Out of Spite
Song Han-su’s three-run homer.
It was a good thing.
The lead had stretched to four runs. Song Han-su, who until moments ago had looked ready to be carried out on a golden stretcher by the fans, had come back to life.
“Yes!”
Manager Dong Sang-guk, who had kept penciling Song Han-su in as the designated hitter, was thrilled.
—Waaaaaah!!
So were the fans who, only yesterday, had been wistfully remembering the glory days and fretting over his slump.
Everyone was happy.
Ah… I’m screwed.
Of course I was happy too. It felt like I’d helped, even a little, with Song Han-su’s swing coming around. But still.
—“No one expects anything from you, senior.”
My mouth had run away with me. Who the hell had said something that ugly?
Me, that’s who.
Song Han-su smoothed his mussed hair and kept sneaking glances my way. I hadn’t realized it before, but the old man had a surprisingly loose tongue.
—“Hey… Ji-hoo. You’re something else. You coached Song Han-su senior too?”
That was the first thing Kang Ho-san said the moment I walked into the ballpark today.
—“Come on, Song Han-su senior! Why didn’t you ask me? The next Rhinos franchise star after you is right here!”
I could hear Jang Tae-wook chirping at Song Han-su from the side as well.
—“…Ji-hoo? Teach me a little later too.”
Jang Tae-wook even came to me with that later on. Of course I wasn’t going to.
How annoying.
Annoying, and also because there was nothing useful I could tell him about his swing. I wasn’t some professionally trained coach. Jang Tae-wook was already refining a finished product of his own. What was I supposed to say? Even my own swing had been completed with expert help.
With Song Han-su senior, though…
That had been closer to a mental issue—my actual specialty—so I’d been able to offer advice. In other words, yesterday’s meeting with Song Han-su hadn’t been Gong Ji-hoo’s Hitting School. It had been Gong Ji-hoo’s Counseling Office.
—“Nobody’s looking for you to play the closer role, senior.”
Words have weight. The ones you can’t back up eventually come right back around and sit on your shoulders. That was me right now.
“Hey. Why’s your face so long?”
“…It’s heavy.”
“What is? Ghost riding your shoulder or something?”
“The stuff I said yesterday is too heavy…”
“…Pfft.”
What was this? Had Song Han-su senior really leaked every word of yesterday’s conversation?
“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but it’s definitely not that.”
“…You sure?”
Come to think of it, Kang Ho-san just laughed a lot in general.
Haa…
—“Leave the closer work to kids like me or Garcia.”
Anyway. I’d big-timed it and declared I’d handle the closer role myself. At the very least, I needed more RBIs than Song Han-su today.
“What, Ji-hoo, you want a banana too?”
Garcia was already peeling one after the first inning, claiming he was hungry. He’d take care of himself just fine.
Contrary to Gong Ji-hoo’s assumptions, Song Han-su was not the loose-lipped type.
So how had yesterday’s conversation spread not only among the players but all the way into the communities?
The answer was simple.
A tip from one of those Swallows fans you can find anywhere in Korea had been the source.
Surprisingly, yesterday’s conversation had been relayed mostly accurately and without much distortion. In no time it became an issue not only in the Rhinos community but also in the Wizards community—Gong Ji-hoo’s former team—and even among players who browsed the boards, like Jang Tae-wook.
Gong Ji-hoo had come within a hair of looking like a rude kid mouthing off to a senior. Thanks to the honest relay from a Swallows fan who was basically a dark Gong Ji-hoo stan, he instead came off as a good junior who didn’t shy away from hard truths for his senior’s sake.
The only problem was that Gong Ji-hoo, who rarely checked the communities, knew none of this. He simply kept thinking Song Han-su had a big mouth.
Last year, the Daegu Rhinos’ clubhouse atmosphere had been excellent—or so I’d been told.
Final standing: fifth. Even though they’d been locked in a knife-edge race right up to the end of the regular season, the dugout had always been full of laughter and fire.
It wasn’t just Jang Tae-wook, who you had to take with a grain of salt on anything Rhinos-related. Most of the roster said the same thing.
That stood in contrast to the Suwon Wizards, who’d finished second in the regular season but whose vibe had soured from constant starter absences. Of course, the Wizards’ atmosphere was also secondhand information. After all—
I was the guy who only got called up to the first team at the tail end because of those absences.
