Possessor Knowledge_Final_TrulyTheLast_FINAL

"Get here fast, since I'll already be there waiting for you, little brother."

Si-hwan, a hyung I'd grown close with on the national team, called me the moment his contract was finalized. He was always projected to post successfully, but the deal had turned out considerably bigger than expected. His performance in the Premier12 must have played a major role.

I responded with an appropriately dutiful send-off.

"Go win a championship before I get there. I won't be able to win one in the majors."

"This punk really won't let me have a single nice moment."

Clicking his tongue in mock exasperation, Si-hwan then asked a question with a hint of genuine puzzlement in his voice.

"By the way, why didn't you go straight to the majors? I heard there was a team that swore they'd have you in the big leagues within a year, guaranteed."

That was a fact Si-hwan had gotten exactly right.

Several teams had offered signing bonuses in the $6–7 million range, and a few had dangled perks beyond the money — accelerated major league debuts, long-term franchise-player treatment — to lure me in.

Truthfully, skipping the minor leagues entirely for a year or two and establishing myself in the bigs overnight might not have been impossible. Which makes staying in the KBO even harder to justify on paper. But I had my reasons.

"Staying in Korea is the better deal for me. In terms of development, for one."

"Development? What else could you possibly grow into, you ridiculous kid?"

Behind the lame joke, though, he was seriously suggesting that MLB's more advanced environment would be better for me.

He wasn't wrong. However much the KBO of my previous life had lagged behind, the world's best baseball infrastructure still sits in America.

But still — in the end, players grow by playing actual games. That's simply how it works.

Rewinding a bit to shortly after the Premier12 ended — my mother-in-law was looking at me with a face far colder than usual.

"Player Kim Yi-seon. I will be applying a 10 percent commission on this contract."

"Yes, ma'am!"

No "son-in-law" this time, no affection, no teasing — just my name. That alone told me exactly how furious she was.

And the commission especially stung, because she was the very person who had once earnestly declared she wouldn't take a single won from her own son-in-law — and now she was extracting the maximum rate in the industry with ruthless precision.

"I'll hold the commission separately and put it toward Min-ah's wedding fund. Make a note of that."

Even in her anger, she wasn't entirely without affection. Either way, thank goodness she wasn't quitting as my agent. It's not like she's a stranger, and I wasn't exactly mourning the fee.

"Haa... why on earth would you insist on those terms..."

My mother-in-law heaved sigh after sigh, still unable to wrap her head around it. Honestly, if I put myself in her shoes, I'd feel exactly the same. Is this kid out of his mind?

For starters, the signing bonus was settled at the 3 billion won mark. The Seoul Twins' front office had shown no intention whatsoever of being stingy about it in the first place. Perhaps special orders had come down from the chairman along with extra budget, because they'd been generous from the very opening handshake.

They'd even matched the standard 1 billion won given to the typical first overall pick for Kang Min-hyuk, so this round of negotiations was always going to wrap up smoothly, without anyone raising their voice.

The real sticking point, however, emerged somewhere other than the total package.

"Yi-seon, you're throwing your noona away?"

"Throwing you away? It's just a reasonable option clause."

The first clash had come over the posting clause — a provision ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠stipulating that, if I contributed to the team above a certain threshold, I could post for MLB a little earlier than usual.

Seo-hee noona had latched onto me, tearfully wailing, You're leaving for America and abandoning your noona, aren't you! and it took forever to calm her down. Not that I had any intention of packing up and bolting for the States on a whim in the first place.

"The player is simply requesting the most common-sense terms possible. If I achieve an option like this, it's fair to say I'd have little left to motivate me in the KBO, wouldn't you agree?"

"That's true, but..."

The clause we ultimately settled on permitted posting after I'd contributed to at least three league championships during my service time, or won league MVP at least three times.

I'd included it on Si-hwan's advice that having a posting clause was better than not having one, so it wasn't something I particularly cared about. The real fight had been between my agent and Seo-hee nouna.

But my other demand raised eyebrows not just with the club officials or Seo-hee noona — even my own agent was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠baffled.

"If possible, I'd like a substantial portion of my signing bonus paid in US dollars held in an American account. If that's too difficult, I'm fine with lowering the total."

"I'm sorry — what?"

Yeah. Pay me in dollars, not won.

Even if you earn a fortune, wiring it all back to the US afterward to invest it bleeds you badly on taxes and a host of other complications. Taking a smaller amount up front in dollars would be vastly more convenient.

