offbeat answer left both of them briefly speechless. Seo-jin set a water bottle beside the desk and added,
"Baseball's actually pretty fun."
Na-kyung nodded without realizing it.
The talk went on a little longer after that. When someone said the cafeteria food was terrible, Han Seo-jin asked in complete seriousness just how terrible it was, and when they mentioned the homeroom teacher had already warned them a performance assessment was coming, she let out a short sigh. It was nothing much, but Na-kyung couldn't remember ever having even a conversation like this with her before.
Only after the warning bell had sent the others drifting back to their seats, one by one, did the friend beside her lean in and whisper.
"Was she always like that?"
"...No."
Na-kyung gave a small shake of her head. It felt a little wrong to say, but at the start of the semester Han Seo-jin had seemed very dark, and brittle. If anyone nearby so much as laughed, she would stare that way with something almost sick in her eyes. Now she was completely different. Leaning by the window, drowsily soaking up the sun, she looked like a house cat with a full stomach.
"The whole vibe's different."
"I know."
That was when the bell for class rang. Seo-jin pulled her gaze from the window and opened her textbook.
And how much time had passed? The head resting on her hand slowly tipped forward.
"Han Seo-jin."
I opened my eyes. The teacher standing at the blackboard was looking at me.
"Tired?"
"...A little."
Laughter broke out around the classroom. I straightened in a hurry.
There was nothing else for it. Who would have thought that, at this age, I'd be sitting through high school classes all over again? The body was seventeen, but the moment a quadratic function showed up I got sleepier than I ever had in the old days. Even so, I made it to school every single day. All through class I kept dozing and startling awake, but the instant lunch arrived—or the final bell rang—I was on my feet faster than anyone.
"You heading to cram school?"
"Something like that," I said, shouldering my bag.
It wasn't a cram school, but there was a teacher where I was headed. My father. Of course he couldn't ditch the chicken shop and tag along every day. Most of the time I ran or did the basics on my own, and we only threw together on the days he could spare. Once a week, without fail, the two of us went to the batting cages.
If the bat came through late, we rewound the video again and again to find exactly where it lagged. I was still getting used to this body, so the parts I didn't like kept turning up. Taking the things I'd only ever turned over in my head from a hospital bed and actually putting them to use—that process was too much fun.
About a week after I came back to school, we rented an indoor baseball facility for the first time.
The pitching lane Dad had booked sat at the very back of the batting cages. Maybe because it was a weekday, the place was nearly empty. I was pulling my glove out of my bag when I looked farther in.
There was a mound. Not a real one, made of dirt—a low ramp skinned in artificial turf, with a white pitching rubber fixed to it. Dad followed my eyes.
"Want to throw from there today?"
I nodded.
We loosened up and started playing catch from close in. Even while we gradually opened the distance, my gaze kept sliding that way whenever it had the chance. Dad laughed.
"Go on up."
I stepped onto the mound. The slope came up through the soles of my sneakers. I set my right foot in front of the rubber and raised my head.
To think a day like this would come again.
Across from me, Dad settled in behind home plate. Somewhere along the way he'd put a mask on and was holding his mitt out.
"Don't try to throw hard. Just look at Dad and take it easy."
I rolled the ball in my hand. No crowd. No umpire. It wasn't even a proper field. And still I kept wanting to smile. This was the very picture I'd only been able to lie there and imagine for fourteen years. Me on the mound. And a catcher waiting down below.
"Ready?"
"Yes."
I answered and glanced at the mitt. Dead center of his chest. I shook my head.
"Dad."
"Yeah?"
"Could you drop the mitt a little?"
He lowered it.
"A little more. To the outside."
The mitt shifted to the edge of home plate. Only then did it sit right with me.
I'd messed around with catch for long enough. Now it was time to throw to a spot and get my sights zeroed. I laid my index and middle fingers across the seams.
A four-seam fastball. There'd been a time I made my living on nothing but this and a slider. There were plenty of pitches I wanted to throw, but for now I meant to start by fitting the most familiar one to this body.
I brought both hands together in front of my chest and lifted my left foot. Shifting the weight loaded on my right leg forward, I strode out. My hips turned, and the arm that followed cut past the side of my head on a slant.
Pop!
Dad's mitt came up.
"Nice!"
It wasn't nice. It had gone outside, and it was even close enough to call a strike—just a full handspan higher than I'd meant. I looked down toward my left foot.
It has been a long time since I stood on a mound, I'll give it that.
It was definitely different from playing catch on flat ground. Coming down the slope, my body surged forward faster than I'd expected. On top of that, the stride was too long for these legs to carry. The gap between a past life's memory and this flesh.
I caught the ball Dad tossed back and stepped onto the rubber again.
"One more."
This time I planted my left foot a little closer. Bracing against my body as it tried to topple forward, I whipped my arm through.
Pop!
The height came down. In exchange it ran away outside, and Dad had to stab the mitt out to the side.
"It's all right. That much is a good throw."
I caught the ball and nodded. The feel of the front foot planting had been better just now. I'd leave that as it was and go back over the instant the ball slipped off my fingertips.
Where I'd let it go. The release point. Something about it felt subtly wrong. In my past life it had been a thing I never needed to think about—like writing a hand I knew cold with a pen of a different length. I knew what to write and how, and still, when I actually tried, it wouldn't come out. For the moment I could only fix the wrongness I could feel. The real correction would have to wait until later, when I could watch the video.
