1. APTX4869 Can Go Freeze to Death
He'd calmly rung a ball off some kid's face, then stood there lost in deep thought without a word of apology — and sure, he'd taken the return throw and gotten called out for it. But this was just children playing a game of dodgeball. It didn't exactly spark his interest. Reality was slowly creeping toward 2050, yet nobody had ever invented cyber-dodgeball, and the rules remained the same. Unless some kid had swallowed uranium somewhere and set the ball on fire, getting hit meant it hurt a little. That was the whole story.
'So, I was Jung In-seong... I think. And now I'm Noh In-seong, elementary school student.'
Unlike that deranged mass-murdering cult that liked playing detective, he had either been outright reborn — or, judging by how hazy his memories were, the merger-and-acquisition paperwork had been completed way back in infancy. Honestly, he could only vaguely recall when he'd died, or who he'd even been. His skull had collided with an icy road in a way that was in no way good — concussion or something — and that must have been the end of it.
'So I'm not a second-playthrough save file. I'm an inherited character.'
Far too quick a judgment for an elementary schooler. This was the original Jung In-seong's decision speed. But the body had long since become a factory-fresh marvel, brimming with a small child's overflowing vitality. He had no idea what this body's potential was, but a mediocre pitcher, a mediocre hitter, and a frame wrecked from chasing both — and with nothing but experience and decision speed, he'd stayed pro until thirty-six, until the physical decline simply refused to stop... The conclusion was simple: as long as this body could keep up with the him of back then, he could survive as a pro.
'...Not bad? For starters, I won't have to watch my step around the baseball club, and I won't have to give a damn what anyone at school thinks...'
Considering the absurd difficulty of his past life as an orphan, this life's difficulty had become comically, almost offensively easy...
A sly grin spread across Noh In-seong's face — a smile befitting his brand-new surname. It felt as though nearly every obstacle between him and professional baseball had simply evaporated.
"...S-sor...ry..."
'Why is it so noisy around here?'
"An apo...logy? I-I never..."
'Oh, right. I did smash in some kid's face I'd never seen before in my life.'
A little girl with blood-stained tissues stuffed up both nostrils was tearfully clutching her teacher's hand.
"Hey! I told you to apologize, and I mean now!"
The female teacher's face carried a hint of irritation. Teacher authority must have risen a notch in this life — back when the original him was alive, it was a profession that couldn't so much as say those words.
'...That's all well and good, but seriously, lady.'
"Me? Apologize? For that? Why?"
But he was a man who'd lived to nearly forty, a man who'd worked in a sports-adjacent profession. And anything that happened on the grass deserved to end on the grass. That was simply how it ought to be.
"...Wh-what?! What on earth are you talking about?"
No matter how acutely the teacher might be feeling yet another erosion of her authority, this was, unmistakably, an intrusion into sport.
"Why would I apologize for something that happened during a game?"
This is the world of men, ma'am. Kindly go search for the world of women.
For the first time across both of his lives, Noh In-seong succeeded in widening his eyes and flatly refusing a teacher's instruction. After nearly forty years of living decently, this was practically his first act of open defiance.
'...What is this? I feel... strangely unburdened?'
Intoxicated by the pleasure of rebellion, Noh In-seong snickered to himself.
"...This brat, for real?!"
— completely failing to notice that he was raising the teacher's blood pressure in real time.
Naturally, he got chewed out. Hauled all the way to the teachers' office for a lecture about how sports are about children becoming good friends, and social development, and... blah, blah, blah. Apparently the world of men had been forcibly dismantled by the era's endless layers of political correctness.
"Ugh, well, that's a shame... so anyway, then..."
"...Are you going to take out those earphones or not?!"
After listening with one ear while failing to jam a wireless earbud into the other — and getting scolded for that, too — Noh In-seong, thoroughly annoyed at having endured close to forty-five minutes of sermonizing, finally sauntered out the school gate.
"...I think it was somewhere around here?"
Following the map his own memories helpfully retrieved of the route home, he arrived at the edge of the neighborhood.
Whiff! Bam! Hooo! PING!
"Huh? There's a spot playing baseball near our house? Never saw it in my memories, so it must be new."
What caught his eye was a gaggle of little kids playing around with baseball bats and balls. Perfect timing, honestly. He was in a rotten mood anyway — might as well loosen the body up a bit. They'd let him join if he asked, right?
The result of Noh In-seong shamelessly inserting himself among the kids at the baseball clinic was, frankly, excellent.
CLAAANG---!!
"...Wow. His hitting's better than most middle school players."
The clinic's director, Jung Yong-chan, murmured his admiration under his breath. And no wonder — when some kid shuffling along in Crocs had asked to join in, he'd found it more than a little absurd.
"Hey, this is a place for kids who've actually played baseball. Beginners need to, uh, you know. Start with the basics, one step at a time..."
"Ugh, old man, you're loud. I've played baseball longer than you have... no wait, that doesn't work anymore, does it. Let's just say I'm better and leave it at that."
