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MLB.com | Coveted 2-Way Phenom Seungmin Kim to Sign With Oakland A’s

By Christopher Bahng

OAKLAND — In perhaps the coup of the off-season, the A’s have emerged as the winner of the Seungmin Kim sweepstakes.  Following a wild courtship from all thirty Major League teams,  Kim’s agent, Hyunjin Hwang of CAA Baseball, released a statement on Friday revealing that the South Korean two-way phenom has chosen to join the Oakland Athletics.  The 25-year-old Kim, who starred as a right-handed ace and a left-handed slugger in the KBO, became the most coveted free agent this offseason after being posted by the Lotte Giants last week.  According to sources, Kim is set to make $200 million over the course of his four-year contract, and Oakland must also pay a release fee of around $20 million to his former club. Read more… 

***

Kim Seungmin, two-time KBO MVP and newest member of the Oakland A’s, has a problem.

“You didn't tell me your friend was hot,” Seungmin accuses, balancing his phone on his knee as he sits on the floor of his brand new walk-in closet (!!), organizing his socks.  He has his system down to a science by now:  practice socks in one row, dress socks in another, and casual socks in their own drawer.  Uniform socks, of course, stay at the stadium. 

“When would I have brought it up?” Jisung’s voice is tinny through the speakers, interrupted periodically by the clicking of his keyboard.  It’s nighttime in Seoul, and his familiar round face is lit only by the light emanating from the computer. 

“Literally at any point!”

Jisung raises his voice an octave in mocking mimicry.  “Hey, Seungmin-ah, I know you've been finding the food they serve in the team cafeteria super boring, maybe you can work something out with my university friend who lives nearby who’s a health nut and cooks really well but needs somewhere to do it because the kitchen in his apartment is shit and oh by the way he's hot.”

Seungmin points at his phone with a single, yet-unpaired sock, leaning over to frown at the tiny Jisung on his phone screen.  “Exactly!  You could've given me a heads up!”

“And what would that have accomplished?”

“I would've been mentally prepared!”

It’s true that the mental preparation wouldn't have changed anything about his behavior—Seungmin’s mother had taught him far too well for that—but he wouldn't have had to rely so much on muscle memory and well-practiced social graces to pull himself through their first encounter if he'd just been warned in advance.

Jisung snorts.  “Relax, dude.  Minho-hyung might be good looking, but he's so weird you forget about it real fast.  Just give it a week, and you'll be calling to complain about his personality, not his looks.”

“Looking forward to it,” Seungmin says drily.  

***

Lee Minho is not big on formalities, apparently, or social boundaries.  

“Call me hyung,” he'd offered casually, just moments after their first meeting.  He’d been bustling around Seungmin's kitchen, opening and closing every single cabinet with ferocious speed.  Most of the cabinets had been empty, save the one containing the small stack of plates and bowls Seungmin had gotten from Ikea when he'd first moved in.  “Any friend of Jisung’s is a friend of mine.”

“Okay, hyung,” Seungmin said, taking immediate advantage.

After approximately thirty more seconds, Minho closed the last cabinet door with more force than strictly necessary, frowning at Seungmin like he'd just discovered a new, perplexing species of bug.  “Don't you own anything?”  

Seungmin shrugged, leaned against the wall with deliberate nonchalance.  

“Was waiting for you, hyung.”  He’d grinned at Minho, then, let every single one of his teeth show.  “To tell me what to buy.”

Which is how Seungmin finds himself at the knife store—a place he hadn't known existed two days ago—trying to figure out the difference between a saucing soon and a normal spoon.  Minho’s already picked out three knives and gotten them sharpened to his liking, then wandered over to examine the carbon steel pans.  A single knife had cost three times more than the current contents of Seungmin’s cabinets had cost in total, but he doesn't complain, just follows and listens as Minho chatters on about pre-seasoning and handle lengths.

“Are you thinking of making crepes often?”

“Well, no,” Minho allows, “but it's important that a pan not be too nonstick no matter what you're making.  Same principle applies to jeon, more or less, and of course—”

He launches into a discussion of the importance of fond—not the emotion, apparently, but rather the bits of food stuck to the bottom of a pan when you cook it—to a good pan sauce, and they continue on like that through the entire checkout process and out the door.

Seungmin adjusts his grip on the bags to check his watch.  It’s still late morning, and he doesn't have to be at the stadium until 2.  

“I saw online that there's a place down the street that sells yujacha americanos,” he says carefully.  

Minho eyes him.  “You want to try it?”

“Yes,” Seungmin says.  He shifts the bag with the knives in it from one hand to the other.  “We can drink them in the park, if you're not in a rush.”

