Final score, 12–4.

An overwhelming win for the Quakes.

When the last out went up on the board, the Quakes players poured out onto the field and traded high fives.

Suho shook hands with the players on the other side and then headed for the Quakes dugout.

And in that moment his teammates swarmed him like they’d arranged it in advance.

The big third baseman got to him first.

“Hey, 79! What was your name again? Su— Su—…”

“Suho. Suho Oh.”

“Right. Suho. You were out of your damn mind today.”

Then somebody else swatted him across the back for fun.

“That exit velocity was insane! I thought you were going to rip their gloves off!”

“You look like a stiff wind would knock you over, so where’s all that strength coming from? What are you eating? You’re not on something, are you?”

Everyone’s attention landed on him at once.

And in the middle of it Cash, his roommate, tossed him a line on his way past.

“Not bad today. Taking the pitcher’s timing away in the third was smart.”

Maybe the cheering from the other players made him jealous.

Mark came running over like he meant to keep Suho for himself and threw both arms around him like a bear.

“Whoa. What are you?”

“What?”

“Come on. You’re a completely different guy!”

“Ah… it turned out that way. I got lucky.”

Suho called it luck.

And the truth was he thought so himself.

If he hadn’t met Alex, a performance like today’s would have been beyond dreaming about.

Then Taylor waved him over.

“Come here a minute.”

Suho pulled himself out of Mark’s arms and stood in front of the manager.

“You wanted me, sir.”

“I did. Good work out there today.”

Taylor meant it.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say tonight’s win had come out of Suho’s hands.

Something in Suho’s chest went tight.

He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d heard praise from anyone in the game.

“Now, there’s somebody waiting on you, so go wash up and get out there.”

“Somebody waiting?”

Taylor jerked his chin toward the outfield stands.

Suho’s eyes went to Alex, sitting up there.

Ah. He was watching the whole game.

Suho bowed from the waist to Taylor.

“Thank you for going out of your way for me, sir.”

And then he left.

A smile came up at the corner of Taylor’s mouth.

Look at that. I knew it. You don’t see the type these days.

That courteous little bow just now had been awkward even for Taylor.

Which of the kids these days talks to a manager that way, or carries himself that way?

Every one of them says his piece and turns on his heel, and not one of them is afraid of anything above him.

Call it an Asian cultural thing if you like, but that’s humility bred right into him.

A man who knows how to respect his elders.

An old-fashioned virtue that has all but disappeared in this era.

Taylor laughed out loud without meaning to.

He couldn’t help it.

The ability went without saying. But how was a man supposed to look at a kid that pleasant and that well-mannered and not be fond of him?

Suho gathered his things in the locker room and went straight to the parking lot.

Alex was standing beside the black sedan with his arms folded.

Suho hurried over and bowed from the waist, formal about it.

Alex shook his head at the sight of it.

“Put the thank-yous away.”

Suho was plainly thanking him.

But Alex didn’t think he had done anything yet that deserved thanking.

From Suho’s side it might look that way, but for Alex, the authority on mechanics, it didn’t.

A thank-you is what you hear after you’ve rebuilt a man from end to end with your own hands, perfectly. It isn’t what you take for handing him an axe and offering a few pointers.

That was the kind of man he was, with a great deal of pride and a great deal of self-regard.

Even so, with that American directness of his, he didn’t say things that weren’t true.

“You did well today. You know that, don’t you?”

“I did my best, at least.”

“Not your best. I asked whether you did well.”

Alex added it like he found the whole thing pathetic.

“You of all people should know a man can’t survive in this business on his best alone.”

Suho nodded quietly.

“You’re right about that.”

Alex clicked his tongue to himself.

Good grief. He really is a strange one.

Honestly, there was a certain amount about it that wore on him.

Because the ordinary American kid, in a moment like this, would be busy saying of course I did! Did you see that? and talking himself up.

Suho was the first Asian player he’d taught, the kind raised on humility as a virtue.

But this is more than I can get used to.

And in fact the most important thing was something else again.

Humility is a fine thing to have, obviously.

But coming at him like this, the boy had cost him the sharp piece of advice he’d prepared.

He had meant to remind him again that arrogance was not allowed.

With that no longer necessary, he changed tack.

“Anyway… honestly, if your hitting used to be a 20, I can promise you it was a 30 today. But you’re not going to be satisfied with a 30, are you?”

He didn’t say it outright, but the sense of it was time to move to the next stage, isn’t it?

Suho shook his head firmly.

“I’m sorry, but… I don’t want to go quickly.”

“Why not?”

