Guillotine Matches Always Drive You Insane
"Aigoo, our Seo-hee! What brings you all the way out to see this old man? Is that rascal Jang-hyun giving you trouble? Shall grandpa give him a proper scolding?"
Han Seo-hee swallowed the burning urge to say yes, please and forced her thoughts into order, slowly and deliberately.
The hopeless doting grandfather standing before her was not a man to be taken lightly. A titan of the business world, a money demon who could fairly be called the finest in South Korea when it came to capital.
Trying to leverage his beloved granddaughter status against a man like that would never get her the result she truly wanted. No — she had to push her logic through as convincingly as possible, dressed up in reason.
"No, Chairman. I actually came to report an error in judgment on the part of President Han Jang-hyun."
"An error?"
Chairman Han Tae-gun chuckled at that.
"Seo-hee. Whatever Jang-hyun does is my will and my decision. Are you telling me I was wrong?"
Han Jang-hyun was the son Chairman Han trusted and his proxy — a man who made his presence felt not merely in a ballclub like the Seoul Twins but in far larger mergers and acquisitions, the vanguard who carved up internal organizations for the Group.
His course of action deviating from the Chairman's intent? Impossible.
"Yes. Done this way, you will only acquire the shell of the Twins — never the whole of it."
So she said it boldly: Grandfather, you're wrong.
The moment the words left her mouth, her whole body began to tremble, and she barely managed to suppress it. From the instant she said it, she was no longer a cherished granddaughter — just an insolent team-level employee defying the Group's hierarchy to petition the Chairman directly.
"Only a shell, you say... But a shell is all I bought, you see?"
Chairman Han continued, sounding somewhere amused.
"This thing called a franchise league. It slides by because it sounds classy in some foreign tongue, but it's nothing more than a monopoly cartel. Think about it. Suppose the film industry worked so that if the existing distributors refused their authorization, a new distributor couldn't get its movies into a single theater. Do you think the government or the people would just stand by and allow that?"
And yet in baseball, it was possible. That was the franchise league.
He had only wanted the admission ticket to that monopoly — the filling had never interested him, said Chairman Han. She had predicted as much; she'd expected this exact line of thinking. But knowing it and turning his heart were two entirely different problems.
Still, this was the only card left to play. Carefully, in a voice that trembled as little as she could manage, she opened her mouth.
"Chairman. The reason you have no interest in the filling is that it does not belong to Seoul Group — isn't that so? But if there were a way to make that filling Seoul Group's... would you still throw it away?"
The Golden Lion Flag Tournament began the moment the Blue Dragon Flag ended, without so much as a breath of rest.
They had looked shaky for a moment in the Hyedang High game, but as if insisting that day it only rained and their condition was off, they were now on a mad relay of scoring runs.
The opposing teams couldn't even mount a resistance before folding. With that terrifying sprint, they shot up to the finals in the blink of an eye.
"..."
"Coach, could you take a look at my form for a second?"
"Yeah, sure. Though don't you think you're practicing a little too long today?"
But in stark contrast to that phenomenal run, the team's atmosphere was bone-chillingly cold. The pressure of not slumping on the verge of a historic record seemed to be weighing heavily on everyone. Getting caught slacking at a time like this was a one-way ticket to a witch hunt. Even Cha Il-sung was behaving himself, for crying out loud.
The players, frozen stiff — and the PR team recording it all on camera were just as tense. Especially Seo-hee noona.
Out of pity, I offered her a word of comfort.
"It's okay, noona. Everything's going to work out."
She nodded her thanks at my words, but the tension still hadn't left her. As it turned out, noona's situation was tangled up in something far more complicated than I'd imagined.
An outside president dispatched from finance, a restructuring, employees including Manager Park who might lose their jobs if results didn't improve? I'd assumed it was ordinary office politics — annoying bosses, corporate infighting — but once you peeled it back, this was straight out of a drama.
When I first heard about it, I even wondered whether I should have meddled at all. Honestly, it was a bit above the pay grade of a guy like me...
But the woman looked that drained — what could I do? No backing out now, and she'd even asked to borrow my name.
"You don't need to feel the pressure either, Yi-seon. Your run so far is impressive enough, and even if it's not the Grand Slam, it's still a remarkable record."
