Suho could not begin to believe Alex’s claim that he would have the mechanics down inside a month.

“W— wait a moment! Honestly, I don’t understand.”

“Understand what?”

“I’ve heard that even professional players need at least a year to change their mechanics. Sometimes longer.”

Suho’s doubt came out of experience as well.

It came out of two weeks of hell with Coach John.

It had been memorization, granted, but he had never once grasped the principle behind that swing.

“Ha. Professional players, is it.”

Alex went on like a man who found this interesting.

“Let me ask you something. You’ve got a computer that’s been in use for ten years, packed full of every virus and piece of malware there is. And you’ve got a clean hard drive, factory reset, nothing installed on it at all. Which of the two do you think you can put an operating system on faster?”

“That would be… the hard drive that’s been reset.”

“Exactly. A professional with years of bad habit worked into his body is that virus-riddled computer. The old memories stamped into his muscle are one big pile of bugs. But you? You’re a cleanly formatted hard drive. What I’m telling you is that ignorance of yours is your greatest weapon right now. Follow me?”

Suho couldn’t find a reply, and somehow he could feel himself being persuaded.

Alex was as relaxed as ever.

“Any more questions?”

“But don’t other players build their mechanics from the time they’re children?”

“They do.”

“But I’ve never even been taught properly. I don’t know what mechanics are.”

“So. What you’re saying is that the kids playing baseball here in America build their mechanics from childhood. Meaning that even when they fix them, they know the principle behind it. And it still takes them forever. So how does somebody learning it for the first time do it in a month. That’s your question?”

Suho gave a short nod.

“Yes. And I was told that learning mechanics takes a great many steps.”

“Who told you that?”

“V— videos.”

“Ah. Former players, famous coaches, that sort of person?”

This time Suho nodded with confidence.

“That’s right.”

“They’re not entirely wrong, as it happens… but before that, let me ask you one thing. Who do you think is best at teaching mechanics?”

“That would be… a coach who played the game himself, with a lot of experience?”

Alex shook his head flatly.

“No. Wrong. It’s the person who designed the thing in the first place.”

Alex cut the matter off there, pulled a business card out of an inside jacket pocket, and held it out.

“First, you need this man.”

Suho took the card without quite meaning to, and read it.

[Biomechanics Expert — Alex Rivera]

“Someone who knows the principle of how every joint and muscle in the human body works together to produce force. And.”

Alex pulled out a second card and handed it over.

[Strength & Conditioning Coach, Baseball — Alex Rivera]

“Someone who can tune that human body into the best possible engine for baseball.”

Suho couldn’t keep up.

To be honest, he didn’t know what the cards in his hands were supposed to mean.

He hadn’t known that jobs like these existed.

Alex paid no attention to that and handed him a third card.

[Performance Analyst — Alex Rivera]

“Someone who turns every movement into data and proves the tenth of a second you can’t see with your eyes.”

That wasn’t the end of it.

A fourth card came out.

Suho’s two hands were full of different cards before he knew it.

[Rehab Coach — Alex Rivera]

“And when that high-performance engine breaks down, you’ll want a mechanic who can put it back together perfectly, won’t you.”

Alex closed his wallet and tossed in one more line.

“A coach? A manager? All of them are half a man. The best is the one who has every part of it in a single body. Which is to say, a man like me.”

Suho’s head went white.

It was confidence on a different level from any specialist he had ever met.

Which made one thing certain.

This man was either out of his mind or a real genius.

More than anything, he was different from the specialists in all those videos.

They had all been the same.

They all gave the answer that had been decided in advance.

But this man was telling him he would give him an answer meant for him alone.

So Suho found himself sure that following this man could change something.

“Questions finished?”

“…For now.”

“Then come on.”

Alex turned without a backward glance, walked to the corner of the parking lot, and opened the car door.

Suho got into the passenger seat like a man under a spell.

They were driving somewhere when Alex asked him a question.

“What are mechanics?”

“A way of transferring force.”

Alex nodded at Suho’s answer.