“I want to make what I learned today completely my own first, and take the next step after that.”

For a moment Alex had nothing to say.

…What did he just say?

It may sound like an old man talking, but that’s the age we live in.

Most prospects barely get hold of one sensation and are dying to move straight to the next stage.

Because there’s no time.

Because all they can think about is setting foot in the major leagues a day sooner.

In a world where every day is a competition.

Throw a day away and you fall behind.

And hitting isn’t finished because a man has learned one set of mechanics.

Stance, swing, launch angle, plate discipline, timing, balance, bat control, weight transfer.

Break it down finely and there are dozens of important elements in hitting.

On top of which, the mechanics this kid picked up are the ultimate ones, so they take even more work.

And above all, he can’t use a single piece of what he had before, so becoming a finished article is bound to take longer still.

And here he is, not in a hurry at all. The exact opposite.

He was refusing the next stage until he could do this one perfectly with his eyes shut.

This is the right way to do it, of course… but he isn’t in a rush?

And in that instant every piece of it fell into place in Alex’s head.

Ah… this kid failed once already.

So this was a vow never to go through that failure a second time.

It was a desperate thing, driven all the way into the bone.

It was the wisdom of a man who had already learned in his own body how easily a castle built on a shaky foundation comes down.

The poison turned into medicine. Properly, too.

Alex found himself laughing under his breath.

He liked this kid. No question about it.

And frankly, he could sweep Low-A right now without doing another thing.

Hadn’t he shown as much in tonight’s game?

This was the professional stage, of course, and the other side would come back with an answer for him.

The boy’s baseball sense is genuinely outstanding. Block him and he’ll find a way through.

So rather than keep the lessons going right now, he’d be better off enjoying himself a little.

That was the better answer in more ways than one.

“Well. If that’s how you want it, that’s how it is. I’ll turn up again when you need me, so keep it going until then.”

Alex left that behind him, got into the car, and drove off in a hurry.

Left standing there on his own, Suho didn’t know what to do with himself.

He put a hand out toward the car pulling away, and it did no good at all.

“W— wait a moment! I… thank you.”

He hadn’t even thanked the man properly.

But before long he closed his hand into a fist.

A professional career in America.

It had started well. Very well.

Back at the house, Suho found Mark stretched full length on the living room couch.

“Mark. Should we get pork belly tonight?”

He was Korean, so it was entirely natural that Korean food came to mind.

“What? Pork belly? You buying?”

“Obviously.”

Suho was in a really good mood.

Because he had found the feel at the plate he’d wandered so long looking for.

The one that had gone so far as to get him released.

Wanting to treat somebody was the natural human response.

They said pork belly was expensive in America, but in the mood he was in, up somewhere near the sky, it was well worth paying for.

Mark shot upright at that.

Whatever exhaustion he’d had was clearly long gone.

“Look at you. You must be feeling good tonight! Okay! We’re absolutely going!”

Mark seemed to understand how Suho was feeling.

At a time like this, showing up was simply what a friend had to do.

Suho let out a short laugh and jerked his chin toward the stairs to the second floor.

“There’s one more person in this house. Should we ask him along?”

Mark’s face screwed up on the spot.

“Who? Cash? Ah… I feel like eating with that guy would give me indigestion.”

Suho wanted the other roommate along too.

Even if the man kept himself outside of everything, there was a reason for it.

Because he’s really good at baseball.

Alex had shown him a direction today.

But in tonight’s game Cash had looked like a man already standing at the end of that road.

One careless swing of that genius’s bat, or one piece of timing on a pitch he laid off.

Either of those could be a better textbook for Suho right now than anything else.

I think I could get more out of him if we were friendly.

And on top of it, he’d given him a compliment about tonight, blunt as it was.

Mark sighed, then shook his head.

There was something unhappy in his eyes, but he seemed to let it go quickly enough.

“Fine. I’ll go ask him.”

Mark grumbled his way up to the second floor.

Knock, knock.

The sound of him hammering on Cash’s door carried down.

A moment later Mark came back down the stairs breathing hard.

His face had gone bright red.

“Damn it! He says he’s not coming!”

“Why not?”

“How would I know! He’s just not coming! I’m not going with you, he says. God, that makes me mad. He looks right through us, that guy.”

Suho stood there looking at Cash’s open door.

Rock music was still leaking out of it.

Should I close it for him?

He was going out anyway, so he’d at least shut the door, and he went up the stairs and came face to face with Cash, who happened to be closing it himself.

Those lazy blue eyes turned on Suho over the headphones around his neck.

“What?”

