What Makes a Good Senior

"Can't I just stay like this a little longer? Just a little bit?"

"Oppa, we have less than an hour before the flight. You still have to do the team press conference, remember?"

"How on earth am I supposed to go two whole weeks without seeing you?"

In the airport sky lounge. Min-ah's ears had gone scarlet, probably because the national team staff were watching us, but what could I do? Not seeing her for a single week during the training camp back home had already been depressing enough. How was I supposed to survive two weeks?

That's why, when they'd given us a brief window to say goodbye to our families before the national team departure, I'd latched onto Min-ah like this. Ah, right — Ye-eun couldn't come. Min-ah was here in her capacity as Kang Min-hyuk's family, but Ye-eun wasn't family yet, technically.

As I burrowed deeper into Min-ah's embrace, a voice drifted over.

"My, our daughter and her fiancé seem close. Well then, it's about time the two of you started making preparations, no?"

"Yes, ma'am."

The agent. Or rather, my mother-in-law.

Ever since the Phoenix Flag Tournament win and the Grand Slam, and after we'd visited Min-ah's father's memorial together, I'd simply given up on formalities with her. It would be a little too late in the game to start being embarrassed about it now.

My mother-in-law spoke with an apologetic lilt to her voice.

"Normally, when an agent has a client in this situation, providing care even overseas is part of the job..."

"It's quite all right. The national team staff will be there, and the club has agreed to provide support as well."

Her agency was really just a storefront set up to look after Kang Min-hyuk and, by extension, me — her actual profession was law. With her real job keeping her busy, flying all the way overseas to babysit players would be a lot to ask.

Ye-eun and Min-ah were both still students, too. There was no way they could tag along in the middle of a school semester.

...Come to think of it, I really do hate traveling for international tournaments. Do I actually have to go?

As if reading my thoughts, Kang Min-hyuk came stomping over with a face like he'd bitten into something sour.

"Kim Yi-seon. I have no complaints otherwise, but for the love of all that is holy, step away."

"Hm? Step away from what?"

"...You are still holding her, are you not?"

Ah, Min-ah? Her face and ears had gone a bit red there in my arms, but she's cute like this, so who cares? Every last second counts, so I should stay as close as humanly possible.

But apparently this brutish brother-in-law-to-be intended to interfere with even that.

"I am begging you, keep it to that much. We have to go now."

Kang Min-hyuk forcibly peeled Min-ah and me apart with the rough hands of a man who had no conscience whatsoever. This shameless bastard. You've got three girlfriends of your own — cut me some slack, you punk.

"Hey, Kang Min-hyuk, I'm walking on my own, so quit dragging me...! Min-ah! I'll call you tonight! Pick up, I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mean it!"

And so I was hauled away by Kang Min-hyuk's grip, dragged all the way to the departure gate.

On the flight to Tokyo's Haneda Airport. I'd flown planes in my past life too, but this was my first time in business class.

The overhead shell curving in like that reminded me a little of a Japanese PC bang booth — whatever it was, the chair and frame looked fascinating.

Just as I was leaning back, stretching my legs out full length, Lee Si-hwan, seated beside me, spoke up.

"I've never seen you like this, maknae. You're quite the romantic, aren't you?"

"I've always been a romantic, sir."

Roughly ever since I started dating, yes.

My answer seemed to amuse him; Lee Si-hwan let out a short chuckle.

"Good to see you're not nervous. I was a complete wreck at my first national team call-up, you know."

"And yet you pitched a scoreless WBC semifinal while nervous, sir?"

The man sitting next to me was Lee Si-hwan — ace of the Pyongyang Fighters and the ace pitcher of the current national team.

Only slightly later than me or Kang Min-hyuk, he'd set a record with his own first-year pro national team debut, and he was one of the longest-serving national team players, wearing the Taegukgi since the 2013 WBC.

During the initial camp and the Futures evaluation games, he hadn't joined us yet — the Pyongyang Fighters' Korean Series run had kept him away.

"That's exactly it. I was so nervous that day I still can't remember most of it."

He played it off like a joke, but the man had been brilliant from that very debut tournament. In the WBC semifinal, he'd stepped in to replace a collapsing starter, entering in the third inning and holding the line scoreless through the sixth — the man who'd rescued the national team from the jaws of a crisis.

Since this year's Korean Series ended, talk of an MLB posting has been swirling around him. He was, in effect, the finest starting pitcher in Korea right now.

