I’ve spent a life full of embarrassment.
My life before becoming a kayak was so bleak that such words truly fit.
I questioned why I continued to live, why I carried on with my life.
Daily life was dry to the point of being monotonous, and except for the Abyss, I had no hobbies at all.
Work, home, food, sleep, Abyss. My life’s routine was roughly like this.
Back then, I was so parched that I didn’t even realize what was wrong; now that I think about it, I wonder how I managed to live like that.
They say a goat that has tasted meat will never go back to eating grass.
That saying is true. Having tasted so much meat, I can never return to those times.
Saying this feels like a scene from a steamy manga.
Like a heroine in a comic crying out that she can never go back to the way things were—it’s like I’m making a risqué statement.
Indeed, thinking this way naturally shows I’ve been influenced by the viewers.
Just as I’ve influenced them through my broadcasts, I’ve been equally influenced by them.
However, what I said earlier is true. I don’t want to go back to those times.
The nightmares I occasionally have are mostly similar.
I wake up to find that everything I did as a kayak was just a dream, and I’m a man in his late twenties in a world where the Abyss has collapsed. That’s my nightmare.
Chased by ghosts or thieves, or experiencing a zombie apocalypse? Those things don’t even come close to my concept of a nightmare. Honestly, they aren’t even that scary.
In any case, the conclusion is that I cherish my current life and do my best so that I don’t have regrets.
It’s the same conclusion I reached when confronting my past life in the mysterious cave. To keep that mindset alive, I’ve been living diligently without an ounce of embarrassment.
It’s the same now. I was practicing for the pitch I’d throw next week.
Whoosh—
The ball shot off my hand, cutting the air at high speed.
As it sliced through the air, it was suddenly intercepted with a thud by someone’s glove.
“Um, Boss.”
“Yes?”
“Couldn’t you get someone else? I don’t even know how to play baseball….”
The owner of the glove said with an anxious face, clearly lacking confidence. His name was Kim Jae-jun, and he was currently playing catch with me in an open area.
“Ah, what does knowing baseball have to do with it? It’s just catch.”
“But… but….”
“And if not you, who else am I going to play catch with? I don’t know anyone else.”
Jae-jun rolled his eyes and suggested candidates.
“Um… Taker maybe.”
“Honestly, I think you’d do better than Taker. I saw their athletic skills last time; they were completely awful.”
“Mr. Jae-jun could do it better. I saw him last time, his athletic skills were totally terrible, though.”
“What about Yusia or Riri?”
“Come on, both of them are women. Jae-jun is a much better match.”
“…What about Juhwan Lim?”
“He’s busy. The gym is far away. It’d be weird to suddenly drop by and ask him to play catch.”
“Ugh….”
Jae-jun was coming up with quite a few candidates, but they were all shot down. Si Hyun, unable to take it anymore, clicked her tongue and said.
“Uncle, are you a coward? Just do it. Are you really going to die or something?”
“…I really could die. You might have to live without your uncle.”
“…Really?”
At Jae-jun’s serious reaction, Si Hyun’s pure, childlike eyes widened like a rabbit’s. I slapped Jae-jun’s back hard.
“Ouch!”
“You have no shame in front of the kid. Dying? What are you talking about!”
Saying that the uncle could die in front of a little nephew without parents is just ridiculous. Is he even thinking before he speaks?
Of course, they were close enough to joke around like that, but I kind of started to understand why Jae-jun’s mother, Mrs. Park Bok-ja, treated him like that when I saw her before.
“No, it’s a sport that carries that much risk. This… catch ball thing.”
“Catch ball is dangerous?”
Every weekend, children playing catch with their dads at the playground look so wholesome to me. Were they all risking their lives for catch ball?
“More precisely, it’s dangerous when playing catch with Kayak… Sorry, that was a slip of the tongue.”
“Seriously, I must be way too comfortable now. Right, Jae-jun?”
Back then, he couldn’t even make eye contact and stuttered through every word like a robot, ending conversations as fast as possible. Now, he’s cracking jokes first.
Has it really been nearly three years since we started working together?
With that much time, he must have gotten used to me quite a bit. Well, unless personalities clash terribly, spending time together naturally brings people closer.
“I’ll just throw a few more to get the hang of it. After all, it’s not that important for the first pitch to be perfect. I’m not that eager to throw well, anyway.”
“Sure.”
“Go, Uncle!”
On this sunny summer day, Jae-jun and I tossed the ball back and forth.
*
“…Be careful of the women pitching?”
Kim Yong-ha, the catcher for Olivers, heard a bizarre story from the morning.
-Yeah, that woman is totally a gorilla… no, a monster! I had a run-in with her in Itaewon before.-
To sum up the babbling tale, it went like this: today’s female pitcher, Kayak, got into a spat in an Itaewon bar and dominated him completely.
