You Have to See It with Your Own Eyes (3)
"...Please bring Yi-seon out here for me. Quietly."
The head coach had absolutely no idea what was going on right now.
He was the taciturn type who handled strictly baseball matters and nothing else. Since the manager tended to focus on roster management and the players' mental state, the division of labor fell naturally to him — the technical side, the overall training sessions, all of it.
Which meant that, frankly, he hadn't given the slightest thought to the Kim Yi-seon rumors, nor had any particular opinion on them.
And now the team president had come all the way down here, carefully, in secret, asking for Kim Yi-seon? Even to a head coach who didn't care a whit about gossip, didn't that look enormously suspicious?
"Come on, it's urgent...?! Hurry!"
But faced with the president hopping anxiously from foot to foot while still keeping her voice hushed in case anyone overheard, the head coach felt obliged to bring up the letter of the rules.
"By regulation, club personnel who aren't registered for the game cannot enter the dugout. Contact with players mid-game is also fundamentally prohibited. This is a request I can't grant."
On Han Seo-hee's face came the look of someone caught out — disappointment and anxiety rising all at once. But the rule really was the rule. Allow live communication with the outside, and requests for outlandish sign-stealing and video reviews would come pouring in.
As Han Seo-hee turned to leave, shoulders slumped, the head coach exercised one of the core virtues of working adulthood.
"...However, if you don't enter yourself and simply speak to him from outside, then examined closely, that isn't a violation. Provided, of course, that what you're saying isn't baseball data or real-time analysis. I'll call Yi-seon to the waiting room — say what you need to from outside the door. He'll hear you just fine."
The exploitation of a loophole, and a little flexibility. The rule had been written to prevent teams from receiving outside analytical information through electronic devices or cameras, and a personal visit from the president surely wasn't something that needed stopping with an iron fist.
Even if another club wanted to raise a stink about it, no one was going to gamble on taking down the daughter of the ownership family over this. They'd shut their mouths on their own.
This time, the president's face brightened as if the gloom of a moment ago had never existed. He hadn't seen her often, but the face he remembered was nearly expressionless — and watching her emotions dance so freely today was oddly disconcerting.
And yet she seemed less like the president of a corporation than a young, fresh-faced youth perfectly matched to her actual age.
Maybe that was why. As he guided Han Seo-hee toward the waiting room, the head coach heard himself add something he normally never would.
"Ah — but do keep the lover's quarrels to a minimum. The kid's shaken enough as it is today. If you rattle him any further..."
"...It's not like that."
At the sight of Han Seo-hee blushing as she answered, the dopamine level in the head coach's brain shot straight through the ceiling.
So it seemed that men, once they'd gotten a bit of age on them, really did develop a taste for trashy melodrama after all.
The coach had suddenly insisted I go rest in the waiting room, so I'd wandered in there without the faintest idea why.
Granted, it was common enough for pitchers to rest in the waiting room to hold their condition between innings when the weather outside was brutal. If it's too hot or too cold out there, your performance suffers.
But the Jamsil Dome is a dome — that was never an issue here. So why on earth was he so insistent that I go inside?
Just as that question was forming, a voice from a corner of the waiting room snagged every bit of my attention.
"...Yi-seon? Can you hear me?"
A voice through the wall.
If I wasn't mistaken, it was Seo-hee noona's voice.
"Noona? What are you doing here all of a sudden?"
We were right in the middle of a game — I couldn't imagine what had brought her down here. And hadn't her mother come along with her today? Don't tell me she'd already left?
"What do I need...! How am I supposed to just stand by while you're completely out of your head!"
But Seo-hee noona kept rattling off the most bizarre nonsense.
"I'm out of my head?"
"Yes! Where's the usual cocky Kim Yi-seon and who left this anxious puppy in his place?"
She sounded thoroughly exasperated. I couldn't for the life of me understand what she was on about. Min-soo hyung did, the coach did — everyone kept telling me to pitch like I always did, and I couldn't see how today was any different from any other day.
"Honestly, what am I going to do with this idiot. You're so razor-sharp when you're with me, and I don't understand why you fall apart in the strangest places..."
