Works · Short fiction
Southpaw Fireballer Shin Seong-woo
좌완 파이어볼러 신성우
Ten years after their breakup, a former high-school pitching prodigy turned delivery rider and his ex, a bassist, end up stranded together on a small island after a class reunion trip, with twelve hours neither of them can remember.
Synopsis
In his second year of high school, Shin Seong-woo threw a 148 km/h fastball and made the TV news as a left-handed fireballer. An elbow injury and then the yips ended his career before the pros. He became the vocalist of an indie band, fell in love with its bassist, Seon-hee, and walked out on both after his father, a Chinese-restaurant delivery man, was killed by a drunk driver and his mother remarried within a hundred days. Now in his thirties, he is a delivery rider, the one job where he has never once failed to reach his target.
On a whim at a reunion, six classmates take a ferry to a small island off Incheon. One night Seong-woo and Seon-hee witness a secret that could wreck two of their friends' relationships; the next day the others leave in a hurry, and the two exes are stranded alone for an extra day of cheap beer, closed cafés and long walks.
On the ferry home, over soju and cup noodles, they circle the night they can't remember, the father's MP3 player full of songs by the rock singer Seong-woo was named after, and the question of why he left.
Why it works on screen
- A two-hander on a ferry and an island: contained, intimate, cheap to shoot.
- Funny and frank about class reunions, sex and hangovers, with real grief underneath.
From the opening
The long curve the boat leaves as it cuts through the sea runs from the stern all the way to the horizon. Actually, cutting through the sea is just a figure of speech. Not this 524-ton ferry with a top speed of fifteen knots, not a container ship hundreds of meters long, not even the American aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford has ever really cut the sea.
Coming out of the restroom, Seon-hee held the white steel railing on her way down the stairs and stood next to me. We smoked and watched in silence as the island where we had spent three days grew smaller. As the boat turned to call at Jawoldo, a fairly big wave rocked it hard. Oh. With a short cry Seon-hee lost her balance, and I grabbed her arm by reflex.
Bwooo. The horn sounded. When I let go of her, the racket of the engine stopped. A stillness followed, and just two fishermen came aboard. In a few seconds the engine started again. Black smoke billowed over the stern. I like the particular smell of a diesel engine. Seon-hee scrunched up her forehead.
An hour and a half to Incheon Port. Things were awkward enough already, and now they were worse. I have known her for more than ten years. Some of that time we were lovers. What would you call us now? High school classmates, former bandmates, each other's ex: one of the three, or all of them. There was a time I thought of her as a soulmate for life.
“Want some coffee?” I was the first to break the silence.
“Wasn't the coffee here bad? Let's just have a beer.”
“Shall we?”
Translated from the Korean.