A New Beginning
“Ji-hoo. Jin-muk said to tell you he’s sorry.”
It must have been the day after I hit that walk-off home run off Oh Jin-muk. The day after the interview that turned Gong Ji-hoo into Public Enemy Number One for the Swallows.
That was what Kang Ho-san, the Rhinos’ catcher, had said when I stepped in as a pinch hitter. Honestly, I had no idea what he was talking about. So I just laughed it off and completely forgot about it until now. Not that it was hard to forget—
Too much had happened since then…
The playoffs. The Korean Series. One crucial game after another, and the little things simply slipped out of my mind.
“After that interview, Gong Ji-hoo got so much hate that I asked my brother to apologize for me… Did that guy never say anything?”
He had, actually.
“No, I did get the apology, but…”
The problem was that an apology was all I’d gotten.
Anyway. The reason Oh Jin-ah had wanted to meet me was half a desire to properly deliver that day’s apology herself.
“Honestly, half of it was just wanting to meet you in person.”
“Didn’t you say this wasn’t a fan meeting?”
“From Gong Ji-hoo’s perspective, you’re meeting the family of a future teammate. That’s not a fan meeting. A regular meeting, maybe.”
“…What?”
She laughed and said she was only joking.
That was how the meeting ended that day. I signed the Suwon Wizards uniform she had brought herself, and we swapped numbers.
“Have you decided on a number for the Rhinos? You won’t be able to use 22.”
“I’ll contact you myself later. Don’t you dare ignore me, okay?”
Her phone wallpaper was a photo of me. And not just any photo—it was the one of me crying after the Korean Series ended.
“You can tell I’m a real fan, right? …Why this picture? Because it’s cute?”
At the time I hadn’t realized how embarrassing it was—getting so emotional that I cried all by myself.
And time kept flowing on.
I packed up the place I’d been living in Suwon and moved my lodging to Daegu. Thankfully the club provided housing. It wasn’t luxurious, but it wasn’t run-down either. It felt a little excessive, but—
“We decided Gong Ji-hoo is worth that much.”
When they put it that way, all I could do was accept it gratefully.
I finished the novel. I had no plans for a sequel.
Should I keep writing?
I could make a living without writing web novels now. Still, it had become more of a hobby than anything else, so I intended to keep serializing. Of course, only after a few months of rest. More than anything—
It’d be a shame to give up the title of ‘the baseball player who writes novels’…
My salary went up. It still wasn’t a nine-figure deal, but roughly doubling it was a pretty dramatic raise.
And then, finally, the day arrived.
“Ah, this is way too tight.”
The suit I hadn’t worn in ages felt uncomfortable. I was pretty sure this was the first time I’d put one on since joining a pro team.
“Do I have to keep wearing this on the plane too…? It’s killing me.”
Gong Ji-hoo’s first trip to Japan. Destination: Okinawa. The place where the Daegu Rhinos held their spring training camp.
My first impression of the new team, the Daegu Rhinos, was that for a baseball club they were dead serious about YouTube content.
From my signing, to choosing a uniform number, all the way to departure for spring camp—they filmed everything for the channel. Our team—no, my old team, the Suwon Wizards—never did anything like that.
“They had a club YouTube channel, sure…”
But almost nobody watched the videos, so it might as well not have existed. Some of the Wizards players even disliked it, saying it got in the way of baseball. The Daegu Rhinos, on the other hand—
“Huh? That’s just another form of fan service. Of course we go all out.”
Even a veteran like Kang Ho-san said so.
“So Ji-hoo, look at the camera and say hello. Everyone’s waiting for the new face!”
“Ah… okay.”
I faced the camera.
“Hello~ I’m Gong Ji-hoo of the Rhinos.”
Since we’d already shot the signing video, I didn’t feel particularly awkward. I spoke casually into the lens.
“This kid used to barely talk at all, but he’s changed a lot since last year. Haha!”
Thump thump!
I tried to dodge Kang Ho-san’s hearty back-slaps—
Rrrrip!
“Ah.”
“Uh.”
“Whoa…”
A torn suit.
Me. Kang Ho-san. The YouTube staffer holding the camera. All three of us were speechless.
“Uh… I’ll buy you a new one.”
Kang Ho-san looked genuinely sorry.
“It’s fine. It was old anyway, and I was planning to get a new one tailored. It wasn’t expensive.”
That was my answer. And then—
“Gong Ji-hoo is a real content machine.”
The YouTube staffer watched the footage with a satisfied smile.
In the end—
“Man… you’re probably the only player who boards the plane in full uniform from the jump. Amazing, Gong Ji-hoo!”
“You’re the one who made me do it, hyung…”
I was the only one who boarded the plane wearing the uniform. The Rhinos’ signature blue. And the new number stitched on the back was—
0.
Not long before spring camp began, at Rhinos Park.
Arriving at his new home stadium, Gong Ji-hoo naturally headed first for the café that was about to become his regular spot.
Slurp.
Sipping an iced americano in one hand and carrying a takeout coffee in the other, he made his way to the general manager’s office.
“Hello.”
“Ah! Gong Ji-hoo, come on in.”
The Daegu Rhinos’ legend—a Seoul native who had started and finished his entire playing career with the Rhinos—greeted him in a gentle tone.
“I brought coffee. Would you like some?”