She was incredibly strong. When she grabbed my wrist, I thought it would snap off.
-I had a bruise on my wrist that didn’t go away for a week! I couldn’t even move my wrist. I couldn’t go to the hospital because I had no money, and I seriously thought I was going to die!
“I’ve had this bruise for a week, and it won’t go away! My wrist is all stiff, and I thought I was dying because I can’t even afford a hospital!”
“…Are you still like this? How many times do I have to tell you not to go around like that when you drink?”
It was a call that came in the morning. A relative I had a decent relationship with since childhood, but once we became adults, we somehow didn’t click, and I started keeping my distance.
“Bet he drank again and picked a fight or something.”
It was a no-brainer. Yong-ha’s relative had done this more than once.
A real repeat offender. He was such a problem at home that my uncle was constantly worried.
I was certain that he’d gotten into some sort of trouble with a woman named Kayak because he must’ve instigated something first.
This kind of nonsense from a relative who would call out of the blue was just pitiful.
Whether or not he really had a broken wrist or got taken down by one hand was beside the point.
– “So, Kim Yong-ha, after the game, about that woman—”
“Uh, got it. I’ll be careful. I have to head out soon, so I’m hanging up.”
– “Wait, no, hang on—!”
Tsk, tsk, Yong-ha shook his head and clicked his tongue. Maybe it was time to stop associating with him. One would think after all this time, he would show some signs of change.
…
That was the memory from this morning. And now, it was about 5:30 PM.
“…”
Yong-ha stared silently at the woman, Kayak, warming up on the mound.
‘Definitely…’
She was different. It wasn’t for nothing that he warned me; she had a presence unlike the previous pitchers… a kind of ominous air?
Being around her gave off a special vibe.
“Yong-ha, what are you staring at?”
“…Just something that caught my attention.”
“What? Is she your type? You’ve got high standards. Ask for her number after the game!”
Yong-ha shook his head in response.
“No, it’s not like that. I’m just curious if she can actually throw since she’s warming up. She looks like she’s done some exercise.”
His teammate replied with an exaggerated tone.
“Oh come on. She probably has done some exercise, right? Her physique is pretty balanced. If she’s pitching, she seems to think she can handle it.”
But—
“Just because you work out doesn’t mean you can throw the ball well, right? Baseball isn’t something anyone can just pick up. She’s not a former pro or anything like that.”
“Hmm.”
It was a sound argument. Only then did Yong-ha feel like the anxiety that had been lingering in his mind began to lift. He hadn’t realized he had been swept away by that strange call he received this morning.
As soon as that happened, it felt like the anxiety that had been swirling in my head dissipated. I had unknowingly gotten swept up by that strange phone call I received in the morning.
“Yeah, what are you even being cautious about?”
Focus on the game, not the opening pitch. Today is an important match.
“Anyway, good luck with the opening pitch, see you later.”
“Sure.”
As the team member went inside, a staffer in front signaled. It was time to start the opening pitch.
With a catcher’s mask on, Yongha was waiting for the batter holding a bat. Kayak bowed to greet them and finally took her pitching stance.
She raised her long leg until her knee almost touched her diaphragm before bringing it back down to the ground.
As she did, her other leg spread apart, her shoulder opened up, and the hand holding the ball went back before swiftly darting forward.
For a moment, I was impressed by her stance, which could rival that of a professional baseball player, but soon I realized the ball had left her hand, and Yongha’s eyes widened.
“What the—.”
Whoosh!
Yongha, tense from that unusual pitching form, focused on the movement of the incoming ball.
It came right down the center of the strike zone, a perfectly honest fastball. But perhaps it was the speed that threw everything off.
Pffft—
Not only did the batter fail to react, but even the catcher Yongha momentarily lost track of the ball and barely managed to catch it at the last second.
This was only possible because Kayak threw the ball right down the middle.
If the trajectory had veered even slightly, it would have been humiliating to miss the pitch.
However, Yongha was focusing on something else rather than that trivial fact. He couldn’t take his eyes off the baseball lodged in his glove.
“What kind of ball is this….”
So fast and heavy. Even though he caught it with the glove, his hand felt sore. And the speed—what was that?
“130? 140? No, it felt faster than that….”
The ball she threw felt too fast to believe it came from an ordinary woman. He felt the pressure and tension he had experienced with professional pitchers.
Perhaps her speed alone had surpassed that of a pro player. This didn’t make any sense, and Yongha swallowed hard, waiting for the measurement results.
The audience watching Kayak’s pitch seemed to feel equally uneasy. Instead of the noisy chatter, there was an instant silence in the stadium.
And after a short yet long wait, Kayak’s speed was announced.
“169….?”
Yongha muttered in disbelief as he heard the results.
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