The Sycophant's Flattery (1)

"Defense coach. Let's set aside growth potential and positives entirely and talk strictly based on their current ability. How do they look to you?"

Manager Jeong Jin-haeng of the Twins was racking his brain today, just like every other day. This time, the problem was the infield composition.

First, Jo Sang-goo, the original starting second baseman, was out for the entire regular season with a hamstring injury. According to the doctors, he might be able to return around the postseason, and would definitely be back by the Korean Series — but this team wasn't in a position to bank on any of that.

Then there was Hwang Soo-hyung, the utility infielder and first option off the bench, who had shown nothing but disappointment lately. No — come to think of it, maybe not just lately. Maybe he'd always been like this. That would explain why, despite holding a first-team infield utility spot, he'd gotten so few chances to play in the past.

You could lose him for a game or two and barely notice the difference, but his style of defense placed a heavy burden on every fielder playing alongside him, and even Ha Joong-yeon, his double-play partner, had been spread thin because of it.

In fact, Joong-yeon had already worn himself down and missed a few games. With the defense already in chaos over a single hole at second base, if the starting shortstop went down too, that day the infield would witness a catastrophe of biblical proportions.

His hitting was passable at best, and he could technically be stationed at any infield position, which was why he'd been kept on the first-team roster until now — but with a hole torn in the keystone, he was a player they could no longer afford. They sent him down to the second team with heavy hearts.

And in Hwang Soo-hyung's place, they'd called up every second-teamer who could play second — or, more generously, third or short — and were running tryouts...

"You're well aware, Manager. Ahn Sung-wook, Jung Ho, Jung Wook, Myung-jin, Jong-min — up to that point, none of them ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠are usable in the first team."

A full half of the candidates had been judged unfit for first-team defense and dropped away one after another.

Right. If second base were the kind of position where you could slot in just anyone and it would mostly hold together, he wouldn't be agonizing like this.

The real problem was that even the four remaining candidates — the ones the Twins had actually rated as promising — didn't generate much in the way of good reports.

"Choi Dong-geon has the most first-team experience of the bunch, and aside from defense he does offer something at this level... but honestly, his defense is first-team caliber at exactly one position: first base. You could put him at third, but he'd be entirely dependent on the shortstop bailing him out."

The infield's sixth option, Choi Dong-geon. Out.

"Kim Hee-young, defense-wise, looks like there might be something worth trying. The problem is the kid's hitting is so catastrophically bad that..."

Kim Hee-young, the resident second-team groundhog. Out the moment he reached the first team, thanks to a swing that turned to water under the lights.

"Lee Jae-ho... honestly, he's an outfielder wearing an infielder's uniform. His first-step reaction to hard-hit balls just isn't there. You could beat him to death and he still couldn't hold down the hot corner."

Lee Jae-ho, the high-round pick from the draft two years ago. Out for his reaction time off the bat.

Once you'd discarded all of them, only one name remained.

"Ko Hyeong-joon looks the best in training right now. Honestly, watching him run the drills as a coach, I can't tell whether it's just because it's practice conditions or whether he's genuinely that good — but what he's showing us right now is the best of the lot."

"So that's how it is..."

Ko Hyeong-joon. A second-round pick in this year's draft.

Given that he came through the early draft and had a glowing reputation as a premier college talent, it wouldn't be unreasonable to hand him a fast track to opportunity — but as the coaches' lukewarm assessments and the manager's visibly reluctant reaction made clear, he hadn't exactly earned anyone's trust.

This had nothing to do with anyone catching on to Ko Hyeong-joon's signature sycophant(?) vibe.

"Hyeong-joon... the thing is, I just... can't bring myself to trust him."

"What can we do? We have no alternatives."

For starters, his second-team numbers were mediocre. Not outright terrible, but two or three of the resident second-team groundhogs were posting better stats, and he was performing slightly below league average.

The coaches believed that as a first-year pro, he'd improve once he had time to adjust — but if that was the case, then obviously the first team was out of the question right now, wasn't it?

And then there was the second problem.

"That kid is honestly fascinating. His defense looks precarious and sloppy to the eye, and yet somehow the actual results hold up."

"And he's not the type to increase the defensive burden on the infielders around him, either."

The way the kid fielded was just... hard to trust. There was no discernible strength anywhere — no animal-quick reactions, no exceptional speed, no cannon for an arm. Nothing.

