Bases-Loaded Specialist (1)

Only a pitcher who has ever stood on the mound with the bases loaded and nobody out can know this feeling.

My legs tremble like people doing the short-form challenge, and my heart pounds like a heavy metal drum solo.

Yeah, no doubt about it — a pitcher with experience belongs in this situation far more than one seeing it for the first time.

Why else does the working world favor people with a proven track record?

"Still, come on..."

From the batter's box, the eyes of the former major leaguer gleam.

Edison.

The look of a beast eyeing its prey.

Hoo... calm down.

Either I protect the team's lead, or I become the losing pitcher. For the man on the mound, that is life and death itself.

Mental control is every bit as vital a quality in a pitcher as anything physical.

Baseball is a sport of the mind.

And mental fortitude, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠like anything else, hardens with training.

Stay calm. Eliminate the sources of tension one by one.

Think of it like one of those ticking time bombs from the movies. Cut the wires attached to the bomb one at a time, and if you shut it down, you get your happy ending. Fail, and everyone just dies.

Letting out a deep breath, I opened the lid on the bomb called tension.

"Hoo... alright. Let's cut the wires one at a time."

First, Edison.

It wasn't as if I didn't know his weakness.

This was the guy who'd said the knuckleball was his kryptonite.

The problem was the situation — bases loaded, nobody out.

The catcher can't predict where a knuckleball will jump, so there's a high chance of a wild pitch. It's a risky pitch to throw with the bases juiced.

The blessing here is that the catcher is Yang Ho-ji.

He's the only catcher who's ever caught my knuckleball, so he's a bit more familiar with it than Song Gyeong-seok would be.

If I use that well, I can get a guy like Edison out one way or another.

Just don't forget how I went ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠after him with all that swagger yesterday.

And with that, I boldly cut the first wire.

I exchange signs with Ho-ji.

First pitch: fastball, outside corner.

Edison bats left-handed, so I pitch left-handed too.

"Hah!"

Thwip!

The ball count ticks up on the scoreboard behind the catcher.

Ball one.

Okay.

Sweat keeps pooling in my palm.

My fear of Edison has eased considerably, but the bomb isn't fully defused yet.

Feigning composure, I took the ball back from Ho-ji with a perfectly neutral expression, then dug into the rosin bag below the mound, dusting my hand white with powder.

'Do you like me?'

No — why are you barging in right now?

The sight of Myo A-rin from the hof house last night had refused to leave my head all day.

She'd been so nervous that it had apparently been bottled up for a moment — but why, of all possible timings, now?

I turned my head and cast a casual glance out at the outfield.

Naturally, my aim was Geum Byeong-hyeon.

His usual picture of placid, untroubled peace.

Ah. So that's my second wire, huh.

Wait — thinking about ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it, hasn't that wire already been cut?

The very man who had looked so fine revealed his true nature the moment the game began.

"I'm gonna kill every single one of them today, dammit!"

He suddenly floored the accelerator, stoking his fighting spirit all by himself, and starting from the very first at-bat of the bottom of the first, he turned on the fan — the whiff-and-miss kind.

That was his usual style, but how should I put it... his bat carried a whole storm of rage in it?

"Argh, damn it! I'm seriously killing it today!"

This was a man who would normally stroll back to the dugout after striking out like that without a care in the world, cracking jokes — and now he was suddenly fuming, his competitive fire roaring?

A genuinely strange sight.

And then Geum Byeong-hyeon finally made something happen in the next inning.

Bottom of the fourth.

No runners on base.

The at-bat of the number five hitter, Geum Byeong-hyeon.

CRACK!

Seriously... I don't mean "crack" as an expression — I thought the ball itself had exploded. With a hitting sound I had never heard in my life, the ball Geum Byeong-hyeon struck sailed clear over the stadium walls.

A home run out of Jamsil — the biggest baseball stadium in Korea — and an over-the-wall one at that.

Adding to the tally of the Jamsil over-the-wall home runs, of which only four had ever been hit in history, Geum Byeong-hyeon carved his own name into the record books.

"Ahh, yeah! That does it! It's over now!"

That's what he said as he came back into the dugout. Like something had finally been wrung out of him.

I was dying to know how on earth he'd produced such a monstrous performance, and Won-sik hyung, thinking the same thing, beat me to it and ran over to ask.

"So what's going on with you? You're in full combat mode today."

"Ah! Oh, there was! A huge something!"

"Like what?"

"Well, see, I got some girl's number yesterday, right? And the damn number didn't exist!"

"Whoa."

