School Idol

"Min-ah, I love you. Hm? Come on, don't be mad."

Min-ah wouldn't even meet my eyes. Normally Ye-eun was the sulking one in this household, while Min-ah — even when she got angry — was the type to needle me or tease me instead. This time, though, she was firmly, thoroughly upset, without even a scrap of composure left to spare.

"I'm telling you, it really meant nothing. My pride was just a little bruised, that's all."

"...Fine. I understand. Why don't you go off and have fun with Se-yeon, then. Leave me here all by myself."

I knew I shouldn't, but she was so cute I nearly laughed. Whether consciously or not, her cheeks had puffed out slightly — a little on-site demonstration protesting, I'm upset, so hurry up and fix it.

"I couldn't care less about that Se-yeon girl. It's just weird, you know? Why Kang Min-hyuk, of all people, when you've got the great Kim Yi-seon right here?"

"I'm sure. Go on, then — go tend to that precious pride of yours. Why don't you just woo her outright and make her your girlfriend?"

Min-ah kept grumbling. The only cure I knew for this mood was the one that worked on Ye-eun. No other options existed, so there was nothing for it.

"Hold on — Oppa! What are you doing right now?!"

"What does it look like? You seem upset, so we're going for a walk."

"Who goes for a walk carrying the other person?!"

Was that wrong? It worked instantly on Ye-eun, though.

Nothing dramatic — I'd simply scooped Min-ah up in my arms and started strolling. Thanks to the filming restrictions, the only people anywhere nearby were the production crew, so what was the harm?

Her face — not to mention her ears — turned scarlet as Min-ah pounded on my chest, squirming and demanding I put her down.

If my year of dating had taught me a single lesson, it was that throwing your shame away was the wise move. See? Problem solved, one way or another.

I pressed a light kiss to the bridge of her nose and set her gently back on her feet. Too embarrassed by the film crew's admiring stares to move even after landing, Min-ah just stayed rooted to the spot.

"Feel better now?"

"I wasn't even angry to begin with... Haa... Fine. I feel better, so stop it."

Min-ah finally found a measure of calm. Even so, she kept sneaking glance after glance toward Kim Se-yeon.

There's nothing to be wary of, I tell you. Even right now — look, she's already glued herself to Kang Min-hyuk over there.

More to the point, Kang Min-hyuk, that bastard, was genuinely something else. He'd finally gone and collected all three of the original heroines.

With April fully behind us and Wirye Jeil High having clinched the first-half weekend league championship, the popularity of our baseball club — ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠already soaring — punched clean through the ceiling.

At our last game, the opener of the second half, supposedly eight hundred spectators filled the stands even though it was our home field. Eight hundred people, for a weekend league game — not even a national tournament?

Even the traditional powerhouse schools couldn't pull that off. Their fans only bother showing up in person once nationals roll around — who drives out to watch weekend league?

And surely all this sky-piercing popularity flowed from the exploits of Jeil High's superstar, the future of Korean baseball, one Kim Yi-seon?

That's what I'd like to say, but it turned out not to be quite so simple.

"Let's go, Jeil High!!"

The cheers drifting down from the stands during games. Back when our school first got popular and the crowds began arriving, they were almost entirely women, and the atmosphere ran pretty high-pitched.

Lately, though, deeper voices — and older ones — had been worked into the mix.

"Kang Min-hyuk! Kang Min-hyuk! Supermarine Kang Min-hyuk!"

When Kang Min-hyuk, today's starter, waved up at the stands, the voices grew deeper still.

The online buzz and the surge in female fans were, without question, largely my doing. But with the local crowd and the middle-aged set, apparently Kang Min-hyuk was what landed.

Him ranking second in popularity behind me was only natural. His looks weren't quite on my level, but he was decently handsome; his skill wasn't at mine either, but it was good, no?

Still, at best he was merely a budget version of Kim Yi-seon, the star who'd already made it big. That alone would never siphon more attention than me. Anyway. That's how it is.