Minho squints at him for a second, as if trying to figure something out.  Seungmin meets Minho’s gaze head on, forcing himself not to fidget under the scrutiny.

“I’ve got time,” Minho says at last.  “Lead on, Kim Seungmin.”

***

The first time Minho comes over to cook, Seungmin doesn't know what to do with himself.  It feels rude to stay in his room, but it also feels rude to loiter in the kitchen without helping.  He could offer to help, but would he be in the way?  Maybe Minho’s one of those people who likes the kitchen empty of other people when he cooks.  Seungmin’s mother is like that, back home.  She'd refused to let either him or his sister into the kitchen for years, and now she complains that they’ve both turned out completely useless at cooking.  Go figure.

“Kim Seungmin,” Minho says, jolting Seungmin out of his musings.  “Don’t just stand there like a kicked puppy.  Can you cut vegetables?”

“If you show me how big you want them,” Seungmin says, honestly. 

Minho nods and demonstrates without any further commentary, for which Seungmin is grateful.  He chops onions and kimchi and zucchini and radish and peppers and spinach and minari, which Minho turns into a steaming pot of doenjang-jjigae and a staggering assortment of banchan.  They eat side by side at the kitchen island, swinging their feet from the barstools Seungmin had gotten delivered just three days prior. 

It’s delicious, just as Jisung had said, and especially delicious after two months of eating bland nutritionist-approved nonsense.

After that, they fall into a rhythm.  Minho has the passcode and his own slippers waiting by the doorway for when he comes by on Tuesday and Friday mornings.  When Seungmin’s home, he joins Minho in the kitchen, and Minho tells him what to do and how to do it.  When they’re finished cooking, they eat lunch together, sharing heaping servings of food between them.  Then Minho packs up his portions of the leftovers and takes them back home, and Seungmin cleans up before he heads off to the stadium.  

When Seungmin’s team is on the road, Minho still comes by to use the kitchen, though he mostly cooks for himself, Seungmin’s portions reduced to fresh banchan in the fridge and a day or two of home-cooked meals for when he gets back.

It works, somehow, and with every passing day Seungmin's little apartment starts to feel less like a place he comes back to sleep in and more like a place he lives.

***

There are many things he misses about Busan, about his homeland more generally, but his notoriety there isn’t one of them.  Seungmin hasn't been able to take the subway in years, not since he’d helped lead the team that won the Asia Games near the beginning of his career.  He’s missed it, the gentle whir of the motor, the soothing rhythm of the announcements, the ability to duck into a train car and go anywhere, at any time.  

It’s been nice to start over, to come over as a rookie, more or less, and have to prove himself all over again.  He’s confident in his skills, in his ability to grow, has faith that they’ll eventually mean his stardom here will eclipse even the fame he’d experienced back home.  For now, though, he takes full advantage of his relative anonymity to do all the things he hasn't been able to.

When he ducks into a train heading out of San Francisco—the City, he corrects himself mentally—on a random Tuesday morning, Minho’s there, frowning down at his phone.  He’s got big silver headphones on, chin tucked into the oversized shearling collar of his leather jacket.  Cozy, but untouchable.

Seungmin settles in an adjacent seat, reaches out to tap Minho’s foot with his own.

Minho jerks his head up, gaze fiery.  It takes him a moment to recognize Seungmin, bundled up as he is in a mask and cap, and the tension bleeds out of Minho’s shoulders immediately when he does.  Seungmin tries and fails to hold back the warmth bubbling up inside him at that observation.

Minho tugs his headphones off. 

“Yah, Kim Seungmin,” he says.  He’s not smiling, but he’s also not not smiling.  “Didn't your mother teach you not to sneak up on people?”

“Wasn't sneaking,” Seungmin retorts, “you just weren't paying attention.”

Minho shoots him the briefest of glares at that, but doesn't make any moves to put his headphones back on.  “Don't be cute.”

“Sorry, can't help it.”  It’s a reflex at this point, needling Minho like this now that Seungmin’s settled into their acquaintanceship.  Not quite a friendship, not just yet, but something vaguer, undefined.  “Genetic condition.  I'm biologically required to be cute, actually.”

Minho rolls his eyes harder than Seungmin had previously thought possible, simultaneously huffing out a sigh and knocking his head back dramatically against the station map on the wall of the train car.  “Are you biologically required to be annoying, too?”

“Nope!  I developed that talent all on my own.”  Seungmin shoots Minho his sunniest grin, leaning forward to rest his chin on his hands and bat his eyelashes.

Minho’s expression remains unimpressed.  “Nature versus nurture, huh.”

