Mission Complete, Reward Time
Mission accomplished, so it's time to collect my reward, right?
"Kang Min-hyuk! I keep telling you to stop throwing underhand!"
What is wrong with this lunatic? Why does he keep flicking the ball sidearm during a simple game of catch? That one was supposed to be a fastball — since when does a fastball bend sideways like that? God, I miss Jun-soo. Turns out you really are my ideal catch partner.
"Kim Yi-seon. I need the practice too."
"You treat catch as pitching practice only? Catch is throwing practice too. Throw like that to Dae-hyun hyung at first base and he'll drop it, guaranteed."
Dae-hyun hyung was the third-year senior who'd slid into the vacant first base spot when I converted to pitcher. His hitting is passable, but his defense is another story entirely — that's precisely why he got parked at first. Expecting fielding from him is a lost cause.
"Let's just call this pitching practice. You go work on your breaking balls or something."
And with that, Kang Min-hyuk started smacking his glove like some catcher auditioning for a highlight reel.
Fine, then. I'll check on my curveball, shall I? I let one fly.
"Ooh, nice changeup!"
"...That was a curveball, you idiot."
Not even the slightest bite on it. Today is turning into an absolute circus.
After a few more exchanges with Kang Min-hyuk, I finally brought up the topic I'd been carefully dodging.
"So, uh... how'd the make-up exams go?"
"...Somehow."
He flinched at the words "make-up exams," but apparently he'd squeaked by. Good. If you'd flunked again, we couldn't even field a Round of 16 squad for the Phoenix Flag Tournament, dummy.
Kang Min-hyuk stopped mid-throw and heaved a long sigh.
"I'm a baseball player. Why do I need to learn math and science? It makes no sense to me."
"Hey, when I throw my fastball, why do hitters keep popping it up?"
"Is that not obvious? Because your ball has late velocity and raw power, so it pushes the bat back."
"Exactly. And that's why you need to study."
This absolute meathead. The ball's already left my hand — does he think it fires a second stage of propulsion mid-flight? Changes velocity on its own? And even if a baseball packed serious mass, how hard could it shove a bat? It's F=ma, you clown.
We lobbed the ball back and forth, trading jabs the whole time, and somewhere along the way the feeling came flooding back into my hand, my shoulder loosening up nice and easy. Maybe time to push it a little harder—
The moment the thought crossed my mind, Min-ah appeared at my side and grabbed my arm.
"Yi-seon, it's been thirty minutes. Time to come back."
"Already?"
"'Already'? You agreed to thirty minutes from the start. Song-ah unnie, come drag your guy away too."
I tried playing the pitiful victim card, but it didn't move Min-ah one inch. Over on the other side, Kang Min-hyuk got quietly herded off by Lim Song-ah as well.
We exchanged a pair of mournful glances before being hauled back to the place we'd been dragged from in the first place — Min-ah's house. Kang Min-hyuk vanished into his room under Lim Song-ah's escort, and Min-ah led me by the hand into hers, where—
"Welcome back. Sit right there. Now be a good boy until dinner, okay?"
There was Ye-eun, beaming ear to ear, next to a pair of toy handcuffs dangling from her fingers with theatrical menace.
This whole situation had come about about a week after I'd been ordered to rest.
Having free time fall into my lap all at once left me completely out of my depth, but after roughly a week I'd found my footing in the new routine. Filling my schedule to a reasonable degree, inventing extra tasks to do, and in the gaps, Ye-eun and Min-ah arranging dates so I wouldn't get bored. One of my new daily rituals was an evening jog, and I'd just finished it, arriving home and opening the front door.
Dr. Jo had only banned interval running — a light jog was fine, he'd said.
"Yi-seon. We need to talk."
"Huh? Me? Why?"
"Just sit down for a minute."
There they were in the entryway — Min-ah and Ye-eun, standing in the front hall of what was very definitely my own house. I actually peeked out the window at the apartment complex name and unit number to check whether I'd wandered into Ye-eun's or Min-ah's place by mistake, but of course that wasn't it.
