They Couldn't Even Win
Inside the studio Park Beomjun had just left, Kim Sehee stared endlessly at the empty space where he'd been standing, an oh-crap look frozen on her face.
A last-place team had talked trash, and she'd lost her temper. That was how seriously Kim Sehee took the Bears.
She thought about going after him to calm him down, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. After roasting him like that, what was she supposed to say to make it better?
That next season was something to look forward to? That a young pitcher throwing well meant the team's future was bright? That the lineup looked like it was coming alive, so maybe they'd climb out of the cellar? Every one of those lines would have been nothing but another twist of the knife.
Kim Sehee stood there stuck, her face a picture of helpless awkwardness, able to neither go after him nor let it go.
"Ah… did I go too far?"
She muttered it like a self-reproach. Gwak Hyeona heard her and answered.
"A little, yes."
"Ah… you think so?"
"I quit being an Eagles fan over two years ago, and even I was hurting listening to that."
"Ah—!"
Kim Sehee panicked. She'd thought she'd hit one person. Without meaning to, she'd landed a blow on two at the same time. She had never in her wildest dreams known that Gwak Hyeona was an Eagles fan. The woman had never shown the slightest interest in baseball.
"I—I'm sorry…"
"It's fine. Really. Everything you said was true."
"R-right?"
"But for an Eagles fan, the facts are what hurt the most."
"Nngh."
She'd thought she was being comforted. Instead her head only got more tangled. The guilt of having wounded a fragile, tender-hearted Eagles fan sat in her chest, and it made this Bears fan — whose team was fighting for the top of the standings while the Eagles scrambled just to cling to a .300 winning percentage in last place — deeply uncomfortable.
As a Bears fan, all she'd done was punish an Eagles fan for trash-talking the Bears. She had to admit, though, that she'd gone too far. She really shouldn't have asked whether they even counted as a professional baseball team.
Kim Sehee pictured Park Beomjun trudging back to his room, and asked Gwak Hyeona,
"Do you think Oppa Beomjun's really mad?"
"Hard to say. Watching him yesterday, he was cheering for the Eagles with everything he had. Even if he isn't angry, I imagine he feels pretty bitter."
"Augh. What do I do?"
Kim Sehee stamped her feet in place. Should she go apologize right now? But would an apology be anything more than stabbing him and then handing him a bandage? And they were the ones who'd started the trash talk in the first place.
She was still stuck, able to neither move nor stay, when Gwak Hyeona opened her mouth.
"How about this?"
Back in my room, I collapsed onto the bed.
Kim Sehee…… I had no idea she could be that terrifying. To tear into the last-place Eagles like that while her own team sat in the upper ranks. It was no different from insulting five million Eagles fans.
It burned. Why did the Eagles spend every single year wandering the bottom of the standings? If their winning percentage had been anywhere close to .400, I wouldn't have had to suffer this kind of humiliation. Today, of all days, I hated the Eagles.
Still. Today had been a blowout win. I would have to take that as my consolation.
I turned on my phone, hoping to heal the wound Kim Sehee had left. I wanted to see the eagle shredding the bear to pieces with its talons.
And then.
"What the hell!"
The bear's claws were raking down the eagle's body.
"No way."
The score had been hunted all the way to our throats. Four runs in the eighth, three in the ninth — they were sitting in a spot where a tie, even a lead change, was on the table.
No. This could not be happening. I'd just gotten my ass handed to me in that studio. If you guys got yours handed to you too, what was I supposed to do with that? If you were going to lose, you should have been losing from the start. You put up eight runs, made it look like the thing was over, and now you were about to cough up the lead? The hole you'd feel after letting a win that was already in the bag slip away was not something you could put into words.
I clasped my hands and prayed, and I watched.
Maybe the prayer got through. Nobody out, runners on first and second — then a double play, two outs, runner on third. One more out and the win was ours. From an eight-run lead down to a one-run game. Even if they held on, it would be a victory made of nothing but scars. But a win was a win.
"Please……"
A strikeout, a grounder, a fly ball. Anything. Just one more out.
The pitcher wound up. The ball left his hand.
Whoosh—
The hitter swung.
CRACK!
The ball came off the bat and climbed into the sky.
"Please be a fly. A fly."
"Yay. Fucking hell."
Was this even a team? You scored eight runs, seized all the momentum, and then you let them walk it off? Was this for real, or was this a joke?
The Eagles had not disappointed anyone. They had delivered, on schedule, the exact defeat everyone had seen coming.
Nam Ji-yeon, in her second year as a pro, had thrown a start nobody expected — seven scoreless innings — and then the bullpen had tripped over its own feet and thrown the win in the trash.
The phone screen cut to Nam Ji-yeon's face, staring blankly out at the field. The shot faded out, then switched to the Bears players dumping a Gatorade bath on the woman who'd hit the walk-off. The contrast in the two atmospheres made even me go quiet.
Loss after loss. With tonight's game, the Eagles had proven exactly what level of team they were. Kim Sehee had a point. It might be time to start wondering whether they even counted as a professional baseball team.
The next morning, I did not forget. I slept in my pants. And sure enough, I made breakfast in my pants.
