Top of the fifth, and the Giants led 7–4.

Suho led off the inning.

This game isn’t over yet.

Unlike the rest of the Quakes, he still had life in his eyes. Still, there was no denying the game had turned against them. Their starter had come apart, and the gap was growing with every inning.

If we don’t turn the momentum around here, this is going to get away from us completely.

Suho tugged his helmet into place and made up his mind.

I’m going to swing the momentum back.

The truth was, Suho had never wanted to be a hero. To him, a hero meant a superstar. Going by what they could do right now, that meant geniuses like Cash Meyer in the on-deck circle, or the number-four hitter, Mark Williams.

So all he could do was give it everything he had. The reason was simple.

I have to survive down here in the minors.

But just surviving wasn’t enough. He wanted to be a better player, too, and to climb. And for that, he needed more confidence than he had now.

So I’m getting on base, whatever it takes.

Hits and times on base would pile up into confidence, and that confidence would turn into ability.

And I’m confident I can do it.

The Giants’ ace, Mason White, was still holding down the mound.

He’d been shaky in the first, and with his lineup’s support he seemed to have settled down again. But Suho knew better.

He’s going to be wary of me.

The nightmare in the top of the first would still be with him. That pressure would shake him, because trauma doesn’t fade easily. And Suho meant to use the impatience the pitcher would be feeling.

When Suho stepped into the box, the pitcher’s face tightened for a split second—and then he went straight into his windup.

Knew it. You’re in a hurry, huh?

The pitch came right down the middle, and Suho’s bat whipped through.

Crack.

The crisp sound broke the silence at San Jose Stadium. The ball split the shortstop and the second baseman cleanly and rolled into center field. A clean single to center.

He tossed the bat aside and took first. That made him 2-for-3 on the day.

The dying embers were starting to catch again, but Suho wasn’t satisfied.

We have to get at least one run here.

If the Quakes started chipping away, the other side would get flustered too. And scoring the run that started it was up to him.

The problem… is whether the guys want it.

He thought about the next two hitters.

Cash, then Luis.

Cash was 2-for-2 so far. Luis was 0-for-2.

Cash is as locked in as he gets. A hit would be great, but…

The truth was, genius or not, Cash couldn’t get a hit every time.

Still, he’s got the best chance of anybody on the team, so let’s rattle the pitcher as much as I can.

Even so, he was better off not stealing.

A runner on second was always good. It put him right in scoring position, and with Suho’s speed, he could come all the way home on a single. It also took away the double play.

But if the steal fails, that’s a risk.

Suho’s goal this inning was to take back the momentum they’d lost—not all of it, maybe, but at least a little. What if he got thrown out stealing here? Forget getting the momentum back. The Quakes would fall apart completely.

He also had faith in Cash. He wanted that genius hitter focused on hitting, not tied up in a play. If Suho went, the hitter would have to adjust to it.

Don’t go messing up his timing for nothing. Just wait.

Suho took a bigger lead and nothing more, keeping the pitcher honest.

But—

“Strike three! You’re out!”

Cash’s bat cut nothing but air.

He’d swung through a chase pitch badly for a strikeout, and it was a textbook hero swing. Down 7–4, he’d gotten greedy and tried to turn the game around with one swing, and it had backfired.

Suho bit his lip.

…Luis is probably no different.

The number-three hitter, Luis, stepped in. Hitless on the day, he’d have too much drive if anything, not too little. He’d be dying to get a hit to make up for his slump.

Should I try a steal here?

After thinking it over, Suho shook his head.

No. Trust it.

It wasn’t Luis he was trusting, really. It was Mark, the number-four hitter, waiting in the on-deck circle.

Mark’s 1-for-2 today, but in his first at-bat he swung to keep the line moving for the team.

In his second at-bat, the one where he made an out, he’d swung easy then too; he’d just been unlucky and hit it right at a fielder. So right now, the player on the Quakes who thought most like Suho was Mark.

I can feel it. Mark really wants to win, too.

Which meant Mark would set his own wants aside and keep hitting for the team. Even if Luis made an out this time up, as long as it wasn’t a double play, Mark would get his chance.

Sure enough, Luis chased the pitcher’s bait and popped up to third.

Two outs, runner on first, just like that.

Just as the mood was going cold, Mark stepped in.

And Mark didn’t let him down. He didn’t try to force the outside pitch to the pull side. He went with it and flicked it the other way.

Crack.

A clean single to right.

With two outs, Suho was off at the crack of the bat.

His feet pounded the dirt. He hit second and kept accelerating toward third.

But the ball had gone right at the right fielder, and he gloved it quickly and got ready for the relay. In any normal situation, the book said stop at third.

But Suho had no intention of stopping.

If I stop here… it’s over.

Next up was the five hitter, Alexander Jackson, a classic slugger. With runners on first and third and two outs, would he really hit for the team?

No. He’ll want to play the hero and go for the big one.

And if they blew that chance, this game really was over.

So right here, we have to score and grab the momentum first!

Suho ran through the third-base coach’s stop sign and headed for home.

The right fielder’s throw went to the second baseman.

“Home! Home!”

The second baseman fired it home. The throw and Suho raced for the plate at the same time.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Suho threw himself into a head-first slide.

Thump.

The catcher’s mitt slapped down hard on Suho’s back. Suho’s hand swept across the plate at almost the same instant, but—

The umpire’s fist shot up.

“Out! He’s out!”

By a hair. It was an out by the thickness of a sheet of paper.