My mother-in-law's face went slack with disbelief, but because I was her son-in-law as well as her client, she very graciously asked me to explain my reasoning.

"My dear son-in-law. Why would you want to be paid in dollars? Is there some special reason?"

"Uh... I can't really go into detail, but I'm planning to do some investing."

"Investing? In what field?"

"Hmm... hard to say precisely, but short-term, probably shorting commodities."

Hearing those words, my mother-in-law's face was the most menacing I had ever seen it. It was the face of a parent staring at the youngest son who'd gambled the family business into the ground.

I did consider roping Kang Min-hyuk in on it too, but I figured she'd tell me to never show my face to her daughter again, so I held back.

Seo-hee noona just stood there bewildered, wearing a why on earth? expression. Acquiring that much cash in dollars is no simple feat, administratively or financially — the total got shaved down considerably and the payment schedule stretched out.

The signing bonus, originally floated at 3.5 billion won to roughly match half of what the Dodgers had offered, promptly shed 500 million won. Still a net gain, technically.

Ignoring for the moment the grumbling from those around me — if you love dollars so much, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠why didn't you just sign with MLB? — I quietly stashed every last cent I received as cash, untouched, in a US brokerage account.

After taxes, my agent's commission, the high school baseball development fund (a standard levy everyone pays, apparently — a full 5 percent of the signing bonus, no way around it), and the cost of hiring an asset custodian in the US, roughly a little over 2 billion won remained.

But it didn't matter. Because I was certain.

Through the long months of contempt and sneering, through Ye-eun and Min-ah's declaration that you're playing baseball and nothing else — I'm managing your money from now on, through Kang Min-hyuk's nonsense that my own mother had told him never to discuss money with me — I endured it all, and at the end of it all, with the contract signed and talk just beginning about who would attend spring training, on a certain day in December 2019—

"Bring me meat and women! This is the hour of heroes who fetch in the foreign currency!"

"Haa... Kim Yi-seon, there you go again."

Ye-eun's sigh-laced jab. But I stood proud.

"This wife of mine talks back the moment her husband walks in the door. Get over here!"

Dopamine was detonating in my brain like fireworks, and my body had stopped taking orders from the rational part of me.

Objectively speaking, this isn't a good thing for the world, so feeling gleeful about it does prick my conscience a little — but it's not as if I could stop it by doing anything, is it?

So I decided to make a spectacle of enjoying it. With this much money about to land, mourning would be the real hypocrisy.

Now it should all make sense — the reason I didn't go straight to the majors. Seo-hee noona played a small part in it, but I'm not fool enough to decide my entire future over something like that. It would be a lie to say I had no fear of the MLB challenge, but it's not as if I planned to dodge it altogether either.

It was foresight. Seeing what the future holds.

"Did you stock up on the hand sanitizer and masks I told you to buy for the house?"

"Yeah. But why on earth do you buy things like that by the box..."

An ordinary person who can't see the future sighs — but this possessed individual knows very well. Where's that guy who swore he'd be anxious the moment he turned pro because he could no longer predict the plot? That was about baseball, not this.

This world had clearly diverged from the one I used to live in, in many ways — but it was still the same Earth, it seemed, because domains untouched by history, like natural disasters, flowed along the exact same course.

Earthquakes, typhoons, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions and so on.

And I'd assumed anything involving human agency would be different — yet even the pandemics came.

Bird flu, novel influenza, MERS — all of it, right down to the worst infectious disease of the twenty-first century, the one now on its way.

"You'd better wash your hands properly from now on too. And wear your mask."

"You seriously need to quit the forums. Where do you even pick up this weird stuff?"

I let Ye-eun's words — she'd clearly gotten the wrong idea — slide right off me. I'm feeling very magnanimous at the moment.

If this coronavirus plays out exactly as it did on my previous Earth, then a prospect like me jumping to the majors has to be judged nothing short of suicide.

First of all, in the coming 2020, MLB postponed its opening day indefinitely, then ran a shortened season — not just without fans, but slashed to a third of the normal schedule.

MLB, with all its money at stake, managed to at least start the season behind closed doors, but the minor leagues stayed half-shut down for the entire pandemic — a level of neglect where proper player development was simply impossible.

By comparison, Korea played to empty stadiums but everything functioned, which made conditions vastly better. High odds the same holds true in this world too.

In the end, you grow by playing games and receiving proper care. Obviously, right?

Signing bonus? Money? ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I've earned more than enough of that this time around.