"Okay, so what exactly is it?"
"I'm saying! Stop obsessing over the fact that my mother is here watching. You can pitch just fine without all that effort, so knock it off."
That stung a little.
"...You're so confident about that, yet you tremble like a leaf the second your mother comes up?"
She's the one who got herself all worked up in the first place. If she's that terrified of the woman, then obviously someone has to step up for her.
"That's... okay, fair, but! Anyway, I'm at least five years older than you, and I'm your noona. You don't have to force yourself to look after me — you don't have to run yourself ragged trying to protect me. My affairs are mine to handle. I can manage."
We were talking through a wall, so I couldn't see her face, but Seo-hee noona's words had gone noticeably cold. And at that point, I genuinely couldn't hold it in anymore.
"...Oh, really? Fine. Got it. Handle it yourself, then."
"Yi-seon, no, that's not what I— Yi-seon? Yi-seon! Hey, Kim Yi-seon! Are you even listening?!"
Don't care. Even a saint like me would sulk over this. I couldn't have given a damn whether Seo-hee noona's mother was watching or not.
Just like she said — I'd stop caring about all that and focus on my own job.
The moment Kim Yi-seon returned from his brief rest in the waiting room, Bang Min-soo sensed intuitively that something about his fire had changed.
How to put it... if anything, he seemed to be overflowing with even more fighting spirit than usual.
Either way, he was a completely different creature from the strangely docile Kim Yi-seon of minutes ago.
"Min-seon hyung. Our half of the inning's over now, right? Let's head out."
"Huh? Uh — yeah."
And he'd mangled my name again, the infuriating brat.
Any other day I'd have corrected him — it's Min-su — but for some reason, today, relief came before irritation. Whatever the case, the kid seemed to be back to normal.
He flashed the OK sign to the manager and pitching coach, who had quietly instructed him to signal them if Yi-seon's condition deteriorated. Honestly, he couldn't claim certainty, but right now Yi-seon looked perfectly fine to send back up to the mound.
The manager, who had been agonizing over whether he'd seriously need to run his bullpen pitchers into consecutive days of work, nodded with visible relief at Bang Min-soo's signal.
After a brief shadow-pitching session and some light stretching, Kim Yi-seon started up the mound.
As the opposing batter slowly stepped into the box, he drilled a piercing glare at him.
"...!"
There it is. That's the real Kim Yi-seon!
Exhaling an inward exclamation of admiration, Bang Min-soo calmly checked the dugout sign.
Curveball, bottom of the zone. Since he couldn't be certain of the kid's condition yet, it was a choice to feel things out a little. By the book, not a bad call. He relayed it to Yi-seon as-is.
The batter at the plate wasn't the type to swing out of his shoes at a first-pitch curve, so stealing one strike to open the count was a sensible play.
But Kim Yi-seon shook his head.
Then a changeup inside? Head shake.
A high fastbal as a chase pitch? Head shake.
Then Kim Yi-seon, having received the previous sign, secretly flashed one single sign of his own. Down the middle.
Lunatic. He intends to blow a first-pitch fastball right down the heart of the plate.
But then, that was Kim Yi-seon for you.
With something like joy, Bang Min-soo smacked his catcher's mitt loudly and set his target casually in the dead center of the strike zone — deliberately, so the batter could see it plain as day.
He wasn't normally a catcher who did this sort of thing, but the kid had gone to the very brink of falling apart before coming back whole (if "whole" was even the right word), so surely he could be allowed a little ceremony.
Kim Yi-seon grinned, clearly pleased with Bang Min-soo's display, and settled into his set position.
Not a trace remained of the conscious, deliberate motion he'd been forcing minutes ago — only Kim Yi-seon's delivery, smooth and instinctive, uncoiling on its own.
"Striiike!"
"First pitch. A strike right down the middle."
"The ball is outstanding today, as always. Min-yeong-seok couldn't even react to it, could he? Kim Yi-seon has been grinding through a difficult game today, but there's nothing wrong with his stuff."
"The count is 0-and-1."