"No. Setting aside your situation, these were tournaments we were going to win anyway. Don't stress about it — just think about what you're going to do afterward."
At my brazen attitude, noona fidgeted and opened her mouth.
"I'm sorry, Yi-seon... it's my problem, and I dragged you into it."
"Come on, you told me and I agreed. It's like taking a job — if the company I'm joining turns out to be a dumpster fire, wouldn't I lose the will to sign? I could always just go straight to the US instead."
I'd never planned on going straight to MLB, but if the team was really as bad as I'd heard, a direct route was genuinely worth considering.
Either way, the solution Seo-hee noona had found using my name came down to the same thing I'd been planning to do all along.
The High School Grand Slam. Making it impossible for anyone to dispute that I and Wirye Jeil High were the strongest in high school baseball.
Sure, everyone seemed to be acknowledging it bit by bit even without it — but if you don't put the final period on the sentence, it never quite sits right.
"So quit stiffening up and just sit back and enjoy the show. We'll grab the trophy tomorrow and throw one more parade."
What Han Seo-hee had used to persuade Chairman Han Tae-gun was simple.
Her argument: a player destined to become the new symbol of the Twins would take over as the team's center, and if that player was friendly toward Seoul Group, the team would naturally take on the Group's colors.
It was clumsy to the point of being a mess, but no better alternative came to mind.
"So this Kim Yi-seon fellow is really that good? Well, given he's the most famous high schooler in the country these days, I suppose in company terms he'd be... Seongwol Electronics?"
"Microtech, Chairman."
Seongwol Electronics was one of Korea's leading electronics firms — but Han Seo-hee had named the number one company in the world.
"Heh heh, that boy's on that level? I'll need convincing."
The Chairman's attitude: then bring me proof. He had always liked baseball, so he roughly knew the results so far and the interest from major league clubs. Which meant this was the moment to show him something new.
"How does an undefeated championship run through every national high school tournament sound, Chairman? A Grand Slam."
That was the only card worth playing. If this didn't land, there was nothing left to persuade him with.
Watching Chairman Han Tae-gun deliberate in silence, Han Seo-hee felt her heart shrivel. If this didn't work, the best she could do was gather the employees and apologize through her tears...
"A Grand Slam... It's a little lacking, I'll admit — but fine. I'll wait and see. Go on, then. Show me."
At those words, the tension drained out of her so completely her knees nearly buckled. It worked?
"In exchange — if you fail, whether that boy goes to America or not is no concern of mine, and I'm tearing this team down to the studs while I'm at it. The more I look at it, the less I care for the team logo, and the uniform colors clash terribly with the Group."
Even at the very end, Chairman Han Tae-gun left his warning behind.
And despite that warning, all Han Seo-hee could do was offer her thanks and withdraw.
And so, in this absurd situation where Han Seo-hee and Kim Yi-seon had staked the employees' livelihoods on winning the Golden Lion Flag, the opposing team in the finals was stepping onto the field with do-or-die resolve of their own.
"Y'all done lost yer dang minds, have ya? Plannin' to go lose again?"
Gwangju Jeil High, and Coach Na Jung-hwan.
"Got beat once already, so ya decided to tuck yer tails for good, did ya? Why's every last one of ya got no fire in yer bellies!"
Coach Na Jung-hwan was furious.
To him, Gwangju Jeil High was never just a workplace. A pillar of the Gwangju Phoenix dynasty, the high school that had produced more major leaguers than any other in the country, a program whose national championship count sat comfortably in the top five — the very cradle of Korean baseball.
And that Gwangju Jeil High was about to start hearing people call it a fraud.
"Put some thunder back in them eyeballs! That settles it — the lot of ya got special trainin' today. Don't even think 'bout goin' home."
It wasn't that he looked down on Wirye Jeil the way other coaches did, or refused to acknowledge them. But this was Gwangju Jeil High, wasn't it? No matter how hot Wirye Jeil was running at the moment, surely they could not be permitted to make Gwangju Jeil High sound like a knockoff.
Under the fire-breathing coach's tirade, the players' willpower was forcibly dragged back to life, little by little.
"Now! This here's 160 klicks off the pitchin' machine. If ya can hit this, then what in tarnation stops ya from hittin' Kim Yi-seon's ball? Y'all hear me?!"
"Chang-shik! Ya throw it sloppier'n that and how's the first baseman s'posed to catch it?!"