And yet the reason this guy had climbed to a popularity on par with mine reached far back — all the way to our first year, when training camp had only just begun.

Back then, Kang Min-hyuk — utterly oblivious to the heart of Lim Song-ah, who stuck to his side like a shadow — had gone and gotten chummy with Jung Hyun-ah, the disciplinary committee head, a senior a year above us.

I was aghast watching him scrape together flirtation after flirtation with the original heroines even though I'd forced a first-year training camp that never ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠existed in the source material. What do they say — the manga protagonist simply moves differently.

Anyway, having grown close to Jung Hyun-ah, Min-hyuk began regularly heading out on volunteer work alongside the disciplinary committee members.

It's not like the guy had forty-eight-hour days or was playing hooky from camp. There was no training on weekends when he wasn't scheduled to pitch, so that was when he did his volunteering.

I chewed him out — no training means managing your condition the day before a start or resting the day after, not running off to do other things — but it went in one ear and straight out the other. The man's stamina was obscenely good.

The volunteering he'd kept up since first year carried on into second year, and naturally it continued right through his appearance on the Twins' YouTube channel as well.

It had all started with a local mom cafe.

Kang Min-hyuk had laid his family's story bare in that interview, which was already making the rounds, and once it trickled into the mom cafes, people who recognized him began surfacing one after another — the posts mostly consisting of heartwarming tales of crossing paths with him mid-volunteering.

From there it spread to other communities, and soon ordinary people with zero interest in baseball had come to know Kang Min-hyuk through keywords like 'model student Kang Min-hyuk' and 'tender memories with his father.'

And what drove the final nail into this trend was the interview that followed.

"Min-hyuk, looking at the Wirye Jeil High baseball team, the players all come from such a wide range of places. Is it difficult, living together with people gathered from so many different regions?"

"No. If anything, I find it better this way. More comfortable. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Better, you say?"

"This city of Wirye doesn't have many natives, does it? Sangbin over there lives in Wirye, but he moved here when ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he was five. Kim Yi-seon, who was actually born here, has a father from Suwon and a mother from Pyongyang."

"Ah, so you mean you were used to it from the very start?"

"'Comfortable' fits better than 'used to it.' We were all born in different places, but we're people who chose to live here. I think that makes our mindsets more alike — and maybe that's exactly why we get along so well."

When I asked him about it later, he said there'd been no deep meaning behind it — he'd just dressed it up nicely to protect his teammates.

But that interview, against every one of his intentions, provoked an entirely unexpected reaction.

Wirye — a city built for the express purpose of dispersing Seoul's population. Precisely because of that, it has almost no old-time natives, and transplants make up the overwhelming majority of its residents.

Which meant the civic pride and sense of belonging among Wirye's citizens lagged far behind other regions.

Take baseball fandom alone: more people here root for their hometown team back where they came from, or whichever club their parents followed, than for the local Twins or the nearby Dragons.

The same dynamic explained why Donghyun High, the local baseball powerhouse, saw its popularity wither next to the other prestigious programs — it was at a disadvantage against schools that actually commanded their communities' support.

But however thin your sense of belonging, this is still the neighborhood you live in, the ground you walk on. There's no such thing as having no memories of it, no affection for it.

Kang Min-hyuk's interview had struck that nerve dead center. From that point on, Wirye Jeil High's popularity among the transplant population climbed near-vertically, right alongside its win column.

"A city promotional video?"

"Yes. The request came down from the chairman's office. The city asked the school, and wouldn't you know it — out of every student they could have picked, it was exactly two: our son and our son-in-law."

No. I keep telling you to lay off the "son-in-law" business.

One day, after a game, a call came in from my agent. The city had asked the school to select two boys and two girls for its promotional video — and to make the selection from our foundation's schools.

With our popularity in the local community climbing, the city had apparently taken an interest in us. The conspicuously specific condition of exactly two boys was a thinly veiled aim at me and Kang Min-hyuk, the two most popular faces on the team.

