All-Star MVP

After the game ended and the cleanup had more or less wrapped up, Sung Yeon-joon approached Lee Seung-kwon carefully, mindful of the eyes of the other players.

"Seung-kwon. You holding up okay?"

"No problems whatsoever."

Honestly, you okay was a question meant for the likes of Hwang Jong-moon, who'd taken an absurdly fast fastball to the forearm — but every ounce of the players' attention was fixed on Seung-kwon.

Kim Yi-seon had dominated the mound through the seventh, throwing scoreless ball until the opposing manager finally went to his bullpen in the eighth. That was when Seung-kwon at last got his opening — over his final two at-bats he collected two hits and an RBI, a perfectly respectable showing. But the team had lost. And above all, he had gone 0-for-3 against Yi-seon.

Given how fiercely the man had burned with competitive fire against Yi-seon, the veterans had every reason to fear he might be crushed right now.

The kid had always been a man of few words, but wasn't this too quiet? If a slump came down on top of this, it would be trouble.

Sung Yeon-joon deliberately cleared his throat and boomed out with forced heartiness.

"Like I always say — you only need three hits out of ten. You've still got seven more chances left, don't you?"

At his glance telling the rest of them to pitch in, they all crowded over and offered a word apiece.

"Right, what kind of batter gets a hit and a homer every single time? Today was just a little unlucky, is all."

"That Kim Yi-seon kid's human too — he gives up runs, he gives up homers."

"How about you come eat some meat with your hyung today? Hyung's buying, you punk."

It was honestly funny, watching a pack of gruff old men crowd around to console one kid — but Seung-kwon was that important a player to the Rangers.

Seung-kwon must have found the sight amusing too, because he cracked a smile and assured them he really was fine.

"I am neither shocked nor disappointed. I am somewhat angry, but I consider that a perfectly natural part of being a player."

Worried it might be talk for talk's sake, Yeon-joon studied him for a moment, but he genuinely seemed all right, so the other players finally relaxed as well. The mood was just beginning to thaw — losing or not — when one thoroughly tactless bastard had to add his two cents.

"Seung-kwon, for a guy who got outplayed by Kim Yi-seon, you're taking it awfully well, aren't you? Figured you'd be spitting mad even if you weren't moping."

"Hey."

A forest of eyes swung onto the tactless idiot. Only then did he grasp his mistake and break out in a cold sweat, but the words were already out of his mouth and there was no taking them back. All he could offer was a muttered, What, I was curious...

But Seung-kwon himself answered brightly, as though it were nothing at all.

"Furious, you say... perhaps I might have been. But I learned something from today's game."

Learned something? At that age, sure — you grow with every game you play. But what could he possibly have learned that kept defeat and rage from touching him?

Everyone traded glances again, so Sung Yeon-joon asked on their behalf.

"Oh? And what exactly did you learn?"

"That ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pitchers are a breed that must never be understood by the standards of ordinary human beings."

The moment the words left him, the cold, razor-sharp gaze of the Seung-kwon who faced pitchers in the batter's box came back to his eyes.

"I had long suspected that pitchers numbered many strange men among their ranks, but today made it certain beyond doubt. Pitchers think differently from ordinary human beings. And Kim Yi-seon stands at the very summit of them all."

"Uh... right?"

"Yes. Therefore, losing a duel fought without properly knowing one's opponent is only natural. There is no reason for displeasure, nor for sorrow. And so, hyung. Would you teach me the psychology of pitchers?"

Sung Yeon-joon — the captain forever stuck holding the short end of every stick — had just stepped directly on the landmine.

The other players bolted the instant those words left Seung-kwon's mouth. His eyes have gone completely mad. Get snagged by that and you're in for a world of suffering.

"You possess vast experience, hyung, and you served long as the national team's catcher — surely you have often worked in battery with the finest pitchers in all of Korea. I wish to learn from that experience. Would that be possible?"

He was asking permission, but it was clear a no would mean nothing coming from him — Seung-kwon was in a state of total, gleeful derangement. Bowled over by sheer momentum, Yeon-joon had no choice but to nod.

"Thank you! Kim Yi-seon, that bastard — break him down and there must be a pattern! If not conscious, then unconscious! If I can uncover even that much...!"

Seung-kwon looked exactly like one of those lottery devotees who insists the winning numbers follow some secret formula.

Sung Yeon-joon found himself thinking that a mild depression and a modest slump might honestly have been preferable.

"Come on. I threw seven scoreless innings — why am I not even getting 0.4?"

The more I looked at it, the more tilted the playing field became. As far as I was concerned, the stat had been invented purely to tell starting pitchers don't bother winning? And in the meantime, the second I handed the ball off, Seung-kwon scratched a run out of Walker and pocketed a cool 0.1 for himself.

