Suho came back to the dugout after his two at-bats.

The looks from the other players were still a mix of doubt and curiosity, but at least the open dismissal was gone.

Then Mark came over.

There was a smile on his face and something distinctly unsettled behind it.

“Hey, Suho! That last ball was crushed! If it hadn’t gone right at the shortstop!”

Mark thumped his shoulder as he said it.

But his eyes couldn’t hide the question underneath. How does a swing like that produce a ball like that?

Even to Mark, Suho’s hitting was nothing like the textbook he’d been taught since he was a kid.

A swing that barely used the lower half and seemed to come off arm strength alone was a bizarre thing he hadn’t seen even in the amateur ranks.

And the results were a double and a line drive at the shortstop.

What had happened in front of his eyes shook everything Mark thought he knew.

“Thanks.”

Suho answered short.

Mark couldn’t hold it in. He hesitated a moment, then opened his mouth again.

“But… your swing’s pretty unusual, huh? How’d you do that? I mean, the results were good, so, okay! One for two! And the contact quality was good on both, so — great!”

Mark pushed hard on the positive, but his expression stayed complicated. He was plainly hoping for an explanation.

Suho read it and didn’t bother to give one.

It wasn’t the kind of thing you could put into words anyway.

Suho had simply trusted his instincts and swung.

The game wasn’t over.

The team was locked in a tight one, and another important chance was coming around.

Mark looked Suho straight in the eye.

“Suho. Next time up… you’ve got to get on somehow. Can you do it?”

It was less a question than an unspoken pressure that said of course you have to.

Because of Suho’s age.

At the very least he had to produce better results here than anyone.

Individual numbers mattered, but he also had to show he could contribute to a team.

Mark in particular had met Suho only today and liked him enormously.

He wanted to meet him again someday, past the minors and up in the majors.

Suho nodded.

There was an unshakable certainty in his eyes.

“Yeah. I can do it.”

Only then did a real smile spread over Mark’s face.

“Good! You get on, I’ll bring you home. Guaranteed.”

Suho turned the words over as he walked to the box.

He’ll bring me home.

If he could actually score off it, that would be a considerable advantage for him too.

Which meant he had to get on here, one way or another.

A hitter isn’t a position where you reach base just because you want to.

And yet, strangely, Suho was sure of himself.

In the first two at-bats there had been nothing but the instinct to see the ball and swing.

Playing the game the way he had in high school, his confidence had come back with it.

And the result of that.

The pitcher opened confidently with a slider sweeping wide to the outside.

A perfect chase pitch, designed to draw a swing and miss.

Suho didn’t move. He wasn’t rushing at it the way he had before.

Now he could see the ball’s path clearly.

The seams turning, the whole process of it running away off the outside corner.

“Ball!”

The pitcher frowned at the call.

Lucky not to be fooled, was he?

So this time the pitcher went lower, with a curveball.

The kind that drops off in front of a hitter’s knees and is very hard to lay off.

Suho didn’t move on that one either.

If anything he held a relaxed smile as he held the bat back.

And the pitch slipped just past the edge of the zone.

“Ball!”

With room to breathe, even the eye he had lost was coming back to life.

Confidence didn’t only affect the mechanics of hitting.

Ease of mind widened his field of view.

And the widened view opened his eyes to judge a pitcher’s offerings more accurately.

Before, the compulsion to swing kept me from seeing any of it.

It was different now.

He was certain he could hit.

Third pitch. The pitcher came back with a slider.

His command wavered a fraction, drifting just off the zone, and Suho didn’t miss it.

“Ball!”

The count was 3-0.

One thing left, then.

Fourth pitch.

The ball left the pitcher’s hand a fastball, headed for the middle of the plate.

Suho swung as though he had been waiting on it, putting every bit of his recovered confidence into the bat.

Crack.

The clean, bright sound of it went through the hole between second and short for a base hit.

But Suho wasn’t satisfied with that.

If he’s going to bring me home, better to be in scoring position.

Mark’s at-bat.

Suho eased his way off first, and then further.

His eyes tracked the pitcher’s toes, his shoulder, every minute movement of his head.

