Life Rarely Goes the Way You Think

The second game against Incheon turned into an avalanche the moment their starting pitcher came off the mound — rolling downhill, gathering momentum with every step, until it crushed everything in its path.

The man who commanded the players had been carted away, and with their conductor gone, the entire team descended into panic.

Incheon's players became a defeated rabble, their morale shattered, their focus evaporated — and the Doubles beat the living daylights out of them.

And seeing that pathetic rabble, Noh In-seong apparently decided it was too good an opportunity to waste. He tacked on one more hit after that, in an obnoxiously good mood, which was just the cherry on top.

"...Another bunt hit? Seriously?"

"The ball's weirdly refusing to stick to my bat today. Can't be helped."

The only strange thing was the way he'd manufactured the hit in the first place.

In an infield still reeling in a daze, Noh In-seong dropped a seventh-inning bunt single that sent a fresh spike of tension through the stadium.

For once, even the home team's own fan section wasn't sure whether they were allowed to cheer — *is this even okay?* — and swallowed their roars in stunned silence instead.

Needless to say, the opposing pitchers were feeling a little queasy about it.

But there was no manager left standing to order a brushback pitch, and no one left to put that lunatic in his place either, so what could they do but stay quiet?

Noh In-seong, for his part, patiently pocketed every opening that presented itself, one at a time, like a man counting coins.

After the game, reporters scrambled to interview the people involved for the evening news — but the single most important person had already slipped out of the stadium.

Settling for the sparrow instead of the pheasant, they tracked down the injured player and the manager who'd received the glove, only to find both had gone straight to the hospital.

Which left exactly one person. Demoted from pheasant-substitute to mere sparrow, the spotlight naturally landed on Noh In-seong.

Of course, the man on the receiving end of that sparrow treatment — a decidedly harmful species of bird, that Noh In-seong — was never going to grant a pleasant interview.

...Though in a country where a single flick of the finger could erase a man's entire existence, Korea was frankly too advanced for its own good.

"...Ah, what a pain. How many questions am I supposed to take?"

Judging by the quality of those questions, though, you'd be forgiven for wondering whether the two sides were actually separated by any development at all.

"Did you hit the fouls on purpose?"

The obvious question went straight to the man who bore the largest share of responsibility for Jin Sa-rang's injury that day.

The problem was that such a monumentally useless question detonated Noh In-seong's patience and his appearance simultaneously.

"...How many years, exactly, have you been watching baseball?"

To that pitiful question, the only response was: *You dumbass, are you seriously clueless about baseball?!*

Needless to say, players who intentionally foul off pitches on purpose are vanishingly rare.

The world is wide and lunatics are many, so sure, somewhere out there a player might deliberately manufacture fouls.

But those players have, without exception, given up nearly everything else — all they do is dab the bat at the ball.

Like a certain someone who'd just produced a hit with his upper body swinging and his lower body already sprinting for first base.

"Finishing your own swing is what produces the best hitting. And you're asking if I fouled on purpose?"

The kind of question only a reporter obsessed with batting average at the expense of slugging percentage would ask, and Noh In-seong's face crumpled in disgust.

"Stuck with a second-rate reporter on every level imaginable..." he muttered, spitting on the ground.

"Even a dedicated baseball beat reporter — hell, even a general sports reporter — would never ask something this stupid..."

"...So you're saying it was just coincidence? Three plate appearances in a row? Don't lie to me! The truth is—"

"Ugh, you're banned from all my interviews from now on. I'm leaving!"

"He's running away!"

Noh In-seong quietly resolved that from here on out, people like this would be introduced to exercise instead of articles.

"Go ahead, bring your camera drones. I'll switch this genre to a game of tag on the spot."

The thoroughly mauled sparrow fled to the parking lot, making full use of his mobility.

There was no winning against that kind of insanity — the only answer was to run.

The next day, as the two teams faced off in the last official three-game series of the season, their expressions told two very different stories.

Unlike the Doubles' manager, who had submitted his starting lineup with leisurely composure, only the bench coach occupied Incheon's seat — the snarling face of the Incheon manager was nowhere to be seen.

