The Corona Health League

Spring camp had come to an end. A month is long if you call it long and short if you call it short, but either way, I felt like I'd spent it well.

Ye-eun and Min-ah had dragged me around Okinawa sightseeing until we were sick of it, and right before the second camp session wrapped up in March, the weather finally warmed up enough for us to visit the ocean. (It was still a little chilly, though, so the swimsuits only came out at our lodging, when it was just us.)

The team's mood had been excellent, too. Spring camp and exhibition results are never something you can trust, sure — but the Twins had looked good against nearly every team they faced in the Okinawa region.

Think back to last year: the bats went silent and the pitchers got chewed up. What we were seeing now was nothing short of a total transformation. The hitters were actually scoring runs, and the starters were holding things down solidly? That was the one thing last year's Twins couldn't do, wasn't it?

Several of the games weren't closed-door friendlies, either — some were streamed officially online, and a decent number of tour fans had followed the team out to camp, so word spread fast across the internet.

Of course, it only trended briefly in the team communities; most baseball fans dismissed it with a "don't get ahead of yourselves." But the Seoul Twins faithful were already buzzing. I understood the hunger for hope. After back-to-back last-place finishes, who'd want to make it three in a row?

For the record, the Twins' spring camp MVP was Ho-yeol. Awards like that don't necessarily go to the most talented player — they go to whoever worked hardest and delivered beyond expectations — and nobody fit that description better.

Ho-yeol was genuinely moved, saying he'd never won anything like it. He was practically on the verge of tears, and it seemed like a whole new experience for him. Getting named camp MVP usually means the manager and coaches have their eyes on you, and that was the part he was happiest about, he said. More opportunities would follow.

Kang Hyun-seok, too, nodded along with clear satisfaction — at Ho-yeol, at the two of us, and at the other fill-in starter candidates whose skills had visibly improved. Even the Olympus Trio — Ji Ha-seob, Park Ha-neul, and Lee Ba-da — were delighted that, for once, the starters were pitching like actual human beings.

And so the Seoul Twins boarded their flight home in an atmosphere of pure warmth. The razor-edge tension they'd departed with at the start of camp might as well have been a lie; the mood was bright and loose.

They landed in Korea, cleared immigration, formally reported back to the club — and sharpened their blades, waiting for the season to begin. This year, they said, would truly be different.

And then the world ended. About a third of it, anyway.

Why only a third? Because whether you look at the US or Korea, the stock markets had dropped roughly that far from their peaks. Though what you actually felt on your skin was closer to half the world falling apart.

A certain street in Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi Province.

Fine, the second-team dorms are out in the middle of nowhere — but even now, walking through the small town proper, there wasn't a soul in sight.

The town's main street had an eerie, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠haunted quality to it, and I was running along it. Running in a mask made breathing harder, which honestly made it better lung-capacity training, so I'd decided to push through it.

Where my footsteps finally stopped was a villa building. No idea why a brand-new modern villa existed out here in the sticks, but that was my good fortune, not my problem.

I sprinted up the stairs two at a time and made straight for the iron door marked 201. There was no real reason to hurry, but I wanted to get there even a second sooner, and I punched in the door-lock code fast.

Ye-eun was standing in the entryway the moment the door swung open, clearly having heard the commotion and prepared in advance.

"You're here?"

"Yeah, I'm here."

I tried to play it casual. Failed completely. I'd missed her too much. I'd seen her just yesterday, but that changed nothing, ever. I didn't even take off my shoes — just barreled into her arms right there in the entryway.

Now that I looked, Ye-eun was wearing an apron, and there was a smell of food in the air. The club provides dinner anyway, so she'd apparently cooked again for no reason. It made me grateful, and a little guilty, and fond of her all at once.

When I just stood there quietly, eyes shining with being touched, she flashed a mischievous grin like she'd just had a brilliant idea and spoke up.

"So now that you're back, what do you want to do first? A bath? Dinner? Or..."

She spread her fingers out one at a time, drawing circles against my chest. Then swayed them back and forth — ticklish, and yet a strangely pleasant sensation.

It was a classic move, but classics are classics because they work. Come to think of it, I remembered reading a manga with this exact scene once, side by side with Ye-eun.