They watched me flounder for a moment before Min-ah smoothly steered me to the dining table. Ye-eun gestured for me to sit down like a good little boy. Dazed, I dropped into a chair across from the two of them.
"Yi-seon. Where did you go jogging today?"
"Nothing far — just to the park out front."
"...And how many laps?"
"Three, give or take?"
"That comes out to about five kilometers. So, Yi-seon: today's schedule includes a 5k jog, two hours of yoga, one hour of swing practice, two hours of catch, a visit to the Seoul Twins front office, bodyweight exercises done on the sly because I'm monitoring the weights for you — and on top of all that, preparing tomorrow's date plans with me. Does that about cover your day?"
At first I thought she was exaggerating, but going through it item by item... every word was true. Wow, I really did all of that in one day?
"Oppa. What exactly did the manager tell you?"
"That I'm on three weeks' rest."
"And is what you're doing right now resting?"
Uh...
"Oppa. Squeezing in dates, keeping your game feel sharp — all fine, all lovely. But could you please just rest? Why on earth can't your body stay still for one second?"
She had a point. Even by my standards, this seemed... excessive.
Just as I was seriously wondering whether I had adult ADHD, Ye-eun cut in.
"Min-ah and I already settled my part. Do you remember what you promised me?"
"A promise?"
What promise had I made, again?
"You said if you got hurt, I could lock you up. You're not injured yet, so let's call it preventive detention. One week."
"Huh?"
"You're being locked in Min-ah's room. For a week."
And that, more or less, is how I came to be sentenced to one week of imprisonment in Min-ah's room. Next door, the guard detail for my fellow inmate Kang Min-hyuk consisted of Lim Song-ah and senior Jung Hyun-ah.
I'd wondered why, of all places, my prison happened to be Kang Min-ah's own bedroom — turns out her mother was swamped with work and would be away for another week or so. So the main bedroom went to Min-ah, Ye-eun, and Lim Song-ah, while I was confined to Min-ah's room.
"Right! We are now commencing Hug Lee Ye-eun, Mission One!"
Ye-eun snapped the cutesy toy handcuffs — who knows where she got them — around my right wrist and her own left, then flung the key God-knows-where. All the while grinning like a cat, clearly having the time of her life.
Fine. You're this happy about it, the least I can do is cooperate. Given that I'd planned all those dates to make her happy, I decided to reframe this as just... a very unconventional date.
The moment I settled down on the floor, Ye-eun claimed her "designated seat" — my lap. Then she planted a single peck on my cheek.
"Prisoner Number Eleven. Hug mission complete, so here's your reward."
"Why am I Prisoner Number Eleven?"
That's literally my jersey number.
"Very good. Next mission! Prisoner Number Eleven: watch one episode of a drama together with Lee Ye-eun. Commence!"
"Yes, ma'am, Officer."
When I played along at the right beat, Ye-eun whipped out the tablet she'd brought. She logged into her OTT account and — apparently having pre-selected it for exactly this occasion — tapped one American drama saved in her favorites.
Looked like a racy teen drama. Did it absolutely have to be this one?
I shot her a pointed look, but Ye-eun selected the show with steely resolve. So I sat there obediently watching whatever she told me to, until Min-ah slipped quietly in carrying a tray.
"Eat this first. There's still a while until dinner, so you should keep snacking whenever you get a moment."
On the tray: a one-liter carton of milk and a heaping pile of boiled eggs.
"Isn't this a bit much?"
"Dr. Jo said so. Your weight and body fat are too low right now, so as long as it's not simple sugar or processed junk, you're supposed to eat as much high-calorie food as possible. Even if you can't get back to your pre-semester weight, you need to return at 90 kilos."
Honestly, it had barely been an hour since lunch. My hand was not moving.
"Prisoner Number Eleven! Complete your meal immediately. Commence!"
Ye-eun urged me to eat right that second. This is straight-up torture device behavior, you know that?
"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm eating."
"Now, open up. Say ahh~"
"If I could just use my own han—"
"Ahh~!"
