Myo A-rin (2)
"Jaza Hotel..."
Jaza Hotel Jamsil Branch, Room 609.
Jaza Hotel Jamsil Branch, Room 609.
Jaza Hotel Jamsil Branch, Room 609.
Jaza Hotel Jamsil Branch, Room 609.
Jaza Hotel Jamsil Branch, Room 609.
Jaza Hotel Jamsil Branch, Room 609.
Jaza Hotel Jamsil Branch, Room 609.
Jaza Hotel Jamsil Branch, Room 609.
Jaza Hotel Jamsil Branch, Room 609.
"Huh? What the—!"
Somewhere along the way, I had arrived at the entrance of Jaza Hotel Jamsil Branch without even realizing it.
"Wh-what the..."
The thing was... since this was technically my first time meeting a girl at a hotel, my mind had apparently been completely hijacked by those two syllables—hotel—without my permission.
"Come on, obviously you stay at a place like this until you find an apartment!"
Nobody had said a word to me, yet there I was, muttering to myself like I was arguing with an invisible critic.
I snapped out of it, opened the ride-sharing app, and booked an SUV.
Time to tell her to come down.
I tapped Myo A-rin's name and hit call.
[ DUM DUM DUMDUMDUM DUM DUM DUMDUMDUM, Urbans~ CHAMPIONS! DUM DUM DUMDUMDUM DUM DUM DUMDUMDUM, URBANS! ]
"Seriously? Your ringtone is a baseball team's fight song?"
But why the Urbans, of all things?
Well, I suppose it made sense—her close friend played for the Urbans.
The familiar fight song cut off, and A-rin's voice came through the speaker.
[Oh— you're here?]
"...Huh? Uh! Yeah, I'm here. Come down quick."
[I've got a lot of luggage. I'd really like you to come up and help me carry it.]
"You can't carry it yourself?"
[As you well know, I'm rather delicate...]
Yeah, right.
Delicate. A 170-centimeter former track-and-field athlete through elementary, middle, and high school, and a graduate of the sports industry department at an S-University in Japan.
Apparently the bar for "delicate" has gotten pretty high these days.
"Quit screwing around and have everything packed and ready by the time I get there with the car."
[No! I'm really not joking, I can't carry it down alone. Come help me. Seriously, I'm begging you.]
Well, if she's going that far.
"Ha... fine."
I hung up and headed into the hotel.
Truth be told, "hotel" was just a pretty name for it—it was the kind of no-tell motel you'd find on any corner of any neighborhood.
I took the elevator up to the sixth floor and found Room 609.
Knock knock knock.
"Who is it??"
A-rin's voice came from the other side of the door.
"It's me."
The handle turned, and the door swung open—only to stop halfway.
"Come in."
"If you're going to hold the door, hold it all the way open..."
Grumbling, I pushed the door open and stepped inside—and the moment I did, my throat went dry.
It wasn't because of the sight of A-rin crouched on the floor, sorting through the luggage spread out in front of her, her back turned to me—it wasn't!
And it wasn't because of the toned figure on display in her tank top and short dolphin shorts—it wasn't!
It was because there were far more pieces of luggage to move than I'd expected!
"Wh-why—why—why is there so much of it?!"
A-rin answered without even turning around.
"A lot? There's this suitcase and those two sports bags over there. That's all there is."
That is a lot. That's plenty, thank you very much.
Huh? Wait. Something's off here.
"You literally just told me you had too much luggage to carry down alone, didn't you?"
"Right, and that's everything, isn't it?"
I replayed the phone call from minutes ago in my head.
"Didn't you say you had so much stuff you couldn't carry it down by yourself?"
"..."
"Any last words?"
Flustered, she froze mid-sorting, still crouched in place, silent as a stone.
"I can literally hear the gears grinding in your head from over here."
Well, I'd come all the way up anyway, so I moved to step into the room to help pack.
In that instant, she sprang up like a jack-in-the-box, pointed a finger at me, and declared:
"...Ahahaha!!! That's what you get for believing me!"
"Geez, you scared me."
It wasn't because of how low-cut her tank top was!
And it wasn't because of how shockingly curvy she looked from the front!
It was because that shameless rascal had suddenly popped up and jabbed a finger at me like she was possessed by the spirit of a prank box!
"...Th-that's... I mean, that's all you came up with?"
"Hahaha! Either way, you walked all the way into my room, so mission accomplished."
I would very much appreciate it if you didn't omit the phrase "to help carry luggage" from that sentence.
"R-right. Hurry up and finish packing."
"Where do I pick up the car? Is it far?"
"The mart parking lot right in front of here."
"Oh, really? Then I'll take those two sports bags out and load them into the car first. I'll come back down for the suitcase after."
Then why didn't you just grab the car in the first place?
"Sorry! While I was packing, I figured this way would be better. Or... we could go together."
Did she just read my mind?