Why a man like that was glued to my side, giving me this personal one-on-one care, I honestly had no idea.

Either way, despite having been attached to Min-ah until minutes ago, I found myself missing her again. Ye-eun I'd only seen for a handful of days, so I missed her all the more.

If the preliminary camp felt like boot camp and the national team departure felt like shipping off to your unit, you'd get the general idea. National team rosters don't have much of a seniority hierarchy between players, but the lifestyle controls are genuinely brutal. Word has it that back in the day, some player got caught drinking in his hotel room the night before a game, and that was that.

Not that this world has conscription, so there'll be no actual army for me. Feeling the sensation of re-enlisting into a military I never belonged to, I pulled down my eye mask and tried to steal a little sleep.

Lee Si-hwan was feeling a touch glum. With a national team debut that had come so early, Lee Si-hwan had always been the baby of the squad.

These days he had a junior or two, but none with a meaningful age gap, and no player who could truly be called the maknae had ever joined the national team. Until now.

Then this tournament brought Kim Yi-seon and Kang Min-hyuk aboard. Younger than he'd been at his own call-up, no less.

Kang Hyun-seok — the senior he'd admired most on the national team back in his own youth, the man who had looked after him so well — had gone out of his way to ask him to look after the rookies.

Could it be? Was it finally his turn to play the dashing senior? Might he even get to hear the words Thank you, sunbae-nim! delivered with eyes full of admiration?

Heart fluttering with anticipation, he had approached Kim Yi-seon and Kang Min-hyuk.

"Hello there? So you're Yi-seon. I'm Lee Si-hwan. Kang Hyun-seok sunbae has told me all about you."

"Yes. How do you do, sir."

"Hello? Min-hyuk, is it? I'm Lee Si-hwan. Looking forward to working with you."

"How do you do, sunbae-nim."

"Yi-seon, in high school they don't analyze pitchers much, so even with a full windup batters rarely read your motion and attempt steals, but in the pros the quick pitch is... you're already doing it?"

"Min-hyuk, the most important element of pacing yourself is relaxing your body while keeping your grip strength. If the grip goes too, then the bite on the ball... you're already doing that too?"

"No need to feel the pressure. You've got the best seniors in the Republic of Korea behind you, after all. Trust your teammates and just throw, and..."

These kids were already the finished article. There wasn't a single piece of know-how, mental technique, or skill a senior could teach them — and worse, they didn't seem particularly interested in him at all.

The closest thing to an opening: Kim Yi-seon had looked a little down lately, so he'd tried to offer a bit of counseling — only to be met with what he saw now, the conversation cut short after barely a few exchanges.

This wasn't the image of a magnificent senior he'd pictured... Shouldn't the junior come forward first, and the senior stand dignified yet warmly beneficent, dispensing sage advice? Something like that...

Just then, Choi Dong-ho, snickering in a nearby seat, beckoned Lee Si-hwan over with a wagging finger.

At the beckoning hand, Lee Si-hwan drew near, wondering what was up.

"So? Doesn't it sting a little, getting stuck with a bunch of prodigy juniors?"

Choi Dong-ho grinned ear to ear, laughing at him. Absurd enough that Lee Si-hwan fired back.

"'You too,' he says. When I first joined the national team, I respected my sunbaes plenty. Or has your memory gone?"

"Cut the crap. When did you ever respect your hyungs? You wouldn't listen to a damn word they said back then."

Lee Si-hwan opened his mouth to rebut Choi Dong-ho's slander — and then shut it at what came next.

"Hey, you only started falling in line after watching Hyun-seok hyung pitch in live games, remember? So no need to rush. Show them what you've got on the field, and they'll come around on their own. That's just how it works."

Heard with an open mind, there was a certain logic to it. Setting aside the slanderous claim that he'd only started respecting sunbaes after watching Kang Hyun-seok pitch, the underlying point — that demonstrating your ability directly was the most effective method — held water.

If Kim Yi-seon and Kang Min-hyuk saw a full-effort performance against a properly strong team up close, wouldn't they show at least a little admiration? Watching video and watching in person were different things, weren't they?

He'd never planned on coasting anyway, but now he shook off even the faintest sliver of complacency he might have harbored for the group stage. This wasn't personal vanity — it was a matter of team chemistry for the national squad.