Every one of those attributes was pro-average or below. By any defensive metric, he had not a single standout quality — and yet he was playing good defense. It made no sense.

"Fine. If we slip to fourth place at this rate, we've got no choice — you give the opportunity to whoever's actually playing well. I was planning to rotate chances through everyone anyway, but let's bring Hyeong-joon up first."

"Yes, sir."

Still, he had been handling practices and second-team games without any visible problems, so suspicious or not, he was unquestionably the first player worth giving a concentrated opportunity.

Let's see what you've got.

Kang Min-ah was being a genuine, honest-to-goodness nuisance — but she'd insisted this time.

She'd asked Han Seo-hee to let her watch the game at Seoul Dome alongside the club staff.

It wasn't like the old days of attending games in person — she couldn't sit close to the field or go visit the players — but she could review every scrap of footage captured by the stadium's own facility cameras, the ones no broadcast feed would ever show.

With all the recent fuss over treating Kim Yi-seon like an exam-bound student, Han Seo-hee had granted the request without even asking why. And now Min-ah sat in the analysis room usually reserved for the data analysts and front-office staff, fully prepared to watch the game.

More than twenty screens covered every corner of the ballpark. Under normal circumstances she wouldn't have spared a single thought for anything else — her attention would have been glued entirely to Kim Yi-seon as he took the mound. Not today, though. Her main objective today was that man loosening up at second base.

Kang Min-ah glared at Ko Hyeong-joon through the screen as a number of incidents replayed themselves in her mind.

She would overlook the incident where she'd been delighted by the flowers Kim Yi-seon gave her, only to sour the instant she heard Ko Hyeong-joon had been the one to advise him.

The problem was that Ko Hyeong-joon's name kept popping up afterward, too, in thoroughly irritating ways.

"Thanks, I'll eat it all up."

"...What's gotten into you? Lately you've been playing the exam student so hard you wouldn't even let me cook for you."

"Well... Hyeong-joon hyung said something. He pointed out that cooking for me could be part of your routine too, and that maybe I was being too one-sided about it."

Lately Kim Yi-seon had been treating her like a full-time test-taker — overdoing it, honestly — just because she was barely starting to study for the bar exam. He'd insisted so stubbornly that she was fine and should just rest or study for herself whenever she tried to cook him something. And now, suddenly, he was eating everything she made without complaint.

When she'd looked into what had happened, there it was again: Ko Hyeong-joon's meddling.

And then there was one more thing.

"Another drive? Where are you off to this time?"

"Secret."

Ever since he'd gotten the car, Kim Yi-seon spent every spare moment joyriding around with her or Ye-eun unnie. She'd assumed that day was just another one of those and let it slide, but...

"...I didn't expect this place. I never thought you'd come here."

"Figured I could visit even when it's not the memorial date, once in a while."

The unexpected destination was her father's memorial site.

This was the same Kim Yi-seon who wouldn't even come down for her family's memorial rites and got an earful from her late father's portrait for it — how had he come up with something so thoughtful? Her mother, upon finding out, would probably say something like, 'This is why raising sons is a waste of effort.'

Moved, just a little, she'd stood with him before her father's columbarium niche — the first visit since the last memorial date — replaced the flowers, and shared a few stories for no particular reason.

And then, in the car on the way back, just as she'd been about to say something out of gratitude, she'd seen it.

It was the record of a messenger conversation with Ko Hyeong-joon, left on the phone he'd forgotten in the car.

Beyond that, Ko Hyeong-joon had fed Kim Yi-seon all manner of advice through various channels, and Kim Yi-seon had taken that advice as gospel, doing one ill-suited thing after another.

Granted, before she knew the full story, she'd been pleased. And she knew those actions carried genuine feeling, even if they were out of character for Kim Yi-seon.

Even so, it grated on her. Badly. Scheming his way into people's hearts, worming into their heads?

Lee Ye-eun was similar in some ways, but different in others. Ye-eun planted goodwill in people from the start, armed with her own natural confidence and charisma. Ko Hyeong-joon, by contrast, pried open the gaps in a person's psychology — a distinctly unsavory approach.

However she looked at it, she needed to learn everything she could about him. Even if that meant studying his performance during a game.

Judging only by what she'd seen so far, it honestly bordered on paranoia — but her instincts were screaming, so she had to assemble some basis for a verdict, whatever it took. Who knew what might happen to the hopelessly naive Kim Yi-seon and his blockhead of a childhood-friend older brother?

