Tuesday, 5:00pm

“Ladies! Gather up!” I heard Jihyo cry from the middle of the field. I stood from the bench and then left the dugout to join the crowd of players who stood before Jihyo, waiting for her instructions. “Find a partner and practice throwing and catching for now,” she commanded.

Everyone nodded and did as they were told. Meanwhile, I stayed in order to speak personally with Jihyo.

“Can I play?” I asked as I raised my right hand, which was unbandaged now, between us.

Jihyo looked carefully at my hand. The bruise still remained on the surface of my palm, but it was no longer swollen or a deep purple. “Ask Sana-ssi to look at it for you. I trust her judgment better than yours and mine.”

I hesitantly nodded. The last time I saw Sana was at that coffee shop when she was with Tzuyu. After that, I found it hard to try to ignore what I witnessed and to continue normally with our friendship. So she and I hadn’t been in contact for a while. Despite that, she remained on my mind through the entirety of these past few days. No matter how hard I tried to stop thinking about her, she always found a way back into my mind.

I entered the dugout and my eyes immediately turned to the only person who sat there. “Sana-unnie.”

“Ah, Dahyunnie!” she exclaimed, standing and then approaching me. She was about to throw her arms around me when I placed my right hand up between our faces. At that, she stopped just before my hand.

“Can you check if I’m okay to play now?” I asked.

“Ah, yeah,” Sana said, “Sit down.”

So I did. Sana sat down beside me. I extended my right hand out to her, which she took gently between her two hands. Her hands were always so gentle as they touched mine.

But I wasn’t the only one.

“Hm, the swelling has gone down significantly,” she said as she inspected the palm of my hand. “Make it into a fist?” she half-commanded, half-asked.

I clenched my hand into a strong fist. Sana wrapped her fingers over the knuckles of my hand. “Okay, so you have the strength back in your hand,” she opened my fist, “I’m going to press on the bruise, okay?”

I nodded. Sana used her thumb to press on the bruise, gently. I didn’t react. So she pressed with more force. And I still didn’t react.

“I guess your hand’s okay,” Sana said. Then she smiled, “You’re free to practice.”

“Thank you,” I said as I stood.

Before I could leave, Sana firmly grabbed my wrist. She pulled me towards her body. So we stood, with my left arm right against her chest as the both of her arms wrapped around my waist. “Do a good job out there today, okay?” she softly whispered into my ear.

Chills ran down my spine as her breath softly caressed my ear. I shouldn’t have allowed my body to submit to her touch, especially since I knew she wasn’t intimate like this with only me. But when I was within her embrace like this, my body couldn’t help but let it be and savor the moment in which her physical attention was on me.

But my mind, still on how Sana had flirted with Tzuyu, forced me to pull away. So I did. “Okay,” I quickly replied before I left the dugout.

5:30pm

It was my turn to bat. I walked up to the plate, tapped it with the end of my bat, and then swung the bat over my shoulder as I got ready to swing. The pitcher, Chaeyoung, leaned forward and looked at me with intense eyes before she stood up straight, about to pitch the ball. She closed her eyes to inhale. As she opened her eyes, she lifted her forward knee high in front of her chest. My eyes remained on the ball in her hand.

“Go, Dahyunnie!!!” I heard Sana shout from the foul territory. I blinked.

Suddenly, Chaeyoung lunged forward, releasing the ball in her hand in an instance. Before I could react, I heard the sound of a ball hitting a glove beside me. I looked down at the catcher, who held the ball in her glove.

“Strike one!”

“What the hell?” I breathed. Suddenly, my hands began to sweat inside my gloves. My feet, usually planted where I place them, began to shift. A trickle of sweat ran down my forehead and dropped over my eyelid. My vision in one eye blurred as the liquid dropped over the end of my eyelash. I took a hand off my bat to quickly wipe the sweat off my face.

Did I blink as Chaeyoung threw the ball? I had to admit that that was the fastest ball I had seen Chaeyoung throw in a while. The fire was back in her eyes. But I missed, and I rarely miss, no matter how fast the ball is.

The catcher threw the ball back at Chaeyoung, who had a small grin on her face. There was no prep this time. In a quick and fluid motion, Chaeyoung lifted her knee, lunged forward, and launched the ball.

My eyes remained on the ball as it soared through the air. In the background, I heard Sana cheering my name yet again. As the ball passed in front of me, I swung the bat—carelessly. The sound that proceeded was not one of a bat striking the baseball, but another in which a ball struck a glove.

“Strike two!”

I kicked the sand in anger. There was an obvious reason why I couldn’t hit the ball, and it wasn’t because Chaeyoung suddenly improved. It was because my mind was not on the game. No matter how hard my eyes focused on the ball, my mind had its focus elsewhere. On Sana. And her screaming my name from the foul territory didn’t make anything any better. I became so angry that she could affect my performance like this.

I wasn’t even bothered at all! I wasn’t bothered by the way she flirted with Tzuyu. The way her hands softly caressed Tzuyu’s hand—like the way they caressed my hand as she bandaged it. The way her eyes looked at Tzuyu—like the way they looked at me every time we made eye contact. The way she focused all of her attention on Tzuyu—like the way she focused on me as we talked at the ice-cream shop.

She was flirty, I knew that from the start. It wasn’t like I was anyone special. I was a small distraction who happened to be there while she had to recover. She had just lost her job that she assumed would provide for her for years. She had to adapt in such a short amount of time, and she wasn’t prepared for it; all these things she thought were superficial like college or a common job. I was like a pill that Mina introduced her to in order to help her get over the stress that weighed down on her. This stress I didn’t notice until that first day of college, when she collapsed into my arms.

I knew I wasn’t anyone special to her. I was just a kid who really liked baseball. I couldn’t compare to a walking go