Back then she'd only teased me about it — "You're into this stuff, huh?" — but now I realized: Ye-eun, you just wanted to do it yourself all along, didn't you?

Did this really require a verbal answer? I kicked off my shoes in a rush, scooped her up, and carried her straight toward the bedroom.

"Kim Yi-seon, you're going way too fast! At least let me get my clothes—"

She throws out a line like that and expects me to play along and wait? A trained military dog couldn't hold back here.

"...If you came to rest, then rest quietly, please."

Oh. It lands.

"Uh... Min-ah's here too, huh?"

Min-ah emerged slowly from the kitchen, hidden from view by the wall until now. Under that ice-cold gaze, I obediently set Ye-eun back down.

"How's school?"

"Postponed for now. They're talking about moving to online classes, too. If that happens, I'll basically just have to live here."

"I see."

The mood turned a bit awkward. Ye-eun kept clinging to me going so what?, but I had a feeling that one wrong reaction here and Min-ah would sulk for a week.

Anyway — the world had now fully entered that corona atmosphere I'd lived through in my past life.

Up until early March, there had been plenty of fear and rumor about the epidemic, but it hadn't truly taken hold in Korea yet. That's why the returning Twins squad passed through with nothing more than a simple screening — no quarantine at all.

But now people were saying the country's cumulative case count had broken ten thousand. The corona crisis had well and truly arrived.

Min-ah, still a student, couldn't attend school because the semester opening had been pushed back. Hence her dropping by Ye-eun's place every so often to see me. Though I hadn't known she'd be here today, either.

"Well, you seem to be doing well, so that's a relief. Anything inconvenient about living arrangements?"

"Nah. The facilities are great."

For the record: I'd decided to move into the second-team dorms. We were newlyweds on paper, sure, but we hadn't even held the wedding yet, and living off-site from year one would draw too many stares — so into the dorms I went.

Instead, Ye-eun had gotten a real place of her own in the small town near the training facility. Thirty minutes away by run, one way. Thanks to that, I got to see her face practically every day. At the dorms, honestly, my life was training and sleeping, nothing more.

This probably wasn't proper dorm life, technically speaking — but if anyone complained, I'd just say the word "newlywed" and that'd be the end of it. Who's going to argue with that?

"So, still no word on opening day?"

"They said there'd be one interleague game in late April, but nothing on how they're actually going to start the season."

It goes without saying: if schools in Korea are postponing opening, there's no way a league runs properly.

The exhibition games originally scheduled for late March had all been canceled, and the season opener was on indefinite hold.

Ho-yeol, who'd been riding a wave of momentum and dreaming of the season, was utterly crushed. He went around lamenting that nothing in his life ever worked out, and honestly, there was something pitiable about the man himself.

But Ye-eun and Min-ah couldn't care less about some middle-aged guy they didn't know. Apparently I was the thing to worry about.

"Seriously, why did this have to happen during Yi-seon's debut season of all times."

"Exactly. Why now, of all times?"

This was the stretch of a debut season when a player was supposed to get his chances, experience real games and team training — and now the league looked set to derail. Unlike me, they didn't already know the future, so the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠worry showed all over them.

Not that I could say, "I already know how this plays out — the league will open, just without fans, so don't worry." So with no actual basis whatsoever, I just kept reassuring the two of them that it would all be fine.

And honestly? I was in a good mood. Sure, part of it was knowing the future and not sweating the season much — but I was in a good mood about something other than baseball.

I turned to the guiltier of the two women hanging off my arms — Ye-eun.

"Lee Ye-eun. Remember what I told you before?"

"Told me about what?"

"That from now on, you live off the allowance I give you."

Look, I'd received a hefty rookie signing bonus, and as a pro I'd be drawing a salary now, too. But I'd sunk every won of that signing bonus into overseas investments, and while my salary wasn't pocket change, it was the league minimum — not exactly a fortune. What little was left had gone into securing this villa.

Ye-eun, who knew all of this perfectly well, gave me a what nonsense is this look. Min-ah simply and cleanly ignored the whole statement. But I, beaming with smug pride, held out my smartphone screen, saying there was something I wanted to show them.

I'd been sitting on it, you see — on the theory that if you want to properly shock someone, this is the kind of return you need to bring.