The Incheon players, too, wore dark, funereal expressions, while the Doubles players were practically glowing at the disappearance of a manager they'd never liked to begin with.

Then someone asked which side everyone actually favored, and a spirited debate broke out.

"...You think he got fired?"

"Nah, if it's that guy I know, he's probably hiding out somewhere laying low."

"Hmm? I don't think it's a case of either side being uncomfortable facing the other and one of them walking away."

Taking the players' side seemed unlikely — Jin Woo-jeong was already suspended for the season under internal team discipline.

At thirty-five, everyone had assumed he'd hold a retirement ceremony this year. If the team had cut him off this decisively, it meant he'd be released outright, without even that much ceremony.

So no, the team had clearly not sided with the players.

But had they sided with the manager, then? That was an even harder argument to make.

"In that case he should've at least shamelessly shown up to work today and sat there all dignified calling the shots."

"Good point."

While the Doubles players chattered back and forth over this impossible puzzle, their manager cut through it all.

"Got time to worry about that garbage? Then you've got time to do your damn jobs!"

True to form for a winning manager, Jeong Im-taek forged his players into a single focused unit — in other words, he ran them through drills even more brutal than his usual fungo sessions until every stray thought was beaten out of them.

"Khh...!! Please, just let it end...!!"

Those who couldn't field got smacked back to their senses.

"I'm a veteran! Where's the veteran-protection policy!?"

"That position of 'old guy' is what you *earned* by aging! Quit yapping and field the ball, Ji Hak-seong!"

Those who fielded well but were old went quiet, their bones aching.

"...In-seong, you're fine. Next!"

And those whose minds were wired a little differently simply didn't register any of it. Skipped.

Noh In-seong, delighted at the stamina he'd saved, glanced at the opposing manager's empty desk and flashed a wide, toothy grin.

Was it thanks to the manager's philosophy of 'forget all that and do your own jobs,' embodied in the fungo drills?

Or simply because the opposition's morale had cratered across the board?

Either way, the Doubles batting order that had been ground to dust by yesterday's starter had vanished without a trace.

They hammered Incheon's limp, deflated squad with their bats and cruised to an easy victory.

Andy surrendered three runs over seven innings — ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the entirety of the Doubles' concessions — while their own offense swept up ten runs in that same span. A wildly unfair trade, and a wildly successful one.

Even In-seong's usual edge — the one that struck back with exactly as much force as it received — was conspicuously absent, because frankly, the whole scene felt like a funeral home.

"Hey, you guys are really done for now, huh. Don't really feel like fighting you anymore."

"...You know this is a funeral? Then walk past quietly."

Even Noh In-seong showed a measure of... awareness — the funereal atmosphere did half the work.

If there'd still been an opposing manager, he'd have gleefully boiled up a pot of yukgaejang over the corpse, but at this point, with every man he hated already ruined, that was hard to pull off.

It was even harder when he'd just lined another hit and was jogging down the line, watching the first baseman heave a sigh.

'Feels like Busan back in late September, from way back.'

The atmosphere of those distant old memories — from before he'd earned the name he carried now — washed over him, thick and unmistakable.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

If the players themselves were in this state, the fans could hardly be any different.

That was the great blessing and curse of a domed home stadium.

'Once the standings harden, flipping them back is nearly impossible.' This series laid that truth utterly bare.

Both teams playing this game owned domes, yet their situations were as far apart as heaven and earth.

For one team, even if the second-place club somehow staged a miracle winning streak while they themselves kept losing, they'd need only ten wins across their remaining thirty-six games and eight canceled makeups to coast comfortably into championship territory.

For the other, even sweeping every single game left on the schedule, fifth place could end their fall baseball with a single flick of the standings.

In Korean baseball, where things are usually decided before October even arrives, a gap of anything more than a game or two by the time August rolled around was a mountain that rarely got climbed.

The moment of reckoning was approaching for both the Doubles and Incheon.

For one, it was a queue ticket to heaven. For the other, a countdown to hell.

Meanwhile, over at the Incheon Astro — their manager vanished after suffering his public humiliation(?) at the ballpark — the missing man, Jeong Yong-jun, had walked to one destination: the Incheon general manager's office.