Bouncing on my feet as Ye-eun watched me with mounting concern, I made my grand proclamation:

"You keep going on about feeding me and supporting me — from now on, you take my allowance and live off it. No sponsorships, no ads, none of that SNS stuff. Got it?"

"Ugh..."

And just like that, the dignity of the household head was established.

Han Seo-hee's stress level rose yet again today. "President" was the title in name only — the actual work was handled for her by the professional executives her grandfather had installed, along with the Twins' baseball operations experts.

Her job amounted to liaising with the Group (read: wheedling her grandfather for budget). To be fair, she performed even that single duty brilliantly, so satisfaction among the club staff was sky-high.

Which was why she was more content with the job than one might expect. Light workload, and as long as she tidied up the budget proposal herself and sent it to the Group, it came back approved without any convoluted process whatsoever.

A dream sinecure anyone would envy. Normally a post like that was career poison, but Han Seo-hee, who had never harbored ambitions of climbing, had zero complaints about it.

That was, up until this rookie contract business.

Kim Yi-seon is still just a kid, for goodness' sake... was touching American dollars really that important to him?

She supposed he'd stayed in Korea because he genuinely believed it was better for him, but he clearly hadn't been entirely free of longing for the majors. Beyond that, she couldn't fathom why he'd go so far as to strong-arm his signing bonus into dollars.

Then again, seeing that hulking oaf show an oddly age-appropriate side for once was, in its way, a little cute.

The fallout she personally had to deal with, however, was not cute at all.

"Madam President, call from the Chairman."

"Yes... put him through."

Grandfather's call, patched straight into the Twins president's office.

And here was the problem. She'd had to grumble to him about the whole dollar affair, and ever since then, he'd been calling with remarkable, almost aggressive naturalness.

Chaebol families, so accustomed to arranged marriages, rarely took multiple wives, which naturally kept the number of children lower than one might think. Even so, with three generations of descent behind it, Chairman Han Tae-gun's grandchildren were too many to count on two hands.

Yet for some reason, of all those grandchildren, the Chairman had a peculiar fondness for her. It had always been that way, and given her timid personality, Han Seo-hee had spent years dodging the attention as best she could. But there was no dodging anymore.

It was genuinely stressful. Even back when she'd first requested the signing bonus budget, she'd had to talk him down with great difficulty after he declared a president's opening move couldn't look cheap and offered to spend up to 7 billion won just to match the Americans. An outlay like that would be a problem for the club itself — and it would make the other franchises glare. It's a franchise league, after all.

With the Chairman's eyes already spinning the way they were, the dollar request had pushed her past bewilderment into outright fear. Where would a Korean baseball club even get dollars? She'd had to route the whole thing through their main bank and the Group's sister financial affiliates.

Which effectively slammed shut any option of solving it quietly through the club alone, without Grandfather finding out.

So what else was there to do? Only after swallowing her tears and performing an aegyo display for her grandfather (genuinely, at his explicit demand) did she finally manage to resolve it.

Anyway, ever since then, the Chairman kept dialing the direct line of a baseball club president who, by Group hierarchy, belonged at the very bottom of the floor — and every single call turned her stomach with stress.

Out of nowhere, Grandfather was broaching an utterly unexpected subject.

Had Kim Yi-seon overheard, he'd have sputtered, Huh? It's the exact opposite of that? — but either way, the resulting direction of the judgment landed in the right place. Seeing Kim Yi-seon's move, Chairman Han Tae-gun appeared to have made up his mind about the matter that had been preoccupying him lately.

Unlike the other chaebol groups, which were broadly anchored in manufacturing, the Seoul Group was built from the ground up around finance.

Insurance, securities, credit cards, investment, real estate leasing and development, auto leases and rentals, savings banks — a group composed almost entirely of companies handling financial assets, which made shifting its asset weighting comparatively easy next to the other conglomerates.

Hence Chairman Han Tae-gun's plan: to seize this moment and launch a large-scale dollar play, pocketing the currency gains.

Han Seo-hee wanted to protest — why are you telling the president of a baseball club about this? She had zero desire to understand business talk on that scale, and it did nothing but weigh on her.

His tone was light as a parent promising to buy toys after getting their bonus. But the substance was anything but light.

Clutching her stress-churned stomach, Han Seo-hee thought to herself: This is all your fault. When you set foot in this organization, Kim Yi-seon, I am not letting you off easy. Not ever.

That was what she thought — but true to her textbook-introvert nature, when she actually came face to face with Kim Yi-seon afterward, she couldn't get a single word out.