Even after tormenting Walker all day long, the bitterness wouldn't go away. That bastard Walker just went, "Shoulda pitched harder if ya wanted that MVP so bad, rookie?" — four starts in eighteen days, and I'd thrown every bit as much as a starter reasonably could. What more did he want?

Was I supposed to throw shutouts in all four?

While I was grumbling away, Kang Min-hyuk cut in wearing the face of a man who had long since tired of this.

"It is decided by a vote. If you performed that impressively, then naturally the MVP would be you, would it not."

"Dude, if that score flips, I'm telling you, anything goes. And you still trust the baseball establishment."

Granted, nothing quite like that had happened in this world — but in the world I came from, there'd been worse.

A pitcher who threw fifty more innings than his rival, with an ERA 1.3 runs lower, once lost the pitchers' Golden Glove on nothing but a one-win deficit. That actually happened.

If that score ever flipped to the point where Seung-kwon could overtake me, the odds were high that some batter-supremacist voters would crawl out of the woodwork and toss him their ballots.

Just look at Major League Baseball. Over there, even a pitcher having the season of the century gets fobbed off with the Cy Young — the MVP is never his. The best player is always a hitter, and pitchers get tallied off in a separate column — that filthy hitter supremacism runs through the entire baseball world.

"So that's why you and Ho-yeol hyung need to... huh? Where'd Ho-yeol hyung run off to this time?"

Which is to say: Min-hyuk, today's starter, and Ho-yeol hyung, tomorrow's, had to come through. Not a single hit to Seung-kwon. Got it?

For the record, Kang Hyun-seok sunbae-nim was supposed to take the next start, but his body wasn't in proper shape, so he's sitting out this turn of the rotation.

It wasn't that I doubted Ho-yeol hyung, but a sudden spot start can be brutal. Which was exactly why I had to pass down every last honey-tip I'd gathered on the Rangers lineup.

I pressed oblivious Kang Min-hyuk — who apparently couldn't comprehend my passion — several times over, but nothing I said pleased him. And when I told him to go fetch Ho-yeol hyung too, he talked back every single time.

Only after I threatened that I wouldn't help him with his own proposal someday did he finally, grudgingly, start listening. Seriously, like it was none of his business.

Unlike Yi-seon's excessive worrying, public opinion out in the real world was, quite naturally, beyond settled — buried deep in safe territory.

Granted, a five-tool shortstop is one of those beings in which every ballplayer's romance is distilled — but even so, he's not the strongest ace starter. And while Seung-kwon's numbers were monstrous in their own right, they were monstrous within the frame of a rookie, whereas Yi-seon was performing at a level where you'd struggle to find his match anywhere in the entire league.

And on top of that—

Yi-seon — who normally never so much as mentioned award business like this — was now openly, blatantly coveting the All-Star MVP, and so the fandom had actually united on the matter.

Awards got robbed all the time as it was, decided by popularity contests or by political maneuvering inside the baseball world. But Yi-seon was the superstar baseball hadn't seen in ages. With fans and insiders alike thinking fondly of him, even if his numbers fell a touch short, the concern ran the other way entirely — people worried about Yi-seon robbing someone else of the MVP, never about him being robbed of it with mere "respectable" numbers.

No — the thing the voters and the watching fans were most fixated on wasn't whether Yi-seon would win at all. It was something else entirely.

Which is to say: what would Yi-seon's reaction to winning actually be?

Look back at his high school days, and over awards like tournament MVP he'd come out with things like "Obviously I knew I'd take it" — an image that had stuck with him ever since. In the pros he hadn't claimed any major hardware yet, but when he won Rookie of the Month, his entire acceptance speech had been, "Oh, is that so?"

But this time, Yi-seon had shown a hunger for the award so naked it bordered on shameless. Which was why the opinions had started floating around that this time they might see a different kind of speech — some fans said his arrogant image was exactly the good part and that a speech full of run-of-the-mill gratitude and humility would actually be a letdown, while others insisted the opposite. Either way: all eyes would be on Yi-seon's acceptance speech.

There seemed to have been a small farce right at the very end, but the ceremony came together quite naturally all the same.

I honestly panicked, thinking I might actually lose the thing.

I'd already hammered out my acceptance speech after days of wracking my brain, and I'd bought the ring well in advance — which was all the more reason the car absolutely, positively had to arrive as prize money and not out of my own pocket. And then that Seung-kwon punk came charging up on a genuinely insane late pace.