Ko Hyeong-joon had caught on to Kang Min-ah's wariness of him quite quickly.

At the very top of his analysis of Kim Yi-seon's behavioral priorities sat his girlfriends. Gathering intelligence on them was, surely, basics of the basics.

Though perhaps ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his surveillance had been a touch excessive, since he seemed to have made her uncomfortable... which, frankly, worked in his favor.

People that sharp share a common trait: they start out wary, but once they've been persuaded by logic, they tip over into an even deeper blind faith. It's no coincidence that the highly educated fall for cults at surprising rates.

That was why Ko Hyeong-joon was mindful of Kang Min-ah's presence at today's game.

She'd slipped in under the president's authority, so by rights the players shouldn't have known — but who was Ko Hyeong-joon? He already had a few friendly faces among the front-office staff, and word had come down that exact pipeline.

She'll no doubt try to read my true personality and desires through whatever emotional behavior slips out during the game. But it won't be easy.

That clumsy, spur-of-the-moment emotional display was something Ko Hyeong-joon had graduated from back in high school. On the field, and even on the practice ground, every word and action from him was a thoroughly calculated move.

It made no difference whether the audience was the manager or a coach, his teammates, or even the girlfriend of a younger kid. He folded away his pride and showed them all exactly what they wanted to see, withholding nothing.

Today's game was the finale of the North-South Exchange Series, against the Cheongjin Mountains. In the top of the first inning, Kim Yi-seon took the mound.

Behind the plate and at third base respectively: Bang Min-soo and Park Myeong-gil.

Both were formidable rivals — Bang Min-soo by virtue of his position within Kim Yi-seon's inner circle, Park Myeong-gil in the contest over the infielder's spot.

At shortstop stood Ha Joong-yeon sunbaenim, who showed no sign of being displaced any time soon, and at first base was Choi Dong-geon, who didn't even qualify as competition.

He hadn't analyzed them as exhaustively as he had Kim Yi-seon, but he knew a fair amount about these men too.

Recounting those details in his head one more time, he focused in on the game.

"Play ball!"

The batter settled into the box, and the pitcher flowed smoothly into his delivery.

A very brief exchange of signs flashed between Kim Yi-seon and the catcher, and Ko Hyeong-joon made his read in an instant. Fastball. High.

The first pitch would be a high heater. A ball like that, if the batter connected at all, could only produce a line drive or a fly ball — so as an infielder, Ko Hyeong-joon could afford to relax a little. But Kim Yi-seon was different.

If his analysis of Kim Yi-seon's tendencies was correct, Yi-seon preferred to change pitches on pure animal instinct, moment to moment. In extreme cases, he thought nothing of shaking off a sign entirely and throwing something else.

Now his focus shifted from the batter to Kim Yi-seon's back. The pitcher's forearm twitched, ever so slightly. A change invisible from the batter's box — but perfectly visible to Ko Hyeong-joon, standing at second base behind him!

Crack!

"First pitch, and he's ON it! Right at the second baseman! Steps on the bag at first — he's OUT!"

"That's just well pitched, well hit, and well fielded all at once. That changeup looked like it was headed straight for the middle before dropping off the table, and the batter did well to make contact on it that quickly. And the second baseman deserves credit too, for taking it so cleanly and finishing the play."

"The Cheongjin Mountains lose their leadoff hitter on the very first pitch."

Just as predicted.

Kim Yi-seon's signature spike grip could produce that same forearm twitch on his curveball, but the circle changeup — with the most intricate grip of all — forced a pronounced movement in the forearm every time.

And since the opposing hitter happened to be a line-drive type who loved a level swing, the ball was naturally likely to bleed toward the second-base side, closer to first. Because he'd already taken his preparatory steps, the play was easy.

Kim Yi-seon turned around and grinned, giving him a thumbs-up. Ko Hyeong-joon smiled back and returned the gesture. Sure, this kind of thing could provoke the opposing team — but Kim Yi-seon was hardly the type of pitcher to care about that, so the important thing was to give the fist pump right back.

On came the next hitter. Kim Yi-seon stared the batter down with his usual brazen confidence, then wrapped up the sign conference in two seconds flat. Another high fastball sign. Evidently the bench's call, based on the analytics department's data.

This time he nodded along without any objection, then threw it with his chest out.

"Striiike!"

