Controversy
“Uuurrrgh—”
The alarm dragged me upright, and every muscle in my body screamed in protest. Yesterday’s start had left its mark—arms, shoulders, sides, everything felt like it had been wrung out and left to dry.
I forced my arms through a few slow circles, working the stiffness out until I could at least move, then opened the Status Window at once.
“Heh. Heheh.”
◈ Fastball-type attributes increase by 5
◈ Whiff rate on pitches in the strike zone increases by 10%
◈ When activated, every pitch is locked at maximum velocity. Stamina consumption is doubled.
◈ Stamina increases by 5
◈ Grants immunity to all physical injuries
◈ Through the end of the 6th inning, stamina-loss penalties are reduced by 30%
◈ Through the end of the 6th inning, opposing batters’ eye rating is reduced by 5
The moment the skill screen opened, I was grinning. I’d already stared at it yesterday, and the day before that—and I still wasn’t tired of looking.
If there was one thing that stung…
“If I’d had this skill set back with the Wales, I never would’ve gotten traded.”
The fact that everything had only normalized after I’d been shoved out of the team I loved—practically run out of town—left a bitter taste.
“Still. I can always go back as a free agent.”
With a body that no longer got injured, service time would pile up as long as I kept taking the ball. No reason to rush. No reason to worry. And in the end, I’d become a far better pitcher than the old me ever was. Nothing to complain about.
I washed up, dragged my creaking body down to the hotel weight room, and got to work. It wasn’t as well-equipped as the team facilities, but today’s session was just running, so it hardly mattered.
“Gotta do what needs doing…”
After every start, I always put in about ten light minutes of running to speed recovery. Diamond Body meant I couldn’t get hurt anymore—but the routine was a promise I’d made to myself. Not just for recovery. To keep from going soft upstairs, I never skipped a day.
“Huff… huff…”
I focused on my breathing and ran for about ten minutes until a pleasant heat spread through my body. I checked the time: eight-thirty. A little early, but I headed down for breakfast anyway.
One of the real joys of a road series is hotel breakfast. Not the club’s carefully portioned meal plan—actual freedom. You pick what you want and pile it on.
The scrambled eggs still carried a soft butter aroma. The bacon was crisp without being burnt. The salad was fresh, and the croissants from the bread station were so hot that steam billowed up the second I tore one along the grain.
If the team cafeteria was “food for the body”—nutrients dialed in to the gram—hotel breakfast was “food for the mouth,” the kind that made you happy the moment it hit your tongue.
Sure, if I were being responsible about my body, the team meals were better. But one breakfast on the road? I quietly rationalized it to myself and let it slide.
For a few minutes I forgot I was a professional ballplayer and just smiled at the rich butter and the salty snap of bacon filling my mouth.
I cleaned my plate, poured a fresh Americano from the coffee machine, and sat back down.
“…Alright. Let’s take a look.”
I took a sip and, almost without thinking, unlocked my phone.
Come to think of it, it’s been forever since I searched my own name.
Back in high school, when I was a top prospect, and again early in my pro career, I’d fallen into ego-searching for a while. From my second year on, though, I’d basically stopped.
…There turned out to be a lot more hate than I’d expected.
When I was good, it didn’t matter. The second I started struggling, the abuse got vicious. And because the Seoul Wales had one of the biggest fan bases in the country, it hit even harder.
After getting burned once, I’d cut ego-searching out of my life entirely. No point shredding my own mental for nothing—and it never helped me prepare for a game.
But today was different.
A two-month comeback start: six scoreless innings. And the high-velocity fastball that had made me a high school star was back.
Telling myself not to search my name on a day like this was just unreasonable.
Buzzing, I typed my name into the search bar.
And then—
“Wh-what the hell is this?”
My face twisted the second the results loaded.
Wonju Flyers pitcher Han Doyoon (22) has been swept up in illegal-substance speculation after recording a peak velocity of 157 km/h in his return start. Postgame comments from Seoul Wales outfielder Kim Yeongseon (32) poured fuel on the fire.
Kim said he had “never seen a 15 km/h jump in two months,” effectively framing the change as abnormal, and the remark spread through online communities at once, spawning a flood of speculative posts.