It wasn't some private venture but a public institution's project, so the Twins, who held our exclusive filming rights, gave their blessing without hesitation — as long as they could document the process alongside it.

It wouldn't eat up much of my time, and my face had already been flogged for all it was worth, so when they dangled volunteer hours on top, I caved and said yes.

And that was when I finally laid eyes on her — Kim Se-yeon, the last of the three heroines of The Weakest High School Ace whom I had yet to meet.

"Hello, sunbaes! I'm Min-ah's friend, Kim Se-yeon!"

Kim Se-yeon greeted us with a bright, bounding smile. In the manga she was also established as Min-ah's friend, but her personality was the polar opposite of Min-ah's.

I'd assumed the two girls would simply be our club's two managers, but it turned out the chairman had deliberately picked them from Jeil Middle, with an eye toward promoting every school under his foundation. The man truly was in a league of his own when it came to lining his own pockets.

And so Min-ah and Kim Se-yeon joined us as filming partners. I welcomed the newcomer with tremendous, unbridled enthusiasm.

"Great to meet you. Min-ah's friend, huh? You like baseball?"

"Yes! I've watched every single one of your games! I haven't made it out to the stadium many times, but I always hunt down the game videos on YouTube."

Exactly as written in her original character sheet — a genuine baseball otaku. Yes. This is what I'd been starved for.

The people around me don't understand baseball. Ye-eun and Min-ah only took an interest because of me, and my parents watch the games but never rise above the level of any average dad and mom — they know roughly what the rules are, and that's it.

Widen the net to the baseball club itself, and it's stuffed with guys interested only in actually playing rather than theory or games, or else clinging to fossils of outdated theory. The one person in my orbit I can hold a proper baseball conversation with is Director Jo.

But talk to Director Jo and it's less about baseball itself and more incomprehensible physics jargon and medical minutiae only a proper otaku could parse — so in practice, this girl was the first true baseball devotee I'd ever met.

She was, after all, the very heroine who in the manga marched into Director Jo's clinic and dragged Kang Min-hyuk along with her.

Unable to contain my delight, I broke into a wide grin.

"Really? Then how about I sign something for you?"

"Yes please! Ah, but um... could I perhaps get Kang Min-hyuk sunbae's autograph as well...?"

"Huh? Oh — sure, sure. Hey! Min-hyuk! Get over here and sign something for her. Says she's your fan."

At my words, Kang Min-hyuk came scrambling over, half off-balance.

"Min-ah's friend?"

"Yes... Um, would it be all right if I asked for just one autograph, right here?"

And out came her phone. Not a sheet of paper or some light prop — her everyday phone, the one she carried everywhere?

"Sure. What would you like it to say?"

"'To Se-yeon — Kang Min-hyuk, Ace of Wirye Jeil High.' Like that, please."

Hearing that, Min-hyuk scribbled the autograph away without a second thought.

Hold on. Wait just a moment.

"Ace? Kang Min-hyuk?"

"Yes? Yes, of course."

The reaction was as if I'd asked something so patently obvious it barely merited an answer.

Whether Jeil High's ace was Kim Yi-seon or Kang Min-hyuk was a modest little debate that had sprouted up as the school's popularity grew.

And — whatever he pretended — Kim Yi-seon cared about this debate a very great deal.

"Seriously, why is Min-hyuk the ace? My earned run average is lower."

"You're only talking a hair's breadth under his, decimal points and all. Min-hyuk sunbae eats more innings and starts consistently — isn't he obviously the ace, then?"

What moldy, prehistoric theory is this? Weren't you a certified baseball otaku? The girl who diligently posts comments under every baseball article and digs through overseas analytics for fun?

"You do know modern starters are judged on run prevention, right? Innings just have to hit the baseline. 'Inning-eating' as a virtue is a fossilized concept at this point."

"Isn't that talk for pro clubs with deep bullpens? In high school baseball — and Jeil High is desperately short on pitchers, more than anyone — you can't value inning-eating on equal terms."

