Jeil Middle Goes Down in Flames
The rest of the game went without a hitch. With the opposing pitcher's psyche completely shattered, he coughed up one more run and we closed it out from there — no extra innings needed.
Coach was moved to tears, saying it was the first championship he'd ever won, whether as a student or as an active player, and the rest of the team got to bask in the glory alongside him.
And so, having taken the title at the Southern Regional Youth Baseball Tournament, Wirye Jeil Middle submitted its application to the KBO Commissioner's Cup Middle School Tournament with hearts pounding — and received an invitation, as expected.
We sweated blood preparing for the tournament, and through everyone's effort, passion, and the power of teamwork, we knocked out two teams and clawed our way to the quarterfinals... only to lose, heartbreakingly, in the end.
Coach told the team that even though we lost, we fought well, and that this experience would make us better going forward — encouragement laced with a push to aim for better results at the next major tournament, or at the regional qualifier that would get us there.
He'd always struck me as the type of coach to spout nothing but "don't be so results-obsessed" and "just do your best" platitudes, but apparently seeing a glimmer of possibility had lit a fire under him.
And then Jeil Middle went down in flames.
The opposing pitcher spreads four fingers, then waves his hand back and forth like he's shooing a fly toward first base.
"Hey! Don't run away!! Fight back, dammit!!"
"Uh-huh~ jus' keep walkin' tooo first base~~"
Teams facing Jeil Middle had figured out the perfect counter-strategy against us.
If Kim Yi-seon cranks an extra-base hit every single at-bat and beats you that way... why not just walk him intentionally every time?
He's going to murder you anyway, so hand him first base for free, save your pitcher's pitch count, and presto — the perfect plan.
In bad cases, Kim Yi-seon would come up four times in a game and draw four walks, or with the bases loaded the opponents would just hand him a run via walk — and if it got that dire, they'd flat-out plunk him with an intentional beanball instead.
A thoroughly fed-up Kim Yi-seon tried stealing second every time he reached first in a desperate bid to manufacture something, but unfortunately for him, Kim Yi-seon apparently wasn't blessed with stealing talent either. His success rate was mediocre at best, and getting caught stealing needlessly killed the team's momentum, so he gradually cut back on the attempts.
Then late in the game came the time he jammed his ankle sliding into second and had to wear a half-cast — and Lee Ye-eun sobbed like she was the one who'd gotten hurt, so after that he gave up on stealing entirely.
As Kim Yi-seon shot up in height through his second and third years, his power grew in proportion, until even a slightly-off barrel was enough to clear a middle school fence. But the more dangerous he became, the even more stubbornly opponents refused to pitch to him.
Kang Min-hyuk, whose velocity never developed but whose other skills kept climbing — the original story's ace peeking through more and more — was in much the same boat.
Middle school games run seven innings with a four-inning, sixty-pitch cap per outing. So when Kang Min-hyuk took the mound, opponents would simply stretch every at-bat into a long ball-count war and lay off his cutter over and over to run his pitch count up.
Granted, if the two of us laid that kind of foundation, the remaining players could've cruised to much more favorable games with even a modest showing. But for whatever reason, even as our teammates' defense had improved considerably, their hitting remained an utter catastrophe.
And so Kim Yi-seon's three years of middle school baseball ended without ever setting foot on a national stage again — the KBO Commissioner's Cup in first year was his last.
"...Hey, Kang Min-hyuk."
"...What is it, Kim Yi-seon."
"That cloud over there looks just like a baseball, doesn't it?"
"Huh."
October of our third year, an age when baseball had all but stopped outside a handful of tournaments. Min-hyuk and I lay in a corner of the baseball club's practice field, watching the clouds drift by in the distance.
I'd known it would be hard. Even in the original story — even with luck on his side — Kang Min-hyuk had been put through the wringer.
But with me on the team too, and it's still this bad? And worse — the moment we go to high school, the few remotely usable players on our team transfer out to other schools, while other schools' rejects come flooding in?