The second Gwak Hyeona saw me, she asked,
"You're wearing them today?"
I told her I was. Only then did she come over to get her water.
After breakfast I was in my room watching YouTube when Choi Yeram showed up.
"Yo!"
"Hey."
"What're you doing?"
"Just watching YouTube."
"Watching what?"
Choi Yeram came closer. I turned the phone screen toward her.
History here had only swapped the genders. Everything else was the same as what I already knew, so I could watch without losing the thread.
"You're into this? History, wars, that kind of thing?"
"Yeah. Lately this stuff's been fun."
I used to watch a lot of idol content and game-stream highlight edits. These days, documentaries and history videos like this were what held my attention. I still kept up with the YouTubers I'd always watched, but even those had started to pile up unwatched. Documentaries were the meta now. Documentaries.
"It's unusual for a guy to be into this kind of thing. You're a weird one."
"I was never exactly ordinary."
"True. You did go to the military, so yeah — not ordinary."
Choi Yeram nodded. I paused the video and turned the screen off, set the phone down on the desk, and made a space where I could actually focus on the conversation. I looked at her and asked,
"What's up?"
"Ah, I had something to tell you."
She cleared her throat once and went on.
"The video we shot — episode one should go up around tomorrow."
"Already? That's fast."
"Yeah. It is fast. If it weren't for the suspension, we could've taken our time with it."
Wait—what?
And that was my fault? Blind-sided, I stared at Choi Yeram with a look of pure stupidity on my face. She kept talking as if she hadn't just landed that hit.
"You stopped by the studio last night, right?"
"Yeah. I did."
"Did you see everyone passed out from exhaustion? Besides Hyeona and Sehee, nobody even knew you'd come by."
So they'd been running themselves into the ground trying to finish the video in a hurry. That was why they'd ordered coffee. I'd just assumed they were swamped with work and had all collapsed. I had no idea there was a story sitting underneath it.
The channel was suspended, they had nothing to upload to YouTube, and so they'd been rushing to cut the video we'd shot. The fallout was mine. I felt terrible. Especially because every one of them had been nothing but kind to me, without a single complaint about how hard things were. I hadn't even realized they were struggling. I'd just thought they had no stamina because they didn't work out.
I spoke carefully, my face gone solemn.
"I'm sorry. Because of me……"
"Huh? No, no! Don't do that. I was kidding!"
The second I apologized, Choi Yeram panicked and waved her hands. I'd already figured it was a joke from her tone. But they had worked themselves ragged, hadn't they? I'd seen it with my own two eyes last night. I couldn't just laugh that off.
"I'm seriously kidding, okay? You don't have to make that sorry face."
"You still worked hard, though."
"Well, yeah, but… no! We did not work hard! Do you have any idea how much the food you cook for us helps?! Huh! The kids say they look forward to mealtime even in the middle of a shift!"
"Really?"
"Yeah, yeah! For real. Maybe it's because they eat well, but they've been working like crazy!"
That last part was probably a lie. Good food was good food. It didn't magically make anyone work harder. I could tell she was saying it to soothe me.
"Then that's a relief."
"Yeah. I was really just kidding, so you don't have to feel bad. They're getting paid what they're owed for the work they do."
Hearing her put it that way, I could let out a breath. Joke or not, her words had kept pulling up last night's mass-collapse scene, and it had sat wrong in my chest. Choi Yeram talking me down made a little of that unease go away.
They'd still worked hard, though. I should buy them something to eat. With my own money.
"Anyway, the video should go up around tomorrow evening."
"Got it."
"And we might do an outdoor shoot tomorrow night."
"An outdoor shoot?"
"Yeah. I heard from Sehee that you're an Eagles fan. I looked it up, and the Eagles have a road game in Incheon. I was thinking we could film a ballpark date while we're there. It's in the planning stages."
"Oh. For real?"
A ballpark. The last time I'd been to one was in high school. After graduation I'd been in the army, and after discharge my friends had been in the army, so I'd never made it back. It had been a long, long time since I'd watched a game in person. The thought of going to a stadium again after all these years sent a little thrill through me.
"So I'm probably going to be busy coordinating the schedule, and…"
And? I looked at Choi Yeram, waiting for her to finish the sentence.
"I might not be able to make it to the gym today…?"
"Huh?"
Why wouldn't she be able to go to the gym? I didn't get it, so I asked her.
"You're so busy you can't even spare an hour?"
"No, well. It's not that bad. It's just, when you're making calls all over the place, you never know when someone's going to get back to you, so……"
"Do you really have to do all of that yourself?"
"Hyeona could do it, but……"
"Let's go work out."
"……Okay."
Trying to skip the gym. This was because Choi Yeram still hadn't tasted what working out was really about. Once she learned the way Kim Sehee had, she'd make time for the gym no matter what else was going on.
Three days left. Five, counting today. I made up my mind: before that window closed, I was going to make sure she learned what working out really tasted like.
"I'll get going…"
"Yeah. Get lots of work done."
"Yeah……"
Choi Yeram left the room with heavy steps.
Day three of the We Got Married content with Choi Yeram.