I gave in and opened wide. A halved boiled egg came sailing in. Salted properly, too — seasoning's decent.
Food kept getting crammed into my mouth, and I forced down the milk between swallows. This is what it feels like to be livestock. A foie gras goose, to be precise.
Once everything had been shoved into my stomach, Ye-eun smirked and this time planted a kiss on my cheek, then my forehead, then my lips — one each.
"Prisoner Number Eleven. Here is your reward."
"The more I look at this, the more I'm livestock, not a prisoner..."
"Shh! Returning to drama viewing. Commence!"
Where did you even learn to talk like that? That's not a guard's voice, that's a drill instructor's.
The drama, predictably, was not my thing. But Ye-eun kept up a running commentary, asked for my opinions, kept me engaged — so watching for her reactions alone made it tolerable.
"Alright, Prisoner Number Eleven! Time for your reward."
And this time it was a deep, proper kiss. Just how far do these rewards escalate?
While Kim Yi-seon was absorbed in the 'Laundry Rebellion' mission Lee Ye-eun had assigned him, Lee Ye-eun herself slipped out of the room for a moment.
Then she marched up to the other girls and declared, flush with triumph:
"See? Told you I was right. Kim Yi-seon is simple. It's working on Kang Min-hyuk's side too, isn't it?"
"How is any of this working..."
The fact that Kim Yi-seon had grown restless and twitchy since being ordered to rest was something both Kang Min-ah and Lee Ye-eun had clocked early on.
He claimed it was just boredom. It was nothing of the kind. Do you know how many years Lee Ye-eun had spent watching Kim Yi-seon? He couldn't fool her if he tried.
"It's obvious he's antsy because he can't play in games — the excuses are just window dressing. In a state like that, slapping a hard ban on his behavior only backfires. You have to give a simpleton like him a task, anything, to redirect the energy."
That was what it said, more or less, in one of the books about men and women Lee Ye-eun had read. Men, it claimed, were different from women: give them a specific target and they'd fixate on it, forgetting everything else with ease.
Not that Lee Ye-eun read a lot of books — that was more Min-ah's department. But when it came to titles like these, passed around through the high school girl network, Ye-eun had read far more of them.
She addressed Kang Min-ah with complete confidence.
"So I'm taking back what I said about you being a crazy pervert. You didn't actually think I locked Kim Yi-seon up just to indulge my own appetites, did you?"
"...You are, however, currently indulging your own appetites. That part is factual."
"What, you're one to talk — enjoying it while pretending you're not."
Lee Ye-eun's smile grew wider and wider.
"He can only eat what I feed him. He can only look at me. He can't leave the room without my permission. And when I'm gone, he's so bored that only I will do. Now that you've experienced it firsthand, it's wonderful, isn't it? Admit it."
Lee Ye-eun was saying things beyond all redemption — genuinely pervert-tier nonsense. But she looked supremely proud of herself. Which, to be fair, made sense: Min-ah was very visibly enjoying herself right now.
Kang Min-ah couldn't muster a rebuttal, only burning cheeks. That's right — hard to deny it with a clean conscience, isn't it? Why is it always me getting corrupted into a pervert?
"Still, this is a one-time thing. There were circumstances this week, which is the only reason I allowed it. I have zero intention of playing along with your perverted tastes going forward, unnie."
"Who says it's happening again? Mine was a one-time extreme prescription too. I don't do this normally."
Though... I might want to try it once more next offseason. Should I buy an actual chain instead of toy handcuffs? Bolt it to the bed so he really can't leave the room?
"Um... it's a mission. Hug me too, please..."
The next day, Min-ah — face scarlet, voice trembling — brought up the word "mission."
So much for pretending. She'd been jealous of Ye-eun yesterday after all. I immediately pulled Min-ah tight into my arms and murmured into her ear.
"Min-ah. And the reward? Do you give kisses too?"
"No... just... a peck on the cheek..."
"Would a real kiss change your mind?"