Setting aside how he'd been insufferable from the very first word — he claimed to have experience, yet no spikes, no glove, and obviously no uniform. At least have a bat or a ball in your hands before running your mouth. A kid hauling what looked like a school backpack asking to 'tag into your game, please?' His credibility was already in the gutter.
"...Sigh. Fine. Just don't come crying when you get hit."
Conveniently, none of the player-class kids were around, so he shipped the boy off to third base — the position children hate most. How well could some random civilian kid throw, anyway? He'd be lucky if the ball didn't bounce twice before arriving.
"He'll probably go home in tears the moment a ball comes at him in a straight line."
Jung Yong-chan figured the kid would soon feel the limits of a beginner and sign up for the academy properly. And then, into his eyes—
CLANG!
Unlike the light ping of aluminum, the ball traveled deep and fast — scooped cleanly with the glove, transferred to the bare hand, and fired to first base.
"OUT!"
Paying the umpire's bark no more mind than whether it was out or not, the kid was already reading the next situation and repositioning himself. A seamless string of beautiful defensive plays, without a single wasted motion, burned itself into Jung Yong-chan's eyes.
"Wow. Fast throw, too — and right on the chest, exactly where it should be."
Fielding: pass. Where had this kid ground through Little League? Had he drilled nothing but defense to get this good? At that age?
"Where did you transfer from? Where'd you learn baseball before this?"
As though to cut off Jung Yong-chan's desperate 'You're a member of my academy as of today' declaration—
"Transfer? I'm a native of this neighborhood, sir."
Whether or not Noh In-seong's jaw-dropping answer froze the director solid... For the first time in his second life, Noh In-seong picked up a proper baseball bat and headed for the plate.
'An aluminum bat, huh... When was the last time I swung one of these?'
Not once since middle school. His memories drifted back to the old days, when it was nothing but black-painted wood — ash or maple, take your pick. He settled into his batting stance... and naturally, the old form failed to load.
'Ugh, damn it all. If I swung with my pro swing, the body might survive one rep. Might.'
This elementary schooler's frame had neither the muscles hitting required nor the lower half to carry a swing through. There was no way he could map out this life's physical specs in a mere half a day. What he needed now was a shortened stride, adjusted so the light bat could come around fast.
PING!
When the ball came, just haul off and send it over that sky out there. That was the whole job.
Ha. Yeah. Whoosh! There it is.
Even if he'd groveled at the professional level, in this tea-party sandbox for entitled brats who couldn't crack corporate league, he was a natural disaster in the flesh. Just like that ball sailing clear over the wall, his heart felt like it was soaring free.
If he was living a second life — one that wasn't the miserable slog of the first — then...
"I'm going to live for ME!! I'm gonna live however the hell I want!"
The life of groveling and swallowing every insult, spoken and unspoken, just to survive his horrendous stat line — over. He'd lived his first life true to his name, which read letter for letter as upright character. So for his second life, shouldn't he live up to the new name, which read just as literally as no character whatsoever?
"I'm Noh In-seong!"
Still roaring with the joy of his home run as he rounded the bases, Noh In-seong gathered up his bag and bolted for home.
"...What the— no, hey! Hold on! HEY!! You can't just hit a homer and go home!"
A flabbergasted Jung Yong-chan sprinted after him — but alas. Quick on his feet, Noh In-seong was already a speck in the distance. The little brat who'd shrunk to a dot soon shrank past even that and vanished entirely, leaving a mournful Jung Yong-chan behind.
"Agh... I let the big one get away..."
Luckily for the grieving director, Noh In-seong was a fish that would come back tomorrow, led by the hand by his parents.
'I'm gonna be a baseball GOSU!' — he'd declared, sprinting home in a panic... and of course. Get scolded by your teacher, wreck the baseball game, then crawl home late? Naturally, you catch hell.
Before the wish — I want to play baseball — could even make it out of his mouth, Noh In-seong raised both hands high toward the sky.
"Hands UP! Straight up!"
"Uwaaagh..."
Ugh, my arms are going to get separated from me in a whole different sense. I need to keep a low profile during elementary school.
Thus Noh In-seong broke his grand resolution the very instant he made it.
It took about ten days of relentless persuasion after that day, but Noh In-seong finally made it into Jung Yong-chan's baseball clinic. His father had been transferred to an overseas branch, and his mother was run ragged caring for a baby with a massive age gap from him.
"...Right. If you're out doing something after school, I'll at least get a little time to rest..."
A hobby to fill the hours after school was a good thing for the parents, too.
"WAAAAH---!!"
His baby sister, permanently strapped into a starfish-shaped bib, was far too busy wailing around the clock — no wonder Mom was drowning.
Her name, he recalled, was Siyeon. Which meant she and he alike would be getting teased over their names all the way through elementary and middle school.
"Aigoo, quit crying already, will you."
"Gyahaha--!!"
While rocking his whimpering little sister until it was time to leave for the clinic, a few stray thoughts surfaced. For the current Noh In-seong, who shared more than half of this child's DNA — how much of the old Jung In-seong still remained? The baseball skills had carried over intact. Even his judgment that he couldn't swing the way he used to was alive and well. His memories of that era were there too, if blurred. Jung In-seong had survived in force, and he had occupied the brain.