“Didn't take you for a science guy, hyung.”  Seungmin’s lying, of course, knows all too well from Jisung’s many stories that Minho had majored in electrical engineering before deciding to do dance full time.  

“There are many things you don't know about me, Kim Seungmin,” Minho says cryptically.  He tilts his head just slightly more towards Seungmin, eyebrows raised in challenge.  Their shoes brush.  Seungmin does not shiver.  

Instead, he settles back against his seat, gestures broadly to the headphones Minho’s slung around his neck.  “What are you listening to?”

Minho accepts the subject change for what it is, presses his headphones to Seungmin's ears to play him the song Minho's team is currently choreographing.  The train rumbles on beneath the waves separating Oakland and San Francisco, a solitary spot of light in the darkness carrying them both back home.

***

“Why don't you just find a new apartment, if yours is so shit?”  Seungmin asks one day, after a particularly long rant about Minho’s shitty fucking oven and useless thermostat that spins a wheel to pick whatever temperature it feels like that day.  

Minho looks at him like he's lost his mind.  “Because mine’s rent-controlled.”

Seungmin frowns, still baffled.  “From what Jisung’s said, it's not like you can't afford to pay more.”

“It’s a matter of principle, Kim Seungmin,” Minho sniffs, turning back to his cabbage-washing.  “You can't seriously tell me an apartment like mine is worth $1000 more a month now than when I moved in five years ago!  And anyways, your kitchen is nicer than anything in the apartments available near the studio.”

Seungmin can't disagree with that.  He also doesn't really want Minho to find a new apartment, not if it means he’ll stop coming over and Seungmin has to buy lunch at the caf again.  So he clamps his mouth shut and doesn't press, just sidles closer and asks what he can do to help.

***

Seungmin’s surprised, the first time he finds one of Minho’s notes.  He pulls one of Minho’s carefully packed Tupperwares out of his bag at dinner one day before a game, and a little yellow post-it note comes fluttering out with it.  He picks it up off the floor, eyebrows furrowed.

Eat well so you have energy for your game, the post-it says simply in Minho’s neat handwriting, accompanied by a crude drawing of a wrinkly old man face.

It takes a moment for Seungmin to realize that he's smiling.  He quickly reigns it in—he has a reputation to uphold, after all, one that does not involve grinning foolishly down at his dinner—and snaps a picture to send to Minho.  

Great self-portrait, hyung, looks just like you, he types, before tucking the note and his phone into his bag and eating his dinner.

When the game wraps up, he has sixteen unread notifications from Minho, ranging from how dare you!!! to his name is JUREUMI to see if i ever draw him for u ever again😑.

Seungmin cackles to himself and leaves Minho on read.

He starts leaving Minho notes in return, especially before he leaves for roadies.  He’s not an artist by any stretch of the imagination, so he leaves little nonsense comments and tidbits of gossip, coupons for the grocery store and recommendations for songs Minho might like.

Minho draws him infinite variations of Jureumi, enough for Seungmin to populate a whole village of them.  Seungmin saves them all in an unused drawer in the kitchen, smiles to himself as he imagines Minho hunched over the kitchen counter drawing, tongue between his teeth as he freehands the familiar lines.

It’s fun, passing notes back and forth like this.  It makes him feel Minho’s presence even on the days he doesn't come to Seungmin’s, even when Seungmin’s flown off to some far-flung city halfway across the country.  He feels Minho in every scribbled Jureumi, in every terse comment. 

He wonders absently if Minho feels the same, if Minho even reads his notes.  They don't usually respond to each other, and Minho’s never directly brought up anything Seungmin’s said in his notes.  But sometimes Seungmin will clip a coupon for some product and it’ll be in their pantry the next time he comes home, or he'll recommend a song that Minho will play weeks later, while the two of them are standing side by side at the kitchen counter.  

Seungmin’s stack of saved notes grows and grows, and with them a comfortable familiarity he hasn't felt since he left his best friends behind on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

***

It’s shaping up to be a warm day today, the first non-cloudy day in a long stretch, and Seungmin is happy even though it's 9 in the morning and he’s already burned his toast.  He hears the telltale sound of Minho entering the passcode, and calls out to him.  “Hyung!  In here!”

“I know where you are, I can smell the smoke—”  Minho enters the kitchen, two full grocery bags in hand, and immediately stops short.  “Oh.  Shorts.”

Seungmin blinks at him.  “What?” 

“What?”  Minho turns away to busy himself with the groceries.  His ears are steadily reddening.

Oh.  Oh.  Seungmin’s smile broadens.

