Regret, Ruin, and Obsession

"A rain delay? Then what happens to the broadcast?"

"They're telling us to cut over to the other game the moment its start time arrives..."

Caster Lee Ho-jun, in charge of this year's Blue Dragon Championship TV broadcast, could barely contain his disbelief. In front of him, the junior assistant director kept bowing and apologizing, wilting like a scolded puppy.

She wasn't the one with the authority to decide anything, so chewing her out would be misplaced anger — but the sheer absurdity of the decision left him speechless all the same.

"No matter how you slice it, ending a broadcast mid-game is just plain rude to the viewers. Did the station director actually approve this?"

The assistant director said nothing.

He let out one long, pained groan, but there was no clever way out of it.

This year's BFA U-18 Championship was the first international baseball tournament hosted on home soil in ages. And the final just happened to be against Japan, Korea's fated rivals, so he understood perfectly well how important it was.

But if that was the case, then surely the right move was to drop the Blue Dragon final broadcast, not to stubbornly cling to both and let them collide. What kind of decision was "we're broadcasting both"?

"This is honestly insane... What about the junior casters besides me?"

"The pro season is in full swing, sir — you know better than anyone there's no caster with a free schedule. There's no one we can trust with this except you."

Everything had tangled itself into a knot.

Under normal circumstances, the BFA final wouldn't start until at least six hours after the Blue Dragon final began. The network had scheduled both games accordingly — but with the rain delay pushing everything back, the moment the Blue Dragon game ran even a little long, or drifted into extra innings, the two broadcasts would slam straight into each other.

"Fine. I get it. Tell the director I'll brace myself."

What could he do, with things in this state? All that was left was to pray the games didn't overlap.

The drizzle had thinned to almost nothing at Dongdaemun Baseball Stadium. Even the grounds crew was pulling off the tarps now, inspecting the condition of the field.

We were running roughly three hours behind the original start time, and I — scheduled to take the mound today — was in a spectacularly foul mood.

Fine, maybe I'm less sensitive than most pitchers, but I'm still the starter. When your pre-game routine gets shredded, there's no law against being pissed about it.

So there I was, stewing and glaring across at the opposing dugout, where the Haedang High players sat listening to their manager's instructions in eerily rigid, military-crisp postures. What were they, soldiers?

The guy standing over there is Song Sung-min, today's starter. That one's Han Su-min, the number two. That's first baseman Choi Hyun-woo, and the one on the other side is third baseman Kim Ji-soo.

Their names are all soft and pretty — girlish, very MZ-generation — but no surprise, the faces underneath are pure villain. If I look like some friendly insider kid with a mischievous sparkle, those guys have I AM A SCOUNDREL written across their foreheads from birth.

As I was glaring daggers at the main villains, Nam Kang-min shuffled up beside me and dropped a remark.

"Keep starin' like that and you'll burn holes clean through 'em. You bring a drill or somethin'?"

I shot him one icy glare, and he immediately raised both hands in surrender.

"Aigoo, must be the rain. That old injury of yours actin' up real bad, hmm?"

"Then go rest, why don't you."

He just snickered and brushed it off. I couldn't even get a word in edgewise. The guy was a certified snake.

"You act like you're all that? I don't reckon I've seen it."

Everyone we'd climbed past to get here was anything but ordinary — and yet there was Nam Kang-min, feigning total ignorance, even though I knew full well he'd pored over this tournament's stats during our scouting sessions.

The second I opened my mouth to respond, he lobbed out another jab aimed straight at my mental health.

"Even at your very best, all you ever did was eat up some high schoolers. You got kids over there shaking in their boots, and you wanna talk about national team this, national team that."

These bastards really do poke at me with zero subtlety.

"Did my little promise to beat the scoring out of you guys sound like a joke to you?"

Because I meant it. One hundred percent. Bring it on.

Only after hearing that did Nam Kang-min finally look satisfied, flashing a smug little otter grin. Unbelievable.

The Blue Dragon final began, and Haedang High stepped into the batter's box radiating menace.