Ooh. She hesitated for just a second, then closed her eyes. In that case, I'd skip the lips and go for the forehea—
"Min-ah? All that fuss you made yesterday, and in the end you decided to enjoy yourself after all?"
And in walked Ye-eun through the door, a tray piled high with food in her hands. Min-ah jolted off me like a startled cat. A little disappointing, honestly.
Today the two of them were apparently swapping shifts.
"Come on, Yi-seon, ahh~"
"Ahh~"
Ye-eun tried to hand-feed me again. I'd learned yesterday that resistance was futile, so I simply opened up and accepted whatever she fed me. That made it two full days since I'd last picked up food with my own hands.
Today's menu: smoked duck. They really are hauling in every high-protein, fatty thing in existence.
Chewing away at the duck, I reflected on the past two days. Time had been flat-out obliterated.
Wake up, wash up — reward for doing it well. Eat breakfast — reward. Snack time, then a brief session of couple's yoga. Apparently if I did yoga alone I might overdo it, so it had to be couple's yoga, of all things. And a reward for every single pose completed.
Then lunch, followed by a short catch with Kang Min-hyuk on the empty lot in front of the apartments — thirty minutes of exercise, tops. Then back home for another round of missions and rewards.
I wasn't a newborn. Yet here came the endless stream of praise and rewards for completing the simplest tasks — a wall-to-wall positivity regimen that melted not just the hours but my brain cells along with them.
Mmmph... and this next reward is...
"Kim Yi-seon! This is no time to be lazing around!"
"Huh?"
Kang Min-hyuk had slipped in while Min-ah and Ye-eun were out clearing away the food. Judging by how well he'd been eating, I could already see the flesh creeping back onto his frame.
"To be sure, it is true that we undermined the very purpose of your rest with excessive training. However, that is no excuse for letting your guard down like this. Even as we speak, our teammates are playing away games in the shadow of Mount Baekd—"
"Oh? Min-hyuk, there you are. We were on trigonometric functions, remember?"
Kang Min-hyuk's face went white with terror at the sight of Lim Song-ah hunting him down. I was living my blissful house-arrest life, but over there it was all whip and no carrot. Slack off on his assignments, and tutoring sessions with Lim Song-ah and senior Jung Hyun-ah came due.
If it bothers you so much, just man up, confess, and date her already. This is the original sin of a guy who's still dragging things out calling it "close friendship" instead of romance, oblivious as ever.
I offered up a silent prayer for Kang Min-hyuk's soul, radiating pure not-my-problem energy. Ah-ah, don't give me that betrayed look. I was never on your side to begin with.
After all, the reason you got locked up too was that some maniac started throwing two hundred practice pitches a day until Lim Song-ah couldn't stand it anymore and came to supervise. Take your medicine like a man.
Seven days had passed since this brain-melting lifestyle began. Liberation day had finally arrived.
Three weeks of forced study had apparently been so agonizing for Kang Min-hyuk that he looked ready to die. Still, thanks to the head start he'd gotten on the curriculum, at least there'd be no mid-term meltdown at the Cheongnyonggi or Golden Lion tournaments.
And as for me?
"Hmm... do I really have to play baseball again? Honestly, I've been thinking being a househusband isn't so bad."
"Kim Yi-seon! Get a grip!"
"Kidding, kidding."
I had rested more thoroughly than I'd imagined possible.
My weight was back to where it had been before the semester started, and my body felt completely light — not a trace of fatigue.
"Thank you, Min-ah. Thanks to you, I got my strength back and rested properly."
Looking back now, the whole thing hadn't really been boredom — it was closer to a compulsion. If I were genuinely just bored, I wouldn't have lived like that; I was a Manboong-i in my past life, after all. I'd thought nothing of it, but apparently the pressure had been building more than I realized.
I turned to Min-ah, standing beside me, and offered her my thanks as representative of everyone.
"In that case — mission time. Hug me tight."
"Min-ah?"
Wasn't today supposed to be the baseball club comeback?
At my question, she snapped back to her senses, face going crimson.
"...No, never mind. Forget I said anything."