I regripped the ball. The third pitch caught the upper rim of the mitt. Still a little high, but it went in more cleanly than the one before.
"That one was really good."
While the feel was still in me, I set again.
Pop!
This time the mitt didn't have to move at all.
Good.
The feeling of the force actually getting through. The sensation of driving the ball off the tips of my index and middle fingers stayed sharp and clear. I took the return throw and went straight into the next one.
Pop!
Nearly the same spot. I'd definitely caught the feel of it.
Dad looked down into the mitt.
"Seo-jin."
"Yes?"
"You're throwing at this spot every time, right?" He tapped the middle of the mitt with the ball.
"Yes. I asked you to set it there."
"Right. You did."
He started to say something more, then shut his mouth. I wiped the sweat from my palm on my pants.
"Please don't move. Stay just like that."
"Okay."
The next pitch missed the mitt by a little. I'd thought I threw it exactly the same. I hadn't. The two before had gone in so cleanly that I'd put a little extra on it without noticing. I clicked my tongue and gave my arm a light shake.
A different body didn't mean the old habits vanished with it. In my past life, too, once the pitches started hitting their spots I'd get the itch to rear back and hump one a little harder.
Same one first.
I took the greed out of it and threw again.
Pop!
Dad pulled the ball free and laughed.
"Well, how about that."
"What is?"
"Usually if one misses, the next one misses about the same way. Beginners don't know why."
He tossed the ball back and glanced inside the mitt.
"But you correct it right away... This has to be luck, right?"
The corner of my mouth edged up.
Luck. As if.
My mouth itched to say it. But tell the truth, and we'd be starting over at the hospital.
"I was just trying to remember how it felt when it went in clean."
"Remembering that and throwing it again—that's the hard part."
He looked at me for a moment, then lifted the mitt.
"Want to try throwing here, too?"
The mitt shifted in, toward a right-handed hitter. I nodded and set. The first pitch drifted a little toward the middle. The second, the other way, ran too far inside. Only the third went exactly where he'd asked.
Pop!
Again, he didn't toss it right back. His mouth was open inside the mask, so I asked first.
"What?"
"Nothing."
He laughed under his breath.
"Even back when we were just playing catch, I had a feeling this wasn't ordinary..."
Trailing off, he looked from the mitt to my face and back. I pretended not to notice and scuffed at the ground in front of the rubber for no reason.
"Let's rest a minute. Drink some water."
I hadn't noticed while I was locked in, but a fair amount of sweat had soaked through my back. While I sat on the bench and drank, Dad looked around the side of the pitching lane.
"Dad. Can they measure velocity here?"
He turned.
"You want to check?"
"Yes. I'm curious what it's coming out at."
With my body completely different now, I wanted the exact number. Playing catch so far, I'd never once felt fast. Still, if I really used my strength from the mound, maybe it would be another story.
Dad headed for the front desk. Before long a staff member followed with a small device and a tripod, set the gear up outside the net behind the catcher, and lined the angle up with the mound.
"Throw, and the speed shows up here. I've got it set to kilometers."
I nodded. Dad put the mask back on.
"Arm all right?"
"For now."
"Then we'll look at a few and stop. Don't keep throwing all-out just to chase the number."
"I understand."
I climbed the mound and threw the first one with about the same effort as before.
Pop!
The staff member checked the device.
"Eighty-six."
I narrowed my eyes. The number was humbler than I'd imagined.
"One more."
The next pitch, with a little more behind it, flashed ninety. Dad turned to look behind him, asked the staff member something, then settled back facing me.
"Seo-jin. Was that your hardest just now?"
"I've still got a little left."
I rolled the ball in my hand and steadied my breathing. I wanted to see three digits, at least, before I stepped down.
"This time I'll throw with everything."
Dad moved the mitt to the middle.
"Don't worry about the location. Just throw it."
I nodded, blew out a breath, and slowly went into my windup. This time I dragged every scrap of strength I had left into each piece of the motion.
CRACK!
My torso folded forward and my right foot came through. On that pitch, at least, I hadn't held anything back. The moment I straightened, I looked toward the staff member.
"Ninety-four."
Honestly, I was badly thrown. I'd really given that one everything I had, and it was only ninety-four. I'd guessed it would be slow, but seeing it confirmed as an actual number was a different feeling entirely.
That was when Dad took the mask off.
"It came out at ninety-four?"
He went straight over and looked at the screen himself. He checked the number for a moment, then turned back to me. His face was strange. A minute ago he'd at least been smiling. Now he wasn't even doing that.
"That delivery of yours—where did you learn it? This, too?"
I brushed it off the way I'd gotten used to.
"YouTube. These days there's really nothing you can't find on there."
Thinking of the feel still left in my hand, I opened and closed my right fist. Would it have been different if I'd thrown a little better? No. That had clearly been my best. In the end, all I could do was grow this body as fast as I could.
"I thought I'd at least hit a hundred."
Dad, catching the mutter, looked at me.
"Seo-jin."
"Yes?"
"You're disappointed because it came out slow?"
Instead of answering, I shrugged. Helmet off, he laughed as if he couldn't believe me.
"You kid. Ninety-four the first time you get up on a mound is huge. Most grown men would have a hard time with that."
"If there were something like a women's pro league, they'd be pushing you with everything they had... God, what a waste."