The Media Liaison and the Team Documentary

So we'd begun the corrective training for my conversion to pitching in place of team practices — and the problem was that the school semester had started at the same time. Which meant I had to show up at school without fail, day after day.

And every time I did, Ye-eun would cling to me like she was trying to make up for all the time I'd lost by skipping team training, with zero intention of letting go.

Aside from the classes we were legally required to sit through apart, she attached herself to me through every break and every lunch. The rest of the class had long since stopped even reacting. We'd reached that level.

We talked, we ate, occasionally she napped on me — we did all sorts of things — but the most important part, apparently, was that we also talked business.

"Focus, will you? This is your life we're talking about, so why are you this checked out?"

As always, Ye-eun was sitting on her designated seat — my lap — while she talked.

She was scrolling through MiTube channels on her phone one by one, but honestly, they were all names I'd never heard of, so I was watching without comprehending.

"Can't I just play baseball? Do I really have to do all this?"

"I wish you could, but I can't keep playing wall anymore."

It was obvious the whole situation left a very sour taste in Ye-eun's mouth too.

How things had come to this — that requires rewinding a little into the past.

"We've formally booked that hidden-camera creep. So — will you be settling?"

"No. I don't need the money. Please make sure he's punished to the fullest extent."

"Understood. I'll be in touch once there's a result."

It had all started with the process of dealing with that lunatic hidden-camera woman. I'd entrusted the case to Min-ah's mother, who serves as my agent and personal attorney.

I wasn't hurting for money, and while my own feelings were one thing, Ye-eun and Min-ah both seemed absolutely livid, so we aimed for a clean conviction with no leniency.

The problem came a few days after we notified him there would be no settlement.

Ye-eun stormed in wearing the blackest expression I'd ever seen on her.

"Kim Yi-seon. Did you know about this?"

Ye-eun showed me posts written across every kind of community — the social media platforms I knew well, and a whole lineup of sites with interfaces I was seeing for the first time.

Every single one had respectable view counts and a surprising number of comments. There were so many sites I'd never even heard of. Seriously, there's a site for literally everything out there, huh.

"Guess you didn't know. I don't even need to guess who's behind it — that psycho bitch. The creepy stuff pigs like her come up with never stops finding new ways to go below the belt."

According to Ye-eun's explanation:

Centered around a user who was obviously the hidden-camera creep — just without any actual evidence — vicious, slanderous rumors about me had been spreading across female-dominated sites over the past few days.

It hadn't gone truly viral yet, but each site was apparently busy reproducing and inflating the rumors on its own.

"There's no way this is one person — it's too organized. Looks like she's got quite a few people helping her. I've already passed everything on to your agent and your parents, so for now, just be aware of it."

Except Ye-eun had already taken action herself. She really is fast.

By the way — about Kang Min-ah's mother: calling her "Min-ah's mom" felt too casual for someone in her position, so I'd switched to "Agent." She keeps telling me to just call her mother-in-law, but... that's a step too far.

"By the way, how did you find all this? Do you even use sites and cafes like these?"

"I saw some of the social media posts myself, but mostly my friends helped. I told everyone that if they ever hear anything about you, they should tell me first."

The school's top social butterfly really does operate on another level. Her messenger friend list is over a thousand — apparently some of those kids do haunt sites like these.

When Agent heard the news from Ye-eun, she was appalled and moved with astonishing speed.

"Some of the sites have overseas servers, which made things complicated — but they were all in English-speaking jurisdictions. Since this is fundamentally tied to the sexual harassment of a minor, I filed international notarization and embedded case cooperation requests into the process."

Apparently there's even a site dedicated solely to trash-talking high school baseball players behind their backs. No — why does something like that even exist?

Anyway, thanks to Lee Ye-eun's rapid reporting and a highly capable agent, the whole thing slid past smoothly.

And it seemed this incident had taught Agent something too.

"Maybe I'm getting old, but I was only ever thinking in terms of proper, official media. Our daughter has no interest in these corners of the internet either, so... going forward, could I ask Ye-eun to handle all media and online public opinion work?"

"It's what I'm always doing anyway."

Ye-eun answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

And so, at a tiny agency whose only clients were still me and Kang Min-hyuk, Lee Ye-eun (intern) was appointed as the media and press officer.

From that day on, Ye-eun patrolled the internet with hawk eyes and kept watch for any new paparazzi lurking nearby.

I thought she was being paranoid. She wasn't. They got caught, for real. The problem was mostly women loitering around our school with telephoto lenses, and idiots who'd swallowed old ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bait and only started slandering me after the fact.

None of them escaped the gaze of Lee Ye-eun's dragnet of a thousand eyes — literally a thousand; that's her friend count — and got rounded up. The problem was that no matter how many she caught, the supply never dried up. It averaged out to about one per week.

So Lee Ye-eun, exhausted from endless whack-a-mole, began searching for a different approach — and that brings us back to the present.