My head spins. Wait, wasn't the whole point that the universe's energy would smile on you and you'd win as long as you stuck with the protagonist...
I think back to my past life — the legendary two-way stars who dragged some team through its dark ages, grinding through one insane season after another and still never escaping tenth place, suffering together the whole way. Ahh... so the team I used to mock isn't someone else's story anymore!
So maybe, I'd fantasized, if I'm good and Min-hyuk performs even better than he did in the original, the two of us alone could carry us to a championship? But no — baseball, it turns out, is not a sport one or two people can change.
Haaah... of the guys currently on the roster, who's actually coming up to Jeil High with us? There were maybe seven faces I vaguely recognized from the original...
"Both of you, quit spacing out like a couple of soulless husks and get to the meeting. Coach is calling for you."
"Right. Guess we should go..."
The one coldly severing my agonizing right now is Kang Min-ah, who at some point had moved up into middle school. As far as I could tell, she never did anything like baseball team manager in the original story, but here she was, having come in as the successor to Lim Song-ah and Lee Ye-eun.
Like a mother rousing a drowsy son to send him off to school, Min-ah hauled Min-hyuk and me to our feet and marched us toward the coach's office.
What important announcement could there possibly be at this point, when the season's already over?
"I have gathered you third-years because I have been promoted — starting next year, I will no longer be the coach of Jeil Middle, but of Jeil High. As such, I intend to continue coaching you there."
Well. That is important.
But Coach as a high school coach? That doesn't track.
The coach in the original story wasn't a former industrial-league journeyman who'd never even dabbled in the pros like this one — he was a young, fiery type who'd retired from pro ball and only recently started coaching.
Something twisted the original story, and I have a suspicion it's me.
I performed too well, for one. And Kang Min-hyuk, who in the original wasn't given real playing time until late middle school and early high school because his fastball was too slow, is already being deployed as our number-one pitcher.
Thanks to that, even without national tournament appearances, we've been tearing through the mid-tier schools at the regional level and putting up respectable results — more than enough for Coach's stock to rise.
Still, an internal promotion is genuinely surprising. The coach in the original may have been a one-trick passion machine, but he at least had real first-team pro experience.
And yet, even as he delivers this good news, Coach's expression isn't exactly bright.
"Which is why, though it is early, I wish to finalize my plans for next season quickly. If any of you has received a scouting offer from a high school other than Jeil High — and truly wishes to attend that school — I ask that you come forward. Even if you are only considering it, that is fine."
Three hands go up. figures — the same ones whose faces never appear as his teammates in the original. Yeah, you guys were always headed elsewhere.
"I am not asking in order to penalize you or talk you out of it. I already know of the scouting offers for most of you, so I ask only that you be honest. This is purely for my own confirmation, for next year's recruitment."
Then he scans our faces, and two more hands rise.
Two MORE hands?
I look at them. One is Kim Sang-won — in the original, an extra so forgettable that he's a teammate who never even gets his name said properly. Pass.
But Lee Hyun-woo? You're going to another school?
You're the single most important supporting character among the teammates in The Weakest High School Ace! You're a mid-tier player on our team with nothing particularly special about you — why?
Coach asks what's so appealing about the other school, and finally his expression eases as he says something to the effect of "I respect your choices" before dismissing us.
On the way out of the coach's office, I immediately corner Lee Hyun-woo.
"Hey, Hyun-woo. You're really going somewhere other than Jeil High?"
"Nothing's decided yet. It's just... Gwangnam High said they'd offer me a scholarship if I enroll there."
At the word scholarship, I let go of his sleeve. His family's situation isn't exactly comfortable.
"Still — you're our starting catcher, man. You know better than anyone how badly Min-hyuk wants to play at a national tournament with Jeil High. If you abandon him, who's he supposed to build a battery with?"
Yes, I went for the heartstrings. He showed up so often in the original precisely because he was Min-hyuk's battery partner. He was the good-natured type you picture when you think "catcher," so I figured it was worth a shot.