Rather than manage the day's game, the lame-duck manager with no remaining prospects had gone off to take care of different business entirely.

Unable to bring himself to simply throw the man out, the GM let him take the offered chair, and Jeong Yong-jun said exactly one thing to its owner.

A declaration of surrender.

"...I will resign. Please let me go."

I'll forfeit the penalty fees, abandon every ounce of my accumulated power — just let me leave!

It was a desperate plea to open only one door: an exit, before the final road of his career came to look any more sordid than it already did.

"I don't think so? You're fired. I'll give you the money, the severance, all of it — so please, just take the axe."

The GM's malice crashed over him like a wave: 'I'd sooner pay through the nose than let you slither away clean. You are going down, no matter what it costs.'

The team was at the precise moment when one punishment needed to terrify a hundred would-be offenders — and this man wanted to amputate his own tail and bolt? Not a chance.

"You wouldn't so much as pretend to listen when we raised the pitching management problem, and now that it's all collapsed, you'll just run?"

At a record like this, the GM's own neck — and the CEO's — were already on the chopping block too.

They had absorbed every ounce of media criticism, approved every trade and every demand the man wanted, given away the team's future assets and protected core talent, all sacrificed on the altar of results.

We ate every insult hurled, while you drank in every praise — and now you alone slip out the back?

Not a chance. The deal with the CEO was already done.

"You, me, and the CEO. Let's hold hands and walk into the abyss together."

"......"

The law of equivalent exchange: *I'm ruined, so you go down with me.*

In the middle of a swamp that swallowed deeper with every second, the general manager and the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠CEO had seized Jeong Yong-jun's ankles and refused to let go.

Vertigo took him, and Jeong Yong-jun closed his eyes.

All he could see before him was a darkness very nearly the same color as his own future.

— Jeong Yong-jun fired... a players' corps turned entirely against him

— A relic of the old era... finally gone. Who takes the helm next?

— Incheon Astro announces sweeping overhaul... 'Pitching coach to be appointed interim manager for now'

Thus Jeong Yong-jun exited the baseball world in the most wretched fashion possible, to the very end.

With his image ground into the dirt, the road back to a managerial post was going to take a long, long time indeed.

"...I will come back. I will come back...!!"

So he declared, even as he went into hiding to let the temporarily overheated outrage cool.

For a professional manager, the road back was a path of purgatory — you could only return by gritting your teeth and rebuilding your image brick by brick.

For now, the best play was to swallow his fury and disappear quietly, so no further chaos could erupt.

But the song called "Happy Ending," as it turned out, carried lyrics more bitter than 99-percent cacao.

What unfolded for him was not the reasonably decent endings that the old-timers of this same road had once received.

— Remember this from before? Player abuse in the amateur ranks... the man behind it: Jeong Yong-jun.

— Former Astro staff member exposes how he pressured the front office into trades and sold off the team's young prospects...

— And he courted the press, feeding inside information to friendly outlets to shore up his own position...

How far can a disgraced corporate-sponsored manager go, once someone powerful decides to hold a grudge against him?

Lawsuits without end. An image in freefall with no bottom in sight. A media feeding frenzy that devoured everything.

A manager who had been strolling down the highway of success lost it all in a single instant and plunged into an abyss with no visible end.

And the man standing at the very origin point of that fall.

"Hahaha. Serves him right."

After bringing home a victory in the first game of August, he'd clocked out, retreated to his room, and was now watching the firing news while scratching his belly and munching on snacks.

Noh In-seong beamed from the exact spot where the first crack of that abyss had formed.

Through his grudge with Noh In-seong, Jeong Yong-jun had lost players, then games, then his manager's seat — and now, inevitably, his entire future.

That this whole cascade of ruin had been set off by a single touch from one deranged weirdo — a butterfly effect, in other words.

How many people in this world could actually trace the snowball back to its origin, and understand exactly how his reputation and career had come apart?

"...It's all because of that damn brat...!! UAAAAAGH—!!"

Jeong Yong-jun, at the very least, was one of the few who knew.

Otherwise, he could never have screamed with such absolute, burning conviction.