Stitches – Shawn Mendes

Chapter One: Base

Base: One of the four places that a baseball player must touch in order to get a point.

“Easy girl, easy. Take a deep breath. You got this, you know you do.” She muttered under her breath, eyes narrowing down and instinctively calculating the force and pressure she would have to insert between her and the batter.

She’d watched her opponent’s many game tapes, analysed each tactic and every single movement of theirs just for this moment. The girl in front of her was the last one left of her opponent’s batting team, and this was the ninth inning – if Bom could pull this off, they would win the game.

“You got this.” She murmured once more, ignoring how the crowd cheered her name in unison, ricocheting off the field, bouncing back to rattle her eardrums in their deafening roars. “You can do this, Bom.”

Taking a deep breath, she moved into her striking stance and flung her arm out, exerting as much effort as she could to throw her signature fastball.

The sound of the ball flying into the air echoed throughout the stadium, thrillingly feeding the crowd’s anticipation.

Then, a clear thump was heard.

“Strike three – out!” The umpire yelled.

Park Bom collapsed, her legs appearing to have lost their strength now that the game was over. Her teammates ran into the mound, arms wide open as the whole stadium rejoiced. She had a brief glimpse of her team’s smiling faces, all tearful with relief and utter joy as they threw her over their shoulders and began parading around.

“We did it, holy ing , we did it!”

Bom looked up to see the blinking lights of the scoreboard, exhilarated when she saw her team leading by one point. She barely had time to register the opposing team’s sullen faces when her teammates began throwing her up in the air, cheers and laughter all ringing loudly in her ears.

This, she thought, caught up in the moment, is all I ever want to do for the rest of my life.

OoOoOo

Three hours later found Bom in the middle of a raging party, quietly sipping beer while watching her teammates get completely wasted as part of their festivities. She wasn’t always the best drinker, and knowing her tendency to ramble about nonessentials and occasionally spilling secrets that were supposed to be on lockdown, she was forced to sit this one out.

That, and she was a horrible drink buddy, puking out everything she had to give once her system could no longer take it.

“This seat taken?” A man’s lithe voice asked from beside her.

Bom looked up to see her coach and most trusted confidante grinning wryly at her. “Go ahead.”

“Good play out there today.” He nodded.

She gasped mockingly. “Is the world ending?! You’re actually complimenting me?!”

“Be grateful you little brat.” He scoffed, chugging down the bottle of beer he held in his hands with ease. “It’s not good enough, though.”

Bom sighed. “Can’t you just let me enjoy this moment, Coach? We’re in the middle of a celebration – live life a little and actually be human.”

Yang Hyunsuk was a man notoriously well-known for being a stuck-up prick when it came to his work. He was once a ruthless pitcher, annihilating every single team that came his way. He worked himself to the bone reaching the top, and he was the type of man who’d happily list you all the championship games he’d won in his prime, both regionally and worldwide.

It took one wrong move from him, one simple twist of his treasured throwing arm, and all those world titles were stripped off of him.

He never gave up baseball, though, in spite of his injury. He loved it to the brink of obsession, and though his wife might fight you for it, he loved baseball even more than his own life.

Bom had to give it to the man; he was a beast during trainings, and a complete monster during games, but his passion and knowledge about the sport was truly something worth praising.

“I can’t be human when my star player’s not playing up to her potential.” He grunted, reaching for another bottle. “You could’ve done better, Bom, and you know it, too. So why didn’t you?”

“You know what, I’m tired. I’m going to get home first, so the tab’s on you, Coach.” Bom slithered her way out of the booth, profusely rejecting offers to stay longer as she hurried out the bar. She ignored her coach’s shout of protest from behind her, sliding in between tightly packed bodies that all danced to the rhythm of an unknown beat.

She waited on the curb, hoping that a taxi would miraculously come quickly. The cool, midnight air raised goose-bumps on her skin, and she wondered if it would be better to go outside.

Bom rubbed her hands against her arms, hoping to cause some sort of friction to help battle the frigid wind’s onslaught. Preoccupied with warming herself up, she failed to notice two small bodies running straight towards her.

They barrelled into her, causing a slew of profanities to sound out from Bom as she, along with the two little boys, fell hilariously in a tangled mess of limbs.

“Jesus ing Christ, man!” She cried, opening her eyes to see two more pairs of shining orbs staring right back at her with unrivalled excitement.

“Daesung-hyung, it’s her! It’s her!” The smaller one, with droopy eyes and dark circles that were baffling for a kid so young, shouted with glee. His hair stood up in all sorts of directions, appearing to defy gravity itself, and he still spoke with a babyish intonation, seemingly no more than four years old.

The other one looked slightly older, with eyes so small they crinkled up as he grinned widely, showcasing a set of adorably crooked teeth. His bangs flopped down his forehead, almost covering his eyes. “Yeah, it’s her!”

Just as Bom thought it couldn’t get possibly weirder, they hugged her earnestly. Bom struggled to hold their writhing bodies against her own, squashed under the combined weight of the children pressing her into the cold sidewalk.

After enduring their squeals for a couple more minutes, Bom cleared and sat up, brusquely pushing them off her. “I’m sorry, kids, but what the heck are you doing out here? Where are your parents?”  

The younger one, with his legs bowed underneath him, sat up straighter, eyes shining brightly with barely contained joy. “Hyung, she’s talking to us!”

The other simply gasped in response, laughing afterwards with such exuberance that Bom couldn’t help but think if something was wrong with their tiny heads. She frowned at them before looking around for any indication of their parents.