“Oh no! I should’ve been the one buying. Thank you, I’ll gladly take it.”
“Haha… Please just speak comfortably, sir. It’s a little overwhelming.”
“Shall I, then?”
The two of them sat at the table in the GM’s office.
“Mm… I’m not actually the one who called you here, Ji-hoo.”
“I figured as much.”
A recently traded player and the general manager. How often would two people with that kind of gap in status ever sit down together? Contract talks were already finished. So the person who had summoned him was—
“The manager?”
“Hm? That’s right. Sharp kid.”
Gong Ji-hoo had already assumed it would be the manager.
Honestly, just handing over the number would’ve been enough, but I was curious myself.
Gong Ji-hoo. To a general manager now in his fourth year, he was a player who demanded attention. Even before this season, when he had truly broken out.
And it wasn’t just him watching. A kid who had hit .400 two years straight in the second team, still young. Even if his first-team production had been poor, what GM wouldn’t want a player like that?
The Wizards’ old GM had gritted his teeth and refused every trade offer, but…
The newly appointed one was different. Some fans saw it as a loss—trading a starting pitcher for a flash-in-the-pan—but—
“We got him for a guy with one year left until free agency. Absolute no-loss for us.”
“Pardon?”
“Never mind.”
As those fans said, Gong Ji-hoo’s performance was still an unknown. Which also meant he might put up the same numbers this year that he had last year. And more than anything—
“Manager Dong Sang-guk wanted you desperately. Did you know that?”
“I read about it in the articles…”
“Your Korean Series performance left a deep impression. He kept saying, ‘Bring me Gong Ji-hoo no matter what.’”
“Hahaha… That’s embarrassing.”
He said that, but the pride in his own ability was impossible to hide in Gong Ji-hoo’s eyes.
Hmm… He really has changed.
Gong Ji-hoo had been a person of interest. That meant the club had thoroughly analyzed every scrap of information on him. The Gong Ji-hoo they had known in the past was a player with no confidence in himself. They had assumed that was—
The reason he couldn’t produce in the first team…
So they had even drawn up plans to rebuild his confidence just in case they ever acquired him. But—
He fixed himself on his own.
Web novel serialization, was it? The Rhinos’ GM, as a senior figure in the baseball world, found it quietly admirable that Gong Ji-hoo had resolved his mental issues in such an unheard-of way. And then—
“Oh, you got here first.”
Dong Sang-guk, the Rhinos’ new skipper, felt that same fondness even more strongly than the GM did.
“Hello, Manager Dong. It’s been a while.”
“Hahaha! Gong Ji-hoo! Having you join my ranks feels like gaining a thousand troops and ten thousand horses! Think of me as your father!”
“Uh…”
“Hmm… Did I go too far? Maybe you don’t know the Three Kingdoms well…”
“No… I got interested a while back and read it.”
Gong Ji-hoo, nicknamed Yeopo. A manager with the surname Dong. A high-quality Three Kingdoms gag built on that.
“Pffft! Hahaha!”
The only one who actually laughed was the general manager.
The GM’s laughter eased the slightly awkward atmosphere.
Thank god…
Both of these men could make or break my career. It was impossible not to be tense.
“Mm… Relax. You think we’re going to eat you?”
“Yes. I think both of you are good people.”
“Good, good.”
Still, the reason I hadn’t reacted to Dong Sang-guk’s joke wasn’t really nerves.
I just hate Lü Bu, that’s all.
Lü Bu. I knew the name had become a casual expression by now. But—
When I actually read the Three Kingdoms, I realized there aren’t many characters that pathetic…
That was before the regression, of course. Three Kingdoms stories had suddenly flooded the web novel scene, so I figured I’d try writing one and read the source. Given that I’d been stuck with the nickname Minor League Yeopo, obsessing over Lü Bu had been only natural.
Even overlooking the three different fathers, the guy ends up defeated and begging for his life before he dies.
For someone called the God of War, he was pretty lame.
Anyway.
“Ahem. The reason I called you here is simple, Ji-hoo.”
Time to focus on the conversation with the higher-ups.
“I’m listening.”
“Is there… anything you want?”
The way Manager Dong Sang-guk and the Rhinos organization treated me was like they were dealing with the best player in the league. Every effort to make things convenient. In that case—
“There is.”
No reason for me to hold back either.
“Third base. I’d like to give it a shot.”
Right now the Rhinos had no clear starter at third. That was why, during the off-season, on top of reworking my swing, I had poured serious work into third-base defense as well.
A new team. A new season. Another move on the board.
“Ugh…”
It was lucky I’d played infield before the regression. Muscle memory doesn’t disappear easily. Still—
“That’s good enough to pass. You worked hard.”
The defensive coach I’d met through a coaching connection. Getting a pass from that picky guy had been brutal. Without the work I’d put in before regressing, adapting to infield defense in just a month or two would’ve been impossible. Of course, earning the club’s recognition was a separate matter.
“You fall asleep?”
“I didn’t sleep. Just revisiting some memories.”
“What’s with the sentimental act… Oh right, you’re a writer.”
Mm-hmm. So this was a writer’s sensibility.
Kang Ho-san, impressed, clapped me on the shoulder.
“We’re here. Japan.”
“Oh…”
A new beginning.
“LiveBetting! I want to go up against senior Gong Ji-hoo!”
What the hell is this. Rookie hazing?