"N-no, it's fine. I'll do it."
Since when was this girl this considerate?
"A-are you mad? Your face looks..."
"What about it?"
I glanced at the mirror—and there stood some complete idiot, his face dyed a deep shade of red.
"Ah—o-of course not! Damn it! It's not like I'm training a stubborn dog or anything!"
Why was my face burning up like this?
No idea—but I decided to just chalk it up to anger and move on.
"Really sorry. Jeyuk bokkeum later, on me."
"Then I accept your apology."
And so I hoisted the sports bags over my shoulders and headed for the mart parking lot to get the car.
The bags were lighter than I'd expected.
I loaded everything into the app-booked car, slid into the driver's seat, and adjusted it.
While fixing the rearview mirror, I suddenly remembered my flushed face and took a look at my reflection.
Maybe the cold winter wind had cooled things off a little?
The face staring back was the same old one.
"Did I develop rosacea or something?"
Muttering to myself, I drove the car around to the front of the hotel.
I picked up A-rin, who was waiting outside with her luggage, and held out my phone, asking her to punch in the address.
"Just head here."
"Got it. About thirty minutes out."
And so I started driving along the route marked on the phone's navigation.
As the car rolled along, we traded small talk about this and that, and before I knew it, the conversation had drifted toward our dreams.
"So is your dream like the other baseball players'—making it to the Major Leagues?"
The Major Leagues.
The stage every baseball player dreams of.
I thought back to what San Wool-lim had said once—that he'd like to face off against me again someday.
A goal I'd always dismissed as absurd suddenly felt a little closer, all because of that one sentence. Or was that just my imagination running away with me?
"Well, I guess so? It's the best stage in the world, after all."
Truthfully, I'd been so buried in the problems right in front of me that I'd never thought that big.
Even my debut on the pro first-team roster was an urgent matter at the moment.
"What about you, then? What do you want to do with your life?"
"I want to put my major to use, obviously. Ideally, I'd love to be on a professional stage like you, too."
"You mean become an athlete?"
"I said use my major. It's not like playing pro is the only way to be in the game."
Sports industry major.
So she wanted to run a franchise?
Or maybe start her own agency?
"So you want to be someone who runs a baseball club?"
"Mmm—if we're talking ultimate goals, I guess that's it? A general manager like Theo Epstein or Billy Beane in baseball terms. To get there, I'll need to build my career step by step. For now, I'm planning to work in a pro team's operations side."
"In baseball?"
"Well, it doesn't strictly have to be baseball—any sport will do. Wherever hires me, I'll go."
"That's cool."
"You're making it sound like news."
Was I imagining it, or had a faint flush crept into A-rin's cheeks?
We kept chatting away, and before I knew it, the navigation announced we'd arrived.
I hadn't noticed it following only the route, but the neighborhood looked awfully familiar.
"Huh. We're close to my place?"
"Yeah. Just sort of worked out that way."
I got out, unloaded her things, and parked the car in the return zone at the nearby public parking lot.
"Thanks for all your help today."
"Yeah—don't forget, you promised me that jeyuk bokkeum."
"Hm? I meant we'd eat it today, though?"
"Is there even a place around here that sells it? I don't think I've seen one."
"What do you mean, go where? Eat at my place before you head home."
I felt the heat rush back into my face in an instant.
"Wh-what? I—eat at your place?!"
"Suit yourself. Thanks for today, though. Really."
"R-right! See you!"
I threw a careless wave and hurried my steps toward home.
A ten-minute walk.
A-rin's place was closer than I'd thought.
For some reason, during those ten minutes back, laughter kept bubbling out of me without permission.
****
"Was I a little too aggressive today?"
As she unpacked in her new apartment, A-rin replayed the day's events in her mind.
It seemed to have worked, at least to some degree.
"His face definitely turned red, right..."
She pictured Han-sae standing there in the hotel room with that dopey look on his face.
"Pffthah..."
Laughter escaped her before she could stop it.
Ring—
"Han-sae?"
At the message notification, A-rin stopped what she was doing and quickly pulled out her phone to check.
"No way!"
It wasn't a message from Jang Han-sae—but it had come from exactly the place she'd been waiting for.
***
"Hey! Han-sae! It's out!"
"What's out?"
Ho-ji and I were having a casual beer at a hof bar near my place when he came back from the bathroom and started flailing around, jabbing his phone screen at me.
"The list! The spring camp roster!"
"What? Where?!"
I snatched Ho-ji's phone out of his hand and stared at the screen.
There they were—my name and Ho-ji's, both on the first-team spring camp roster.
"YES!!!! We did it!!!"
Making the spring camp roster didn't guarantee first-team playing time, but it definitely meant the odds had gone up.
Ho-ji and I threw our arms around each other and let out whoops of victory like we'd just won the Korean Series all over again.
Right up until the shoulder-uncle regulars at the next table started glaring at us, that is.