The manner was every bit as prickly as Mark had said.

But Suho asked anyway, unbothered.

“We’re going out for dinner. Pork belly, and it’s good. Want to come?”

He’d come up to shut the door regardless, so asking once more changed nothing.

And then — what was this?

Cash ran his eyes up and down Suho and tossed out an answer.

“Sure.”

“Sorry? You’re coming?”

Hadn’t he said he wasn’t?

“Yeah. I’m coming.”

The answer must have carried down to the first floor, because Mark came charging up the stairs in a fury.

“Hey! You son of a bitch! You just told me you weren’t coming! Why are you making a liar out of me?”

Cash looked at Mark like the man was a nuisance and answered flatly.

“Yeah. I told you I wasn’t coming.”

“So why the sudden change?”

“Because he asked.”

“Wh— what kind of garbage is that!”

For a moment Mark couldn’t believe it.

Then he let out a hollow laugh and pointed a finger back and forth between himself and Suho.

“Don’t tell me… it’s because I’m a scrub and Suho’s good?”

No answer came back.

But that silence was a stronger yes than any confirmation could have been.

Mark finally blew up.

“You son of a bitch! I hit a home run today! What part of that makes me a scrub!”

The three roommates’ numbers tonight had, admittedly, split cleanly.

Four for four, three home runs, five RBI.

Cash Meyer had blown the game apart again with an overwhelming performance.

And Suho: three for four, one RBI, three runs scored.

He had opened up every route the team scored by, and controlled the game completely.

So one for four with a home run and two RBI.

Mark’s line wasn’t bad at all.

If anything it was on the good side, but next to those two it was undeniably ordinary.

Suho spoke up in a hurry to get past the mood.

“Ha ha. Anyway, let’s go eat.”

One way or another, the three of them headed for a nearby pork belly place.

Even after the food was ordered Mark went on grumbling.

“An evening that was supposed to be fun, and because of this one guy…”

Cash didn’t so much as blink at the complaint. He only watched the meat cooking.

“This is new to me. Korean food?”

“Korean barbecue. It was written on the sign in enormous letters on the way in!”

Cash dug at his ear through Mark’s shouting.

So Suho said it for him instead.

“Yeah. Korean food.”

“I see. It looks good.”

A vein came up on Mark’s forehead, and Suho calmed him down.

“L— let’s eat.”

When the meat was done, Cash asked a question.

“How do you eat this?”

Suho demonstrated several different ways of eating pork belly.

Plain, dipped in salt, and wrapped in a lettuce leaf.

Mark ate his own way, expertly.

And Cash copied Suho’s method exactly.

It was a quiet meal, no question.

But inside each of these three men something was burning like an active volcano.

Cash first.

I had this kid wrong.

His eye had never once been wrong, going all the way back to childhood.

About baseball, at least.

The ones who looked like they couldn’t play really couldn’t.

The ones who looked like they could, could.

But today that eye of his had been wrong for the first time.

Cash thought Suho had been genuinely good tonight.

Because he’d carried the team to a win by himself.

The method was different, but the result was the same thing Cash himself did.

Which was why Cash had become curious about what made Suho different from the rest of them.

Mark, on the other side of it, was feeling something else.

I’m— I’m not somebody who gets treated like this…

It was a career that did him no good to bring up anymore.

But he had taken MVP at the biggest amateur tournament there was.

And here he was, an afterthought.

Not that there wasn’t reason for it.

Cash. I hate to admit it, but this guy is a real genius.

And Suho was growing day by day, to a degree he couldn’t believe with his own two eyes.

Feeling as though he alone were standing still, Mark ground his teeth.

No. I have to at least stand level with these two.

Mark could feel it.

Those two were going higher.

And if he could stand alongside them, he could go higher himself.

And last of all, Suho was simply enjoying himself.

Eating dinner with friends who were good at baseball.

It was nothing like the past, where he’d always eaten alone.

Although it would be nice to talk baseball at a table like this…

That had been the original plan, in fact.

But from the feel of the room, today wasn’t the day for it.

Because Cash was ignoring Mark completely.

Still, never mind.

Play well again and make another evening like this. I’ll bring up baseball then.

Suho sorted back through the long day.

Come to think of it, I got a lot of recognition from geniuses today.

Alex, for one.

And Cash, sitting next to him.

The human heart is a funny thing.

Once he’d been acknowledged once, he wanted to go on being acknowledged.

And not only from these two, but from higher up.

One day he would have it from the Dodgers organization itself.

Suho promised himself that, and promised it again.

End of Chapter 27