The pitch carved through the heart of the strike zone, and all the batter could do was tilt his head in open bewilderment. Yes — this is you, Kim Yi-seon. This is right.
When she'd gone down to see him, the boy had sulked at the end and refused to talk, so she'd been worried — but thankfully, her message seemed to have gotten through.
That fire in his eyes with every single pitch, like he intended to devour the man at the plate, and pitching that hammered strike after strike into the zone with almost mindless aggression, hunting for the K.
He was back — completely, perfectly, the Kim Yi-seon of old.
Just as she returned to the stands and let out a breath of relief, a voice drifted over from beside her.
"Well, he finally looks like himself again. You did run straight down there ignoring your mother, after all. So you should."
The voice was positively frigid.
Right — with everything happening so fast, she'd briefly forgotten. Her mother had come to watch the game with her today.
Turning her head slowly, reminding herself once more of that fact, she found her mother watching Yi-seon pitch with an expressionless face colder and crueler than anything she had ever seen on it in her life.
Oh, this is bad. Mom is really, actually angry.
As far as she could remember, her mother had only been angry in a way even comparable to this once — the day her father didn't come home on their wedding anniversary without a word of explanation.
Back then she'd swallowed her fury assuming there must be circumstances, and then learned later that the reason was that he'd drunk himself unconscious at a company dinner.
Just as she was weighing whether to worry about her own funeral arrangements or smuggle Yi-seon into witness protection—
"So he does listen to his noona after all? What an obedient boy."
At that single sentence from her mother, the fear freezing her body suddenly ignited into heat.
Yi-seon. Yes, right, he's a good boy. Sweet kid. Very good.
But he listens to his noona?
"...He does NOT."
"Hm? What was that?"
"He listens to me about as well as a brick wall!"
What good is being a sweet kid? He treats his noona like a joke — anyone watching would think I'm the younger one, the way he stands over me, coddles me, humors me. And then he doesn't listen to a single word I say; I could talk myself hoarse and he'd take maybe one request in ten. His pride is so touchy he won't even accept the smallest gift from me.
Oh? So if you're handsome and athletic, it just doesn't matter? Being cute with a nice voice covers everything, does it?
Look up stories about couples with an age gap on the internet and it's all the same — little brother-type boyfriends, fluttery aegyo machines. Meanwhile mine is in a completely different league from anything called a younger brother.
Just look at today. I said a few words to him and he immediately sulked off and did whatever he pleased. I don't even need to check — he'll act like this all game, then patch things up on his own terms afterward and start babying me again. The one acting like a child is him.
Unable to contain herself, she was deep into a lengthy indictment of Kim Yi-seon's utterly contradictory conduct when she suddenly came back to her senses.
"Oh... I see. Hmm."
Her mother wore an expression of unprecedented flusterment.
Mother and daughter, out of things to say, quietly returned their attention to the game.
Bottom of the sixth. The batting order had cycled well through, and Kim Yi-seon's pitch count had climbed considerably.
The Kaesong Royals' lineup, which had clearly succeeded in cracking Kim Yi-seon through the second inning, had since been shackled hand and foot by the pitcher who had found his footing again.
Meanwhile, the Seoul Twins' hitters seemed to be having one of those days where everything connects, tacking on runs steadily and giving their pitcher proper run support. Somewhere along the way, the game had swung decisively toward the Seoul Twins.
So it was, with two outs in the bottom of the sixth, that Yoo Mun-seon stepped into the box for his third at-bat of the night.
Traditionally, no matter how devastating a pitcher's stuff, this third trip through the order is when hitters' averages climb. From here on, even the greatest pure stuff in history takes its lumps more often than before.
And Yoo Mun-seon had doubled off Kim Yi-seon in his first at-bat, confirming that even this stuff was plenty hittable if you made contact. However absurd the velocity and movement, he had his confidence.
He was slowly learning the timing of the four-seamer too. The curve was still hard to pick up, but it was no longer a complete mystery.
If he could win the psychological battle, he could absolutely knock Kim Yi-seon out of this game.
"Now batting, Yoo Mun-seon. Ah — he takes a bunt stance, then releases it. Several times now?"
