Two weeks had passed since Junho started playing baseball.
Every Saturday, Junho headed to the Hanseong Little League field.
He still didn't have a uniform.
While the other kids warmed up in matching caps, Junho stretched in ordinary workout clothes.
Even so, he no longer hesitated when he stepped onto the field.
“Junho’s here!”
The catcher, Minjae, waved to him first.
“You’re not going to miss any throws during catch today, right?”
Junho gave a small smile.
“Probably.”
“What do you mean, probably? You have to say it with confidence.”
Minjae tossed him a glove playfully.
The awkwardness from when they first met was already fading away.
When practice began, Coach Oh Sejin instructed them to play defense in the outfield.
“Junho, you’re in the outfield today.”
“Yes, Coach.”
The outfield was different from both a defender’s role and a midfielder’s in soccer.
If you missed a single ball there, it turned into an extra-base hit just like that.
Concentration was more important than anything.
The pitcher threw, and the batter swung the bat.
Crack!
A high batted ball soared toward left field.
Junho didn’t watch the ball.
Instead, he moved first.
He quickly calculated the ball’s spin and height, along with the direction of the wind, and ran toward where it would land.
A moment later.
Thump.
The ball disappeared into the center of his glove.
“Nice!”
He heard the coach’s voice.
Minjae gave him a big thumbs-up too.
“You’re a full-fledged outfielder now.”
Catching his breath, Junho threw the ball into the infield.
His throw was still clumsy, but no one read batted balls faster than he did.
After practice, Coach Oh Sejin called Junho over.
“Do you know why you’re so good at tracking the ball?”
Junho shook his head.
The coach held a ball in his hand.
“Most players move after they see the ball.”
He slowly tossed it into the air.
“You move first, before it falls, because you know where it’s going to land.”
The moment Junho heard those words, his old soccer field came to mind.
The space Hyunwoo would run into.
The spot Minseok would leave open.
The space behind him that Doyoon would cover.
Junho had always seen those spaces before the ball.
Coach Oh Sejin smiled.
“That isn’t athletic instinct.”
“It’s a habit of thinking.”
Junho quietly nodded.
On the way home that day.
A soccer ball rolled to Junho’s feet as he passed the playground in the alley.
“Hey! Kick it over here!” a little boy shouted.
Without thinking, Junho stopped the ball.
The sensation against the top of his foot was all too familiar.
Even though he hadn’t kicked a ball in over a month, his body hadn’t forgotten.
Junho gently popped the ball into the air, then passed it precisely to the boy.
The ball came to a soft stop at the boy’s feet.
“Thank you!”
The children started playing soccer again.
Junho watched them for a while.
The tips of his toes began to tingle.
He had thought he’d forgotten soccer,
but his body still remembered it.
Junho quietly slipped his hands into his pockets and kept walking.
But his gaze couldn’t leave the field for a long time.
His father, watching from a distance, said nothing.
He knew better than anyone that the light in his son’s eyes was coming back to life,
and that those eyes were still turned toward soccer, not baseball.
Monday morning.
Junho slung his backpack over his shoulder and crossed the school field on his way to class.
Outside the window, a few kids were kicking a soccer ball around.
Once, Junho would have been the first one to run onto the field, but now he paused for a moment before continuing into the classroom.
When recess came, Minjae approached him.
“Junho.”
“Yeah?”
“I heard we’re doing batting practice after baseball practice today. You’re coming, right?”
Junho thought for a moment, then nodded.
“I’ll be there.”
Baseball was still unfamiliar, but he didn’t dislike going out onto the field.
After class.
Junho headed to the baseball field.
Today was the first day he would learn to hit.
Coach Oh Sejin handed him a bat and said,
“Baseball isn’t a sport about hitting the ball well.”
Junho gripped the bat.
“It’s a sport about waiting for a good pitch.”
First pitch.
Swing and a miss.
Second pitch.
He barely nicked it with the end of the bat.
Third pitch.
The ball passed beneath the bat and smacked into the catcher’s mitt.
Minjae laughed.
“Harder than you expected?”
Junho laughed too.
“It’s completely different from soccer.”
“Of course it is.”
As he prepared to throw the ball again, Minjae said,
“In soccer, the player moves to the ball.”
“But in baseball, you have to wait for the ball to come to you.”
Those words stayed with Junho.
A sport of waiting.
In soccer, he moved first, searching for open space.
Baseball was the opposite. He had to hold back until the best moment.
Coach Oh Sejin threw again.
This time, Junho didn’t rush.
From the moment the ball left the coach’s hand, he watched its spin.
A little longer.
Just a little longer.
Now.
Whap!
The ball met the center of the bat.
The hard-hit ball shot through the gap between second base and shortstop.
“That’s it!”
The coach shouted.
Minjae smiled, looking surprised.
“That one was really solid.”
Junho’s palm stung, but strangely, he felt good.
It was the satisfaction of hitting a baseball properly for the first time.
After practice.
Coach Oh Sejin called Junho over.
“You said you played soccer for a long time, right?”
“Yes, Coach.”
“Do you still want to play soccer?”
It was a sudden question.
Junho couldn’t answer easily.
Only after a long while did he quietly open his mouth.
“…Yes.”
The coach smiled as if he’d expected that answer.
“Then why don’t you?”
Junho lowered his gaze to the ground.
“My team disappeared.”
“And all my friends went their separate ways.”
A brief silence passed.
Slowly removing his glove, Coach Oh Sejin said,
“Junho.”
“Sports don’t make people into who they are.”
Junho looked up.
“People make sports into what they are.”
The coach smiled.
“Even if you return to soccer someday,
what you learn from baseball will never be wasted.”
Those words remained deep in Junho’s heart.
When Junho returned home, he opened his bedroom door.
A dusty soccer ball still sat in the corner of the room.
Junho hesitated for a moment, then picked it up.
He gently popped it up once with the top of his foot.
Thump.
The ball clung to his foot just like it used to.
Twice.
Three times.
Four times.
His body still hadn’t forgotten soccer.
But just as he was about to juggle it a fifth time,
Junho quietly set the ball down.
Now wasn’t the time to hold on to soccer.
Once he had decided to learn baseball, he had to give it his best there.
The evening sunset spread red across the sky outside the window.
Junho looked at the glove and soccer ball side by side.
One was the present,
and the other was a dream he still couldn’t let go of.
And he didn’t know yet.
That before long, the day would come when his two fields would connect into a single path.