“…Damn it!”

Lying on his stomach in the dirt, Suho pounded the ground with his fist.

Bang.

His palm throbbed, but it was nothing compared to the sting in his chest.

Maybe that had been too much to try on the bases. Even so—

I wanted to keep the fire alive somehow…

He’d wanted to squeeze out even one run with his legs and drag his teammates along by the collar, even the ones who were ready to give up.

But the result was an out. The top of the fifth ended with nothing to show for it.

Suho stayed where he was on his stomach at the plate, unable to lift his head. To him, this wasn’t just an out. He was eaten up with blaming himself for letting what might have been the last chance to wake this team up today slip through his own hands.

“Damn it…”

When Suho still couldn’t bring himself to get up, Mark finally couldn’t stand to watch anymore. He came over and pulled him to his feet.

But Suho didn’t know that the play he’d just made wasn’t a failure. It had lit a fire in at least one Quakes player’s chest—a big one.

And that someone was none other than—

…

Cash, biting his lower lip so hard it was about to bleed.

Covered in dirt from head to toe, Suho trudged into the dugout.

Just as his teammates were about to say something to console him, someone grabbed his arm roughly.

It was Cash.

Before Suho could react, Cash hauled him behind the dugout, into a dark tunnel where nobody could see them.

“Wh-whoa? Cash?”

Suho sounded thrown, but Cash didn’t stop. Only when they reached a corner of the tunnel did he shove Suho hard against the wall.

Bang.

His back hit the wall. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but the jolt carried every bit of what the other man was feeling.

Suho raised his head and looked at Cash. Cash’s usually blank face was twisted with a kind of anger Suho had never seen on it before.

“You. Why’d you do that?”

Suho blinked. He couldn’t tell what the question was getting at. Was Cash blaming him for getting thrown out at home?

“Do what?”

“Why do you go this far?!”

Cash’s shout echoed down the tunnel. He glared at Suho as if he couldn’t understand him—no, as if he were looking at something that scared him.

“You. You’re going to the Arizona Fall League.”

“???”

“I heard everything you and the manager said. So your season’s already a success… so why the hell!”

Cash jabbed a finger at Suho’s dirt-caked uniform.

“Why are you throwing yourself around for one meaningless run?!”

Only then did Suho understand why Cash was this angry—and how Cash had been seeing him.

And Cash wasn’t wrong. This was the minors. One team? Maybe that kind of thing didn’t matter at all. Everyone here thought only about himself, and his own stats and promotion came first.

Even major leaguers didn’t play every game like their lives depended on it over a 162-game season. You let some go and fought for the ones that counted. That was the knack and the wisdom a pro used to survive a long season.

And a player who’d already locked up his reward—throwing himself at home plate and risking injury, in a minor league game where winning and losing didn’t even matter?

To Cash, whose baseball was all about efficiency and logic, it was insane. It was the wrong answer.

The confusion left Suho’s eyes. In its place came something calm and solid.

“So I did something wrong?”

Cash’s brows drew together.

“…What?”

“Because I don’t think so.”

Suho’s eyes had changed. There was a hard resolve in them, and it had nothing to do with the efficiency or the math Cash had in mind. It was something far more basic than that.

Suho went on.

“To me, being a pro means playing hard every game and giving it everything you’ve got.”

“…”

“I don’t want to coast just because I hit my goal. First inning or ninth, winning or losing. I don’t care if everybody else thinks this championship game doesn’t mean anything. If I’ve got the uniform on and I’m out on that field, I’m going to run like my life depends on it.”

This was what being a pro meant to Suho. Maybe it was a hunger no one else could have—one that came from having tasted failure once.

And Suho knew something else, too: playing like this wasn’t really for nothing. There’s no such thing as two players with exactly equal talent, but when it was close, the one who worked harder would get picked.

The uniform isn’t armor that protects me.

It was only a loan, something the club could take back at any time. Suho had learned that cold truth the hard way. So for him there was no “next time,” no knack for pacing himself. He wouldn’t even dream of it.

That was what drove Suho.

It was also the moment that proved why he was putting up such good numbers in the playoffs. It wasn’t the new mechanics he’d learned. It was the completely different mindset he brought to every game.

Cash’s eyes wavered.

He couldn’t refute it with logic. No—his head could argue with it, but his heart wouldn’t let him. Suho’s dumb, pigheaded answer was shaking the whole definition of baseball Cash had built over his entire life.

…

There was one more reason he couldn’t argue.

Deep in his chest, the pure longing he’d carried when he first started playing baseball was nodding hard at every word Suho said.

Because it was cool.

Cash was the one they called a genius—the one who weighed his numbers like profit and calculated efficiency before he ever stepped into the box. And right now, Suho, acting like an idiot, looked a hell of a lot more like a real ballplayer than he did.

I hate to admit it…

But he had to. This inefficient way of playing that Suho kept showing him, the thing Cash had despised so much, might really have been the ideal of a professional he’d been longing for all along.

The strength drained out of Cash’s clenched fists.

“…Get on base your next time up. No matter what.”

That was all Cash left him with before heading back to the dugout ahead of him. An invisible fire was burning at his back.

Suho blew out a long breath, and then a smile spread across his face.

Thank God. We haven’t lost this game yet.

Cash had told him to get on base. That wasn’t just a word of encouragement. It meant a genius hitter who had no reason to envy anybody was putting his trust in a mere bust, and was willing to follow his lead.

End of Chapter 38