"Away! Ya gotta hit it away! If ya smack that thing hard the other way, what's there left to catch?!"
It was extremely heavy-handed.
But either way, the fighting spirit in the players began to sharpen into something dangerous.
The head-to-head record between Wirye Jeil and Gwangju Jeil stood at one apiece. Despite being the youngest program in the league — only founded in the 2000s — Wirye Jeil had so little history of national tournament appearances that the record of games against Gwangju Jeil from the other region was sparse to begin with.
And yet, one win and one loss. Dead even. The fact that the one loss had come at the recent Blue Dragon Flag was something they all agreed, for the moment, to forget.
That much was manageable. Kim Yi-seon? The punk was human too — keep swinging and hits would fall, runs would score.
And so, with the second Real-versus-Fake showdown detonating dopamine across every internet high school baseball forum, the resolve of both schools for the final hardened harder and harder.
Mokdong Baseball Stadium, where the Golden Lion Flag final was underway.
On the mound stood Seo Jun-soo. The Golden Lion schedule ran slightly different from the Blue Dragon's due to a public holiday, and with only three days having passed since Kang Min-hyuk threw the semifinal, he couldn't take the mound today — Coach Choi Sang-ho's call, made to squeeze every last drop out of the entire pitching staff.
Having already stood on the Phoenix Flag final stage, Seo Jun-soo showed no tendency to freeze before big tournaments or big records. It was a genuine mystery why a pitcher like this fell apart mentally the moment he passed the fifth inning.
Watching his warm-up from a corner of the stands, hands folded piously together, praying — Han Seo-hee.
The other PR staff, who had never once seen her this nervous, looked at her strangely, but deep down she wanted to scream at them: you lot should be praying too! We lose this game and Manager Yeong-cheol gets fired! Most of the other departments are getting cut too!
But Han Seo-hee's sense of corporate security was far too airtight to go leaking trade secrets. So she simply trembled and prayed alone.
Please, go well... win it easy like always, and take the championship...
And as if to repay that hope, Seo Jun-soo's pitching and defense in the top of the first were spotless.
— "Seo Jun-soo retires the side in order. Three up, three down."
— "Lovely. He's the most talked-about arm among the first-years right now. Excellent poise — the velocity is a touch shy, but overall he's a very polished pitcher."
— "And with Gwangju Jeil's offense retired so meekly, Wirye Jeil High now comes to the plate."
The bottom of the first produced no runs, but it showed that the bats still had their timing.
— "Ah! The bases are left loaded! Gwangju Jeil High escapes the jam!"
— "A hairy situation, but they wriggled out of it nicely. Wirye Jeil's hitters have been absolutely scorching lately, you see. You cannot afford to overlook even the bottom of their order."
— "A game hanging in delicate balance. After a short break, we'll return for the second inning."
Good. Just like this, boys. At this pace, we win this thing comfortably.
The instant Han Seo-hee thought that —
CRACK!!!!
Oh no.
For better or for worse, in baseball — a sport optimized for driving its devotees clinically insane — the score flips on a daily basis.
Han Seo-hee nearly snapped watching the runs bleed in, but soon enough it was the Gwangju Jeil cheering section clutching their heads instead.
WIRYE JEIL HIGH 3 : 1 GWANGJU JEIL HIGH
They had scratched across a run or two in the second, but once Seo Jun-soo came down and Kim Yi-seon took over from the third, he had the entire batting order trussed up tighter than a holiday turkey. Meanwhile, Wirye Jeil's bats were breathing fire, piling up three runs in a flash and cruising along with the game comfortably in hand.
The moment Kim Yi-seon took the mound, Han Seo-hee finally exhaled and felt the ease return. Gwangju Jeil High, on the other hand, had the atmosphere of a funeral home.
"How in blazes are we s'posed to face that."
Watching Kim Yi-seon pitch, the words slipped out of Cho Jang-hoon of Gwangju Jeil High before he could stop himself.
Kang Min-hyuk, whom they'd faced at the Blue Dragon Flag, had been no joke either — but Kim Yi-seon was a pitcher who was difficult in an entirely different way.
"Striiike! Out!!!"
Kim Byung-gu trudged back to the dugout with his head hung low. A hitter who swung a mighty bat over .300 in weekend league ball — silent as the grave today.
