You Have to See It With Your Own Eyes to Know (2)
Late July, and the interleague series was winding down. The Kaesong Royals players arrived at Jamsil Dome — the home park of the Seoul Twins — grumbling under their breath about how things had played out.
Given the circumstances, games washed out by rain would no longer be tacked onto the tail end of the season. Instead, the league had decided to squeeze makeups into the existing schedule wherever possible and clear them out as fast as they could.
Which meant that in this rain-soaked stretch of the monsoon season, cancellations were pouring down left and right — so rainouts were being assigned to domes on the road whenever possible, and idle gaps were being filled with as many doubleheaders as the calendar could hold.
That was why the Kaesong Royals, who by all rights should have been hosting the Seoul Twins at home this time, found themselves in a bizarre situation: their home game rained out under the special rules of the moment, with the makeup game slotted immediately into the opponent's park at Jamsil.
An empty stadium meant no ticket revenue at stake and no crowd energy to worry about, sure — but the disadvantages of playing on the road didn't end there, and the Royals clubhouse kept grumbling about how unfair the whole arrangement was.
The one who stepped in to soothe them was Park Min-woo — a player who had arrived via trade but had since become a star with enough standing in the league that even his own club had to listen when he spoke.
"Honestly, this beats a doubleheader. You've all played at Jamsil enough to know, hyungs. The facilities are better, for one."
It wasn't a bad point. And then he added one more line to lift the mood.
"Besides, I already gave you the full scouting report on the Twins players. We'll do fine today, too. You all know a win locks up third place — and puts us just two games back of second, right?"
Park Min-woo had once been the Twins' closer before the team's rebuilding philosophy sent him packing in a trade. Even now, with his elite stuff intact, he was guarding the back door of the Kaesong Royals and carrying their push for October baseball on his shoulders.
And in truth, the Royals' front office had never given up on the fall. They'd shelled out for several big free-agent contracts again this year to shore up the roster, and the team was locked in a fierce battle for third in the Northern Division.
This was not the old Royals, resigned to losing. Their free agents weren't mercenaries who'd cashed their checks and lost their motivation, either.
Every man in that clubhouse was burning to finally put the long dark ages behind them and make his mark in the postseason.
With momentum on their side and second place suddenly within reach, that fighting spirit only blazed hotter.
But of course, there's always one oblivious soul who has to pipe up at exactly the wrong moment.
"Hey, sunbae, isn't Kim Yi-seon pitching today? He's a rookie, so I guess you wouldn't know much about him."
No sooner had the words left his mouth than the tactless speaker was duly struck down by a Royal. But Park Min-woo had anticipated even this.
"Who do you think I am? Once the guardian deity of the Twins, now their dedicated spy — Park Min-woo. I've already pulled some premium intel from the kids I still know over there."
In truth it wasn't anything groundbreaking — the kind of basic info anyone would share over a friendly hello — but this sort of thing is all about the packaging.
"You heard about that Kim Yi-seon scandal, right? Don't know if it's true or not, but word is a big shot from Seoul Group headquarters came down in person today to deal with the fallout. And apparently Kim Yi-seon is rattled as hell about it. Rattle him at the right moment, and who knows what happens?"
Ooooh... The Royals players murmured in appreciation. Of course, none of it was remotely actionable. If it had been genuinely useful, he'd have shared it with the manager and coaches and prepared properly.
Still, it kept the mood light and pumped up the kids. That was enough.
Comforting himself with that thought, Park Min-woo went to prepare for the game.
"Min-su sunbae, got it? My basic approach is starting with a pitch attack low in the zone, then flipping up top when—"
Kim Yi-seon was off.
Bang Min-su had noticed something strange about the kid since yesterday, and facing him today, he was certain: this was a completely different Kim Yi-seon.
First of all, the kid wasn't butchering his name. That was, in itself, suspicious — he'd always known the name perfectly well and only mangled it for fun, so it felt vaguely insulting in its own way. Then again, it also meant the kid was too swamped to spare a thought for pranks.
On top of that, it was bizarre enough that he was rattling off unsolicited analysis of the opposing players — but now he was suddenly replaying footage of his own past starts pitch by pitch, explaining the 'rational' basis for his decision-making.
Rational? Bang Min-su couldn't find a single rational thing in any of it. The criteria shifted with every single decision, and somehow identical setups produced completely different outcomes. Since when did anyone call that 'rational'? Charitably, it was 'intuitive.'
"...And so here we'd go with a curveball — sunbae, are you listening?"
"Yeah."
No climbed all the way up his throat, and he barely managed to swallow it back down. The usual Kim Yi-seon would never have put him in this position — and wouldn't have needed him to carefully pick his replies in the first place.
But today, it seemed, a little caution was in order.
"Great. So you've got a rough picture of my pitch design now. We've always clicked without talking it through, but it's better going in with a plan, right?"
There it was — rambling on and on about things he'd never bother saying on a normal day. His leg was bouncing nonstop, too, and he was drinking water far more often than usual, like his mouth had gone dry. The kid was nervous.