He'd teased Kim Yi-seon on purpose, but Nam Kang-min had already confirmed for himself that Haedang's players were no joke. Hitters and pitchers alike, every last one of them was high-caliber.

Which was exactly why he made a point of tossing a jab at every Haedang batter as they walked in. That, too, was part of running the game.

"Well now, you don't look too happy strollin' up there. The rain got your spirits down, hmm? Might wanna iron out that scowl 'fore you hit."

But there was no reply — not a flicker of reaction. Total stonewalling. They were clearly trying to project intimidation, but the awkwardness of it only made Nam Kang-min want to laugh.

And this was precisely why he wasn't worried one bit, even knowing how good Haedang's players were.

Out on the mound, Kim Yi-seon was already exhaling a terrifying aura. He looked like a man about to devour someone whole.

Who would ever guess that behind that face, his inner monologue ran on 'ugh, this sucks' and 'I wanna beat these hitters like a rug'? To everyone watching, he was a dominant ace looking down on the weak.

The more you watched Kim Yi-seon, the less you could tell whether he was overestimating himself or underselling everyone else. Haedang High — the very team he'd been warily analyzing for days? Right now they were being flattened by one guy's presence alone.

He called for a high fastball — make the first impression unmistakable. Kim Yi-seon gave a curt nod and set up for the first pitch.

And the pitch that left his hand—

"STR-IIIIKE!!"

The Haedang batter who'd watched that first pitch was frozen solid.

I understood exactly how he felt. Even I, standing in the box against Kim Yi-seon during what we generously called "practice pitching and batting practice," felt a pressure from the batter's box that belonged to a different dimension than what you saw from the side or on camera.

Why on earth does a guy like that bother to sweat against mere high schoolers? He's straight-up a cheat-code character that has no business existing at the high school level.

"Hey. You've got one inning left in you."

From there, the game flowed along smoothly. Kim Yi-seon gave up maybe three hits over roughly eight innings, but slammed the door shut without allowing a single run. The problem, of course, was that we hadn't scored either.

"First things first, Cha Il-sung — get down on your knees."

"Hey! The game isn't even over yet!"

"You think your next at-bat is coming? In this game?"

Furious, Kim Yi-seon lunged to grab Cha Il-sung by the collar, and a full-on chase broke out inside the dugout. Funny how the guy always says "the cameras are filming, you know" whenever he's the one acting up.

To be fair, the opposing pitching was every bit as nasty as Kim Yi-seon's theatrics suggested. Take the starter, Song Sung-min.

Song Sung-min, whom I'd faced in the batter's box, was a far cry from Kim Yi-seon in raw stuff, and his velocity fell short too. In terms of pure fastball quality, he was basically on the same level as Ha Kyung-woo.

So why hadn't we managed to do anything against him? Simple:

"I'm TELLING you that bastard's ball was weird! He only threw fastballs, but every fastball was different!"

"What were you doing instead of reading the scouting report? Those weren't fastballs — he throws three: cutter, four-seam, two-seam. We told you."

And there lay the problem. He used no true breaking pitches whatsoever, but at the high school level he commanded three variations of the fastball with frankly elite polish.

Which pitch would come? You had no choice but to guess — a three-way game of rock-paper-scissors. Guess wrong, and you were cleanly retired on a popup or a groundout, no appeals. Haedang's defense, forged with machine-like discipline, was rock solid as expected — a pitcher perfectly suited to his team's identity.

Song Sung-min, like Kim Yi-seon, hit his pitch limit and came out in the seventh, but the reliever who followed him was no pushover either. At this rate, the game was headed for extra innings.

Our manager mulled over which card was best in this situation, then quietly turned to Kang Min-hyuk.

"Min-hyuk. How are you feeling?"

"Ready when needed, sir."

"Good. Let's get you warmed up."

The manager had judged this game would stretch into a marathon. With five full days of rest before the final, he had the luxury of this kind of strategy — all things considered, it was a sound call.

