If One Isn't Enough, Use Two

After the game ended, I headed for a small park in a corner of Jamsil Stadium, where I found Kang Min-hyuk sitting on a bench with his head hanging low.

Actually, never mind Lim Song-ah being there — even Jung Hyun-ah sunbae had wedged herself in beside him. How on earth did they find out and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠come all this way just to glue themselves to his side?

I caught their eyes briefly, meaning for them to give us a little space. The two of them nodded and rose from the bench.

With the presence on either side of him gone, Kang Min-hyuk must have sensed something was off, because he lifted his head. Judging by his expression, his temper seemed to have cooled.

"Kim Yi-seon? It's fine. I've calmed down now."

I ignored his answer entirely and sat down right beside him on the bench.

"I just... I just got anxious thinking an opportunity like this might never come again. Next time, I'll trust my teammates more and—"

There went Kang Min-hyuk, rattling off excuses nobody had asked for. What the hell is this guy talking about?

"Kang Min-hyuk. Are you insane? Trust the team — trust them to do what, exactly? I told you, didn't I? You have to be perfect every single game."

So it seemed he'd taken what I said before as a joke. I'm serious — if we actually want to win the championship, it has to be you.

Kang Min-hyuk wore a stunned expression, like my answer was the last thing he'd expected.

Did he think I was going to feed him soft, mushy talk about friendship and teamwork? Our sunbaes were out there playing the games of their lives, getting crushed by weight classes they couldn't match.

But as Kang Min-hyuk chewed over my words, his face quickly darkened again.

"Even if I pitch a perfect game every time, we can't win the championship. A pitcher can only throw so many pitches."

He was right. This world had its own era of old-school romance, back when high school pitchers would grind their arms to the bone game after game — but those days were gone. Pitchers now faced mandatory rest days based on pitch counts, with a hard cap of 105 pitches per outing.

No matter how badly Kang Min-hyuk wanted to sacrifice his body and win the Phoenix Flag Tournament himself, the rules and the schedule simply wouldn't let him pitch in every single game.

From ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the round of 32 onward, every Phoenix Flag game was played on alternating days, meaning a starting pitcher had to skip at least one start in between.

But flip that logic around, and didn't it mean that with just two reliable starters, a high school team would be practically invincible?

Having been eliminated in the round of 32, Wirye Jeil High brought its 2017 season to a close just like that.

The loss to Gwangju Jeil High in that final game seemed to have made them hit a wall — a fair number of this year's second-years ended up quitting the baseball club midway through. Out of eleven total members, a full seven walked away.

The third-years would graduate next year, and only four second-years remained, so the players who could actually be called starters now amounted to just the ten first-years and those four remaining upperclassmen.

When the second semester began and the departing sunbaes gave their formal farewells, no one could hold back their tears, and the room dissolved into a sea of sobbing. Giving up a dream you'd chased for at least five years couldn't have been easy on the heart.

Coach already looked like his head was aching over plans for next year, but he couldn't bring himself to suggest that the sunbaes give it one more shot. And who could blame him — the first-years who had shone this season would be competing for starting spots next year.

So the ones leaving left, and in the baseball club's training room, only the fourteen who would remain gathered. In that sparse, empty space, Coach and the assistant coaches were passing along a few light closing notes.

"There are no plans yet for any fall tournaments or winter league participation. If you all want it, we could look for a suitable competition, but no invitations came in directly. Anyone with questions?"

The whole atmosphere was so deflated that nobody raised a hand.

Which is exactly why I shot mine straight up into the air.

"All right, Yi-seon. What's on your mind?"

"Coach. Since there are no tournaments in the second semester anyway, would it be okay if I skipped team practice and trained on my own instead?"

The club members were dumbfounded — what kind of nonsense was this training-obsessed freak spouting now? Not just the members; even Coach and the assistants stared at me with question marks written all over their faces, like they'd misheard something.

I kindly restated it in slightly simpler terms.

"What I mean is, since we're not preparing for any tournaments anyway, there's no harm in me skipping team practice, right?"

"Haah... Yi-seon. You never say something like this without a reason. So what is it this time?"

Coming from an ordinary baseball coach, this was the kind of deranged statement that would earn you not just a shout but a bat upside the head. But he'd known me for four years now, and Coach understood my personality well enough that the conversation went smoothly.

"Ah, it's nothing huge. I'm switching to pitcher from now on."

"If that's nothing huge, then what on earth counts as a big deal..."

Coach seemed to have given up on me entirely — he didn't even ask why I was converting to a pitcher.

"But Yi-seon, if you're going to switch to pitching, shouldn't you show up to team practice more, not less? All you've ever done is tubing and basic conditioning. You've never actually trained to throw a real baseball — and you're going to teach yourself?"

Still, he refused to abandon his last shred of common sense. And he wasn't wrong — pitching without proper instruction is genuinely dangerous. Not that I planned to wing it just because I had talent.

"There's a place where I'm going to be taught. Oh, right — Kang Min-hyuk will be training with me too, so he can be excused as well, right?"

Kang Min-hyuk, standing beside me, heard this for the first time and froze, opening his mouth to protest — but I immediately jabbed him in the ribs with my elbow. I've got a plan. We'll talk after.

Coach tried several times to say something, then let out a single long sigh and gave up.

"Fine... With Hyeon-su graduating and Gyeong-hui quitting, we could use more pitchers anyway. In exchange, you report your progress to me regularly."

Coach had apparently reached full enlightenment.

And just like that, I walked away with a blanket exemption from team practice, and the meeting wrapped up.

The dismissal was announced, but the first-years all gravitated toward me — the one who'd dropped the bombshell ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— and began firing off questions.

"If you're skipping team practice, does that mean no more training camps either?"