Minho glances over, no doubt to gauge Seungmin’s extended silence.  He scowls at whatever he sees on Seungmin's face, turning resolutely back to his produce.

“Hyung,” Seungmin singsongs, working his way into Minho’s space.  “Are you distracted by my knees?  Do you like seeing my calves? I worked hard on them, you know, they're insured and everything.”

Minho shoves several boxes of mushrooms into the fridge more violently than strictly necessary.  “I thought it was just your arm that's insured.”

“Oh, so you're keeping track of my limb insurance now?”  Seungmin sticks a single leg into Minho’s field of vision, wiggling his eyebrows for good measure.

Minho pointedly does not look at him or his bare legs.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Minho mutters.  He pushes away Seungmin’s proffered leg with a carton of eggs.  “Keep your limbs to yourself, Kim Seungmin.”

Seungmin laughs at him before complying, absconding to the other side of the kitchen island before Minho can threaten him with anything sharper.  

***

There are muffled voices in the kitchen when Seungmin gets home from his morning run.  He’d left a bit later than usual this morning, having had errands to run beforehand.  Minho, it appears, had arrived early.  It’s nice, coming home to noise rather than a silent apartment.

“Hyung?”  he calls, replacing his sneakers on the shoe rack before padding his way into the kitchen.  

Minho’s alone by the kitchen island, looking down at his phone as he cuts green onions into a small bowl.  He looks up at Seungmin’s entrance, broad grin shrinking into a more private smile.  

“Ah, Seungmin’s home,” he tells his phone, setting down his scissors to turn his phone around, revealing Jisung’s round face peering through the screen.

“Seungminnie!”  Jisung exclaims.  “It’s been ages since you last called!  How’s training?  I saw you guys are playing in Texas next week?  Is it gonna be hot?  Is Minho-hyung feeding you well?”

“I called you last week,” Seungmin says, laughing.  He drops his water bottle in the sink and starts washing the dishes there, the cutting board and pot from whatever Minho had been cooking piled on top of Seungmin’s plate from breakfast.  “Training is good, I’m leaving for Texas on Monday, it’s going to be hot but not too bad, and Minho-hyung has already tried to poison me twice this week.”

“Third time’s the charm,” Minho says brightly, reaching over to offer Seungmin a piece of chicken.  Seungmin accepts with an open mouth, hands soapy.

Jisung’s laughter is tinny through Minho’s phone speakers.  “I see you two are getting along well.”  

“We’re enemies,” Seungmin says through his bite of chicken.  “Didn’t you just hear him threatening me?”

The conversation moves on from there, to the latest anime Minho and Jisung are watching together and the romantic woes of various mutual friends.  Seungmin is content to listen, busying his hands with cleaning and stirring and whatever Minho needs.  Minho laughs more when he’s talking to Jisung, Seungmin notes, the conversation free-flowing and filled with stupid jokes.  Minho breaks into a giggling fit after one especially atrocious dad joke, and Seungmin finds himself smiling despite himself. 

He’s jolted from his task of drying the dishes when Jisung suddenly exclaims, “Ah, right!  Have you packed for Japan yet, Minho-hyung?” 

“Japan?”  Seungmin asks, bewildered.

Minho glances over, brow furrowed.  “Surely I told you I’m going on tour next week?”

Minho had told him, Seungmin realizes, he just hadn’t mentioned the tour would be in Japan.  Minho had just said that he’d be gone for about a month, leading the backup dancers for a well-known female soloist, and wouldn’t be able to come over for a while.  So you’ll have to content yourself with the cafeteria food for a bit, he’d said.  Don’t eat too much instant ramen when I’m gone.

I’ll do my best, Seungmin had said with a little salute, and that had been the end of it.

***

Minho’s only been in Japan for two weeks, but it feels like an eternity.

Seungmin lays flat on his back in his hotel room bed, staring at the darkness of his phone screen and wishing he had an excuse to call.  Would Minho even be able to talk right now?  It’s midday in Japan, but he doesn't know what Minho’s schedule is.  It’s a weird feeling, not knowing what Minho’s doing.  When had he gotten so accustomed to the rhythm of their daily lives?

In the end, he settles for a simple text.

10:53 PM  Hyung, are you eating well?

Then he tosses his phone onto the nightstand, pulls the covers resolutely over his head, and goes to sleep.

In the morning, he wakes up to two photos, accompanied by a simple text.

cat hyung~

[photo]

[photo]

delicious lunch~  4:12 AM

Seungmin’s smile threatens to swallow his whole face.  He sends a sticker of a penguin eating fries in return, then tucks his phone into his pocket and goes down to eat breakfast.