"I became a manager to be around you, and now I can't even see your face because you're never at team practice. I can't go, but Kang Min-ah tags along every single time to that research lab of yours. And you can't even pay proper attention while I'm busting my butt over your work."

I'm not an idiot who makes the same mistake twice. So for this pitching-conversion matter, I'd told everyone in advance — Ye-eun and Min-ah, of course, plus my parents and Agent.

In the process, I did forget to mention it to the coach and Kang Min-hyuk, but I'll just remember next time.

I'd explained everything and gotten permission, but hurt feelings are hurt feelings. She was seeing less of my face, and now she was getting work stress on top of it. Of course it was wearing on her.

I gave the slightly sulking Ye-eun a light kiss on the cheek and thanked her.

"You always try to smooth things over like this, don't you? Keep it up and you'll really get it one day."

"Sorry. I'll pay proper attention from now on. Okay?"

She sighs, but it's plain to see her mood has softened.

"In the end, interest in you and our baseball club keeps growing, but with zero communication channel, that's exactly why these problems keep happening. Open a proper line of communication, and even the extreme ones will rein themselves in — if only because they're afraid of what the other fans will think."

"So to enable communication, you want me to do an interview with some suitable outlet?"

"Right. For everyday communication, I'm going to ask the coach to open an official club social media account. But separate from that, we need to grab people's attention first — it makes it much easier to get the facts out and fight the opinion war on the paparazzi and hidden-camera issues."

And with that, she showed me the channels on her phone again.

"These are the ones that asked to film at our school. There are simple personal MiTube channels, and channels run by companies and organizations too — I already filtered out the small ones and the ones with bad reputations."

At this point she's not just a social butterfly, she's a full-blown public opinion expert. Where does one even train a talent like this?

Among the channels I didn't recognize, one of them caught my eye.

"Huh? These guys asked too?"

"Yeah. I figured it wasn't that big a deal — the channel punches below its name value. Why? You like that one?"

The Seoul Twins' club PR team had recently been purged.

The baseball club's president had changed, which lent the shake-up an air of refreshing the atmosphere — but the biggest reason was that a new team leader had descended by parachute. And when a parachute lands, the existing line is always cleared out. That's the rule.

The parachute who had just landed in the Seoul Twins' PR team leader's chair was Han Seo-hee.

A young woman of twenty-two — so young that even knowing she was a parachute appointment, it felt like she'd overstepped some line.

But dismissing her for her age alone would be a mistake, because her résumé was nothing to scoff at.

A prodigy among prodigies: she'd entered a famous American university straight out of middle school and completed a combined bachelor's-master's program in just four years.

Her field was journalism and media, which is why she'd been handpicked for the baseball club's PR team — a seat that happened to be open.

And so this woman, blessed with stellar credentials and a golden pedigree tailor-made for a parachute landing, was thinking at that very moment:

"Agh... I don't want to work."

In other words, not a bit different from your average shut-in NEET.

"The company, management — I don't care about any of it..."

Having been born with a golden spoon in her mouth, all she'd ever wanted was to coast through life. Hard work simply wasn't in her nature.

The reason she'd left school after only middle school for a famous American university wasn't some burning academic passion. She just couldn't adapt to school life and human relationships, and fled to the individualistic haven of an American college.

She'd chosen the combined bachelor's-master's track because she figured it would take ages to graduate, and she'd finished it early only because those American college kids — who couldn't care less about anyone else — were constantly partying and dating and making a racket, so she'd gotten booted into studying to escape it all.

Her life plan was to graduate at a reasonable pace, then remain a respectable layabout quietly sponging off her parents. That was the plan, until one day—

"Seo-hee, you're graduating now, aren't you? Time to start taking some management courses. You have a degree in a relevant field, so I'll look into a suitable position for you. Do well there, and your grandfather has promised you something better — so don't be disappointed if the first spot isn't glamorous."

No, Mother. What I'm disappointed about is having to work at all. Please set me free.

She wanted to say all of that, but the timid Han Seo-hee didn't have it in her to talk back to the mother she feared above all else. And so she'd been meekly dragged in and seated in the team leader's chair.

Still — team leader was team leader. Han Seo-hee wasn't the type to throw away a job she'd been given, so she made a genuine attempt to do the work properly.

But—

"Team Leader, here's the collab mascot and uniform draft we just submitted. Isn't this so adorable?"

Honestly, I can't see what's cute about it. That character looks like something a grade-schooler scribbled, and it's supposed to sell?

"Next, I'd like to present our couple-zone proposal. We plan to expand the couple seating from the open stands to the box seats as well, which will—"

Degenerate social butterflies. Are they seriously planning to make out openly at a baseball stadium now?

"We've prepared a challenge campaign through social media. Rather than simply copying trends that are already popular, we—"

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

She couldn't understand what was remotely fun about any of it, but the social-butterfly staff roared with laughter, showering praise on what a brilliant idea it was.

Han Seo-hee's vision went dark.