And so Kim Yi-seon, constitutionally incapable of accepting that he might not be the ace, trailed after Kim Se-yeon relentlessly through the shoot, trying to talk her around.

But Kim Se-yeon stood utterly unmoved.

"Sunbae~ would it be possible for us to exchange phone numbers, by any chance?"

"Of course. Feel free to text me anytime."

And with that she was already wagging her tail at Kang Min-hyuk — who, perfectly happy about it, accepted without a single thought in his head.

It was a shock.

Truth be told, Kim Yi-seon had been drinking his own wishful kool-aid: What if Kim Se-yeon falls for me? Though I've already got Ye-eun and Min-ah. Ah, but she's an original heroine — accepting her would be a little awkward.

It wasn't that Kim Yi-seon suffered from prince syndrome. In the manga, the reason Kim Se-yeon fell for Kang Min-hyuk was that he was an ace who was good at baseball.

So by plain common sense — since the current ace of Jeil High was me — shouldn't she be fully capable of falling for me?

But watching her now, apparently the explanation in the manga had been nothing but a pretext. Forget baseball — she must be one of those Eolppa, the looks-only fans.

No, wait. I'm the better-looking one, aren't I?

I turned my head toward Min-ah.

"Min-ah. Objectively speaking — between me and Kang Min-hyuk, whose face wins?"

"What kind of nonsense is this, out of nowhere?"

"It's a matter of critical importance. Answer quickly."

"Haa... I think you're the better-looking one, Oppa. But honestly, it comes down to personal taste, doesn't it?"

Taste? So what she's saying is that I don't match Kim Se-yeon's taste?

A strangely filthy feeling washed over me, like I'd shot my shot and bricked it at the buzzer — zero confessions to my name, one humiliating rejection. Fine. I never liked you either, for the record. From the moment I read the manga, I was firmly on Team Lee Ye-eun.

But that's that, and this is this: I refuse to accept not being the ace. I hounded Kim Se-yeon in debate for the entire shoot over who Jeil High's true ace was — and in the end—

"Did you like Se-yeon that much?"

Min-ah went and sulked, properly and completely, all over again.

What followed loops back to the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠very first scene of this story. I did manage to coax Min-ah around and patch things up, but she still kept a wary eye fixed on Kim Se-yeon.

It's not that I was interested in the girl as a woman. Sure, I'd fretted over what might happen if she confessed — but that was worry, not affection.

Anxious that I might needlessly wreck Min-ah's friendship, I ventured carefully back into the topic.

"Like I said, I've got zero interest in Kim Se-yeon. Our Min-ah is far prettier and cuter."

"And yet you looked awfully interested in her, didn't you?"

That was just the joy of running into a fresh manga character after so long. A genuine heroine, no less.

Anyway, she's already completely latched onto Kang Min-hyuk over there, so I honestly feel nothing now. I don't have any NTL kink, I'm telling you.

Still, my sincerity seemed to get through, and only then did the suspicion finally drain from her eyes.

"So — does it really bother you that much, people saying you're not the ace?"

"Yeah. Of course it does."

I went through all that hell forging this body and this ability. If I'm not the ace after all that, that's just an injustice.

In the manga, too, the duels between Kang Min-hyuk and Kim Yi-seon always ended in draws. Later pitchers and batters came along to decide actual games, but whenever the two of them stood on the mound against each other, it was dead even, every single time.

By the manga's own standards they were effectively equals — so a Kim Yi-seon who'd grown stronger without ever getting hurt ought to plainly outperform Kang Min-hyuk, no?

"Haa... You're not a little kid. Is a petty pride contest really that important to you? Here — look at me."

When I turned my head, Min-ah wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me, long and slow.

"Hoo... To me, you're always the ace, Oppa. So no matter what anyone else says, don't let it get to you. Are other people's opinions really more important than mine?"

"...No. They're not."

"Then we're good?"

Her ears turned a shade of red — embarrassed, it seemed, by her own words. She really was unbearably cute today.

But still, all the same. I'm the ace, damn it.