She searched desperately, mustering all the attention and focus she had to find another, more responsible adult, because god help her, Bom couldn’t take care of two seemingly star-struck little boys looking up at her with so much admiration that she felt inherently uncomfortable.

It wasn’t that Bom hated children; in fact, she loved them.

But that was from afar, with them laying peacefully in their parents’ arms, far away from her frighteningly clumsy clutches.

“Listen, kids, I’m not going to ask again.” She sighed, resigning herself to look back towards the little boys who still grinned hopefully up at her. “Where are your parents?”

The younger one pursed his lips and turned instead to his older brother, tugging on his shirt with slight discomfort. “Hyung?”

“We don’t know.” The older brother – or Daesung, as the younger one had called him – merely shrugged, still smiling that awfully charming beam of his.

Bom had to bite the inside of her cheek to hold back her annoyance; she was never one to practise the virtue of being patient, better known for acting and thinking fast. Sighing, she reached into her pocket for her cell-phone, ready to dial the cops.

“Dammit!” She cursed, hastily trying her best to power up her phone. “Low batt.”

The younger one suddenly shivered, curling in closer towards his older brother who gently wrapped his arm around him. “Hyung, I’m cold.”

“Me, too,” he replied through chattering teeth.

The two of them were still seated on the hard ground, with their arms wrapped around each other. Bom bit her lip looking at them, feeling a surge of guilt wash over her briefly. She sighed, took off her coat, and laid it across the boys’ shoulders. She picked them up from the ground, grunting slightly at their weight, and started searching for a cab.

“I’m going to take you little fellas to a police station, alright? I’m sure your parents must be worried sick about you guys.” She remarked, shifting the two to one arm – they were small enough, anyway – as she caught sight of an approaching taxi.

Hailing it, she heard Daesung quietly whisper, “I don’t think so. Appa doesn’t care about us.”

This disturbed Bom, and she wondered what the little boy meant by that. Placing the little nugget of information at the back of her mind, she asked the driver to take them to the nearest police station.

“What were you even doing hanging out in those streets, anyway?” She asked the boys, breaking the silence of the car five minutes later.

The younger one had fallen asleep in her arms, and Bom hated to admit it, but it felt nice having someone intuitively trust her – that was a rarity amongst adults, even more so in her team where so much were at stake in her expense.

Daesung innocently blinked at her, his little face morphing into a shy grin as he played with the fringes of his shirt. “We watched you play your game just now. You were really good, imo-nim!”

Bom tried to recall their faces through the crowd of bustling men and women, failing to do so when a haze of exhaustion attempted to overwhelm her at once. “Thank you. So, you followed me?”

“Well, yeah.” He yawned, reaching out to hold his younger brother’s hand. “We really like you, so after the game, we escaped from Appa’s bodyguards and followed you.”

Bom sighed, feeling more confused than ever, as Daesung leaned his head against her side and contentedly closed his eyes.

What kind of a man has bodyguards for their children? She thought, exasperated. Whoever their father is, he must be one hell of a businessman or something. Maybe he was one of the team’s sponsors . . .

“Alright, here you go.” The cab driver announced, bringing the car to a stop in front of the station. He looked back at the sleeping children and a still pondering Bom. “Hang on, you’re Park Bom, right? That baseball player from Korea National Sports University? Man, I’m a big fan of yours!”

She gave him a weary grin, shifting the boys so that they rested on her left arm as her right reached for her wallet.

“No, no, it’s alright. Ride’s on me.” He grinned at her. “Think of it as a gift for winning that game earlier today!”

“Thank you so much, sir!” She smiled widely, bowing as much as she could with the children in her arms.

“I should be thanking you!” He retorted, chuckling slightly. “With that win of yours today, you got us into the world championship league!”

“It’s nothing compared to the big leagues, though, since it’s just on a university level.” she shrugged slightly.

He raised an eyebrow at her. “It’s still something. I’m hoping you’d get snatched up by a really good team after you’ve graduated.”

“I hope so, too.” She replied after a slight pause. “Well, I need to get on my way soon. Thank you for the ride, sir!”

He bowed slightly at her, smiling widely as she got out the car. Watching the cab drive away into the almost empty street, Bom waited for it to go completely out of sight before turning and heading into the station.

It was a mess.

She never wanted sleep more than she ever did in the few hours that followed.

Sure, she’s been through sleepless nights before. But this was different – playing a nerve-wracking, almost three hour long game and afterwards celebrating like crazy took its toll on her. Her body ached with such pain and exhaustion, she had to stumble and drag her way through an array of useless questions, with the boys still clinging onto her.

Her mind already felt like it was flat-lining by the time they finally allowed her to leave the boys in their care. They informed her that their father was already on his way to come and get them, with Bom almost kissing the officer-in-charge out of sheer gratitude. Never having been more relieved upon hearing those words of dismissal, Bom happily forced her way through some autographs and pictures before she finally got out of what seemed like a prison rather than a police station.

It was already dawn when she reached her apartment. All Bom could register before she fell onto her bed, still donning her clothes from the night before, was the sound of her TV relaying a simple message.

Global superstar G-Dragon’s children, after a night of an emergency region-wide search, were finally found at a police station based in Itaewon . . .

A/N: I couldn't get this plot out of my head even if I tried, and as a result of staying up multiple nights thinking whether or not I should post it, eventually I just did. It's still a W-I-P, and I know that it's lacking in many areas - for that, I apologize in advance. This will be a GBOM (because I couldn't picture anybody but the two of them for this) oriented story, based on Bom's perspective and will be multiple chapters long, so stay tuned ;)

I hoped you guys liked it! Thanks for reading! :)