I Hated You Guys From the Very Start

After the game, the interview had the whole world buzzing.

The Doubles and the Grizzlies were, admittedly, old rivals. But all this time, the relationship had stayed civil — players exchanged greetings, and while nobody was throwing parties, at least they didn't scowl on sight. In true 'Korean baseball' fashion, the prevailing mindset was, 'We're all players — no reason to be on bad terms, right?'

Not anymore. Things had started to change the moment a single drop of poison named Noh In-seong fell into Korean baseball.

"We absolutely cannot lose! Have you forgotten what those miserable bastards did to us this year?!"

"You keep getting beaten down, so now you just want to give up?! Are you saying you don't want to play October baseball?!"

Like the baseball of old, the rivalry was degenerating into a sport where the two sides were desperate to kill each other and couldn't.

The Grizzlies — fans, club officials (no other meaning intended), and the parent corporation alike — were seething with rage. They fired back cutting remarks of their own, and in the process, the Doubles took their share of collateral damage.

"You garbage excuses for human beings, can't you even manage one rookie? Kids who couldn't even play baseball to begin with..."

"But we've got the championship all but locked up, don't we? We're sitting so high up that the ramblings of a certain wakatta bastard barely reach us."

"Why you...!!"

From the Doubles' perspective, well — there wasn't much to be done at this point. Sure, Noh In-seong had started it, but ask them 'So you're planning to dump In-seong and play baseball?' and obviously the answer was no. They traded blows back and forth, and the rift widened with every exchange.

It wasn't as if one team making the postseason meant the other couldn't, so at least the final line hadn't been crossed yet.

The rivalry was truly becoming an irreconcilable feud, but the league loved it.

"Fight harder! As long as nobody gets hurt, a rivalry this open and shameless is exactly what the sport needs!"

The situation had them setting out bowls of clear water and praying for the two teams to meet in October.

If both teams clashed in the postseason, it was a guaranteed blockbuster. Better yet, the Doubles were in first place — it would be nothing short of the first-ever championship series with zero travel required. The baseball association was offering up prayers of 'Please! Let's get the Jamsil coin toss!'

"Honestly, I'd love for you all to get just a taste of October baseball, get tortured by it, and then crawl right back out."

But the poison drop of Korean baseball, Noh In-seong, felt no such desire whatsoever.

All to trample, once again, on the hopes of a first-ever Korea Series Jamsil rivalry showdown.

"Incheon got hit with a media war, so there's no reason you guys shouldn't get one too, right?"

And so Noh In-seong began his journey to drag down the Grizzlies' ranking.

It was Monday, but for the first time in a long while, Noh In-seong chose action instead of rest.

He still had a decent reserve of stamina, after all.

"All I do at the café anyway is run my mouth. My body gets plenty of rest."

Rest one day, and the next day you had to torment your opponents twice as hard just to keep pace. Call it the Red Noh In-seong Effect if you like.

As a bonus, it would scratch an itch for the Doubles' fans, too. Even someone as self-absorbed as Noh In-seong knew, at minimum, what put rice on his table.

What was it again? Oh right — the fans wanted a war. (Fan Vult.)

Then this clown bearing the noble surname of Noh had an obligation to dance his heart out.

He rounded up the reporters who usually scattered at the sight of him and planned a joint simulcast with his personal game channel.

"Alright, interviews for today only. Today, hold on a second... Sir, you sometimes get interviews out of me anyway. Why are you here again?"

"That's exactly why! If I don't lock down every interview the moment an angle appears, who's going to boost my view counts — my ancestors?"

Yes, one money-crazed lunatic had slipped into the mix, but frankly, that lunatic made the interview better.

"...Sigh. Fine. Do whatever you want."

Resigned to playing tail-end chaperone, Noh In-seong booked out an entire café near his home.

Tabloid vultures plus Noh In-seong — suddenly the café felt like it had been relocated to downtown Vienna. But it was, officially, still just a neighborhood café.

Even before the first pitch of the series, Noh In-seong's interview was airing live on his own game stream.

Rather than hand exclusives to the various broadcasters for pocket change, he'd offered up his own channel to squeeze out every last won.

It was a little worrying, but modern humans, long addicted to dopamine, simply cannot resist their curiosity. A tidal wave of viewers flooded in within seconds.