"You could read that less as a bunt threat than as a provocation, couldn't you? Yoo Mun-seon is a grizzled veteran with a long career, and he's famous for pulling out all kinds of tricks when he needs them... what could his intent be this time?"
"He's set for the first pitch."
So he went for the throat.
Kim Yi-seon's pitching now looked nothing like it had through the second. The theory: he'd tried something new, gotten burned for it, and — like any rookie — gotten angry.
The overall pitch mix had shifted away from rational command toward a tendency to hammer hitters down with raw heat born of frustration. A pattern seen constantly in young pitchers with great stuff and big egos.
And nothing feeds that pattern like a provocation like this.
He didn't stop at one jab — he threw everything he had into fanning the pitcher's temper.
The moment tension rose as if a pitch were coming, he coolly called time. Then he stepped out, burned several practice swings killing the clock, and on re-entering the box, crowded the plate as tight as he could get.
As the finishing touch, he used the leg kick he raised anyway for his swing to subtly screen both the plate and the catcher's mitt.
Nothing but pure irritants, designed to needle the pitcher.
Some would condemn it as cowardly, dirty, low. But baseball is a mental game, and this too is a skill. Nobody can fight with pure straight arrows alone — and nobody needs to.
It had plainly gotten under his skin; it was written all over Kim Yi-seon's face, and the staredown was burning white-hot.
Now then — let's see if you can still pitch when you're furious, shall we?
"Striiike!"
"First-pitch heater, strike one."
"Yoo Mun-seon twisted away from it — and he is crowded in awfully tight, after all. I understand the gamesmanship, but it looks a bit excessive."
"The count is 0-and-1."
He'd taken the bait completely. Determined to smash his way through, Kim Yi-seon had thrown a fastball that, while inside, landed smack in the middle of the zone.
But even then, Yoo Mun-seon exaggerated his twist away from a pitch that had actually caught a spot with some distance, just to rattle Kim Yi-seon that much further. And sure enough, Kim Yi-seon's expression warped another degree.
Mun-seon planned to simply watch the next two pitches. Even if the count went against him, an irritated Kim Yi-seon pitching on this kind of anger — given his established tendencies — would throw something entirely predictable.
"Striiike!"
"Pitch two, a fastball over the heart of the plate! Strike two again."
"That ball is absolutely electric. Yoo Mun-seon never even thought about swinging, by the look of it."
"The count is now 0-and-2."
And still, to the very last, Yoo Mun-seon laid one final trap. The truth was that he was still a beat behind, but he had gotten a feel for the timing of Kim Yi-seon's fastball. If he'd committed and swung just now, he believed he could have punched out a base hit.
But he'd held back. Kim Yi-seon had buried two straight fastballs in the center of the zone. He'd been enraged by the gamesmanship. And he believed his opponent couldn't handle the fastball's timing.
Anyone else, maybe. But with Kim Yi-seon, pitch three was a foregone conclusion. Right back down the middle.
He set his stance. This time, he committed for real. The count meant nothing; only the at-bat did. If you've read the ball, who cares about 0-and-2.
Here it comes. Just as expected — a fastball over the middle. So swing. Not the contact-first approach that was Yoo Mun-seon's usual craft, but a full, committed swing.
Crack!
"A fly ball, high in the air — center fielder settles under it, and that's the out. That ends the inning."
"And that... that ball was simply special. Let's take another look at the replay. Watching it in slow motion, the ball almost appears to float... ah, and according to the data we've been sent, that registered 2,883 RPM. That's the highest spin rate recorded on a four-seamer since Hawk-Eye was installed, so, haha... words fail me."
"A at-bat where Yoo Mun-seon knew exactly what was coming — and got beaten anyway."
He'd made contact — but it sailed high.
So his read on the timing had been right after all. Nothing else could explain him touching a 164 km/h pitch at all.
But knowing the timing, knowing the location — even that wasn't enough to hit it.
"What in the world is that kid?"
How had they scored three runs off him through the second inning again? All that had changed was the swagger, and yet he'd turned into a completely different pitcher. What a strange creature.