"Sorry, Yi-seon. But let's keep ball and life separate. Guys like you don't need to be on a good team to get noticed. Guys like me do."
Lee Hyun-woo says it flatly, without much feeling. Then he walks away, leaving me standing there with nothing to say.
Jeil Middle these days is rated as at least above-average for the region. Laughably inflated if you look at the reality inside the roster, but with the results we'd produced, the halo effect must have rubbed off on the members beyond Min-hyuk and me too.
And so Coach gets promoted internally to the high school job, while Lee Hyun-woo — who was supposed to enroll at Jeil High and become Kang Min-hyuk's battery partner — is instead weighing a move to another school.
"Yi-seon oppa. Snap out of it. Moping around like that isn't going to change anything."
This time it's just me, alone, staring up at the sky. No Min-hyuk.
Oh hey, that cloud looks like a rabbit.
"Haaah... All that talk about how much you actually care, under all the pretending. Did it really hit you that hard?"
Of course it did.
Sure, I'd joked about the universe's energy and freeloading championships, but I was a reader who'd followed that manga all the way to the end. If I'd truly hated the protagonist and his school, I wouldn't have made it that far.
But all those hours I spent seriously deliberating — they're built for defense in the original, so if we raise them right, Min-hyuk and I really could go for a one-two-punch championship — what was the point of any of it?
I turned down full three-year scholarships AND equipment sponsorships from other high schools, all for the sake of winning... with these guys.
I saw through these Jemutnip Village clowns back when I was reading the manga. They'd grind Min-hyuk into dust day in and day out, win off the back of him, and then package it as "the team's victory" — that shamelessness never went anywhere.
Apparently my sulking was getting hard to watch, because Min-ah tries to force me upright. Flailing around to stay lying down would look pathetic, so I get up obediently.
She brushes the dirt off my backside, then says it like she's passing by.
"If it bothers you that much that your teammates abandoned you, then get your revenge in high school by being good enough to beat them."
"You think that'll work..."
"Or else, go kidnap some good players."
Kidnap?
"...You know what? Min-ah. You're a goddamn genius. If your teammates run off, you just kidnap better ones. Duh!"
"...I'm sorry, what?"
Why didn't I think of this?
Min-ah stares at me, bewildered by my sudden spike in energy.
But there's no easy way to explain it all, so I throw her a quick word of thanks and sprint straight for the coach's office.
BANG!
"Coach!!"
"Gah, dammit—! What the—? Yi-seon? What's got into you?"
Coach startles at my sudden burst through the door — but the moment he registers my face, his expression melts right back into ease.
"You know I'm going to Jeil High, right?"
"Of course. I've already spoken with the chairman, and the scholarship is being arranged. The chairman's reaction has been good too — you can look forward to it."
When did he even arrange all that? I'm a little touched, but that's not what matters right now.
"The scholarship's great, but I just need to confirm one thing. We do have dormitory support for students enrolling from out of the district, right?"
"Yes. That one's subsidized by the KBO, so it's nearly always available. Why — are you planning to move into the dorms and train, Yi-seon? Your house is close, so you wouldn't qualify."
Good. The basic conditions are no problem.
"Coach. This is no joke — I'm being completely serious, so hear me out on one thing."
"Alright, go ahead."
Seeing me this grave, Coach straightens up in his chair and gives me his full attention.
Okay, honestly, this is a line a student probably shouldn't cross — but I am this school's ace, so a suggestion at this level should be forgivable, right? And it's not like Coach is the type to throw his authority around over things like this.
"Coach. Let's do some scouting."
"Scouting? You think anyone worth having will come just because we call? The decent kids have all been snapped up by the major schools already?"
"They will come. I'm almost certain."
If my reasoning is right, this is a guaranteed win.
Prospect piracy is still kidnapping, after all. Just like Min-ah said — let's go abduct ourselves some loyal slaves who'll never run away.