"Pitcher? If you're pitching, who's playing first base?"

"Hey, if you enter the pitcher competition too, there won't be a spot left for me. Just stay a batter, damn it."

"A place where you're getting trained? Where? Did you find a good private lesson academy or something?"

I waved my hands, brushed them all off with a vague ask me later, and then dragged over Kang Min-hyuk, who still looked like he hadn't processed what was happening.

"From now on, you're coming to train with me every day."

"Just to be clear — you're not thinking of learning pitching from me, are you?"

Am I crazy? Even if he is the protagonist, taking lessons from a high schooler? Never.

I flashed Kang Min-hyuk a thoroughly wicked smile and answered with total confidence.

"Nope. There's a coach in Korea who'd rank among the very best in the country."

Securing the hidden piece is the unwritten rule of every reincarnator, isn't it? I had decided to use the very last of my future knowledge — the final card I'd been saving.

Losing despite pitching a perfect game every outing — even manga Kang Min-hyuk hadn't been spared that fate.

In the original story, during his second year, he had carried the team all the way to the round of 16 of the Phoenix Flag on his own back — only for Kang Cheol-i, the starter in that round, to get absolutely shelled and knock them out.

So how on earth did third-year Kang Min-hyuk win the Phoenix Flag? Did some reliable underclassman finally arrive?

That was true, up to a point. In Kang Min-hyuk's third year, a second-year junior named Won Ki-soo had his potential bloom and developed into a decent pitcher in his own right.

But Won Ki-soo had one fatal flaw: an extremely peculiar kind of glass heart.

He wasn't like Kang Cheol-i hyung, who lost the plot the moment he took a beating. He wasn't the type to choke automatically in big games, either. The problem was a bizarre mental quirk: the later the game went, the more nervous he became.

A guy who could give up seven runs in the first inning and still pitch his own game would get tight while holding a three-run lead in the seventh. You might think that's an absurd, forced setup — but the baseball world is wide and players come in every variety. People like that genuinely do exist.

Anyway, as a starter he fell apart the deeper a game went — and there was no other arm to eat innings if you pulled him before the late stages.

Worse still, even burning through the full 105-pitch limit didn't guarantee a complete-game shutout. And since the Phoenix Flag was played every other day, a starter had to throw fewer than 90 pitches to be eligible for the next game.

Under all these layers of pressure, Kang Min-hyuk came up with an idea so inventive it bordered on insane.

Under high school baseball pitch-count rules, throwing 60 pitches or fewer required only a single day of mandatory rest. And every Phoenix Flag game guaranteed at least one rest day in between.

So then — couldn't the nervous-in-the-late-innings Won Ki-soo just throw 60 pitches through the early frames, and Kang Min-hyuk shut down the rest with 60 of his own? Kang Min-hyuk normally pitched complete-game shutouts within the 105 limit anyway; what was fifteen extra pitches to him?

And Kang Min-hyuk actually pulled off this scheme that sounds like utter nonsense the moment you hear it.

In the end, baseball is a sport where limiting runs is what secures your average win rate. Wirye Jeil High's batting was mediocre, but those two plugged every hole in the lineup across every game — scoring runs themselves as the designated hitter in the early innings and then as pitcher-batter in the late ones — and they won the whole thing.

Which raises an obvious question: if a method like this existed, why didn't they use it in his first and second years, only trying it in his third?

The reason is simple. It wasn't possible before then. That's when it finally became feasible.

"Hold on — you've never thrown a baseball in your life, and you suddenly want to become a pitcher? Why?"

"You ever heard of the mileage theory? I'm still shooting up in height and my balance is all over the place, so I figured instead of learning early and having to fix everything later, I'd just learn properly once I'm done growing."

Answering a few of the countless questions written across Kang Min-hyuk's face, we made our way toward our destination.

Where we were headed was nowhere near the suburbs or any area where you'd expect to find a facility with a decently sized athletic field. It was right in the middle of downtown — a slightly odd place to go, if you were going somewhere for training.

But lurking in an inconspicuous spot like this is exactly what makes a hidden piece a hidden piece, isn't it? We cut through the forest of downtown buildings until, at last, we arrived.

"Kim Yi-seon. You're sure this is the right place? It really doesn't feel like it."

"I'm telling you, it's here."

The place I'd dragged Kang Min-hyuk to was a certain clinic. The signboard read Jo Sang-shik Rehabilitation Clinic. But on the second floor of that building hung another sign.

I'd always kept tabs on its location and status, knowing a day like this would come. And it was exactly as I'd confirmed: not a customer in sight — not so much as a single fly — but it somehow looked like it was still open for business.

After checking the signboard, I strode boldly through the clinic's front entrance on the first floor and called out in a loud voice.

"Hello! A customer's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠here!"

Even a neighborhood clinic should have a nurse and some kind of front-desk service, but there was none of that — just a bare-bones interior. Clinic in name only; more like a one-doctor practice he ran half as a side gig.

As I waited, looking around, a thunderous clattering came down from the second floor, and an elderly doctor with a full head of white hair made his way down the stairs.

Old man or not, his frame looked remarkably robust for his age, and his face carried a stubbornness that suggested less a physician than a craftsman or a researcher.

"A customer? What's wrong with you, then?"

Just like in the manga, this cranky old coot went straight to banal — barking informal speech at a total stranger, student or not. But he wasn't a bad man, just a brilliant one, so I'd let it slide.

"Nothing's wrong. I'm not a patient — I'm a customer. Aren't you a pitching coordinator?"

The moment the words left my mouth, the old man's face lit up. This man was my final hidden piece — the very force of nature who'd driven manga Kang Min-hyuk to the insane idea of throwing 60 pitches every single game.