It Wasn't
Song Han-su could sum up his condition in a single word.
It was perfect.
Of course it was. He was a twenty-year veteran of the game. He had not prepared for the season so carelessly that something would go wrong less than a week after Opening Day.
But.
Song Han-su’s current batting average sat at .080. Two hits. Both of them singles. He was in the best physical shape of his life, and yet the numbers were catastrophic.
He had no desire to read the comments. He simply happened to see them.
“Tsk…”
Has-been. That was probably the most accurate word for Song Han-su right now. Once upon a time, as a young player, he had looked at seniors far older than himself and wondered, Why don’t they just retire? Now he was old enough to understand exactly how those seniors had felt.
Ha… If only we hadn’t made the postseason last year.
There would have been no lingering attachment. And yet the regret was real. Some people might snort and ask what there was to regret about a wild-card berth, but the regret was genuine. Every player on the Rhinos had truly believed they could climb higher. Maybe—just maybe—they could become the first fifth-place team in KBO history to reach the semi-playoffs. That was what they had thought.
Reality had been cold. An overwhelming defeat. And so the attachment was born.
“Just one more year.”
His old teammate Han Seong-gon of the Irons was also coming back for one more season. Song Han-su still hit better than that guy. Oh Jin-muk would probably stay in Korea at least another year. And then there was the news that Manager Dong Sang-guk of the Wolves was taking over the Rhinos, that some young starter in the second team was throwing lights-out, that Korean Series MVP Gong Ji-hoo was about to be traded in.
Plenty of reasons. All of them excuses. The honest reason was simpler.
My last game cannot end like that—limp and powerless.
And then:
The team was flying. Only Song Han-su himself was crawling on the floor. His body felt perfect. He could see the opposing battery’s intentions as clearly as if they were written on the wall. And still he could not hit.
Reality was not the martial-arts novels he loved to read. There was no bone-and-muscle rebirth, no return to youth. Age had worn the body down; that much was inevitable. But it was still a terrible thing—especially with the team winning every night. Maybe there was no longer a place for him on the Rhinos. The gloomy thought kept circling.
That was why the proud Song Han-su finally decided to ask someone for advice. He refused to retire like this—helpless.
Choosing whom to ask was easy. The Rhinos currently employed the best hitter in the KBO.
Gong Ji-hoo.
The outfielder who had claimed Korean Series MVP with the Suwon Wizards had become the heart of the Daegu Rhinos’ lineup at third base. He had worn the Rhinos uniform for fewer than ten games, yet people already called him Song Han-su’s successor—or Song Han-su’s upgraded version.
Before defense became a real problem in the 2024 season, it had been impossible to imagine anyone but Song Han-su manning third for the Daegu Rhinos. The same had been true of the bat. The Rhinos’ cleanup man had always been Song Han-su. Kang Ho-san? Great numbers for a catcher, sure, but still a clear step below. Gong Ji-hoo, however, was a hitter even Song Han-su had to nod at. This was no flash-in-the-pan talent. Song Han-su had watched him from spring training and reached that conclusion early.
So the only person who might offer even a sliver of a solution to this stifling situation was Gong Ji-hoo. Not merely because the kid was putting up absurd numbers. They were not yet close enough for Ji-hoo to soft-pedal the truth, and more importantly, Ji-hoo had climbed up from the very bottom. He claimed his breakout came from solving a mental block, but was that really the whole story? He must have thought deeply about hitting and then adapted those thoughts to his own body. Song Han-su had even heard that Ji-hoo had overhauled his swing in the off-season after sensing problems. Gong Ji-hoo was the kind of smart hitter who had stockpiled real knowledge of hitting theory. No wonder the kid also wrote novels.
“Hitting? I just match the trajectory. If it’s a breaking ball I swing to the breaking-ball path; if it’s a fastball I swing to the fastball path…?”
It wasn’t.
“Ji-hoo, what do you want to drink?”
“I’ll take an iced americano.”
Song Han-su shook his head the moment Ji-hoo reached for his wallet.
“No need. I’ve got it. If we go Dutch here, I’m the only one who gets roasted.”
“Thank you.”
Gong Ji-hoo never refused free coffee.
Click. The moment the cups hit the table, Song Han-su started in.
“There’s something I’ve been wondering…”
Ji-hoo answered without even tasting his drink.
“Hitting? I just match the trajectory. If it’s a breaking ball I swing to the breaking-ball path; if it’s a fastball I swing to the fastball path…?”
Song Han-su’s face crumbled. Clearly not the answer he had hoped for.
“So it wasn’t that you fixed your swing with some scientific hitting theory and the numbers jumped?”
Hmm.
“I’m more the type who doesn’t get along with science…”
I don’t know any of that stuff.
“Ah…”
Song Han-su let out a hollow sigh.
Scientific hitting, huh…
“My friend’s the expert on that side of things. Want me to ask him?”
“Who? Kim Jae-sang?”
How did he know? Was it that famous that I barely have any friends?
“Forget it. That kid isn’t even on our team…”
“Yes, sir.”
Slurp. As expected, the best coffee in the world is the one someone else buys.