Good grief. This was the Kim Yi-seon who'd strutted through the Seoul Series like he owned the place — who, by all accounts, had never once felt nerves even in the Korea-Japan series.
Did the manager and coaches have any idea what an earth-shattering anomaly this was? Bang Min-su prayed fervently that today's game would somehow pass without incident — praying hard, despite belonging to no religion at all.
Astonishingly, the game opened with the Seoul Twins striking first.
Just one run — but taking the mound in the bottom of the first with a 1-0 lead, Kim Yi-seon carried a perfectly tranquil heart into his work.
These days Baek Joo-seon sunbae was getting older and looking to trim his playing time, which meant Min-su sunbae had settled in as my designated catcher.
He'd never been the type to actively pursue a communion of minds with his pitcher, so the drawback was that I had to walk him through the intent behind each and every one of my pitches — but he was sharp, and the moment I explained something, it stuck.
Even in the bullpen session, his condition was peak. Velocity, command, breaking stuff — everything was flawless today.
Stepping into the box was the Royals' center fielder, Yoo Mun-seon. A classic leadoff type — right-handed thrower, left-handed bat, a slap-hitter — but a bad-ball hitter whose triple-slash never quite matched the profile. He'd joined the Royals recently on a hefty free-agent deal.
Hitters like him were my favorite kind of opponent — but anyone who survived long enough to land an FA contract had earned his cunning and carried a weapon that was his alone.
Don't underestimate him. Maximum focus on the first pitch.
Min-su sunbae called for the fastball. Upstairs, for a strike. Not bad. I nodded and flowed straight into my delivery.
Setup, release, cocking, pitch.
"STRIKE!"
—"He threw a first-pitch fastball. Called strike."
—"Heh heh, the ball's looking mighty fine again today."
—"Count is 0-1."
It landed exactly as planned. Starting a count ahead — the favorable fight.
From here on, the pitcher owned this at-bat. I could cook him from start to finish.
Min-su sunbae's next sign: a curveball buried well off the plate, pure chase bait. Textbook. Good.
I set myself. Maximize the drop — the feeling of the ball simply falling off a cliff.
Setup, release, cocking, pitch.
Crack—!
—"Second pitch. A falling ball!? He stayed on it and drilled it! Over the second baseman's head into center! He cruises into first base standing up!"
—"Yoo Mun-seon looked like he was sitting on that one. Even so, turning a dropping curveball into a base hit is no easy feat — this man's hitting technique is the real deal."
—"Nobody out, runner on first!"
"There you are. It's been a while. Busy or not, you could have called your mother."
"Well, I..."
Mother and daughter sat together in the skybox, the air between them thick with awkwardness.
It was a no-crowder game, sure, but that didn't mean club officials went unseen — which was why watching from a sealed-off section like this posed no difficulty at all.
And so the President of the Seoul Twins and the Honorary Director of Seoul Group, Chairwoman of the Seoul Arts Foundation, sat side by side to take in the game, without the slightest trouble.
"Never mind. Knowing how you are, if you weren't going to call, I should have reached out first. That was my fault."
She called it her own fault, but there was an edge to Chairwoman Choi Hee-jung's voice that wouldn't dull.
Showing, without a single filter, the exact presence that had always terrified Han Seo-hee, she went straight for the throat of the matter.
"So. That boy — the one you've been seeing?"
"...Yes."
And then Choi Hee-jung said nothing more. She simply watched the game. She had raised the subject, so there should have been more — but silence. She only gazed, unhurried, at the figure throwing a baseball down on the field.
And for Han Seo-hee, that silence was more terrifying than anything.
Why had her mother come all the way out to the game? The woman she knew would have reached some kind of verdict long before seeing anything with her own eyes — so why was she still just watching? Was this, in fact, approval?
Or had her mind already been made up, and was she simply waiting for the game to end so she could cut things off cleanly?
There was no way to tell. Han Seo-hee's mother had always set the bar impossibly high, and whether you'd cleared it was something she only ever told you herself, when she saw fit.
And Seo-hee simply could not imagine that gentle, adorable Yi-seon passing whatever test her mother carried in her head. Though — the same thought kept circling — if he was cute enough, wouldn't that work on Mom too? Such delusions flickered through her mind.
So she sat there, watching her mother's face for a sign. Until—
"Hmm... I don't really know baseball, but we're losing, aren't we?"
"...I'm sorry, what?"
The last words she'd expected. Only then did Han Seo-hee turn her head to actually look at the field.
Two runs on the board — despite the fact that this was still the bottom of the first, the very inning Kim Yi-seon had taken the mound.
Bang Min-su felt, with surgical precision, that his unease had been entirely vindicated.
"Yoo Mun-seon was probably sitting on low pitches the whole time. The man has 'Golfer' as an actual nickname, so I was careful — but I never dreamed he'd hit a ball breaking entirely off the outside corner... We should revise the strategy toward attacking the zone head-on rather than chase pitches. And also—"
Kim Yi-seon had been tagged for two runs in the first inning.
