Prologue (Revised)

I am a pitcher.

A pitcher who dreamed of becoming like the major leaguers — Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw.

Performing on baseball's greatest stage, just like them — that's the dream of anyone who has ever picked up a ball.

And the fact that reality doesn't come easy? That applies to just as many players.

I was no exception.

By pure luck, I was drafted with the final pick right out of high school and made it to the pros, but my skills were so mediocre that I spent my entire first year in the minor leagues.

"Han-sae."

"Yes?"

"The club thinks you should sort out your military service first. Let's try applying to the Armed Forces Athletic Corps."

"Yes..."

In other words, I was written off as surplus to requirements.

They had no use for me right now, so might as well get the army out of the way first — that was their thinking, no doubt.

So I applied to Sangmu, the military sports team. And the result?

Rejected.

I thought that was the lowest point of my life...

Then, as if to pile on the misery, my father — who had quietly supported me all along — passed away in a sudden accident.

It nearly killed me.

As a child, my father had loved baseball dearly, and going to games with him was how my dream had naturally taken root and grown.

I'd wanted to show him. Wanted him to see me striking out big league hitters on the professional stage, magnificent and unstoppable...

But he never even gave me the chance to repay him. He was just... gone, snatched from my side without warning.

For a long time, I sank into a bottomless swamp of grief, drowning over and over again.

A hollow emptiness that the word "listlessness" couldn't even begin to capture.

The one who pulled me out of that despair was the person hurting even more than I was — my mother.

She was stronger than I ever gave her credit for.

In the depths of her own grief, she planted courage in her suffering child with her warm, unwavering support — the child who was already agonizing over a baseball career that refused to take off.

"Son, I know it hurts. But you mustn't lose your dream. It's not what your father would have wanted."

Without those words, I would have quit baseball a hundred times over.

Because of the devotion and love she showed me, I steeled my resolve not to give up.

The club granted me an extended leave in light of everything that had happened.

The failed Sangmu application. The sudden loss of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my father...

They knew these were too much for a fresh high-school rookie to bear alone.

But I knew exactly what they really wanted, so I volunteered to enlist.

Simply sitting idle would do me no good at all.

Sorting out my heart, I figured, was something I could do just as well in uniform.

"You sure about this?"

"Yes, Manager."

"You... you're going to make it big one day. I guarantee it."

And so I enlisted as an active-duty soldier, where — by lucky chance — I met a company commander who happened to be a diehard fan of my team, the Urbans.

His love for the team knew no bounds. He even recognized me — a bottom-round draft pick stuck in the minors.

He gave me dedicated time for individual training, and thanks to him, I made it through my service without losing my feel for pitching — and even came out ahead.

Out of gratitude, I threw myself into military life all the harder.

I did everything my peers did, and whenever something brutal came up, I never once hung back. In the end, I earned the title of "ace" in the eyes of both my seniors and juniors, and when the time came, I was honorably discharged to the cheers of everyone around me.

"Sergeant Jang Han-sae! When I come see you play someday, you're buying me a meal, got it?!"

"You act all high and mighty once you're famous, and you're dead!"

"Sniff... Sergeant! Thank you for everything!"

The road out of the base.

My juniors showered me with congratulations in front of the guard post as I completed my service.

The company commander, who had come out to see me off, clapped me on the shoulder.

"Commander. I will repay this debt, I swear it."

"Quit with the mushy stuff. Go out there and pay me back in baseball."

"Thank you. Truly, for everything."

And so, with everyone's blessing, my eighteen months of military service came to a close.

Right. Let's try again. I can do this.

With my resolve set, I walked out of the base and boarded the bus bound for home.

It was a winter when the snow fell, and fell, and would not stop.

When I opened my eyes, all I could see was a blindingly white ceiling.

"Ugh... my head..."

A crushing wave of pain rolled in, my skull spinning like a top.

"What the hell happened..."

The last memory before I blacked out flashed through my mind.

The bus lurching violently, slamming into something, the screams of terrified passengers — and then, nothing. Given how little I remembered, I'd clearly been unconscious since the crash.

"Where am I? Is this a hospital?"

I managed to prop myself up and looked around.