But Noh In-seong also clearly remembered the day his little sister was born, and the quiet fear that he'd receive less love because of her; his very first day of kindergarten; the heavy, crushing stress of moving away and never seeing his playmates again. All of it remained — vivid, and fleeting.
"Talk about something straight out of a manga."
Was this a second chance? Or had he stolen someone else's chance? Or maybe neither — had he simply pre-lived somebody else's life in advance?
Hardly the kind of thing a third-grader should be pondering, but Noh In-seong felt a hazy, unformed gratitude.
"I know I'll probably look like a lunatic, but... I'll live this second life well. Whoever you are."
Apparently one thank-you was quite enough.
"Agh, damn it. He dumped me and bailed. What a senile old bastard — you at least wait until the kid can walk before you check out."
Cursing a blue streak — such was the little brat, rotten-yellow right down to the sprout.
On his first day at the neighborhood baseball clinic, the newly enrolled Noh In-seong stood in front of the player-class kids and began his self-introduction.
"Hi, everyone. I'm Noh In-seong."
Puhaha! What kind of name is that?! Wow, he's ugly as sin, too. First impressions like those sent his blood pressure climbing on the spot — but remembering the director who'd at least let the Crocs-dragging kid play one game, he held it in. Once.
"From this moment on, I'm here to plant a nice thick streak of reality into your love of baseball."
Correction: he held it in exactly once.
The best thing about being an adult is that you don't have to hold back. The best thing about being a kid is that you're not held responsible anyway. With his mental OS whirring through every possible way to torment these uppity little brats, Noh In-seong began warming up.
"Alright, everybody — watch for injuries, stretch properly, and there's someone here working out with you for the first time today, so show him the ropes."
The coach had clearly gone pro at some point — the stretching was impressively rigorous. A full routine clocking in at around twenty minutes, the kind of warm-up you only learn from real professionals.
Sure enough, midway through his slow warm-up, the chubby little brat who'd earlier been mocking his name sidled on over.
"Hey, Noh In-seong. Where'd you play before, huh? Or are you just a newbie punk with an all tongue and no game?"
The kid was picking a fight, but whatever — he was, after all, a courteous child.
"Yeah, no. Go outside and die."
Such a well-mannered little boy, answering every single part of the question.
"...Uh... what?"
"Can't parse it? Yes, I've played baseball. No, I'm not a newbie. And go outside and die."
He ignored the kid entirely, whose face had gone beet red and who was winding up to shriek something.
"Where's my position today, please?"
"...Hmm. How about left field to start?"
Naturally, a kid who'd just walked in the door had zero say in whether he'd start on the mound or in the field. Not that the coach knew enough to try him anywhere in the first place.
"Once you're warmed up we'll let you pitch a little... For today, just stand over there."
And so his role in the intrasquad game was settled: middle relief and left field. A pitching slot worth trying out if the team was comfortably ahead, and...
'...Do they think yesterday's defense was a fluke?'
Left field — modest range, a position where the shortstop can relay your throws for you. He had shown them one absolutely filthy play yesterday, hadn't he? They could at least have planted him at third.
Whatever. Didn't matter. Against rubber balls, at a plate with an aluminum bat, positioning was irrelevant. Wherever they put him, the moment he stuffed their throws back into their pockets, they'd be clutching their thighs all the way to the hospital.
"Well, well, look who it is — Mr. Characterless himself?"
The sixth-grader built like a linebacker catching for the opposing team cracked a joke about his name.
'...Oh, this punk? Is he saying he'd like his brain concussed?'
He'd love to mention that he could clock the kid mid-backswing with this aluminum bat, but then he'd get himself expelled after one day.
"Hey, 9-Calorie Lump, throw your sign already, will you? Punk."
He tapped the plate, spread into a short stride, and rested the bat lightly against his right shoulder — the form he'd used back in high school, before he'd finished bulking up. A compact swing, one that prioritized simply bringing the bat to the ball.
Had the catcher — face on the verge of bursting with rage, apparently disgusted by his own body's prodigious gift for fat storage — finally relayed all his signs to the pitcher?
'Sshk...'
That faint rustle of the mitt shifting — angled toward his right, then tucked back in tight to the body.
"Sigh. Predictable as sunrise."
Well, he was a snot-nosed punk talking trash, so of course the kid hated him. Probably figured a fresh rookie would spook easily, chicken out, and back off the plate if given a good scare.
PING!!
But what's a kid gonna do about it? I, after all, am a man who survived on professional baseball waters.
Being a hitter who, in an era when the average fastball sat in the mid-to-high 140s km/h, had still never once dropped to the Mendoza Line meant exactly one thing: a ball under 110 km/h could be teed up like batting practice and murdered on contact.
Opposite the catcher's steadily widening eyes, the ball shrank smaller and smaller as it climbed into the sky, sailing clear over the wall of the tiny kiddie field with room to spare.
Noh In-seong's intrasquad stats, first day at Jung Yong-chan's baseball clinic: 5 plate appearances, 4 at-bats, 4 hits, 4 home runs, 9 RBIs. 1 walk.
A flawless start.