The entirety of her knowledge of humor and culture came from anonymous imageboards and sites where everyone posted as "Anonymous." Of course she couldn't do humor in real life.

What she'd learned at school about media and advertising? All theory. Try applying it to reality and not a single piece fit.

She'd combed through the proposals hoping anything, anything, might give her an excuse to escape this carnival of social butterflies — and found not one worthwhile item.

And so, as her consciousness slowly dissolved into the social butterflies' revelry—

"Aren't we working on deepening our ties with the local community ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠these days? And when you say local community in baseball, you mean high school baseball. So I've prepared a proposal centered on a high school team."

A section chief of a decade and a half — supposedly from a different department, only just transferred into PR.

The pot-bellied fortysomething's idea was thoroughly picked apart by the social butterflies.

"The approach itself is fine, but the famous schools in our territory already have established fandoms. I doubt they'd agree to filming like this."

"Forget the schools — from the students' perspective, they don't know which team will draft them. Teaming up with one specific club would feel uncomfortable."

"Seoul is a shared territory, and the only exclusive one we have is Wirye City. Is there even a suitable school there to work with? And if the team just gets embarrassingly crushed on camera, it'll be hard to make good content out of it."

Sweating under the barrage of rebuttals, Manager Park looked around the room, searching for anyone, anyone, who might be inclined to take his side.

And the person whose eyes he met was—

"That proposal. Not bad."

The team leader appointed just today.

The entire mood of the meeting flipped in an instant.

"It doesn't seem to require new headcount or investment, and it looks like it could be linked with the scouting department. From a resource standpoint, I think it's worth attempting at least once."

Truthfully, Han Seo-hee didn't think the proposal was actually good.

But if she buried herself in something, anything, she could dodge those social butterflies. Surely.

"Very well. I'll take charge of that proposal personally."

Having settled on the Seoul Twins' official channel with Ye-eun, I met the person called the Twins' PR team leader face-to-face the very next day — with Agent, Ye-eun, Min-ah, Kang Min-hyuk, and the coach all in attendance.

"As stated in the email, the basic plan is to cover you through several scheduled interviews."

She looked barely any older than me, and I genuinely wondered if she was really the team leader — but between the business card she handed over and that unnervingly composed demeanor, I was convinced.

So this is what a proper career woman looks like. Agent, and now this PR team leader — there's a soft kind of charisma you can't judge by appearance.

"Beyond that, we plan to record the coming season as a full team documentary."

Agent deliberated for a long while before finally speaking.

"The terms themselves are excellent. Filming scheduled around the school's convenience, no pressure toward loyalty or promotion for the Twins organization, all editing and filming handled entirely by your PR team, and broadcast of the final cut subject to our approval."

"Yes. Is there any other condition you'd like to add?"

"No. What I'd like to know is why you went out of your way to offer such generous terms to our school and our students."

They were handing nearly full control to our school, expending every ounce of their own effort, and all the PR team stood to gain was a handful of interviews and a team documentary of unpredictable outcome.

Terms this good for Wirye Jeil High — not for some powerhouse with an established fandom and plenty to show on the diamond?

"Let me say this plainly. If your intention is to sell the children's looks for attention, we ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠will decline right here. We'll be obtaining that assurance in writing as well."

"Of course. Please do."

The PR team leader answered lightly, with a serene smile.

"We chose this as simply one of several measures to anchor ourselves to our home region. Of the three baseball clubs in Wirye City, we judged that Wirye Jeil High best represents the area."

"Not Donghyun High? Or failing that, there's Wirye Central High as well?"

"Donghyun High is a school that relocated down from Seoul, and Central High opened its doors late. In the eyes of local residents, Wirye Jeil High carries the symbolic weight."

Astonishingly, that much was true. This school had low name recognition and almost no famous alumni, but apparently it was the original school that had been here since the days when the whole area was nothing but swamps and rice paddies.

"It's a good offer for the students, too. All games will be attended by our Twins scouting team as a matter of course, and as for the paparazzi and tabloid press you mentioned — our Twins legal team will assist with that as well."

Terms this good were hard to accept at face value — but she seemed to understand the suspicion, and in the end, Agent nodded too.

Into that atmosphere, the coach shuffled his feet and cautiously raised a hand.

"W-well, these are wonderful terms, and we're grateful, but honestly, we're a small program. I can't promise good results even in the weekend league, let alone the national tournament. Would that be all right? If the season ends too early, I worry it might hurt the project as well."

Overwhelmed, apparently, by the words professional franchise, the coach was shrinking into himself today of all days.

"Yes — a short season is actually better for us."

"...I'm sorry?"

"Short is fine. We don't mind at all."

For a second I thought I'd misheard, but well — if both sides find it a good deal, there's no reason to refuse.

And so, flashing a bright smile, the PR team leader accepted the contract we'd all signed.

"Then for the next year — let's work well together?"

Wow. I'm getting a whole documentary made about me already.