“You punks are with the Dodgers?”

Suho, Mark and Cash turned toward the raised voice.

Standing there with his arms folded was a huge white man in the same Dodgers uniform they had on. He had to be over six and a half feet tall, and the muscles bulging in his forearms and the tattoos covering his neck gave off a heavy menace. With the shaggy beard and the scarred face, you’d have believed it if someone told you he was a thug instead of a ballplayer.

The man looked the three of them over like they were insects and spoke.

“All faces I’ve never seen before. Where are you from?”

It would have been fair to take offense at that arrogant attitude, but Mark answered anyway. Say what you liked, the man was wearing a Dodgers uniform, which made him a senior player in the same organization.

“Low-A. The Quakes.”

For a second the man’s brow crumpled, and then he let out a disbelieving laugh.

“…What? Low-A? This isn’t some neighborhood Little League.”

His voice rang through the locker room. Every player from the other clubs standing nearby turned to look at them at once.

And no wonder. Low-A, the very bottom, in a place where the top prospects gathered? That was practically an insult to the level of the whole league.

The man scoffed and sneered.

“Guess they were damn short on guys to send this time. Sending babies all the way out here.”

Mark’s face went red and then purple at the insult. He was about to say something when the man drove in the last nail.

“My name’s Liam. Double-A. Tulsa Drillers.”

It was an introduction timed perfectly, as if to make clear that no argument would be tolerated.

“…!”

At that, Mark shut his mouth.

Double-A.

The weight that word carried was enormous.

Generally the difference between levels in the minors is clear. Getting from Low-A to High-A is hard enough. But going from High-A to Double-A is like barely dragging yourself over a wall you’re not supposed to be able to climb.

If Single-A, Low and High both, is the stage where rough stones get polished, then from Double-A on it’s where real players compete. Survive there and you can start eyeing a major league call-up; the men there are major leaguers in waiting.

So Liam was two whole levels above Suho and the others. He was a senior playing at a far higher level, a real prospect ranked much higher inside the organization.

The three of them may have come on the club’s recommendation. But in the pro world, where rank is stamped on you, a Low-A nobody had no standing to talk back to a Double-A senior.

America is a free country. But in baseball, at least, an old-guard pecking order was firmly in place.

When they didn’t argue back, Liam waved a hand like he had them right where he wanted them.

“Don’t muddy the water. Sit in a corner. You’re in the way. Or why don’t you just pack up and get lost?”

You could call that going too far. But Liam had his reasons for harassing them and knocking them down.

Same Dodgers uniform, so what, I’m supposed to play patty-cake and say welcome?

Ridiculous.

If anything, being in the same organization was the bigger problem.

The door to the majors is narrower than the eye of a needle. The 40-man roster is limited, and hundreds of prospects climb toward those spots with their hands around each other’s throats. Which meant the guys from other clubs in this locker room were only opponents. The ones in the same uniform were direct rivals coming to take food off his plate.

And what bothered him most was where they’d come from. Not Double-A. Not Triple-A. Not even High-A—Low-A, of all things. By any common sense, that was a level that couldn’t set foot in this place.

And the club had sent them here anyway? That meant the Dodgers had their eyes on these three.

Damn it.

So to Liam, this was nothing short of a red alert.

He was the one being written up as stalled in Double-A, while these newcomers climbing up from below had the front office’s favor. What if they broke out here? Never mind next year’s spring training invite—the Double-A spot he was sweating blood to hold on to could be in danger too. Somebody comes up, somebody has to clear out. That was how this business worked.

So I’ve got to stamp them down.

Liam’s eyes flashed, vicious.

He had to knock the fight out of them from the start. He had to make them feel in their bones how terrifying this place was and how worthless they were, so they couldn’t play up to their ability.

You could call it underhanded. Of course it looked that way.

Who cares?

A place where you disappeared if you didn’t survive. This wasn’t a school, it was a war zone.

That was when Suho stepped in front of Liam and bent deeply at the waist, ninety degrees.

“I’m sorry.”

“…Huh?”

Liam’s eyebrows twitched. It wasn’t the reaction he’d expected.

Unlike in Korea, in American culture, avoiding someone’s eyes or bowing your head means defeat or submission. So an ordinary rookie would either be indignant or fire back with—

“Who the hell do you think you are?”

That was how it usually went. But this Asian kid was being scrupulously polite, like he’d run into a senior man in the army.

“We’re new here, so we didn’t know any better. I didn’t realize you were a Double-A senior… I’m sorry for offending you.”

“Hah, seriously…”

Liam’s face went slack with disbelief.