After that, he receives at least one picture a day, but usually two or three.  Most of the time it's food, photos taken so close the actual food is out of focus while the minuscule flecks of seasoning on top are perfectly sharp.  Sometimes it's a stray cat twining itself around Minho’s legs.  Once, it's a selfie.  Just Minho, looking fresh-faced and beautiful, leaning backwards at a frankly ridiculous angle to take a picture with a statue of a dog.  He's captioned it fancy seeing you here~.  

Seungmin lets himself study Minho’s round brown eyes, the sharp angle of his nose, the swoop of dark hair falling over his forehead.  He sees Minho all the time, nowadays, but he doesn't usually get a chance to just look at him like this.  He wants to look at Minho, Seungmin realizes abruptly.  He wants to be allowed to run his eyes over those familiar features without a time limit, to let his gaze linger on Minho’s high cheekbones, the curve of his jaw, his bunny teeth.  It’s something more than the initial aesthetic attraction he’d complained to Jisung about, something warmer, deeper, more intimate.

The rush of want rises in him so quickly it's overwhelming. Seungmin's abruptly glad there's no one else in the room, no one else to see the stab of longing no doubt written all over his face.  He sends a voice note in response without thinking too much about it, just two quick barks, short and playful.

Then he leaves for practice, patting his pockets on the way out to make sure he's not forgetting anything.  He doesn't save the picture.

***

Seungmin lets himself into Minho’s apartment with the spare key Minho had left at Seungmin’s before he'd gone to the airport.  It’s bright, and more spacious than Seungmin had imagined from Minho’s constant griping about his apartment.  Plants adorn the large bay window, and there’s a bicycle hung from the wall by the dining table, surrounded by various cat shelves and cat toys.

Conspicuously missing, however, are the cats themselves.

He crouches down, peering underneath various pieces of furniture to try to catch a glimpse of them.  After a moment of hesitation, he peeks into the bedroom.  It looks cozy, filled with posters and knickknacks and stacks of books.  There’s a large cat tree by the window, and little star lights strung across the ceiling.

No cats, though.

Minho had said they might be shy, but Seungmin hadn’t expected not to see them at all.  The disappointment is more acute than he’d expected.  It would have been nice to see Minho's cats, to meet the brothers he spends so much time chattering on about.

He sighs and gives up, goes to check the stock of lactobacillus to make sure that Minho’s new petsitter has been administering the daily dose as instructed.  Everything looks in order, as do the water bowls and the litter boxes.  

He texts Minho as much, and receives a thumbs up in reply.  

Then he lets himself back out, back to his own apartment and his own life.

***

Jisung sends him a Tiktok out of the blue, which isn't wholly unusual.  What is unusual is that the thumbnail is of Minho. 

OUR BOY IS FAMOUS, Jisung had texted alongside the video.

Seungmin frowns, clicks the link with mild trepidation.  It opens in browser, of course, because Seungmin steadfastly refuses to download the app, and he’s immediately confronted with Minho’s tiny waist and broad shoulders in some sort of tight-fitting stage outfit, hair immaculately styled and dark eyeshadow sharpening his feline gaze. 

It takes Seungmin approximately half a body roll to realize that it's a thirst trap edit, set to a sultry R&B remix of a popular song and captioned simply 🥵🥵🥵.  He blinks once, twice, then clicks to replay the video.

The notification at the top of his phone screen interrupts his sixth rewatch.  ??? HAVE U WATCHED IT YET, Jisung demands.

Seungmin rolls his eyes and types out a quick affirmative.

hannie~

AND????????  11:09 PM

 11:09 PM  Wdym and

hannie~

WHAT DO U THINK   11:09 PM

11:10 PM  The editor did a good job

hannie~

coward.  11:10 PM

11:10 PM  Takes one to know one~

hannie~

SO U ADMIT UR A COWARD  11:10 PM

I admit nothing
11:10 PM  Good night, Jisung-ah

11:11 PM 

Jisung spams Seungmin with thirst trap edits of himself on the baseball field in retaliation.  Seungmin ignores them, like he always does.

(And if Seungmin spends another hour on his phone scrolling through clips of “the hot dancer from the Japan tour,” Jisung doesn't have to know.)

***

When Minho gets back two weeks later, he brings Seungmin back a delicate mug with a hand-painted tree on it.  Seungmin marvels at the detail, turning it over with hands that suddenly seem far too big, far too rough.  

“It’s just a cup,”  Minho says, looking away.  His ears are pink.  

“I’ll use it well, hyung,” Seungmin promises.  It comes out more sincere than he'd intended.