Sitting in the old camping chairs in the yard, the two of them drank their juice for a while without a word. The sirens drifting over the wall kept reminding them, again and again, what life was like here.

Mark fiddled with his empty glass and glanced over at Suho.

It’s never easy to show someone your weak spots, and it’s harder still when the subject is being poor. A proud guy like Mark would have wanted to hide it his whole life.

But somehow, with Suho, it felt like he could let it out.

The reason was simple: Suho was a good person. Baseball aside, he was a genuinely decent human being. Mark half figured even a newborn baby could tell how good Suho was.

Above all, what he’d done in front of the kids this morning had settled it. The way he’d deftly gotten them past a moment that almost went heavy with money talk, and the care he’d taken to protect even Jenny’s pride. After seeing that, Mark made up his mind to unbolt the door he’d kept locked tight in his heart.

With this guy, I don’t think he’d laugh if I showed him the weight I’m carrying, even just for a little while.

As the sirens over the wall went on reminding them where they were—

“Loud, huh? This is my everyday life.”

Mark spoke up like the time had come. His smile was bitter, but it was honest and nothing put on.

“Baseball… it costs a lot, right? Sometimes a decent bat or glove costs as much as what Mom spends on food in a few months.”

Mark kept fiddling with the empty glass.

“Honestly, the signing bonus I got when I signed with the Dodgers was pretty nice, you know? But I didn’t get to keep a cent of it. It all went to paying off the debt the family had piled up.”

The fire was out, for now. The pressure on his mother’s shoulders from debt collectors hounding her had eased a little. But that was it. They’d gone from minus to zero. They hadn’t gotten into the plus.

“The problem starts now. Jenny’s about to be in high school, and Tommy and Lily are growing up too. School, living expenses… there’s no end to what we need money for, and a minor leaguer’s paycheck is peanuts.”

His mother worked too, but she didn’t make much. So Mark had to fight tooth and nail.

He had to move up to a higher level. High-A, Double-A, Triple-A. With every step up, the pay went up, even if only a little. And when he finally reached the majors, then he could really turn his life around.

“I whine all the time about how hard things are, right? But I can’t do that in front of my family. If I fall apart, my family’s hope falls apart with me.”

As Mark went on, his voice carried a painful truth.

“I grew up eating everything my brother and sisters should’ve had. I was dumb enough to get hurt and blew ten grand on rehab. Because of that, Jenny’s had to give up school trips again and again, and Tommy, who wants to be a ballplayer just like me, has been using a torn glove for a year. So how am I supposed to let it show that I’m struggling…”

The ten grand in rehab meant the academy, the same one that had helped Suho.

So at least in front of his family, he couldn’t complain. It would be a betrayal of the people who’d sacrificed everything with only Mark to count on.

“That’s why I smile. The kids feel safe if I smile. Of course… I complain a lot the rest of the time, right? I know.”

At home, he had to be superhuman. Poverty scared him, life was hard, his shoulders were heavy—he couldn’t bring himself to show any of it to his family. So he let it out in little gripes whenever they weren’t around.

He was only twenty, too. An adult, technically, but still young enough not to know how the world worked. No—if anything, it was far too heavy a load for a twenty-year-old to carry.

“It’s also how I keep my composure. If I didn’t do it at least that way, I feel like I’d crack. And because I did, I could come home and smile again and hold my family up.”

Suho slowly nodded.

Only now did he understand. Why a number-four hitter had set his pride aside and followed Suho’s lead. Why Mark had fought so hard over every dollar even while people called him a cheapskate. For him, baseball was more than a dream. It was the most practical way to survive and keep his family safe.

Mark turned and looked at Suho seriously.

“But the thing that really made the difference… was you showing up.”

Mark’s voice shook a little. He frowned, like he was calling up a past he didn’t want to remember.

“Honestly, back at that tryout where we first met—I was really at the end of my rope.”

Mark gave a bitter smile.

“After I got hurt my form was a wreck, no team was calling, and at home there was no end to what we needed money for…”

If this one doesn’t work out either, that’s really it.

“I was seriously thinking about just quitting baseball and going to work construction or something.”

He meant it. Before he met Suho, Mark had been standing at the edge of a cliff. The pride of a former prospect had hit rock bottom, and crushed under the weight of real life, he’d been forgetting that baseball was supposed to be fun.

Back at that tryout, when everyone treated him like a washed-up injury case, the only one who’d reached out a hand was Suho.

It couldn’t have been any other way.

At first, he’d thought Suho was just a nice guy—the easygoing Asian kid who’d struck up a conversation at a cutthroat tryout and helped him loosen up. But that guy, whatever he looked like, ran around the field like a mad dog and showed him something incredible.

“Seeing that fired me up too, and thanks to that I made it through the tryout. But the thing that really got me came after.”

