LOVE UPSET

The owner, a former scout for a once-promising baseball team, meets Ki-Jeong, a high school student who dreams of becoming a professional baseball player. While everyone else talks about Ki-Jeong’s limitations, the owner is the only one who immediately recognizes his genius and offers sincere advice to keep him from giving up on baseball. To Ki-Jeong, the owner was the only person in his entire life who believed in him just as he was.

“Ki-Jeong, your hands and feet are bigger than mine. That means you could end up taller than me, too.”

But the happiness was short-lived; without a word, the owner resigned from his scouting position and vanished completely. Five years later the owner returns to his former team with a new title as a performance analysis manager, where he is reunited with Ki-Jeong, now a professional baseball player who has grown beyond recognition. Though taken aback by Ki-Jeong’s changed appearance, the owner finds himself unable to look away...

“The number I never got back then... can I get it now?”

The time that had stood still for the two of them, frozen in longing, begins to move again on the scorching mound.

(Source: Ridibooks, translated)