Thankfully I held him off by 0.02 points, so no one would be crying robbery — but when he rapped out two hits against Ho-yeol hyung, a heartfelt oh, we're screwed escaped me of its own accord. Thank goodness we'd allowed no big innings, and thanks to the friendly dimensions of our home park, not a single home run besides.

So I needlessly needled Kang Min-hyuk, who stood beside me in a matching suit.

"I was scared half to death right up to the end, you know? If you'd done a little better, none of this would've happened."

Sure, he'd also gone seven innings with one run — but he'd served up one hit to Seung-kwon. Reel in that one hit and we'd never have had to fight a two-decimal-point war.

"How could I possibly have done better than that?"

"You should've thrown a complete-game shutout and won it outright."

If the bullpen couldn't be trusted, then he should've slammed the door himself to the very last out. Though, granted, the manager rarely gave permission for such things.

"But then my score might well have finished higher than yours."

Oh.

...He had a point.

Kang Min-hyuk heaved a deep sigh and thumped ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my back twice, as if to say keep your eyes forward.

Somehow I felt like I'd just been handled as an idiot, which stung a little — but this was an important moment, so I let it slide. It was about time I started focusing on the camera anyway.

Where Min-hyuk and I now sat was a studio-cum-video-conference room the Seoul Twins had built inside the club's own facilities. Fitting the untact theme, the ceremony itself was being held over video like this, so the two of us sat side by side, eyes fixed on the camera.

The minor awards had already rolled out one after another — Performance of the Year, Outstanding Batter, Outstanding Pitcher, Winning Manager — with each winner reciting the acceptance lines they'd prepared with varying degrees of effort.

Lee Seung-kwon in particular had taken home Outstanding Batter, and for some reason he'd spent a full three minutes on nothing but measured words of thanks before stepping straight back down.

So with boredom settling in, Min-hyuk and I had traded small talk for a while — and now nearly all the remaining awards had passed, until at last only the MVP remained.

Well. With Seung-kwon taking Outstanding Batter and Min-hyuk taking Outstanding Pitcher—

A crisp host's voice. I gave the camera a light bow, cleared my throat, and stepped closer.

The live broadcast feed played on the screen behind the camera. Standing here in an actual suit felt a little strange, come to think of it. I'd worn my school uniform at the draft, and in the pros I was fairly sure I'd handled nearly every media appearance in uniform, too.

Still, the shot came out looking reasonably dashing, so for now I was satisfied. And then, running through my prepared lines one final time in my head, I opened my mouth.

"Kim Yi-seon, you've been named the MVP of this All-Star Race. A few words on how you feel?"

"Yes. First, I'd like to offer my thanks to the fans and everyone involved who selected me for this All-Star team, and who placed the MVP award itself in my hands."

Admittedly, I'd found the whole thing a bit of a chore — but at the end of the day, it was proof that Kim Yi-seon the baseball player was recognized and loved. That didn't feel bad at all.

"The All-Star MVP is the greatest proof of that love there is, isn't it? Which only made me want it all the more — so I'm truly happy to be standing here as the winner."

And if we're talking about love, there was a far more important matter at hand.

"That fan love has been a great help to everything I've accomplished, but the love I receive doesn't come from the fans alone. My seniors on the team, the coaching staff, the club officials — even the coaches who guided me when I was young."

Hmm — among the club officials, one Seo-hee noona above all.

"But the person I'd most like to speak about right now is my, ahem, girlfriends."

The moment those words left my mouth, the host — and frankly everyone else running this ceremony — all shifted to expressions of well, obviously. Honestly, I had brought up Ye-eun and Min-ah in far, far too many interviews.

Part of it had been sincere — I'd wanted to tell them I loved them — but if nothing else came to mind for an interview, the two of them also doubled, every single time, as filler material.

But today was a little different.

"The truth is, apart from baseball, I'm a rather lacking person. I'm not much of a provider, I'm poor at making friends, and there was even a time I forgot my own mother's birthday."

I reached for the lines I'd prepared — and gave up. Every time I opened my mouth now, my chest trembled and something caught in my throat, and I found I had no desire at all to recite the script.

"And yet those people have always held me up, and loved me. I truly believe that if I had been alone, I might never have made it this far."

It was the truth. We hadn't spent every day laughing — but I knew that even the fights had always put me first, without exception. The feeling of having someone on my side, family or not, come what may. A sense of relief I had never once known in my previous life.

"And because I'm such an awkward soul, I don't think I've ever been the one to say what I ought to say first."

So I had to deliver the words that should have been mine from the very start.

Because what Ye-eun and I had should never be allowed to pass with nothing more than a filled-out marriage registration form. Because my heart deserved to reach her properly, first.