"...This isn't photoshopped, right?"

"Is that even a real site? Isn't it some kind of scam? They say there are tons of fraudsters these days who promise to handle overseas investing, take your money, and never actually invest a thing."

I let them doubt to their hearts' content, saying nothing.

They checked whether my brokerage app was real from every angle, then demanded proof the account was actually mine, and finally stared at the return rate forever to make sure they'd seen it right — and in the end, the two of them looked at me with expressions of pure disbelief.

"The won-to-dollar rate today is..."

"It broke 1,200 won. So that's, what, roughly 12 billion won..."

Granted, realizing those gains would mean taxes and a fair bit of hassle — but even after all that, it would clear several billion won with room to spare. And this was only the beginning. It was going to climb further still.

Yes. This is it. This is how you establish the head of household's authority.

While I was busy turning crisis into opportunity and cementing my household authority, for most people a crisis was just... a crisis.

And when a crisis hits, the people who suffer most are the leaders of organizations.

"Yi-seon... your noona is seriously going to die like this..."

"You've been working hard."

Seo-hee had gone completely limp in her chair and started whimpering. Coming to me to unload her grievances had become a daily routine for her by now.

It might seem unusual for a club president and a rookie player to meet this often. But we go back to high school. If I'm close with the president and want to see her often, is there a single person alive with the right to complain?

Beyond that — while most executives treat the baseball club presidency as a soft landing spot before retirement, for Seo-hee this was her first real position of responsibility at a young age, and unlike other presidents she was throwing herself into the job completely.

So where any other club would never see the president's face, Seo-hee was personally seeking out the rank-and-file staff, the non-starters, even second-team players, to talk with them one by one. Given that, the sheer frequency aside, there was nothing strange about her chatting with a rookie like me.

The problem was simply that she was overextending herself out of sheer excess of drive. Fundamentally, for introverts like Seo-hee and me, constant conversation with other people is stress — a hideous form of emotional labor that drains you dry.

"Should we just shut down the second-team facility entirely? Tell everyone to go home and train on their own?"

Today, once again, she'd been hammering out measures — sanitation contractors, disinfection, cleaning protocols — determined to establish solid countermeasures now that communal living had become a risk. In the process, she'd worn herself completely out meeting every second-team player, every coach, every staff member individually.

Some players argued that training in these conditions was difficult enough that they should stay in the dorms as long as possible, while others insisted that a dorm was a perfect breeding ground for an epidemic, so they'd rather shut down the second-team housing entirely and send everyone home.

Mediating between the two camps, presenting workable alternatives, sounding out people on the ground while negotiating with other clubs about whether second-team games would proceed at all.

As for the first-team side, the league commissioner's office was handling negotiations with the government rather than the individual clubs, so Seo-hee was focusing more on the second team — but there were still plenty of meetings a president had to attend. She couldn't fully tune out the first-team issues either.

Hence her daily shuttle between the second-team training facility and the first-team offices, unable to sit still on either front.

For a district supposedly in the same province, the distance was considerable, and the commuting alone seemed to exhaust her.

In moments like these, telling someone to "hang in there" backfires. They're already straining to keep going; telling them to strain harder just drains what's left. So instead, I expressed my gratitude.

"Everything's running smoothly because of you, noona. The seniors in the dorms are all satisfied, too. There are gripes, sure, but those are things outside your control."

You're doing well. That's what most people who are grinding away actually want to hear. Whether my answer helped or not, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Seo-hee grumbled a few more times about how hard it all was, then managed to gather a bit of her energy back.

"Right... I have to keep it together... Yi-seon, is anything bothering you? Any problems on your end?"

"Hmm, let's see. Being away from Ye-eun and Min-ah?"

At that, Seo-hee let out a small laugh. She'd watched the two of them orbit me since our second year of high school, and she also knew that Ye-eun had finally filed the marriage paperwork.

"Aigoo, honestly. Nothing but girls on the brain since forever ago."

"Girls, noona? I only have my girls on the brain."

Say "girls" flat out and I sound like some guy who'll chase anything in a skirt. I am, at minimum, not a man unhinged by women.

Seo-hee smiled — and for some reason, it looked faintly bittersweet. No matter how much you cheer someone on, a tired body is a tired body, I suppose.