“Then what do you think is the real problem with me right now?”
Song Han-su pressed on.
Condition perfect, pitch recognition perfect, still can’t hit the ball?
He had looked fine in intersquad and exhibition games.
“Um…”
“Hard to answer, right? Sorry for dragging you out for nothing…”
“Senior.”
Hope I don’t get slapped for this.
“Nobody expects anything from you, Senior.”
Still, it was something he absolutely had to say.
“What did you just say?”
“I mean nobody is looking for you to be the hero.”
“….”
The expression hovered somewhere between anger and sheer disbelief. Ji-hoo hurried on.
“Even if you don’t hit for power or drive in runs, people will still go crazy for every single swing you take. That’s what I’m saying.”
This season Song Han-su was swinging for the fences far too hard.
“I’m the five-hole. What’s the point of a cleanup hitter who can’t hit for power?”
“Stop thinking of the five-hole as ‘cleanup’ and just think of it as the guy who hits fifth. It’s easier that way.”
He had said it more than once already. In modern baseball the value of the traditional cleanup spot had dropped. The best hitters were increasingly batting first or second. That meant the old “cleanup” label no longer carried much weight. Some teams even stuck a .300/.300/.300 ttuk-ttak-i in the four-hole.
“….”
“You just need to get on base, Senior. Leave the heroics to kids like me and Garcia.”
Song Han-su had always been a right-handed power bat. Even if he suddenly turned into a pure contact hitter this year, the fans would not boo him. That was only natural. Even the greatest players lose athletic ability with age. And besides—
“And if they do complain, so what? You’re Song Han-su.”
The Rhinos’ Song Han-su was the kind of player who could still pull the “look how much he’s done for us” card. Every glorious moment in franchise history had featured cleanup man Song Han-su delivering.
“You really think so…?”
“Yes.”
Truthfully the Rhinos still needed Song Han-su’s power. But in the end this was a mental issue. The Song Han-su of today looked exactly like the pre-regression Gong Ji-hoo—trapped by the gap between fan expectations, his own expectations, and cold reality, slowly eating himself alive.
That’s why no matter how good he feels, he can’t hit.
He was forcing bigger swings just to look like the old right-handed power hero. In the past pure physical talent had still produced results even with those big swings. At nearly forty, that was no longer possible. Song Han-su surely knew it; he was a twenty-year veteran. But once impatience takes hold, a man will keep doing the wrong thing even while knowing it is wrong.
So Ji-hoo made his voice deliberately firm.
If he just swings easy he can still hit double-digit home runs…
Song Han-su still had that kind of bat.
“….”
Slurp. Ji-hoo drained the last of his iced americano while watching Song Han-su’s face cycle through expression after expression.
Well. I hope I said the right thing.
Gamers, Game One. Bottom of the first.
“Hoo…”
Song Han-su stepped into the box, took a deep breath, and settled his mind. Runners on the corners. The man on third was Gong Ji-hoo, who had already plated the first run with an RBI double. The man on first was Garcia, who had punched a short single.
Leave it to me and Garcia, he said…
Ji-hoo had kept his word from yesterday. Still—
What a cheeky little bastard.
Surprisingly, Gong Ji-hoo was not a gifted talker. No wonder every interview turned into a minor disaster.
But he’s a good kid, too.
Even while delivering sharp words he kept glancing at Song Han-su’s face for permission; that alone kept the anger from rising. The intent behind the words had been clear. Still—
“Even so, that was a little much.”
“Sir…?”
“Ah. Nothing. Seo-yul.”
“Got it.”
Just match the trajectory? Gong Ji-hoo’s hitting theory was about as useful as telling a pitcher he had to keep a sub-1.00 ERA through fifty innings just to protect his stats—something only he could do, pure nonsense to everyone else. But the advice that followed—“Nobody expects you to be the hero”—had actually eased Song Han-su’s mind. Because Ji-hoo had been right.
Even without extra-base hits, the fans still loved Song Han-su. After all, Song Han-su was Song Han-su.
CRACK!!!
The light, compact swing he produced with a free mind caught the already-wobbly first-inning pitch clean and true.
HOMERUN!!
Huh?
As if cheerfully betraying the belief that he could no longer hit for power without swinging out of his shoes, the ball cleared the left-field wall. It barely made it over the fence at Rhinos Park, but a home run was a home run.
WAAAAAH!!
The three-run shot that announced Song Han-su’s return sent the crowd into a frenzy. A swell of emotion rose in his chest as he rounded the bases at an unhurried pace, fist raised. At home plate he reached the waiting runners and, with a touch of lingering spite, roughly ruffled the hair of the man who had been on third—Gong Ji-hoo. The words had been well-meant, but they had still stung.
“Aaagh! Senior!”
“Nobody expects anything from me? I’m Song Han-su.”
“Ow! I’m sorry!”
Of course—
“…You’re not going to get greedy again, right, Senior?”
Just because the ball had luckily cleared the wall did not mean the swing would suddenly grow big again.
“As if. I’m swinging free and easy. You kids are the ones who do the hero stuff, remember?”
The worry disguised as a lesson from his young teacher had already been carved deep into the old student’s mind.