Haedang had parked their number-two starter behind Song Sung-min as well, so this wasn't going to be a mere twelve-inning contest — it was shaping up to be an all-time, historic bloodbath.

Apparently giving up on chasing down Cha Il-sung, Kim Yi-seon came bounding over to me instead, eyes gleaming.

"Nam Kang-min, you son of a— you poke at me nonstop and then pull the exact same crap yourself?!"

"I got a hit though, didn't I? What's eatin' you?"

He bounced up and down, apparently unable to stand my ever-smiling face. But for all the yelling, it was obvious he had zero actual intention of throwing a punch.

"Well, with Min-hyuk coming ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in, we oughta scrape together at least a run or two in there. Sky's all muggy and heavy — ball ain't carryin'. Can't be helped."

That part was sincere. The rain had only just stopped, and the humidity across the field was absolutely criminal. September's lingering late-summer heat was doing its part too.

No telling how much water the balls had soaked up — you'd swing, they'd climb a little, and just die.

He clearly hated hearing it, but it was a reasonable point, so Kim Yi-seon could only stew and grumble.

"Besides, if the game runs long, ain't that actually a good thing? The whole nation'll be watchin'."

"Huh?"

Dense as ever, exactly where it counted.

The Blue Dragon final, which had started two hours late, finally crossed its scheduled boundary as it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠slipped into extra innings.

The internet stream's chat room had already descended into total chaos. But honestly, stretching the broadcast to the tenth inning was itself the result of dragging things out until the very last second before the youth national team game began.

Ignoring the chat's theater of confusion, I rolled the commercial break and finally let out a breath.

"Ho-jun, you've got it rough. Just hang in there a little longer today, alright?"

"Yes, well... nothing to be done about it."

Right then, the baseball program's PD walked into the broadcast booth — grinning ear to ear, as if he were positively enjoying the disaster.

"Honestly, the schedule overlap worked in our favor. No matter how hot Wirye Jeil High is these days, do you really think the older crowd is on MeTube or browsing internet streams? They'll sit through the back half of this game while they wait for the Korea-Japan game that follows. Meanwhile, the younger viewers who tuned in for Jeil High couldn't care less about some minor tournament's Korea-Japan match. It's a synergy win on both sides!"

The PD rambled on and on about ratings and revenue, spouting justifications nobody had asked for.

Still, I had to admit the internet stream's viewer count was far too high to be a mere sum of the Blue Dragon and youth national team audiences.

But Caster Lee Ho-jun, a man of true professional integrity, still couldn't shake the unease. A game you began broadcasting should be seen through to the end — wasn't that simply right? At the very least, they should have kept the online stream running.

And then another thought drifted through his mind. If some catastrophe befell the national team tonight, the backlash from this decision would be anything but a joke...

Ninety-some years old this year, Grandfather Lee Young-gil half-listened to his youngest granddaughter's endless chatter, tossing back replies without really processing them.

"Yeah, yeah. Kid's got a lively arm on him, I'll give him that. Not just a handsome face, either. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠But a Korean playing against the Japs, and you're telling me he got left off the team? Damn broadcasters, fumbling it this badly on their own."

"Grandpa! Seriously, this is unbelievable!"

A girl who'd never shown the slightest interest in baseball had, at some point, taken to cooing "Grandpa, Grandpa" at him whenever a game was on TV, watching alongside him and asking this question and that. He'd wondered what wind had blown in — turns out she'd fallen hard for some high school baseball player.

Even back in his own glory days, the phrase "high school ballplayer" used to make the girls go weak in the knees — seemed some things didn't change with the times, and he found that oddly comforting. The problem was that this particular ballplayer's face had rubbed him entirely the wrong way.

"If he were truly that good, they'd have picked him for the national team, wouldn't they? Quit your squawking and watch your TV."

The boy had that delinquent look about him, and how his youngest son had fretted over his daughter chasing after someone like that. Even by his own old-fashioned judgment, the kid's face was worth money — and faces like that had a way of vanishing from the pros without a sound, all flash and no staying power.