Seo Jun-soo, the first pitcher, had been tricky enough. But Kim Yi-seon was showing them something from a genuinely different dimension.
[153 km/h]
Looking at the number stamped on the scoreboard was enough to make a man laugh in disbelief. Kang Min-hyuk was a pitcher you couldn't hit because you didn't know what was coming. Kim Yi-seon was a pitcher you couldn't hit even when you did.
At this point, stop tormenting high schoolers and hurry up and go pro already. They let high schoolers turn pro in soccer — did baseball not have a system like that?
His turn at bat came around, and he was listlessly gathering his gear to head to the on-deck circle when the manager suddenly clamped a hand on his shoulder.
"Jang-hoon! What's the matter with ya? Where ya off to, a funeral? Why's ya got not one lick of fight in ya!"
The manager's eyes blazed, as if defeat were a concept that did not exist. It was a little much to bear, and Cho Jang-hoon averted his gaze.
"Ah-ah! Eyes locked on me. Don't tell me that fella's lookin' like a monster to ya right about now?"
He does look like a monster, though.
"Watch how that'un throws. Ya seen 160 on the pitchin' machine, haven't ya?"
Only because you showed us nothing but that all day yesterday.
"What's the difference 'tween that machine and him? Don't ya be scared now. Fire up them eyes and swing from yer heels."
That's easier said than done, sir.
With every instruction the manager barked, Cho Jang-hoon could feel his pessimism multiplying. That one out there was a genuine monster.
And so he stepped into the on-deck circle. Jimin, hitting ahead of him, was already down two strikes to one ball. No need to even watch — by the time my turn came, it'd be three outs and the inning over, same as always.
And then the duel that followed.
Fourth pitch.
Tak!
— "Oh! A blooper into the air! Carrying out toward right-center! A lucky Texas leaguer!"
— "Ah, that's as good as an error. Looks like a breakdown in communication between the second baseman, the center fielder, and the right fielder. You have to talk it out there."
— "On a stroke of pure fortune, Wirye Jeil High concedes the baserunner!"
Lee Ji-min stood on first base herself, blinking in equal bewilderment.
And the velocity stamped on the scoreboard?
[148 km/h]
Plenty fast.
What on earth was happening?
The moment I stepped into the batter's box, the manager was roaring and glaring daggers at me. He looked so ferocious that Kim Yi-seon's glare barely registered as a concern.
And so, floating in a daze, I watched Kim Yi-seon's first pitch come in —
"Striiike!!"
— "A first-pitch strike. Thrown with total conviction, as if to say, hit it if you think you can."
— "That's where power pitchers shine, you see. When you can drop a strike in on the first pitch so easily, you win the count battle before it even starts."
— "This duel comes down to one pitch."
[150 km/h]
Uh...
People would call me a lunatic for saying this, but... I felt like I could hit it.
Granted, I hadn't tracked that last pitch at all. The manager's precious pitching-machine training had meant absolutely nothing.
The second pitch followed.
"Striiike!"
— "Strike two, and he swings right through it."
— "Ah, a textbook changeup for the second pitch there. You simply have to be fooled by that one."
Deceived by the offspeed pitch and run to two strikes — yet a strange confidence that refused to die.
I surrendered my body to that bizarre sensation. Whether I swung the textbook way or on pure feel, it was a strikeout ending either way, so what did it matter?
Third pitch.
Kim Yi-seon delivered the ball with that signature arm whip of his — loose and languid, and yet lightning-fast.
Fastball, off the fingertips. I couldn't explain why, but I knew it was a fastball.
And I swung — a swing so pure, I doubted I'd ever taken a better one in my life.
CRACKAAANG!!!
— "Oh! He pulled it! The left field wall! The left field wall! Over the left field wall it goes! A two-run homer that sends this game right back to square one!"
— "A home run here of all places! This is exactly the chronic dilemma of a quality high fastball — the very strength of Kim Yi-seon's pitching overshadows it, but power arms like that are always vulnerable to hard contact and home runs!"
— "The Gwangju Jeil High cheering squad erupts back to life with everything they have! This battle hangs in the balance once more!"
A ball he knew he could never repeat, no matter how many times he tried, sailed over the fence.
And from somewhere in the stands, it seemed a woman's anguished scream rang out.