Freed from the old theory, his instincts now caught even the instant the pitcher’s weight shifted toward home plate.

Now.

The moment the pitcher lifted his leg for the first pitch.

Suho ran for second.

Every stride drove into the ground like a bolt coming down.

Players in the dugout came up out of their seats, stunned.

The jump was aggressive past the point of recklessness.

But the speed was that of a black predator tearing across the ground.

By the time the shortstop took the throw, Suho’s fingers were already on the bag.

“Safe! Safe!”

The umpire’s call was a formality confirming the obvious.

A perfect steal that nobody could have complained about.

Rattled by it, the pitcher left a changeup out over the middle.

Mark swung ferociously, as if refusing to let it pass.

Craaack.

With a heavy report the ball climbed into the sky like a missile.

Every eye followed it.

The white point rose high, cleared the fence, and vanished out of the park entirely.

Out of the park.

A gasp went up from the scouts filling the stadium.

Mark took an easy trip around the bases and touched home, and Suho, who had crossed ahead of him, smiled faintly.

He said he’d played in the biggest high school tournament in the country.

Not a windbag after all.

The players started gathering their things as soon as the game ended.

Suho, who had gone two for four on the day, collected his own equipment from the stands.

Mark came over, bright-voiced — three for three with a home run, two RBI, and a walk.

“Suho! Great work today! Want to go get some pork belly, blow off the stress? There’s a Korean place near here and the food is unbelievable!”

Mark said it swallowing, practically buoyant.

But Suho looked around, apparently unenthusiastic about the offer.

Mark tilted his head.

“What? You don’t want to? Aren’t you hungry?”

Suho bit his lip.

“It’s not that…”

His eyes went to the scouts.

There was expectation in the look, and anxiety mixed into it. That one of them might come find him.

Mark read him instantly.

He grinned and slapped Suho hard on the back.

“Ah! Scout calls? Don’t worry about it. They’ll get in touch on their own.”

Mark sat down right next to him and started explaining.

“Scouts almost never walk up and grab a player at a tryout like this. They get contact details from the organizers. And if you’ve got an agent, they normally go to the agent first.”

He went on.

“So nobody’s going to come chasing you down right this second. If they’re interested, they’ll definitely call later. No need to rush it.”

Suho’s anxiety eased a little.

He was reminded again that the cold, systematic machinery of professional baseball applied here the same as anywhere.

At the same time, Mark’s unconcern was oddly comforting.

“All right. Shall we go eat, then?”

“Let’s go, let’s go. It’s actual Koreans running it, not Chinese, so I’ll vouch for the food.”

“Ch— Chinese people run pork belly places?”

“Huh? You didn’t know? Plenty of Korean restaurants in America have Chinese owners. Anyway, with me you’ll never end up in a fake Korean place, so just trust me and follow.”

Suho followed him out into the night streets of an unfamiliar city.

They arrived at the restaurant.

The interior gave off a thoroughly Korean atmosphere and was packed with customers.

They were shown to a table, and Suho’s eyes went wide over the menu.

“Forty dollars… for one serving of pork belly?”

His eyebrow twitched.

More than fifty thousand won in Korean money.

Mark saw his face and laughed out loud.

“Ha! Surprised? That’s just what things cost here. The taste is worth it, I told you!”

A short while later the table filled with pork belly and side dishes.

The smell of it browning went straight up his nose.

Mark looked over at him with a comic expression.

“Suho, how about a glass of soju? Soju with pork belly, come on! Ahh!”

Mark shook a soju glass at him, and Suho shook his head firmly.

“No. I don’t drink.”

Mark blinked, surprised.

“Really? Why? Don’t ballplayers usually drink pretty well?”

Which was true enough. Ballplayers do tend to like a drink.

Suho was quiet for a moment.

Complicated things from the past passed behind his eyes.

Childhood. The dark, cold orphanage.

And baseball, the one hope that had gotten him out of it.

I never wanted to slip. Not once.

Baseball wasn’t a sport to Suho.

It was his entire life, and the only means he had of not becoming weak.

Growing up in an unstable environment, he had learned to control himself.