That was why he'd disliked him until now. But watching him pitch for the first time today, Lee Young-gil had to admit the hype made a certain sense. If a kid the national team rejected was this good, the national team ought to be at least as good as him, shouldn't it?

And so, for once, the old man allowed himself a flicker of expectation. Hadn't his childhood in the colonial era taught him, down to his bones, just how the Japanese looked down on Koreans — how their damned soldier games made his skin crawl?

Even now, merely hearing the word "Japan" could jolt him bolt upright out of a dead sleep. And now, a Korea-Japan game, held in Korea? They said the kids playing baseball these days had gotten remarkably good, too?

Cradling that fragile hope, he switched on the television, and even his granddaughter — newly bitten by the baseball bug — settled down and focused quietly on the game.

Bottom of the fourth. Two outs, bases loaded. Stepping into the box was Takahashi, the third hitter of Japan's youth national team and the most widely acclaimed technical batsman on the squad.

Takahashi batted left and threw right — a textbook contact hitter. Against a batter like that, with the bases already loaded and his right-handed starter visibly rattled, letting him keep grinding out pitches was not sound judgment.

It was still early in the game, but Manager Han Min-hwa was already agonizing over the pitching change.

By conventional wisdom, bringing in a left-hander now was correct. But his only lefty, Yoo Dae-hyuk, had already been used in yesterday's game, and sending him out again was its own burden.

If only Oh Dae-eun hadn't gone down with an injury, the bullpen would have had a little more breathing room — but as it stood, every option came with a cost.

Then Yoo Dae-hyuk stepped forward, bold as brass.

"Skipper! I'm confident out there! Send me in, I'll shut 'em down!"

The truth was, there weren't many alternatives. The youth squad had no quality sinkerballer to try some cute pitch-to-contact plan. And there wasn't a right-hander with overpowering stuff to simply blow the moment away, either.

This tournament's bullpen was essentially a junk drawer — a collection of players whose strength wasn't relief work at all, just arms too good to leave off a roster but unfit to start.

After much deliberation, Manager Han Min-hwa had Yoo Dae-hyuk begin warming up. And he left him with a single piece of advice.

"I know the bases loaded brings pressure. So there's no need to force a head-on showdown."

"Don't you worry 'bout a thing, Skipper!"

The sight of Yoo Dae-hyuk striding confidently toward the bullpen, shoulders loose, kept gnawing at the manager. But with no alternative, all he could do was pray that nothing would go wrong.

A brief warm-up later, Yoo Dae-hyuk took the mound.

He had considered this national team selection his turning point.

Once mentioned as high as the first round of the draft, he had slid all the way to the second before the Uiju Rangers finally claimed him, and he'd entered the pros that way.

The reputation he'd built as a premier high school left-handed ace, standing shoulder to shoulder with Oh Dae-eun, had been trampled into the dirt by Kim Yi-seon.

And now the national team spot vacated by that very Kim Yi-seon.

Here, in this moment, he had to prove his original worth.

The batter, Takahashi Shoya, was superb at working counts and spraying contact, but he showed no real extra-base power.

The manager had told him to avoid a head-on duel — but Yoo Dae-hyuk saw it differently. He was exactly the type who needed to attack, head-on and aggressively.

Induce a fly ball. Hammer the fastball into the top of the strike zone.

The signs flashed back and forth with the catcher. The catcher called for the bottom of the zone; Yoo Dae-hyuk brazenly demanded the top. The catcher hesitated for a heartbeat, then yielded.

Watch closely, Kim Yi-seon. The high fastball is not yours alone to throw.

With the bases loaded, he wound up with his full, towering motion.

The ball left his hand — and even by Yoo Dae-hyuk's own feeling, it was scraped absolutely, perfectly into the zone.

CRACK!!!

Grandfather Lee Young-gil, who had watched it all unfold, found himself rushed to the emergency room with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sky-high blood pressure.

And the rise of Wirye Jeil High, which until now had shaken only the far corners of the internet, finally broke past the screen and began shaking the Republic of Korea itself.

It was exactly as Nam Kang-min had predicted.