“Right. Depending on how efficiently you transfer force, a ground ball becomes a base hit, what would have been a single becomes a double, and what would have been a double becomes a home run.”

Suho knew that much.

He simply didn’t know which of them suited him.

“But everybody’s body is different.”

Suho added the doubt carefully.

It came out of everything he had studied on his own, trying to get better.

Every person’s body is different.

Arm length, leg length, flexibility through the waist, range of motion in the shoulder.

Even the ratio of the fast-twitch fibers that generate explosive force to the slow-twitch fibers that handle endurance.

There is no one human being identical to another.

Alex tapped the steering wheel lightly and went on.

There was a firm certainty in his voice.

“Correct. One man is suited to a swing that draws a huge arc with long arms, and another is suited to a compact swing that uses powerful rotation through the waist. Mechanics that are the right answer for other people can be poison for you.”

At a red light he took the chance to turn his head and look Suho straight in the eye.

“So what happens if you set out to try every one of them, one at a time?”

“It would take a long time, I think.”

“That’s right. Extremely inefficient. That’s why it takes players so long to learn their mechanics. And on top of that, if you pick up some strange habit while you’re trying this and that. What happens then?”

“It would take even more time.”

The corner of Alex’s mouth lifted.

“Correct. I told you already, didn’t I. You’re a blank page. So we can find out today which way suits you best.”

“Really?”

Suho’s eyes filled with hope.

He couldn’t help it.

Nobody in his life had ever explained it to him this easily, and with this much confidence still to spare.

He had noticed it once before, with the KBO and with the videos alike.

All any of them ever gave me was the principle.

This method transfers force best.

That method is the mechanics the major leagues are pursuing now, and so on.

They all spoke as though the answer had been settled beforehand.

And honestly, that wasn’t very different from the way it was in the KBO.

Which was why Suho had watched all those videos and still never learned.

But Alex was not the same.

He was speaking at Suho’s eye level.

Trust was the only thing that could come of it.

“Doubts finished?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for. If you understood me, show me you did.”

At some point the car had left the training complex behind and turned onto a mountain road with hardly anyone on it.

Suho blinked at the sight of it.

Why on earth are we here?

Before long the car pulled up near a logging site loud with the sound of trees being cut down.

Heavy-built workers were felling enormous trees with chainsaws and axes.

Alex got out of the car as though he were stepping into his own front yard.

He walked over to the oldest-looking of the workers and threw an arm around his shoulders.

“Hey, Jack! Still going strong, I see.”

“Oh, Alex! What brings you out here?”

Alex jerked his chin at Suho beside him.

“This one. Thought I’d give him a little education. All right if we stay a while?”

“Of course.”

Alex then picked up one of the heavy splitting axes lying to one side and tossed it to Suho.

“Catch.”

Suho caught the axe without quite knowing why.

Alex pointed at a tree standing some way off, thick as ten men.

“Cut that down with the axe.”

“…I’m sorry?”

“Split that tree in two.”

Suho thought it was ridiculous, but there had to be a reason this eccentric genius was telling him to do it.

So he set his stance firmly and put the whole of his force into his arms and shoulders.

Then he swung at the tree as though he were hitting off a tee.

Thunk.

The blade bit into the tree with a dull burst of sound, but it didn’t go in very deep.

If anything, the shock rang through his wrists.

Suho set his back teeth and swung the axe again.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Once, twice… five times.

The dull sound of it rang through the forest.

Sweat ran off Suho’s forehead like rain and his breath was up in his throat.

The muscles of his arms and back were screaming, and all the tree had to show for it was an ugly stripe of bark peeled away.

There was no sign of it coming apart in two.

He was pouring every bit of force in his body into it, and it felt like all of it was leaking away somewhere it had no business going.

At last, after more than ten swings, he wrung out the last of his strength and the blade finally reached the center of the trunk.

With a crack the tree split apart raggedly and went down to either side.

Suho dropped to the ground, dragging in rough breaths.

His palms burned as though they’d been scalded and his wrists throbbed.

But something was strange.

What went through his whole body wasn’t a bitter sense of defeat. It was the feeling of having won.

