#5. My Mind is Going Crazy

All the way to S National University, Yuhwan’s insides felt twisted and warped.

The palms gripping the leather steering wheel were slick with cold sweat, but the lingering afterimage of Haneul Jang was so deeply burned into his retinas that he couldn't erase it. He repeatedly slammed his foot onto the accelerator with sharp, irritable force.

His mind was still entirely occupied by Haneul Jang.

He grew even more infuriated at himself for turning into such a pathetic fool.

Haneul Jang’s lead was not just a collection of simple signs. It was like a surgeon's scalpel, meticulously dissecting the batter’s brain and hacking away at their psychology.

The suffocating sensation of becoming a mere puppet manipulated at the end of Haneul's mitt—even for Yuhwan, a monster who was supposed to rule over the mound more arrogantly than anyone—brutally scraped against his unyielding pride and triggered an uncontrollable rage.

A flawless catcher, the likes of which the world had never seen before.

With a chilling insight that pierced straight through batting mechanisms and a highly calculated baseline running play, it felt as if a fully seasoned professional player had descended upon an amateur stage. Yuhwan, deep down, could not hide his sheer astonishment.

Yet, what was currently violently tearing through Yuhwan's mind was not merely the bastard's baseball skills. The bizarre, highly provocative presence that paralyzed a man's logic was a pure, lethal poison in itself.

The shadow of his eyelashes, cast over skin so pale it looked entirely innocent, was as sharp and vivid as the decorations on a fine porcelain doll.

The strange, delicate harmony exuded by those fine features relentlessly tickled Yuhwan's dry heart.

From the exact moment their eyes first locked, he had intensely craved to grasp him in his hands and crush him, to relentlessly force him to break down into tears...

Having lived a completely dry existence without ever casting a single glance at another man, this raw, primitive desire he was facing for the very first time in his life was rapidly mutating into a feral beast he could no longer control.

‘And to think I completely fell apart all by myself, without a single touch from that bastard.’

At that sudden thought, Yuhwan’s jaw trembled violently with an overwhelming surge of shame.

As expected, that was the root of the problem.

The cruel aftertaste of last night—shattering into pieces from nothing but a mere afterimage of the bastard—inflicted a savage, humiliating sense of mortification.

Why the hell did it have to be him? Why was this destructive, near-savage urge—to intensely covet the bastard’s body and utterly ruin that pure soul—aggressively eating him alive?

He wasn't some adolescent boy experiencing puberty, yet the heavy lingering weight of that wet dream was like a permanent stigma, proving just how dangerously enchanting and wicked that existence truly was.

Haneul Jang would also show up today after receiving his acceptance notice. What kind of mask should he wear when they finally collide face-to-face? An unknown, suffocating dread, the likes of which he had never felt since birth, completely crept over him.

If his abnormal, twisted obsession ever got exposed, and the bastard ended up staring at him with pure disgust... Even the slightest possibility of that truth froze Yuhwan's chest into a cold, dead weight.

 

***

Even after arriving at the field, he sat in his car for a long time, completely lost in chaotic confusion, unable to bring himself to turn off the engine. Finally ending his inner turmoil, he stepped out of the vehicle. With every single step he took toward the empty ground, Haneul Jang's ragged breathing seemed to follow him like a phantom echo.

Fortunately, the sky today was brilliantly clear, as if mocking the torrential downpour from yesterday. As if it had never rained a single drop, the dazzling sunlight scattered beautifully over the bone-dry grass.

Right then, a tall figure with sweeping brown hair came jogging over cheerfully, waving a catcher's mitt in the air.

"Hey there, looks like our diligent, dominant prince has finally graced us with his presence? I'm Yoo Gyeong-ho, a third-year!"

Because they had clashed against one another as the current student OB team and the rookie YB team during the tryouts two days ago, they hadn't had a chance to properly exchange names. While 'OB' traditionally referred to graduates, the club casually used the label to refer to the upperclassmen team for convenience.

Yoo Gyeong-ho, who had been sitting behind the plate as the opposing catcher, was the youngest son of the massive M Electronics chaebol family. As someone who thoroughly understood the inner workings of the business world, there was no way Yuhwan wouldn't recognize him; a faint memory of Gyeong-ho's face still lingered from a wealthy corporate gathering last year.

"I'm Yuhwan, a first-year. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"I was a bit skeptical the day before yesterday, you know."

"Excuse me?"

"The legendary mega-star of the President's Cup National High School Baseball Tournament from two years ago suddenly pops up at our school out of nowhere... Imagine how shocked I was! Is your shoulder completely healed now?"

The memory the senior brought up was not a sterile, business meeting, but baseball.

To deliberately dig up his most painful vulnerability and darkest past right from the start—Yuhwan internally clicked his tongue. What a thoroughly twisted, ill-natured hobby.

Finding Gyeong-ho's slick, smooth demeanor deeply uncomfortable, Yuhwan subtly averted his gaze. However, since the man was a sky-high senior and someone he would have to constantly rub shoulders with from now on, Yuhwan suppressed his raw irritation and maintained the conversation.

"My rehabilitation has been flawlessly completed."

"Man, if it wasn't for that unexpected injury, you'd be raking in millions in the pros by now. It’s a real tragedy."

"..."

"But seriously, your stuff the day before yesterday was absolutely lethal. Your pitch mix was so diverse that the OB guys completely lost their minds and panicked. Everyone's practically dying of joy, saying a literal monster just joined the team. Thanks to you, we even had a massive, wild celebration dinner after."

The praise felt hollow. All of those brilliant results were nothing more than an outcome where he had been dragged around and manipulated like a mere tool under the bastard’s suffocating, meticulous lead.

Yuhwan swallowed the words rising up his throat—the urge to scream out the truth that the game two days ago was actually a solo stage entirely orchestrated by a director named Haneul Jang.

Every single time he reconstructed that perfect, overbearing lead Haneul had displayed inside the bullpen, his molars ground together with a sharp spasm.

Driven by a surge of pure humiliation and a twisted mind, he had forcefully proposed that drinking session bet, fully intending to brand Haneul Jang as his personal slave and manipulate him at his own whim. Yet, the vivid reality that he couldn't even fully possess him inside his own dreams, waking up thoroughly drenched in sweat, was relentlessly turning his entire day into an absolute living hell.

As Yuhwan remained locked in heavy silence, Yoo Gyeong-ho closed the distance between them, lazily spinning his mitt on the tip of his finger. Those relaxed, playful movements aggressively provoked Yuhwan's highly defensive nerves.

"You're quite the quiet one, aren't you? The bullpen is completely empty right now, so hurry up, change your clothes, and come out. I’ll personally catch your balls for you. Since we share the same 'Yoo' surname, I'll make sure to take special, doting care of you. I'm really looking forward to seeing how well I can sync up with our dominant prince."

The subtle, underlying mockery laced within Gyeong-ho's playful tone sharply scraped against Yuhwan's titanic pride.

Who exactly is taking special care of whom? And what the hell is up with that childish nickname, 'dominant prince'?

A wave of pure disgust surged deep within him. Instead of offering a response, Yuhwan callously turned his gaze toward the far corner of the bullpen. It felt as if Haneul Jang's searing breath was still stubbornly clinging to his eardrums, refusing to fade away.