"Wh-what is this?"

An empty white void. Nothing existed here at all.

"Am... am I dead?"

It felt so unjust.

I had sworn to turn my life around. I was only just getting started. And this was how it ended?

I couldn't accept it.

"...How does this even make sense?"

Despair and fury came flooding in.

What kind of cosmic joke was this?

What terrible sin had I committed in a past life to earn such a hollow ending?

And so I cursed the heavens.

Then the image of my mother — grieving over my body — flashed before my eyes.

The tears wouldn't stop.

I cried so hard I half-feared I'd collapse from dehydration.

When even crying wore me out and I flopped back onto the floor, I felt something hard and round pressing against my back.

The moment I reached behind me and wrapped my hand around it, that all-too-familiar feeling made my teeth clench.

"A baseball? You've got to be kidding me! Is this some kind of joke?!"

Baseball. God, I was sick of baseball.

Heat surged through me in an instant, and with every ounce of strength I had left, I hurled the ball forward.

Beep—

A beep sounded, and crimson letters materialized on the blank white wall.

"Wh-what is that?"

"...Velocity?"

While I stood there gawking at the impossible, something bumped against my foot.

I looked down. It was the baseball I'd just thrown.

"You want me to throw it again?"

Curiosity got the better of me. I scooped up the ball, wound into my delivery, and fired a fastball at full power.

Beep—

Once again, my velocity appeared on the wall.

"What is this, a tryout? Do they have baseball teams in the afterlife too?"

A baseball appearing out of nowhere. A wall that measured and displayed pitch speed.

The moment I voiced my confusion at this absurd situation, new letters appeared on the wall.

"What? The perfect pitcher?"

"What's that supposed to mean? Wait, more importantly — I can't leave?"

"Then what's the point? It'd take decades, and by then my body would be old and falling apart everywhere!"

As if to say, don't doubt us, an image flickered across the wall — me, lying in a hospital bed.

Me, hooked up to a respirator. Beside me, my mother, gripping her son's hand tight. And...

"Why is she here?"

Myo A-rin, my childhood friend from the neighborhood, keeping vigil at my bedside.

"She's supposed to be in Japan. Why is she here?"

A rough-around-the-edges tomboy with not a feminine bone in her body — that was how I'd always known her. She'd left for Japan as a high school exchange student, and quite a few years had passed since then.

She was the first face I'd seen since my father's funeral.

Back then, too, she'd dropped everything the moment she heard the news and rushed back to Korea to comfort our family. I owed her for that.

We hadn't kept in close touch since, but we'd always been close at heart.

She must have flown back in a hurry for my mother's sake, if nothing else.

Though... had she gotten a little more feminine lately?

Anyway, that wasn't what mattered right now.

I could go back.

That single fact alone let me breathe a sigh of relief.

The problem was the condition for going back.

And that condition was brutally, impossibly strict.

What would most people call a "perfect pitcher"?

A left-hander, for starters, with an average fastball around 150 km/h. Breaking balls with devastating movement. Command sharp enough to paint any corner of the strike zone at will. A heart of steel that never wavered under pressure. Fielding ability sharp enough to handle comebackers barehanded. And ironclad stamina that could throw complete games like it was nothing.

Those were the kinds of conditions you'd list.

Such a pitcher's talent would be enough to claim a major league rotation spot as a baseline — and more than enough to take home the Cy Young Award given to the world's very best.

Even with elite coaching staffs, scientific training programs, and every expensive piece of equipment money could buy, it might barely be possible. And I was supposed to become that pitcher through sheer, unaided grind in an empty white room with nothing?

If that was really the condition, I might well ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be trapped here for all eternity.

"So what counts as the perfect pitcher?"

I needed to find out.

"I already think I'm a perfect pitcher right now."

"...So you can read minds too."

It wasn't wrong.

Still — this gave me hope.

Even without Cy Young-caliber ability, there might be conditions I could genuinely feel were "perfect."

Two-way player — hitting and pitching?

The same message flashed back.

"Hmm... then what would it take?"

As I racked my brain, something I'd once read about online came to mind: the switch pitcher.