Alcohol, and anything else bad for his body, had never once touched his lips.

Because he was afraid that a moment’s lapse might ruin the thing that was all he had.

While other players drank through the night and dragged into the next day’s training, Suho quietly kept his routine.

It wasn’t the drop of alcohol. It was the state of mind it might loosen that he hated.

“I just don’t.”

Suho wrapped a well-cooked piece of pork belly in lettuce and put it in his mouth.

Mark watched him a moment, shrugged, and poured himself a glass.

“Fine. I’ll drink alone, then!”

And he knocked back the glass of soju he’d ordered.

“You’re— you’re really drinking by yourself.”

“One’s fine, isn’t it?”

“You’re only having one?”

“You’re looking at me like I’m some kind of degenerate, so yes, one.”

Suho caught the joke and let out a laugh.

The two of them filled their empty stomachs on the browned pork belly.

Mark in particular knew how to eat it, no worse than a Korean.

Rice and two pieces of meat in a lettuce leaf, garlic, ssamjang, kimchi laid on top.

Or perilla leaf with scallion salad and meat, nothing else.

Suho shook his head at the sight of it.

Something’s off about this.

In any case, the tension and fatigue of the tryout were loosening a little with the good food, and right at that moment.

Mark’s pocket buzzed.

He pulled out his phone and his expression turned puzzled.

An unfamiliar number on the screen.

“Hello?”

Mark shot Suho a look asking his pardon, stepped slightly away, and took the call.

He tilted his head at first, and then it was—

“Yes. Yes, sir. Ah. I see.”

—and a lot of nodding.

He gave short answers here and there, and his face stayed indifferent throughout.

He came back after hanging up looking distinctly unimpressed.

Suho asked.

“Who was it?”

“Ah. Detroit Tigers scout.”

Mark said it like it was nothing, and Suho’s eyes went wide.

The Detroit Tigers.

A major league organization.

There wasn’t a flicker of interest on Mark’s face, and Suho felt envy, and a little impatience with it.

He had already confirmed with his own eyes — that overwhelming home run, that bat — that Mark hadn’t been lying about the high school tournament.

“There’s another one.”

Mark picked up the phone as it went off again.

The second call was the Texas Rangers.

He answered as half-heartedly as the first and hung up.

His face was as uninterested as before.

And it didn’t stop there.

Inside the short span of a meal that wasn’t even finished, Mark took six calls.

The Boston Red Sox were among them, a club of the very highest pedigree.

Suho finally couldn’t help himself.

“Some seriously famous clubs in there. You don’t like any of them?”

Mark shook his head and huffed a laugh.

“Nope. Don’t like them.”

“Why?”

Suho asked it, baffled.

Mark looked him straight in the eye.

“Because… I saw Frank Lambert today.”

“Frank Lambert?”

Mark was the one who couldn’t understand now.

“You don’t know Frank Lambert?”

“Who is he?”

“Wow… how do you not know?”

Mark’s face said he was genuinely at a loss.

Then he started listing off the names of star players Frank Lambert had discovered, men now roaming the major leagues.

Just naming them took over ten minutes.

Legendary sluggers, brilliant shortstops, the key arms out of bullpens.

Every name pouring out of Mark’s mouth was a superstar any fan would know.

“Point being, if you didn’t catch that man’s eye, this tryout was a bust.”

“And if he doesn’t call you?”

“What do you mean, what. I go to another tryout.”

Mark shrugged.

There was a certainty in his voice that said no club other than Frank Lambert’s meant anything.

And right then.

Bzzzzzt.

Suho’s pocket buzzed.

He pulled out the phone and his eyes widened.

An unfamiliar number on the screen.

And Suho knew it was a scout.

Nobody had his American number.

More than that, Suho wasn’t Mark.

He didn’t have the luxury of being choosy.

Any major league club that wanted him, he intended to sign with on the spot.

Because what he needed right now, desperately, was a chance to play baseball again.

His heart was pounding without mercy.

Suho answered carefully.

“Hello?”

A calm, courteous voice came through from the other end.

—Good evening. This is Alan Powell, Frank Lambert’s assistant.

End of Chapter 5