Anyway. Last year’s good Rhinos atmosphere hadn’t come from being thrilled just to fight for fifth, or from some regressor-style pure love of the game.
A team that didn’t look easy to beat. That was last year’s Rhinos, people said. Even in defeat they showed fierce baseball.
So everyone played with passion, and the clubhouse mood naturally stayed high.
And this year? After casually ignoring the experts who’d predicted a Rhinos slump before the season, the team was riding an eight-game win streak. The current atmosphere?
Peak. No need to say more.
Last year’s hard-to-beat team had become this year’s impossible-to-beat team.
Even against the Changwon Gamers—who’d been locked in that same late-season dogfight last year—the Rhinos had walked in already certain of the win.
Daegu Rhinos 4 : 0 Changwon Gamers
The scoreboard made it clear that certainty hadn’t been misplaced. And with even the slumping Song Han-su revived, Rhinos Park in the bottom of the fifth was pure bedlam.
“Haa… so you’ve already decided the game’s over, huh?”
Standing in for my third at-bat, I caught the Gamers catcher Jang Seo-yul muttering to himself and—
Pfft.
—let out a laugh.
“Laughing? You’re laughing? You little shit with no manners.”
“Ah… sorry.”
Rough talk laced with raw curses. Jang Seo-yul looked every bit the true thug, but—
—“Seo-yul? That kid talks rough but he’s super sensitive. Most thin-skinned about hate comments out of all of us. He’s even cried after drinking.”
Remembering what Kang Ho-san, captain of the table-tennis-hall hate-catcher club, had said made him seem almost cute.
“Huu… Kim Jae-sang too, why are all you guys so annoying.”
“Not all of us, right? Ji-han’s nice.”
That was true.
“That’s not what I— …forget it.”
I side-eyed Jang Seo-yul as he started exchanging signs with the pitcher, then took a deep breath.
First at-bat: double. Second at-bat: a ridiculous infield fly.
Not because of bad luck. Not because the pitcher’s stuff was filthy. Just because I’d been stupid.
I’d fixated too hard on outperforming Song Han-su, swung with every muscle locked up, and the ball never even left the infield.
It was such a brain-dead swing that the second I got back to the dugout I slapped both cheeks with my palms. Stung like hell, but it cleared my head.
Thwack!!
“Ball.”
Left-handed pitcher. A foreign arm whose putaway pitch was the sweeper—a pitch I’d first seen last year.
Thwack!!
“Ball.”
No runners on. One out.
“Haa… just standing there dumb so you can walk? You, the one who said you’d be the closer or whatever?”
“Huh? How’d you know?”
Song Han-su really was—
“Don’t ‘how’d you know’ me. Kid who’s shown nothing yet, lungs full of hot air.”
“Heh…”
Kang Ho-san had said this about Jang Seo-yul:
—“Basically my spiritual successor. Still, the trash talk’s too clumsy. Just…”
“Cursing alone won’t break a hitter’s focus.”
“What?”
“Big bro Ho-san told me to pass that along.”
“…”
“Said you’re still a long way from matching him, or something.”
“Shut up.”
I could feel his eyes flicking over to me. Kang Ho-san’s “sensitive” comment had been spot-on. And then—
Third pitch.
Whoooosh!!
Sweeper again. Three straight sweepers. Probably sky-high confidence in his putaway pitch. The sweeper’s reputation had been that lofty once. But—
A sweeper wasn’t some magic pitch. Even the guy who’d started the Major League sweeper craze had eventually gotten lit up by it plenty.
And I had experience last year against a pitcher whose main weapon was the sweeper.
CRAAACK!!!
Today’s special rival, Song Han-su, had managed a barely-scraping Lapark-run.
Mine was a Lapark-run that left the park entirely.
The ball soared without dropping, cleared the stadium, and became a streak of light.
.
.
.
“Mmm~ Hansu senior’s got three RBIs, you’ve got two, right? Still a master worse than his disciple?”
“…”
CRAAACK!!!
Fuck.
I hit another one out of spite.
A team that felt impossible to beat—exactly as Gong Ji-hoo had put it.
Since Opening Day the Daegu Rhinos had not lost once. They completed a nine-game win streak.
KBO’s record for longest winning streak to open a season: ten. One more win, and they would match the historic mark the Daegu Rhinos themselves had once set.