Particular attention has fallen on Doyoon’s two months of “closed training” with the developmental squad in the minors, with some claiming “something must have happened while oversight was loose.”
The Flyers organization issued a brief statement calling the “baseless allegations deeply offensive,” and has not responded further.
Meanwhile, in his Daily MVP interview, Han Doyoon explained the velocity jump by saying residual elbow issues from Tommy John surgery had recently resolved.
It wasn’t just the one article.
Sensational headlines and my face had taken over the main sports pages.
— Riiing!
— Riiing!
— Riiiiing!!!
“…I can’t do this. Unplug the phones.”
Cheon Sojin’s tone stayed level, but the operations staff heard the irritation threaded through it perfectly. The team’s youngest staffer reached for a receiver, then, hands shaking, yanked the power cable free instead.
“Team Leader, the press calls this morning… it’s basically a flood.”
“Cheon, every portal homepage is Han Doyoon right now.”
“The communities are worse. ‘Closed rehab,’ all of it… they’re driving the narrative on purpose.”
Cheon Sojin bit down hard on her lip instead of answering.
I knew something like this might happen, but…
She had gone to the hospital with him herself. She had seen Han Doyoon’s elbow with her own eyes. No one knew better that doping was nonsense. His change was a miraculous recovery—that much was certain.
But—
How many people in the world had actually confirmed that “fact”?
The only ones who truly understood Doyoon’s condition were the medical staff and a handful of people inside the organization. To most fans and reporters, he was simply a pitcher whose velocity had jumped fifteen kilometers an hour in two months.
With a change like that, suspicion and wild theories were only natural.
So she had prepared herself for a certain amount of misunderstanding, a certain amount of baseless speculation.
…What was unfolding now, though, had blown clean past the “certain amount” Cheon Sojin had braced for.
Speculative pieces with no fact-checking whatsoever. And the oily little phrases buried inside them.
Every headline was pure bait, and the articles themselves were hollow—no evidence of any kind. But people starved for dopamine were never going to leave that alone.
It hadn’t made the news yet, but online communities were already spinning the two months Doyoon had spent with the developmental squad into an absurd conspiracy theory: that the Wonju Flyers organization itself had orchestrated a doping program.
Why it had blown up this far was obvious.
“Kim Yeongseon, a tough loss today. Your opposing starter, Han Doyoon, hit a peak of 157 km/h in his comeback start and it’s become a huge story. As a former teammate, what’s your take?”
“Haa… look, I got plenty I could say. But I’ll be straight with you—I’ve played ball for ten-odd years, and I ain’t never seen velocity jump like that in two months. So… how that even happens, I’m a little curious myself, y’know.”
“What part in particular has you curious?”
“Ah, if I pin it down too sharp, the words start soundin’ wrong. Just… any fan who’s watched baseball long enough already felt it. A person changin’ that fast all of a sudden… mm, that don’t usually come from the ordinary methods, y’know.”
“Are you saying there’s something you specifically suspect?”
“Not so much suspicion as… no. Doyoon ain’t that kind of kid. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t do that.”
That interview. Kim Yeongseon’s interview.
The interviewer’s soft leading questions were a problem, but Kim Yeongseon’s answers were worse.
Twelve years as a pro.
Hundreds of interviews under his belt. A veteran who knew better than anyone how a single line got packaged into a headline, how it got consumed, and what kind of damage it did.
And he was Han Doyoon’s former teammate—
Never seen a jump like that in two months.
Doesn’t usually come from ordinary methods.
Fans already know.
Letting lines like that slip with that loaded tone wasn’t a simple slip of the tongue. It was a hundred percent intentional—seeded to grow into a full-blown controversy.
— Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
With the phone lines unplugged, the operations office had finally gone quiet. The only sound left was Cheon Sojin’s fingers drumming a steady rhythm on her desk.
“Haa…”
She let out a quiet breath and looked down at her phone screen.
She should press it right now. As operations team leader, checking on a player’s condition was the bare minimum. But her finger stopped just above the call button.
That cold distance Doyoon had shown for the past two weeks or so. He used to light up whenever she spoke to him—now it was clipped answers, and sometimes he wouldn’t even meet her eyes.
That change kept snagging on her thoughts.
That was why.
Even knowing she had to press it, that single button felt impossibly far away.