So our conversation carried on until the topics ran dry, at which point Seo-hee let out a small sigh. After a brief pause, she broached something with unusual care.

"Yi-seon. Are you free tomorrow, by any chance?"

"Tomorrow?"

"Hah hah hah! Even better-looking in person. This old man is a fan of yours, Mr. Kim Yi-seon! A fan!"

A café inside an upscale hotel somewhere in Seoul.

The grandfather seated across from me, paying his coffee no mind whatsoever, was laughing heartily and chattering at me with great enthusiasm.

Beside him, Seo-hee sat with the posture of a woman carved from marble, every detail perfect — exactly like the first day we'd met. It had been a while since I'd seen Career Woman Mode. Around me lately she'd been nothing but corner-hermit mode.

"These days I live for watching our Mr. Kim Yi-seon play. They're only exhibition games so far, but the praise is already pouring in. Trouble is, I hardly know anyone else who likes baseball, so I've got nowhere to brag — the best I can do is crow at Kim Jeong-yeol over at Daesan."

He said it like he was naming some buddy from the neighborhood — but "Kim Jeong-yeol of Daesan" is the chairman of the Daesan Group, a conglomerate firmly inside South Korea's top ten chaebol.

He was also, as it happened, the owner of the Pyongyang Fighters — which tells you instantly that the old man in front of me was no ordinary person.

This baseball-loving grandfather was the owner of the Seoul Twins and the chairman of the Seoul Group, one of Korea's major chaebol empires: Chairman Han Tae-gun.

And that Chairman Han Tae-gun had sent word, through his granddaughter Seo-hee, that he wished to see me, specifically, in person.

Why he'd bother requesting a meeting with a mere rookie, I couldn't say. Even now he was rattling on about nothing but baseball, so I half-wondered if he really was just a fan.

Then, all of a sudden, Chairman Han's eyes gleamed, and he fired off an utterly out-of-nowhere question.

"Now then — purely out of personal curiosity, mind you, but how exactly did our Mr. Kim Yi-seon arrive at his conviction?"

"Conviction?"

"About this investment of yours."

He set down his coffee cup, and the entire atmosphere changed in an instant. Intimidation? Pressure?

"Your rookie signing bonus. A lump sum like that won't come again for years — if ever. And you sank every won of it into commodity inverse funds and shorts on a handful of specific stocks. That is no ordinary degree of conviction."

His tone was light, but the air was anything but. His eyes pressed at me as if to say, I already know everything — so out with it.

My breath caught. So an old grandfather could radiate this much force. Even the Japanese national team hitters standing in the batter's box against me hadn't been this bad.

But I had to answer with a lie that wasn't a lie.

"It was just... just a hunch."

"A hunch?"

"Yes. Just went with my gut."

I couldn't exactly ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠say, "I know a pandemic sweeps the whole world because I already lived through it before I reincarnated," now could I?

My answer clearly didn't satisfy him, because the pressure only mounted. Even Seo-hee began to tense up at the atmosphere.

"It seems our Mr. Kim Yi-seon only has a brave heart when he's standing on the mound!"

And then — snap — all that tension dissolved in a single beat. The chairman just laughed and laughed, delighted about who knows what.

We talked baseball for a long while after that, and eventually he had to leave to meet another guest, so we parted ways. In my hand was the chairman's business card, pressed into it with a promise: if I ever needed a favor, he'd grant at least one.

What he actually wanted from me, I still had no idea.

Seo-hee, drained herself, trudged off on completely spent legs.

"Grandfather gets like that sometimes. His pet theory is that you absolutely must meet people face to face. There's no real malice in him, so don't let it get to you."

Coming from someone who looked equally exhausted, that argument had zero persuasive power, noona.

Still, I nodded to show I understood. It wasn't the kind of thing that would resolve itself no matter how long I chewed on it.

And then, a few days later — surely not what Chairman Han had intended, but — Seo-hee and I came to learn at least one thing that meeting had truly meant.

For the record: the day we'd met the chairman fell comfortably within the incubation window relative to the date of his positive test.

Seo-hee and I were now squarely in must-self-quarantine territory. And, as it happened, we'd ended up quarantining together in a corner of the second-team dorms.