"It's fine! It's not like I'm starving for women, and the second I crushed one just now, it all stopped mattering. Hoo! That's baseball."

A number that didn't exist?

Myo A-rin gave him a fake number?

I clamped a hand over the laughter leaking out of me before I could stop it.

Ah — I absolutely cannot hold this in.

At that exact moment, my eyes met Geum Byeong-hyeon's.

"Hahahaha! Hyung! What was that! An over-the-wall homer! An over-the-wall homer! Unbelievable! That's the cleanup class of the Urbans for you! Hyung, you're a lock for the Golden Glove this year, no question!"

"...What! Obviously! Hahaha! You punk! Now that's more like it! Go grab me a drink!"

Decent reflexes, that.

I cheerfully fetched an ion beverage and handed it over to Geum Byeong-hyeon.

The relationship between Geum Byeong-hyeon and Myo A-rin, the one that had inexplicably been gnawing at me.

Yeah — already a solved problem.

It wasn't that the phantom voice whispering 'Do you like me?' had gone away.

But either way, my heart settled considerably.

My trembling legs, my heart that had felt ready to burst — both found their calm again.

The timer on the ticking bomb had come to a complete stop.

Now I turned my attention back to the batter's box.

The gaze of the beast-eyed Edison somehow looked... almost cute now.

Hello, kitty.

I exchanged signs with Ho-ji again.

Same fastball outside. The identical pitch had just been called a ball, so this time I planned to come in by roughly half a ball's width.

"Hah!"

The ball left my hand spinning fast and got sucked into Ho-ji's mitt.

"Strike!"

From the batter's perspective, the ball came in on the exact same line as the pitch that had just been called a ball — he had no choice but to let it go by.

The difference was so fine you'd never catch it with the naked eye.

The count now stood at 1-1.

I sent another sign to Ho-ji.

Fastball outside again.

Keeping my delivery rhythm as quick as possible, I fired my third pitch.

Whoom!

A heavy bat swing cut through the air.

But that bat never touched the ball.

The pitch sailed even further outside than my very first one.

It had clearly come in on the same line — and this time it drifted so far off the plate that the bat couldn't come close.

The batter's head must have been in complete chaos.

The pressure of facing a former major leaguer?

I've already taken down hitters of far more than that level, thank you very much.

Two strikes, one ball.

Still needed all three outs.

The road ahead was long, so I had no intention of dragging this duel out.

I flashed Ho-ji the sign: finishing pitch.

Just as expected, Ho-ji looked stricken.

"You've got this!"

I raised my voice just loud enough for Ho-ji to hear and said it out loud.

Startled by the sudden shout, Ho-ji's face flickered with surprise before he broke into a sheepish grin. He nodded and gave me the okay sign on the pitch I'd chosen.

The knuckleball.

Have a taste of this.

Fixing my eyes on nothing but Ho-ji's mitt, I delivered the final kill pitch with a soft, loose motion.

The ball rode the air with no spin at all.

Wobbling unsteadily like one of Ronaldo's knuckleball free kicks, it suddenly — whoosh — leapt straight up just in front of home plate.

Even I, the one who threw it, hadn't expected that movement.

'It's breaking even harder than I thought.'

Edison's bat had long since swished through empty air, and Ho-ji, startled by that impossible trajectory, leapt up desperately to snag the ball.

Springing upward from a crouch left him off-balance, and in the end Ho-ji's massive frame crashed to the ground and tumbled.

"We're screwed."

My heart lurched.

Watching the runner at third for a possible play, I sprinted toward home plate.

Sure enough, the runner on third was revving up to charge home. The very moment everyone assumed it was a wild pitch—

Hoji, flat on the ground, raised his glove high.

Thank god — the ball was sitting snug and secure inside his mitt.

"Phew..."

Letting out a breath of relief, I shot Ho-ji a thumbs-up.

"Strike three!"

With that thunderous called strikeout, batter Edison barked WTF and trudged back to the dugout.

The runner on third gave up the dash and reset his foot on the bag.

This duel with Edison belonged to me and Ho-ji.

"YESSS!!!"

On my way back to the mound, I slapped my glove and let out a raw, guttural roar.

WAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!

From the first-base side where the home crowd sat, cheers erupted and the Urbans' fight song ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠rolled across the stadium.

The heart I had shut off to stay composed began pounding all over again.

But this was a pounding entirely different from the panicked thunder of raw tension.

Up next was the Vanguards' cleanup hitter.

Korea's finest third baseman.

The slugger chasing the all-time home run record.

Jung Hae.

'They say it's one mountain after another...'

Swallowing a wry smile, I locked back in on the game.