The format was simple: in exchange for giving each reporter their time, each got exactly one question. A quick Q&A.

Maybe because this was a man who only did interviews when the mood struck him — pure whim, nothing more — only ten questions made the cut. No do-overs, no extensions.

"I need my rest too. Today's a designated rest day, remember?"

The god of Korean baseball played ball six days a week and was famously particular about his single day off. In an act of sheer audacity, he permitted not a set of commandments but a strict Ten Questions, Ten Answers.

'Isn't this literally a Ten-Bastards format? How many people are here?'

'Ugh, look at them all huddling to agree on questions in advance. This power trip is unreal.'

But before a madman who could simply refuse to give interviews for an entire year if they whined about it, even the tabloid vultures tucked their tails.

Q1. "You're taking the mound as a pitcher after quite a long break — how's your condition?"

A. "Don't worry about it. I'd advise the opposing hitters to start squaring around to bunt early. You can take that to the bank."

First the pleasantries and a condition check. Starting with such basic questions, everyone thought this would be a warm, friendly ten-and-ten.

Q2. "Some teams have accused you of targeting them with your pitching?"

A. "Well, yeah, I don't like them. If that bothers you, go do it yourselves. Oh, right — you can't, because you lack the skill."

From the very next question, an interview of brutal honesty laid everything bare.

The longer the interview ran, the more fans, reporters, and viewers alike were driven to the edge of madness.

Q3. "Why do you hit people? Korean baseball isn't accustomed to that kind of culture."

A. "I've never hit a person, so I wouldn't know. Beasts aren't people."

There were answers that demanded a philosophical debate on what human worth is measured by.

Q4. "What's your goal for this season?"

A. "To leave nobody standing above me, so no one can go wagging their finger at me about this or that?"

There were answers that amounted to, 'I alone exist under this heaven, so kindly keep your unsolicited coaching to yourself.'

Q7. "Is there a player you'd like to be like? Surely you have some kind of growth model."

A. "The players should want to be like me. Does this league even have a growth model that fits me?"

And a bottomless well of pride that made it seem as though labeling him a one-man French Revolution hadn't been far off the mark.

Perhaps it was because the deeper they dug into the baseball player called Noh In-seong, the more they found only abyss. The reporters, their faces gone numb with exhaustion, moved on to the final question.

Q10. "...Why are you taking the mound as a pitcher against the Grizzlies, Busan, and Gwangju? Is it a personal grudge?"

At the last question, Noh In-seong abandoned his terse one-liners and launched into a solemn statement.

A. "The Grizzlies are, first of all, a team that does drugs like it's going out of style — a bunch of squatters who can hardly be called a team at all."

"Gwangju is a team I can barely bring myself to mention — one that drove a little kid to tears just so their deadbeat pitcher could upload something to the official channel."

"But the most vicious entity in Korean baseball is Busan, and blocking their draft picks is how you save the citizens of Busan."

"Only the euthanasia of the Busan Marines can be called a path toward a brighter tomorrow for Korean baseball."

As viewers across the board hallucinated a mustache sprouting above Noh In-seong's lip, something remarkable happened among the Busan citizens watching the broadcast — more than half of them nodded along.

And so the Busan citizens, long mired in their inferiority complex, rose to give this interview a standing ovation. Which was, if anything, even more terrifying.

"But first and foremost, our top priority as the Doubles is to beat the living daylights out of the Grizzlies."

--By pounding that unauthorized squatter into the dirt and driving them back to their original territory, we fulfill our destiny...

The reporters got the distinct feeling that if they let this interview go any longer, they'd be writing for the society page instead of the sports section.

Noh In-seong's channel manager, the only relatively sober person present, desperately yanked the broadcast off the air.

Thus drew to a close the interview of the Blue ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Wave.

"...Who's going to rein that bastard in? An association official came by again just the other day to file a complaint."

"Ah... honestly, I keep asking whether anyone teaches character education anymore, and our team runs a full curriculum for it, I'm telling you."

Having never once sat through a proper character education session, Noh In-seong felt the accusation was unfair — but he and the Doubles took the brunt of the criticism all the same.

"Damn it, holding onto third place isn't going to be easy."

"Unbelievable... Should we just start skipping him from the lineup entirely?"