This Premier12, hosted in Japan. Measured against the WBC, the caliber of participants and the tournament's prestige lag considerably — but it remained, without question, the second-biggest international stage in the baseball world.

The mindset of the Korean squad heading into this tournament was decidedly combative. It's natural for national team players to burn with fighting spirit, but here the public sentiment itself was burning alongside them.

The cause was the inaugural Premier12. Held in Seoul, as a gesture of consideration from the Japanese side toward Korean baseball — where Korea had lost to Japan in the final.

And so the fandom had caught fire over a frankly juvenile notion: that Korea had to win this Japan-hosted Premier12 so the two countries could trade championships back and forth. Not every fan felt this way, of course, but whenever Korea-Japan relations entered the picture, this was always how it went.

Which was why this national team call-up — outwardly leisurely, yet laced all along with an undercurrent of fighting spirit and tension —

"Skip. I'm throwing a shutout today."

"Is that so? Then go ahead and do it."

— Lee Si-hwan's fighting spirit, in his first start, was of a different order entirely.

He had volunteered for the start against Mexico — the group stage opener, and the single most critical game for advancing to the finals.

By the group's strength, first and second place belonged to Korea and the United States, but with only the top two advancing to the finals, the showdown against third-seeded Mexico was the one that mattered.

Then again, Mexico's third-place seeding wasn't something to take lightly. One could even argue that Mexico — with a number of its domestic league aces on the roster — was stronger than a US squad that had brought over only borderline minor leaguers.

But Lee Si-hwan radiated the intent to utterly overwhelm them. As he strode up the mound radiating an aura of I'm going to mow every one of them down, the pitching coach approached Manager Ban with a worried word.

"Will he be all right, skip? Si-hwan looks a little too wound up out there."

Ban Il-soo didn't so much as glance over. He felt no need to.

A manager optimized for short tournaments, uncanny at reading one thing and one thing only: a player's form on any given day. And in Ban Il-soo's eyes, the Lee Si-hwan of today looked like a man who could not possibly lose.

On this squad, I was classified as a bullpen arm, which meant I'd be waiting in the dugout at all times.

And sitting there in the dugout, the national team sunbaes kept wandering over to chat, one remark at a time. Such were the trials of the maknae, I suppose.

Today it was Choi Dong-ho sunbae's turn. No idea why the man starting tomorrow's game was over here, but there you go.

"Yi-seon. What do you think? Different up close, isn't it?"

"Called strike three! That's the out — Hernandez never even thought about swinging, just stood there and got rung up!"

"His form was outstanding in the Korean Series too. Honestly, I figured the heavy season workload might have him running a little lower here on the national team, but the stuff hasn't dropped one bit."

"Korea's ace Lee Si-hwan is absolutely smothering Mexico's batting order!"

The batter just retired was a legitimate hitter — a guy who'd hit .300 even in Triple-A. And he'd been rung up after doing nothing but gawking at Lee Si-hwan's fastball.

This was how the game had been flowing, and we were already through four innings. Lee Si-hwan was in complete command, still without allowing a single run.

I'd seen it plenty on video and on broadcasts, but up close, in person —

"He's incredible. The structure of his pitching, especially."

At the words that slipped out of me, Choi Dong-ho sunbae nodded with what looked like satisfaction.

"Right? People who aren't watching from right here are the ones who say the impressive thing is how hard Si-hwan throws for a starter. But that's not his real weapon at all."

He tossed on the extra bit needlessly, like it was funny to say this in front of a guy who threw a hundred.

"Pick his game apart piece by piece and Si-hwan's actually nothing special, you know? Yeah, the fastball's quick, but it's a low-spin four-seamer with a tight profile. His command's not bad, but it's not good enough to call ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a strength either.

And it's not like his breaking balls come in every color of the rainbow — four pitches, no wild movement patterns. Nothing remarkable there."

Add it all up and Lee Si-hwan was genuinely impressive, yet too ambiguous to call the league's outright top tier. Back in high school he could be the number one prospect in the nation, but whether he'd dominate pro ball was never guaranteed.

So how had a player like that made the national team as a first-year pro and taken the league by storm?

"Swinging strike three! That's back-to-back Ks for Lee Si-hwan! His stuff today looks outstanding."

"That sweeper falling off the outside edge was filthy, wasn't it? A pitch like that — from the batter's box, you've got no choice but to bite on it."

"Pitching with utter composure — the Republic of Korea's Lee Si-hwan!"