Switch hitters who batted from both sides were rare enough but did exist. Switch pitchers, on the other hand, were vanishingly rare.

The world was full of pitchers who couldn't throw straight with even one hand — and I was supposed to alternate between both?

That was no small feat.

But looked at another way — wasn't that practically the definition of a perfect pitcher?

A pitcher who could throw with both hands.

"You said it was my standard!"

"...What on earth are you, anyway?"

It was true that being a switch pitcher alone wasn't enough.

"The perfect pitcher... velocity, movement, repertoire... repertoire?"

A diverse arsenal is a pitcher's weapon.

Fastball, slider, curveball, changeup, forkball, sinker, two-seamer...

The more ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pitches you can throw, the greater your edge in the game of cat-and-mouse against a hitter.

When you don't know what's coming, preparing for it becomes nearly impossible.

So then — a switch pitcher who could throw a full range of pitches with both hands. Wouldn't that be as close to perfection as it gets?

"How about that?"

"Damn it."

Right. A switch pitcher who threw every pitch there was.

It would certainly keep hitters off balance — for a while. But over time, sharp-eyed analysts would inevitably expose my weakest pitches. Then the effective repertoire would shrink, and the whole thing might end up meaning nothing.

Which meant...

"That's it! A switch pitcher who keeps changing his arm slot — throwing every pitch, from every angle!"

Pitchers are classified by the angle of their throwing arm: overhand, three-quarter, sidearm, submarine.

Almost everyone throws from a single slot, and at most a handful use two from similar angles.

A "perfect pitcher" who used all four? I'd never heard of one.

He would be, quite literally, a pitcher unlike any who had ever lived.

"Yes! Finally!"

The stepping stone to freedom was in place.

Now all that remained was the blood-and-sweat grind: mastering both hands, every arm slot, every pitch.

It would obviously be grueling, and God only knew how long it would take — but for me, excuses were nothing but noise.

Thankfully, this space suppressed all basic human needs. I never felt fatigue, so I never needed sleep.

Where else could you find a training ground this perfect?

And so, I threw.

Left hand, right hand, overhand, three-quarter, sidearm, submarine...

Indiscriminately, endlessly, with every method my body could execute, I threw.

Whenever the tedium crept in and I wanted to quit, I thought of my parents.

How many balls did I end up throwing?

In time, I could throw any pitch I wanted, from any hand, in any posture.

I have no idea how much time passed.

I simply threw, over and over, until it lived in my body as instinct.

Left and right, splitting again into four arm slots, splitting further into every pitch — I repeated the cycle countless times.

I attacked command first, hammering it down until it was second nature, then ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠turned my focus to building movement into every pitch in the arsenal.

And before I knew it, I could throw any pitch I wanted, from any form, with either hand, without a shred of hesitation.

And so, I became the "perfect pitcher."

My crusted eyelids cracked open, peeling apart.

Darkness split down the middle, and white light seeped through the seam.

"Come on, Jang Han-sae! Are you with us? Are you awake?"

Myo A-rin...

"Ugh... ugh..."

"What... what did you say?"

She didn't need to strain that hard to hear me, but A-rin leaned in anyway, her face inches from my mouth.

"Your face is too close... it's kind of overwhelming..."

"What did you say?"

"Eep!"

A-rin's fist came flying at my face. A respawn kill?

Reflexively, I squeezed both eyes shut.

But what landed on my cheek wasn't pain — it was a warm, gentle hand.

I carefully opened my eyes and saw A-rin, tears streaming down her face.

"Thank god... sniff..."

"Hey... what's wrong with you?"

"Thank god... thank god you're alive."

And for a long while, A-rin just clung to me and cried.

Soon after, my mother — who had stepped out briefly — returned to the hospital room, found me awake, and just like A-rin, pulled me into her arms and wept for what felt like an eternity.

Then, a few days later.

"Your recovery rate is remarkable. You can be discharged tomorrow."

With a recovery speed that left even the doctor marveling, I checked out of the hospital in no time.

Afterward, I contacted the club and told them I'd be returning to training immediately.

My body was itching to get back on the mound — I wanted to feel a baseball in my hand even one day sooner.