Or the Grizzlies, who'd been gleefully cursing that cursed bastard since long before this — either way, both teams began the series buried in abuse before a single pitch had even been thrown.

Two three-game series would decide whether the Grizzlies' October baseball could start from somewhere a little higher.

Naturally, everyone predicted the Doubles would hold the advantage throughout and bulldoze their way through. Astonishingly, no such thing happened.

"Ugh, gutless cowards. Figures."

No first-pitch strikes came anywhere near Noh In-seong — instead, an automatic walk straight to first base. The Grizzlies had committed to a single mindset: 'We are NOT dueling you this entire series!'

On top of that, as if to say 'so what if you steal bases all day?'

"Strike three! The batter is out!"

They couldn't so much as lift a single outfield fly — strikeout, groundout to the pitcher, strikeout. The lineup that had been roaring merrily along sputtered out as though it had run dry on fuel.

"Ah, my bad. Balls just aren't finding the barrel today."

"In-seong. I hit ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it fine. The results were just bad... kheup!"

"Why is this bastard so shameless?! Stand up straight, Chun-sik!"

"...Alright! Defense, let's go! Defense!"

Today they failed to bring Noh In-seong home even once, stranding him at third to pad the stat sheet.

"That damned junkie bastard — did he shoot up something else along with the usual? He seems... different."

Jay Rodriguez. That miserable bastard's stuff was no joke today.

Who knew — maybe he'd injected some kind of calming agent along with the PEDs. In-seong kept testing him with stolen base after stolen base, but today the man flat-out ignored him.

"Normally, at this point, his face should at least be turning red... Did something change with him?"

Noh In-seong couldn't hide his bewilderment at the situation, but the reason was, in truth, surprisingly simple.

“Fuck, so he skipped the syringe this time and got an injection... no, wait—turns out he's Barry Bonds with Albert Belle's fists?”

The analysis team had simply handed J-Ro some data. Complete with the most fitting analogy for a San Francisco native.

Having endured, at-bat after at-bat, the time-honored countermeasure for a 'one-man-army team,' Noh In-seong could do nothing but watch his team take the loss.

Not because the offense went cold — In-seong had come up three times, after all. The problem ran considerably deeper.

"Ugh, this is insane. The season's almost over and suddenly everything piles up at once?"

It started with Sung Hyun-tak, the man who always contributed at least his share.

It was a simple collision with no malice behind it. While stealing second, Sung Hyun-tak and the second baseman both went for a ball that had bounced near the base line, neither able to dodge, and crashed head-on. Sung Hyun-tak crumpled to the ground, groaning, and had to be carried off.

"Agh, that hurts like hell... In-seong-ah. Please, don't turn this into an excuse to run your mouth, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠just play hard..."

"...His mouth is floating away on its own. We could just stick this guy in a tub of ice water instead of treating him."

Fortunately, it wasn't a serious ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠injury, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Ji Hak-seong, hastily loosening up, slid into second base to plug the hole.

The problem was what came next.

"Argh!"

Again, nothing intentional — but J-Lo was the type to hammer the inside of the zone relentlessly. And the cutter he threw just happened to break down toward Jo In-soo's ankle, which was already in rough shape.

Noh In-seong, thinking, 'That bastard's drug habit already pisses me off — should I bury him today?', had just finished his launch sequence out of the dugout when a miracle occurred.

"...The junkie... is apologizing?!"

That J-Lo, whose conscience had died long ago, bowed his head, removed his cap, and apologized toward the Doubles' dugout.

'Damn it, if I swing on him right now I could end up hospitalized, forget the postseason bonus!'

You might say he had a keen awareness that his life was in danger. Excellent judgment, really.

With his teammates straining to hold back a still-swinging Noh In-seong, the second brawl was narrowly averted.

The Doubles, who'd lost their starting catcher and starting second baseman in a single morning, struggled badly. Setting aside the defensive gap, the absence of the captain and the team clown left the dugout's mood in a grim place.

In the end, the final inning was shut down by closer Cho Hoon, and the Doubles dropped the opening game 7-5.

"Ah, so this is what Incheon felt like."

Noh In-seong, facing the karmic debt finally come due, seemed at last to have gained some small enlightenment.

"Maybe I should bean the opposing team's starting catcher too? Eh... but I kind of like that guy."

...He had not, in fact, learned anything.