A fastball with spin below league average and a lifeless ball at the end of its flight. A sinker that couldn't sink, just drifting a little sideways instead. A sweeper-style slider whose vertical drop was poorly controlled, more leak than break. And a splitter he threw once in a blue moon.

Those unimpressive-looking pitches were his real weapons.

"From the batter's box, that stuff is insane. I actually took batting practice against him as an experiment once. I hit through high school too, same as you — and I couldn't read a thing. Same pitch every time, and it broke wherever the hell it wanted."

First, pitch tunneling. His fastball, sweeper, and sinker all traveled on nearly identical paths through the first half of their flight. Then the outcomes diverged wildly — carving in at the middle, the outer edge, the inner half, each on radically different trajectories.

For batters forced by the limits of human physiology to judge the ball only through its first half, this alone was a catastrophe. But excellent tunneling alone isn't enough — there are far more monsters out there who can read the ball early than you'd think.

And how do you deceive those guys?

"Thought I was the only one, but Myeong-seok says the same thing. That kid reads real breaking balls like a machine. But with Si-hwan's stuff, he can tell it's a breaking ball and still has zero clue which way it'll break."

Spin mirroring. Simply put: aligning the spin axes of two different pitches.

The world is full of monsters, and the human body is more capable than we give it credit for. If a player with elite dynamic vision and feel watches the ball's spin — would you believe it? He can predict the break without even watching which way the ball moves.

So you deceive those humans. Throw two pitches whose spin axes are identical but whose spin directions are opposite — and no matter how superhuman the opponent's eyes, the naked eye cannot distinguish the two.

Lee Si-hwan's turd-curve of a sweeper and his subtle sinker were doing exactly that.

"Anyway. It's fascinating. That's the kind of talent that just gets born, huh."

But this was cutting-edge theory, born of advancing optical tracking equipment and AI pitch-tracking technology. In this era, the idea existed but the theory had never been fully formalized. Which was why Choi Dong-ho sunbae could only marvel at it, without understanding the principle.

The instinct to find the optimal pitch combination without knowing the underlying science — and the sheer confidence to throw an unremarkable breaking ball ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with his chest out.

"Strike three! Another K for Lee Si-hwan! He closes out the inning cleanly with three strikeouts!"

"Ah, that was the sinker that time, right? A slider drifting away like that, then a sinker boring in on the hands — from the batter's perspective, there's simply no answer."

Maybe the thing I should be aiming for in the pros... was pitching like Lee Si-hwan.

Lee Si-hwan had thrown eight perfect, scoreless innings against Mexico. He'd had to give up the complete game shutout, but a performance like this was more than enough to earn a junior's respect.

So, hope in his heart, he'd gone straight to find Kim Yi-seon the moment the game ended. Even his seven-years-younger self would have been won over by a performance like today's. Should he say, Great pitching out there, Kim Yi-seon? Or fan the flames of rivalry with a probing question?

"Is something the matter, sir? Did you need something?"

"Oh — no, not at all. Go do your thing."

It had been neither. The same blunt Kim Yi-seon as always. He didn't seem especially struck by the game, but neither did he show any competitive fire. Just... looking at him like he'd look at a cow or a chicken.

Lee Si-hwan felt a flicker of disappointment, a flash of irritation, and even a rising indignation — how dare this junior whelp fail to recognize a sunbae who towered like the sky itself.

Ugh. Did the ace of the national team really have to grovel like this? If not me, this kid doesn't have a single other senior willing to bother!

Piqued for no good reason, he decided to turn on his heel and walk away.

But at that moment, he happened to glance at Kim Yi-seon's phone screen.

'Seoul–Japan flight tickets.' 'Lodging near the Tokyo Dome.'

...Are his parents coming to watch the game? Tickets must be nearly impossible to get right now...

And just like that, his heart went soft all over again.

"Yi-seon... Do you, uh, need those flight tickets and lodging? As it happens, I keep a few spares on hand. Want them?"

Backup tickets, prepared in case his agency ever needed to get someone over here on short notice. They'd be hard to scramble for at the last minute, so he'd set them aside — but it looked like he'd never have a use for them.

So, in the spirit of giving an extra rice cake to the kid you can't stand, he'd offered.

"Sunbae-nim."

"Hm?"

"Thank you, sir!"

Kim Yi-seon's eyes were shining like stars.

Lee Si-hwan was utterly dumbfounded.