That was when he found out about Suho’s past. An orphan, a failure who’d been released from a Korean pro farm team. When Mark learned that, it hit him like a punch to the head.

He’d always thought he was the unluckiest guy in the world. A poor family, the responsibility of a line of younger siblings, a body wrecked by injury. The load on his shoulders was so heavy that all he’d ever done was blame the world for being unfair.

But not Suho. Next to the weight Suho carried, Mark’s really was nothing.

Suho had no home to go back to, no family to welcome him. What’s more, one failure could have cut him off from baseball, the thing that meant the most to him, forever. And even so, he’d come all the way to America and started baseball over from scratch, with nothing.

I was ashamed.

Mark, at least, had had his family to lean on.

“Once I saw how desperate you were, all my complaining felt like whining.”

This guy plays baseball to stay alive.

That was when it started. That was when Mark began to see Suho not just as a friend, but as a partner for the rest of his baseball life, and as someone he owed. Suho was the only one who’d ever put fight in him instead of defeat.

“So I made up my mind. If I go with you, at least I won’t lose my way.”

Mark rubbed his nose, embarrassed.

“So if you break the trail, I’ll follow right behind you, whatever it takes. And I’m going to make it, for sure. Because I think you’re going to make it. Arizona this time, sure, but I get the feeling you’ll make the majors too.”

Mark knew he was going to Arizona entirely because of Suho. Without that chance, he’d be waiting for another next year with no promises, in this old house—or covered in dust on a construction site, sick with worry.

“So you’re not just a teammate to me. You’re the guy who lit my family’s—no, my—hope again, just when it was going out. So… thanks. Really.”

He meant it.

Over the last three months, Suho hadn’t just brought Mark wins. He’d saved him, turning the heavy load Mark carried as the head of his family into something called hope.

Suho listened quietly, then raised his glass and lightly clinked it against Mark’s.

There was no need for pity or clumsy comfort. He wasn’t in a position to pity or comfort anyone to begin with.

Still, I’m glad.

A smile slipped across Suho’s face. Knowing Mark trusted him completely filled his chest with something heavy and warm.

The truth was, from his release in Korea until he got here, Suho had always been the one being judged, turned down, and in the end thrown away. There had even been times he’d thought of himself as worthless.

It felt like there was no place for me anywhere in the world.

But that wasn’t so. He had a friend now, one who’d come to him and laid bare even his most painful secrets. One friend he could open up to and trust with his back. That was worth more than any fortune.

So I’m the one who should be grateful.

Running alone is lonely and frightening. However tough you act, the time comes when you’re worn out. But what if a partner runs beside you, breathing hard right along with you? Then the road isn’t frightening anymore.

The solid sincerity Mark had shown him was becoming the thing that would keep Suho from falling apart, too.

“Mark. Let’s do this.”

“Wh-what?”

Mark was startled by how suddenly bright Suho’s voice had gone.

Suho broke into a clear smile.

“Let’s go for it. The majors.”

It was a bolt from the blue, even to Suho himself.

And no wonder. When he came to America, Suho hadn’t dreamed of becoming a major leaguer at all. It made no sense! Think what the majors were. The final destination for the baseball geniuses of the whole world—practically the realm of the gods.

All Suho had wanted was to play baseball a little longer. That was why he came to America. When he got through the tryout, when he signed with the Dodgers, even when he won the championship this season, he’d never once held on to a big dream of becoming a big leaguer.

He’d always been realistic. No—he’d had to be. From growing up in an orphanage to being released in Korean pro ball, his life had always been geared toward surviving rather than dreaming. He’d learned the hard way just how miserably false hope could end.

But now it was different. He had a dream, a goal he hadn’t even dared to look up at before.

Mark, and Cash, too.

Weren’t geniuses like them, the kind you’d never find twice in this world, recognizing him? And there was Taylor, and Alex, the authority on mechanics. Could he betray their faith in him? Did he deserve to stand next to them with such a flimsy attitude—just wanting to play a little more baseball, to hang on one more year?

No. I don’t.

It was time to believe in himself.

Not that he meant to get arrogant. He still had a long way to go. His game wasn’t at that level yet.

That was okay.

I’m changing too, since I came to America.

The situation itself had changed. He was able to play baseball in a better environment now. So all he had to do was change even more and grow even more than he had so far.

Major leaguer. I’m going to make it, no matter what.

Suho’s eyes shone deeper and harder than they ever had. They weren’t the eyes of someone just surviving. They were the eyes of a challenger.

Suho held out his hand to Mark. Wasn’t Mark the whole reason he had this new goal in the first place? Suho wanted him to be the first to hear about his new dream.

“Let’s go together.”

He wanted them to do it side by side.

His eyes going red, Mark took Suho’s hand.

“Yeah. Take me with you. I won’t hold you back.”

End of Chapter 44