Set aside the fact that this had never once happened before — and it wasn't even the damage itself that was remarkable. Where was the old Kim Yi-seon, the one who'd sit there with a shameless grin as if giving up runs was no fault of his? This one was reviewing his own pitching.
Yes — astonishingly, he had concluded that there was a mistake in his own pitching and was conducting a self-feedback session. That Kim Yi-seon!
Bang Min-su felt something beyond surprise at the sight — something close to dread. It was like watching a lion graze on lettuce.
He'd only known Kim Yi-seon for less than a year, so this was as far as his imagination stretched. Nam Kang-min, who'd played beside him all through high school, would probably have muttered something like 'Better check the insurance first, boy. This here's gonna cost more than a penny or two at the hospital' and moved on.
This couldn't stand. The old-school line says the catcher's job is to tend the pitcher's mind — a notion Min-su had never much liked, believing a catcher was just one player among many. But this was not the moment to litigate that conviction.
Catcher or not, somebody had to bring the kid back to his senses. Carefully, he ventured a word.
"Um... Yi-seon. Forget the technical approach for a second. I'd recommend just throwing loose and easy — trust the feel like you always do. What do you say?"
"Like I always do? I'm not throwing any differently than usual, though?"
We're doomed. This is a critical case.
He couldn't be the only one aware of a crisis this severe. Heaven knew how the other coaches and the manager had missed it — eyes full of knots, apparently — but they still seemed oblivious. He had to run to them right now and convey just how serious this was.
"Yi-seon's in a bad state, you say?"
"Aigoo, of all days for this to happen..."
The replies of the pitching coach and the manager, respectively. Thank goodness they were taking him seriously instead of brushing him off. The problem was that they were only listening.
"If his own catcher is saying it, it does look like we should pull Yi-seon... but the trouble is, Matt and Paulo both came out early last rotation and weren't in great shape themselves."
By a cruel twist of scheduling, the foreign one-two punch had been forced off the mound in the third and fourth innings during the last turn through the rotation. The long relievers had been burned through in bulk, and no one suitable was ready to take the ball right now.
Even if someone went out there, he'd need to give at least three innings to keep the operation viable — with Yi-seon having thrown only the first, there was no way to stretch the staff.
But a wobble like this wasn't just about today's condition. It could snowball into a long slump. Or worse, what if—
"Manager. Still, just in case the yips—"
"Hey! Coach Park! Don't you go jinxing the boy! Ptui! Spit three times and rinse your mouth out!"
That was the bullpen coach, scolding him for daring to say it out loud.
For now, they decided to wait and watch. Let him throw through the second — and if it still looked wrong, then they'd pull Kim Yi-seon even if it meant conceding the game.
Kim Yi-seon's wavering was no longer Kim Yi-seon's problem alone. It had become something the entire team fretted over. The position players were on edge, and even the few bullpen arms who might actually be called upon were glancing around nervously.
Had there ever been a game like this, in all the games Kim Yi-seon had ever pitched?
The offense's support wasn't overflowing, but it was sufficient. The problem was that the runs conceded had grown to match — a game held in perfect, uneasy balance.
Three runs was one thing on its own, but with the second inning not even finished, Yi-seon had never once given up this much since turning pro. No — not since his high school days, either.
What on earth was going on? This wasn't like him at all. Was his condition just off today?
Somewhere in his delivery, the eyes that usually read hitters with such blazing confidence and fighting spirit now seemed clouded by deep deliberation and hesitation.
He looked like a stranger. The Kim Yi-seon Han Seo-hee knew was a total goofball with zero situational awareness — but a man who was uncannily brilliant at baseball and weirdly dependable when it counted.
The figure she looked down on from the stands today seemed so much smaller than usual.
"So your mother picked the worst possible timing to show up. Then again, they say baseball's a sport where even the greats lose half the time."
Her mother said something else, but not a word of it landed. Her eyes simply refused to leave Yi-seon.
This was more than a dip in form — something about him had fundamentally changed. And it was only then that she remembered what Yi-seon had told her.
My mom's coming to watch today. I'll show her with my actions, so just trust me and wait.
"Show her with your actions, my foot..."
Now she understood why Ye-eun and Min-ah called Kim Yi-seon an idiot every day of the week. What else would you call that?
Which meant the moment she understood, she had to move.
As it happened, Yi-seon had just barely managed to plug the dam and limp out of the inning, and the teams were switching sides. Han Seo-hee shot up from her seat.
"Seo-hee?"
"I'll be right back."
Her mother's face creased in a frown.
"Where do you think you're going?"
On any other day, that tone would have frozen her solid. Today, it couldn't have mattered less. There was something far more urgent than this.
"The team waiting room!"
"The players? Are you out of your mind? The scandal is already spreading everywhere, and you're going to walk in there and show your face in person— Hey! Seo-hee!!!"
She ignored her mother's voice shouting behind her. She ran — because letting her mother finish pouring out that cocktail of worry and fury was the only way she'd ever feel at ease.