What kind of guy was this? He’d never seen politeness laid on this thick in American baseball. Maybe that was why: he’d been about to keep picking a fight, and the air went right out of it.

Suho, on the other hand, knew exactly what he was doing.

The locals ganging up on the new guy.

He’d been through it more times than he could count. Korea wasn’t much different from America. People are people wherever you go.

To grab a spot on the first team. Or to keep somebody from taking your starting job. Seniors who talked down to the younger guys, put them through hazing, made them do the grunt work, purely because they were older and had been eating pro meals a little longer. Suho had seen those people until he was sick of them in his farm team days.

Mark and Cash have never been through this.

They were Americans, and this ugly culture they were meeting for the first time wouldn’t sit well with them.

But I’ve rolled around at the bottom.

You don’t avoid a pile of crap because you’re scared of it. You avoid it because it stinks.

Standing on his pride here wouldn’t get him one single thing.

So the right move now is for me to step up on our behalf and bend.

If he made an enemy of Liam and poisoned the mood in this locker room, the ones who’d pay for it were the weakest men here—them. Was there any point in burning energy on that?

Honestly, his pride? He could stand on it, sure. But that would mean letting go of a chance to play even one more game. Who likes a player who causes friction?

The best thing would be to shut him up with my ability, but…

Realistically, a Low-A player thinking he’d overpower a Double-A player was nonsense. All the more so because he had no data on the man at all.

Still, nobody spits on a smiling face. That works anywhere.

Suho lifted his head and gave him a good-natured smile.

“We’ll stay out of your way from here on.”

“…Tch. What a bunch of pushovers.”

Liam made a disgusted noise and turned away, as if he had nothing left to say. Beating on a guy with no will to fight like a punching bag was the same as spitting on your own face.

“As long as you know it. Stay out of sight.”

Once Liam was gone, Mark hissed at Suho in a whisper.

“Hey! Why are you apologizing? What did we do wrong?”

“We got past it without any real trouble, didn’t we?”

“W-well, that’s true…”

Suho glanced over at Cash too. His eyes were sharp enough to cut.

Suho gave his shoulder a couple of pats to settle him.

“Cash. Don’t get angry over something like this.”

“Why?”

Cash asked it back. It was a question from someone who honestly didn’t know.

“Stuff like today is going to happen over and over anyway.”

This was only the start. Suho knew it.

Had it ended just because Liam had backed off for the moment? Absolutely not. He’d clearly pick at them every chance he got. And was Liam the only one? No. The other Dodgers minor leaguers would be the same.

“Then shouldn’t you have pushed back harder?”

Mark wasn’t thrilled with the way Cash kept ignoring him, but this time he nodded like he had to agree.

It was a moment that showed how differently Cash and Mark and Suho thought.

Suho told them what was on his mind, quietly.

“I’m not happy about it either.”

It wasn’t as if Suho were some kind of saint who could just take it. Feeling insulted is feeling insulted. How could there not be something boiling up from deep in his gut? But instead of letting that emotion out, Suho had decided to swallow it and burn it as fuel.

“But there’s a clear reason we have to take it.”

Right now they couldn’t peel the Low-A tag off themselves. Nothing they did would change that. And if you can’t change your station, the best move is to use it for everything it’s worth.

“Where we come from is a weakness for us. Which is exactly why it’s time to turn that weakness into an advantage.”

Get looked down on, and use it as kindling for your will to fight.

“If it feels unfair, turn it into spite and grow like crazy. We’ve got places to be.”

Survive here, and next season meant a promotion to High-A. And there was a sweeter reward on the line too: an invitation to major league spring training. They might get to sweat alongside superstars they’d only ever seen on TV.

So there was no time to get tripped up arguing over the hazing of one Double-A player. They weren’t idle enough to play petty pride games.

“If we’ve got energy for that, we’re better off seeing one more pitch and taking one more swing.”

When Suho’s eyes stayed steady, fixed straight ahead, Mark and Cash clenched their teeth.

Because they’d been talked around, and that stung their pride even more. Their emotions had gotten out in front of their judgment, while Suho was thinking about his future instead. There was no missing it.

He was far too grown-up. But that was a relief. A solid, grown-up friend like that was on their side.

“If you’re all changed, get out on the field! We’re playing an intrasquad game.”

Just then, the coach’s shout came down.

Suho gave Mark and Cash a light shove in the back.

“Let’s go. Time to chase our dream.”

Grow first—wasn’t that the only way to dream about payback for today’s humiliation?

End of Chapter 50