All at once he thought he understood why this training gave him such a rush.

Until now I never even had the chance to do this.

In the days when he had fallen as far as he could fall, the only training available to him was swinging at empty air.

But cutting through air told him nothing.

He couldn’t tell whether his force was transferring properly.

He couldn’t feel whether any of it was efficient.

He had nothing to go on but a vague sensation.

This solid tree was different.

It doesn’t lie.

A wrong swing answered him with a dull shock and with pain.

A swing that was even slightly better rewarded him by biting deeper.

This was a better sparring partner than any pitching machine — the perfect one.

Suho sprang up off the ground.

There was no trace left of the exhaustion of a moment ago in his eyes. They were burning with the thrill of a new discovery and the urge to chase it down.

“Can I cut another tree?”

The corner of Alex’s mouth lifted very slightly, as though this satisfied him.

He shrugged like a man who had expected it.

“You want a day’s wages for it?”

“No.”

“Then old Jack over there will be happy too. Cut as many as you like.”

Suho’s real training began from that point.

He no longer swung on nothing but force.

He tried widening his stance, and tried starting the rotation from his waist first.

He changed the angle he lifted the axe at, and tried taking the strength out of his arms and letting it fall on the weight of the axe alone.

Some swings still produced that dull sound.

But every so often another swing brought out a crack sharp enough to clear a man’s ears.

Getting the feel of it wasn’t easy, though.

He would remember that electric feeling in his hands and swing the axe again on exactly the same path.

And every time, all that came back was the dull sound again.

I could have sworn I swung the same way…

The result was completely different.

Which was only natural.

Suho didn’t know the principle itself, so those swings had simply come off by accident.

Even so, there was not a trace of frustration to be found in his eyes.

If it doesn’t work, I make it work.

That stubborn streak of his was at work again.

Maybe two hours went by like that.

“Hey. Take a break!”

Suho shook his head at Alex’s shout.

“I’ll go a little longer.”

“Th— that so? All right.”

Alex clicked his tongue and settled back into the shade of a tree.

The truth was that pushing on like this now would do no good at all.

Across dozens of attempts Suho had shown him the occasional perfect swing, sharp as a bolt of lightning.

He’s doing this because he wants to make that sensation completely his own.

But it isn’t something you get by pushing on brainlessly.

Learning a new movement is the brain’s work, not the muscles’.

Excessive repetition and fatigue only overload the circuit and get in the way of finding the path.

So what Suho needed now was rest.

The brain has to have time to organize that correct sensation he stumbled on and file it away.

Because that was the science.

And the science is always right.

But the reason he didn’t bother stopping him was simple.

He would go a little longer, recognize for himself that it was wrong, and stop.

Every ordinary human being Alex had watched until now had done exactly that.

But.

Suho went on doing something that made no sense.

An hour after that, then two…

The sun began to sink, and the men at the logging site started putting their equipment away one by one.

Suho swung the axe without resting for a single moment.

“A little longer,” he says…

He had been swinging that axe for a full five hours and more.

That kid… what in God’s name is his grit made of?

Alex was up out of his chair before he knew he’d moved.

This missed his expectations, and missed them by a very long way.

He had watched monstrous talents by the dozen over several decades, but this kind of human being was a first.

So could that even be called grit?

This is closer to madness.

What kind of life had the boy lived?

It was a phenomenon he couldn’t account for, and it seemed to laugh at everything the leading authority in the field knew.

Perhaps that was why the corner of Alex’s mouth lifted.

That bastard… he’s a genius.

The Suho he had seen in the video was unmistakably a mess.

But the one standing in front of him now was unmistakably the sort of genius who comes along once in ten years.

He’s just a type you don’t see much these days.

The word genius doesn’t belong only to the man who does everything easily on natural feel.

The man who takes impossible repetition and turns the impossible into the possible is a genius too.

And Suho was plainly of that kind.

Except that at this rate there’s going to be nothing left for me to do.

So perhaps he’d help a little.

Alex threw off his suit jacket and started walking toward Suho.

End of Chapter 23