"First pitch, called strike! 160 again today!"

"Kim Yi-seon is astonishing every single time out. A few pitchers have broken the 160 barrier in Korea before, sure — but they were righties, and even then nobody could throw 160 km/h pitches more than a handful of times in a season. This kid throws them like it's breakfast."

"And Ju Yun-mun steps out of the box briefly to regroup."

The Mountains' hitter in the box had already shrunk under that brazenness and the raw, visible violence of the fastball.

Which made this easy. A cornered beast like Kim Yi-seon was never gentle with frightened prey.

'Low fastball.'

There it was. Whether Kim Yi-seon had called it himself or not, the catcher hastily flashed the sign where the infielders could see it. The moment the catcher set his target, the pitcher went into the set position.

The hitter, Ju Yun-mun — if Ko Hyeong-joon's scouting was right — was the type who froze up under pressure and desperately stabbed at the ball fishing for a check swing.

The right play was obvious.

Crack—!

"He's hit it! Up the middle? Oh — the second baseman's on it! To first... he's OUT!"

"If you watch the slow-motion replay, you can see second ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠baseman Ko Hyeong-joon break toward second base the instant Kim Yi-seon releases the ball — not on the contact timing. It was a gamble, and it paid off beautifully."

"An iron-clad infield defense for the Twins!"

Just as expected, the panicked push-bunt of a swing — a check-swing slapper — sent the ball rolling sharply toward nearly dead center. Had he not known what was coming, it would have been an impossible play, a clean infield single. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Knowing, it was routine.

Delighted that everything was unfolding exactly to plan, Ko Hyeong-joon let a grin slip out.

Though of course, not the full-throated HAHAHA his heart was staging — merely, as always, calibrated to the eyes watching him.

Bang Min-soo could not, for the life of him, figure out what was wrong with these bastards.

"No need to be so guarded. Sure, we're competing over Kim Yi-seon's heart, but you're an infielder and I'm a catcher, aren't we? No reason to turn it into open hostility."

Today, as always, that unfathomable creature Kim Yi-seon had ignored signs or, when he did take them, thrown balls of complete absurdity — headache number one. Then he'd swanned over to the dugout crowing, 'Min-gi sunbaenim, did you see that? One inning shut down on six pitches? Is this not shaping up to be an 80-pitch perfect game or what?' — headache number two, and a slap to the face on top of it.

And now this bastard was saying what, exactly?

"So. What did Yi-seon just say?"

Min-soo had gone straight from high school to the pros and was in his fourth year. The other man was technically a rookie, but as an early-draft pick who'd reportedly also lost a year of high school ball to injury, he was the same age.

Right — to Bang Min-soo, who treated this strictly as a job and harbored no grand notions of esprit de corps, none of it made sense. He understood that same-age players on a team typically chatted each other up. What he did not understand was why the topic of conversation looked like this.

"...I don't know what you've got twisted in your head, but I have never once gone after Kim Yi-seon's heart."

What were they, a pair of women squabbling over one man? Kim Yi-seon already had three girlfriends, for crying out loud. It wasn't even like the community-board joke about the boyfriend slot standing empty and accepting applications.

But Ko Hyeong-joon let the answer slide right off his ears and kept spouting nonsense.

"Right, well, you're playing your own hand, I suppose. Then allow me to go first and tell you what I've been up to."

He didn't want to hear it — but since neither of them would bat until later innings anyway, there was no clean way to shut the man up. So Ko Hyeong-joon prattled on.

"I researched Kim Yi-seon's tendencies. All to plant the best possible impression of myself in his head."

Roughly: the characteristics of each pitch type, Kim Yi-seon's personal habits, scouting data on opposing hitters, today's field conditions, and so on and so forth.

"Ideally, an infielder should be positioned to handle every possibility... but that by-the-book approach would never win Kim Yi-seon over. And you see, I can't afford to look marginal out there."

So, he explained, using all that data he'd predicted where each pitch was most likely to be hit and moved preemptively — and if his read proved wrong, or the ball came on some low-probability difficult course, he'd be nowhere near it anyway, making it look like no fault of his own. That was Ko Hyeong-joon's argument.

Listening to this monologue, delivered with the smile of some conniving treacherous courtier, Bang Min-soo was plunged into profound shock.

'Isn't that just... what people call playing good infield defense?'

Because he had just realized that the Twins had gained one more certified lunatic.